In the approximately forty years of my political consciousness, two events stand out as watersheds—the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the election of the Newt Gringrich-led Republican Congressional majority in 1994. The first represented the culmination of the maturity of the conservative movement, beginning in the mid-1950’s, from a fringe, reactionary backwater, to a truly competitive, policy-based governing alternative. The second represented the consummation of the conservative revolution against the New Deal/Great Society legacy of over-reaching twentieth century liberalism. Both of these events set the stage for what now can be the advent of a new governing majority that, if properly led and managed, can last for several generations. From all appearances, it seems that George W. Bush is at the right place at the right time, with just the right temperament, to lead this transformation. It remains to be seen, however, whether the other necessary ingredients will be in place. These are, in no particular order of importance, as follows:

*The necessity of what George Will and Jonah Goldberg have called the use of “dogma and rhetoric over demagoguery”. Relieved of the damaging demagoguery, dogma and rhetoric are necessary elements of our political speech used for outlining priorities and policy boundaries. It is more important to know the “why” of policy than to know “what” and “how”, for we should do things for the right reasons, and conservatives, Bush in particular, haven’t been as adept with this skill as they need to be. The high ground on enlightened rhetoric and dogma must be captured and held.

*Avoid the diseases of incumbency and arrogance of power. The new governing majority will be short-lived if it fails to reject the sense of entitlement and perpetuation in office that were the diseases it was elected to cure. In the tenth year of conservative Congressional ascendancy, there are quite a few symptoms of these ailments now in evidence. Whither the Revolution of 1994? Its spirit needs to be revived very soon. Bill Clinton was fond of saying that you cannot love your country and hate your government. Maybe not, but you can and should want much less of it, particularly its corrosive tendencies to coercion and dependency.

*Have no fear of boldness. The forces of “progressive” opposition and the vested interests of the liberal status quo will be no less strident and vicious against half measures or “reform-lite” proposals on such issues as permanent tax rate cuts, Social Security reform, Health Savings Accounts, judicial appointments, and tort reform, so the motto should be to “go for the whole loaf”, and don’t buy into the “no mandate” nonsense.

*Trust the people. Clearly, this President has enormous capital with the American people, he says he will use it, and he should, early and often, by appealing to them over the heads of the Beltway insiders. The liberal/left is back on its heels in disarray, greatly misunderstanding the innate and unique brand of American conservatism that is congruent with Bush’s, and it’s time to “close the deal”.

Most second term Presidents are preoccupied with building or preserving a legacy and are leery of bold new initiatives. This one has an opportunity to be very different, in obvious ways by successfully completing the mission in Iraq and firmly installing the Bush Doctrine in U. S. foreign policy, but also by laying the groundwork for ending 20th century liberalism as we have known it, launching the “opportunity society” century and, as a result, a new governing majority. Go for it!

Or, as Emmett Tyrell calls it, the “tabernacle of hypocrisy”. Either description will do for the United Nations, which long ago proved its unworthiness as a responsible world forum, much less as an instrument for peace, stability, and human rights, and the corruption of its mission is beyond repair. The UN Security Council validated its irrelevance during the process leading to the war in Iraq, but I challenge anyone to name one instance since its founding when the UN has played a useful role in intervening to avert conflict. Rather than preserve international law, it has almost destroyed it. On the other hand, the General Assembly long ago became a haven and pulpit for the aggrandizement of racists, anti-Semites, anti-Americans, Marxist/Leninist demagogues, tinhorn dictators, and those erstwhile U. S. allies who need legitimate cover for their lucrative deals and conspiracies. The duplicity of Kofi Annan in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal and his failure to lift a finger to stop the massacre in the Sudan should simply be the last straws. He should go immediately, of course, but, more importantly, as soon as the elections in Iraq are completed, we should convene a world council of democracies and begin anew. Leave the humanitarian services capabilities of the UN in place, if necessary, but take Steve Forbes’s suggestion and invite them to move their headquarters to a country, such as Haiti, that would benefit more from their presence. Then invite those nations that are committed to the rule of law and consent of the governed to organize a new forum more appropriate to the new realities and aspirations of the 21st century.

The title of this essay is from a book by that name by Thomas Frank. I haven’t read it, but reviews indicate that it essentially makes a point that illustrates perfectly the quandary in which the left finds itself—the inability for liberal elites to understand why any rational voter would cast a ballot for a party (Republican) or a candidate (Bush and others) with policy views that seem to them so contrary to his interests. Kansas is used as a prime example of how well conservative Republicans have “fooled” the heartland. I was reminded of this review and this point by a report by the Pacific Research Institute, which annually ranks the states based on its “freedom index”, using five policy criteria—fiscal, regulatory, judicial, government size, and welfare. It is instructive that Kansas ranks number one and, in fact, 24 of the top 26 states in the ranking were Bush and “red” states in the recent election. Another survey, this one involving fertility rates, as reported by David Brooks, notes that Bush carried the nineteen states with the highest white fertility rates, and 25 of the top 26, while John Kerry carried the sixteen states with the lowest. Folks, these aren’t political tendencies, they are spiritual. It doesn’t require a doctorate in sociology to know that people who are building families are optimistic people and, as Brooks correctly notes, are rejecting materialism and hyperindividualism in favor of other values. Are the voting patterns in these two surveys simply coincidental? The answer should be obvious, but it will take the left a while to figure out why Kansans and other heartlanders and Sun Belt city dwellers are so “gullible”, and much longer to determine what to do about it.

During the past few weeks, I have revisited two classics—one, a book, Witness, by Whittaker Chambers, and the other, a movie, Judgment at Nuremberg, with an all-star cast directed by Stanley Kramer—and I was struck by a profound thought: that you can’t fully understand the 20th century unless you understand the issues raised so penetratingly by these works. Witness, of course, is the life story of a former Communist and active member of the CPUSA underground, who left the party and later provided crucial and very controversial testimony in the famous Alger Hiss Case before the House Un-American Activities Committee on the Communist infiltration of high levels of the U. S. government during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) tells the story of the trial and conviction by the post-World War II American tribunal of high-ranking members of the Nazi German judiciary during the Third Reich.
Nothing I have read captures the essence of the Communist mind and socialist threat as Chambers does, and he weaves his tale in 1954 in a way that is eerily prescient of many of the conflicts we still face today, for the crux of the Communist faith, which is that salvation by society in a world without God is the only solution to the crisis of history, is alive and well in the progressive remnants left behind under other names, both here and abroad, by the discrediting of institutional Communism. And it is amazing how complicit in this faith and the relentless pursuit of power based on that faith were and are the American fellow-travelers, up to the point of complete denial to this day, despite incontrovertible evidence gleaned from KGB files since the fall of the Soviet Union, and how willing to ignore or rationalize the pervasiveness of this evil our major cultural institutions were and are.

Judgment at Nuremberg is a must see in understanding the true corruption of the Third Reich, because it focuses not on the military war criminals, but on those whose insidious corruption of the rule of law undermined what was at the time the most advanced intellectual society in the world. I was particularly struck by how easy it might have been to rationalize, as defense attorney Rolfe (portrayed by Academy Award winner Maximillian Schell) did, the compromises of the rule of law as temporary expedients to salvage a nation and a culture. It is also a classic treatment of the conflict, very much at issue today, between the positive law and natural law in the prosecution of crimes against humanity, and how, in fact, our distinctively American philosophy of pragmatism as expressed in key U. S. court decisions during the progressive era was thrown back at us in defense of Nazi eugenics policy.

These are timeless works with messages to match, and I was reminded of C. S. Lewis’s line about the “magician’s bargain” from The Abolition of Man: “Give up your soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls.”