Stupid is as Stupid Does

It is important that we, as conservatives, take a moment individually and collectively for serious introspection and ask ourselves ultimately what endgame such a self-designation begs.  In the wake of the O’Donnell upset in Delaware, these questions are critical, many of which were posed and discussed in Redstate’s important blog here.

In offering my own reflections on the revolution in Delaware, some caveats are due.  First, Christine O’Donnell is not a perfect candidate; there are flaws. Second, Mike Castle is a Moderate at best (there is a distinction worth making between Moderate–capital ‘M’–and a Socratic sense of moderation). Third, serious and contemplative conservatives have grappled with and come down on both sides of the O’Donnell-Castle divide.

I’ve had the occasion to meet Karl Rove, and I hold no personal animus for him or anyone of his rather Machiavellian persuasion. Winning elections and commanding a majority in any legislative body is important. And parties, too, are important. But in the course of engaging ourselves in the fight for party victories, we often forget why parties were formed. They were formed around principles and respective theories of governance. And when so-called adherents to those principles cannot be expected to act upon them, save on a minority of occasions, we must call into question whether our end-justifies-the-means perspective is really worthy of further consideration.

Enter the logic of fellow conservatives who pose, first, that to command a majority and enact favorable policies we must be willing to tolerate candidates “who can win.” That the 2006 and 2008 elections ended in such disaster for the Republican Party really ought be a sufficient cautionary tale for these conservatives who buy into the move-center-govern-right strategy. This is a self-defeating mythology. Candidates like Mike Castle, rather than play nice with party leadership, most often pursue a move-right-govern-left ethos. And voters respond. What’s more, if ever there were a cycle in which a move-right-govern-right strategy were possible, it is now.

But the second and more insidious logic belying this mythology is the idea that representatives ought to reflect the political opinions of those whom they represent. While in theory this sounds very democratic and common sensical, in practice it’s rather inimical to the interests and principles for which conservatives stand. Again, it becomes self-defeating. We have no further to look than Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, and other fellow travelers in Congress as examples of the rotten fruit of this mythology. From these foes we learn of Gump’s idiom: “stupid is as stupid does.”

As poet John Donne put it, “no man is an island.” Every legislative act by a member of Congress produces ripples that affect the entire nation. ObamaCare is our most immediate case-in-point (notwithstanding the obvious paradox that many of the members who voted for it acted contrary to the will of their constituents).

The framers, having been well versed in representative democracies throughout the ages, understood the difference between a delegate and a steward. That our republic was borne of their deliberations at Philadelphia is a result of their having accepted a role of the latter, many voting in favor of a strong central government in spite of popular sentiments back home. They did so because they understood both the principles and realpolitik at stake.

American history, for better or worse, has been punctuated by watershed moments in which the tide of political circumstance has changed the landscape of the future for generations to come. The Philadelphia Convention, the firing on Ft. Sumter, the Wall Street crash of 1929, and the Iran hostage crisis were such punctuations that marked the beginning of new epochs in American politics. On the heels of those events, America changed. The utter failure of Obama’s transformative experiment in command-and-control governance has created such a punctuation.

When Socrates listed his four virtues, he juxtaposed moderation and courage, explaining that there is a season for both. The framers knew this well, and after a decade of failed government following the revolution they chose the latter. There is always time for moderation; now is a time for courage.