These two insights can be tied together. Because leftism cannot survive the discovery of difference, leftist must convert questions of fact regarding human difference into questions of motive.

Very good. Because what leftists believe about reality and human nature is false, because they are, in fact, in rebellion against the truth of existence, they cannot give their opponents’ views respect because the truth would defeat the lie. For example, could anyone win a fair debate who argued that man can live as a slave of the state, not working and producing for his own advantage, but only for the advantage of others? Could anyone win a fair debate who argued that all people have the same abilities and capacities? Could anyone win a fair debate who said that Islam is a religion of tolerance and peace? The falsity of leftist beliefs is such that they can only become socially effective if disagreement with them is more or less banned. This requires the dehumanization of non-leftists. Therefore what conservatives naively call political correctness, as though it were a mere unfortunate excrescence of leftism, is the essence of leftism: a war against the truth of existence, which must be a war against all people who attempt to speak the truth of existence or who at least refuse to go along with leftist lies.

The belief in leftism seems to survive this discovery rather well. After all, there are a lot of hairy old leftists walking around.

You know, when one lives around these people all one’s life, one doesn’t always see the forest for the trees. While I tended to agree at the time (when I was a late teen) with some of what they epoused—that “corporations are evil and behind so much of the greed and corruption in the country”, that “Nixon was evil” and that “Southern whites had kept blacks in a virtual state of segregation in that backward part of the country”—I did NOT march with them against the Vietnam War NOR did I participate in their campus sit-ins. I felt that many of them were simply rabble-rousers who were in it for their own egos or were simply Communists trying to bring down the country (David Harris, Maoist then-husband of Joan Baez, H. Bruce Franklin of the Venceremos et al). I am glad I was wise enough not to follow these anti-Americans because they had others like me “spellbound”. Too many of my fellow teens “fell” for their line of crap.

However, as important as it is to discuss “liberalism” and all its defects, I feel we on the right need to be even MORE SPECIFIC AND MORE VOCAL about “who” these people and their leaders or those who appointed/annointed them, are. For instance, when a feminist activist U.S. Fed. judge throws out the band on partial birth abortion, we need to be vocal and tell others exactly “who” she is and who appointed her and if she is even qualified to be making such decisions. When another feminist activist Fed. judge throws out Prop. 187, that judge needs to be hounded out of office. That didn’t happen years ago in California. We simply went right on with our lives and the People, pardon the crass expression, “got screwed” yet again.

Michael Savage had it quite right years ago as he does now. Today on his show, he was furious, as I knew he would be. The “enemy within”—the 5th column—is the enemy we should be equally worried about and fighting every chance we get. We aren’t doing that because:

1) Our focus in on Al Qaida
2) Our focus is on “getting along” with other Americans even though some of them are seditious rats
3) We seem to have given up trying to impeach these activist judges because they are everywhere (One of Bill Clinton’s greatest leftist legacies, firing scores of judges and appointing his leftist cronies). One wonders why Bush hasn’t used the same force to push his conservative appointments thru.
4) We (I don’t mean those of us at VFR!) seem to be afraid of the ACLU, of getting sued, of being branded extremists, etc. For some of us, being found out as conservatives would cost us our jobs and livelihood.
5) We are not “street fighters” like our leftist brethren. We wear ties and put on deoderant—no clipped-haired/moustachioed feminists and gays in our ranks (Tammy Bruce, excepted)!
6) The GOP/Bush have let us down as many of us voted for him and the Republican Congress. We are disillusioned as thus have even less interest in politics and getting involved. Some of us have been looking for a leader who doesn’t exist or is not yet ready to join the fray.

These things have always been the bane of conservatives. I am hoping for the day when we aren’t “nice” anymore—when we pick up those pitchforks and take to the streets. Obviously, there is “a vaccum” in the conservative leadership. But there also needs to be a coordinated attack by those at those at the bottom to get the movement going again.

“I am hoping for the day when we aren’t ‘nice’ anymore.”

Just yesterday I wrote to a correspondent that universities should close down jihad-supporting student groups. If we did that, I said, “We would be asserting ourselves again as a country instead of steadly retreating into oblivion in order to include those who hate us. It’s the steady retreat into oblivion which is ‘nice.’ I’m proposing the end of niceness.”

