Conservative intellectuals Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan have officially “broke” from the GOP. Both thinkers publicized their abandonment of the Right via published “testaments”, which cite the GOP’s racist, homophobic, misogynistic, bigoted, fascist, and religious fundamentalist ideologies as the reasons for their respective departures. Sullivan’s impassioned declaration, which references Johnson’s own, may be viewed here.
These violent and irrational symptoms of the Right, which both pundits reference, are arguably on the minds of many conservative intellectuals today. The GOP, that so many politically thoughtful Americans had supported for decades, is now all but dead. The creeping takeover of the Party by authoritarian extremists is now almost solidified. NJP recently explored this tragic (d)evolution of the American Right in the articles “The War on Terror Does Not Exist” and “The Conservative Counter-Revolution”. Indeed, more intellectual conservatives will likely leave the Party for the same reasons as Sullivan and Johnson, if the GOP does not sober up soon.
Allegations are already cropping up on the conservative blogosphere, that the remaining intellectual leaders of the GOP have begun a “purge” of the Party’s “extremist” elements. But these same allegations contain laments that the so-called purges focus only on the most hysterically-aggressive fringe-extremists. The “far-right” ideologues, elements that former Nixon White House official John W. Dean termed “conservatives without a conscious”, in his book of the same title, are remaining in the Party.
All signs point now to an implosion of the American Right. The movement, itself, is being torn apart from within, by at least three identifiable factions: The “conservative intellectuals” compose the first faction (which include traditional “paleoconservatives” and the “neoconservatives”). The second faction is made up of an amalgam of “authoritarian extremists” (which include the various “Rightist-populist” groups and the “Christian fundamentalist” movement). The third faction is the “conservative-libertarian” wing, which was most notably represented by Ron Paul in the last US presidential election (though, some libertarians argue Paul has deviated from their script).
Each faction, interestingly enough, adheres to an ideology which is incompatible with the others. An irreparable splintering of these factions, hence, is inevitable; the GOP is in for a serious shake-up.
The GOP’s Coming Implosion
History tells us that any political movement, which fosters irrationality and fear-mongering as a means of ideological cohesion, is doomed to self-destruction. Thus, we can be sure that it is a matter of time before the GOP is forced to purge the “authoritarian extremists” from their organization. Not only is this hysterical faction unmanageable, but it has become a serious PR problem for the conservative movement, which has traditionally prided itself as the sober answer to the “loony”, “extremist” Left.
Indeed, the tables have turned in this regard to political extremism. In the late 1960′s, organizations on the American Left, like the Weather Underground and the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, did fit the bill of the conservatives’ denunciations as “extremists”, in numerous ways. But the Left has relegated its activities to predominantly conventional avenues for the past three decades. The Right, though, has done the opposite.
We might continue in this comparison and say the GOP, today, has gone further than the liberal administrations of the 1960′s ever did. The Democratic Party never courted Leftist extremists as its predominant political base. The GOP, on the other hand, has openly embraced Rightist extremist groups as a major part of its base for the past 30 years, despite the laments of many paleoconservatives, most notably the laments of President George H. W. Bush, himself, (a fact which drove a, now-public, ideological wedge between him and his son, W. Bush).
Nevertheless, these Rightist extremist elements are likely on the way out of the GOP, for the reasons expressed above. Yet this posses a serious problem for the conservative movement in the future.
For decades, the GOP has catered to these “authoritarian extremist” groups in every major election. The Party’s success has largely thrived, thus, on often sinking to the lowest level of politicking possible in an “open society”. While in power, the GOP has further dismantled the US educational and civil service institutions, to ensure its irrational base grew in the squalor created by its own blindly self-destructive policies, policies which historian Thomas Frank has shown have also bankrupted the US economy. Hence, the fact that the GOP now finds itself in a crisis of its own creation should not be surprising.
But with the inevitable purge of its ”authoritarian extremist” faction on the horizon, the GOP is not left with a base that it can depend on for consistent and unconditional support. The remaining two factions, the “intellectual conservatives” and the “libertarian” wing, are not as susceptible to hysterical fear-mongering, as a rallying cry, as the authoritarian extremists were and are. The GOP, thus, will need a new message. What that message will be, and whether a new base will congeal around it, is the million dollar question.
With the focus of party “implosions” in this article, we should shift gears here, at the end, and simply note that the Democratic Party is currently facing similar problems, regarding its own base. More and more progressives are their pulling their support from President Obama and the Democrats, due to the lack of seeing really-existing “change”, now that the Democrats are in power. Thus, both the GOP and the Democratic Party are in for respective trouble. But it may be that a total clearing of the ideological air is order. In other words, only when both parties suffer implosions, can historical progress begin again, with the ushering in of fresh ideas.
Stephen Dufrechou is a college professor in Memphis, TN. He is a regular contributor to NJP.
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