{"id":1712767,"date":"2022-10-27T07:17:28","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T11:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1712767"},"modified":"2022-10-27T07:17:56","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T11:17:56","slug":"the-performative-outrage-of-conservatives-is-further-evidence-of-their-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-performative-outrage-of-conservatives-is-further-evidence-of-their-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"The Performative Outrage Of \u2018Conservatives\u2019 Is Further Evidence Of Their Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-performative-outrage-of-conservatives-is-further-evidence-of-their-failure%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1712767&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The performative outrage from professional conservatives over\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/10\/20\/we-need-to-stop-calling-ourselves-conservatives\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">my column last week<\/a>, which argued that the conservative movement has largely failed and we should stop calling ourselves conservatives, was as revealing as it was predictable.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Kristol called me a fascist. John Podhoretz said I\u2019m a power-hungry fanatic. David French warned I was fabricating an existential threat to the American idea. Matt Lewis, perhaps the most candid of the lot, was just happy that \u201cfar-right extremists\u201d like me will no longer besmirch the good name of conservatism, which he\u2019d like to keep for himself.<\/p>\n<p>There are two things happening here. The first is a reflexive defensiveness from a class of establishment media pundits who have, as Iowahawk explained back in 2015, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/iowahawkblog\/status\/664089892599631872?s=20&#038;t=VJy-O19IYnGltp4x1xB3mA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">worn the \u201cconservative\u201d label like a skinsuit<\/a> for decades. To claim, as I did, that the conservative project has failed feels to them like an indictment, which it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The failures of conservatism stretch back more than a half-century, but over the past two decades in particular the left has made spectacular gains on nearly every front while issues that ordinary conservatives care about \u2014 immigration, traditional marriage, the ability to support a family in a decent community \u2014 have been more or less ignored by a conservative commentariat that whiled away the time on National Review cruises, agitated for endless wars abroad, and cracked jokes for octogenarian donors. It\u2019s nice work if you can get it, but it didn\u2019t conserve much.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The second thing happening with these apoplectic reactions is just basic self-preservation. Claiming to be conservative is how the erstwhile leaders of the conservative movement project power and influence in the corporate media. If the conservative label is exposed as fraudulent, and the conservative project is revealed to be a failure, then their standing as arbiters of what is and isn\u2019t conservative might simply disappear. They need \u201cconservatism,\u201d as it has long been understood, to be believable and relevant so they can keep up the appearance that they stand for something other than professional grift. Those CNN gigs don\u2019t grow on trees.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also a sense one gets that these guys are really just saying \u2014 spluttering, in Podhoretz\u2019s case \u2014 \u201cHey, who are\u00a0<em>you<\/em>\u00a0to criticize\u00a0<em>me<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To steal a line from another power-hungry fanatic: It doesn\u2019t matter who we are, what matters is our plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More on the plan in a later column, but here\u2019s a spoiler: It doesn\u2019t involve seizing power in a fascist coup, shredding the Constitution, and ushering in a Catholic theocracy. That ridiculous charge, as disingenuous as it is lazy, is just a cheap way to avoid long-overdue critiques of the conservative movement and its manifestly unfit stewards.<\/p>\n<p>No wonder, then, that Podhoretz\u2019s complaint on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commentary.org\/noah-rothman\/everybody-just-wants-power\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a recent Commentary podcast<\/a>\u00a0is that what I and others on the \u201cNew Right\u201d\u00a0<em>really<\/em>\u00a0want \u2014 but don\u2019t dare say out loud \u2014 is a political order based on\u00a0<em>Rerum Novarum<\/em>, the papal encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, which Podhoretz grossly mischaracterizes as \u201chostile to capitalism,\u201d \u201canti-modernity,\u201d and the \u201cbirth of social<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unable to cope with the failure of the conservative movement, its erstwhile champions resort to calling their critics fascist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":1712770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1712767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1712770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}