A very long time ago in a University far, far away, long before graduate school and a lifetime of work, I deeply engaged myself in the study of English Literature. I spent a good deal of time studying the Romantic period in England and, of course, the poets who made it so. I was taught that, among other things, Romantics believed in the power of mysticism, the power of feeling over reason, and the relativity of truth. At the time I failed to see the connection between Leftism (in whose throes I found myself at the time) and Romanticism.
Now that I have “put away the things of a child”, I realize why Wordsworth, Rosetti, Shelley, and Keats were so loony. Who was it that said that if you aren’t a liberal at 18, you have no soul, and if you aren’t a conservative at 45, you have no brain? Oh, pardon me! I forgot my favorite Romantic - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an hallucinogen addicted dreamer who found functioning in the real world to be quite beyond him. Who says that the study of Literature is outdated and useless?

Some thoughts on leftism: It is based on the assumption that the central reality of human existence is exploitation and oppression. Seeing the world as imperfect, leftists seek an explanation why we do not live in “the age of gold.” (Psychologists would say these fantasies have their root in dim remembrance of those moments of perfect contentment in infancy). Everything is explained by the structures under which we live - they are the bad influence, and were they eliminated, man the noble savage would return to a state of idyllic happiness. Thus tradition and the tragic view of man as deeply flawed and limited are rejected. Leftists reject completely the idea that the structures, i.e., traditions and institutions of society are civilizing and are what separate us from beasts. Leftists erect an elaborate epistemological defense of their position: those who disagree are attacked on motive, or are said to suffer from “false consciousness” reflecting their “interests.” All thought, art, and culture are epiphenomenal to such interests. (What a barbarous thought!) They simply serve to obscure the underlying reality which needs to be “unmasked.”

As Mr. Auster notes, leftists are at war with reality. The question is how such an obviously flawed and dogmatic system of beliefs commands such devotion, especially among “intellectuals.” One could make a Marxist analysis and say it is in the latter’s class interests to hold such beliefs. I believe too that the whole ideology affords the opportunity for the sanitized expression of deeply discreditable attitudes which are a part of flawed human nature. Leftism is just so much rationalized envy and hatred of one’s fellow man, but it poses as compassionate. As I have noted on an earlier thread, this purported compassion is ersatz. It is selective and agenda driven, i.e., it serves the interests of the left, and therefore is not really motivated by fellow - feeling for the sufferings of others. For the left, compassion is only a device to stir up indignation.

Effective opposition is not really a question of getting tough, or taking off the gloves, as it is understanding the nature of leftism, and showing its essential absurdity and ugliness. Unfortunately, the pidgin Marx assumptions of the left have become pervasive in our culture, and few commentators go to the root in their analysis. Leftism is an ersatz substitute religion that provides the sense of identity and self worth to many who imagine themselves to be intelligent and caring people. Effective criticism is experienced as a devastating or annihilating assault on one’s fundamental sense of identity. Hence, the nastiness of the culture wars.

These kinds of discussions are very important because they teach us about the fundamental problems.

To Joseph,

I believe Irving Babbitt made similar points in “Rousseau and Romanticism,” which I haven’t read, though I was deeply influenced by his later book, “Democracy and Leadership.”

However, can Joseph point us to statements by Romantics arguing for the relativity of truth? My impression had been that the Romantics, whatever their excesses, kept alive in Western culture the idea of a higher truth, and indeed, that in the decline of authoritative Christianity, much of the better and nobler qualities in Western culture up through the mid-twentieth century were restored and kept alive by the Romantic influence.

For example, isn’t the Oxford movement, neo-Gothic architecture, the fine Beaux Arts buildings from the turn of the 20th century that grace so much of Manhattan, the uplifting quality of our public buildings from that era, the noble ideals connected with the pursuit of science and learning that were embodied in museums and monuments; aren’t these things due in significant degree to the Romantic influence, though mixed, of course, with other influences?

Also, one of the founders of Romanticism, Chateaubriand, extolled Christianity. True, his Christianity was more of a sentimental and aesthetic type, but this still helped restore respect for Christiaity after the secularism of the 18th century.

This brings up what is a key idea for me, that the most important dividing line in humanity is not the line between Christians and non-Christians, and not the line between religious believers and non-believers, but the line between people who believe in a higher truth and those who don’t. The increasing degradation of the West over the last fifty years is the direct expression of the denial of higher truth. Now we have museums that show dead bodies, and young people with metal studs embedded in their lips (not to mention the well-funded “conservatives” who tell us to tolerate and understand these young people).

