Conservatism Adrift (and Sinking)
T his year’s Presidential address to congress and its response by Sen. Tim Scott was a sad but effective show of why the left has won the culture. Biden’s speech, though rambling and obviously focused on keeping the power COVID consolidated for him, was ultimately a speech of promises as well as history. Biden promised extra education for children, describing his hope to keep America competitive with China. He promised increased scientific investing, looking towards a cancer cure. He promised a massive federal jobs program in green energy, in order to save the planet. He even took a page from Donald Trump and spent a significant amount of time promising to buy American. Much of his speech was (to great effect) structured this way. Interspersed were also discussions of his proposals connection to history, and what he viewed as the historical precedents to increasing his power.
Sen. Tim Scott, on the other hand, extolled the usual from Con, Inc., the ever tempting lower marginal tax rates, lower taxes for businesses, and more military spending. In an unsurprising twist, he also added on praise for the even more “conservative” policies of the Trump administration, like letting more people out of prison and increasing funding to historically black colleges and universities. When it came to history, Sen. Scott devoted most of his time discussing his own childhood, with two exceptions. He spent two lines comparing the teaching of race 100 years ago to today, and later repeated the left wing religious view of slavery as original sin.
[https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/28/politics/tim-scott-response-transcript/index.html]
You do not have to believe that Biden will be able to accomplish anything he has promised or that they will have their intended effect. You can even correctly point out that some of his historical references were out of context or even facetious. It remains true though, that Biden, even in this boilerplate speech, successfully offered a narrative that people could actually believe in. Tim Scott’s reply was an utter failure at establishing such a narrative, and it is no surprise given he is the establishment’s new favorite avatar. He made almost no actual promises, except Republicans being willing to work on infrastructure, and what he spent his time praising not only offered no grand vision of the future, it showed his party’s shortsightedness.
Sen. Scott’s references to history illustrate another failure of the conservative movement: it has ceded damn near all of it. Thanks in part to Democrat aggression and in part to their own cowardice, the Republican party is undoubtedly perceived as the more racial party, if not the more racist party. Even Sen. Scott being chosen for this response is another failed attempt by Republicans to try to convince people that Democrats are the real racists. As such, few elected Republicans draw on historical figures, outside of their safe zones of Reagan, Lincoln, and the founding fathers. Heaven forbid they try to reach back to the European origins of conservative thought and American governance, lest they immediately be excoriated by both their own party and the goblin-pundit class.
What remains of the conservative movement has ultimately been relegated to, at most, being an ankle weight for the Democrats as they shape this country to their preferences. This is of course the only natural resting point for a party with but the faintest whisps of history and foresight about as effective as double masking. It can not define itself by its past or future, so it must base itself on the present. Therefore, the present status quo is what is to be conserved, until such a time as Democrats change it in their favor, which is then the new status quo to conserve.
Conservatives must now make a choice: Will they continue to support a crumbling movement that is far more interested in satisfying corporate interests than moving towards an America where her culture, traditions, and people survive?
