What is the Point of Conservative Intellectuals?
Hint: It’s not to simply be on the winning side
Jonah Goldberg has recently come under attack in an opinion for The Federalist for being a NeverTrumper and a “cosmopolitan conservative.” He hasn’t gotten on board, you see, with the glorious populism that is Trumpism. He’s stuck on Reagan (a charge which he flatly refutes), on a bygone era, and he’s irrelevant now.
Pro-Trump pundits have found a solid recipe for clicks and accolades. Throw some quotes from George Will, some anecdotes about Bill Kristol, and the names of a few other prominent NeverTrumpers (David French, Ross Douthat, Erick Erickson, etc.) into a Word doc, sprinkle in some mischaracterizations, smash them all together despite widely differing views, trim off most of the context, and you have the start of a smug screed against the “elitists” and the “intellectuals” of conservatism.
To those on the right who have embraced Trump and aren’t simply anti-anti-Trump, these screeds must be quite satisfying considering how often they are written. They relish in declaring the so-called cosmopolitans so wrong in their prognoses: Hillary lost, and Trump has governed pretty conservatively so far. Therefore, the reasoning goes, these conservative intellectuals are “out of touch” with a large swathe of the American electorate. As Tucker Carlson put it, and as quoted by Emerald Robinson in her American Spectator screed, “If Trump is leading a populist movement, many of his Republican critics have joined an elitist one. Deriding Trump is an act of class solidarity, visible evidence of refinement and proof that you live nowhere near a Wal-Mart.”
What matters most to these people is that the voters chose Trump, and if you can’t see the wisdom of the electorate, you’re an elitist, a “stuffy wimp” who might even wear his stuffiness on his collar with — hahaha! — a bow-tie.
Robinson mentioned George Will’s bow-tie twice in her anti-NeverTrump rant. One might think it strange that a bowtie would come up at all in this discussion, when we’re supposedly talking about conservatism and its place in modern society (it is “cosmopolitan conservatives” who are under attack here), until you realize that neither Michael Doran nor Emerald Robinson are even talking seriously about conservatism or any ideas at all. Doran merely brings up some basic conservative principles only to sweep them aside as “Reaganism-in-a-can,” which is — you guessed it — a remnant of a bygone era. Reaganism is for stuffy bow-tie wearing Washington insiders. Trumpism is for America in 2018.
What’s the motivation here?
Bowties, zip codes. Feeling slighted, feeling smug. Visible signalers in place of ideas. These are the motivations behind so much rightist media nowadays. It is only from a lack of self-awareness that Doran could accuse Jonah Goldberg — a career-long devotee to conservatism and giant of conservative thought for a decade now — of being a “reactionary.” (Ed. note: and the lack of awareness is all the more ironic given some of the conservative thought pieces that have made Goldberg a giant in modern conservative thought.)
Doran isn’t defending Trump’s protectionism with facts and figures. He’s not digging into the “legitimate disagreement about how to meet the challenges of the moment.” And Robinson isn’t critiquing the orthodox conservative position on free speech or the belief that public officials should be virtuous. Instead, they are both airing long-form complaints that commentators, some of whom argued quite persuasively that Trump’s conservative credentials were seriously iffy (given his history as a lifelong Democrat and proponent of universal healthcare, to name just a couple red flags), and that his character would be a stain on conservatism for a generation (which still might hold true), didn’t vote for Trump and still refuse to embrace Trumpism.
As retribution, they are branding these thinkers as members of a classist club and insisting they have no real influence outside their beltway bubble. Nevermind that DC is the headquarters of power in this country, and political thinkers can have tremendous influence on policy there. The goal is to isolate these voices by insisting they are already isolated. “We shouldn’t listen to these commentators because no one is listening to these commentators. Because Trump won and the people chose Trump, goddamnit, and they were wrong about him.”
Funny thing, though, these anti-conservative-intellectuals never mention the wildly influential Ben Shapiro, who didn’t vote for Trump, who was wrong about the election, and who consistently calls Trump on his frequent lies and miscalculations. Confronting Shapiro’s popularity would betray the lie that is conservative intellectuals’ isolation and irrelevance.
As Goldberg put it in his response to Doran, “Never has so much bleating been dedicated to people who allegedly matter so little.”
Why do we need conservative intellectuals?
This brings us to the question: what is the point of conservative intellectuals? Doran writes, “In a democratic culture, the pundit is not a philosopher. He exists to inform and guide like-minded voters, which is only possible if they trust him to be thinking along with them.”
Well, if that’s what conservative pundits are supposed to do, no wonder he is satirizing the NeverTrump conservatives as “valiant knights manning the ramparts on the citadel of true conservatism.” They are not merely giving words to what the like-minded think. They are defending core ideas, and that is rather inconvenient for the populist right. So they have resorted to ridicule. They prefer pundits who subjugate core ideas to the whims of the populist right.
It is circular reasoning. Requiring the public to guide the punditry is quite useless for guiding anybody at all. Doran’s advice is for people who want to hear a more articulate version of themselves echo their own thoughts. A pundit must agree with like-minded voters (i.e. people who already agree with him), or else he…can’t guide the people who already agree with him? What?
As Goldberg noted, “Doran’s argument echoes the words attributed to Alexandre Ledru-Rollin: ‘There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.’”
Doran’s position is perfectly consistent with how to run a rightist cable news network for maximum views. It is not consistent with the calling of conservative thinkers.
Conservative thinkers, be they famous and well established like Jonah Goldberg or obscure small-timers like myself, are not here to recite back to you what you feel. We are not here to determine who holds the majority view so we can quickly adhere to it and reflect popular sentiment. We are not here to become the leaders of a tribe who already believe they know where they are heading, who they’re at war with, and how to fight that war.
Conservative thinkers are here to espouse conservatism, to defend it, and to persuade people of its merits. They are here to show us how conservatism works in 2018. They are here to argue how to best achieve more conservative policies and even a more conservative culture.
Do they always do a good job on these fronts? Of course not. Are there many who pretend to this position, but aren’t very conservative at all? Absolutely. Are there people who are subjugating conservative principles in trying to make a career out of conservatism punditry? Without a doubt.
These “true believers,” as they are derided, don’t spend late nights hunched over their keyboard or elbow deep in policy research to make you feel good about believing Mexicans are depressing your wages or China is stealing from us via trade deficits. They are not here to “own the libs” and “melt the snowflakes” merely for your amusement and self-esteem. They are here because they believe conservative principles benefit all Americans, regardless of their zip code or where they buy groceries or their preferred form of neckwear, and they will argue til the break of day to see those benefits are realized. Those people are not any less patriotic than Trump supporters. They are not worthy of contempt because they sit in a think tank or behind a laptop in DC instead of on a tractor in Texas or Wisconsin.
Consideration should of course be given to credibility, but a commentator should be judged on the merits of their arguments, especially their present arguments (because even the brightest, reddest prognosticators can be wrong about electoral outcomes). By all means, disagree and debate with NeverTrump conservatives. Just don’t try to discredit them with illogical arguments or insist they fall in line on Trumpism because it is supposedly in their job description. They aren’t in this vocation to agree with you or toe the populist line; they are in it to persuade, to lead.
In an increasingly tribalistic culture, that rigorous adherence to ideals is needed. And if more people approached each other in debate based on their ideas and not how many disciples they have, it could go a long way toward keeping America great and keeping conservatism alive.
