If Paul Krugman calls someone a conservative, watch out!
By Paul Kengor
It has happened again. Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of
the New York Times Book Review, referred to by Paul
Krugman the other day as “a long-time conservative,” has essayed in
the New Republic the modern conservative movement, and
traced us all back to John C. Calhoun. I suppose our point of
origin could have been more sinister. Sam could have traced us back
to Nathan Bedford Forrest, the former Confederate General who went
on to be an early member of the Ku Klux Klan, but John C. Calhoun
is bad enough.
Of course, Calhoun is no kind of modern conservative. He is not
even a typical conservative of the 19th century, at
least outside the South. He would have made heavy weather of it in
the north in the company of such conservatives as the Adamses or
even the Virginia Founders such as George Washington.
Calhoun is commonly recalled as a brilliant political
philosopher, a proponent of states rights, and a defender of
slavery. I do not know anyone who defends slavery today, save for
those who apologized for the Soviet Union. If Sam knows of such a
dinosaur I suggest he be bold and take the fellow on in the pages
of his Review. It would liven the place up. Next will come
Prohibitionism, and I shall be eager to see which side Sam is
on.
Actually the modern conservative movement was founded in the
1950s with an amalgam of anti-Communists, libertarians, and
American traditionalists. As the years have gone on it has shown
itself to be the most dynamic political movement in the country,
picking up along the way sober-minded liberals (known as
neoconservatives), Reagan Democrats, evangelicals, Tea Partiers,
and even independents.
In the face of this Sam has been a bit flighty. In 2009, he
brought out a book pronouncing The Death of Conservatism.
Fourteen months later—just as Sam’s paperback came out—the
Republicans swept into control of the House in one of the largest
rightward swings in the history of America, nay, in the history of
Democratic government. Yet not a single member of the Republican
House supports Calhoun’s view of slavery.
Meantime the pollsters discovered that only 18-20 percent of the
American people are, to use a superannuated term, “liberal”—they
ought to be calling themselves socialists or possibly friendly
fascists. Today around 42 percent of the American people are
conservative, and with the independents who voted against Barack
Obama last year thrown in that number climbs to around 57
percent—though I would say that number is only roughly
conservative. I am looking forward to the 2014 elections.
Whether Sam belongs to that conservative consensus I very much
doubt. When Krugman calls Sam “a long-time conservative” he is at
his most tendentious. Sam is no conservative, and I have rather
sadly come to the conclusion that he is not seriously anything. He
has been absent from the fight for lower taxes and the struggle for
sound money. He did not utter a word for Sarah Palin or Rand Paul
or David Mamet or, not to put too fine a point on it, me. I as
editor in chief of The American Spectator countered his
book with a book of my own, full of facts and argumentation, and we
chased him all over the globe for his response. He remained
mum.
Neither has he appeared on the intellectual field of battle to
support the hardliners in Israel. He has not joined in the revival
of Constitutional fundamentalism or, so far as I am aware, sided
with the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Jews who are fighting for
the right to exercise freely their religion.
Incidentally, I have extended a friendly hand. Some years ago I
invited him to a gathering I maintain in New York City called the
Saturday Evening Club. There were there that night writers from the
New York Post, the New York Sun, the Wall
Street Journal, Fox News, the New Criterion,
National Review, The American Spectator, and
doubtless other publications. There were serious business people in
attendance. I asked Sam to ventilate his opinions. He has never
reciprocated in any of the editorial space he controls.
What do we get? We get being likened to the most famous defender
of slavery. Tanenhaus does this in that noted conservative journal
The New Republic. Tanenhaus is what columnist Krugman
calls “a long-time conservative.” This is because the New York
Times Book Review panned Krugman’s latest shrill demand that
Washington end this Depression now—by sending money that it does
not have.
Why is Sam running interference for this crowd? Well, it beats
me. Instead of sneering at conservatives and trying to tar us as
racists, he should come and see what is happening on the right. Our
movement is plenty diverse, ethnically, racially, religiously, and,
most impressively, intellectually. The Republican Party, too, has
all kinds of exciting characters in it. The only one who remains
out is poor John C. Calhoun. That is because of something Tanenhaus
forgot to mention. Calhoun w
as a Democrat.
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