Temperament and Principle
I am not lying to say Jonah Goldberg’s article here is close to unimprovable, and really does speak to the underlying issue that most undermines the conservative right as a movement. I say movement, because that is all I care about - moving principles into reality. I do not care about clicks, ratings, and attention (for myself, let alone for other performative actors for whom Edmund Burke is a stranger). I am not moved or inspired by one whose outrage seems high, and whose technique seems lacking.
The ability to quickly label someone a “RINO” or a “moderate” or a “sellout” because of temperament is a tired and ineffectual tactic. Yet, squishy moderates really do exist. So let me ask you this? Who makes things easier for true squishes - those who call EVERYONE who does not act like a flame-throwing jackass a squish, or those who prudently and patiently look at votes, strategy, effectiveness, and big picture considerations? The camp that would call anyone a squish to promote the outrage machine has desensitized us against real squish, and actually enhanced the cause of the squishes.
It is not admirable to be in a permanent state of outrage, yet achieve nothing. But conservatives are supposed to understand incentives, and yet we have created a system where all of the incentives promote just that - fire and brimstone and impotence, all rolled into one.
A movement conservative has a philosophy. Anti-intellectualism and opposition to “first principles” is French revolutionary garbage. I am not naive. People get a “brand” whether they want one or not, and often times one’s “brand” is very well-deserved (for goof or for bad). But today we have allowed the sizzle to replace the steak, and I don’t even think the sizzle is supposed to conjure up appetite for a meaty, conservative steak. It is supposed to start and end with a mere temperament.
In this path there is no limit to how many elections we can lose, how much ground we can surrender, and how weak and ineffectual we can be. PJ O’Rourke said when I was in high school we had a parliament of whores. Today we have whores, grifters, and all the things - glaring mediocrities who are taking the country for a ride. But what is worse now than what we had in the context of O’Rourke’s condemnation is that we have a performative group of entertainers who are mistaken as the good guys. Stop it. Demand not just piety but technique. Temperament is not enough. The idea that outrage is held in tension against some form of capability is utterly absurd. Demand both. I won’t use the walk and chew gum cliché because it understates my point. Voters need to be a more expensive date.