GILMORE: Conservatism has too many voices

OPINION/ANALYSIS:

The election of Barack Obama opens the door to the implementation of a new-left program, which I have called the “new socialism.”

Grounded in fear after the Sept. 11 attacks and Wall Street panic and fueled by a great anger and frustration with the Bush administration, a long-sought program of the political left is under way.

The political rules that have developed over years - seniority, campaign-finance restrictions and pork-barrel politics in both parties - may make it difficult, if not impossible, to arrest this leftist program.

The nation’s only hope rests in the conservative movement, which must provide the intellectual underpinnings for new and different directions for America.

The challenge we face is that the conservative movement does not speak only with many voices, but with contradictory voices. The shrill conflict in the conservative movement comes at a time when the American people are tired of conflict.

During the eight years of the Bush administration, the liberals attacked relentlessly. The Bush response was often cloaked in swagger and hubris. Left-leaning journalists have heaped scorn, contempt and anger on George W. Bush, who became a stand-in for conservatives.

The task now is not just to explain better, but also to convince people that the individual still has value and that the state should not control all the options a citizen has in his daily life.

Is the conservative movement capable today of providing that direction? It is not. There are too many groups with too many disparate messages.

What are these groups, and what are they saying?

First, many Catholics and Protestant evangelicals are in politics to further the pro-life cause. Other values come up, but political support almost always boils down to the abortion issue. Mere allies to the pro-life movement are no longer tolerated.

A second group is the fiscal conservatives, who believe in smaller government and lower taxes. Yet we live today in a society trained to think that government spending costs nothing. Failure to spend and expand government programs is seen as stingy, cold or insensitive. The more people depend on government programs, the more they have a vested interest in the taxpayers money.

Americans in business at one time were reliable members of the conservative movement.

After all, they operated in a free society that rewarded risk and creative wealth. No longer. Today the business community often seeks heavy public spending and higher taxes. The taxpayer finances contracts, jobs and pork-barrel spending. Some business people are not at home with evangelicals, and some dislike fiscal conservatives.

The neoconservatives who emerged during the Bush administration believe in vigorous projection of American power in our foreign policy. Like Woodrow Wilson, their belief is that only the spread of democracy will provide for American national security.

Story Continues →