Back when I taught high school European history there was a unit in the curriculum guide called “the political spectrum.” It was a lesson designed to introduce young people to how the terms “conservative” and “liberal,” “radical” and “reactionary” are used in the political vernacular. It was the old sawhorse, accurate enough in its basic form: conservatives favor the status quo, liberals gradual, peaceful change; radicals push for immediate change, sometimes through violence, while reactionaries seek a return to earlier ways of doing things, the status quo ante.
I used to spend some time with my classes making an additional point, one that I thought indispensable: that these terms have no fixed meaning and that one cannot assume that an individual or faction in one country or at a particular moment in history described with one of these labels will think the same as individuals in a different setting. To demonstrate what I meant, I would use clippings from the New York Times that described Ronald Reagan and his supporters as conservatives, juxtaposed against other clippings from the same publication that labeled as conservatives those opposed to democratic reforms in the old Soviet Union — even though Reagan and the hard-line members of the old Comintern were poles apart ideologically. It was true: Reagan and the Bolsheviks were for maintaining the status quo, but different status quos.
A teacher seeking to make this point in recent years would have a wealth of data to illustrate the theme. Who are the conservatives these days? Pat Buchanan and CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who favor managed trade and strict immigration controls, or Larry Kudlow and the editors of the Wall Street Journal who do not? Does the old conservative view of the danger of appeasing aggressive foreign powers — the domino theory — extend to militant Islamists? The neo-cons, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the editors of The Weekly Standard say yes; the paleo-cons disagree.
But it is not just conservatives who are redefining themselves. Their losing track record at the polls has led liberal Democrats to question whether there is a need for them to forge a new identify, one less hostile to the culturally conservative values of mainstream America. In the July 31 issue of The American Conservative, New York Newsday columnist James Pinkerton reviewed three books that explore how the redefinition might take place: Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan, by Georgetown University professor Michael Kazin; The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, by Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter; and Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized by People Who Think You’re Stupid, by Joe Klein of Time magazine.
These books are different in significant ways, but share the conviction that the Democrats can regain power by recapturing William Jennings Bryan’s ability to promote economic populism without alienating Middle America and the blue-collar voter in the process, or in Michael Kazin’s words, to cater to “the yearning for a society run by and for ordinary people who lead virtuous lives.” Pinkerton describes this as a “Bryanite Great Awakening,” a “paradigm shift that could make red states blue.” To accomplish the shift, says Pinkerton, the Democrats will need to find candidates for political office who can “embody the basic cultural conservatism of the American people, including their religiosity, as Carter and Bill Clinton were able to do on their way to the White House.” Hillary Clinton’s recent moves to the Right — be they sincere or calculating — are an indication that she gets the point.
How will all this play out? Let me venture a guess: I submit that the conservatives looking to redefine themselves by calling for a less interventionist foreign policy and managed trade will have an easier time finding an agreeable middle ground than the Democrats in their flirtation with cultural conservatives. Why? Because it should be relatively easy for those looking to redefine conservatism to stake out an ideologically consistent position — that is, one in favor of using American military power only when there is a more direct threat to our national interests than existed in Iraq, intervening in economic issues only when necessary to maintain a “level playing field” for American workers and businesses, and “reasonable” limits on immigration. One can split the difference on all these issues.
But one cannot say that about the cultural issues the Democrats are focusing on. They are not subjects for compromise, not for large segments of the American Left, whose worldview is rooted in a contempt for religion often Marxist in origin. This is why the leftists who control the media and the academy persist in picturing believing Christians as Bible-belt yahoos, regardless of the believers’ IQs and advanced degrees.
This hostility toward religion is nothing new, of course. It goes back to the French Revolution. In his article, Pinkerton notes that the left-wing journalist John Reed (played by Warren Beatty in the movie Reds), “famous for his pro-Bolshevik book, Ten Days That Shook the World,” reduced William Jennings Bryan, a contemporary of Reed’s, “to little more than a sideshow for yokels and Bible-thumpers,” in spite of Bryan’s commitment to populist economic reforms. Reed’s attitude toward Bryan makes the point: for the Left, there is a gap on the role of religion in the public square — on issues such as abortion, censorship, and the sexual revolution, for example — that cannot be bridged through debate and compromise.
After all, what would the compromise on these issues look like? That abortions will be permitted only in the first trimester? That censorship will be permitted, but only of truly egregious material, with the standards for egregious to be set by a committee established in cooperation with the leaders of the Catholic Church and orthodox Jewish groups? That homosexual marriage will not be made legal, but arrangements for health care, insurance and inheritance rights for adults who share living quarters will be? You will get nowhere with the Left with these proposals. Leftists will view them as a call to sell out on matters of high principle.
But if that is the case, why then are we getting hit with these calls from liberal intellectuals for Democrats to make a William Jennings Bryan-like overture to Middle Americans whose lives revolve around their religious beliefs? Don’t the Democrats who are pushing for this overture understand that their constituents will bristle at the suggestion? They do. Let’s go back to James Pinkerton’s analysis of what the Democrats will need to carry out the overture. It will give us a clue to what the Democrats are up to. The Democrats, said Pinkerton, need someone like Bill Clinton, who was able to “embody the basic cultural conservatism of the American people, including their religiosity” on his way to the White House.
What that means is giving the appearance of respect for “religiosity,” without an iota of commitment to work for public policies that will stem the tide on the secular humanist agenda. In other words, the Left is looking for a con man capable of throwing up a smoke screen behind which they will be able to push for their agenda, which Pinkerton describes as “raising taxes, hiring more bureaucrats and multiculturalists, keeping the borders open, endorsing gay marriage, cutting defense, and putting more trust in international organizations.” The Democrats, he continues, “have an ideology that dare not speak its name.”
James Fitzpatrick's novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, is available from our online store. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
