A Eulogy for Conservatism
by Craig S. Coleman
I taught American Government as a teaching assistant during the Clinton impeachment, and the
impeachment proceedings were a prominent source of discussion in our classes.
During discussions, I was one of the few in the room who generally withheld
criticism of the Republican effort to impeach and remove Clinton, and I often
went further by defending its merits. I agreed with the Republican premise that
honesty and character matter in a president and that the office of the
presidency must be held to a high standard given the power it wields. I was profoundly
troubled that a president could baldly lie directly to me and the American
people, and the fact that the lie was unnecessary did not lessen that betrayal
in my mind. And count me among those who believe that a person’s regard for
their marital vows may reflect on their faithfulness to an oath of office, that
it is wrong to trade on power for sex, and that it is not mere private vice
when men exploit women for sexual gratification. I certainly understood and
acknowledged that many Republicans were espousing these rationales more as an
exercise of partisan expediency than sincere belief, and that Republicans could
be fairly accused of leveraging impeachment for political gain rather than
genuine commitment to moral principle. But even if their motives were mixed,
surely there was benefit in our Republican leaders going on record demanding
accountability, honesty, and moral integrity of the presidency, right? We could
take comfort that we can count on them to zealously advocate those standards,
couldn’t we?
And at least during the Clinton
impeachment, the Republican party was articulating conservative values. While I
generally disagree – often vehemently – with the policy prescriptions that flow
from conservative principles, our republic benefits from participation of a
political party that is faithful to conservative values, will advocate them,
and will abide the courage of sincere conservative convictions. Before its
descent into nativist vitriol and embrace of willful, cretinous ignorance,
conservatism could be understood to stand for something meaningful, for
principles that should have a place in our national debate. That objective
truth exists. That the identification and adherence to hard truths require
steely commitment to open, often uncomfortable debate. That authoritarianism is
an evil, and American foreign policy and military power should be deployed to
confront it. That while we must rely on private institutions to instill virtue,
we should value and demand self-restraint, honesty, and rectitude in our
political leaders. That free trade is the path to progress and collective good.
That we have an obligation to safeguard the fisc, necessitating discipline and
hard choices to achieve balanced budgets. That the rule of law should be placed
above the reach of political power and that all persons should be impartially
subject to it and equally so. That skepticism of political power should inform
our constitutional system. That strict adherence to our constitutional design
demands rigorous oversight of the executive branch to achieve transparency,
expose truth, and limit the reach of its power. That strict neutrality is the
antidote to prejudice and discrimination based on racial, religious, or ethnic
status. That respect for personhood demands elimination of racial
classification. That tradition and received collective wisdom should be
embraced as a hedge against humanity’s tendency toward self-conceit and hubris.
As to my own beliefs, I’ve always
been a progressive because I believe that the moral imperative to care about
and attempt to alleviate the suffering of others extends to our civic life,
that government should be an instrument to improve the lives and condition of
humanity, that public resources must be protected from private avarice, and
that equal opportunity is an ideal toward which we should strive and doing so
requires the intervention of government. But I nonetheless respect true
conservative principles. I believe at least some of them. I have admired those
who genuinely hold and fight for them. I can be convinced that conservative
principles should at times be controlling, given the circumstances. Most of
all, I believe that our democracy is better for having a vigorous competition
between progressive and conservative principles and that a healthy democracy
depends on a robust contest of ideas. I obviously want my political priorities
to prevail, but I value having conservative statespersons serving as vigorous
interlocutors in our public life and willingly accept that they will and should
sometimes win the day. An ongoing, good-faith push and pull of political
competition is the lifeblood of our constitutional democracy, and our republic
is elevated by the clear vision of our leaders’ principled convictions.
That reality is why I’ve found it
to be truly wrenching that the Trump era, culminating in the Republican
handling of his impeachment, has unequivocally exposed that the Republican
party can no longer even maintain the conceit that it represents conservative
values. We have witnessed the entirety of the Republican party betray, abandon,
and directly violate every last conservative principle articulated above. We
are faced with a Republican party that is no longer cognizably conservative at
all, and is now instead defined by the bigotry, intolerance, and cheap
ethno-nationalism of the worst in its movement. I’ve found it equal parts
angering, terrifying, and heartbreaking to be forced to accept that, in short,
the Republican party no longer functions as a good-faith partner in a
constitutional democracy. Rather than checking the excesses of factionalism
feared by the framers, the Republican party has wholly succumbed and given
itself over to it. The Republican’s performance since Trump’s election has
consistently revealed that any last vestige of salutary conservative principles
has now been subjugated to the party’s craven, debased commitment to one
solitary concern: acquisition and maintenance of partisan political power.
That’s the reality of our political life for the foreseeable future.
