Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnInside History’s DustbinrnEver since I committed the blunder,rnnearly 30 years ago, of signing up withrnthe “conservative movement” during myrnfirst year in graduate school, a certainrnpattern of behavior has enforced itself onrnmy decreasingly callow mind. The pattern,rnas a colleague of mine once remarkedrnto me, is that there seems to bernno other purpose of any conserative organizationrnthan to ignite a faction-fightrnas soon as possible and thereby destroyrnthe organization. In graduate school thernrule proved true. There was no campusrnchapter of Young Americans for Freedomrnbecause the leaders of that grouprnhad already fallen upon each other andrndispatched the rest of the Yaffies to oblivion.rnThe year I joined the only remainingrnconservative group on the campus,rnthe Young Republicans, the ex-Yaffiesrndecided to attack it and soon managed tornleave it a shattered vessel lurching helplesslyrnthrough the dark seas of the academicrnleft. The child is father to thernman, and what I observed as a merernstripling conservative back then hasrnturned out to be something close to a lawrnof the universe ever since. The “right,”rnwhatever its philosophical content andrnwhatever its political agenda, appears tornbe inherently flawed by tendencies tornschisms and factionalism, and these tendenciesrngo far to explain why it alwaysrnloses, no matter how compelling its ideasrnor how repulsive its political and culturalrnenemies on the left.rnThe conservative organizations thatrnprevailed in the 1960’s and 70’s —likernYAF itself—are now largely defunct orrnmere shells of what they used to be, andrnnot a few destroyed themselves by theirrnown internal factionalism. Today, therernis ‘irtually no “conservative movement”rnworthy of the name, apart from the everthrivingrnhive of neoconservative Belh’a}’rncondottieri whose simulation of “populism”rnkeeps their kids in private schoolsrnand high-priced cars. Even these quartersrnare not exempt from the law of conservativernself-destruction, and most ofrnthem periodically titillate the Beltway rumorrnmill with stories of their own internalrnpurges, bloodlettings, bankruptcies,rnand the odd embezzlement by one or anotherrnof the patriotic Christians who runrnthem.rnNo one should be surprised that thernBeltway right behaves pretty much likernmost other people in Washington, butrnthe inherent factionalism of the right isrnnot confined to it, nor is it a product ofrnserious philosophical and polidcal antagonisms.rnOn what may be called eitherrnthe “Hard Right” or the “Old Right,” 1rncan think of perhaps half a dozen organizationsrnthat simply cannot work withrneach other because of the personalrnloathing, jealousy, and distrust that prevailsrnbetween their leaders or members.rnBut despite some ideological differences,rnthese groups are all in essential agreementrnwith each other, and all of themrnhave the same enemies. If they couldrnwork together, they might actually accomplishrnsomething, but they can’t, andrnevery effort among them to coordinaternand cooperate has flopped. If the truthrnbe told, there is very little practical purposernin anyone joining or aligning withrnany of them, let alone expecting themrnever to accomplish any substantial goalrnother than remaining in useless existence.rnSigning up with the Americanrnright today resembles nothing so muchrnas picking up a loaded revolver and proceedingrnto shoot your own toes off onernby one.rnThere are various explanations ofrnthe suicidal proclivities of the right, notrnleast the theory that conservatism asrnit emerged in the 19S0’s was largely dominatedrnby ex-communists of one stripe orrnanother who insisted on importing intorntheir new-found political allegiances thernsame demand for conformity and orthodoxyrnthat had prevailed in the Partyrn(whichever “Party,” Stalinist, Trotskyist,rnor other, they had belonged to). Thernmost notorious of these ex-communistrngrand inquisitors of flie right was perhapsrnthe late Frank S. Meyer, a CommunistrnPart}’ functionar}’ until 1945 who, oncernhe had concluded that path was thernwrong road to travel, at once set himselfrnup as the chap who got to decide whornwas and who was not a “real” conservative.rnFrom the foundation of NationalrnReview in 1956 until his death in 1972,rnMeyer never failed to denounce, purge,rnread out, expel, and generally behavernlike the Andrei Vishinsky of the Americanrnright. He tried to prevent the laternRussell Kirk from writing for NationalrnReview, spread the rumor that his ex-rnTrotskyist colleague at the magazine,rnJames Burnham, was a CIA plant, andrnmanaged, in his major political-philosophicalrnmanifesto {In Defense of Freedom),rnto excommunicate just about everyrnpromising mind on the Americanrnright of his generation. Admittedly,rnsome of these minds never lived up torntheir promise, and some lived to breakrntheir promises as soon as it was profitablernto do so, but Meyer’s insistence on anrn”orthodoxy” or a “mainstream” largelyrninvented and formulated by himselfrnhelped make the movement he came tornshape as uninteresting as it was imimportantrnand impart his own doctrinairernhabits of mind to the generation ofrnyounger conservative acti’ists vi’hom herninfluenced.rnBut blaming right-wing self-destructivenessrnmerely on one man is a toad thatrnwon’t hop. The truth is that the tendencyrnarises from the historical situation ofrnthe right in almost every historical contextrnin which any movement of the rightrnappears; it emerges from the fact that thernright, almost by definition, is a coUectionrnof historical losers.rnProbably the first historical coirflict inrnwhich “right” and “left” were the mainrncontenders was the English Civil War ofrnthe I640’s, and while the left side of thernconflict, represented by the EnglishrnParliamentarians and their myriad “Puritan”rnallies and supporters, was notoriouslyrnschismatic, the same was true of thernright, represented by King Charles I andrnhis court. Anglicans versus Catholics,rncivilians versus military, absolutists versusrnconstitutional monarchists, and thernusual baggage of nincompoop courtiersrnand sycophants versus serious advisorsrnwho had some glimmer of how to winrnand what needed to be done all significanflyrncontributed to the loss of the civilrnwar by the “right” of the day, the eventualrnexecution of the king himself, and therntriumph for nearly a dozen years of OliverrnCromwell’s dictatorship. UnlikernCharles I, Cromwell dealt with his ownrnside’s tendencies to factionalism simplyrnby kicking out or ruthlessly suppressingrn34/CHRONICLESrnrnrn