If you haven't got anything better to do, let me bend your ear a little about something that's been bugging me to the point where I feel like spending the time here to exorcise it. It's the label "Social Conservative" and I've seen it applied with great enthusiasm to Governor Rick Perry of Texas (among others.) It somehow means Perry is now the great hope for America because he's a Social Conservative.
"I think he covers two bases in the Republican primary: He has tea party credentials and sterling social issues positions," said GOP activist Pat Oxford, the chairman of the Houston-based Bracewell and Giuliani law firm. "He's as good as it gets in the two most important areas for Republican voters."
So what the hell is a Social Conservative anyway?
Let's do a little deconstruction here. Social applied to someone as an adjective all by itself doesn't seem all that bad (as long as no one puts an i-s-t on the end of it.) It evokes connotations of someone who relates to other people, usually in a positive way. Unless they're an insect of the kind that likes to live in communal groupings, like say termites.
Once upon a time conservative wasn't the worst thing to be either; among other things it suggested fiscal prudence, reluctance to engender waste, resistance to getting caught up in popular fads or the untried and not necessarily true. In other words, nothing at all like the modern conservative movement.
So, put Social and Conservative together, and what do you have? Damned if I know; we live in a modern age where people get paid very highly to use words to bend people's minds. Words mean what they want you to think they mean. Or as Humpty Dumpty observed:
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them — particularly verbs: they're the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'
'Would you tell me please,' said Alice, 'what that means?'
'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'
And so we arrive at Social Conservative. What does it mean? Nothing much - and everything. It's nothing more than the replacement for Compassionate Conservative, a label George W. "Who cares what the hell you think." Bush ran into the ground. It's a marketing tool, a handy dandy code phrase for Values Voters in dog-whistle political speak. It says "Here's somebody you can trust to feel just like you do about God, Guns and Gays."
Values Voters - another lovely tool for warping minds from the spinmeisters who specialize in repackaging crap for the upscale market as a magic elixir for all that ails the body politic. Values Voters are people of principle: they vote their values, their gut - they are not distracted by facts, awareness of consequences, consistency, history, or any other trappings of rational self-interest. And, the label implicitly paints everyone else as having no values of any kind. By God - you can be a complete and utter moral idiot, a bigoted unthinking moron, a sanctimonious hypocrite - and STILL be a Values Voter. And a Social Conservative. But it wouldn't be polite to actually say so.
Rick Perry is being touted as the one man who might yet redeem the Republican presidential wanna-be's because of his stature as a Social Conservative. (though there are some who see some potential drawbacks.)
One Republican strategist doubted his Texas roots and “cowboy” persona would be problems in most caucuses and primaries, stressing that GOP voters want someone who will be aggressive against President Barack Obama and that “everything about Perry screams that he is not President Obama.”
But most GOP insiders disagree, citing his state and style as negatives for the nomination and for November.
“It’s too soon for another Texan and another cowboy. And Perry is twice the cowboy that George W. Bush ever was,” a GOP strategist said.
“Bush and Perry governed very differently,” another Texan agreed. “Perry is much more conservative and much more strident than Bush ever was.”
Right. W on steroids. Just what America needs right now. And yet the media seems to be mindlessly setting up Perry as a viable candidate because Social Conservative is the new buzz-phrase and Perry ... is one, for what it is worth. If you actually look at his record, the words Social Conservative should be a warning, not an accolade. Consider this. Or this. Or this.
But none of that matters because Social Conservative is all anyone needs to know about Perry, so far as the pundit class is concerned. And if and when Perry craters once people actually begin to get a real look at him and his record, there'll be someone else along to pick up the Social Conservative banner, because facts don't matter, track records don't matter. All that matters is creating a brand and marketing it to the (suckers) voters like any other product.
Social Conservatives are neither. (And they're getting awfully sensitive about getting called out on it.). So, as an exercise, if you hear someone use the phrase Social Conservative in a praiseworthy sense, ask them if they can explain what that means - and how it's any different from Compassionate Conservatives, Conservatives with Conscience, the Silent Majority, or any other marketing campaign posing as a political philosophy.