I believe the Protestant theologian Francis Schaeffer makes a similar point to mine. He dates the takeover of despair and nihilism in the West, not from the time of the loss of authoritative Christianity, but from the time of the loss of the Romantic in the early to mid 20th century.

I suppose it is fair to point out in response to Joseph’s comment that in time both Wordsworth and Coleridge became deeply conservative. Godwin, the fount of leftist nonsense and enormously influential on subsequent British socialist thought, visited Wordsworth, and had quite a falling out.

Thucydides has given us an excellent description the leftist mindset. If the best way of fighting this enemy within is to unmask it, how can this be done? Why, exactly, is the left winning the culture wars? How can the series of lies that are ceaselessly repeated by the leftist media as if truth be exposed as such to large numbers of people?

I am very much in sympathy with David Levin’s frustration expressed above. However, can you really say that you’re surprised that a leftist Federal judge struck down the partial-birth abortion law? The Supreme Court upheld partial birth abortion in a decision two or three years ago. Do you really think the Congressional Republicans (who enacted the law) and Bush (who signed it) weren’t aware of its ultimate fate? It was a bogus law passed to appease clueless religious conservatives. The enemy is indeed within - not just within the country, but within our own camp.

Right now, two Republican senators (Hatch and Smith) have authored an expansion of “hate crimes” legislation that will include “sexual orientation” among the protected classes. Does anyone here honestly believe that we are not going to end up with gulags and “re-education centers” for anyone who refuses to genuflect to the leftist creed. Care to guess about what the ultimate plan will be for those churches who refuse to perform “gay marriages”? So much for spreading “democracy” around the world!

I also want to add that the Romantics had a positive influence on me when I was a kid, opening me to what later became a religious sense. My mother introduced me to the Romantic poets, especially Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality.” Verses like this, from “Tintern Abbey,” express something great and true that, though I wouldn’t say I understood it in any profound way, helped form my experience of the world when I was a teenager:

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear …

On the quote about the proper age to stop being socialist, the line as I remember it, from Churchill (though he may have got it from someone else) is:

A person who has never been a socialist before he was twenty has no heart; a person who is still a socialist after the age of thirty has no head.

I recommend Wordsworth’s “The Excursion,” Mr. Auster—a great conservative vision by a great conservative, and a great Christian vision by a great Christian.

On aesthetic periodization, please see Originary Thinking by Eric Gans, which develops an anthropology/theology derived from that of Rene Girard, and then appies it to the classical, neo-classical, the romantic, the modernist, and the post-modern dispensations. The romantic is characterized by the belief in the availability of direct knowledge of reality—the scene of representation—to the privileged, prophetic individual, outside the institutionalization of revelation.

The point about where the divide falls between the two types of people shows how far we have fallen. By this understanding, Christians should make common cause with Muslims and pagans to defend themselves from the atheists.

On the Romantics, they loved ambiguity and relativity, but usually not without a tinge of guilt, (or sense of “loss”) for detaching themselves from the safe medieval world of one truth. Tristan and Isolde, after all, don’t live happily ever after. The guilt would be unbearable.

Nietzsche, however, unmoored himself from tradition without conveying any sense of loss or guilt. I think that would make him the first postmodern.

Great art needs some attachment to truth, and there’s no clearer sign of the crippling effects of postmodernism on the intellectual and artistic imagination than the paucity of great artists in the 20th century in comparison to the 5 previous.

I believe the quote about when to start/stop being a socialist is from Bismarck!

I cannot recall who originally developed the quote Mr. Auster and Scott bring up. But I am fairly sure it wasn’t either Bismarck or Churchill. Neither man was ever a socialist or had to apologize for being one!

First, here’s a comment about the origin of the quote on socialism and the ages of man from someone who seems to know:

———————
Charles Krauthammer [op-ed, May 25] quotes Winston Churchill as saying, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative when you’re 40, you have no head.”

This quotation is frequently but mistakenly attributed to Churchill. It is anyway unlikely that Churchill would subscribe to this philosophy: He was a swashbuckling soldier at 20, and a Conservative member of Parliament at 25. A couple of years later he switched to the Liberal Party (which was not liberal in the modern sense), and later went back to the Conservatives.

