Letter to a Young Conservative

My friend and colleague Andrew Donaldson rightly threw down a gauntlet to the right, arguing that all our fretting about failing to reach members of younger generations ignored all the mistakes we’d made and the house-cleaning we’d failed to do.

In lieu of a lazy platform or series of bullet points, I thought I might write my response in the form of a letter, that old fashioned long form of communication now replaced by ever-shorter chats and videos. This letter is addressed to any young person interested in listening to what I have to say, even if they don’t agree with any of it.

Dear Younger American,

You recently asked me what it is conservatives conserve and more importantly – what it is conservatives have to offer people like you. A complete response could fill libraries, but since neither of us have the time for that, this letter will have to do. Sit down, get yourself a cup of coffee or whatever, and enjoy.

What do I or the right have to offer “people like you”?

The honest truth is I have no idea. “People like you” – meaning members of your generation – encompass literally tens of millions of individual Americans. Yes, there are some cultural and political experiences you share, but they are all filtered down in different ways depending on where you grew up, went to school, what your interests are, and the people you hang with and talk to in person and online.

Maybe this frustrates you, and understandably so, but a core tenet of serious conservatism is intellectual humility. We know a lot but there’s far more we simply don’t know and probably can’t know. They say an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing. Something similar could be said about all the policy experts and opinion makers – and yes, this includes all your favorite Tiktokers – who claim that study X or statistic Y proves 100% of what they think.

We conservatives know better, or should know better. We know that the world is an incredibly complicated place. We know that while we human beings have accumulated an enormous amount of knowledge and wisdom, we are also prone to mistakes, rash judgment, and arrogance.

There’s a reason conservatives insist on teaching the best of old books and thinking, and it’s not because we think everything they said was right or that young people or trends are all wrong. It’s because every generation, including my own in its day, makes the mistake of thinking they have all the answers and everyone before us had no clue. We all err in thinking that we are or have to be reinventors of the wheel rather than building another layer in the structure we call civilization on top of the layers placed before us. Humanity has “been here before” more often than you think and asked many of the questions you think no-one discussed before you.

*

I know a lot of conservative “appeals” to the young are not based on old books or sage wisdom but rather made in snappy sounding slogans and empty bromides. Ignore them. To quote Alf Landon, the doomed Republican Presidential candidate of 1936, “I will not promise you the moon” or pretend that winning one election or pushing a fun hashtag campaign or making viral videos will solve much. I respect your intelligence too much to insult it.

The way forward is hard and is made harder by the fact that, as you correctly told me in your missive, the older generations have hoarded and often wasted much of the wealth and opportunity you need to help build the next layer. To add insult to injury, they claim that they were somehow uniquely privileged and virtuous people, rather than the “same old” young people who happened to hit the jackpot of economic circumstances in the post-WWII boom times and pretended they “earned it.” Indeed, as many have noted, these generations wound down or destroyed many of the institutions and cultural traditions which used to help younger people like yourself mature and grow and prosper.

But to quote one of my favorite cartoon villains, David Xanatos: “Do you want vengeance – or a solution?”

The people on the right who voted Trump and support him want the former. It got them nothing but the empty and fleeting calories of pissing the “right people” off. It did nothing to fix any of the problems they complained about or restore any of the lost glory they missed. Anger can be a potent agent of change, but it can far more easily lead to nihilism and cynicism or exclusively destructive hatred. I don’t wish such self-defeating Pyrrhic victories on you.

So what else is there for besides generational hatred, however justified?

The question for young conservatives or the conservatism-curious is simple: What is it you love? What do you wish to protect and help grow? These things need not be political. If anything, you should have things in your life you cherish that have little or nothing to do with the latest Buzzfeed outrage or viral video.

The Boomers destroyed it? Rebuild it. It doesn’t exist yet? Create it. It lies neglected? Time to roll up your sleeves and fix it up.

Yes, many members of older generations will unfortunately stand in your way. You are also at a distinct disadvantage politically – younger people consistently vote less and are courted less by politicians, a constant that has not changed since measurement of these things started. But you can court allies among Gen X and Boomers who are sympathetic, and you can organize and prepare for the day when your cohort votes more regularly and makes politicians sweat. You can prepare the groundwork, painstakingly over time.

*

You say you want change. But change in itself is not good per se. Destruction is change, too, and as you yourself noted – previous generations changed a lot, and not for the better. Before you change anything, take a look around and see what good there is that you’re not noticing or appreciating. I’ll bet you there’s quite a lot. And I don’t mean online – I mean out in the street and in stores and neighborhoods and communities.

And change doesn’t have to mean revolution or “creative destruction.” Surely, we’ve had enough of those, already. Change can also be improvement, restoration. Many younger generations change things by telling their parents they’ll be the people they pretend to be, but better. Even if never entirely true, it’s the kind of change that builds on previous generations’ partial successes rather than always tearing them down.

While we’re on the subject of partial change – political change is hard. Sometimes very hard. It takes months and sometimes years of effort, requires hard compromises, and even at its best almost always only fixes part of the problem. You don’t have to take my word for it – read up on the history of any of your political heroes (if you have any, and if you don’t you should get some) and you’ll see I’m right. We conservatives are about careful, positive, and most importantly lasting achievement, not rickety quick fixes that sound good on a bumper sticker but help few people or none. If you are going to be political, you must understand the vocation of politics at its worst – but also at its best.

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As a young conservative, the circumstances do not favor you. Most members of your cohort are liberals or lefties, if polls are any indication. Almost the entirety of popular culture panders to them. Older conservatives often do not understand you or sell you a vision of America that whatever its advantages or disadvantages, is long gone and not coming back.

But you are also an American. Whatever your background or specific life circumstances, you are heir to a tradition of people who believe in doing and achieving the impossible, who never give up hope no matter how absurd the odds, and who know that given the right amount of freedom and opportunity, good things can be had. Maybe not utopia, maybe not right now or in your lifetime, but certainly sooner than before.

There’s more I can say, but I think that will do for now. I wish you the best of luck, and you are free to contact me at any time.

Avi