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By Paul M. Weyrich and William S. Lind
July 14, 2007
This is the fiftieth essay in our Next Conservatism series and it is a good point to look back at the road we have traveled. When we began this series we were thinking we might write a dozen essays on where the conservative movement needs to go. Now we are at fifty essays and still counting; we have no intention of stopping here. Why not? Mainly because of the overwhelming response from people who see the need for something new if conservatism is to deal with the problems of the twenty-first century.
The Next Conservatism is not yet a movement but it may be on its way to becoming one. The February 12 issue of The American Conservative carried the Next Conservatism as its cover story in a piece we co-authored. Three other leading conservative thinkers offered their comments in the same issue. None was really hostile.
We are also getting growing interest in the Next Conservatism from Capitol Hill. Senators and Members of Congress are coming to see that the supposed conservatism of the Republican Party is inadequate both intellectually and politically. It neither motivates the grassroots nor comes to grips with the problems facing our country. We are now talking with a leading conservative publisher about writing a book on the Next Conservatism. Despite all the new media, at a certain point a movement needs a book. Nothing else works for laying out a program and a plan. Somehow, we find the continued importance of books comforting.
Most important and encouraging to us has been the response of the conservative grassroots. People are sick of the games they see being played in Washington. They know that Washington is not doing what needs to be done to govern our country. Spending is still out of control with vast budget and trade deficits and a pyramid of public and private debt that could create a depression if it crashes. Uncontrolled immigration is flooding our country with people whose culture and traditions are alien to our own. Some businesses along the border accept pesos as well as dollars in payment. Our economy may be going great for big international corporations but we continue to hemorrhage manufacturing jobs at a fearful rate thanks to a policy of mindless free trade. How can conservatives talk about being pro-family if we do not protect the kind of good-paying jobs breadwinners need to support a family?
Looming over everything is the disaster of Iraq. Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy, resurrected by a Republican President, has again brought us nothing but grief just as it did under Wilson. Conservatives in Washington may have forgotten the wisdom of Senator Robert A. Taft, but Americans in the heartland have not. The real conservatives out there know we should never go to war except to defend America’s own national security and the most significant threat to that security lies on our border with Mexico where the Bush Administration’s Justice Department is prosecuting Border Patrol agents for shooting back.
Grassroots conservatives have surprised us in some of their reactions to our essays. We did not think many Americans would share our interest in agrarianism, in bringing back the family farm as a way of life many families could enjoy. We received tremendous response to that idea. It seems many people remember farm life as a good one, especially for children.
We are not sure how people would react to our idea of retro-culture, of recognizing that life in the past was better in many ways than life today and trying to bring some of the old ways back. Again, we have gotten many positive responses. It seems the Modernizers who endlessly warn that we can’t go back have not bamboozled everyone. Memory, especially memories of how good life was in the 1950s, can still overcome ideology.
Most encouragingly, grassroots conservatives have told us that they, too, are disgusted by a conservatism that is defined as nothing more than “I’ve got mine.” America’s coastal elites seem to sing endlessly that old song called “I Want What I Want When I Want It.” The grassroots conservatives of America’s heartland reply with a hymn that begins “Turn Back, O Man, and Forswear Thy Foolish Ways.” It is the heartland and not the elites who are in touch with reality.
So this fiftieth essay is a long way from marking the end of the Next Conservatism series. In fact, we would like to open it up to more authors. If you have a topic you think is important to the Next Conservatism agenda please contact us. We will be happy to consider an essay from you. We don’t have all the answers or all the questions, for that matter. Building the Next Conservatism and the new conservative movement is work for many hands. Thanks to the interest and support of the good people who make up the conservative grassroots we are confident that this work will go forward.
By Paul M. Weyrich and William S. Lind
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