Maybe it’s time for a refounding of the conservative movement
We’ve recovered before. In the late 1940s, a war-weary nation looked the other way as the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Europe and China went Communist. It was only after the North Korean invasion of the South that the United States, first under Harry Truman and then Dwight Eisenhower, faced up to its responsibilities—but at considerable cost in lives and treasure over the next decades as we fought wars that perhaps could have been avoided and endured a Cold War that needn’t have been as threatening as it was. In the late 1970s, a war-weary nation watched as Khomeini took over Iran and the Sandinistas Nicaragua. This time, the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan served as the wake-up call, answered first (to a degree) by Jimmy Carter, then resoundingly by Ronald Reagan.
So perhaps every 30 years America has to go through a moment of retreat and renewal. But a happy outcome isn’t assured. Barack Obama is no Harry Truman. The Republican party has no obvious Reagan—or Ike, for that matter, waiting in the wings.
And the conservative movement—a bulwark of American strength for the last several decades—is in deep disarray. Reading about some conservative organizations and Republican campaigns these days, one is reminded of Eric Hoffer’s remark, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” It may be that major parts of American conservatism have become such a racket that a kind of refounding of the movement as a cause is necessary. A reinvigoration of the Republican party also seems desirable, based on a new generation of leaders, perhaps coming—as did Ike and Reagan—from outside the normal channels.
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No it’s not in deep disarray. It is routine for parties to stay in power for 2 maybe 3 terms. We’ll be back in 2016.
Blake on December 8, 2012 at 8:33 PM
Too little, too late. Your biggest media outlet is Faux News, you’ve lost to the worst POTUS ever twice in a row, and things are to the point that the libtards can basically get by on pure demographics.
Unless you’re talking about when we have to refound the whole nation. Now THAT is a whole different ballgame.
MelonCollie on December 8, 2012 at 8:33 PM
I’m a bit annoyed with you right now, Mr. Kristol, so I don’t think I will be considering your advice.
Cindy Munford on December 8, 2012 at 8:34 PM
Doesn’t the conservative movement need to be ‘found’ before it can be ‘refound’?
RoadRunner on December 8, 2012 at 8:34 PM
When the GOP acts conservative let me know.
CW on December 8, 2012 at 8:34 PM
Too funny. The neoconservative Bill Kristol talking about a refounding of conservatism. Notice how he posits that South Korea was the responsibility of the United States.
Dante on December 8, 2012 at 8:35 PM
You are confusing the Republican Party with movement conservatism. Unless and until we can disavow ourselves of the notion that the GOP is a vehicle for conservatism, we’ll keep screwing the pooch just like we have been for the last 24 years, over and over and over again.
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 8:35 PM
True. It has been infiltrated by people like Bill Kristol.
Kataklysmic on December 8, 2012 at 8:37 PM
More like the party that gives conservatism lip service needs to be rebuilt or go the way of the Whigs.
ironked on December 8, 2012 at 8:37 PM
The latter is just your cowardly isolationism at work, but you got the first part right. In fact I wouldn’t even give that dope the honor of being a NEOconservative!
MelonCollie on December 8, 2012 at 8:37 PM
From the guy that just said we should cave in to Obama??? Shut up, Bill Kristol.
Warner Todd Huston on December 8, 2012 at 8:37 PM
2016 is no where near a certainty for us. The left does not hold their leaders to the same standard as conservatives rightly hold theirs. Thus, we need to differentiate between us and the progressive they run.
astonerii on December 8, 2012 at 8:38 PM
I’m not confused about anything. You seem to be operating under the delusion that a third party will take office. See a doctor…
Blake on December 8, 2012 at 8:39 PM
By 2016 the demographic shift will be hopeless, barring a freak plague or something else that decimates the Democrat population.
MelonCollie on December 8, 2012 at 8:39 PM
Maybe it is time for Bill to STFU?
Dingbat63 on December 8, 2012 at 8:41 PM
Kristol is in disarray. He should have taken some time off after the election.
forest on December 8, 2012 at 8:42 PM
You don’t have any understanding of what isolationism is. You keep confusing it with non-interventionism. And there is nothing honorable about neoconservatism. It is an immoral ideology, and Kristol’s father, Irving, was the godfather of neoconservatism.
Dante on December 8, 2012 at 8:42 PM
There were two parties before the Whigs dissolved, and there were two parties after. The Whigs were replaced. Whether the GOP is “too big to fail” somehow is a matter that could be open for some debate, but it seems awfully close-minded to me to tell us to just suck it up because we’re stuck with it and we don’t have any other choice.