The phrase originated with Francois Guisot (1787-1874): “Not to be a republican at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.” It was revived by French Premier Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929): “Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.”
http://supercres.net/archives/000247.html
———————————

On my point about the essential division being between people who believe in a higher truth and people who don’t, Bill writes:

“The point about where the divide falls between the two types of people shows how far we have fallen. By this understanding, Christians should make common cause with Muslims and pagans to defend themselves from the atheists.”

Now, really, this is taking my statement in a too literal way, i.e., not taking account of context. I’m not speaking of Islam. I’m speaking within the context of our common civilizational world. Moslems are not part of our civilizational world. Obviously I have more in common with a Western atheist (or at least the milder sort of atheist who doesn’t actually hate religion) than I do with a Moslem.

Carl’s plaint — why, exactly, is the Left winning the culture wars? — is the central question for our time. Culture births politics, so don’t look for help from Bush & Co. because he’s been schooled by the Left as have we all — Carl, me and more or less the rest of us who believe we are conservative or traditionalists. We are precisely the kind of opposition the Left has crafted for the easy marks we seem to have been for the last fifty years. Before we can change the culture , win the big battles in what we are calling “war” we must find the proper fighters, and with the best will in the world many of us are only rear echelon men. David Levin wants us to pick up our pitchforks. Pace, Mr. Levin, but I don’t think you and tined weapons are what is needed. Look for people you woudn’t invite to dinner or drinks. People who don’t come to the fight with literary ardor and poetic arsenals. And we will probably never meet them. We dine, they feed. We drink, they throw it back and ask for more. We are too delicate to see their worth because we’ve been snatched from our parents’ nests and brought up by the Left to be their tame opposition. If you don’t believe me, listen to George Bush, a really two-fisted guy the Left loves to go a couple rounds with.

Is Mr. Rosenzweig referring to the proverbial “Joe Six-Pack” or “Bubba” - white working class people?

Surely one of the underlying reasons for the left’s many victories in the culture war lies in the successful indoctrination of such average Americans through public schools and the media. The left and its foot soldiers have been working to undermine or infiltrate all those institutions (churches, families, etc.) that at one time formed a counter to the government’s liberalism for at least four decades. Just look at the destruction wrought through the programs of the notorious Jane Elliott in public schools nationwide. Not to mention the feminist-inspired “war on boys” (actually it’s a war on white boys) described a couple of years ago by Christina Hoff Summers.

Joe Six-Pack and his buddies don’t seriously question leftist slogans like “Diversity is our strength”, “Immigrants only do the work that Americans won’t do” or “the constitutional separation of church and state” - even if they complain about the more outrageous examples from time to time. They’ve had this stuff pounded into their brains since age six. I think Mr. Rosenzweig has a good point insofar as tradtionalism needs a simple and direct message that will appeal to this lost flock - and help remove the scales that cover their eyes.

Liberalism is a religon without a God or acceptance of any absolute truths. It will never carry the day because reality always wins in the end and the liberal denies reality. Liberalism only changes the perception of reality and does not realize it cannot modify reality itself. In the last analysis most leftists that still embrace liberalism beyond 30 yrs. of age become the drunks, drug addicts, and neurotics of our age. Most eventually slowly go insane and withdraw from a world they believe has failed them which is the essence of selfishness.

zexx

Hmmm, a correction - misspelled religion….
zexx

In terms of the right, and the moderate right, and the securing of support from the broader public; look at the situation of the president. It is literally dozens of times harder for him to get a minority vote than one from the majority, he must know that he has absolutely nothing to lose in terms of mass media support or fair treatment from them, yet he is unable to take up the majority interest. International trade is not an absolute, free immigration will never be an absolute, affirmative action is anathema to the majority; how is it that they can’t see that, if only for reasons of practical politics, they need to take the side of the majority on these and other issues? Blue-collar elements are impressed by loyalty, not by liberalism, and especially not by what will appear to them as a dishonest imitation of current liberalism. The internationalism will read as traitorous disloyalty to these people, as well it should.

Carl’s home truths about Joe SixPack having lies pounded into his head for a lifetime are only half the reality. Put that together with the sad other truth that there are no worthy counter-arguments from the churches who, with notable exceptions, have retreated from the fight. Poor Joe has no weapons of defense. Liberal clergy schooled by liberal academics inflamed by radical theories, lies and acts are themselves as naked to the liberal message as Joe. Joe’s numbers grow, the truth retreats. It matters very little if liberalism finally self-destructs. That day may come when we are changed utterly and incapable of recovering freedom and good sense. Think of the Third World. Think how incomprehensible a republic is to different minds. The day after tomorrow America may be a distant star, unreachable.

