Daniel Pipes: Conservative ally

[_bcspace]

Like so many other conservatives, I had come to assume that the Tea Party, the 2010 election results, Solyndra, 8 percent unemployment, Benghazi, and an aroused opposition (said one Romney adviser: on election day, "you just don't want to get in the way of a Republican heading into the polls") assured defeat for Barack Obama's bid for a second term. His victory was therefore particularly bitter. Was I alone in sleeping badly and avoiding the news for days?

So many analyses have been proffered for what went wrong: Romney was too conservative or not conservative enough, he ran on his biography, he shied away from winning issues, he could not connect with the masses. So many conclusions have also been drawn: conservatives need to modernize (hello, gay partnerships), they must reach out to non-whites (welcome, illegal immigrants), they should nominate true conservatives.

Myself, I subscribe to the "politics is downstream from culture" argument. While conservatives sometimes prevail in policy debates, they consistently lose in the classroom, on the best-seller list, on television, at the movies, and in the world of arts. These liberal bastions, which provide the feeders for Democratic party politics, did not develop spontaneously but result from decades of hard work traceable back to the ideas of Antonio Gramsci.

Conservatives should emulate this achievement. With Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, I look forward to the day when it will be as cool "to believe in the principles of free enterprise, the need for strong national security, the merits of traditional families, and the value of religious faith as it is to sneer at capitalism, demean the military, denigrate parents, and deride religion."

Happily, American conservatives have a counter-establishment already in place: the Wall Street Journal and Fox News Channel may be best known, but the Bradley Foundation, Pepperdine University, the Liberty Film Festival, and Commentary matter no less. Yes, conservative institutions rarely enjoy the history, resources, and prestige of their liberal counterparts – but they do exist, they are growing, and they possess a convincing and optimistic message.

It will be a long, hard road to traverse, but there is no short cut and it can succeed.

http://www.danielpipes.org/12437/future-of-conservatism

Note the title is not "Why I am voting for Mitt Romney." That's because the two major American parties, Democratic and Republican, represent contrasting outlooks and you vote for the one or other of them, not for a personality. The presidential candidate is captain of the team but its many other players act autonomously. The past half-century has seen a sharpening of the divide between the parties' philosophical consistency which I (unlike most observers) see as a positive development; who needs Rockefeller Republicans, wets, or RINOs? And ticket-splitting increases gridlock.

I vote Republican because I support the party's core message of individualism, patriotism, and respect for tradition, in contrast to the core Democratic message of dependence, self-criticism, and "progress." I am inspired by the original reading of the U.S. Constitution, by ideals of personal freedom and American exceptionalism. I vote for small government, for a return of power to the states, for a strong military, and an assertive pursuit of national interests.

And on my special issues, the Middle East and Islamism, Republicans consistently outperform Democrats. Extensive polling and many congressional actions establish this pattern for the Arab-Israeli conflict and a similar contrast exists also on other foreign policy issues, such as the Iranian nuclear buildup, energy policy, and the Arab upheavals. As for the new totalitarian ideology, Islamism, Democrats show a marked softness, just as they previously did vis-à-vis the communist one.

Finally, I worry that Barack Obama will do far more damage in a second term than he could in his first, that Obamacare will prove just the start of what, before his inauguration, I called the "fundamental restructuring of the relationship between state and society such as occurred under three of his Democratic predecessors of the past century – Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson."

And so I am voting the straight Republican ticket and urge readers to do likewise. (November 4, 2012)

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/11/why-i-am-voting-republican#continued

[_Droopy]

A brilliant piece and Pipes is exactly right. I've been arguing the same points to anyone who will listen for years.

Those institutions that underwent the longest and most sustained "long march through the institutions," which essentially means the academy, K-12 public ed., the foundations, the mainstream print and electronic media, and the entertainment industry, cannot be reformed. They cannot be altered, regenerated, or "taken back." The counter-cultural roots go too deep and are too pervasively dispersed through and interconnected with every aspect of the internal cultures and mindsets governing these institutions to lay any kind of siege to these institutions in the hope of changing those internal cultures.

In this sense, I don't think Gramsci's model can be exactly replicated in the way its been understood on the Left as a means of moving into those institutions and then boring from within until the Left becomes the institutions they desire to destroy.

Conservatives/libertarians now really need to step forward and begin an aggressive development of their own institutions and structures - their own counter-culture - that will compete directly for hearts and minds but no longer from within leftist territory or by trying to colonize its own institutions as it once did to traditional American institutions.

I'm not saying criticism of the Left and working on weakening it from without should cease, only that we must understand that the structures we now see, such as in K-12 public education or in Hollywood, are essentially permanent and ultimately cannot be reformed by beating on the castle gates from without, but new castles must be built offering those who so desire an alternative to the culture of the Ruling Class.

Great post. Pipes has always been one of my favorite public intellectuals (his dad, as I'm sure you know, is an eminent Sovietologist and scholar of Russian history ).

