If you are a progressive politician or staffer, or perhaps a movement volunteer or essayist, please allow me to try and persuade you. This country is on the verge of a major political transition. People are starting to wake up to the realities that exist behind the wall of fantasy this administration has so carefully constructed. But there is a danger. There is the possibility that people will believe the problem lies with a few bad apples, while retaining faith in the underlying political ideology that drives them: conservatism.
I am certainly not the first, nor hopefully the last, to make this point. Nevertheless, I wish to bring it to the forefront again today. If there is one meta-message that needs to be shouted above all others it is this: Conservatism Doesn't Work.
I understand you have your own political areas of investment---whether it be the environment, civil rights, abortion, labor laws, Iraq, poverty---and I recognize that it is important for folks like to you keep fighting the good fight in all those specific arenas. The good news is that it is possible to discuss those topics while placing them within the larger frame of Conservatism Doesn't Work.
As a simple exercise, I have tried to construct a simple of list of why this is so. True, like many failed political ideologies, conservatism looks good on paper: keep taxes low so people can retain the money they earn; reduce regulations on businesses so that the economy can flourish, creating jobs and wealth; be tough with the world so that we remain safe; use a strong but compassionate hand to punish crime and dissuade perversion so that our children can grow up without fear in a wholesome world. Unfortunately, these things do not come to pass under conservative rule. The past 20 or so years have given us more than enough evidence to show what the true children of conservatism are.
1) Divisiveness
The first principle of conservatism is delineating the Good Guys and the Bad Guys, and then working as hard as possible to define them as being so utterly unalike that all hope of reconciliation is lost. When this is accomplished, the only remaining course of action is to attack. This is seen in movements such as the "war on drugs", the fight against gay unions, and the demonization of war critics. Divisiveness is, in fact, the core conservative tactic for almost every political goal: decide what you want, define the enemy (i.e. who's in the way of that goal, or at least a convenient and powerless scapegoat), and finally invent a "war" to rally people to the "cause".
2) Anti-knowledge
Conservatives don't tend to like facts, because, as has been famously pointed out, reality has a liberal bias. Conservatism guarantees a reduction in the effort to know things, especially when those things might be inconvenient to conservative goals. And it isn't enough to say that conservatism blocks efforts to learn new things...they work hard to eliminate existing knowledge, as well. They even derogate knowledge itself, to the point where wanting to know something can be seen as an act of treason. A result of anti-knowledge is its replacement: blind faith. Religion might be able to tolerate unquestioning belief, but the secular arena does not (since it runs better on facts), and the only known tactic for defending faith against facts is increasing bluster, arrogance, and rage. These things are therefore secondary, but inevitable, traits of conservatism.
3) The Lack-of-Integrity Triangle
Conservatism requires a lack of integrity to operate. Concepts such as honesty, good faith, responsibility, accountability, walking one's talk, and willingness to sacrifice for the greater good are utterly absent. In the place of these things is the Lack-of-Integrity Triangle (LIT), which consists of a tight relationship between incompetence, corruption, and lying.
a) Incompetence and Anti-Accountability
Conservatives seek out and reward incompetence. Nothing says "conservatism" better than failing to meet a challenge or blundering an important job (the bigger the better). Similar to knowledge, conservatism demands that competence itself be denigrated as a concept, because it is the only way to shift the blame onto those who demand accountability. Of course, the key is to eliminate the concept of accountability itself, which conservatism has largely succeeded at accomplishing.
b) Corruption
Even in those cases where conservative politicians start out with good intentions and an honest heart, the toxic environment of conservatism breeds corruption without fail. In an atmosphere with no accountability or need for competence, the temptation to break the law for personal gain is simply too strong. However, it is more than simple temptation. At a deeper level, conservatism breeds the concept of exemption---the idea that it's okay to do anything they want, because they are beyond law or even simple ethics. The ultimate measuring stick for right action is what one can get away with.
A secondary trait of conservatism that derives from corruption is backstabbing. Since most real conservative business cannot be addressed out in the open, it is all too common to deal with problems by using the jailyard tool, the shiv. A smile, a pat on the back, and a knife in the ribs is everyday problem-solving on the right side of the aisle.
c) Lies
Since politics requires a certain degree of interfacing with the public, the only way to support chronic incompetence and corruption is to lie. Lying is woven into the very fabric of conservatism, because it is an absolute necessity for its existence. Coverups, misdirection, obfuscation, fake news reports, false promises, and straight up mistruths are every day fare for conservative speakers. Whenever a conservative speaks, the question is not "Is he lying?", but "How he is lying, to what degree, and to what hidden end?"
Power Above All
The core foundation of conservatism is power. Power to control resources, behavior, labor, beliefs, wealth, and people is itself the raison d'être of the conservative movement. All higher goals, all concepts of fairness, human decency, or even simple governmental utility are mere conservative punchlines when they aren't being used to dupe the public. Power is itself the goal. And the fewer the hands that hold it, the better. Make no mistake: conservatism isn't simply another way to improve the human condition or an alternative viewpoint regarding right and wrong. Those are all either fantasies or lies. No, conservatism only cares about power, and it will sacrifice absolutely anything and everything to get it and keep it. It will tear up our Constitution, use up its citizens, and ravage our very planet to do so. There is no compromise. There is no bipartisan solution. There is only power, and it justifies anything.
Let us remember during this mid-term campaign: while we face individual conservatives, we are also battling conservatism itself. We must understand that it isn't a simple case of a few bad apples. What we are seeing in the GOP-led White House and Congress is the fruit of conservatism and its ultimate and inevitable byproduct.