Conservatism-WTF

Posted by on . 7 comments.

I’d totally participate in this.

A lot of liberals are waiting, hoping for an absolute conservative crack-up after the election. This is totally understandable, and I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t be delicious to see the Republican party fall to pieces.

But I’d also be lying if I said there weren’t aspects of conservatism that liberals should adopt, or at least that they could learn from if a proper debate was had. And I think one of the interesting things to watch in an Obama administration, should we be lucky enough to have one, is the extent to which his post-partisan motions are followed through. Because a good Obama administration would take some dramatic steps away from Republican orthodoxy, but it would also push some policies that are decidedly conservative.

Democrats will say, rightly, that time and political capital are scarce in Washington, and so Obama must set his priorities, and because he’s a Democrat they should be Democratic priorities. Which is absolutely true. But government is more than the big policy priorities. It’s also a million little decisions made across a wide bureaucracy. It’s a thousand pieces of legislation. And there are plenty of opportunities to embrace conservative ideas when they’re right.

But then one has to realize that while I, as a blogging wonk, can muse about an ideal government where two worthy ideologies battle to create an optimal public policy, Obama is a political leader. And it’s not his job to reach out and push good conservative ideas anymore than he has to. It’s the responsibility of the opposition party to find its good ideas and put itself in a position to defend them. And it’s nice to think that there are conservative intellectuals out there that could accomplish that.

On the other hand, there are a lot of ugly elements in the GOP, and it’s hard to imagine a tent that holds the aforementioned intellectuals and those ugly elements (and that doesn’t look exactly like the current GOP). So we’ll see how it all shakes out.

But yes, I welcome any and all good conservatives to the mission for better urban policy, and I’m always happy to explain why they should join us.

Comments

  1. Will says:
    October 29, 2008 at 1:09 am

    Just out of curiosity, what aspects of conservatism would you like liberals to adopt?

  2. Evan says:
    October 29, 2008 at 1:50 am

    Seconded. Maybe I’m inflexible, but I’m pretty sure that there are very few things the current conservative movement is for that I find palatable.

  3. Anonymous Coward says:
    October 29, 2008 at 2:24 am

    Yeah, exactly what good ideas to conservatives have?

    Pretty much every issue that i’ve looked into, the liberal/democrat idea is the one that I think would work/do the least harm.

    - deregulation
    - trickle down economics
    - drill baby drill
    - pack the court system with conservative judges
    - keep fighting in Iraq
    - health care tax credits
    - tax (income/capital) reduction just for the sake of
    - privatization

    The only current conservative issue I can think of, that I might sign on for is balancing your budget. And that’s not a good idea today.

  4. monkeyrotica says:
    October 29, 2008 at 6:54 am

    Me four. I’m not coming up with anything, and I’m hardly a pinko.

    It would be nice if conservatives would go back to embracing the root word “conserve.” Like in conserving the environment, limiting wasteful spending, conserving resources, ecological and otherwise. Something more Teddy Roosevelt-esque. But really, asking neocons to re-imagine government as a zen excercise in minimalism is fairly pointless. They’ve had 8 years to put their dingbat economic and geopolitical theories into practice and what did we end up with? America as goatse.

  5. Daniel Nairn says:
    October 29, 2008 at 8:25 am

    Depends on what you’re deregulating. Exclusionary zoning? Deregulate away, as far as I’m concerned.

    Some useful ideas like road pricing are pretty conservative. As is phasing out government subsidies to motoring (free parking, insufficient gas tax, etc.)

    I’d also add “strengthening families.” Liberals know this, but Conservatives have been more successful at pinning their name on this issue. Read any Brookings report tackling poverty with urban policy, and the topic of family structure will be on the top of the agenda.

    We all intuitively know that the complexity of the whole spectrum of policy choices cannot be simply broken down into conservative=bad, liberal=good. Right? I agree with Ryan. Once Obama puts this one away and the election season draws to a close, it will be easier to avoid the politicization of these issues. And a more fruitful dialog could be possible.

  6. low-tech cyclist says:
    October 29, 2008 at 9:08 am

    It seems to me that the Dems have already swiped most of conservatism’s good ideas (fiscal responsibility, welfare reform, etc.).

    When conservatism has something to offer besides the bad old ideas, only in greater excess than before (more tax cuts for the rich! more deregulation of too-loosely-regulated sectors! more saber-rattling, while our military’s bogged down in two quagmires! more religious wingnut moralism!), I’ll be glad to listen, and to join in a constructive dialogue.

    But right now, the voices to listen to are those that have been derided and sidelined due to being left of the DLC and the New Republic’s faux-liberalism. There’s a hell of a lot more serious intellectual ferment and good policy proposals out there, these days, than there will be from conservatives in the next five or six years combined.

    Hell, this blog’s general thrust is one of those ideas: that better mass transit, less parking, fewer caps on building upwards, and insistence on street-level retail can make cities both more vibrant and affordable.

    This is the sort of thinking that’s been shut out of our national dialogue for years, because it’s too ‘lefty’ – requires serious government investment in transit, and the transit/parking combo is seen as ‘anti-car,’ which automatically gets an idea written off as fruitcakey, if that’s a word.

    But name just one idea half as good as that, that’s come from conservatives in the past five years.

  7. Reid says:
    October 29, 2008 at 9:55 am

    “And I think one of the interesting things to watch in an Obama administration…is the extent to which his post-partisan motions are followed through.”

    This has been something that has bothered me about Obama from the very beginning, and it still does. Namely, that I have no idea whether he is an ideologically driven crusader, or if he is a pragmatic “post-partisan” triangulator. He pretty much has offered himself up as both, but they’re self-contradictory dispositions.

    It’s why I was cracking up laughing when you have some incredibly partisan pol like Ted Kennedy endorsing an ostensibly post-partisan pol like Obama saying he’ll bring the change Kennedy seeks. And I’m sure most of Obama’s supporters think of him more as an ideological warrior than a pragmatic doer. But a lot in his biography suggests that he isn’t an ideological warrior. But then again, a lot of things do suggest that.

    That’s why I get frustrated with him. And it’s why I’ll be happy in many ways if he wins but I’ll also be trepid and won’t be experiencing the same catharsis everyone else seems to be experiencing.

    (for the record, I hope he turns out to be the pragmatic triangulator. I’d much rather have another Clinton second term than another Clinton first term [or Carter only term]).