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WHAT CAN I DO?
“And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service.”
—Ephesians 4:11
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
—From Spider-Man
America is better off when conservatism is a thriving and thoughtful force for good, contributing to the great debates of our time. Otherwise, the Republic suffers. Such a renaissance is both possible and within our power to achieve. Of course, the next question is, how do we make it happen? The previous chapter dealt with how and why conservative leaders and politicians must adapt conservatism to win the twenty-first century at the macro level. This chapter examines how we, as individuals and groups, can do our part at the micro level. This requires each of us to accept responsibility for the movement. And, in a sense, this is really just a microcosm of what is required of a healthy nation. “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion,” wrote John Adams. “Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” A well-run movement operates the same way. It can function only if people voluntarily behave appropriately and set aside personal ambitions for the good of the cause. It can happen only if there are leaders and “adults” who accept their responsibilities to serve.
The problem is that this is sort of like voting. Just as one person’s vote (I hate to break this to you) rarely matters, our votes are collectively very important. If everyone acts as if his or her vote doesn’t count, that will have serious ramifications. So we each have a responsibility to vote, but the truth is that this won’t amount to much unless others join in, too. But this is easier said than done. How should conservatives comport themselves if we are to end the “too dumb to fail” conundrum?
In the remaining pages, I will provide some advice—first, general (for all of us), and then more specific (for individual roles, such as columnists, talk radio hosts, political consultants, etc.). But let’s start with some things we can probably all work on…
For All of Us…
1. Be a Happy Warrior
Passion is a vital ingredient to success, but blind anger makes us stupid. People who are mad don’t think rationally. Instead, they take unwise risks, are susceptible to traps laid by their enemies, and make otherwise foolish mistakes. Look again to Ronald Reagan, the quintessential happy warrior. One of conservative leader Morton Blackwell’s “Laws of the Public Policy Process” is: “Don’t get mad except on purpose.” To be sure, Reagan could feign anger (“I am paying for this microphone!”), but like Fonzie, he almost never lost his cool. Getting mad also plays into the stereotype that conservatives are mean. “I’m a conservative, but I’m not mad at anyone about it,” former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee once quipped. It was funny because it was true.
But especially since President Obama’s election and the rise of the Tea Party, the trend has been toward anger. In fact, we now conflate passion with ideological purity to the degree that one’s level of anger has become the litmus test for judging one’s conservative credentials. To some, “fighting the Left” has become the only core value. It’s always fun to pretend that your tribe is simultaneously right on all the issues—and yet perpetually victimized. If liberals are bullies, then conservatives are aping the Left and becoming bullies…with persecution complexes.
Positive optimism is important for all of us hoping to win converts and preserve our own sanity. But it’s even more important for leaders. It’s hard to follow someone who believes your side is destined to fail. Can you imagine a football coach rallying his team at halftime by saying, “Look, they got us beat. And I don’t see how we can come back in the second half”? Great leaders are also great inspirers. That doesn’t mean they ignore problems or pretend they will fix themselves. But if your leader doesn’t provide hope, then you’ve got problems. Why would you want to follow that leader?
2. Reject Anger
It’s easy to simply decree that we should be happy warriors, but pulling it off in the midst of political battle is another thing. Devout Christian conservatives (or, for that matter, other people of devout faith) can especially face tension between their faith and their political activism. We are called to love our neighbors and bless those who curse us, which works for a happy warrior—but not for an angry warrior. If you truly believe that the spiritual world is eternal and vastly more important than this carnal world, it’s easier to endure the slings and arrows of losing an election. Fear is the opposite of faith. Nevertheless, there is a sort of religious tenor to this fear and anger, and I suspect it is based on an apocalyptic sense that time is running out.
Where do we get the sense that things are so bad? Talking heads make careers out of whipping us into a frenzy, like an old man stocking up at a supermarket before an imminent snowstorm. (If you listen to talk radio, you’re no doubt familiar with the ads for survivalist food storage, stockpiling gold, etc.) Scarcity leads to hoarding, which is a far cry from living an abundant life where God supplies all your needs “according to His riches in glory.” If you believe, as Jack Kemp did, that we can grow the pie, then you’re likely to be more generous with what you’ve been blessed with. But if you believe that you (and your children and their children) could lose your already-small piece of the pie, you will become fearful and angry. So which are you? Even for those who put their trust in the Lord, there are some things worthy of fear. Sometimes bad things do happen to good nations. However, it’s important to realize that huge industries called “Politics, Inc.” and “Media, Inc.” profit from pushing our emotional buttons to extremes.
