Ideas Don’t Have Consequences

From Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse at American Mind:

There are any number of things I could say about the failure of the strategies which the conservative “legal establishment” has used to argue for any number of social policies in the courts. But this is a message for another time. Today, my message is simply that conservatives must stop simply intoning the “ideas have consequences” mantra over and over again, as if getting the ideas right automatically assures victory.

We must moreover abandon the idea that “the truth will win in the end,” just as we must forego our blind allegiance to the economists’ own version of the same notion—that “an invisible hand will automatically course-correct everything.” A lot of people will suffer while we are waiting around for “the invisible hand” or “the end.” The close-cousin concept, that “something so crazy will collapse of its own weight,” is no better. The Soviet Union did not just “collapse.” Pope St. John Paul, Ronald Reagan, and Mrs. Thatcher gave it a good shove. Finally, the religious version—“oh well, we know Who wins in the end”—subtly suggests that waiting for the Apocalypse is an honorable option.

All these stock phrases are familiar from conservative discourse. All of them endorse and encourage passivity. Our opponents have bad ideas, but no shortage of highly motivated followers. Our opponents take seriously the problems of figuring out a plan and then expending the resources and taking the risks needed to implement that plan. We, on the other hand, have plenty of analysts observing the battlefield from 30,000 feet. But we have no ground game.

Conservatives of the professional classes have a disturbing tendency to dismiss activism as being beneath their dignity, and people without advanced degrees as hardly worth bothering with. The only consistent exception I can think of is the pro-life movement, which is filled with volunteers of all ages, races, classes, professions, and education levels. But that exception actually proves the rule. The pro-life movement is the defining core of social conservatism, which is the red-headed stepchild of the conservative establishment. (Read more.)

Never let a good crisis go to waste. From TFP:

Two factors that act like glue to hold America together are our way of resolving things through civil discourse and our economic prosperity. These two pillars help sustain the American order. Now, successive crises are threatening our stable order. The debate over coronavirus crisis and the violence is breaking what is left of public discourse. The riots detonated massive civil unrest. An economic crisis looming on the horizon jeopardizes what little financial stability remains.

All these major crises set the stage for an identity-shaking revolution that seeks to overturn American institutions, freedoms and values. The left needs to transform its gains in the culture war into structural changes. It needs to unite all its causes into one, be it ecological, feminist, LGBTQ+, abortionist or other causes. It cannot advance toward the “inclusive” socialistic society it envisions while the old American identity still exists and functions. (Read more.)

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