Tuesday, March 8. 2005
Why should conservatives care?
Professor Bainbridge asks:
It's a question that a lot of social conservatives seem to be asking, lately. But such questions reflect, I think, an extraordinarily short time horizon, both in memory and in prognostication.
If the Democrats collapse before the end of the terror war, the Republican party will fracture into at least two pieces. Along what lines, we can't yet be sure, but it's an absolute certainty that today's GOP coalition is an artifact of opposition to the Democrats. My fondest wish would be to bid farewell to those for whom social conservatism is their primary electoral goal...some of them (such as the esteemed Professor) are reasonable human beings I respect as adversaries, and some of them I even count as friends, but in a just world we don't belong in the same political party, and we're only together in this one because of the threat posed by an opposition that both groups regard as worse.
But let's suppose the Democrats manage to hang on to viability long enough for the war to end. Before things started changing willy-nilly in the Middle East, I'd have bet pretty heavily against this outcome...but I think they've got enough inertia to last until the elections of 2012, and it's increasingly looking like by that time the war may be, if not over, then at least transferred to an intensity level that doesn't promote the fear-of-Democrats that currently prevails.
In that sort of situation, the Republicans will NEED us. The Clinton legacy will be either forgotten or papered over by then, and so without the terror war as a unifying factor, the present era of Republican dominance will come to a swift and crashing end. 2000 (the last national election before the war), if you all remember, was an EC squeaker and a popular defeat. The first national election after the war could be the same, if the Republicans continue to alienate the small-government set.
Why should somebody who holds those (admittedly extreme) views care whether the libertarians stay or go? To pick up a few extra votes for the GOP? Sorry, but as Young admits, many libertarians defected from the GOP in 2004 to cast protest votes for the LP candidate or even for John Kerry. And it didn't matter one iota.
My point is not that Locke is right in his description of libertarian. My point is that the libertarians need to do a much better job of articulating what they are willing to bring to the table to make it attractive for social conservatives to maintain the old alliance.
It's a question that a lot of social conservatives seem to be asking, lately. But such questions reflect, I think, an extraordinarily short time horizon, both in memory and in prognostication.
If the Democrats collapse before the end of the terror war, the Republican party will fracture into at least two pieces. Along what lines, we can't yet be sure, but it's an absolute certainty that today's GOP coalition is an artifact of opposition to the Democrats. My fondest wish would be to bid farewell to those for whom social conservatism is their primary electoral goal...some of them (such as the esteemed Professor) are reasonable human beings I respect as adversaries, and some of them I even count as friends, but in a just world we don't belong in the same political party, and we're only together in this one because of the threat posed by an opposition that both groups regard as worse.
But let's suppose the Democrats manage to hang on to viability long enough for the war to end. Before things started changing willy-nilly in the Middle East, I'd have bet pretty heavily against this outcome...but I think they've got enough inertia to last until the elections of 2012, and it's increasingly looking like by that time the war may be, if not over, then at least transferred to an intensity level that doesn't promote the fear-of-Democrats that currently prevails.
In that sort of situation, the Republicans will NEED us. The Clinton legacy will be either forgotten or papered over by then, and so without the terror war as a unifying factor, the present era of Republican dominance will come to a swift and crashing end. 2000 (the last national election before the war), if you all remember, was an EC squeaker and a popular defeat. The first national election after the war could be the same, if the Republicans continue to alienate the small-government set.
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