What Went Wrong

Victor Davis Hanson on what went wrong in the 2008 elections. It’s the message that needs work. After briefly discussing the three competing schools of thought on what went wrong, he offers several suggestions that are well worth reading.

I supposed one could cop out, and claim that there is truth in all three explanations. But my sense is that most people — who, after all, get a job, eventually buy a house and have to maintain it, have children, and respect the traditions of their families’ past — end up by necessity more conservative than liberal. The challenge is not to water down the conservative message, but to beef it up, even while making it more persuasive to those who are skeptical……

…..Legal immigration must be distinguished from illegal immigration at every juncture. It is no surprise that La Raza, the Democratic Left, and the cheap-labor, open-borders Right always make charges of “anti-immigrant” rather than anti–illegal immigration, since, if they cannot both personalize the issue and conflate it with legal immigration, they lose the debate. Conservatives’ chief talking point should be the deleterious effect of unchecked illegal immigration on the wages of poor workers, coupled with the employers’ discrimination against Mexican-American second-generation and African-American entry-level workers in preference for off-the-books and cheaper illegal laborers.

If one were to talk of party betrayal, it would involve supposedly conservative corporate elites who talk disingenuously of diversity and opportunity while they lobbied to ignore the law, and get their hands on as many illegal cheap laborers as they could to the callous detriment of the working citizen poor.

On social issues, there has to be some conservative touchstone, like reverence for uniqueness and beauty of individual life. What unites skepticism about euthanasia, abortion on demand, or embryonic stem-cell research is fear of a sort of soulless Brave New World notion that individuals don’t matter, that ease of lifestyle trumps every other difficult moral consideration, and that such thinking is the beginning — not the end — of something frightening.

Rather than demonizing gay-marriage, conservatives should emphasize the availability of civil unions — and then ask: What exactly is not enough protection in such current contracts, and how can such legal statutes be improved to protect the legal rights of gay couples? Civil unions should be seen as an avant-garde institution for novel times, while traditional marriage is reserved as a retrograde stuffy institution for the hopelessly straight.

Please read the whole thing. (Also please note that NRO is holding a fundraiser and could use your help keeping articles like this coming from Hanson and others.)

Longtime readers will hear echoes of many things I have been saying for quite some time here at The Crabitat. Differentiate between legal and illegal immigration. That high fence, wide gate and hearty welcome for those that play by the rules thing I’ve written about. The fact that the big government, high taxes view of government is just a pull the ladder up behind you trick of the uber-wealthy who already have theirs. Many others. I’ll let you spot them.

We need a better message and we need to be better. We also need to learn where and when to fight our battles so we have a real chance to make people hear and listen to the difference between conservatism and the left.

We have got to get back to first principles and articulate a compelling message. If we cannot do that, we face a long time in the wilderness.