Aside from the professional button pushers, I have another theory to help explain the ubiquity of anger. Some of the people now passing judgment on everybody else were asleep for the last thirty years. These people woke up one day and realized America was in trouble, and all of a sudden, they have become the arbiter of everything conservative. I think some of these people are angry at themselves. They were asleep at the switch, and they’re trying to make up for lost time, so their “no compromise” position is a result of going from zero to sixty—from zero involvement to overindulgence—and they now feel that if they don’t do something, the world is going to collapse. And that they’ll be partly to blame. This is zealotry of the convert, or what novelist David Foster Wallace called “the ‘moral clarity’ of the immature.” Unfortunately, this “making up for lost time” is often counterproductive. Politics is important—even noble—but it’s important to find balance in your life. Family, friends, faith, and hobbies can keep us grounded.
3. Find Your Calling
One of my favorite actors was Philip Seymour Hoffman. Though he got his Academy Award for his starring role in Capote, it was his supporting work as a character actor in films like Scent of a Woman, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Charlie Wilson’s War that I loved. Hoffman was at his best when you didn’t even know he was the actor. Everyone wants to be the star, but Hoffman was humble enough to accept supporting roles. And often, he stole the show. I suspect the conservative movement needs more people willing to be Phil Hoffman, and fewer wanting to be Tom Cruise.
The existence of role players was vitally important during the rise of the conservative movement in America, too. There were intellectuals like Bill Buckley, statesmen like Reagan, Senate rabble-rousers like Jesse Helms, conservative activists and organizational entrepreneurs like Paul Weyrich, operatives like Pat Buchanan (and even direct mail guru Richard Viguerie), journalists like Robert Novak, and columnists like George Will. Each of these men had their part to play in the conservative movement. They didn’t always agree, but they did work in complementary fashion. Today, these players might instead step on one another’s toes, wade into the other guy’s turf, and “troll” the other guys on Twitter. They would all probably try to run for president—or, at least, float the notion in order to generate buzz. I’m not suggesting that there weren’t fights during the “good old days” (there were), but I am suggesting that we can take a page from that generation. Not everyone needs to run for president. We all have our role to play.
4. Stay Humble
Another good piece of advice is to embrace humility. It is a virtue that should come naturally to conservatives who, unlike liberals, suffer no illusion that we have all the solutions or can fix all the world’s problems. Epistemological modesty is one of the hallmarks of conservatism. Liberals may think their utopian schemes and “comprehensive” plans can manage an economy or fix health care, but conservatives are supposed to be humble enough to realize this is a fatal conceit. There’s a reason Greek tragedies warned us against flying too close to the sun. Today, there is such a need for humility that New York Times columnist David Brooks even taught a course on it at Yale, with a syllabus that featured required readings of Edmund Burke, Reinhold Niebuhr, Augustine, Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, and Martin Luther King Jr. Talk about a countercultural topic. More than one observer thought it ironic that Brooks, who has been accused of being haughty and self-righteous by his critics, would teach a course on humility. But the truth is that this is a value that has sadly receded from our culture. In fact, in a world where you have to hustle and be a “rugged individualist,” it almost sounds like bad advice to tell someone to be more humble. It goes against both today’s “conservative” ethos and the mainstream commercial culture. As Hillsdale College’s David J. Bobb, author of Humility: An Unlikely Biography of America’s Greatest Virtue, points out, rapper Kanye West once said, “People always tell you, ‘Be humble. Be humble.’ When was the last time someone told you to be amazing? Be great! Be great! Be awesome! Be awesome!”
Unfortunately, this attitude has transcended the entertainment world and infiltrated our elected leaders. From Kanye to Cruz (is it a coincidence that Kanye West was called a “jackass” by President Obama—and Ted Cruz was called that exact same word by then Speaker John Boehner?), one gets the sense that some of the most talented figures in America—the “stars” we worship—too often embrace humility’s opposite: arrogance. Consider some of what Donald Trump has said: “I’m really rich,” “I’ll be the best jobs president God’s created,” “Sorry, losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest,” and (during one Meet the Press appearance, in which he said that it is hard for women to attack his looks) “because I’m so good-looking.” Today everyone craves fame and attention and riches. Nobody wants to be a respected character actor; everyone wants to play the lead. In a strict hierarchical organization (think the US Marines) people are forced to subjugate their personal whims and follow orders. There is a proper chain of command. Until recently, much of civilization functioned via an informal pecking order. Today, that’s out the window. This trend is not only bad for our country, but it’s also bad for the conservative movement.
