A group of self-appointed ideological policemen have petitioned @PostOpinions to quit identifying opinion writer @JRubinBlogger as a conservative. This is a teachable moment, so let’s dig in to this to make some larger and more important points. <THREAD> dailywire.com/news/36687/con…
1/ Consider the list of indictments they’ve offered. How in the hell does a commitment to limited government, free enterprise, and a robust national defense (the core commitments of modern conservatism) inform how she or anyone else should think about ...
2/ ... Trump’s misogyny, the Ford-Kavanaugh accusations, our declining standing in the world (being laughed at around the world, after all, is something Donald Trump repeatedly thundered about when HE was running for president), or Republican electoral fortunes going forward?
3/ Would these gendarmes have had much patience with the argument, for example, that one can’t be a good liberal if one is skeptical about Bill Clinton’s fitness for office in the wake of the sexual harassment charges against him? Probably not (or one would hope not).
4/ Or that one can’t be a good liberal if one fears that the oft-forecast #BlueWave might not be all that it’s cracked up to be? Come on ….
5/ Even so, according to the Post's website, @JRubinBlogger is identified as having a “center-right perspective.” Conservative gendarmes should not be allowed to gain lebenstraum by arguing that conservatism (even as they define it) is the only creed on the center-right.
6/ What we’re witnessing here is a live demonstration of a point well made by sociologists and political scientists. To wit, ideological commitments in America are, for the vast majority of people, very little about core principles and very much about deep partisan commitments.
7/ To cite just a few accessible references, consider this from political scientist @LilyMasonPhD. academic.oup.com/poq/article/82…
8/ Or this from Leonie Huddy, Lilliana Mason, and Lene Aaroe. cambridge.org/core/journals/…
9/ Or this from Shanto Iyengar, Gaurav Sood, and Yphtach Lelkes. academic.oup.com/poq/article-ab…
10/ There is very little correlation between one’s stated ideological beliefs and one’s position on issues beyond women’s issues (especially abortion), gay rights, and to some extent, environmental protection. From amazon.com/Neither-Libera… 
11/ Ideology in the service of partisanship is unfortunate. One should have leeway to hold to principled commitments when they conflict with partisan commitments. ESPECIALLY when they conflict with partisan commitments. That’s important if we’re to keep “our side” honest.
12/ Arguments about whether an argument is “conservative” are less interesting and than arguments about whether a given argument is correct. Since ideologies are pattern recognition heuristics to better understand the world, the latter conversation is the important one ...
13/ The former argument is the argument of religious cultists. If something is correct but not consistent with a given ideological creed, then the creed should change. Or so much worse for the creed.
14/ Never-Trumpers, however, are on shaky ground in proclaiming that THEY are the authentic holders of the true conservative faith and not the Trumpist heretics. That’s because conservatism (like liberalism) is constantly changing and evolving.
15/ And that’s also because we find ourselves back in a debate about ideology vs. a debate about truth.
16/ For instance, conservatives used to oppose tax cuts that increased the deficit. They used to support environmental protection. They used to support gun control and civil rights (at least, northern conservatives did prior to 1964) ...
17/ They were protectionist, then free-trade, and are now protectionist again. They were isolationists, then crusading internationalists, and are now isolationist-minded again.
18/ And there’s a plethora of distinct and often frictional houses within conservatism. Depending upon which intellectual sub-tribe most appeals to you, conservatism—even in relatively modern contexts—can mean many very different things. amazon.com/Conservative-I…
19/ To say nothing of the differences between the conservatism, say of Burke, Disraeli, and Oakeshott and the conservatism of Koch Empire or Trump Tower.
20/ Never-Trump defenses of the conservative label are not only misguided (the label is constantly evolving and will never remained fixed politically), they are now dangerous. Modern conservatism was founded at start in a misconceived blanket opposition to liberalism ...
21/ ... an opposition that was an elemental characteristic of Bill Buckley’s fusionist conservatism at its very birth. This has made the center-right vulnerable to its own most illiberal elements, which have now remade conservatism in their own image.
22/ The Trump presidency is a culmination of developments that have been corrupting the conservative movement and the Republican Party for many years.
23/ Whatever the merits of conservatism at its best (for my money, Michael Oakeshott), that conservatism doesn’t exist in the GOP. Right-of-center intellectuals repulsed by Trumpism need a new language and new creed to carry on the fight. I know that Rubin understands this.
24/ While it might be tempting to use conservative language and values to promote moderation — conservatism, classically understood, is nothing if not a philosophy of moderation — the language and thought of contemporary American conservatism is now thoroughly degraded.
25/ Given the trajectory of modern conservatism and the commanding heights that its most illiberal wing occupies in the conservative media, Never-Trumpers are unlikely to win an internecine war about what conservativism should mean going forward.
26/ Never-Trumpers are best advised to let the Trumpists have the conservative label. They’ve in any event rendered it toxic for a generation. We need to give birth to a new fighting faith on the center-right that can do battle with conservatism, a thread for another time <END>
Sorry, meant to write "lebensraum." Typo.
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