The good news is that a defense of moderation and compromise in conservatism is spreading from the apostates, like Frum, Bartlett or yours truly, to those closer to the hub. First, the always-thoughtful Peter Berkowitz’s effort to remind conservatives that compromise isn’t antithetical to “winning.” And now, staggeringly, Jennifer Rubin gets on board:
The RedState blog, which is hawking Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s candidacy, denounces every deal and budget agreement by Republican leaders as a sell-out and betrayal of conservative values. Perry himself has denounced Social Security. He in turn has been denounced for excessive moderation on immigration…[These positions] don’t reveal a conservative temperament, one that values steady progress, an understanding of existing arrangements and respect for other branches of government. They seem to invite conflict, if not chaos, as a desirable state of affairs.
Stephen Bainbridge focuses on the GOP’s shift towards populism:
Kirk emphasized that “conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata.” Yet, today, we see a GOP increasingly bound to certain rigid ideological positions on issues like guns, immigration, and so on, in which the goal seems to be crushing one’s opponents rather than pursuing what Kirk called “reasoned and temperate progress.”
My take on Republicanism’s evolution into a religion with doctrines, not a political temperament with policies, is here. My book spells all this out and did so in 2007, when the rest of the right was in aggressive denial. Its argument is simple enough:
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
Yep, that was Burke.
The Dish 