E. J. Dionne Jr. - Civil War on the Right - washingtonpost.com - The Diigo Meta page

• 24 Oct 08
  

  Clay Burell

  This really is one of the most interesting, and most potentially historical, side-stories of the election: the possible fall of the GOP and rise of an INTELLECTUAL conservative party to take its place.

  elections08 mccain palin conservative history usa democracy politics

  • Conservatives are at each other's throats, and here's what's revealing about how divided they are: The critics of John McCain and the critics of Sarah Palin represent entirely different camps.
  • Then there are those conservatives who see Palin as a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party" (David Brooks), as someone who "doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin" (Kathleen Parker), as "a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics" (Peggy Noonan).
  • 3 more annotations...

  • • For years, many of the elite conservatives were happy to harvest the votes of devout Christians and gun owners by waging a phony class war against "liberal elitists" and "leftist intellectuals." Suddenly, the conservative writers are discovering that the very anti-intellectualism their side courted and encouraged has begun to consume their movement.
      

      
      

      
      The cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, Robert Nisbet and William F. Buckley Jr. is now in the hands of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity -- and Sarah Palin. Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans, learned manifestoes by direct-mail hit pieces.
      

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        Clay Burell on 2008-10-24

        I've been noting this all week. The originally intellectual Conservative movement has campaigned itself over the decades into an anti-intellectual party. The crows have come home to roost.
        
        It would be nice to see a new party of philoophical, not brand-name, conservatism replace the GOP. Those debates can only enrich the political discourse by debating the liberal point of view, instead of demonizing it.

    • Conservatives came to believe that if they repeated phrases such as "Joe the Plumber" often enough, they could persuade working-class voters that policies tilted heavily in favor of the very privileged were actually designed with Joe in mind.
      

      
      

      
      It isn't working anymore. No wonder conservatives are turning on each other so ferociously.

      • 

        Clay Burell on 2008-10-24

        We can only hope.
        
        But schools have apparently done a horrible job of teaching blue-collar white people to think clearly enough to see through demagoguery and propaganda. I fully expect millions of white Americans to vote against their own interests because of their trust in FOX.

    • Conservatives came to believe that if they repeated phrases such as "Joe the Plumber" often enough, they could persuade working-class voters that policies tilted heavily in favor of the very privileged were actually designed with Joe in mind.
      

      
      

      
      It isn't working anymore. No wonder conservatives are turning on each other so ferociously.
      

      
      

      
      postchat@aol.com

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  Clay Burell on 2008-10-24
  I've been noting this all week. The originally intellectual Conservative movement has campaigned itself over the decades into an anti-intellectual party. The crows have come home to roost.
  
  It would be nice to see a new party of philoophical, not brand-name, conservatism replace the GOP. Those debates can only enrich the political discourse by debating the liberal point of view, instead of demonizing it.
• 
  Clay Burell on 2008-10-24
  We can only hope.
  
  But schools have apparently done a horrible job of teaching blue-collar white people to think clearly enough to see through demagoguery and propaganda. I fully expect millions of white Americans to vote against their own interests because of their trust in FOX.

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