Nevertheless, conservatism remains a movement that defines itself largely by what it is against rather than what it is for. This was fusionism’s primary contribution; by downplaying the differences among conservatives regarding what we are for, we could better mobilize politically to combat what we all agreed we were against — Soviet Communism and the rapid advance of federal-government spending and regulation.

Conservatism’s weakness today comes from the fact that these core ambitions have either been met (the defeat of the Soviet Union) or prove to be insufficient in practice. Once we win elections, we find it is not tenable to simply not do liberal things. Conservatism in power must act, and since conservatives themselves differ and have always differed about how to act, conservatism in practice finds it difficult to do anything other than preside over existing government structures. In this sense, all strains of conservatism have become mere tax collectors for the liberal welfare state.

Fusionism created a political confederation, uniting different conservatisms in opposition to a clear and present danger, mainly the Soviet Union. In this sense, it was like the original Articles of Confederation uniting the Colonies in opposition to King George. Once the common enemy had been defeated, however, the Articles proved insufficient for the newly independent country to govern itself. It was only with the replacement of confederation with federation, the replacement of the Articles with the “more perfect Union” of the Constitution, that America could truly start to act as a sovereign state.

This is the challenge those of us who are known as Reformocons face. Dionne says that we have not yet challenged the existing intellectual architecture of the Right, and in this he is largely correct. The movement is badly in need of a Conservative Reformation, and Reformocons must decide what we want to reform and why.