Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnThe Survival IssuernLong ago in March 1989, in the first columnrnI wrote for this space, I noted thatrnPresident George Bush shared with onlyonernother American chief executivern(namely, Martin Van Buren) the distinctionrnof having been elected to thernWhite House from the office of thernVice-President. I also commented thatrn”the lackluster record of Andrew Jackson’srnsuccessor perhaps does not inspirernconfidence about the new administration,”rna remark that, generously interpreted,rnmight be considered a predictionrnof Mr. Bush’s defeat four years later.rnBut even with all the generosity thatrnChronicles readers are capable of mustering,rnit was at best merely a tonguein-rncheek prophecy. Just think what Irncould prognosticate if I ever got serious.rnOne serious prediction that wafts uprnfrom the tea leaves of the 1992 electionrnis that American conservatism, at leastrnin the form in which it has been knownrnsince it first began to materialize in thernlate 1940’s and early 1950’s, is now defunct,rnand you don’t need to be a swamirnto understand whv it died. The Bushrnadministration and Mr. Bush’s defeatrndelivered the coup de grace to the organizedrnAmerican right, even though thernterminal signs had been evident forrnsome time, hi the days after the election,rnof course, a squadron of professionalrnconservatives delivered themselvesrnof all the reasons why the Republicanrnloss of the White House was really arntremendous victory, but no one paidrnmuch attention to them. Like Glcndower,rnthey could call spirits from thernvastv deep, but no apparitions materializedrnin response to their incantations.rnPerhaps the most compelling evidencernthat mainstream conservatism is defunctrnis that the very concept of what conservatismrnmeans has evaporated, even forrnthose who regard themselves as its highrnpriests. The day after the election,rnWashington Post reporter E.J. Dionnernquoted a high-ranking official of thernHeritage Foundation on the continuingrnrelevance of conservative ideas. “Whatrndo vou mean that conservative ideasrndidn’t work in the 1992 election?” shernprotested. “They worked for Clinton.”rnOnly a few days later, as Spike Lee’s newrnfilm Malcolm X was about to debut, anrneditorial writer for the Wall Street ]ournalrnpublished a column entitled “MalcolmrnX, Conservative Hero.” It ought tornbe evident that a movement that claimsrnboth Bill Clinton and Malcolm X as itsrnicons is simply meaningless, and yourndon’t have to be a political neanderthalrnto wonder what either one of thesernchampions has to do with anything remotelyrnresembling “conservatism” in anyrnsense.rnOf course, the authors of such sentimentsrnwere simply trying to paint thernpallid countenance of the conservativerncadaver with the only cosmetics theyrnpossessed. Totally ignorant of what therncadaver looked like when alie, theyrnmerely swiped some make-up from therndressing table of the left and applied itrnin a ‘ain and vulgar attempt to resurrectrna zombie for the right. Indeed, forrnthe last several years the application ofrncosmetics is what the mainstream rightrnhas been reduced to. Ever since Mr.rnBush in 1990 violated his pledge not tornraise taxes, professional conservativesrnhave kicked and screamed vociferously,rnbut in 1992 they wound up supportingrnhim anyway in a desperate effort to pretend,rnto themselves as well as to theirrndwindling number of followers andrndonors, that thev still retained politicalrnclout at the highest level of national politics.rnAs the electoral judgment dayrndrew nigh, their efforts reached an almostrncomic, but definitely pathetic, pinnacle.rnThe week before the election, a grouprnof about 45 professional conservativesrnsummoned a meeting in Washingtonrnthat was originally planned as a “wake”rnfor the Bush administration, which wasrnfacing a rout because, you see, it had desertedrnconservative principles. But inrnthe last part of the same week, as thernassemblage was about to convene, Mr.rnBush began to rally a bit in the polls,rnand it started to look as though hernmight win after all. The 45 stalwarts atrnonce changed their tune, and when theyrnemerged from their huddle, they proclaimedrntheir unanimous endorsementrnof Mr. Bush. Iirdeed, his recent rise inrnthe polls was due, they announced, tornhis return to “conservative roots,”rnthough when his conservative roots borernno branches in the actual voting a fewrndays later, the pundits and gurus of defuncto-rnconservatism labored late intornthe night to explain how Mr. Bush’s ideologicalrndefection was responsible forrnthe disaster. Had the defuncto-consrnharbored sufficient integrity to separaternthemselves definitely from Mr, Bushrnwhen he first began to go wrong, theyrncould today more convincingly purportrnthat his defeat was indeed due to hisrnabandonment of their “principles,”rnwhatever those might be. But, ha’ingrnswaddled themselves in him, his administration,rnand the increasingly distastefulrnRepublican Party under his tutelage,rnthe organized right is unable tornextricate itself from the wreckage of lastrnNovember.rnNo small part of the more general reasonrnfor the demise of American conservatismrnhas been the importation intornthe ranks of its leadership in the lastrndecade of the very species of ignoramuses,rnopportunists, and sloganeers whornnnagme that Malcolm and Mr. Clintonrnare men of the right and who snatch atrnevery fluff in the political breeze to provernthat they and their “movement” arernwithin grasp of ultimate victory. Butrnthe even more general reason is that historyrnhas passed conservatism by, andrnthat fact implies a reorientation ofrnAmerican politics such as has not beenrnseen since the New Deal or before.rnThe American Right centered aroundrnthree principles, which may be formulatedrnin an over-simplified way as anticommunism,rnsmall government, and culturalrntraditionalism. Of the three, nonernremains intact, at least as the first generationrnof conservative architects constructedrnthem. Anticommunism is simplyrnirrelevant today, and even when thernSoviet Union still had breath in its body,rnthe anticommunist cause was subtly redefinedrnin terms of a crusade for globalrndemocracy and a new global regimernthinly disguised by the trappings of nationalismrnas a Pax Americana. “Smallrngovernment”—a strict constructionist,rnlaissez-faire, and decentralized state—rnwas also redefined, sometimes subtlv.rn8/CHRONICLESrnrnrn