What a difference a year makes. For American conservatism, it was
a difference between life and death.
With the inauguration of Barack Obama, American politics
were supposed to have changed for at least a generation, perhaps
longer. When Bill Kristol wrote in the New York Times a
year ago this week that “Jan. 20, 2009, marked the end of a
conservative era,” few could persuasively disagree.
Others, mostly liberals, took their diagnoses further. Not
content with inscribing an obituary for Republican political
dominance, Sam Tanenhaus penned an essay and then a book about
“the death of conservatism” itself. Even a year before the
election, not long after the Democratic midterm victory, an early
2007 Daily Kos headline boasted that “Conservatism is Dead, and It’s Not Coming
Back.” From left-leaning columnists to television pundits, the
list of those ready (and eager) to pronounce the conservative
movement’s demise seemed endless.
But then, on January 19, 2010, the state of Massachusetts
opted to replace Edward M. Kennedy with a conservative Republican
named Scott P. Brown in a special election for the liberal lion’s
old Senate seat. This victory, utterly seismic no matter which
way it’s spun, literally came out of the bluest of the
blue.
The obituaries have been shattered. Conservatism, albeit
with scars still apparent, is quite obviously alive and preparing
itself to govern again soon.
Even before this week’s special election or the twin GOP
gubernatorial victories last November, the right could be seen
slowly climbing back to its feet. By mid-September, after a
summer-long exertion of anti-Obamacare sentiment across the
nation, a New York Times headline conceded: “G.O.P.
Checks for a Pulse, and Finds One.”
But did the American right really die and resurrect itself
after only three years? What actually happened?
Sometime in December 2008, I remember attending a panel
discussion hosted by Georgetown University’s Tocqueville Forum
about the consequences of the recent election. On the prospect of
a new progressive era upon us, Professor Michael Kazin, who
supported Obama, was actually quite cautious. He argued that
unlike its counterpart, liberalism tends to showcase itself more
in sporadic moments and less in extended periods of
governance.
Examples of this phenomenon could be found in the labor
movement of the 1930s, the civil rights movement of the 1950/60s,
and the women’s liberation movement of the 1960/70s. Each came to
a head in either a major election (Roosevelt’s second term, 1936)
or a major bill (Civil Rights Act, 1964) or a major Supreme Court
decision (Roe v. Wade, 1973).
But as Kristol (who also sat on the panel) rightly noted,
the true significance of major political victories historically
depends on how the victors govern. Franklin Roosevelt’s
powerfully effective administration set the tone of not only the
'30s, but also the '40s and the '50s. Conversely, when Clinton’s
agenda floundered early on and allowed for the Republican
takeover of Congress in 1994, he ensured that the “Age of Reagan”
would continue even without a Republican in the White
House.
We are now discovering that, as a result of Barack Obama’s
first year in office, the 2008 election actually more closely
resembled that of 1992 than 1932. Realigning elections, after
all, only occur if they are followed by what Kristol called
“realigning administrations.” Whether or not a president can
achieve this status has always depended just as much on whether
or not the party in opposition can foster ideas viable enough to
counter those in power.
Thus, when Ed Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation
(and, for disclosure’s sake, my boss), spoke to a large gathering
of conservatives last November and declared that “we have it in
our power to turn this new liberal era into a brief, lamentable
moment,” he was referring to history. Liberalism’s future — -as
an era or as a moment — remains in the right’s hands as much as
the left’s.
Precisely how decisive a role each side played in Martha
Coakley’s defeat will be debated for weeks to come. Did the right
really hit a grand slam or did the left just suffer a
ninth-inning choke? Or was it a bit of both? In any case,
American democracy has delivered a stiff shot to the jaw of
Obama’s entire party and reaffirmed that his election was, as
Charles Krauthammer noted last Friday, “not an endorsement
of European-style social democracy” after all.
Exactly a year into what was supposed to be the “Age of
Obama,” we can now see that Obama’s assumption of the presidency
did not represent the advent of a brand new political era but
rather just another flashy moment for liberalism. It was a vastly
historic and deeply emotional moment, to be sure, but a mere
moment nevertheless. Scott Brown’s victory would not have been
possible if this weren’t so.
So is the Democratic Party now on its deathbed? Certainly
not. Is a new conservative era now underway? No, not yet. But
Tuesday’s election cannot be minimized. When asked to support a
would-be “ally” for President Obama and, by extension, vote for
his exclusively Democrat-backed health care overhaul,
Massachusetts, of all electorates, politely declined. Indeed,
they ran the other way.
As conservatives celebrate, surely they now have more than
the beat of their pulse to dance to.
