David Frum’s “New Majority” Is Bad News for Conservatives

posted at 3:43 pm on September 30, 2009 by Michael van der Galien

With his relentless criticism of Glenn Beck and other powerful conservative voices, and his attempt to “redefine conservatism,” New Majority-founder David Frum is hurting the movement he professes to love. Case in point, his recent appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

As most members of the self-anointed intellectual elite, Morning Joe’s crew doesn’t quite understand that distrust of government is deeply ingrained in American culture and history. Democrats didn’t take back the House, the Senate and the White House because voters suddenly fell in love with leftist ideology or out of love with conservatism, but because Republicans failed to deliver on their promise to cut government and to keep it out of people’s lives. It was not conservatism, but politicians who falsely identified themselves as conservatives, that earned the distrust of the electorate.

The actual problem in this debate isn’t related to conservatism but to Frum’s inability to identify the real problem.

You don’t have to redefine conservatism. In fact, it cannot be done. If you attempt to redefine it, change its very core, it is no longer conservatism but an entirely new, different political theory (dare I say ideology?).

If Frum would just call for more creativity in order for conservatives to develop policies that deal with todays problems, American conservatives would be wise to listen to him. But that isn’t what he’s trying to do. No, Frum wants you guys to redefine the principles that form the very foundation of Anglo-Saxon conservatism. And that, it seems to me, is a tragic mistake because those principles aren’t some nice and fancy theories but laws that govern the universe.

Unless Frum changes natural law itself, I don’t quite see how his efforts help rather than hurt the conservative movement in the States.

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