The conservative movement is full of people who care deeply about the long term health of their country, activists and politicians who get into politics out of a sense of duty.
They don’t see politics, as others do, as competition to be a special interest power broker. That kind carry a short-term agenda of either special laws for crony corporations or new giveaways for a trained and organized mob.
These two special interest crews are “enemies” of one another, but only in a sibling rivalry kind of way. They are two versions of the same thing. One condescends, the other projects victimhood. Same thing, different side of the tracks.
Unfortunately, another human drive is routinely used by the ruling class to derail good conservatives. It is the drive for “success”, along with the security it allegedly brings.
“Success” can mean different things. Here it means what Ron Burgandy meant when he said, “I’m kind of a big deal…”
This impulse is referred to elsewhere as “the pride of life”.
But we all want success, right?
And, oddly, when it comes to getting our “success”, we suddenly have blind faith in the goodness of our social system – though we admit society’s broken priorities other times.
We believe that if we do things right, “success” will just come.
Then, when success and our altruistic intentions unexpectedly come into conflict, we prioritize. We choose which one gets to stay in its original shape, and which one gets radical cosmetic surgery in order to begin supporting, and stop holding back, the other.
For eventual sellouts, it is the “if you can’t beat ‘em (at zero cost), join ‘em” moment. It will eventually be seen as a coming of age.
Still, this moment presents a big choice, and it is a choice the ruling class will help you make imperceptibly, and in stages. Much of it is not “on purpose” – it is just people obeying the pull of power.
For conservative movement people and conviction conservative legislators, their siren call always boils down to the same thing:
Every day, in a dozen attenuated ways, the ruling class says to conservatives, “Follow my cues and you will have access.” To dignify these decisions, words like “reasonable”, “prudent”, and “credible” are always close-by.
You see, we must be reasonable, like the young Civil War General who said to his superior, “General, I’m afraid any further acts of valor will bring us in contact with the enemy.”
In the end, the ruling class wants trained managers in charge of every conservative issue, every conservative caucus, every conservative body, and every conservative group, including tea parties.
They leverage access to powerful people, which, in capital cities, is like crack. Everyone is jonesing for another hit – not always even sure why.
It is a great setup for the ruling class. They funnel credibility to their issue-managers via first class access, the managers, in turn, reduce the credibility of the political move the ruling class opposes by not supporting it.
Then, to complete the loop, when real fighters finally make an issue unstoppable, the ruling class positions their issue-manager out in front of it so that his first class status is reinforced. In this way, the ruling class controls the flow of conservative movement credit.
Then people say about the trained issue-manager, “that person really gets things done.”
Yes, he’s very reasonable, very credible. Very useful.
The whole thing is built on a series of lies. One is the lie that conservative sellouts can’t buy back in.