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 8:42 PM
Kristol’s current line of work is firmly in phase 3, the ‘racket’ – but you have to admire his brazenness and sense of irony in quoting Hoffer (who was only riffing on established libertarian philosophy).
CorporatePiggy on December 8, 2012 at 8:43 PM
Bill Kristol is part of the problem with the Republican Party. I was a Reagan Republican when I was a teenager, became an independent during the Bush years where I remain today, but Ron Paul is my new Reagan, the Bush GOP can go take a hike!
FloatingRock on December 8, 2012 at 8:44 PM
I’m not going to sit here and tell you folks that I think the dissolution of the Republican party is inevitable; it’s not. I’m not going to tell you that movement conservatism is dead; it’s not. I will tell you as many times as it takes to ram it through your thick, intransigent skulls that you are utter FOOLS to depend on the GOP to be the vehicle for conservatism in the coming years. You’ll be just as disappointed in 2016 as you were in 2012 whoever the next rising stars of the Republican Party turn out to be.
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 8:46 PM
Third parties are losers. It worked once under an extreme circumstance, and every time it’s been attempted since has ended in disaster. Any strategy that includes abandoning the GOP for a third party is simply not serious.
pauljc on December 8, 2012 at 8:47 PM
What a moron … his focus is on foreign policy (icebergs miles away) while the country daily descends more rapidly into insolvency and economic collapse from within: the $220 trillion iceberg hanging over and waiting to fall on top of — and crush — us)?
And this is what passes for a “Republican” thinker …
ShainS on December 8, 2012 at 8:48 PM
And this is why I am losing hope for America.
Letting the GOP wither on the vine =/= advocating a third party.
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 8:48 PM
I felt the same kind of shame when I realized Mitt had the nomination wrapped up. Join the club.
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 8:49 PM
No, it’s time to kick out Kristol and his Big Government pals. All they have done is sing the praises of open borders, more government, more debt, and spreading democracy to the ME with our blood and our treasure. They also tried to marginalize and shout down anyone with reason who stood in their way.
Frum, Kristol, and Brooks are all the same: THEY’RE PROGRESSIVES.
Send ‘em packing. Let them be Democrats.
Punchenko on December 8, 2012 at 8:51 PM
Okay chief. I’ll be REALLY generous to the movement and say it’s a 50-50 lib-con split in this country.
Are you going to convince EVERY SINGLE Republican to switch to this new Conservative party in the next four years? Because a successful third party will require nothing less.
49% DEM, 48% Conservative, 3% GOP means four more years of socialism. This isn’t a European parliamentary democracy. Winning 49% of the vote doesn’t get you 49% of the seats in the legislature. 49% gets you NOTHING. That’s why America has been a two party system for its entire history.
pauljc on December 8, 2012 at 8:51 PM
I’m a Reagan/Ron Paul Republican, therefor I’m an outcast and an independent.
FloatingRock on December 8, 2012 at 8:52 PM
Maybe it’s time for you to return to your liberal Democratic roots. Everyone knows that the only reason that your father became a Republican was because of his outrage over the New Left’s anti-semitism and hatred of Israel.
How are the whole Arab Spring and Egyptian democracy movement thingies working out for ya there, Billy?
Go away, fool.
Resist We Much on December 8, 2012 at 8:52 PM
Question:
Which Republicans do you trust to roll back government? I mean, really honest-to-God roll back government? And why?
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 8:52 PM
Bill Kristol has been on fire as of late. He’s been right on the need for a hawkish foreign policy, and he’s been especially right about the need for populist reformers, in particular calling out both the Democrats and the GOP for not even discussing the payroll tax when talking about tax cuts for preservation, noting that both parties are willing to toss the vast majority of Americans under the bus.
Bill Kristol may not have all the answers, but he definitely has some. He’s one of the few conservative columnists that I retain respect for. Hopefully the GOP will give careful consideration to his words.
Stoic Patriot on December 8, 2012 at 8:53 PM
Palin. Why? Her track record as Governor.
davidk on December 8, 2012 at 8:55 PM
The only time a conservative or Republican can get their argument or philosophy in the media is during the presidential campaign and it was and is my feeling that people just viewed 2012 election as just another election with only the economy in the balance. That would have been the time to lay out the enormous danger of another Obama term. Will 2016 be more of the same old limp wrist kiss up? Hillary is just going to be more of the same with her trying to top Obama’s sharp left turn.
