The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.
-- Josh Billings
You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.
-- George W. Bush, 2001
Paul Krugman (subscription only) and a whole lot of others have noted the spectacular idiocy of the new wave of conservative critics coming, quiveringly, out of the woodwork to say that, well, regardless of the actual realities of planet earth, they are still as preeningly brilliant as they said they were, those years before any of this ever happened. And if the rest of us would kindly shut up, they'd like to get back to advocating the exact same "studies" and "strategies" and "policies" again, thank you very much, and just you wait and see -- they've still got it.
Yeah. I don't see any particular reason we should have to listen to such drivel.
Let's be clear on a few things, whether we're talking about economics, foreign policy, or basic governance. Any of the things which, looking back now, conservatives are declaring were nothing more than Bart Simpson moments in an otherwise impeccable philosophy.
If George W. Bush is an idiot now, then he was an idiot then, too. He didn't change, and neither did his stream of uber-conservative advisors, and neither did any of his conscience-scratching new critics. To only see it now doesn't restore their lost credibility. It only shows how thorougly in the tank they were, and how eager they are to extricate themselves now. It shows that the so-called tenets of conservatism are, in truth, a mere millimeter deep. Or maybe it just shows that incompetence and conservatism go so hand-in-hand as to be indistinguishable from each other.
For every saddened, blustering new critic of utterly failed conservative policies -- and make no mistake, these have been conservative policies all along, to their very core -- there has been a critic who was right in the first place.
And that is an essential point, in this upcoming mudfight that comes with the realization of just how remarkable the failures have been, the corruption has been, and the incompetence has been. The critics of those failures, those corruptions, and that incompetence were right.
They were right. The liberal critics of the Iraq War? Right. The media figures who challenged conservative-spun "facts", and were roundly punished? Right. The deficit hawks? Right. And they were right from the start -- they didn't need years of resultant unending bungled mess to drill it into their skulls.
And so, the conservative walkback begins anew. Again. And we're seeing it take the usual forms. Denying the "conservative" label to all the conservative ideas that, once tried, failed, and attacking their critics as being the mean, cruel, partisan ones. Especially ironic, given the blistering attacks these jackasses have given any critic of administration policies, no matter how patently obvious the failures were. Criticism was treason, we were told. Absolute, America-hating, Constitution-punching treason. What unbelievable hacks. What sorry, simpering little fucks.
Being right was partisan griping -- but being universally, spectacularly and muleheadedly wrong, we're expected to believe, was the more noble and clever path? What utter pomposity. These blowhards should be tarred and feathered, not redeemed yet again for another science-bashing, expert-bashing, reality-bashing clusterfuck of so-called "conservative" strategery.
But conservatives live in a world -- in their business lives, in their academic lives, and apparently in their personal lives -- where even the most abysmal of failures are simply ignorable. You can run a company into the ground, and still get your bonus. You can flatly make up statistics -- even make up a fake admirer -- and keep your "think tank" job. You can sexually harass coworkers, pop pills, blow a wad in Vegas, or get caught with your hand in an indicted crook's pocket, and it won't affect your career opportunities in the slightest. Morality is for chumps, and consequences are for the little people.
And that's especially true of pundits. Lord, how it is true, for pundits. Fox News alone has become a towering monument to failure. Its archival shows represent every stage of attack, delusion, bitterness and self-consolation. What a sorry, sloppy mess this will be, in the coming year.
The thing of it is, we saw this after Reagan, too, and after HW Bush. The economic blunders on their watch were a result of them being "not conservative enough." If they had lowered taxes more, the economic listlessness, wealthy re-entrenchment, and budget-busting deficits under their administrations wouldn't have been so dismal. To reuse Trent Lott's memorable phrasing; if they had only been truer to conservatism, maybe we wouldn't have had all these problems.
We're getting it again with the current corruption scandals snaking their way through the Republican halls of power. Abramoff? Not associated with conservativism, oh no, not really. Ralph Reed? Don't be silly. Grover Norquist? Nonsense. Tom DeLay? Hush!
