BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
The right wing of the Republican Party has gotten constant, almost obsessive exposure by an endless number of mainstream, quasi and neo news outlets. It suggests a condition within the House GOP of something ranging from disunity to civil war. The reality is the House GOP is united and the media believes that if they write enough about this civil war, it will come true.
The news shower is a reflection of the love-hate relationship between the media and the so-called Tea Party wing of the GOP. The shower will get hotter as we get closer to primaries in which a few right wing candidates are challenging conservative Republicans, many of whom were once Tea Party darlings themselves, but fell from grace for getting elected to office and then attempting to govern the country, the fools.
One race to watch is the Republican Senate primary in Oklahoma. Congressman James Lankford, a former youth camp director who won a Congressional seat as a Tea Party favorite in 2010, is now running for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Senator Tom Coburn.
Lankford’s situation is emblematic of the evolution, or more appropriately, the devolution of ideology in party politics; and the introduction of a new paradigm in which government gridlock, obstruction, and brinkmanship are being passed off, not only as conservatism, but as good governance.
Lankford came to Congress with strong, deeply-rooted conservative values, an instinct for getting things done, and a commitment to doing them. It didn’t take long for his colleagues to recognize keen intelligence, character, and the kind of leadership qualities from which they, the Party and the country, could benefit. So they elected Lankford to the House Republican Leadership, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee.
He has been a star, the kind of politician who has put real meaning back into the “servant” in public servant.
Lankford is being challenged in the primary by two others, one of whom replaced him as the darling of the Tea Party. He is T. W. Shannon, Oklahoma State Speaker of the House. Shannon is Sarah Palin’s latest BFF in Oklahoma, and the stalking horse, of sorts for Senator Ted Cruz, Heritage Action, and Freedom Works, Tea Party Express. They, and a few other national organizations, are the Tea Party power grid.
Lankford’s circumstances give meaning and clarity to the distinctions and the differences between conservatism and libertarianism. The distinctions are important because they may serve as the framework for the future of the Republican Party and the difference between positive governance and no governance at all.
Instead of providing clarity, however, the media have made a mess of it, with their obsessive, one-size-fits-all use of the term conservative in describing everything and everybody right wing and revolutionary, especially Cruz and Palin whose motivations are always in question, and the new phalanx of Liberty Caucus Republicans in the House (See Part I), who have vowed to overthrow House Speaker John Boehner, and either get rid of or reign in Majority Leader Eric Cantor and other leaders.
Conservatives are a diverse bunch. They can be ideological, pragmatic, social, traditional, neo, nasty, nice, economic, hawk, dove, but seldom all of the above. The C-word covers a wide swath of beliefs. But a good share of those who are described as conservatives are not that at all.
They are, more accurately, libertarians, some anarchical libertarians and some just unabashed anarchists. They are not conservatives in the image of Barry Goldwater, or Robert Taft, or Ronald Reagan, and certainly not Jack Kemp, at whose altar some claim to worship.
They are probably not even legitimately Republican in the image of those great leaders, either. In this election cycle, some libertarian organizations have spent more money attempting to defeat Republicans than Democrats. When it comes to party politics, the anarchical libertarians are the real Republicans in Name Only (RINOs), who, but for the lack of one, would probably be more comfortable in a third party.
Among them is Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, who in a recent Daily Caller article, criticized his Georgia Senate primary opponent Rep. Jack Kingston, who the article described as being the second-most conservative congressman in Georgia and the 17th most conservative in the House of Representatives, of not being conservative enough. Broun is the poster child of a RINO.
It’s time to go back to some basics.
The dictionary definition of conservatism is: “a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change.”
The same dictionary, Merriam’s, treats libertarian this way: “a person who believes that people should be allowed to do and say what they want without any interference from the government; an advocate of the doctrine of free will, a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action.
A better and broader portrait of conservatism came from conversations with my good friend and a highly respected conservative writer, Bill Gavin: “The major conservative virtues are freedom, order, prudence, community, and civil discourse. There is a disposition to believe human fallibility demands that we approach radical change with prudence and a high degree of skepticism. Ideas like Progress (with a capital P) and “the right side of history” are suspicious to American conservatives, who wish to be on the right side of the accumulated wisdom of western civilization. ”
“Libertarianism,” Gavin says, “is an ideology whose major point is the absolute belief in individual freedom as the highest virtue. Thus, conservative beliefs in community and in certain customs, traditions, and institutions that are necessary to sustain ordered freedom are not always embraced by libertarians.
“The Tea Party is a combination of pseudo-conservative rhetoric, hard line libertarian dogma, and most importantly, seemingly bottomless, unappeasable, anger and resentment. Any group to which anger is the only legitimate form of political integrity can quickly gain adherents and just as quickly lose elections.”
Columnist Michael Gerson wrote recently that in conservatism “individual liberty is enabled and ordered within social institutions—families, religious communities, neighborhoods, voluntary associations, local governments and nations. The success of individuals is tied to the health of these institutions, which prepare people for responsible exercise of freedom and the duties of citizenship.” He says all of this is a guide to “appropriate governmental action—needed when local and private institutions are enervated or insufficient in scale to achieve the public good.”
The politics practiced by Senator Cruz and his followers is radical, and that’s fine for them. Their mission is to prevent government action rather than produce it. When Senator Cruz was asked by a writer to defend the fact that he has accomplished little or nothing since entering the Senate, his retort was he isn’t in the Senate to accomplish anything, but to prevent bad things from happening.
Well and good, if you adhere to an anarchical-type libertarian ideology. But that is a departure from any rational conservative view of government as an instrument rather than an evil.
And it conveniently ignores one undeniable reality: If you want to limit the size of government, that still requires governmental action. If you want to protect the right of privacy, that requires governmental action. If you want to reduce regulation or cut taxes or impose your social and moral values on your fellow citizens, it requires governmental action.
Governmental action in a democratic republic does not take place in an ideological vacuum. To realize a conservative philosophy and to practice conservative principles requires that you appeal to the majority and reach consensus. It requires positive energy, not just negative discharge.
Conservatism, then, is not a wrecking ball. It does not and should not embolden the politics of demolition or gridlock, or legitimize this new paradigm in which obstruction and brinkmanship are passed off as acts of good governance. Nor does it suggest that the country abandon the Constitution and restore the Articles of Confederation, which the Founding Fathers replaced in favor of a stronger Federal Government and a Federalist system of shared power.
Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.