How not to do conservatism

Anybody can be open to a charge of hypocrisy; it's all about your relationship to what you say your principles are

Media outlets are, understandably, having quite a har-de-har over two recent instances of titllating misbehavior by Republican officeholders who very publicly self-identify as conservatives.

It seems that mom, wife and South Dakota governor Kristi Noem has been carrying on for years with Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski - luxury resorts, flights on donors’ planes, carefully coordinated appearances in cities at which they arrive separately.

We all know what makes this a news story: the fact that “social conservatism” (a term that allows pols and pundits to conveniently compartmentalize their positions in this genre-and-brand-driven age) is central to what she claims to be about.

It provides the low-hanging fruit that makes for this kind of coverage:

Glamorous Noem – who served four terms as her state's only member of the US House of Representatives – won the governorship in 2018 promising to uphold the wholesome family values that she said South Dakotans have 'long embraced'.

Defending 'traditional marriage', which she defined as 'a special, God-given union between one man and one woman', was particularly important to her.

It was the foundation for her beliefs, policy priorities and the ideals she lives by, said Noem, who has a son and two daughters with her husband Bryon who she married in 1992.

The other case has elements of the bizarre, as befits any story that’s going to involved House member from Colorado Lauren Boebert. She and her date were escorted out of a performance of the stage production of Beetlejuice at a Denver theater. The two were vaping, taking selfies and feeling each other up. Boebert then gave the finger to the ushers who escorted her out. She has since tried the remorse angle, blaming her antics on the difficult time she’s going through regarding her divorce. One more thing: her date, whom she’s been seeing for a while now, is a Democrat.

Again, the how-does-she-square-this-with-her-stances-on-drag-shows-and-transgenderism caterwauls appeared like clockwork.

This is what you’re going to get when you make a brand out of conservatism in order to secure your career in politics, punditry or fundraising.

I’ve said before that I’m now disinclined to boil my worldview down to the three pillars of Frank Meyer fusionism. It is those things (virtuous action, free-market economics, and limited government that bases its policies on fostering the first two pillars), but as many other conservative thinkers - Roger Scruton, Russell Kirk, Richard M. Weaver and William F. Buckley come to mind - have stressed, conservatism is actually a sensibility, a predisposition to suss out that which is immutable regarding the human condition. Bullet points not only fail to capture this essence, but they lack any hint of poetry, of the nobility of the project.

Damon Linker, who is a centrist and therefore sometimes comes to conclusions I don’t completely align with, does indeed nail the gist of what happened to the movement dedicated to spreading conservatism. Ordinary voters who have wished to see conservatism prevail politically were so frustrated at a lack of moving of the needle they went for a novel type of figure on the scene, one who actually had his way paved by the rock and roll ethos that upended Western culture in the 1960s:

Viewed in the proper perspective, it’s not especially surprising that someone would say and do such things. The United States has always been a freewheeling place populated by more than its share of conmen, outlaws, blowhards, and bullshit artists looking for suckers to deceive. Mark Twain described it, with just the right touch of irony, in his essays. PT Barnum turned it into a comprehensive philosophy of life. Writing in the 1990s about the late 1960s, the late novelist Philip Roth called it the “indigenous American berserk.” (No recent example of popular art has done more to explore the allure of this tradition in a contemporary setting than the television show Better Call Saul.) 

But succumbing to the excitement of such a demeanor by definition meant abandoning conservative prioritization of comportment. Conservatism, properly understood, is a grownup’s worldview. One must cultivate dignity, humility and self-respect in order to grasp it.

It’s hard to fend off charges of hypocrisy if one is so cocksure of one’s credentials to speak for the worldview laid out here that one leaves no room to acknowledge the personal work yet to bet done.

This happens to be why I can’t see a definition of conservatism that doesn’t lead back to a Judeo-Christian core. Any self-proclaimed atheist conservative I’ve ever come across (and there are some, and some have made great contributions to various aspects of conservatism) inevitably shows gaps in his or her otherwise seamless description of the landscape.

We’re all fallen beings in need of redemption. Recognition of that fact is why the conservative worldview is often described as tragic. Public policy and contributions to cultural vitality ought to take this into account.

I have less of a stake all the time in dragging some politician or piece of legislation over the finish line in anticipation that it will bring about some final victory. That sets us up as gods. It’s blasphemy, given the fact that there is only one final victory and it has little to do with tax rates or even drag queen story hour.

My closet is full of skeletons I’m not interested in bringing out into the light. But I can say in all honesty that I strive every day to understand this vision I claim to champion, and to live its tenets with consistency and integrity.

It would go a long way toward avoiding the kind of embarrassment that the likes of Noem and Boebert heap on what’s left of the conservative movement if they set themselves up as comic-book superheroes who can vanquish the bad guys once and for all and usher in the long-awaited era of milk and honey.

They’re asking way too much of themselves, and it shows.