Conservative Elites: Stop Whining–UPDATED

Okay, so let me see if I get this straight: Mark Steyn is an Outside the Beltway…what? If he doesn’t have an elite mind, who does? If he’s not an intellectual, who is? When Steyn defends Palin and Joe the Plumber, he’s defending her (and them) because he’s for the “vulgar“.

To my way of thinking, someone like Steyn, if one is willing to concede that he’s an intellectual, stands as evidence against the thesis of guys like Ross Douthot who says this:

Here’s the thing: The Republican Party will be a populist party going forward, or it won’t be a party at all. But the more populist it becomes – the more figures like Palin and Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty replace the blue-blazer Republicans of yore – the more it needs an elite capable of preventing it from spinning away into anti-intellectualism, hidebound dogmatism, and pure folly. Yes, sometimes these elites are snobbish and insidery, overly impressed with credentials, overly concerned about what their liberal pals think, overly willing to treat their party’s base as an embarrassment. Sometimes the base is right and the elites are wrong. Sometimes you need a better class of elite entirely. But you still need them, and you need candidates who listen to them.

First, I disagree with Douthot’s supposition about the Republican Party must be a populist party to succeed. The notion that Mike Huckabee will be the face of the Republican party in the future is repugnant to me. He is a decent guy and the Republican tent is better for his voice in it, but please help us all. Huckabee is a conservative Jimmy Carter–long on folksy talk and big on big government solutions that just happen to fit his own brand of dogma. He’s no different than Al Gore–a guy defined by a rigid set of morality he’d like to use the government to impose on the rest of us. Um, no. That is not the direction the Republican party is going; nor should it be going that way.

Second, the notion that elites don’t support and promote populist ideology is laughable. That’s the thing about intellectuals: A leader can find just about any sort of theorist to support his point-of-view. He can also find ten who disagree with him, if his administration has the latitude for disagreement. Ultimately, though, the President has to make a decision and live with it. Very much like a surgeon has to live with his cuts. At a certain point, the incessant blabbing has to stop and someone has to make a diagnosis and treat and live with the consequences.

Patrick Ruffini’s point was that bickering doesn’t help at this stage in the game. And, he’s right. Let’s settle this dispute after the election, shall we? But no. From this Texas voter’s perspective, it seems like the Beltway folks are hedging because they don’t want to defend an abrasive, gruff, off-the-cuff guy like McCain for four years. They’d rather listen to the melodic Marxist language–so much so, that they’ll vote for him rather than suffer. They’d rather suffer the fools–criticism from the vulgar is so much easier to take than criticism from their Beltway buddies because they’re smarter after all.

Let’s face it: Pounding on Palin is easy. Oh my! It’s like T-ball for intellectuals. When she was first announced, the response from the intellectual class was so predictably unintellectual that I did a pre-emptive post focusing on Palin’s policy nudity. And by exposing their fangs, the Beltway insiders exposed what many Americans, not just conservatives or the euphamistic “populists”, suspected: Hollywood, DC and New York Media is controlled by a group of insiders who believe they know more than you or me.

When I attended the American’s For Prosperity/Samsphere Conference in Austin a while back, DC conservatives expressed shock and relief to be in a place so optimistically and unabashedly and progressively conservative-libertarian. More than one DC-ite said,”It’s like I’m the only conservative.” They were talking about Washington, DC, mind you, where a Republican is in the White House and where Congress has been in Republican control until the last two years.

So inside the Beltway types admit indirectly what outside the Beltway people suspect: That Washington, DC is run by people who believe IN Washington, DC. Government is the answer whether you are John McCain or Mike Huckabee or Hillary Clinton or, most of all, Barack Obama. It is just a matter of degree. No one believes Joe The Plumber is the answer. No one trusts Joe The Plumber. No one trusts Joe The Plumber except that he needs to pay his taxes to fund their pet projects. Joe needs to learn his place and be patriotic and do his civic duty–which is to pay to keep the Beltway folks in power.

And the elites wonder why American’s are angry? They wonder at an 8% approval rating? Are they want to dismiss the legitimate criticism of our public institutions as anti-intellectualism?

No, it’s as simple as survival. The DC folks, right and left, see someone like Sarah Palin–smart, a communicator, the embodiment of the equal rights work of this last generation, funny and direct–and they panic. It’s their own survival that’s at stake. Bush the first, through Clinton and now with George W.’s compassionate conservatism, have all believed that “good” government is the answer. Sure GW has been hard to take rhetorically, but he’s tried to be what the Insiders liked. Tried and failed. McCain has been even more eager to please. A fat lot it has done him.

Sarah Palin only wants to please citizens. That’s threatening. And it’s only populist in the sense that she actually seems to give a damn what voters think. I know, a novel concept. And what the people want, it seems, is less government the way it’s been done. They want less debt. They want some rationality. They get who gets bailed out and it isn’t the person who has been playing by the rules and funding these joker’s pet theories.

So enough with the impugning of Americans by the ruling American class. It’s bad enough to receive scorn from ostensibly sophisticated European socialists who couldn’t defend their borders if their lives depended on it. Beltway conservatives need to stiffen their collective spine and have some fortitude. Get out more. Visit the hinterlands and be refreshed. And then go back and fight for what is right and defend the ideals Americans still stand for.

And stop whining. Leave that to the Democrats.

UPDATED:

Maybe the Befuddled Beltway “conservative” insiders could take a lesson from courageous Hollywood insiders. Bet you never thought you’d read that!

Posted in America • Political Animals
Tags: Conservatives • Republicans