Rick Hertzberg classifies me politically. He compares me to 1970s democratic socialists, who "devoted a lot of energy to trying to rescue what they regarded as the good name of socialism from what they regarded as its usurpers":
I see certain parallels between the Harrington-Howe socialists and Andrew Sullivan’s valiant defense of what he regards as true conservatism. Of course, there are big differences. One is that while the democratic socialists usually offered critical (often highly critical) support to the Democratic Party at election time, today’s Republican Party has veered beyond the limits where Andrew can offer even critical support (his quirky affection for Ron Paul notwithstanding).
By the same token, though, one of the two great political parties that alternate in power in the United States regards itself as conservative and will continue to do so, whereas the Democrats never remotely regarded themselves as socialist. One of these days or years, the Republican Party will be back in power. (With its House majority, it has veto power already.) For that reason, Andrew’s lonely fight for “The Conservative Soul” (the title of one of his books) is politically important and urgently worthwhile in a way that the Quixotic battle for “socialism” in America simply wasn’t.
The Dish 