Where are the Conservatives in the GOP?

It seems everything is completely up for grabs when it comes to politics and legislating and civics these days, and many are feeling like down is up and we're through the looking glass. There was a time when we had two leading ideologies and two political parties, and they worked the basics of government out through a system of checks and balances and negotiation. Now, with the ascension of "President Bannon," many moderate voters and pragmatic Americans are wondering just what the heck has happened to the Republic. For me, one sadly mystifying comment came from Speaker of the House Paul Ryan this week in an interview with Judy Woodruff. In downplaying the obviously troubling relationship that Paul Ryan has, and will continue to have with the White House, the Speaker said of Steve Bannon, "We are different kinds of conservatives."

Uh, actually, Paul .... no. Neither you nor Steve Bannon is a conservative.

To paraphrase one of the best burns in contemporary political discourse, I'd offer this to Speaker Ryan:  "I knew conservatism. Conservatism was my friend. You, sir, are no conservative."

Conservatism as a political ideology was established during the Age of Reason to oppose radical change which threatened the stability of society through a challenge to its institutions and foundations. Edmund Burke was a primary voice of that establishment, and true conservatives will approach volatile political issues with a sense of prudence and Burkean evaluation. In the contemporary age, one of the most stable and erudite voices of conservatism is scholar and critic George Will, and if contemporary Americans are truly interested in understanding how conservatism should function today, they need look no furthur than Will's profound, succinct, and insightful treatise Statecraft as Soulcraft. 

In ''Statecraft as Soulcraft,'' his first book-length work, Mr. Will laments the lack of genuine conservatives in American politics and shows how the best conservative thought is lost even on the most conservative President in decades. ''I will do many things for my country,'' writes Mr. Will, ''but I will not pretend that the careers of, say, Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt involve serious philosophical differences.'' Conservatives like Mr. Reagan attack ''big government,'' but Mr. Will is more concerned with the reluctance of modern government to cultivate the moral character of its citizens. He faults conservatives for agreeing with liberals that the ''inner life'' of citizens - our ''sentiments, manners and moral opinions'' -is none of the government's business. Mr. Will insists that ''statecraft is soulcraft.'' Government cannot be neutral on major moral issues and shouldn't try. ''Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, much legislation is moral legislation because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres of life.''

Having grown up in a very Republican household in a pretty Democratic county, but rather conservative region, my early political education came with the Reagan Revolution. That time was when I first began to investigate what politics and political parties really meant. In my life I have pretty much explored all the schools of thought. Interestingly, I have to argue that the early 1980s might be the last time the Republican Party was actually conservative. After that time, the GOP became a party of a certain ideology and positions, but it was not a platform that I easily identify as conservative. No, instead, I would just say that the GOP is simply a party of "Republicanism."  And, I'm not the only one to suspect and expose this weird dichotomy that has led to a real crisis in American political thought.

People like Ross Douthat have some solid ideas about the GOP and conservatism which he outlined in his book Grand New Party: How the Republican Party. However, while some may argue that the 2016 election actually signified the return of the working class to the GOP, I could hardly stomach the idea that Douthat supports the current regime and its approach. Another rising political pundit named Matt Lewis has some valuable insight in his book Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP went from the party of Reagan to the Party of Trump. However, neither of these really get at the true spirit of conservatism the way someone like George Will does. One astute thinker who might be on the right track is someone like David Frum who wrote Comeback: Conservatism that Can Win Again. Yet even a great thinker like Frum is still too far removed from the true spirit of conservatism when he gets hung up on tax rates and supply side thinking. 

So, who has some thoughts on the spirit of conservatism that can match up with the Burkean roots and the succinct insight of George Will and his application of conservatism to contemporary America? Well, after George I like to look to a great contemporary writer and thinker by the name of Rod Dreher.  Dreher, a writer and editor who has worked for the National Review and Weekly Standard and is now the editor and chief blogger for The American Conservative, is a pragmatic and thoughtful conservative who doesn't let his politics mess with his ideology and vice versa. While Dreher's conservatism is a bit heavy on the religious side at times, I don't think I've enjoyed another conservative treatise since Will's Statecraft more than I did Dreher's Crunch Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Farmers [and more] Can Save America. 

In Crunchy Cons, Dreher reports on the amazing depth and scope of this phenomenon, which is redefining the taxonomy of America’s political and cultural landscape. At a time when the Republican party, and the conservative movement in general, is bitterly divided over what it means to be a conservative, Dreher introduces us to people who are pioneering a way back to the future by reclaiming what’s best in conservatism—people who believe that being a truly committed conservative today means protecting the environment, standing against the depredations of big business, returning to traditional religion, and living out conservative godfather Russell Kirk’s teaching that the family is the institution most necessary to preserve.

The sad reality is that conservatism doesn't even really mean anything anymore, especially in light of the electoral fiasco of November. And, I have little faith in Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell to lead the country back to the Right. But perhaps if a few individuals do some reading and thinking and start acting locally, we might have some hope for a return to reason a few years from now.