How conservatives win

RC writes:

McDonnell won in Virginia. Is very good on illegals. So is the rest of the Republican slate that won in Virginia. I don’t think he has a plank on legal immigration, although some have said that he has spoken occasionally in favor of more legal immigration. He told Palin to stay out.

“Suburbanites” don’t want controversy. The way to win is to put out planks that whites want, but don’t talk about them. Down-play them, and implement them as calmly as possible after being elected. During the campaign focus on less controversial issues like transportation. The liberal won’t bring the controversial issues up, because he knows that if the other side does not respond hysterically, all he has done is lose votes.

It’s not ideologically satisfying, but I suspect it is the way to win while being conservative on race and immigration. It’s sort of the way Obama won on the other side.

LA replies:

This is a good and persuasive analysis, but it doesn’t make me happy, because it means that politics requires not discussing the things that most need to be discussed.

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Kilroy M. writes:

You write: “This is a good and persuasive analysis, but it doesn’t make me happy, because it means that politics requires not discussing the things that most need to be discussed.”

You’re confusing politics with ideology. An ideologue must discuss everything, no matter how uncomfortable; a politician has to win, meaning, he has to keep his mouth shut on issues that will cost him votes. Simple.

LA replies:

I understand that the rule of silence does not apply to an “ideologue” like myself. But I wasn’t thinking of myself. I want a more meaningful politics, in which liberalism is openly challenged and confronted.

November 5

Kilroy replies:

That’s precisely what you have: You, and others like Mark Richardson here in Australia, do exactly that. The problem however is that we’re pushed outside of the mainstream. That’s why a politician (which neither of us are) must practice strategic silence to be able to “make it” in the Establishment before he is in a position to effect change. This is the “long march” that Gramsci spoke of and that Kimball applies to conservatives. Essentially, the rules are the same. But because we’re not slimy bastards like the left, we take the full-frontal, honest critique approach, and get shot to pieces by the liberal elites who prefer to act like sheep-in-wolves’-clothing (eg the Fabians) and who will go even so far as to criminalise our own legitimate theories in the process. A traditionalist politician cannot survive in this context, but somebody like you thrives in it because you supply a valuable service to a starved market. The politician, on the other hand, wants to get elected and, let’s face it, the general population wouldn’t vote for somebody of our ilk if went out there and tried selling our theories about, eg limiting the female franchise. So if you want a “more meaningful politics, in which liberalism is openly challenged and confronted” we have to admit that what we have now is pretty much as good as it’s going to get for a while. I take a pessimistic view of the future: I believe that things are going to get much worse before there’s hope they will get better. I believe that there will be a pseudo-civil-war in Europe, but I also believe that the State apparatus will be fighting on the side of the “oppressed” minorities against its own people. This is yet to come, and it is coming. At least you’re not blogging from a prison cell!

LA replies:

By the way, limiting the franchise is not something I argue for in the current society; that is something much farther away.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 04, 2009 11:41 AM | Send