Professor Bainbridge offers his thoughts on how President Bush's policies fractured fusionism and drove away libertarian-minded conservatives:
The GOP succeeded in breaking out of 40+ years as a minority party because people like Ronald Reagan and, yes, Newt Gingrich consistently embraced a fusionist approach to policy that enabled libertarians, social conservatives, and fusionists to live together more or less peaceably under the same big tent. Bush's departures from fusionism broke the back of that coalition.How did Bush do this? Utopian foreign policy, profligate spending, and the embrace of big government programs like "No Child Left Behind."
Interestingly, Bainbridge cites conservative thinker Russell Kirk repeatedly in his discussion of fusionism. Yet Kirk never embraced Meyer's fusionist philosphy. Indeed, Meyer and Kirk were often at odds. Indeed, in a 1955 article for The Freeman, "Collectivism Rebaptized," about Kirk and other "new conservatives," Meyer concluded:
Only the principles of individual freedom--to Dr. Kirk the "conservatism of desolation"--can call a halt to the march of collectivism. The New Conservatism, stripped of its pretensions, is, sad to say, but another guise for the collectivist spirit of the age.As a result of this essay, Kirk did not wish to join the National Review masthead once Meyer became a senior editor in 1957.
UPDATE: Bainbridge has more here. I agree with him that Kirk was an important figure in post-war conservative thought. I respectfully disagree that Kirk was a particularly reliable friend of liberty, and would add that Kirk also expicitly rejected Meyer's fusionist philosophy as "weary liberalism of the nineteenth century."
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Wow, hard to beleive he wrote that 50 years ago. Just as true today.
I suppose then that you'd rather we continue Clinton's "realistic" -- cough, cowardly, cough -- foreign policy and leave our inner city schools to fester under neglect. And as for the spending -- let's not forget that 911 changed everything on that front. Better a debt than a crater where a city used to be.
I didn't know tate Medicare prescription drug benefits and farm subsidies were all that was standing between us and annihilation.
And as for Medicare D, it's flawed to be sure, but infinitely preferable to the insane and dangerous drug importation plans being put forth by the left.
Is Bush perfect? No, but he's a damned sight better than the other side. And given what he's been up against, not just in terms of 911 and Iraq, but also the attacks from the left and the MSM (if you can distinguish between the two at all anymore), he's done a pretty remarkable job. I guess 4.5 percent unemployment doesn't mean much to you, but it does to most.
Funny...just what they say in Baghdad and Kabul...
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3043
This is critical to his failure as a war leader. He failed to establish a connection with the American people because he does not believe they exist as an entity to make a connection with. This has resulted in the loss of public support for him and the war effort.
Another major cause of the loss of public support for President Bush and the war effort is his failure to talk about victory. He has not made victory the objective. Walter Russell Mead's Jacksonians insist on fighting to win, and Bush has convinced them that he is not fighting to win, so they want to stop what they perceive as purposeless fighting.
A statement by Jerry Pournelle is pertinent here. He was debating the Vietnam War with some East Coast liberal whose name escapes me at the moment.
The guy told Pournelle (this is from memory, so take it FWIW given that I don't recall the guy's name - it might have been Al Lowenstein): "Jerry, you want to win and get out. Me, I just want to get out. But the government wants to stay in and lose."
Pournelle's response was that this was an absolutely true insight.
And that is what President Bush has come to stand for - stay in and lose. IMO this is not true, but that is the perception he has created.
The vast majority of self-professed "libertarians" I meet are small-government conservatives who feel abandoned by the Republican party. The idea, though, that statist Democrats are any more attractive to people who mostly want to be left alone is a fantasy of Democratic Party apparatchiks.
He has a Plan for Victory, which is more than you can say for the Defeatocrats. You may not like the plan, you may not have the will to support it, but it is you cannot deny, a plan. And it seems to be the only one out there, that Baker-Hamilton surrender document notwithstanding.
And as for the spending -- let's not forget that 911 changed everything on that front. Better a debt than a crater where a city used to be.
Come on now. While we're spending all this money we are creating MORE enemies. And then - the borders aren't sealed and the ports aren't very much more secure. Could there be a policy more detrimental to long-term American security? That isn't even getting into all the soldiers and innocents that have lost their lives.
I guess 4.5 percent unemployment doesn't mean much to you, but it does to most.
You know those numbers are cooked. Just like the inflations numbers.
Best Summary Analysis I have seen. Thank you.
Have we been attacked again? No. Were we attacked repeatedly under Clinton? Yes.
You see, it pays to be on the offensive.
Also, Bush personally, and Reps generally, have been subjected to some of the most negative, hyper-critical press coverage I have ever seen. The MSM became nakedly partisan over the past two years (and that's the real story of the recent election... Mark Foley, anyone?) Add to that a war that seems to be spinning toward defeat, and you have a recipe for defeat.
No Child Left Behind, and government spending in general, is a red herring thrown out by pundits who need to get out of the beltway more. If you think that the mass of "undecideds" (who determine elections, by the way) are hopping mad about that stuff, well... I respectfully disagree.
There was exactly one foreign terrorist attack on American soil under Bill Clinton: the botched WTC bombing of 1993. The next such attack occured under George Bush in 2001. So how was the Clinton administration worse than the Bush administration? More Americans have died at the hands of terrorists (even if we count domestic terrorism, as in the OKC bombing) under Bush's watch than under Clinton's watch.
As far I'm concerned, that happened on Clinton's watch. He had 8 years to deal with AL Qaeda and did nothing.
You're an excellent parody. Keep it up!
Have we been attacked again? No. Were we attacked repeatedly under Clinton? Yes.
You see, it pays to be on the offensive.
Unless you count the minimum of several attacks a day that occur on our troops that are unnecessarily in Iraq.
The borders are still relatively open and the ports are still relatively insecure. You better hope the additional enemies that we have created with the invasion and occupation of Iraq don't make it over here. Some intelligence reports suggest they have.
And your point is?
The point is that we spent the last several years spending billions in Iraq creating more enemies and the borders and ports still aren't secure.
More enemies created=Bad.
Borders/ports still aren't secure=Bad.