On the dividing line between those who belief in a higher truth and those who do not: since Mr. Auster disclaims it, I will assert myself that traditionalists who appeal to divine authority as the basis for morality, customs, and institutions have more in common with similarly minded Moslems and pagans than they do with our own radicals, who deny the existence of the divine and see religion as nothing more than a mask for exploitation. American traditionalists are doubtless more disgusted with the brutal, libertine, and pornographic elements of American culture than Moslems are, who have the luxury of of viewing it from the outside.

That is only one point of contact, and the massive differences in civilization probably overwhelm it, but it is a point of contact we do not have with our radical compatriots.

To Bill,

I was not speaking of radicals. Here’s what I said: “Obviously I have more in common with a Western atheist (or at least the milder sort of atheist who doesn’t actually hate religion) than I do with a Moslem.”

There are American atheists and agnostics who are loyal to our civilization and want to protect it from Moslems. They are our allies.

Personally, there is a dividing line in my experience that I didn’t invent but it hits me with great force. I have no problem with atheists who are not aggressive about their atheism and are respectful of religion and religious people. At the same time, if I have any choice in the matter, I have nothing to do with people who are openly anti-religion, anti-Christianity.

Here’s an example of this difference which may seem trivial to some people but to me is significant. If someone says to me, “I don’t believe in God, I don’t see a reason to believe in God,” that is not an offensive statement. It is an honest statement. But if someone says to me, “_Of course_ I don’t believe in God,” that is offensive, because the statement implies that no rational person can believe in God, only an idiot could believe in God. The statement also implies that the people one is speaking to share one’s total disbelief in God and won’t be offended by the statement. There’s all the difference in the world in those two little words, “of course.”

Following from Bill’s post above: the truth is that today’s traditional Christians have two kinds of enemies, one largely internal, the other external (although our suicidal immigration non-policies are making it internal as well).

The internal threat comes from those within our society who have denied its roots and traditions and seek to “liberate” it in ways that can only destroy it. Leftists of all sorts, militant secularists and atheists fall into this camp. More often than not they hate Christianity not because of its theology but because it proclaims absolute truths, with origins external to man, that lead to rules of conduct they find confining or oppressive. They are, effectively, apostate. While that characterization fits formerly Christian liberals, I think it roughly fits Jewish liberals, too. They may hate Christianity because they think it anti-Semitic - but that does not mean they practice Judaism or follow its dictates. They also are apostate from their ancestral faith.

The external threat is religious (Moslem, in our time, but the Hindus might get restless…). Devout Moslems hate Christianity and Judaism not because they are confining and oppressive but because, in their view, they are diabolical and wrong. There might be basic ethnic animosity at work, too, but the jihadis’ fight is a fight of believers against wrong religion, not of unbelievers against the idea of religion.

It is hard to say which is more deadly, but our present vulnerability to the external threat is testament enough to the damage the internal threat has already done.

Matt says that our salvation can only begin with repentance from liberalism and all its works. I’m sure he is right, but it is also going to take hard-headedness about our enemies, both foreign and domestic. We won’t get far if we can’t tell who they are. HRS

“Matt says that our salvation can only begin with repentance from liberalism and all its works. I’m sure he is right, but it is also going to take hard-headedness about our enemies, both foreign and domestic. We won’t get far if we can’t tell who they are.”

I agree. It is a war with two fronts, one of which is inside of ourselves. We can win the outside war and still lose by turning it into a victory for liberalism.

Contrary to the despair about Joe Six-Pack, who has been indoctrinated in government schools, I think that he exhibits quite a bit of rebellion against liberal dogma. It is claimed that he accepts liberal shibboleths about aliens doing the jobs that Americans won’t do, but amnesty proposals sure seem to stir up the public quite a bit. Mr. Auster mentioned previously that 67% of the public favored sending illegal Haitians back in 1992. Who are those 67%?

Instead of all this pessimism, I think we should realize that Joe Six-Pack is waiting for a leader to speak up on his behalf. The media elite is waiting to pounce on whoever does. All it takes is a little courage.