Herb on December 8, 2012 at 8:57 PM
Since you seem stuck on the prevalent conventional wisdom, let me say it again: I am not asserting that the Republican party is doomed to the dustbin of history — leastwise not yet. What I am saying is that the GOP can not be depended on to be a bastion of conservatism. At all. In any way shape or form.
Now if you think I should be supporting the GOP at all levels of government given that they appear to be giving up any kind of fight against government waste and mis- and malfeasance, I’ll need a better reason than “The GOP is all that’s standing between us and Democratic control.”
We had two parties before the Whigs dissolved, and we had two parties after. When the American people finally realize what a bunch of self-serving patronage-mongers the Republicans are, few enough people will want them around that the party’s demise will take care of itself. Until then, prepare to be disappointed. Over and over. You can take it to the ever-loving bank.
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 8:57 PM
With a winner take all system third parties either become one of the two or fade away.
I believe conservatives will gain support when the money runs out. Until they halt the increase in the debt limit it makes sense for too many people to stay on the dole. Logical decision really.
BullShooterAsInElk on December 8, 2012 at 8:57 PM
There’s no possible way to save the GOP, it is so corrupt they just granted themselves the right to cheat in all future Republican primaries. It is a firmly entrenched oligarchy now. Unless you can undo those rule changes then a 3rd party is the only way forward.
FloatingRock on December 8, 2012 at 8:58 PM
Not a bad answer. Actually one that I’d tend to agree with.
Next question:
Do you honestly believe she will ever even consider running for national office again? I didn’t ask whether she should. I asked whether you think she will.
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 8:58 PM
The “conservative movement”, whatever that means, if it means a political party, can not find its way in the wilderness until it adopts a small government, personal liberty message. Which means it has to jettison both the domestic big brother social con message, and the foreign big brother neocon message. Eliminate those two albatross ideologies, which are both relatively recent developments in the GOP, and you start from scratch by going back to the basic premise of what being conservative means. But because the GOP is beholden to both groups, that will never happen.
keep the change on December 8, 2012 at 8:59 PM
Well, crap. I think you are right.
But how do we wrest the GOP from the GOPe.
davidk on December 8, 2012 at 8:59 PM
I think that if I were in her shoes, no.
davidk on December 8, 2012 at 9:00 PM
This is great listening.
We vs. They
Dante on December 8, 2012 at 9:01 PM
I think you may have stumbled on to something here. While I don’t believe that “social cons” or “neocons” are necessarily the problem with the GOP as I’d diagnose it, I would definitely agree that most Republicans have completely lost sight of what it really means to be “conservative.”
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 9:01 PM
Just curious, but who did you vote for, if you did vote?
Dante on December 8, 2012 at 9:02 PM
So you’ve also noticed how the Bush wars suddenly vanished from public memory in 2012, and the Obama occupations barely rate a peep?
I’d like to have been a fly on the wall when the big media cheeses saw Obama was about to win…
MelonCollie on December 8, 2012 at 9:03 PM
Then the question of whether Palin would or could honestly roll back the size and scope of the federal government is moot. Hell, even Jim DeMint figured he could do more good outside of government than from within.
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 9:03 PM
Umm…then you should familiarize yourself with neoconservatism; it’s all about interventionist foreign policy.
Dante on December 8, 2012 at 9:03 PM
A “Reagan/Ron Paul Republican”?
Didn’t Ron Paul compare Reagan to Stalin? Yes, he did.
Didn’t Ron Paul rake Reagan over the coals in his resignation letter from the Republican Party in 1987? Yes, he did.
As a libertarian and a registered Independent, don’t expect any violins from me, but please enjoy your victimhood status.
BTW, since Reagan = Ron Paul, I’m sure that you can provide me with a video clip of the former ranting and raving about “pink money” as the latter has.
Eooooo-weeeee, that pink money is gonna gitcha!
Resist We Much on December 8, 2012 at 9:03 PM
Sorry Dante. I reserve my right to keep that information to myself. Nothing personal. All I feel comfortable saying here is that I did vote, and I did not pull the lever for Barack Obama.
gryphon202 on December 8, 2012 at 9:04 PM
Wow. I hope your post is sarcasm.
Dante on December 8, 2012 at 9:06 PM
Of course. I wouldn’t admit to voting for Romney either after all you’ve been spewing in this thread.
Dante on December 8, 2012 at 9:06 PM
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