You might have seen a new picture from conservative talk radio host Erick Erickson criticizing what he refers to as a “weird activity within conservatism” and questions things like “limited authorities” and “free markets,” principles that are well-known to the conservative motion.
If you have n’t seen the clip,  , take a look. It’s similar to hearing someone discuss conservatism’s state during Obama’s second term, when Republicans vowed to repeal Obamacare and attacked Democrats for breaking the Constitution with a” socialist” health care plan. ( Obamacare was of course never repealed and is now, all these years later, a permanent feature of America’s health care system. )
Erickson’s place, which he also made in , a post for National Review, is that the Democratic coalition for decades was built on the” three- grand stool” of governmental conservatism, standard values, and a peace- through- strength international policy. This led to the end of the Cold War and domestic success. I’m certain you’ve heard the story.
The problem now, he says, is that some people on the right ( whom he does n’t name ) are calling into question these orthodoxies, especially free markets and limited government. They are n’t battling to reduce the size of the authorities; rather, they are attempting to exert control over it and use their power to reach their desired results.
Erickson thinks this is awful, a deception of the ancient three- legged stool of Reaganite conservative. After all, he says, if you use federal power when your area is in control, the opposing area will use it against you when they’re in power. And we do n’t want that, do we?
It’s difficult to overstate how out-of-touch this way of thinking is, as if the prior 15 years had just never happened, to mention the last 50.  ,
Take into account the three limbs of the seat. On governmental conservative, we’re swimming in an sea of debts that grows no matter which group controls Congress, while cpi is killing mid- and working- class families. We legalized homosexual union in accordance with traditional values, then rapidly moved on to correcting transphobia and consenting to the so-called “gender-affirming care,” yet for minors. We lost the War on Terror and are now funding several wars all over the world as part of a crumbling world empire through a peace-through-strength international plan. The seat is without feet.
We saw how much the right favored the original during Covid, to mention the revelations that our brains agencies regularly spied on us and censored anti-favorable online speech, while the latter allowed large corporations to hollow out America’s industrial foundation and ship jobs overseas, enriching the top and management classes while everyone else struggles.
In other words, the conservative movement has failed to conserve anything. It has yelled stop past history, but it has been ignored by history. According to Erickson, conservatism has turned out to be a shell game. Republicans would pledge to repeal Obamacare, halt abortion, or secure the border, but never follow through once in power. They would argue against fiscal clerical behavior, but they always end up passing large budgets without any real changes or reductions. In a world that is anything but peaceful, a strong foreign policy now resembles a corporate welfare program for Pentagon contractors.
Now, you could look at all of this and refute it by saying that failing Republican politicians to uphold conservative principles does n’t mean the principles are bad; it just means that we have bad politicians. And that’s true, up to a point. However, two crucial things are overlooked in such a criticism.
First, there is a problem with an American global empire with the idea of “limited government.” America would never have a constrained government, especially after the Allied victory in World War II. Or rather, our ability to limit the government was going to be rather limited. We have seen this influence on our intelligence organizations and the extensive surveillance apparatus they employ. This system is currently being used against Americans and has been used to overthrow foreign governments through coups and other forms of influence.
Second, it is obvious that the left is playing by a different set of rules and that we are currently engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the left. The left will always prevail if the right agrees, in principle, that it will not wield government power to achieve its desired outcomes but the left pledges to do so whenever and however they can, then the left will win. And that is exactly what has happened.
So what to do about this? Erickson’s admonition amounts to a posture of permanent defeat. The leftist radicals will seize power and advance with their permanent revolution, as they have been for decades, if conservatives ca n’t wield power to bring about their vision of the good, of a rightly ordered public square and a prosperous society.
Instead, we need to recognize that the conservative movement has failed. It is dead, we have seen it die. The Cold War era’s fusionism, when libertarians and social conservatives united behind communism, is over. The GOP establishment, whose top priority has always been corporate welfare, is at odds with everything else.
As , I wrote in these pages , nearly two years ago, we have to stop thinking of ourselves as conservatives and start thinking of ourselves, and our movement, as restorationist and counterrevolutionary. In a very real way, we must re-found our nation, and in order to do that, we must first take control from the left and use it to retake control of our nation.
If that makes some conservatives uncomfortable, it’s understandable. After decades of repeating the phrases “limited government” and “free markets”, it’s a sobering thing to realize they were just empty slogans, and at best they were just means to some other, higher end.
However, the situation is still present. Following Erickson’s advice, eschewing power because of allegiance to a political fantasy, means certain defeat. It will leave conservatives in a nation where they are systematically oppressed and determined to destroy them. The other option is to rebel, establish a beachhead, and use any available resources to counteract the left so that future generations of Americans can live in peace and prosperity.  ,