5. Go to School
How can a conservative movement leader—or even a foot soldier—avoid the pitfalls of ignorance and narcissism inherent in the political word? Go to school. I don’t just mean get a college degree (although that’s not a bad idea); rather, bone up on the issues long before you write a letter to the editor, pop off on Facebook, speak out at a town hall, volunteer on a campaign, or even run for office yourself. Someone who wants to work effectively in conservative politics should devote hundreds of hours to studying a wide variety of subjects. Even someone who simply wants to be a more informed voter or a more effective activist would benefit greatly from investing this time.
Former Texas governor Rick Perry learned this lesson during his failed 2012 presidential run. “I did not prepare,” Perry confessed to Joe Scarborough during a 2014 episode of MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “I was a bit arrogant,” he conceded. “To run for the highest office in this country, and the most influential position in the world, requires an extensive amount of preparation. Whether it’s domestic policy, whether it’s monetary policy, whether it’s foreign policy. And I did not prepare.” It was a remarkable admission. In fairness to Perry, his star-crossed 2012 campaign can be partly blamed on the back surgery he endured weeks before jumping into the campaign. Still, give him credit for “going to school” and boning up on the issues before pursuing the nomination again. I wish Sarah Palin had done that in 2008. Had she spent a few years gaining expertise, Palin might have parlayed her charisma and name recognition into something extraordinary. Instead, she chose the route of populist firebrand at Tea Party rallies, a Fox News contract, and the allure of a reality TV show. She made money, but one wonders what might have been.
For those looking to increase their knowledge, an obvious place to start is the conservative canon (see my reading list in the afterword of this book). Being a “gut” conservative—someone who listens to talk radio, agrees taxes are too high, and hates abortion—is fine. That’s what I was for much of my early life. But to advance you must supplement this with a coherent worldview that will hold up when you are confronted with opposing viewpoints or adverse conditions. Having a passable understanding of conservative philosophy is good; possessing that alongside an understanding of the practical side of politics is even better. Political philosophy is important, but how do you run an effective “Get Out the Vote” operation or raise enough money to win on Election Day? Understanding the nuts and bolts of a political campaign will not only help you understand the process, but it will also help explain some of the compromises and calculations that inexorably led to the dumbing down of conservatism.
What else? Any educated person should have a good understanding of history. A rudimentary knowledge of religion and theology is helpful for anyone who wants to understand Western civilization. This is especially good advice for secular readers who weren’t brought up in a faith tradition. And don’t forget popular culture. It would be a mistake to waste your life watching TV, but anyone who wants to positively impact the culture had better know something about it. You don’t have to be an expert, but anyone who doesn’t know who Jennifer Lawrence is will appear out of touch. Aside from books, read some newspapers (the New York Times and Wall Street Journal), magazines (National Review, the Weekly Standard), quarterly journals (like Yuval Levin’s National Affairs), and as much online material as you can find (might I suggest the Daily Caller, TheWeek.com, the Daily Beast, and the Telegraph). Although I am sometimes critical of Twitter (it’s “garbage in, garbage out”), if you follow the right people, you’ll find it’s a terrific way to curate the content you must read every day.
Those who want to do more than just dabble in politics need to go one step further. Instead of getting all their information from behind a media filter, they should try building policy knowledge closer to the source by reading white papers from think tanks on topics like economics, monetary policy, foreign policy/international relations, health care, governmental bureaucracies, entitlement spending, policing, and prison reform. For politicians, academics, and journalists, think tanks can be a big help. Unfortunately, some think tanks are moving away from their core missions. When one considers the struggles required to launch these bastions of conservative thought to obtain intellectual parity with the Left, that’s a real shame.
In Lee Edwards’s The Power of Ideas: The Heritage Foundation at 25 Years, the veteran conservative writer recalls how activist Paul Weyrich, with the help of then Nixon aide Lyn Nofziger, persuaded beer magnate Joseph Coors to invest in starting the Heritage Foundation—even though another conservative think tank, ostensibly dedicated to the same mission, already existed. As Edwards writes, after a meeting with Coors,
Weyrich was excited about how well the presentation had gone until he learned that Coors was also considering “investing” in the American Enterprise Institute. His high hopes collapsed. How could an unknown, untested research firm compete with a respected think tank that had been operating for nearly thirty years? Casting about for help, Weyrich arranged for Coors and [Jack] Wilson to talk with fellow conservative Lyn Nofziger, a deputy assistant to President Nixon for congressional relations. Along with Ed Feulner, they met in Nofziger’s large pastel-blue office in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House.
