WHY CONSERVATIVES LOST: PART 1 — THE BIG PICTURE
Note: This is the first of a seven-part series examining why conservatism lost the country so that we can learn the lessons necessary to win the future. Come, let us reason together.
Here are some of the lies we love to tell one another at conferences, on social media haunts, and at conventions to make ourselves feel better about the state of things:
- This is still a right-of-center country. That’s true to some extent, but the problem is the center has moved decidedly to the left. Today’s Republicans are mostly yesterday’s Democrats. Republican primary voters in Kansas — one of the reddest states in the country — just tossed out Congressman Tim Huelskamp and his 91 percent Liberty Score® here at Conservative Review, because what they want even more from government than their God-given rights are handouts. Republicans are either rallying to or cowering away from the Rainbow Jihad. No current member of GOP congressional leadership in either chamber has a Liberty Score® higher than a D. Furthermore, Speaker Paul Ryan (53%) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (42%), each have Fs.
- We can rally the “silent majority.” We rightfully mock liberals for not moving on from bygone Watergate references, yet this phrase we toss around to comfort ourselves ironically comes from the same era — originally credited to Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon’s vice president. There is no silent majority in America anymore. There apparently is an angry, populist, nationalist “silent plurality,” which Donald Trump tapped into to win the nomination. But other than love of country and a high regard for national sovereignty, there is little to nothing conservative about that movement.
- We have a promising bench of emerging, principled conservatives. Anyone still believing this paid no attention to the recent presidential primary or never looked at the Liberty scorecard here at CR. We have the largest Republican majority on Capitol Hill since before the Great Depression; however, of the 301 Republicans currently in office, only 40 of them have A or B Liberty scores. And that’s with a Democrat in the White House. That means only 13 percent of the Republicans elected in 2014 have voted the right way more often than not when it was easy to build a principled resume. Just look at my home state of Iowa, which sent two newcomers to Washington in the last election. But already Senator Joni Ernst (62%) and Congressman David Young (43%) have disappointing Liberty scores.
The inconvenient truth is we have lost everything. We have an established beachhead exactly nowhere. We are not advancing on any front anywhere. Our best “victories” are stopping the Left from going places that even a decade ago would’ve been unthinkable in the political mainstream (e.g., North Carolina bathroom fight, Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case).
The actual data and election results have been telling us for quite some time — are simply not true. We are ineffective. We move almost no public policy.
It's time — past time — we on the Right have a serious and adult conversation among ourselves about where the country is headed and our place in that.
The country is in a meltdown on every front. Super majorities of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Yet as of today, President Obama's approval rating is approaching 60 percent. And if he were up for re-election this year, he would be a heavy favorite to win.
Then there's Hillary Clinton, whom a majority of Americans don't like or trust. Yet she's polling better at this point than Obama was four years ago. The Republican nominee spent more time at his convention currying favor with Bernie Sanders’ socialist voters than talking about conservatism or the Constitution. Even the Libertarian Party, which had a real chance to make inroads with conservatives this year, nominated two liberal, former Republican governors as its ticket — and neither candidate has any regard for the Bill of Rights whatsoever.However, we keep convincing ourselves that with every cop killing, terrorist attack, and new scandal "this will be the moment that will turn the election" and create a wave. But no wave is forthcoming, no matter how discouraged people become. True, the sham that is the Trump candidacy is a factor here, and it’s increasingly clear people just don't see him as presidential material no matter what happens. That may explain what is going to happen this cycle.
But our problems are far more systemic than Trump. His sham candidacy is a symptom of our problems, not the source of them.
We've lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. And only twice in almost half a century has a non-incumbent Republican presidential candidate won the popular vote (1968,1980). I was seven when that last happened. The Star Wars trilogy hadn't been completed yet. Nobody had heard of Indiana Jones. Disco was still popular. Most of America didn't even have cable television. That's how long ago it was.
It is time to stop lying to ourselves. To stop convincing ourselves that it doesn't matter how terrible the GOP nominee is, because we can actually win elections on how bad the Democrats are. And all the other sweet nothings we say to each other — the actual data and election results have been telling us for quite some time — are simply not true. We are ineffective. We move almost no public policy. And now even corporate America, a key ally in the Reagan era, no longer funds our causes but is the man-at-arms for the progressive Left.
I just turned 43. I have three children — 15, 11, and 9. By the time 2020 rolls around, one of them will be out of my house and on her own. Given that perspective, I am fully committed to the conservative cause regardless of how discouraging things seem. There's simply too much at stake for our children and grandchildren to turn back now.
Nonetheless, I don't want to be sitting here 20 years from now, perhaps on the edge of retirement, thinking everything I did for that cause was for naught. A man I greatly admire once told me: "You're fighting the same battles we fought 40 years ago." I know he's trying to encourage me to take the long view, but with all due respect to him, I don't want to spend 40 years fighting the same war he did.
I'd like to win the war.
This is not a happy tale, for sure. But we can't fix what's wrong unless we're willing to be truly honest about where we are. Hence, this series I’m writing over this next seven weeks. If you’d like to win the war as well, I invite you to join me for a long, overdue, and sober assessment of our movement in the hopes of learning the tough, but necessary, lessons.
You don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.
