Despite this reality of foreign policy, Americans can be proud of how often their country’s actions have simultaneously protected American interests while also advancing universal ideals and the welfare of other peoples. While the United States was careful to wait until it was directly attacked before entering into World War II, American involvement in the war helped accelerate the defeat of the Axis powers and advanced the freedom and security of the whole world. So, too, America’s involvement in the Gulf War was partly intended to protect American oil interests, but it was also aimed at expelling a barbarous invader from Kuwait. In these instances America’s interests did not corrupt American ideals; rather, the ideals ennobled the interests.
But what about American support for Somoza, Pinochet, Marcos, and the Shah? This support is fully justified when we consider the operating principle of foreign policy. Foreign policy is not a philosophy seminar. In philosophy seminars, the choice is usually between good and evil. In the real world, however, the choice is often between a bad guy and a worse guy. The central principle of foreign policy is the doctrine of the lesser evil. This means that a country is always justified in supporting a bad regime to overthrow a regime that is even worse. In World War II, for instance, the United States allied with a very bad man, Joseph Stalin, to oppose a man who was an even greater threat at the time, Adolf Hitler.
By the same logic, U.S. support for despots such as Pinochet, Marcos, and the Shah of Iran was entirely defensible in the context of the cold war. The United States was fighting a larger battle against the “evil empire.” Given that the Soviet empire posed the greatest threat to freedom and human rights in the world, the United States was right to attach less significance to the status of Pinochet, Marcos, and the Shah as tin-pot dictators than to their anti-Soviet beliefs.
But now the cold war is over, so why is America supporting unelected regimes in Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia? Once again, the liberal fails to ask the relevant question: What is the alternative? During the 1970s, Jimmy Carter decided that the longtime ally of the United States, the Shah of Iran, was a despot. Applying typical liberal logic, Carter decided that he could not in good conscience continue to support the Shah. Indeed, he actively aided in the Shah’s ouster. The result, of course, was the reign of the Ayatollah Khomeini. If the Shah was bad, Khomeini was worse. To avoid this kind of disaster, America should be slow to destabilize the flawed regimes of Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia until it is confident that the alternative is a pro-Western liberal democracy. More likely, the alternative will be Islamic fundamentalism of the bin Laden stripe.
Are liberals incapable of the kind of practical moral reasoning that foreign policy requires? It seems that they are. Most liberals are content with slogans that cannot survive the slightest scrutiny. “Violence never solves problems.” This is manifestly not true. Violence helped to end the regimes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however controversial their use, did solve the big problem of an unyielding Japan. Violence proved equally effective against the Taliban. “But you can’t impose democracy at the point of a bayonet.” This is another liberal shibboleth. In reality, at the end of World War II, America imposed democracy at the point of a bayonet on Japan and Germany, and it has proved a resounding success in both countries. The problem with liberals is that they never give bayonets a chance.
29
A Republican Realignment?
Dear Chris,
America has a one-party system of government. I mean this in a special sense: One party tends to dominate American politics in a given era. One major party sets the agenda, and the other party has the choice of reactively opposing its ideas, or of sounding a feeble cry of “me, too.” During the Andrew Jackson era, the Democrats were the majority party. This dominance lasted half a century, until the Civil War. After the war, the Republicans became the majority camp, a position they held until the Great Depression. Since 1932, the Democrats assumed the majority position, which was consolidated during the Roosevelt years, and continued even through the Reagan years. Only in 1994, when the Republicans won both houses of Congress, did the Democrats lose the majority status they had enjoyed for most of the twentieth century. The big question now is, Can the Republicans secure a new majority that will carry them through the first half of the twenty-first century?
It was Ronald Reagan who showed the Republican Party the way to its current success. Before Reagan, the GOP was the party of balanced budgets. Republicans used to fault the Democrats’ programs as well-meaning but fiscally irresponsible. Consequently, Republicans sought to limit the programs so that spending could be kept in line with revenues. Another way that Republicans sought fiscal stability was by proposing tax increases. Thus the Republican Party earned a well-deserved reputation for being the party that a) raised your taxes, and b) reduced your government benefits. The Republicans were Scrooge, and the Democrats were Santa Claus. Not surprisingly, Republicans lost election after election.
Reagan changed this dynamic. His belief was that if the Democrats wanted to spend money, the Republicans would refuse to accommodate them by raising taxes. Let the Democrats be the party of tax increases. The Republicans would be for tax cuts. The Reagan tax cuts had an economic rationale: to give people the incentive to produce more. But lower tax rates also had the political effect of limiting the revenues available to the Democrats for spending. Essentially, Reagan took away their allowance. He gave the Democrats the choice of enduring huge and growing deficits with interest payments that would eat into future spending, or of going on a fiscal diet to limit the size of the deficits. The Democrats chose the second course, which explains one of the most remarkable political reversals of recent decades. Suddenly the Democrats became the party of tax increases and balanced budgets.
