Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.comment From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Taking over, taking cover Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 17:01:12 EST Message-ID: \SE G;COMMENTARY \HD Taking over, taking cover \SH Right on...forsaken...or gone? \BY Samuel Francis \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES "Gambling affords two great pleasures," quipped British statesman and playboy Charles James Fox, "the pleasure of winning and the pleasure of losing." The losers of Tuesday's election took no pleasure from their defeat, and even if some of them are more playboys than statesmen, there was no reason why they should have. What was defeated was not only President Bush, Vice President Quayle, their administration and the Republican Party but also the movement of ideas and politicians that for the last 40 years or so has called itself "conservatism." It is that defeat, which is likely to represent the extinction of conservatism as American political culture has known it since the 1950s, that is the historic result of this election. Yet, even as Mr. Bush was sinking to the bottom last week, professional conservatives gathered in the Beltway for one of their much-loved coffee-and-donuts huddles to plot, one last time, how to take over the country. They've been plotting and promising that since at least the early 1970s, when the New Right began to gather its skirts and its mailing lists, and no doubt some of them will keep on plotting and promising - and making money at it - until the trumpets sound for glory. But it was one thing to plot and promise back in the days of Jimmy Carter, when communism was lurching about the globe, Ronald Reagan was waiting in California and the "movement" was still a movement, a body of people and ideas focused on a single coherent goal of political victory. Today and in the future none of this is true. There is no communism, and hence there is no "bear in the woods," no "who lost China," no "missile gap." Instead, there is a commitment by the leaders of both major parties to promote a globalist "New World Order" in which American national interests and identity will be submerged and, perhaps, lost. There is no Ronald Reagan, and hence there is no single personality with broad appeal and proved experience around which a political movement can rally. From the time Mr. Reagan spoke in support of Barry Goldwater at the end of the 1964 campaign until this week, American conservatism has revolved around him, his aspiration to national leadership and his legacy. Now that is gone, frittered away by Mr. Bush's trivialities. Instead, there is an entire menagerie of Reagan wannabes, including Jack Kemp, Phil Gramm, Pat Robertson, Dan Quayle, Bill Bennett and others. Not until 1996 can one of them - or some other now unknown - claim the mantle, if indeed the mantle by that time will still be worth claiming. And, lastly, there is no "movement." Most conservatives have known this for at least the last couple of years, but this summer it became so obvious that even the Beltway phone booth that claims leadership of the "movement" came to see it. Neo-conservatives, never comfortable with the Republican right and always sniffing the air for the next chance to monger power and position, jumped overboard early. In August, several neo-cons endorsed Mr. Clinton in an ad in The New York Times. This fall, neo-conservative Democrat Ben Wattenberg followed their example, as did the sultan of supply-side, Arthur Laffer. Soft conservative columnist George Will endorsed Jack Kemp for president this week. Others in the "movement" from all factions sided with Mr. Bush, Ross Perot or other also-rans. This is less a coherent movement than the political version of the random zigzag of particles that physicists call "Brownian motion" or the comic bumbling of the Keystone Kops. Of course, the phone booth will rake in a fortune from the Clinton administration. Its denizens will renew their mailing lists, their subscriptions and their high-dollar donors, but it takes more than fat-cats and phone calls to make a movement or lead the nation. It takes issues, ideas and leaders to express them. Most of all, it takes followers who are willing to trust leaders, and after 12 years of promises unfulfilled, how many Americans will be willing to trust the now aging conservatives who have failed to cut the cost and size of government, failed to win the Congress or control the presidency and failed to take back either the country or its culture? How many chances to lead can you bungle before your followers just stop showing up in the morning? "Away with these baubles," shouted another British statesman, Oliver Cromwell, as he swept aside the dross and junk of a corrupt and idle government. Neither Mr. Clinton's crypto-liberalism nor the bloodless and defunct conservatism of Mr. Bush and the "movement" that sank with him offers the American people anything but baubles. Away with them all, and let Americans busy themselves with forging a new movement that can afford them, for once, the great pleasure of winning for themselves. Samuel Francis, a columnist for The Washington Times, is nationally syndicated. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM