Julius Krein: Can Conservatism Be More Than a Grudge?

May 20, 2021 Hunter Wallace Alt-Center, Conservatism, Politics, Populists, Progressives 23

There is a lot to digest here.

As we have pointed out a hundred times now, the electorate has resorted over the past 15 years or so with the overall effect being that the Republican Party has become more working class while the Democrats have become more professional class. The Republican strategy is to attract working class Democrats on the basis of culture war issues while the Democratic strategy is to attract wealthy Republican suburban voters on the basis of culture war issues. Both parties are achieving their goals over time.

NPR:

“A growing number of working-class voters were drawn to Donald Trump’s Republican Party, and now top Republicans are searching for ways to keep those voters in the fold without Trump on the ballot.

“All of the statistics and polling coming out of the 2020 election show that Donald Trump did better with those voters across the board than any Republican has in my lifetime since Ronald Reagan,” Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., told NPR. “And if Republicans want to be successful as a party, win the majority in 2022, win back the White House in 2024, I think we have to learn lessons that Donald Trump taught us and how to appeal to these voters.”

Since 2010, the most significant growth in the Republican coalition has been white voters without a college degree — an imperfect but widely used metric to quantify the working-class voting bloc — along with some marginal growth among similarly educated Black and Hispanic voters. Banks believes the only winning path forward for the GOP is to reimagine itself permanently as the party of working-class America. …”

I do believe in the efficacy of earnest opinion journalism.

I’ve been around for a very long time. I don’t think our efforts on that front have been futile. I think the public is gradually coming around to our point of view on a whole range of issues which is the reason why we are dealing with the censorship crisis. It seems to have accelerated over the past year.

As Julius Krein points out though, the problem is not really the voters or the public. The stumbling bloc is conservative elites and Republican elites. The Republican electorate has become friendlier to our brand our politics. The triumph of “far right domestic extremism” is lamented by the political establishment which is resorting to draconian measures to cling to power. You could say the money situation has improved and Republican politicians are less reliant on corporate donors. You could even say an elite consensus is slowly, but surely developing on how to move forward. The party is moving away from Liz Cheneyism.

In spite of all this though, the Republican Congress operates on a different wavelength. They are doing things like declaring the 2017 tax cuts are a line in the sand. They are competing with each other to see who can be the most slavishly subservient to the Israel Lobby. They went to the mat and lost the Senate over $600 stimulus checks. They will slam Woke Capital and Big Tech, but draw the line at really doing anything about the problem. Mitch McConnell slammed the premature withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. They refuse to even consider taxing Wall Street to fund infrastructure.

There is a lot to be optimistic about … EXCEPT for Republican politicians and meaningful policy changes. They are unwilling to change to adapt their agenda to the needs of their populist voters. This is the reason why they lost the last two elections to the Democrats. They owned themselves.

Kennedy School Review:

“Since the end of the Cold War—and Ronald Reagan’s presidency—Republicans have won only one of eight presidential popular votes (George W. Bush’s narrow win in 2004). Republican candidates of course won two additional electoral college victories during this period: George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016. On the whole, however, it is increasingly doubtful whether the GOP as presently constructed is capable of winning a national popular vote, or if it is even trying to do so. Today, the party essentially has no positive policy agenda, garners little support among America’s leading corporations in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street and is almost completely marginalized from academia, Hollywood, and mainstream media.

Despite these obstacles, both of Donald Trump’s campaigns revealed possible paths back to national majorities. In 2016, Trump broke the Democrats’ “blue wall” in the Upper Midwest. In 2020, he made significant inroads among nonwhite working-class voters, demonstrating that any “demographic destiny” predictions may be less certain than previously thought. Nevertheless, the Trump administration was too chaotic and incoherent to consolidate any larger “populist” realignment.  …

These problems are not merely issues of “communication,” the perennial response of DC consultants. Nor are they simply matters of ideology or even policy. At bottom, the Republican Party faces what might be called a crisis of constituency: the party in its current form cannot serve the constituencies it has, much less those it would need to assemble an electoral majority. …

Outside the “establishment,” a number of conservative activists are now insisting that they will fight the culture wars “for real” this time, unlike the purported milquetoasts of previous generations. Yet while it may be true that establishment social conservatives—such as Princeton professor Robert P. George—have been laughably ineffective, there is little reason to believe that posting some more vitriolic essays on the internet will make much of a difference at this point. Ironically, it is the most radical firebrands of the American Right, hoping to “red pill” an imaginary silent majority, who are the most naïve believers in the efficacy of earnest opinion journalism. …”

This was a good segment.

Why do the Republicans have such a stupid and unpopular position on health care? Why can’t they moderate their agenda on a few key issues and win over cross-pressured Independents?

About Hunter Wallace 12380 Articles
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23 Comments

  1. Conservatives think Reagan was the best think since sliced bread. Unfortunately, 80’s conservatism no longer applies to this era. The demographics have changed for one.

    • Can Conservatism Be More Than a Grudge? Absolutely sir.
      I’ve recently discovered two American conservative figures with large audiences, one is named Ben Shapiro that other is Dr. Peterson.
      One is certainly a Jew because of his small hat the other the “Dr ” apparently found “Jesus” in his old age
      The average age of their conservative followers must be around 10, they are strongly attached to their moms indicating strong family values.

      Conservatism in US has a long history of victories – and a bright future – because of the maturity and smartness of the conservatives

      • Yeah, one is an Israel 1st jew and the other is a drug addict that got hooked on Xanax will preaching about health. No thanks, I’ll pass.

  2. Ronald Reagan imported the Democratic Party Voting Bloc illegally and LEGALLY FROM ASIA….Ronald Reagan was always a phony and a fart joke….You voted for Ronald Reagan….you voted to be a White Racial Minority within the borders of America….

    • Cailfornia was once America do you see a furture for America? that c list actor screwed us good

      • I don’t think Reagan did that on purpose, he just wasn’t foresighted to see where things were going half a lifetime later. When he took over we also had a huge manufacturing base he took for granted that employed lots of high school graduates and paid their, at the time, modest medical bills. The fools in the GOP Conservatism INC. clique who insist on staying on this now proven dead end path are the ones who are really responsible for the egregious sin.

        • You are so wrong about this…Ronald Reagan served agricultural interests in California…This is what he cared about:importing cheap labor for agribizness. Moreover, Ronald Reagan had no problem importing LEGALLY China’s youth population into US Universities for training in the Tech Fields…And he had no problem with the Family Reunification aspect of this allowing the Chinese in American pulling in lots of other Chinese LEGAL immigrants through chain migration.

          Reagans’ labor policy was to destroy the Native Blue Collar White Work Force…..and he did with his invade the world-invite the world labor policy which was done through the CIA Proxy Wars in Central America and Mexico. Because of Ronald Reagan’s nonwhite immigraton enthusiasm….the US Military will be majority nonwhite in the future and at gunpoint Working Class White Males get gang pressed onto plantations and Amazon Warehouses….What a fool you are….You won’t enjoy this Endgame that Ronald Reagan built the road to.

        • Reagan was a homosexual Hollywood actor who had Alzheimer’s through most of his presidency. He didn’t make policy. He just signed off on whatever the Jews in charge told him to.

    • Reagan got the ravages of the Federal income tax under control in a way that no predecessor had done and he helped to bring down the USSR. Unfortunately, he’ll be most remembered for granting amnesty to 3 million illegals.

      • Why was it a good idea to bring the USSR down? Billions spent trying to do it. Perhaps there were better ways to spend our tax dollars……The USSR was not brought down by Ronald Reagan…..The USSR collapsed from internal rot. The late Daily News columnist Lars Eric Nelson…right before he died…wrote about the myth of Ronald Reagan bringing down the USSR.

        In his attempt to bring down the USSR…Ronald Reagan dam near started a nuclear war on two occasions. Larger point:Ronald Reagan was spokesman for and toady for Corporate Power dominating America…..perhaps you enjoyed voting for this……

      • Ronald Reagan…and the Reagan Administration by many orders of magnitude was a much greater threat to the Native Born White American Working Class than the USSR…..

        The anti-commie crusade gave us the 1964 Civil Rights Act which was a direct short hop to the passage of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act….the three are inseparable and it is the reason why America 2021 is PLANET OF THE APES

    • White people did not “vote to become a minority”. They did not vote knowing he would give that amnesty. Reagan bowed to the Democrats and cheap labor advocates.

  3. The Republican Party is still hopelessly conflicted between its wealthy, out of touch, PMC owners and its middle/working class voters whom the wealthy, out of touch, PMC owners despise.

    The Democrats have until recently been much more on the same wavelength regarding their wealthy, PMC owners and their voters. The resorting of the electorate going on now may create an irreconcilable conflict between the Democrat’s PMC owners on economic issues but the Left Wing cultural warfare of the Democrat Party may be the KKK Krazy Glue (HT Steve Sailer) that holds the Democrat’s insane coalition together.