Since Reagan, the Republican Party has suffered what may be termed the problem of success. Reagan was too successful: His efforts helped to end the cold war and to secure the triumph of capitalism over socialism. Consequently, Reagan took these issues off the table. When Reagan’s appointed successor, George Bush, showed that during his eight years as vice president he had learned virtually nothing from Reagan, the American people hurled him out of office and ushered in the Clinton people; they proceeded to rent out the Lincoln bedroom, sell presidential pardons, seduce the interns, and do all the low, deviant things that the Clinton people are known to do.
Despite his disgraceful personal conduct, Bill Clinton was not a bad president. He fought for a landmark free trade agreement, signed welfare reform, and moved the Democratic Party to the political center. Republicans loathed him, and against their political interests they tried to impeach him. Consider this: Had the GOP succeeded in kicking Clinton out of office, Al Gore would have become president, he would have proclaimed himself a healer, and he would have been invincible in the election of 2000. Republican leaders kept wailing that Clinton was “stealing” their issues. They didn’t know what Reagan knew: that one of the greatest achievements in politics is to make your opponent do what you would do if you were in power. So the Republicans flailed ineffectively against Clinton, but his high approval ratings prevented them from ousting the rogue.
Even so, by the year 2000, Americans were frustrated with the low tone that had become endemic to American politics, and they took out their frustration with Clinton—on Al Gore. Although George W. Bush entered the White House under the most harrowing of circumstances, he proceeded to campaign for a bold tax cut, which he got. Then came the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and Bush underwent what can only be termed a metamorphosis. Suddenly the mumbling, bumbling Texan emerged as a firm, articulate national leader.
Despite Bush’s continuing popularity, the Republican Party faces two big challenges that it must address if it is going to win enduring majority status. The first challenge is that affluent people are no longer voting solidly Republican. It used to be an iron law of politics that, as people became well-off, they became
Republicans. (The only exception to this law was Jews, who maintained a tradition of loyalty to liberal causes. Irving Kristol once observed that Jews were the only people who earned like Episcopalians and voted like Puerto Ricans.) But for every other group, the iron law held. Now, however, affluent people are as likely to vote Democrat as Republican. The reason is that, as people become richer, they become more conservative economically but more liberal socially. Wealth gives people more choices, and people who have choices do not like rules that seek to limit what they choose. Consequently, the new affluent class is disposed to vote for Democrats who are economically centrist but who will let them live as they want.
If Republicans are to become a lasting majority, they must win the votes of affluent suburbanites. To do this, they must convince the country that they are not the party of moral naysayers, and they are not merely a front for the Christian Right. I am not suggesting that the Republicans relinquish their moral beliefs. The Republican Party is the party of values, and this can be a great asset if Republicans find the right language in which to speak about values. Throughout the country, there is a widespread belief that the American standard of living has gone up but values have gone down. The Republican Party needs to capitalize on this conviction without sounding extreme or harsh.
The second Republican challenge involves immigrants and minorities. Right now, nine out of ten blacks and two out of three immigrants vote for Democrats. Indeed, it is often counted as an achievement when a Republican candidate wins 30 percent of the Hispanic vote, as George W. Bush did. If these trends continue, they will prove to be an electoral disaster for the GOP. Republicans have been trying to address this problem by making histrionic displays of diversity at GOP events and by adopting various forms of “outreach” to blacks and Hispanics. I have heard it solemnly asserted at GOP events that African Americans are natural Republicans because they are quite conservative.
Yes, African Americans are slightly more conservative than white Americans on social issues such as abortion and school prayer. The problem is that African Americans do not vote on these issues. They vote on one issue: race. Wealthy blacks are just as likely as poor blacks to vote for the Democratic candidate. The reason is simple: The Democrats are willing to give blacks more goodies. Republicans cannot compete in this governmental auction; they are sure to lose. Therefore, in my view, Republicans should recognize that in the short term there is no way to win the black vote. What they should do, therefore, is allow the Democratic Party to be the party of blacks and black demands. Republicans can build a winning multiracial coalition based on economic growth, national unity, merit, and color-blindness.
In this area Republicans should focus on increasing their share of the Hispanic vote and on winning the Asian American vote. Asian Americans have a natural home in the Republican Party. They succeed in America mainly through merit. As immigrants who have chosen to come here, they tend to be very patriotic. No other group is as socially conservative: Divorce and illegitimacy are rare in the Asian American community. Asian American values—frugality, hard work, and deferred gratification—are precisely the values that Republicans champion. Yet mysteriously the Republicans are getting only 30-35 percent of Asian American votes. The GOP should be getting 90 percent. If Republicans can get 40 percent of the Hispanic vote and decisively capture the Asian American vote, they will win virtually every election.
In general, the Republican Party can succeed through a Reaganite combination of philosophical conservatism and temperamental geniality. (Too many Republicans are philosophically insecure and temperamentally forbidding.) The general conservative themes of limited government, strong defense, equal rights under the law, and traditional values continue to be enormously attractive to people. The Republican agenda for the next several years is pretty clear: Defeat terrorism, enact a flat tax, give parents educational choice, eliminate race and gender preferences, and allow Social Security contributions to be invested in private accounts.
If Republicans do these things, and make their case to the American people, they will become the majority party for the next half century.
30
Why Conservatives Should Be Cheerful
Dear Chris,
Among young people there is the perception that conservatives are stuffy and lugubrious, and that liberals are easygoing and fun loving. At one time this may have been true, but it is not true any more. Admittedly, a few on the right are always giving vent to frustration and gloom. But in general, I have found that conservatives tend to be much more cheerful than liberals.
The predominant liberal emotion is indignation. When I was at the Dartmouth Review the majority of letters we received from liberals began with the sentence, “I am shocked and appalled.” Liberals are always “shocked and appalled” by something. By contrast, the predominant conservative emotion is the horselaugh. The conservative is one who chuckles and guffaws. Some who have observed this levity on the right are puzzled by it. Conservatives, after all, tend to believe in the weakness, if not depravity, of human nature. The cultural pessimists have given us a depressing portrait of moral and cultural decline. Consequently, one would expect the natural temperament of conservatives to be one of cultural and moral despair. So why are conservatives so cheerful and upbeat?
The issue of moral and cultural decline is a real one, and it will provide conservatism with its greatest challenge. Conservatives must not only conserve what is good but also provide arguments for rebuilding institutions—such as the church and the family—that have lost much of their traditional influence and rationale. Even so, there is no reason to panic, because we are fully up to the task. We are justified in being upbeat because we know that we are in the right, and that the right will eventually prevail.
Already conservatives have won stunning victories. Imagine if conservatives had assembled a national conference in 1980, the year Reagan was elected, and set forth the goals that they reasonably intended to accomplish in two decades. They might have resolved to push the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. They might have hoped to scale back on some government programs. They might have expected to make headway in convincing people that capitalism is better than socialism.
But who could have reasonably expected the collapse of the entire Soviet empire? Who could have foreseen the utter discrediting of socialism? Who could have known that the Republicans would take both houses of Congress? Or that welfare as an entitlement would cease to exist? Or that liberalism would be put completely on the defensive, while conservatives set the national agenda? These are spectacular victories, and they have emboldened many conservatives to believe that they are now on the winning side.
Conservatives have also discovered that a few people can change the agenda, and the country, with a powerful idea. A good example of this is the critique of affirmative action. When I first started writing about this issue a decade ago, racial preferences had become completely institutionalized. The issue seemed settled and the controversy over it destined to subside as people became reconciled to affirmative action.
The critics of race and gender preferences were so few that they could be counted on two hands. By contrast, the other side had legions of troops and enormous institutional resources. Moreover, there was a disproportion of incentives. The foes of affirmative action had no personal stake in the issue. If affirmative action ended, we gained nothing. By contrast, the other side had jobs and promotions and government contracts at stake. They could be expected to fight hard to preserve these privileges.
Even so, the critics of affirmative action have made huge inroads, and the momentum is with us. We have not only succeeded in putting the issue on the national agenda but also forced the opposition onto the defensive, and we have won impressive victories in the courts. Slowly but surely, the courts have narrowed the circumstances in which race and gender preferences may be legally used, and it is now possible to envision the day when they are completely struck down.
There is a reason for conservat
ives to be cheerful, however, that goes beyond the contingencies of the time. Indeed, I venture to suggest that conservatives would remain upbeat even if none of the victories I have charted had occurred. Moreover, I believe that liberals would persist in being outraged and indignant even if they had not suffered the startling reversals of the past couple of decades.
But how can these things be so, given that liberals have an optimistic view of human nature and conservatives have a pessimistic view of human nature? It is precisely because liberals believe in the goodness and malleability of human nature that they are perennially outraged when this nature proves resistant to liberal reforms. It is precisely because conservatives believe that human nature is flawed that they have modest expectations about people, and about politics. Thus, when things turn out not so badly, conservatives are pleased. People who expect the deluge are always delighted that all they have to endure is an occasional thunderstorm.
So, fight on with a cheerful disposition, Chris. I realize that at times the battles seem never-ending and the odds appear long. There is an old Tibetan saying, “After crossing the mountain . . . more mountains!” Those of us who have journeyed across harsh political terrain know the feeling. But we also know that truth is on our side and that it is a very powerful weapon. With truth as our guide and courage in our hearts, we will not only endure, we will prevail.
31
A Conservative Reading List
Dear Chris,
To be an educated conservative, you have to be familiar with the “best that has been thought and said” of modern conservative thought. Here, then, is my list of the most important works produced in the past half century or so that a young conservative should read. My list includes books written by conservatives as well as books that discuss themes that are important to conservatism. Some writers who would not call themselves conservatives, including Margaret Mead and George Orwell, are on the list. I should caution you that this is not a comprehensive catalog; it is necessarily biased toward books that I have found persuasive and profound. Finally, I have kept the list brief, because life is short.
Letters to a Young Conservative Page 15
