# The Death of Conservatism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 10, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508 "2009-09-10T02:32:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/41 "2009-09-10T13:45:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, political history is **not** cyclical. Different parties alternate in power, as Tanenhaus describes, but the **content** of their politics changes over time, and many ideological positions have gone extinct, or nearly so. See the following: [First Party System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Party_System) [Era of Good Feelings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Good_Feelings) [Second Party System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Party_System) [Third Party System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Party_System) [Fourth Party System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Party_System) [Fifth Party System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Party_System) I would argue the Sixth Party System emerged with Reagan’s election in 1980 and we are now on the cusp of the Seventh. In any case, however, if you study the above closely, you will **not** find a cyclic pattern; what is “left” or “right” in one system does not necessarily bear any relationship to those designations in another. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/42 "2009-09-10T13:48:38Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Or maybe a proper left-wing party will get its act together and the Dems will become the right-wing (which, frankly, they’re not far off). From your lips . . . > [@Gyrate](#): > > Parties come and go, but there will always be a political spectrum of some sort. Yes; but even the spectrum changes over time. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/43 "2009-09-10T13:57:36Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Conservatism dead? Obama is just beginning to discover how deeply conservative the US is. This is wishful thinking on the liberals’ part. The Republican party has a flair for reinvention as it has shown time and time again in the past. It’s the Democrats who have completely lost touch with their blue-collar base, as Camille Paglia, a Democrat herself, [tellingly argues.](http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/09/09/healthcare/) [Baghdad Bob](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf), is that you? Love your work! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/44 "2009-09-10T13:59:43Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Wishful thinking from the loony left. Tanenhaus is by no means part of any left, loony or sane. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/45 "2009-09-10T14:01:59Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I used to be a Wm. F. Buckley fan. So was Tanenhaus: > [@](#): > > \*\*Meacham: So how bad is it, really? Your title doesn’t quite declare conservatism dead. > > Tanenhaus:\*\* Quite bad if you prize a mature, responsible conservatism that honors America’s institutions, both governmental and societal. The first great 20th-century Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, supported a strong central government that emphasized the shared values and ideals of the nation’s millions of citizens. He denounced the harm done by “the trusts”—big corporations. He made it his mission to conserve vast tracts of wilderness and forest. The last successful one, Ronald Reagan, liked to remind people (especially the press) he was a lifelong New Dealer who voted four times for Franklin D. Roosevelt. The consensus forged by Buckley in the 1960s gained strength through two decisive acts: first, Buckley denounced right-wing extremists, such as the members of the John Birch Society, and made sure when he did it to secure the support of conservative Republicans like Reagan, Barry Goldwater, and Sen. John Tower. This pulled the movement toward the center. Second: Buckley saw that the civil disturbances of the late 1960s (in particular urban riots and increasingly militant anti-Vietnam protests) posed a challenge to social harmonies preferred by genuine conservatives and genuine liberals alike. When the Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan called on liberals to join with conservatives in upholding “the politics of stability,” Buckley replied that he was ready to help. He placed the values of “civil society” (in Burke’s term) above those of his own movement or the GOP. > > Today we see very little evidence of this. In his classic The Future of American Politics (1952), the political journalist Samuel Lubell said that our two-party system in fact consists of periods of alternating one-party rule—there is a majority “sun” party and a minority “moon” party. “It is within the majority party that the issues of any particular period are fought out,” Lubell wrote. Thus, in the 1980s, Republicans grasped (and Democrats did not) that new entrepreneurial energies had been unleashed, and also that the Cold War could be brought to a conclusion through strong foreign policy. This was the Republicans’ “sun” period. The reverse is happening today. The Democrats now dominate our heliocentric system—first on the economic stimulus, which is already proving to be at least a limited success, and now on the issue of health-care reform. These are both entirely Democratic initiatives. The Republicans, so intent on thwarting Obama, have vacated the field, and left it up to the sun party to accept the full burden of legislating us into the future. If the Democrats succeed, Republicans will be tagged as the party that declined even to help repair a broken system and extend fundamental protections—logical extensions of Social Security and Medicare—to some 46 million people who now don’t have them. This could marginalize the right for a generation, if not longer. Rush Limbaugh’s stated hope that Obama will fail seems to have become GOP doctrine. This is the attitude not of conservatives, but of radicals, who deplore the very possibility of a virtuous government. