Why Do the Conservatives Rage?

Filed in National by on March 1, 2018

I’m sure you’ve noticed that today’s Republicans, and conservatives generally, are the sorest winners in history. It’s unmissable, because it’s everywhere. Peter Beinart in The Atlantic uses the current cultural moment on guns to illustrate why this is so.

On the subject of guns, conservatives have dominated public policy, both in Washington and in the states, for decades. Pro-NRA Republicans run Congress, most state legislatures, most gubernatorial mansions, and the White House. Few gun-control advocates believe they can even pass a new version of the assault-weapons ban they passed in 1994. Yet by focusing on culture, not policy, conservatives over the last two weeks have told themselves that their most basic freedoms —- not merely their right to own a gun, but their rights to free speech and perhaps life itself -— are at risk. This dynamic isn’t unique to guns. It’s how American politics now works. Even when conservatives win elections and pass laws, they look at the trend among cultural elites —- the media, Hollywood, universities, even corporations —- and feel like they’re losing. Even as they gain more political power, their declining cultural power makes them feel threatened and despised. Which makes them easy prey for people like Trump.

Beinart points out that none of the trends that drove older whites toward Trump have changed direction or even slowed down since his election. For every political victory, conservatism has suffered another cultural defeat, creating a feedback loop of frustration that just makes them angrier.

The American system was designed, imperfectly, to have the will of the people determined and expressed through representative government. It’s possible, as Republicans have shown over the last several decades, to game the system and gain power in spite of the will of the majority. But winning the offices does not change what people want, it merely empowers politicians who can thwart their desires.

If the Founding Fathers were right — if people are capable of self-government, and a majority is able to govern without descent into chaos — this will resolve itself in favor of the popular will. That’s the only outcome that would show American exceptionalism to be more than an empty slogan.

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  1. jason330 says:

    Excellent piece.

    “… if people are capable of self-government, and a majority is able to govern without descent into chaos — this will resolve itself in favor of the popular will. ”

    It will depend on having an opposition party that manifests the popular will.

    Instead, right now we have an opposition parry that runs on “Regular order in the Senate and, um, continue the tradition of bipartisan comity and, they make some great points too, and can’t all just get along?”

  2. Liberals Are Weenies says:

    Who reads the Atlantic? No one does.