Another Camels Nose Under The Conservative Tent - Road to the Middle Class

SOME PEOPLE reckon that the conservative movement is composed of three parts: the social conservatives, the economic conservatives, and the national-security conservatives. Others, like Ken Blackwell, have dvided it into six parts.

Social conservatives
Christian conservatives
Second Amendment conservatives
Economic conservatives
Philosophical conservatives
National Security conservatives

But my question is: Where do the Palin conservatives belong in our movement?

It’s a big question, and I think it is the determining question for the next phase of conservative expansion. We conservatives see a new camel’s nose appearing under the tent and we want the Palin conservatives in our coalition. I mean by “Palin conservative” people from unremarkable origins, people who maybe were in a hurry to get married. People who have Downs Syndrome babies, and pregnant teenage daughters. People who had a DUI in their twenties. People who want to get on with life, don’t have big expectations or big resentments. People who more or less take the world as they find it, but want to go to work, obey the law, play by the rules, and give back to the community.

Ross Douthout and Reihan Salam have addressed this issue in Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream. How can Republicans get their head out of the clouds and get their feet on the ground to welcome people like the Palins into the conservative movement?

I don’t like to call the Palin people “blue-collar” or “working-class” conservatives, because that’s demeaning. They aren’t, anyway. They are middle class and think of themselves that way. People who go to Bible church are no longer rank-and-file working class, because the whole point of Bible church is to leave the tribal world of identity politics and enter the great middle class where service and moving out replaces battling for a bare existence and defending the community against injustice and exploitation.

I think all this is very important. I think that, after a Democratic interregnum, Republicans will come back stronger than ever. But first we need to do some thinking. Well, maybe first of all we need to do some listening. What is the Palin candidacy telling us? What do the Palin people want for themselves and America? What can the rest of the conservative movement do to welcome them into the tent?

One thing is for sure. The current liberal sneer-in over the Palin pick is going to boomerang big time. The New York Times today, Tuesday September 2, 2008, had three front-page stories on the Palin daughter’s pregnancy. What is it about these liberals? Have they no decency? As attorney Robert Welch said at the Army McCarthy hearings:

"Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator.... You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

But, of course, our liberal friends don’t think that they have “done enough” on Palin’s daughter, or on Palin herself, or on McCain, or on any conservative or any Republican. Indeed, they have hardly begun!

UPDATE: In a blazing denunciation of the Drive-by Media (driving by the Palin family for the last three days and spraying media gunfire on them) Rush Limbaugh just used the notion of “heartland” conservative to describe the Palin conservatives.

UPDATE TWO: Or maybe “fly-over” conservative.

UPDATE THREE: How about “bedrock” conservative?

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

TAGS

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

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