“So, what about AEI?” Coors asked Nofziger.
“AEI?” repeated the White House aide. And, according to Weyrich, he strolled over to a bookshelf and blew some dust off an AEI study. “That’s what they’re good for—collecting dust. They do great work but they’re not timely. What we need are studies for Congress while legislation is being considered.”
At the time, conservatives had enough mere thinkers; they needed some doers. Today, the situation is almost 180 degrees in reverse. There’s no shortage of activist groups. Meanwhile, AEI has not strayed from its core intellectual mission. Conversely, in January of 2013 the Heritage Foundation was taken over by former South Carolina senator Jim DeMint, a fiery Southern conservative known more for his conservative political stances than for any academic credentials. In 2013, the group reportedly spent $100,000 on online advertising attacking former DeMint protégé Marco Rubio for his support of “amnesty.”114 “The ad campaign reflects the ongoing debasement of think tanks: nominally, these groups are supposed to be engaged in policy research, but they look increasingly like tax-advantaged vehicles for political activism,” wrote Business Insider’s Josh Barro.
Heritage doesn’t just “look like” an activist group; it started a full-fledged activist arm called Heritage Action for America, which uses a “scorecard” and “watchlist” to pressure members of Congress. The danger is that this sort of lobbying might make it harder for Heritage to serve as an impartial and reliable resource for conservatives. Though there was once a real need for conservative activist organizations that could lobby politicians and hold their feet to the fire, in recent years numerous groups dedicated to this very cause have emerged. By the time Heritage decided to make this move, there were already activist groups like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks—and there were already conservative pressure groups like the Club for Growth115 and Senate Conservatives Fund that scored legislation and ranked politicians (something the American Conservative Union has done for years). Why get into a business that is already saturated? One supposes there are ulterior motives, such as expanding the base of donors.
6. Teach Your Children Well
According to popular evangelical author Nancy Pearcey, “The main reason people abandon their Christian upbringing is unanswered intellectual questions.”116 This was her experience, at least. Raised a Christian, she lost her faith. “Eventually I concluded that Christianity must not have any substantial answers,” she said during a recent interview, but “after several years as an agnostic, I finally stumbled across L’Abri, the work of Francis and Edith Schaeffer in Switzerland. There for the first time I met people who offered reasons and arguments supporting the truth of Christianity.”
Why bring this up? Whether or not you accept evolution or climate change, if you’re a conservative reading this book, you probably at least believe in free markets. And, as such, you would probably agree that protectionism makes for lousy economics. And—I would argue—for equally lousy theology. A young Christian who has been exposed to various theories ranging from young earth creationism to intelligent design to Darwinian evolution will be better prepared to handle an atheistic college professor than a young student who has been sheltered from these sort of debates (who then might suddenly find his entire worldview crashing down around him or her as soon as he or she leaves for college).
Today, I see plenty of examples where conservatives end up looking foolish because they are ill equipped to answer these questions in an intelligent manner that persuasively makes the case for a conservative worldview, and does so in a manner that is intellectually honest and defensible. A one-hour-per-week faith simply will not last longer than a generation.
During the Christmas of 2014, an open debate took place amongst those who write “think” pieces about whether kids should be taught about Santa Claus. I didn’t weigh in, but when I was a kid, my dad (when asked) opted to tell me the truth. “I’m telling you this because I want you to know that I tell you the truth,” he said. “Then, you’ll know I’m not lying to you when I tell you God is real.” I’m not suggesting your parents were wrong if they allowed you to entertain this fantasy or that you suffered some sort of identity crisis upon learning (spoiler alert!) that a jolly fat man did not, in fact, slide down your chimney each year. But I am suggesting that credibility matters. Even if—perhaps especially if—you are steeped in faith.
We walk by faith, not by sight. But the head matters, too—and fealty to the facts is essential to establish credibility. My dad never read Augustine’s The Literal Meaning of Genesis, but I think he’d agree with what Augustine had to say about the importance of being known as an honest broker that deals in reality:
It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these [scientific] topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.…
If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven?
