Politics of new right void of compassionate conservatism

Michael Gerson

Though Republican prospects are not quite dead, the autopsy already has begun. Which is probably not a good idea, even in metaphor.

But the best so far comes from Matthew Continetti in National Review. In “Crisis of the Conservative Intellectual,” Continetti traces a several-decade struggle between intellectual conservatives (think William F. Buckley and George F. Will) and the new right (think Sarah Palin and Pat Buchanan) over the meaning of the movement.

In Continetti’s telling, National Review conservatives — “elitist, pessimistic, grimly witty, and academic” — had depth but lacked power. The New Right — largely Southern, often blue collar, opposed to “compromise, gradualism and acquiescence in the corrupt system” — had populist and nationalist appeal but could be led astray by disturbing figures such as George Wallace. They eventually were hitched to the same political goal by Ronald Reagan.

The alliance has broken down completely in 2016. “Donald Trump,” Continetti argues, “is so noxious, so unhinged, so extremist in his rejection of democratic norms and political convention and basic manners that he has untethered the new right politics he embodies from the descendants of William F. Buckley Jr.”

It is hard to argue with that. But the article does something typical of many conservative writers, dismissing the only two-term Republican president since Reagan in two sentences of a long article. George W. Bush, Continetti says, is “the exemplary religious-right leader” who earned “vituperative” criticism from the new right. And that’s it.

Can Bush be explained merely as a religious-right figure? The idea is absurd. Continetti’s binary construct needs a little more room.

Bush represented a fundamentally different option (still embraced by many Republican governors). His appeal included aggressive promotion of economic growth, expressed in support for broad tax cuts. A commitment to compassionate and creative social pol- icy. A belief in ethnic and religious inclusion, shown by his proposal for comprehensive immigration reform and by his defense of American Muslims after the 9/11 attacks. An internationalist foreign policy. And a tolerant version of traditionalism, based on moral aspiration rather than judgment. (It is an approach I helped frame for candidate and then President Bush.)

When Bush was down politically, the new right rushed to disown him.

But here is the reality: There is no reconstitution of conservative influence or the appeal of the Republican Party without incorporating some updated version of compassionate conservatism.

Conservatives require a set of democratic values informed by faith — a commitment to civility and human dignity. The new right has gotten what it always wanted — an arsonist as its presidential nominee. No limits. No mercy. Burn it down. Lock her up. Lock her up.

The outcome, in all likelihood, will be to give her the keys to the White House. And to cause lasting damage to the very idea of a responsible, governing conservatism.

Will future Republican primary voters — marinated in the anger and conspiracy theories of conservative media — prove capable of choosing a reform-conservative candidate? On this question hangs the future of a party that has earned a nation’s contempt.