And, since our movement is dedicated to the survival and success of America’s exceptional experiment in “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” the furious tone of our politics today poses a unique threat to conservatism. It is not a coincidence that as America’s public debate has plumbed new depths of ugliness and arrogance, our public institutions have lurched further and further to the left. After all, progressivism is nothing more than premeditated outrage in an attempt to gain power. Anger, resentment, intimidation, and division have been its natural modes of expression since the French Revolution.

Conservatism, by contrast, is grounded in gratitude. At a very deep level, every caustic Tweet, every snide insult, every exaggerated accusation—however momentarily satisfying—ultimately advances our opponents’ interests, not ours. And not America’s. That’s why a commitment to civil discourse, good-faith debate, and principled persuasion is so important today. Especially for the conservative movement, whose prospects only ever rise and fall alongside those of our nation, considering how intertwined are the principles of conservatism and of the Founding.

(via RCP)

[The founders created a representative republic to buffer the ill effects of populism in a democracy. It’s no accident that as the institutions of representative republics decline, mob rule becomes more of a reality. Ultimately that benefits the Left more than the Right, as Roberts writes. The salvation for American liberty is restoring the institutions of representative democracy and restoring the proper balance of power between them, primarily by reversing decades of executive-branch dominance not just in Washington DC but all the way down to the local level. Only a new dedication to federalism will give us that opportunity. — Ed]