Conservatives must be more rigorous than our ideological opponents. Not just for ethical reasons, but also for practical ones. With the Left in solid control of the media and academia, the Right is simply outgunned. It has to be better, stronger, tougher, smarter. Propagating information we know to be false—or failing to fact-check out of fear of finding out we’ve been wrong about something all along—is intellectual protectionism. And it’s as effective as was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.
For Leaders…
Now, let’s turn to some specific advice for specific role players in the conservative movement.
1. Politicians
Once you’ve “gone to school” and become a well-rounded, constantly learning conservative, you may be tantalized by the prospect of running for office yourself, whether it’s US representative or local city councilperson. It’s a noble impulse, but also a huge commitment and responsibility. First, think long and hard about whether this is the right move for you and your family—and for the conservative cause. Is there anything about you or your past that could come out and tarnish your reputation or make the movement look bad? Second, as always, bone up on the issues. Lastly, don’t be a Liz Cheney and try to start at the top. Pay your dues. Maybe even as a precinct committeeperson. That’s where Calvin Coolidge started—though it’s not where he finished. In the process, you’ll earn people’s respect, join civic and volunteer organizations in your community, and gain knowledge and experience that will come in handy once you’re in higher office.
We each have a role to play. While it was appropriate and heroic for Bill Buckley to take on the John Birch Society, Ronald Reagan’s take on the group was entirely different: “They’re buying my philosophy. I’m not buying theirs.” Likewise, the next Republican nominee should leave it to people like me to take the slings and arrows from fringe elements in the base. His or her job is to win the election—and then lead.
Is there a role for some good old-fashioned “bomb thrower” in politics today? There is a proud tradition of the gadfly, truth-teller pol who eschews backroom deal making, fights for ideological purity, stands on principle, and employs all means at his or her disposal, including the filibuster, to resist the tyranny of the majority. Whether you agree with him, or not, former senator Jesse Helms comes to mind. In the past, however, politicians accepted their roles. And, as a rule, they didn’t try to run for president (though Helms was sometimes rumored to have presidential ambitions). And therein lies the problem. Today’s bomb throwers are simultaneously running for president. This clouds their judgment, and makes their motives questionable.
When Ted Cruz leads an effort that ultimately shuts down the government, you have to wonder if he’s doing it to score points with the base. America needs principled politicians who are willing to rock the boat and even occasionally take on an unrealistic and impractical mission. But problems arise when these role players want to star in the film. Not only do we question their motives, but their eccentric excesses are now magnified by a twenty-four-hour news media. Such bomb throwers have come to define what conservatism is to a lot of Americans. If you are emulating that model in your community, you are only confirming the worst caricatures of conservatism to your friends and neighbors.
These candidates are empowered by the rise of outside groups. These are the outfits that endorse candidates, bundle for them (collect checks from member donors), and run independent expenditure ads on a candidate’s behalf. The biggest problem these groups seem to face is in vetting their candidates. So my advice is this: before investing your donor’s hard-earned money into a campaign (or a group that financially supports candidates), it’s prudent to do a little research. Is this a winnable race? Does this person have a track record (and even better, a voting record) of supporting the causes important to you—or is he or she telling you what you want to hear because this year it’s popular to be a grassroots conservative? And last, but not least, is this a person of honor with whom you want to be associated?
It’s easy to get caught up in the maelstrom of a political war, but don’t go too far with this. Always put honor and integrity first. Remember that your enemies are also children of God. And even if you want to be purely Machiavellian about it, keep in mind that a lot of people who get caught up in political warfare end up harming themselves, as well as the cause they love. Remember the blogger who broke into the nursing home of Thad Cochran’s bedridden wife? Not only did he land in hot water, and not only did one of the alleged coconspirators commit suicide, but his actions arguably helped cost Chris McDaniel—the candidate the blogger supported—the chance to win his primary outright, thus avoiding a runoff.
Take some advice from Richard Nixon, a man who got caught up in pointless political warfare and games (I say pointless, because his campaign was destined to win, making the shenanigans the Watergate burglars engaged in not only stupid and morally bankrupt, but also superfluous). This is what Nixon had to say the day he left office in disgrace (it’s actually solid advice): “Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them and then you destroy yourself.”
