Following up on an earlier post about John Dean’s latest book, entitled above, I ordered a copy. I see that Shaun Kenney did the same. As I suggested there, perhaps we need to start a book club 🙂
My copy was delivered yesterday. Last night, I started reading it and managed to get thru the preface and chapter 1 before I started getting sleepy. The preface is some 30 pages long – a chapter in and of itself. I found the preface, in which Dean recounts his own brush with those new conservatives with whom he did not identify, engrossing. After Watergate, Dean stayed out of politics and carved out an existence for himself out of the public eye. Once dragged back in, he found a world and a Republican party that he didn’t recognize. So uncomfortable was he with the party, he re-registered as an Independent.
Dean considers himself a “Goldwater conservative,” and recounts consersations that he had with the former Arizona senator from 1994 to the time of the senator’s death in 1998. One such conversation from 1994:
“I heard that jackass Liddy on one of the talk-radio shows,” the senator told me. “I don’t think anyone believes him, John. He’s a fool.” “Frankly, I find it offensive that he calls himself a conservative,” the senator added.
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Why? I’ll tell you why. Because he thinks like a thug, not like a conservative. Conservatives seek the wisdom of the past, not the worst of it,” he snapped. He continued, “I was talking with [former Arizona Republican congressman and former minority leader of the House of Representatives] Johnny Rhodes, just a few days ago. He’s still got the ear of the House Republican leaders. I asked him to tell those fellows back in Washington that I don’t go along with their incivility. I told them they should back off their attacks on Hillary Clinton. They’re acting like jerks too, not conservatives. If they don’t, I’m going to blast them. They’re driving decent people out of public service. And they’re turning off voters. It’s dirty politics, and it should end.”
“Why do you suppose that they do this?” I asked.
Without hesitation he said, “It’s these so-called social or cultural conservatives. And I don’t know what in hell possess them. I’d like to find out.”
Thus began the plan to write a book together – Dean and Goldwater – about the so-called “social conservatives.” The title was a reference to Goldwater’s classic early 1960s book, The Conscience of a Conservative. Goldwater’s health began to fail and he was not able to continue the project, but Dean pressed on, and kept the agreed upon title.
Chapter 1 is entitled “How Conservatives Think” and attempts to find definitions of conservatism, which are hard to come by. Dean gives a history lesson to those of us who are just vaguely familiar with the rise of conservatism in this country:
Unlike classic liberalism, which evolved slowly over centuries, modern conservatism was cobbled together, if not contrived, by a relatively small group of intellectuals during a brief period in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Modern conservatism was soon brought into elective politics in the 1950s; its followers then joined forces with Southern politicians in the 1960s, and began flirting with evangelical Christians in the 1970s. Conservatism’s many factions were consolidated under Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party in the 1980s. Less than satisfied with their lot under Reagan, however, evangelical Christians increased their religiously motivated political zealotry in the late 1980s, throughout the 1990s, and into the new century.
Today’s conservatives can be broken into ten groups, as shown in this article from Insight magazine. (Dean ignores the so-called “South Park” conservatives, as he believes it will be short-lived.) Dean theorizes that the factions within conservatism have coalesced due to the power of negative thinking, specifically the ability to find common enemies.
The adherents of early conservatism – economic conservatives, traditional conservatives, and libertarians – agreed that communism was the enemy. Today’s conservatives – especially social conservatives, as opposed to intellectuals and the more thoughtful politicians – define themselves by what they oppose, which is anything and everything they perceived to be liberal. Another group that has recently been designated as an enemy is “activist judges,” regardless of their party or philisophical affliation. Activist judges are best described as those whose rulings run contrary to the beliefs of a particular conservative faction.
Dean says that conservatism has always been the antithesis of liberalism, but the vehemence by which today’s conservatives attack liberalism is unnecessary. He cites a Harris Poll which found that only 18% of American adults call themselves “liberal” yet conservatives use “liberal” as the bogeyman for anything with which they disagree. Further, he finds that they are incapable of self-analysis and are often “illogical, inconsistent, and contradictory.” He uses their opposition to both abortion and the death penalty as an example (an inconsistency I have never understood). Another example is the conservative opposition to atheists’ desire to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, while they solemnly recite “with liberty and justice for all,” – that is, for all but atheists.
Dean concludes chapter 1 with this:
Both social conservatives and neoconservatism have overwhelmed the conservative movement and the Republican Party, and to gauge their influence, and its consequences, it is essential to understand authoritarian thinking and behavior. Social conservatism and neoconservatism have revived authoritarian conservatism, and not for the better of conservatism or American democracy. True conservatism is cautious and prudent. Authoritarianism is rash and radical. American democracy has benefitted from true conservatism, but authoritarianism offer potentially serious trouble for any democracy.
I have found much of what Dean has written to be facsinating. His many references (footnoted throughout) will be a source of reading material for me for a long time to come. Understanding the nature of the roots of conservatism and how it has been transformed in a relatively short period of time has already made the purchase of this book worthwhile.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Vivian, fascinating review of Dean’s book, which I plan to get and read over the summer. You should also look over some of Kevin Phillips’ work. He too was a young conservative who started in the Nixon administration and was one of the architects of the Southern Strategy. Yet he too has grown disillusioned with the modern conservative movement and the Republican Party.
And he too is taking on the Republican theocrats.
Perhaps that book club idea ain’t such a bad one after all 😉 As I make my way thru the remainder of the book, I’ll write a few more posts. Perhaps when I get finished I’ll have a chance to look at Phillips’ work.