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/46 "2009-09-10T14:22:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Tanenhaus is by no means part of any left, loony or sane. Paglia, OTOH, is a loony I wish had left long ago. Or, to put it more civilly: I’m not a fan. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/47 "2009-09-10T14:32:36Z")
> [@Sam Tanenhaus](#): > > Today, conservatives seem in a position closer to the one they occupied during the New Deal. Mmm, yes, and we all know how conservatism completely died out then, not to return until a brief spasm during the GWB years. :dubious: Conservatives will continue to have a tough time until they articulate an appealing platform that gets back to their financially responsible roots and doesn’t depend on government intrusion into people’s social lives and medical decisions. Even without that, they can stay viable simply by highlighting liberals’ screwups. Anyone confident that the Republicans won’t pick up any ground in the 2010 elections? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/48 "2009-09-10T14:41:38Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Mmm, yes, and we all know how conservatism completely died out then, not to return until a brief spasm during the GWB years. :dubious: I’ll take another 40-50 years of liberal dominance, thanks. Conservatism didn’t really resurge until Reagan. Nixon wasn’t what you’d really call a conservative Republican (modern Republicans, if they were recited his record without his name, would probably ball him a leftist). Goldwater tanked. Ford was a bookmark, a placeholder. Eisenhower was very much a moderate. At best, conservatism was in a holding pattern from 1932 to 1980, with brief and long-term ineffective blips like McCarthy and Goldwater. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/49 "2009-09-10T14:49:14Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Anyone confident that the Republicans won’t pick up any ground in the 2010 elections? Their success will be directly proportional to how effectively they can distance themselves from the movement conservatives. ---
**Author:** ![Terraplane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Terraplane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terraplane)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/50 "2009-09-10T14:56:13Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Most conservatives today aren’t like that either. Unfortunately, many young liberals are too foolish and bigoted to understand that disagreement on a political issue does not make the other side evil or immoral. It’s ridiculous to single out young liberals for this when the Republican party _depends_ on painting it’s opposition as evil or immoral in order to get votes. From gay rights to abortion and birth control to healthcare death squads, they’ve got it down to art form. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/51 "2009-09-10T15:17:07Z")
I think conservatives are generally older, this quote was attributed to Winston Churchill: “Anyone who isn’t a Liberal before the age of 30 has no heart … and anyone who is still a Liberal after the age of 30 has no brain.” But I think the median age of liberals is climbing, and many conservatives are getting more moderate. Yes, there are the loony conservative fringe ranting on TV about healthcare, but conservatives have put up with the loony liberal fringe for years too. Obama isn’t Hitler, but neither was Bush. What I see on the Internet and in my family is many that are fiscally conservative but socially liberal. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/52 "2009-09-10T15:20:41Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Most conservatives today aren’t like that either. Unfortunately, many young liberals are too foolish and bigoted to understand that disagreement on a political issue does not make the other side evil or immoral. But it can make them foolish or bigoted. \ ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/53 "2009-09-10T16:16:23Z")
