The basic problem with George Packer's
New Yorker piece on "The Fall of Conservatism" is that
Packer conflates conservatism with Republicanism to such a degree
that GOP electoral success becomes a metric of the validity of
conservative ideas. Thus, Packer's subtitle:
Have the Republicans run out of
ideas?
Conservative ideas were as valid in 1964 and 1974 as they are
today, yet '64 and '74 were the two worst years for the GOP in the
past half-century. Indeed, as any reader of Al Regnery's
Upstream would
know, the original seeds of what became the modern conservative
movement were sown in the 1940s, when Democrats ruled the roost.
The movement grew during the 1950s and anyone who has read William
F. Buckley Jr.'s 1959 book
Up From Liberalism knows that Buckley was a caustic critic
of Eisenhower's "Modern Republicanism." (Do these New
Yorker writers never read any good books?)
However woeful the current state of affairs for Republicans --
and things
look pretty grim -- this is not a reflection on conservative
philosophy as such, especially since GOP officeholders have
hardly been paragons of conservatism in recent years.
topics:
Books, Conservatism
