Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Which Fusion for the Right?

Antle has a very perceptive essay here.  He kicks it off with the Porn Controversy which produced very clear fault-lines in the "Republican" bunch.

Then he gets to the meat of the matter:

...Social conservatives have long been viewed—and have generally viewed themselves—as junior partners to economic conservatives inside the Republican Party. They get their voters to the polls to protest abortion and gay marriage. The elected Republicans then promptly cut taxes while Supreme Court precedents declaring abortion a constitutional right remain inviolate and new ones similarly enshrining gay marriage are added, even as conservative judges proliferate. The marriage issue was thought to be central to Bush’s reelection in 2004. By 2016, a slightly higher percentage of evangelicals ended up casting their ballots for Trump, who supports—or at least does not oppose—gay marriage. It is almost universally seen as a settled issue—and not settled in the social conservatives’ favor. 

Similarly, however much fusionism in theory was supposed to be equally committed to tradition and free markets, liberty and virtue, in practice it was seen primarily as a defense of free markets and constitutionally limited government. A manifesto published by First Things in March entitled “Against the Dead Consensus” (signed by TAC senior editor Rod Dreher and contributing editor Patrick Deneen, among others) laid out the charges. “Yes, the old conservative consensus paid lip service to traditional values,” the signatories wrote. “But it failed to retard, much less reverse, the eclipse of permanent truths, family stability, communal solidarity, and much else. It surrendered to the pornographization of daily life, to the culture of death, to the cult of competitiveness. It too often bowed to a poisonous and censorious multiculturalism.”...
It remains the case that the "economics first!!" branch of the dying fusion is in first place.  Just listen to Trump's crowing about the Dow, or jobs, or wage increases.  He's echoed by the "conservative" radiomouths, both national and local--except Tucker Carlson.  And Tucker's viewership has rocketed upward because he simply does not kowtow to a Koch-style MuhMoney!! creed. 

Maybe the others should pay attention.  Unless they think porn is good for their children.

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