These people may be the money, the power, and the ideas of the conservative movement, but they're not actually conservative, not if they actually get caught. Because true conservatism is ephemeral, like "trickle-down economics" -- or a unicorn's fart. Every time conservatism is tried, it fails, and every time it fails, it is because it has been let down by simple mortal error. There has yet to be, we are expected to believe, any modern conservative leader capable of actually implementing conservatism in a way as to make it work -- but don't worry, they'll get it right next time.
Because, like robed and scruffy cult leaders swearing up and down that the apocalypse they predicted last year will, after further review, most certainly happen next year, if their followers only keep giving them cash, the only way conservatives can actually believe in their own movement is if they flatly deny the obvious effects of their philosophies as implemented.
We could choose to believe that they've just been terribly unlucky in electing leaders too dimwitted or corrupt to really implement conservatism, of course. We could choose to keep believing in the power of unimpeded unicorn farts. Or we could judge conservatism, quite reasonably, on the actions of those that say they are conservatives, and hold them to be the true conservative intent:
- Tax cuts for the rich, and an increased tax burden on the poor and middle class.
- Cash giveaways of historic proportions to selected industries.
- A stifling and public condemnation of science.
- Record deficits.
- Rampant nepotism and cronyism.
- Decreased civil liberties.
- Pork by the barrelful.
What's conservatism?
That is. There's no question about it, and hand-waving speeches don't enter into it. Conservatives have the entirety of legislative and executive power, in the Presidency, in the Senate, and in the House. They could choose to implement whatever they want. They
have chosen to implement precisely what they want. We're living it.
What's fascinating about conservatism is that it really is, at this point, more corporatist and faux-socialist religion than political movement. The same limousine-hopping cult leaders keep singing the same songs, and if you believe enough, and for the love of God keep sending in those checks, then by golly maybe it'll work this time. Maybe the manufacturing jobs America has lost will magically reappear. Maybe ignoring the economic and scientific experts will work the next time, though it hasn't worked any of the other times. Maybe cutting taxes, which has predictably reduced revenue every time it has been done, will suddenly make the deficit disappear. It's illogical, it's contrary to experience, it's contrary to the laws of mathematics, economics, sociology and simple reality -- but what the hell. The heads of Enron and ExxonMobil say it might just work next time. And if it doesn't, then look out for the homosexuals in those other states over there, or the immigrants, or the uppity blacks, or the uppity women.
So what are we to make of the Scarboroughs, the Bartletts, the Kristols, even the Fukuyamas, who now have grave reservations about the fruits of conservatism?
Simple. They've been proven to be frauds, yet again. Intellectual charlatans. Or, if you want to be very, very polite about it, you can simply say that they based a whole lot of rhetoric, a whole lot of attacks, and a whole lot of personal credibility on notions that have been, through actual implementation, utterly discredited.
They're terribly eager to let us know their very important ideas, but when it comes to actual expertise, they're proven fakes. And, like any good fake, they're trying now to do the walkback, to tell us what they really meant, to tell us why they really were clever, to tell us why their preachings were solid, if only everyone around them hadn't been incompetent buffoons in the actual implementation of their genius.
Everybody in the entire conservative movement is pulling their own special Michael Brown move. It wasn't us that fell down on the job, it was everyone else. It wasn't our department that failed, it was those other bozos.
Yeah. Unfortunately for them, we've watched them getting measured for the suits and going to the dinners while things were roundly and very predictably going to hell. No dice. But nice suits, fellas.
So what of the people who weren't wrong, in predicting the outcomes? What of the people who predicted the economic consequences of Bush fiscal policies? What of the people who not only challenged the clearly ridiculous assertions of the administration in the run-up to the Iraq War, but predicted precisely what would happen next?
They were right. And no amount of petulant bitching is going to change that, but you can damn well believe the conservative snake-oil salesmen who preached for these fiascos and demonized those that opposed them are going to do their best to restore their own tattered self-declared brilliance -- all actual real-world evidence notwithstanding.
No. Conservatism is entirely described by the actions of the men who preach it. There is no such thing as a trickle-down unicorn. There is no such thing as an honorable war fraudulently started. There is no magical conservative City on the Hill.
There never has been.