New Conservatives: Do You Want Vengeance, Or A Solution?

Ever since the election of Donald Trump, it’s practically become a cliché: “populist” or “national conservative” article after article after article bemoaning and bewailing the utter uselessness of the elites of the right in the Republican Party and adjacent to it. Mockery of the detached Great Books programs that do little or nothing. Scorn for the consultants who just want to elect de facto Democrats that sound nice and cut their taxes. Impatience with the constant failures of the establishment right to actually conserve anything or stop any history are well-known by now.

I get it. I share the frustration. I too look askance at all the cloistered and tenured intellectuals of the right living in the clouds and the Me, Too-ers who just want to cut taxes. I’m also tired of the people who appeal vaguely to federalism or the constitution or separation of powers who have no practical plan of bringing this about or even intention to do so (or ability, really, given that filibuster-proof majorities are needed in Congress to abolish departments). I’m also tired of the glorified book clubs that produce zero change in how the country actually functions at any level.

But being angry is not a solution. Burning it all down is not a solution. Nor, indeed, is the idea of using the administrative state to rightwing ends. At least, not in its current condition.

The reason for this is simple: the people running that administrative state will still be human beings. Specifically, human beings that may not be on your side. Much has been said of the Realignment and how it is and will bring in larger and larger numbers of working class and non-college Americans. But the flip side of that is that we are increasingly losing college educated Americans, the type of people who enter into government at all levels and run its day-to-day affairs.

Those people – subject to constant social pressure to conform to technocratic dreams, woke social visions, and who scorn democratic accountability – are not the stuff of populist and conservative dreams. Contra the dreams of Grover Norquist, bureaucracies are not going to go away; even limited government is still government, and someone needs to do the governing below the level of elected officials. Furthermore, the idea of simply having elected officials bark orders at bureaucrats for populist ends would make any elected official shake their head in mirth at the naivete.

So, what’s needed?

It’s quite simple: Conservatives need to stop bashing public service per se. We need a conception of a conservative, democratically-minded bureaucrat who can attract the minority of college educated folks who aren’t radicals or woke and who will serve as the other half of the country’s eyes and ears in checking or slowing down bad progressive ideas (sometimes even promoting conservative ones!) – in local, state, and federal government. You don’t need a majority, just a critical mass.

Imagine all that money thrown down the drain for those glorified book clubs and endless self-serving conferences spent to train and encourage the creation of a cadre of conservative school administrators. Or city officials. Or budget department eggheads. Or cultural departments. Or any other department you can think of. You’d still need to win elections, but you’d have allies on the inside, instead of just seeing everyone there as your enemy. Instead of just fighting about the size of government, we’d also be working to determine its shape and character.

Imagine a world where elected R or even blue dog Ds have a roster of properly skilled and/or trained people who don’t come from the elite wokery pipeline and who will actually spend more time doing their core duties instead of wasting taxpayer money on DEI or other pet projects. They’d be serving their country or locality or state and showing just what budget-conscious, core duties, constitutionally minded, and conservative people can do. They would lead by example and show everyone there is another way.

The time for complaints is over; we’ve heard them a million times. The time for action is now, to plant seeds that we hope will one day grow into mighty oaks.