Extremism in Pursuit of Moderation

Over at National Review Online Ramesh Ponnuru weighs in on a Peter Berkowitz review in The Weekly Standard of Mark Levin's national best seller, Liberty and Tyranny. At issue is the standard trope of the last few years that Conservatives are in trouble because they are too extreme and are losing the moderate middle of the electorate.

Of course, this is the standard trope of the last few years, only after being the standard Talking Point of the left liberal partisans for some 50 years before. At various times it was used to denigrate William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, to name just a few. Like all Talking Points of the Left, it has never been intended to be a serious substantive critique, but only a useful tool to confuse and distract the enemy. And in this respect, it has worked. In each political season, there always seems to be some variable number of serious Republicans who take it seriously, and then the same old acrimonious debates arise within the Party.

Mr. Berkowitz is the latest to feel the need to preach the gospel of moderation to his own brethren. His article is serious and thoughtful, and Mr. Berkowitz himself is serious and thoughtful, but I am afraid at this point it's all just too tiresome for me.

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Because in fact, the issue is very simple, if you keep in mind a single fundamental distinction: some politicians primarily want greater and greater political power and some want to accomplish something good for the Republic. If I may assume that most would agree that the politicians holding the latter principle are preferred to those following the former, then understanding the relationship of moderation to Conservatism becomes quite simple.

Conservatism, let us stipulate for brevity's sake, believes that a vibrant civil society living in ordered liberty is the highest good of America, and that therefore a government restricted and restrained only to those exercises of power necessary to assure the ordered liberty of the citizens is the best government. Conservative political goals, then, will be to limit and restrict the growth of government, the centralization of government power, taxation, regulations and the like. It will also want to make what government is supposed to do work better, for instance, regulate interstate trade fairly among all citizens, maintain an armed forces capable of defending the Nation, and conduct a serious foreign policy in the sole interest of its citizens.

Now, let's look at the reality of the political situation: today we (and the world) are at the tail end of 100 years of an exploding political ideology that is and has always been the very antithesis of Conservative aspirations: Progressive Socialism. For 100 years this radical alternative to the fundamental American identity (which has alwsys been Conservative) has insinuated itself in ways large and small into the body politic. Wilson's War Socialism, Roosevelt's New Deal, Johnson's Great Society, all of these explosions of Progressive Socialism into the American bloodstream are, right now, in 2009, historical facts which will not be easily overturned or reversed in a day, a week, a month, a political season, or even a few decades of political victories.

So what is moderation? Moderation is simply that degree of pragmatism required in any particular political season so that (a) more Conservative goals may be accomplished than would otherwise be possible, and (b) significant groundwork will be laid for the advancement of Conservative goals in future political seasons.

As you can see, in this understanding of moderation, there is no conflict between being a principled Conservative and a moderate. On this reading, moderation itself is always in service to principled Conservative goals, by definition. It is only a prescient warning that political realities are such as to prevent those goals from being accomplished, and that we are going to have to bargain for the best deal we can ... today.

Whether or not to give in to the current political realities or to fight to the death is, of course, a judgment call, and so we Conservatives find ourselves constantly on the horns of a dilemma. But that is not the fault of our principles being too extreme, nor of moderation being too squishy. It is merely another example of the essential tragedy of the world we live in.

That said, what then is the moderation of a Peter Berkowitz? I would call Mr. Berkowitz a Moderate Extremist. A Moderate Extremist is one who believes that moderation is an end in itself. Look at what he says about the critical turn of the American Republic when Roosevelt assumed the Presidency in 1932. In a perverse turn on Edmund Burke's brilliant and seminal reflections on conservatism, he says that the New Deal resulted in a store of societal "accumulated experience, knowledge, and traditions over the course of 80 years, during which the federal government, at least partly in response to profound 20th century changes in social and commercial life (and with the persistent support of substantial majorities) assumed substantially greater responsibilities for caring for the vulnerable and regulating an increasingly complex economy."

Uhmmm. So Conservatives are to be moderate in order to uphold the "substantially greater responsibilities" of larger and larger government? But doesn't this directly fly in the face of Conservative principles in the first place? Of course it does, and it highlights the reason "Conservative principles" and "Moderateness" seem to always be in conflict when people like this bring the issue up. Because they do not think principles of any kind are relevant to the discussion. In this context, notice how he soto voce adds that the New Deal policies were and are supported by "persistant support of substantial majorities." Is that any kind of a principle? Of course not. It is the very opposite of a principle and transparently indicates where Mr. Berkowitz is coming from. Principles are bad, moderation is good.

This is not to say moderates like Mr. Berkowitz do not have principles, it's just that their devotion to such diminishes as they get caught up in wonkish particulars of the electoral process. At base, all moderate arguments boil down to the claim that Conservatives cannot affect their agenda unless they win elections, and they cannot win elections holding onto old principles that are no longer relevant to the electorate. New Dealism is here to stay, they gripe, get over it!

But if Conservatives do "get over it," why is it still important to win elections? New Dealism can certainly take care of itself without some mass Conservative migration to the Left. For Moderate Extremists, the answer is simple. We will be the ones in power. We will be the ones furthering, if not the spirit of the age, at least the spirit of this particular political season.

So, Moderate Extremism boils down to nothing more than the politics of winning elections, for gaining as many positions of power as possible for our Party and limiting the political power of as many of the other Party as possible. That is the sole goal and end game of Moderate Extremists, and the often sparkling Burkean riffs they do, the learned references they make, the dazzling prose they write, only serves to obscure the fact that they have no .... firm goal for political power, no ultimate good of the Republic to secure.

Here then is the actual decision moderates put to Conservatives. Will we prioritize winning elections or implementing a political agenda that is best for America? If the former, then progress will be measured simply by how many Presidencies, Congressional seats, Governorships and State Houses we own over the years. If the latter, then progress will be measured by whether we leave this Country better than the way we found it.

For me, moderation of Conservative goals when political necessities demand it is a virtue in the service of Conservatism, and woe be to Conservatives who ignorantly refuse to face the reality of any particular political moment. But extremism in pursuit of moderation in order to win elections is no virtue, but rather the collapse of virtue into the vice of selfish aggrandizement.