    Ultimately the Democrats have won because they believed in something, even if it’s all bad while the Republicans have believed in nothing except the other guy is worse.The Republicans may be objectively correct that the other guy is worse but something always beats nothing and that is why the Democrats have won.

    • A robotic outlook would see all the hispanic, hindu, asian working class and small business owning immigrants and assume they would have to shift away from the democrats because of all the crazy woke nonsense going on that threatens their businesses and personal safe with black crime and turning their kids queer. Some dorks writing Conservatism INC. columns would probably believe this, but that overlooks the human factor. These people see the GOP as the national party of whites and automatically feel fearful of it. When you are living in someone else’s country you are ever aware of your tenuous position as a guest despite how many propaganda commercial the Ad Council runs of towelheads and chopstick hat wearing chinamen telling you that they are just as American as apple pie. I knew a bunch of ex-millitary expats living in Asia with young local babes they could never get back here. All were big time conservative American nationalists, yet all were dead set about the very same type of political movements in their adopted countries and were routing for the corrupt cosmopolitan parties. This is human reality. Also toss in that all these brown people immigrating here just don’t get the nuances of America you only get from growing up here and being fluently immersed in the details of everyday life socially engaged with others in the same situation. They just don’t get it. Their parents, grand parents, aunts and uncles never saw their neighborhoods in mid 20th century paradise cities of the rust belt turn into black ghettos with all the jobs moving overseas. They never experienced the decline and expect a paradise nation they saw in 80s Hollywood movies. They just don’t get America. To them it is like watching a flashy foreign film without the subtitles. They don’t have a clue what is really going on, for all they know it’s like when Woody Allen dubbed over a Japanese movie with farcical subtitles.

  4. The way to thwart these swaggering commissar scum (at least when it comes to conventional ballot box politics) is clear;all that’s required is for the right men to step up – serious men who will actually DO what
    limp-dick Dump lied that he would do.

  5. All in due time. The GOP will be bullied into submission by their new Working Class base, which will only grow over time as Non-College Whites flock to the Republicans and College-Educated Whites flock to the Democrats.

    Right now, Corporate Funding keeps the GOP in check, but because corporations have become ideologically committed supporters of Wokism – particularly the ones in service, finance, and tech – they will eventually just pool all their money towards Democrats and toss irrelevant donations here and there to whoever is the most culturally moderate Republican on the ballot. Oil companies will be the only major corporations still funding Republicans by 2030, if not sooner.

    Additionally, the True Cons like McConnell are old as dirt, and to be honest, its possible that younger Tea Party types like Little Marco and Ted the Snake are politically opportunistic enough to pretend like they never believed in neoliberal economics and embrace Populist policies to stay in power.

    Truth be told, those in Der Movement who strongly insist the GOP will never change its policy agenda – like Spencer Burger and Mating Call Mark – are doing so because they won’t want Non-College Whites to set the GOP agenda in the first place. They are Cultural Liberals first and foremost, which means their allegiance lies with College-Educated Whites who drink Starbucks and shop at Whole Foods – i.e., the very whites who betrayed their race and don’t give a shit when another White girl or White woman gets raped by some savage.

  7. A Ronnie Reagan homosexual Log Cabin Federal Judge made it impossible to deport illegal aliens. During the Reagan Years, state universities with strong engineering …physics….math…comp sci…programs(Cal Berkeley…Michigan….SUNY Stony Brook) were open doors for China’s and India’s youth.

    The Reagan Administration was infested with homosexual pederasts(‘Washington Times story 1980).

    If you voted for the phony fart joke Ronald Reagan…you voted to be voted into a White Racial Minority within the borders of America. During the Reagan Years…Boomer White Guys were more interested in NFL TYRONE ball……No sense of the future…

  8. Ronald Reagan had great appeal to CHICKEN HAWK WAR HAWK Cowards such as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly(‘who I almost got into a fist fight with in public when I accused him of being a Draft Dodger during the Vietnam War)

    Jesse Ventura has a video on YouTube accusing Sean Hannity of being a War Hawk Chickenhawk Coward…

  9. It’s all distraction. Are you Pro White or Pro White Genocide is the only question that matters in our time.

      • When did I say he was Pro White? Just because, in my opinion, he did some good things didn’t make him Pro-White. Granting amnesty to 3rd worlders was Anti-White and crowned his political career in a very negative way.

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