Ummm... Unicorns?

E.J. Dionne Jr. has a fun little column in today's Washington Post:

The End Of the Right?

Is conservatism finished?

What might have seemed an absurd question less than two years ago is now one of the most important issues in American politics. The question is being asked -- mostly quietly but occasionally publicly -- by conservatives themselves as they survey the wreckage of their hopes, and as their champions in the Republican Party use any means necessary to survive this fall's elections.

Nice thought, Mr. Dionne, but I'm pretty sure that we won't see the end of Conservatism anytime soon. What's the springboard for this wonderful daydream? The Minimum Wage/Estate Tax bill, of course.

Rarely has our system produced a more naked exercise in opportunism than this measure. Most conservatives oppose the minimum wage on principle as a form of government meddling in the marketplace. But moderate Republicans in jeopardy this fall desperately wanted an increase in the minimum wage.

So the seemingly ingenious Republican leadership, which dearly wants deep cuts in the estate tax, proposed offering nickels and dimes to the working class to secure billions for the rich. Fortunately, though not surprisingly, the bill failed.

The episode was significant because it meant Republicans were acknowledging that they would not hold congressional power without the help of moderates. That is because there is nothing close to a conservative majority in the United States.

Yet their way of admitting this was to put on display the central goal of the currently dominant forces of politics: to give away as much as possible to the truly wealthy. You wonder what those blue-collar conservatives once known as Reagan Democrats made of this spectacle.

Mr. Dionne goes on to examine the 'fissures on the Right.' The corporatists vs. the christianists. The pro-lifers vs. libertarian stem cell advocates. Big business 'immigration = cheap labor' vs. 'don't let in the brown people' xenophobes. 'Iraq was a good idea' vs. 'Iraq was a bad idea' vs. 'it doesn't matter, it's not working there anymore, let's go home.'

And he's right, of course. And this internal disputes may lead to a change in election results. But it won't remove 'conservatism' or 'Conservatism' from American politics. I know that Mr. Dionne didn't mean that all conservatives would pack up and go home, but the idea that a temporary advantage for Progressives will be "The End of the Right" invites us to lose focus.

The nature of conservatism is, fundamentally, "Things are working out well for me now, let's not have government interfering, trying to make it better." Because there will always be people who 'things are working out well for' either deservedly or undeservedly, there will always be conservative forces trying to maintain the status quo. People will always want to keep more of their income. Businesses will always want to have less regulation. (Some) people will ways be afraid of things with which they are unfamiliar.

Conservatism, big 'C' or little 'c' will always be with us.

Besides that, in America today, Conservatism has a better machine, a better operation. It has more money and better propaganda. We shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back because we think 'The Right' is tripping up. We need to work hard now to put ourselves in that position.


E.J. Dionne The Right Conservatism Conservatives 2006 Election