2. Strategists and Political Operatives
People who work in campaigns—especially the decision makers—all have a part to play, too. During a 2007 interview with conservative bloggers Rob Bluey and Ed Morrissey, former Speaker Newt Gingrich said this:
I think Republican consultants are mostly very stupid. I think they have no education. I think they have no sense of history.…If I throw away African Americans, and then I throw away Latinos, and then I throw away suburban women, and then I throw away people under forty, and then I throw away everything north of Philadelphia—there’s a morning where Republicans can’t get to a majority.
This quote is kind of amazing. Here is Gingrich in 2007, worrying about the GOP writing off Latinos—and young people—and suburban women. He was ahead of his time. But what did he mean when he said that consultants “throw away” suburban women, African Americans, and others?
With all due respect to Newt, political consultants aren’t stupid, so much as they are obsessed with short-term thinking (and making money). Their immediate goal is to win a November election, and all their strategies and tactics are seen through the prism of that deadline. A campaign is an operation that knows it’s going out of business the first Tuesday in November, which means they aren’t terribly worried about repeat customers. The trouble is that sometimes the things that are good for you this November are death for your cause beginning ten Novembers from now—and then, possibly in perpetuity.
Let’s take the concept strategists refer to as “targeting.” Generally speaking, this process involves identifying eligible, persuadable, likely voters, winning them over to your side, and then making sure they actually turn out to vote for you.
Because time and money are limited quantities, campaigns typically husband most of their resources on this select group, and devote almost zero resources to people outside this rubric. It is incredibly hard to persuade someone who actively opposes your candidate to vote for your candidate, so any Republican campaign premised on wooing loyal Democratic voters is in grave danger. Likewise, it is much easier to get someone who is a frequent voter (and this is public information) to vote for your candidate than it is to persuade someone with no track record of voting to go to the trouble of registering and showing up at the ballot box (and then, to actually vote for your candidate), so any campaign whose victory plan is contingent on registering new voters is essentially throwing a Hail Mary. That is to say that it could theoretically work, but it is an unorthodox act of desperation, only to be attempted after all other strategies have been exhausted.
In the short run, targeted voter contact is wise and efficient. If your liberal opponent is knocking on the doors on the conservative side of town, and you’re knocking on the doors of likely voters who are undecided, you’re being more efficient and productive. But there’s a catch. Targeting certain voters means ignoring others. That’s what Newt means when he says consultants “throw away” certain voters. Consultants make a strategic decision to ignore certain types of voters. At the micro level, this might be based on one’s personal voting history (or perhaps even which magazines one subscribes to). At the macro level, this could be based on strategists making assumptions about a voter based on factors such as geography (where you live), age, marital status, or race.
What if year in and year out, election cycle in and election cycle out, campaign strategists were to do this? It’s easy to envision a scenario where increasingly large swaths of the electorate are conceded for decades. What I’ve just described is a real conundrum. Winning individual elections is important—it’s what strategists are hired to do. People who care about the long-term growth of a party or movement must realize that consultants have this conflict of interest. It’s important to win elections. But by ignoring so much of the electorate, Republicans may be setting themselves up for a far greater problem in the future: obsolescence. (Note: A similar dynamic occurs in the world of sports. This is why managers and general managers should never be the same person. Managers and coaches focus on today; general managers are responsible for the long-term health of a team.)
Cycles of abuse and dependency are usually broken when one person stands up and decides to break the cycle. Ultimately, you can’t blame the consultants or advisers, as they work for the candidates. My hope: the GOP will nominate a candidate who will run the kind of campaign that flips the script on the consultants.
3. Conservative Writers
Conservatism can be like a ghetto, but it’s an alluring one. Can’t make it as a comedian? Hang out in the ghetto; become a conservative comedian. Want to start a social media platform but don’t have a hook? How about being the conservative Facebook? By wearing our ideology on our sleeves, we simultaneously use it as a crutch and limit our potential. “They put warning labels on packs of cigarettes and pesticides because they can be dangerous to your health,” writes reporter turned columnist Bernard Goldberg. “And, as far as many liberals—both in and out of the media—are concerned, conservatives need warning labels because their ideas can be dangerous to your health.”
If you want to really do some good for the conservative cause, here’s what you do: Don’t be a conservative political writer—be a writer who happens to have conservative ideas. Don’t try to be the next William F. Buckley—try to be the next Joan Didion. Don’t try to be a Christian rock band—try to be a really good rock band that happens to consist of believers.
