Conservatives are gloomy: Congressional Republicans seem to be losing yet another budget battle to Bill Clinton. The president vetoed their tax cut and paid no political price. So the Republicans turned around and adopted his priorities. Instead of insisting on a major tax cut, they are proposing that 90 percent of the Fiscal Year 2001 budget surplus be reserved to pay down the debt. Sounds like the Gore campaign.
And so begins a little ritual that always marks this time of year, as regular as the World Series or the turning of the leaves. As Republicans cave, conservatives moan and shake their heads: If only our leaders weren’t so gutless. . . . If only we had leaders who would stand on principle. . . . If only the Democrats weren’t such demagogues. . . . Then we could really start transforming government.
Well, maybe it’s time to take a step back from the Republicans’ annual budget retreat and its rituals. Because when you do, it is hard to avoid some uncomfortable facts. For the first time since the recession of 1991, a plurality of Americans seems to think government should do more to solve the nation’s problems. Republican pollster Linda DiVall’s American Viewpoint survey this month indicated that 46 percent of Americans want government to do more, whereas 40 percent answered that government was already doing too much. That’s striking, because in the past most Americans have had a sense that government was overburdened, even while they may have wanted more government intervention in specific areas.
When you look at the poll results issue by issue, it doesn’t get any better for small-government conservatism. A poll commissioned by the Kennedy School, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and NPR found that, not surprisingly, 88 percent of registered Democrats want government to do more to ensure access to affordable health care. But it also found that 53 percent of Republicans want government to be more active in that area. In eight separate issue areas, even Republican voters showed a surprising taste for government activism.
That’s why, in survey after survey of this presidential campaign, Democrats have the advantage on the issues. They have about a 15-point lead on Social Security and education, a 25-point lead on health care, and they’ve even opened up a slight lead on the economy, an issue on which Republicans have often had an advantage.
The fact is, the world is changing in ways that make life much more difficult for Republicans. The public still trusts Republicans to do a better job handling foreign affairs, but since the end of the Cold War those concerns have lost their salience, while Democratic issues like education and health care have gained.
More fundamentally, government no longer seems as much of a menace. In the 1970s, it was easy to see that high taxes and government regulation stifled growth. But now, with the economy, the IRS, and the EPA all booming, it is harder to make that case. Conservatives have also been victimized by their successes. When liberal mayors like New York’s David Dinkins were running big cities and crime was out of control, then government did seem hapless. But when the likes of Rudy Giuliani cut crime, suddenly it occurs to people that positive government action can produce real improvements.
The biggest such success has been welfare reform. America’s old welfare system — which subsidized people who weren’t even looking for work, which encouraged people to jump on the rolls — had a profound effect on the American psyche. It fed the notion that government was a big, ineffective, corrosive force. But now that welfare has been successfully reformed, that notion is losing currency. Moreover, as James Taranto pointed out in a perceptive Wall Street Journal essay, welfare reform has “nullified the underclass . . . as a political issue.” Al Gore talks a lot about the middle class, but unlike past Democratic candidates he doesn’t talk about the non-working poor. He never mentions the homeless.
So the Democrats no longer seem the party of the handout, but almost the party of the work ethic. In short, in the 1980s, with communism still around, with socialism still on top in Europe, and welfare state liberalism still dominating the Democratic party, Americans did have a sense that out-of-control government was a big problem. But today, most people don’t seem to see government as a major threat to their well-being. Instead, it’s the vast impersonal forces of technological change, economic globalization, and a careening culture that appear most threatening. It seems that many voters are looking for an effective government that will be on their side as they try to shape their lives amidst these forces.
Is all this a disaster for conservatives and Republicans? It could be. If your notion of conservatism is that government should always just get out of the way, then you may have to prepare yourself for some time in the political wilderness. But conservatism has never just been about getting government out of the way. It has been about enhancing American greatness and helping American citizens lead decent and self-governing lives. And it is possible to use government in a limited but energetic way to advance these conservative ends. There can be a governing conservatism, not just a protest conservatism, which would reform government so that it is strong and effective where appropriate, but not stifling or morally corrosive.
One of the people who have understood this is George W. Bush. As he said in a speech last week, “I do not believe government is the enemy — but I do not believe it is always the answer. At its best, it can help people find the tools they need to build for themselves. At its best, it gives options, not orders. At its best, government can help us live our lives — but it can never run them.” That is a start at developing the language of the future of the GOP.
Governor Bush is able to run a competitive race in this difficult political climate in part because he has modernized the party’s approach to governance, as have so many of the Republican governors. For America is at once a conservative country and a progressive country. It is conservative in that its people adhere to more-or-less conservative moral principles with respect to the family, self-reliance, and the like. But Americans are progressive in the sense that they also believe in banding together for great leaps into the future. They believe in taking action to control their own destiny.
Whether George Bush wins or loses — and we hope he wins — American conservatives are going to have to engage in a period of fundamental rethinking to adapt to the post-Cold War, post-welfare-reform era. Conservatives will have to continue the creative destruction that George Bush and others have started, dropping some old ideas (already term limits have fallen by the wayside) and embracing new ways of achieving old ends. The issue map now favors the Democrats, which means that when they begin their campaigns they have a downhill path. Conservative Republicans have an uphill path. It doesn’t always have to be that way.
David Brooks, for the Editors
