I thought this was fascinating internal PR and messaging from everyone’s favorite society . . . the Federalist Society, which has been essential in bringing us such recent favorites as “Overturning Roe v. Wade” They have a newish essay out by John Daniel Davidson: “We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives.”
I think there’s a lot of merit to this idea, at least on its own. Trying to align the “GOP” with “conservatism” over the last 25-30 years has been borderline-impossible and it’s probably never been all that easy.
But anyway, he argues that the long-term conservative project (stretching from Edmund Burke to Buckley to Reagan, one presumes) has failed; that the right must “must break from the past and forge a new political identity cannot be overstated. It is time now for something new, for a new way of thinking.” He suggests counterrevolutionaries or restorationists, or even taking the pilgrims as role models. But to be successful, the right must:
discard outdated and irrelevant notions about “small government.” The government will have to become, in the hands of conservatives, an instrument of renewal in American life — and in some cases, a blunt instrument indeed.
For example:
wielding government power will mean a dramatic expansion of the criminal code.
The time for the niceties of democratic principles and concerns about authoritarianism have passed.
To those who worry that power corrupts, and that once the right seizes power it too will be corrupted, they certainly have a point. If conservatives manage to save the country and rebuild our institutions, will they ever relinquish power and go the way of Cincinnatus? It is a fair question, and we should attend to it with care after we have won the war.
Okay, so who’s down for this? What do you want to be called?