This requires, I think, three ingredients. First, you have to be rooted firmly enough in your philosophy so as not to become unmoored when you’re in the world. Second, while you can be ideological, you must fight like the devil to avoid overt partisanship or politicization. And lastly, you actually have to be very talented at your craft; you have to work at actually being a good writer, musician, whatever. And the work has to come first. The art has to come before the politics.
This is not easy, but I would argue that if more young conservatives went this route—instead of overtly becoming involved in politics—conservatism would be vastly advanced. (So do as I say, not as I do.)
But what if you want to do what I do? What if you want to write about politics for a living? How can you do the most good for the conservative cause?
Seek the truth.
For years, the knock on conservative journalism was that it was too heavy on opinion and analysis and too light on reporting. Everyone wanted to be the next George Will, when what we really needed were more Robert Novaks. The good news is that, in recent years, conservative outlets have started doing much more original reporting and helping to break stories, advance stories, and drive the debate (rather than merely retroactively commenting on the stories the mainstream media had decided were newsworthy). This has led to a huge change. The most insidious form of liberal bias was always selection bias. In other words, mainstream reporters might cover a given story fairly, but the question never asked was, why is this the big story in the first place? The rise of center-right new media outlets like the Daily Caller and the Washington Free Beacon, to name two, have gone a long way to alleviate this problem by focusing on important stories that might otherwise have been ignored. Another tremendous benefit of the rise of center-right reporting is that it has become a stepping-stone to mainstream media jobs. In recent years, National Review’s Robert Costa has landed at the Washington Post, and several of my former colleagues at the Daily Caller have moved on to mainstream gigs: Alexis Levinson is now at National Review, by way of Roll Call; Will Rahn serves as Washington bureau chief at the Daily Beast—where I sometimes contribute columns; Jon Ward (who departed the Daily Caller just before I arrived) is now at Yahoo!; and Chris Moody is now at CNN.com.
Now, this is not to suggest that these conservatives have infiltrated the mainstream media. But what this does mean is that these mainstream outlets have now hired folks who are not openly antagonistic to a conservative worldview—people who have conservative friends—and whose knowledge of conservatism will help inform their straight reporting.
4. Talk Radio Hosts
“In political talk radio,” wrote David Foster Wallace, “the emotions most readily accessed are anger, outrage, indignation, fear, despair, disgust, contempt, and a certain kind of apocalyptic glee.” Rather than summoning our better angels, the temptation is to stoke these primal urges; the challenge is to occasionally rise above them. Just as center-right reporters are arguably more needed than conservative pontificators in print, most of my favorite talk shows are now blending opinion and analysis with breaking news. “I’m interested in reporting news and making news,” radio host Hugh Hewitt recently told the Washington Examiner. “I think the [radio] medium’s got to be more about news show, breaking news with commentary. Not the amplification of old memes.”
“You have to provide breaking news,” Hewitt continued. “It has to be reliable and it has to be fast. That’s what people want. Some old-time hosts can’t do that. They want to talk about immigration every day.”
Times have changed. During his heyday, Rush Limbaugh, who essentially pioneered the art of talking (without a guest or taking many calls from listeners) for three hours, was fresh and irreverent and funny. He clearly didn’t take everything quite as seriously as the Mark Levins of today. I just dusted off my copy of his 1992 book The Way Things Ought to Be for some inspiration and noticed how he explained big ideas (crime, feminism, etc.) simply, instead of just talking about simple ideas. Limbaugh still cites facts and books, but he uses very basic language to describe the issues and makes them accessible for a passive radio audience. I think it’s a good model. There is a place for middlebrow or even lowbrow content. Not everything has to be (or should be) aimed at intellectuals. Some things should be fun and politically incorrect. In my case, Limbaugh was a sort of gateway drug that got me hooked on deeper conservative writers.
But I think it’s also worth noting that the world has changed, and the media will now exploit things said on talk radio, using them to limit other conservatives and to drive narratives. For example, if Rush Limbaugh had called Sandra Fluke a “slut” in the pre–digital media days, that probably would have remained a bit of hyperbole that fans of Limbaugh’s show understood as a sort of gag. Today, however, other media outlets pick that up, run it ad nauseam, out of context (not to suggest there was a good context for this one), and it becomes a key piece of evidence to reinforce the bogus Republican “war on women.” Talk show hosts who truly care about advancing the conservative movement (not just about ratings and stirring up controversy) must adapt to these changing times and train themselves not to provide fodder for their political enemies. Talk radio can serve a vital role to help advance the cause of conservatism—as it has in past years (remember: the class of 1994 dubbed Limbaugh the “Majority Maker”). But doing so will require the most prominent hosts to be more prudent and to accept the fact that they have been granted a huge responsibility and a big megaphone, with the knowledge that their words have consequences.
