Conservatives in the Wilderness

Thomas Sowell has good news for conservatives in his article today entitled Republicans in the Wilderness. The money quote:

In a country with more conservatives than liberals, it is puzzling-- in fact, amazing-- that we have the furthest left President of the United States in history, as well as the furthest left Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Republicans, especially, need to think about what this means. If you lose when the other guy has all the high cards, there is not much you can do about it. But, when you have the high cards and still keep taking a beating, then you need to re-think how you are playing the game.

This tracks well with a Glenn Beck bit I saw last night. Glenn is promoting his new book "Common Sense," and went out to test whether his common sense ideas resonate with self described liberals if there is no ideological tag associated with it. He had someone from Fox News read a series of statements from his new book to each of them. Interestingly, they all agreed with them in this small sample of liberals in Manhattan. Then of course, Beck had the person tell them who made the statements. At that point, several of them were shocked and horrified. If Glenn Beck said it, they were against it. In my family, if I tell them I heard it on Rush, or read it on the Drudge Report, it is instantly suspect, and I have to gather other competing sources to prove I am right. But if Katie Couric says the same thing, they take it all in without question. Ann Coulter, during the campaign, endorsed Hillary Clinton. She kept the joke running for several weeks, figuring her endorsement would be the kiss of political death for Hillary. I have tried this same thing with liberals in my family. I might read something Jonah Goldberg has written, or repeat something Rush Limbaugh has said. They often agree, until they find out who said it.

I think many liberals view themselves as being caring and empathetic. They want to root for the underdog. Along comes the left, using language to confuse the issue, and makes oh so reasonable sounding proposals that anyone who "cares and is empathetic" would naturally agree with. Of course, with a nation as rich and blessed as we are, how can any child go hungry at night, how could anyone in need not have the health care required because of lack of insurance. The list is endless. To counter that, the Right has had to expend countless words, research, and having just the correct messenger on each and every issue. And while the Left can fudge facts, the right must be correct about everything. The left never loses credibility, and the right seemingly never has any.

Take gun rights as an example. The left comes up with a throw away argument, based on nothing, but it sounds good, that fewer guns means we will have fewer deaths. Of course that is easily countered, so it became fewer gun deaths-as if gun deaths alone were of importance. On that one issue, countless tons of ink were expended, performing peer reviewed studies, writing scholarly legal treatises, scholarly Constitutional treatises, writing books for the general reader, and so on, all leading up to one case, the Heller case, which was decided as we knew it should be all along. 40 years, and possibly longer.

All this explains G. W. Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism" which turned out not to be very conservative, but it did get Bush elected twice. So, from all this I conclude that conservatives, to win elections, need to make their ideas sound "caring and empathetic," things anyone who is "caring and empathic" would agree with. They need to have an articulate messenger who is not known to be conservative, and who eschews publicly any known conservative thinker or personality. They need to have a great personal story of struggle and hardship, and eventual success. Then, when they get elected, they need to suddenly put in place ruthlessly conservative policies.

Oh, wait a minute...isn't that what the Left does? Flying under a false flag until they reach their goal, then showing their true colors, using people like so many toothpicks, and as easily expendable, using people's weaknesses against them, enslaving them while claiming to empower them? If the Left told the truth about itself and its goals, nobody would want anything to do with it. But the Right never has credibility, no matter how many times, on how many issues we have shown ourselves to have been correct.

And that is why conservatives are in the wilderness.