The Trap of Appearances and Expectations

The Trap of Appearances and Expectations
by Paul Fallavollita

Several days ago Jim Nicholson, Chairman of the Republican National Committee appeared on CNN's Crossfire along with his Democratic counterpart. They both provided their respective party's usual spin on how Bush and Gore (and later Cheney and Lieberman) performed in the debates. At the end of the show CNN announced that the two chairmen (I always think of Mao when I hear that term) would be online in CNN's chat room to take questions. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to ideologically harass Jim Nicholson, who I see as worse than his Democratic counterpart because his party is anesthetizing and abandoning its conservative base.

I logged into the chat room and shot out a number of questions, hoping CNN's "moderators" would allow one of them through to be answered. At last, one of my questions appeared on the screen: "how do the two chairmen respond to the view many hold that the two parties have become indistinguishable from each other, particularly in their support of free trade, open immigration, and an interventionist foreign policy?" Nicholson began to answer with some platitudes, something to the effect of "the two parties are as different as day and night." Nicholson went on to explain how only the Republicans believed in the ability of individuals to run their own lives. He mentioned tax cuts a number of times.

And therein lies the problem of the contemporary Republican Party. One of the things that many conservatives today fail to understand is that there is more to being a conservative than handing out tax cuts. Worse, Republicans are beginning to make themselves into the mirror images of the Democrats on the spending side of the equation. Candidates for high offices, particularly federal offices, make campaign promises and formulate policies on a wide range of issues that simply are outside the purview of the Constitution. No one has the courage to say that large areas of contemporary public discussion should simply not be public issues. Republicans propose policies to counter the Democrats on issues like health care, education, housing, and the like.

The fact is, these policies should not even exist. The recent presidential debates between Bush and Gore provide an excellent example of this process. Whenever Gore claimed that his intended program for health care or education was best for America, Bush would respond that Gore's program was inferior and that his own was actually better at delivering these services to the American people. If you listen to these candidates, it seems that almost any area is a concern of government and public policy. People have come to expect things from government that it should not be providing. Conservatives have allowed the Left to define the issues and choose the terms of debate. Republicans are bending over backwards to appear like the Democrats.

Some on the Right seem to suggest that Bush's method is the correct one-that in this day and age, one has to appear to be a "compassionate" conservative. Barry Goldwater had long ago addressed the flaws of that kind of thinking in his book, The Conscience of a Conservative, and it is the height of irony that conservatives have lost sight of their heritage. But today's Republican Party is not the party of Goldwater and Reagan, but rather an embarrassment and a disgrace as it has reverted to the kind of Rockefeller Republicanism conservatives had fought to prevent. It will not be easy, but the American people, and the conservative movement, need to be reacquainted with the proper size and scope of government. Moreover, they need to be reacquainted with what it means to stand up consistently for a set of principles regardless of political expediency.

It is wrong to imply that the Left has some sort of built-in natural advantage in the way history plays out, as if the universe were somehow more friendly to the Left than the Right. Bush's campaigning style casts the goals of the Right as mere ideals to be approximated while Leftist projects are realities to be achieved. As a Rightist, I am unwilling to concede that the Left is somehow more consonant with the natural unfolding of human history. The Left may hold power and have the advantages of incumbency, but that is no reason to say the Right is at a disadvantage. Consider that one hundred years ago, those on the Left were considered idealists, naïve at best and dangerous at worst. Yet they engaged in systematic political activism, undertaking efforts to change the culture as well as public law piece by piece, until their ideals were achieved. Because of that, we live in their world today. Our task is to make their world ours again, and the recovery project will likely take as long for us as it took them back then.

The Right must take exception to the idea that it must settle for what it can get. Pragmatism should not be enshrined as a philosophical touchstone, as the neoconservatives have done--to do so would be tantamount to conceding legitimacy to the Left. The Left has never had to settle--it has been able to achieve its goals completely. Those on the Left will never admit this of course, they claim "there's still a long way to go toward a 'progressive' society," but it is the nature of the Left to endlessly pursue change for change's sake. Contrary to the Left, the Right does not have some ever-receding, unattainable ideal like "equality"--the Right has a specific vision of a society. Implementing the programs and policies of the Right is not a hopeless ideal, it is fully achievable by passing certain laws and repealing others, and then holding the line. To do this, all we need is to get an electoral majority that will pass those laws, which of course is not an easy task because we on the Right seem to have the same level of credibility that the Left did a hundred years ago. But that too can be changed.

Paul Fallavollita is a graduate student in international relations and political theory at Purdue University. He has written for The American Partisan, Enter Stage Right, Ether Zone, and OpinioNet and is the co-editor of The Crabgrass Chronicles, located at http://www.crabgrasschronicles.com He can be reached at pfallavollita@gateway.net