Common Sense Conservatism

By The Editors

It is with great excitement and even greater pride that The Salient greets the news of The New York Times’s newest editorial columnist. Ross Gregory Douthat, author of Privilege, the acclaimed exposé of Harvard undergraduate life, and an editor emeritus of this very newspaper, is a prominent, articulate, and relatively young (Class of 2002, so, from our perspective, not exactly a spring chicken) conservative in mainstream journalism. 

As a senior editor for The Atlantic and a frequent contributor to the recent fad of web logs—often abbreviated as ’blogs—Mr. Douthat has reached an audience beyond the often self-segregating and insular readership of National Review and the more partisan periodicals of conservative circles. From his days at Harvard, in the pages of this journal and as a columnist in the university daily, Mr. Douthat has made a career of arguing for conservative principles in the most inhospitable circumstances and to the most unsympathetic audiences. His transition to the Times, the notoriously slanted newspaper of record, will put him in a position in which he has had sufficient experience and already laudable success. 

Mr. Douthat’s great success as a writer and polemicist has rested in his reputation as an intelligent and thoughtful conservative, shunning the talking points and partisan shibboleths that comprise the bulk of arguments typically forwarded on both sides of the political spectrum. When logic and reason are subordinated to the base purpose of political propaganda and electioneering, barbarous conclusions and slipshod arguments are the inevitable and only result. Gradually, our political discourse is debased and devalued, prostituted in the service power, a mere means to an ignoble end. The partisan rancor, ad hominem attacks, and unimaginative style that have characterized political journalism of late—all has proceeded from, in Hume’s unadvised dictum, making reason the slave of the passions. We have confidence that Mr. Douthat will restore to the public perception of conservatism that sense of reasoned and principled detachment from the tendentious culture of newspaper editorialists.

Mr. Douthat’s ascension to the bully pulpit of opinion journalism has also brought attention to the future of conservative principles, or the so-called “conservative movement,” in America. Stereotyped, rather crudely, as a “reformer,” Mr. Douthat has suffered unjust assaults from such ideologues as the influential radio personality Rush Limbaugh, who claim his prescriptions would turn the Republican Party into “Democrat Light.” While this undergraduate newspaper is in no place to chime in on the policy intricacies discussed in Mr. Douthat’s Grand New Party or the responses of its critics, we cannot help but interpret such jabs as proof of his independence of mind and willingness to reconsider the stale slogans and prejudices still ascendant in some “conservative” circles.

We do not arrogantly dare to say what is the best strategy for the Republican Party as it squirms slowly toward 2010, crippled by two consecutive resounding defeats. But one thing is abundantly certain: conservatives in this country, those who oppose the policies and ésprit of this nascent administration, need not only to be armed with cogent and intelligent arguments but also with effective and realistic alternatives. If the 2008 election and the implosion of the Bush administration have imparted any lesson, it is that the selfish and self-gratifying ideology of liberal individualism and lack of personal responsibility ought not to be the cornerstone of any political program. 

Invoking, often unjustly, the example of President Reagan, the stock Republican response has been to cut taxes and repeat tired and incomprehensible nostrums of “individual liberty”—as if a Communist bloc professing “collectivism” still stared us down from Moscow. For all the animosity Mr. Bush and the Republican Congress had stirred up among homosexual extremists and the abortion lobby, under their watch few concrete successes on those fronts had been achieved. Indeed, the partial-birth abortion ban—now threatened, along with the decades-long, excruciatingly slow and painstaking erosion at Roe, by the Freedom of Choice Act—and the impeccable choices of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito speak in their favor. But a polarized electorate and leftist extremists, united by a singularity of purpose and an unprecedented energy, are the immediate consequences. 

Cynically flattering their base of Evangelical Christians, Republican politicians no doubt have taken their votes for granted. A sufficiently valid strategy, perhaps, but America’s Christian population is shrinking and turning away from organized religion to an amorphous new-age emotionalism; and, the Republican Party, as a parasite of this residual piety, has done nothing to sustain its host, but rather accelerated its decline.

Whither ought conservatism go now? Conservatives, per the advice of Mr. Limbaugh and others, can retreat toward the familiar bunkers of free-market ideology and hope to awaken the American people from what they seem certain could only be a short but dreamy infatuation with extreme liberalism concealed by the charisma of Obama. Or, rather, they can begin from the principles of common sense and the received wisdom of generations—personal responsibility, patriotism to hearth and home, and traditional morality—and reexamine their political prejudices under that light.

We are hopeful that Mr. Douthat will bring a fresh and interesting perspective to the often banal Times editorial page. And with the prominence that such a position will bring, we hope that his example will encourage conservatives to search their souls for a more coherent, comprehensive, and compelling political vision that, if it cannot assure electoral success in the near future, at least will lead us out of the intellectual wilderness where lackluster leaders have marooned us.