A Eulogy for Conservatism.

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.