(Further, I also think that, ultimately, when actual discreet physical/political/economic/Zion communities do begin to be organized, constructed, and populated (especially the main community at Independence, Missouri), this will represent exactly this opportunity, not only for the Saints, but for others who desire to be associated with them as they "come out" from Babylon).

[_krose]

... I look forward to the day when it will be as cool "to believe in the principles of free enterprise, the need for strong national security, the merits of traditional families, and the value of religious faith as it is to sneer at capitalism, demean the military, denigrate parents, and deride religion."

As long as this is what conservatives think of their opposition, they're likely to shrink to an even smaller minority. Keep it up.

If you want to know the real reason the Republican party is becoming less popular every day, just read their platform.

[_Droopy]

As long as this is what conservatives think of their opposition, they're likely to shrink to an even smaller minority. Keep it up.

Its called "the Left," Krose, and it has in recent times left us a vast forty year history of books, magazine articles, movements, causes, entire academic departments, speeches, rallies, marches, manifestos, monographs and policies from which to discern its beliefs and intentions.

The description was, as we used to say in the late sixties, "right on."

[Guest]

As long as this is what conservatives think of their opposition, they're likely to shrink to an even smaller minority. Keep it up.

If you want to know the real reason the Republican party is becoming less popular every day, just read their platform.

Based on the evidence, any rational person must reject your claim that the Republican party is becoming less popular everyday.

Popular vote 2008: (millions)
Obama 69.5
McCain 59.9

Popular vote 2012:
Obama 65.9
Romney 60.9

Over the last four years in general, the Republicans gained 1 million votes. The Democrats lost 3.5 million.

However, sneering, demeaning, denigrating, and deriding is all the Democrats have and I must admit, it is effective. Whenever a woman stands up for conservative values, whenever a black person does the same, all you hear is

"War on women!"
"Uncle Tom!"

And when a white male points it out, "Racist!" "Chauvinist!"

Democrats and other Regressives themselves have created this society of entitlement, slavery, and victimhood. There is nothing they can do to solve the problem without implicating themselves and they are far too proud and blind to do that.

It's too bad the only sources of truth are conservative. That prevents Regressives from learning very much as their immediate reaction is to impeach rather than learn. All they have are regretful Liberal Regressives who belated have learn by bitter experience. Tupac Shakur for example once said "I know for a fact if I had a father, I’d have some discipline."

[_bcspace]

A brilliant piece and Pipes is exactly right. I've been arguing the same points to anyone who will listen for years.

This is a man Kevin Graham has a great deal of respect for, until now....

[_krose]

... I look forward to the day when it will be as cool "to believe in the principles of free enterprise, the need for strong national security, the merits of traditional families, and the value of religious faith as it is to sneer at capitalism, demean the military, denigrate parents, and deride religion."

Despite this foolish stereotyping, the actual fact is that the great majority of Democrats are religious, are capitalists, respect those serving in the military, love their parents and strive to be good parents themselves.

But as I said, go ahead and continue to alienate large groups of Americans. Keep insisting on building electrified border fences and using terms like "illegal aliens." Keep telling women they can't be trusted with their own uteruses, forcing them to undergo unnecessary, invasive medical tests before allowing them access to a legal, constitutionally protected procedure. Keep demonizing the working poor, by labeling those who are struggling to get by as "takers" and "moochers," and fight all forms of assistance for them. Keep using the "southern strategy."

In short, keep it up.

[_krose]

Over the last four years in general, the Republicans gained 1 million votes. The Democrats lost 3.5 million.

Yeah, in an election year when the economy was still struggling to slowly come back from a deep recession, and unemployment was hovering around 8%. The experts said there was no way an incumbent could survive those numbers. I'm sure I could go back a few months and see you confidently repeating those predictions.

Gallup recently conducted a poll asking about party preference. In the 2012 poll, those leaning Democratic are 47%, up from 45% in 2011. Leaning Republican went down from 45% to 42% in the past year.

[_bcspace]

Yeah, in an election year when the economy was still struggling to slowly come back from a deep recession, and unemployment was hovering around 8%. The experts said there was no way an incumbent could survive those numbers. I'm sure I could go back a few months and see you confidently repeating those predictions.

That merely shows they've been duped, or bought. One would think they'd have a much tighter grip considering how well they control the huge populations of NY, CA, IL, etc. Plus you claimed Republican popularity was decreasing everyday and have yet to show evidence for that. You've bought into the Democrat strategy of feasting of raised expectations rather than reality. The reality is that they almost lost it big and saved it only by lying or not being forth coming with the truth.

Gallup recently conducted a poll asking about party preference. In the 2012 poll, those leaning Democratic are 47%, up from 45% in 2011. Leaning Republican went down from 45% to 42% in the past year.

Republicans began the election season at around 30% and are now 39% (Democrats at 44%) according to Rasmussen. Republicans held a 3-5 point advantage throughout much of the election season. Hardly an indication of decline. Again, considering that much of the Democrat advantage is concentrated in three or four states, a Republican victory is hardly implausible.