Clark Coleman writes:

“Instead of all this pessimism, I think we should realize that Joe Six-Pack is waiting for a leader to speak up on his behalf. The media elite is waiting to pounce on whoever does. All it takes is a little courage.”

Accordingly to polls about 2/3 of Americans favor more restrictive immigration. Repubs and Dems split votes very evenly in the last few elections. One would think that one or other party will try to take advantage of 2/3 views on immigration. Yet, both parties have essentially identical positions that are in line with the delusional and/or greedy 1/3 minority that wants (virtually) open-borders.

It is a failure of American political market system. Sooner or latter there should come a political enterpreneur to offer a product to fill a need of 2/3 of Americans.

How many divisions ready for combat does the two-thirds have? How many divisions do the pro-immigration elites have? There’s no comparison. The pro-immigration forces have the ability to bring force to bear at any point of contact that the two-thirds can’t begin to match. The two-thirds don’t exist as an army. They’re just people who if they’re asked by a telephone pollster what they think will say they would like less immigration. They don’t exist as a political force.

Poll numbers are meaningless. What matters is who really cares, and who has the force to back up what he cares about.

Mr. Auster moves into position, shoots - and whiffs it through the net.

“Divisions”? Who needs divisions? This is a job for asymmetrical guerilla warfare.

The sinking of the USS Spencer Abraham is a prime example of the possibilities. Note that there was no restrictionist candidate in that race. But a small group saw to it that the more promiscuous candidate paid for his sins. One shouldn’t have to wait for the extreme rot of an Abraham or Chris Cannon to act, though.

“How many divisions ready for combat does the two-thirds have?”

That is the major tactical problem. If the entire GOP, leadership on down, was pushing immigration reform, then something could be done. GWB is as likely to go this route as finding a snowball in Mexico.

Here is the question: If GWB loses after all the pandering to Hispanics, will there be a change of thinking in the Republican Party?

Mr. Auster writes:

“The two-thirds don’t exist as an army. They’re just people who if they’re asked by a telephone pollster what they think will say they would like less immigration. They don’t exist as a political force.”

You may ask Spencer Abraham, former Republican Senator, Saudi Arabia, if he thinks “they” exist as a political force. You may ask La Raza fanatics after propositions 187 and 209 in California passed overwhelmingly. X-gov Gray-out Davis, he is a giver of Driver Licenses to the illigals, might have a comment or two. Or ask a Mexican non-entity who ran to replace Gray-out.

Potential is there to win votes, what is needed is a maverick able to finance his own campaign.

David asks; “If GWB loses after all the pandering to Hispanics, will there be a change of thinking in the Republican Party?”

I seriously doubt it. Look at what happened after the rout of 1992. Bush 41 turned left and pandered to the Dems on multiple issues. The Republican leadership went along and we ended up with Bill Clinton (Lord Hee-Haw) and the Dems in charge because the Republicans betrayed their base. The Republican grassroots caught fire in 1994, and rose up against the corrupt Congress and administration, propelling Republicans into control of the house for the first time in decades. However, the leadership of the party remained in the same hands (the Country Club/Corporatist/Liberal wing).

Things looked promising ten years ago. There was even talk about repealing laws and treaties enacted by liberals over the years. Look at what happened. In January, the house will have been under Republican control for ten years. Has the leftist agenda been rolled back in any meaningful way? No. All serious attempts at reform were blocked by the leadership in alliance with the Democrats. Furthermore, the Country Clubbers and their neocon allies started campaigning against newly elected conservatives two years later and have by now pretty much purged conservatives in many of the state parties. The only logical answer is that those who run the party are a) personally benefiting in some way from leftist policies (open borders, affirmative action, big government, treasonous business deals, etc.); b) globalist liberals who actually agree with the left’s ultimate goals for America - and despise the social conservatives who make up the rank and file.

The problem is far deeper than GWB. There is a fundamental split between rank and file Republican voters and the relatively small, powerful group who runs the party. Even after the disaster of 1992, and the near-disaster of 2000, the party leaders have done next to zero to address the concerns of conservatives. I seriously doubt that a Kerry victory and Democratic sweep of the congress will change anything. Conservatives have been far too willing to sell their votes for empty promises from the likes of GWB. Rove and Co. are now reduced to scaring us with the prospect of Kerry instead of addressing any concerns we have over open borders, etc.