There will be conservatives 10, 20, 50 and 100 years from now, probably in just about the same numbers as there are now. They won’t fighting for the same causes that current conservatives fight today, just like current conservatives are not fighting against women suffrage, racial integration or for witch burning. The only common trait they will have is that they will be wrong, their causes utterly evil and they will have to be forced kicking and screaming to treat their fellow human beings with the compassion and respect we all deserve, so at least some things will remain the same. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/54 "2009-09-10T16:19:50Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Do you truly believe this, or do you simply feel duty-bound to defend your compatriots’ bad acts [_please pardon if I’ve falsely asserted your political affiliation_]? I really believe it. I’m a conservative/libertarian…especially by the standard of this board, where pretty much everybody to the right of Karl Marx is considered a Nazi. That noted, I have a long history on this board and elsewhere of supporting gay marriage, opposing Bush the Younger’s Sandbox Adventure, and I’m solidly pro choice. I plan on keeping my guns. I want my taxes lower, my government smaller and less intrusive into my private life. I believe the power of the State should be strictly limited to those powers granted in the Constitution, and maximum liberty preserved for the citizens. I’m a devout atheist. I am not an evil person. I’m not a racist. I’m not a homophobe, or any of those other horrible things that have been broad-brushed over all conservatives in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/55 "2009-09-10T16:25:20Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > “Conservatism” isn’t dead. It is, and can be, an incredibly important, intelligent movement that helps our country. Small government, restrained spending, and an emphasis on individual rights can, and should, be a large part of our nation. > > Don’t write off conservatism, because our country needs it to truly flourish. I agree concerning true honest conservatives. The problem is they seem to be few in number and not fighting enough to raise their voices and lead. They are being drowned out. I actually think we need to work together to educate and illuminate , encouraging and appreciating the serious hard working conservatives and exposing the hacks and hate and fear mongers. Obama took some steps in that direction last night and I cheered. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/56 "2009-09-10T16:26:23Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > I really believe it. I’m a conservative/libertarian…especially by the standard of this board, where pretty much everybody to the right of Karl Marx is considered a Nazi. > > That noted, I have a long history on this board and elsewhere of supporting gay marriage, opposing Bush the Younger’s Sandbox Adventure, and I’m solidly pro choice. I plan on keeping my guns. I want my taxes lower, my government smaller and less intrusive into my private life. > > I believe the power of the State should be strictly limited to those powers granted in the Constitution, and maximum liberty preserved for the citizens. I’m a devout atheist. > > I am not an evil person. I’m not a racist. I’m not a homophobe, or any of those other horrible things that have been broad-brushed over all conservatives in this thread. This is part of the problem, “conservative” applies to several wildly different belief systems that have almost nothing to do with each other. When you can apply the same label to white power advocates and black people then you are talking about a very big umbrella. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/57 "2009-09-10T16:26:54Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Wishful thinking from the loony left. Today’s young liberals will be tomorrow’s conservatives. Age and real world experience will cure many of liberalism’s ills. That must explain the liberal tendencies of old hippies like me? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/58 "2009-09-10T16:28:40Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I’ll take another 40-50 years of liberal dominance, thanks. Conservatism didn’t really resurge until Reagan. McCarthy (Joe, not Eugene), those toads on the House Un-American Affairs Committee and everybody else who kept up the heat on the cold war and arms race through the '60s, plus digging a big hole in Vietnam must all have been liberals then (To be sure, some were. But many were right-wing). > [@](#): > > Nixon wasn’t what you’d really call a conservative Republican (modern Republicans, if they were recited his record without his name, would probably ball\* him a leftist). And if you cited JFK’s record without his name (especially in terms of foreign policy), he’d be way to the right of today’s Democratic Party. I would never underestimate the power of conservativism (in whatever form) to make a comeback in the U.S. This ain’t Sweden. 🙂 \*And Nixon ain’t Clinton. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/59 "2009-09-10T16:29:45Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > This is part of the problem, “conservative” applies to several wildly different belief systems that have almost nothing to do with each other. Exactly. Is the OP referring to minimal-government conservatives, or balanced-budget conservatives, or isolationist conservatives, or Christianist “family values” conservatives, or who? They form a coalition under the banner of the elephant. Which ones are dying off? Surely not all of them together? ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508/60 "2009-09-10T16:33:24Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > We have the stimulus nonsense, this push for a public option in healthcare, Obama and those he surrounds himself with to thank for Conservatism getting purer and stronger. Do you have any idea how unintentionally hilarious this sounds? Enjoy your “purity.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-death-of-conservatism/509508.md?page=4)