Reply #9: Part of the conservatives' problem is that liberalism isn't what it used to be

[starroute]

The New Deal-style liberalism that Buckley started railing against in the late 40's was closely tied to modernism and early 20th century ideas of progress. It was based on the belief that human beings were blank slates and you could engineer society into any shape you chose. It was generally well-meaning but all too often ruthless and top-down and out of touch with ordinary human needs and the wisdom of long-established social institutions.

That flavor of liberalism was still around in the 60's. It was behind the assumption that you could implement school desegregation through massive busing and that neighborhood schools were of no importance -- that neighborhoods themselves, with their deep family ties and cultural roots, were of no importance.

But that sort of liberalism no longer exists. It got hammered from all sides -- by the critiques of Buckley-style conservatives on the right, by grassroots community organizers on the left, and by a general cultural sea-change down the middle.

The conservative writer quoted in the OP still thinks it exists. He says, "The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress," and goes on to decry "the left's belief in political solutions for everything."

But he's fighting ghosts -- thinking that if the right went back to its arguments of 40 years ago, the liberal targets of 40 years ago would still be there to hit. This is why even the teabaggers have to rant about socialism and government takeovers. They're living in a dream of the last glory days of conservatism and not in present-day realities

It may also be one reason why they show such a virulent hatred for ACORN and for community organizes in general. These bottom-up anti-poverty groups are the absolute antithesis of old-fashioned liberalism, and the right has no intellectual basis for arguing against them, so all it can do is try to destroy them.

At the same time, it's becoming clear that the corporations have all the socially destructive impact that even a conservative should hate. They destroy long-established communities by pulling out industries those communities are dependent upon. They weaken families by destroying leisure. They pervert venerable institutions into sources of profit.

But today's right-wing doesn't seem to care about any of that -- to a degree where it's probably an insult to conservatism to continue to call them conservatives. They don't actually seem to want to conserve anything, except for "traditional" (which is to say, 19th century) forms of marriage. For the rest, they're perfectly happy living rootlessly in the land of trailer parks and fast food, with no sense of community and no cultural memory.