Of course, it’s not just the ad hominem attacks that have consequences. Occasionally, I’ll hear a commentator describe himself as “only a comedian” or “only an entertainer.” But what does that mean? If politics and news is just entertainment, then I suppose the stories are just material? Is a dead man in Ferguson, Missouri, an entertainment project? How about the beheading of a journalist in the Middle East? Is that just content? People are, after all, entertained by all sorts of bad things. Someone slipping on a banana peel is funny to a lot of people. People watch soap operas and horror movies for entertainment. But politics? Not to sound like a scold, but this is a pretty serious business. Telling people the end of the world is nigh has consequences.
I’ve focused mostly on the macro impact of talk radio punditry, but what about the long-term micro impact apocalyptic punditry has on individual listeners? Those of us who have been around politics for a long time are a little more cynical about these “the sky is falling” predictions. For example, I remember hearing things about Bill Clinton that essentially went like this: “Bill Clinton is the most liberal president in history—and the Republic might not survive if he’s reelected.” He ended up being a fairly moderate liberal who was willing to deal. When I hear those same warnings regurgitated today, I am a little more cynical. Take them with a grain of salt. My guess is that the doom-and-gloom stuff is more damaging to listeners who are already struggling with issues like depression.
Conclusion
One last piece of advice for everyone—candidates, strategists, think tankers, and individuals alike—subject yourself to opposing viewpoints. Doing so poses risks if you’re not firmly rooted in your core beliefs, but I’ve found that necessity is the mother of invention. The more I have appeared on liberal interview shows, the more I have fleshed out why my conservative beliefs actually are best for America. By attempting to understand the other side, I have become more knowledgeable and better able to communicate my conservatism.
In the old days, the liberal media monopoly meant that conservatives (and the rest of America) were constantly subjected to liberally biased information. As previously noted, this was often in the form of selection bias. In other words, the media bias was manifested most acutely not in terms of any individual story’s slant but instead by virtue of which stories were deemed to be “newsworthy.” It’s understandable why conservatives, finally freed of this, would never want to go back to the “bad old days.” Fair enough. But one significant downside of today’s new media environment is that it is tempting to never leave the echo chamber that reinforces our preexisting ideas. We must resist that urge.
The fancy term for this is epistemic closure. It’s a problem I’ve mentioned before, but it bears repeating. You could, theoretically, watch only Fox News, read only RedState.com, and listen to only Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin. By doing so, you would be taking in a tremendous amount of political information, but you wouldn’t be forced to confront troubling ideas with which you disagree. In fact, someone on a media diet such as this might have awakened the day after the 2012 election utterly stunned that Mitt Romney had not been elected president.
Someone who avoids confronting inconvenient information will have a very difficult time winning over Americans who are consuming information from different media outlets. If the San Diego Chargers played only home games, they might think they are a pretty good team. But what happens when they have to go into New England’s Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts? All of a sudden, they realize they aren’t as good as they think they are. Conservatives should celebrate the rise of friendly media outlets, but conservatives who are only good at playing games in the comfy confines of their home field—who never play “road” games—are often not as smart as they think they are.
Now the good news: Despite all the serious problems laid out in this book, Democrats are also being asked to do something that is very hard to do, and that is to win a third consecutive presidential election. The last time this happened was 1988, when George H. W. Bush was essentially awarded Reagan’s third term. It’s also important to recognize that even though the trends all look disastrous, things can change. And fast! Just as past predictions about the GOP being a “permanent governing majority” turned out to be laughable, notions that the conservative movement is dead might also turn out to be absurd. It’s entirely possible that in 2017 Republicans will control the presidency, the house, and the senate. I’m not predicting that, but it’s well within the realm of possibility.
To paraphrase Reagan, we aren’t automatically victims of some fate that will befall us no matter what we do. A political party is never more than one generation from extinction. Or rebirth. It’s our responsibility to seize the mantle—to make the hard choices. Conservatives must be proactive to ensure these demographic trends do not become destiny. The solution is not to water down the brand with, to paraphrase Reagan one more time, pastels instead of bold colors. The last thing we should do is betray conservatism’s first principles—or its base of supporters. On the other hand, conservatism must evolve if it is to survive and flourish in the twenty-first century.