Kenneth Hersh is the chief executive of the George W. Bush Presidential Center
“Freedom. Opportunity. Accountability. Compassion.
It is time for the right side of the aisle to focus on timeless principles. As mortals, it is critical to understand our role is as mere custodians of these ideals. Men and women have fought and died for them. When leaders have pursued these values, literally billions of people have been lifted out of poverty, supporting the dignity encased in each person’s soul and satisfying our innate desires to be free and chart our own course.
Conservatism respects dignity, the dignity that comes from self-reliance with an understanding that the true capabilities of government are rather limited. Government does not create wealth. Rather, it helps ensure an environment where free markets and free people can pursue and realize opportunity. …
Importantly, this country needs a strong, compassionate conservative voice to provide a rational alternative to the alt-right sentiment and a counterweight to the progressive left, which, left unchecked, endangers our freedom and economic viability as a nation.
These past months mark a significant milestone. The country moved on from a leader who professed to be a conservative, but exhibited few ideals relating to conservatism. The disruptor’s scorched-earth strategy may have served a purpose, but now it is time to assert ideals that can unite. We must be reminded that conservatism is not racist, nativist or isolationist. …
Successful leaders will embrace an optimistic vision that offers solutions with respect for personal liberty, not one that spews anger, resentment and dependency.”
Timeless principles?
I thought that I would share this because this blast from the past is a reminder of how far we have traveled over the past 12 years. I’m old enough to remember when the entire Right sounded like this guy 20 years ago. I haven’t changed much at all since 2004. They have changed.
My theory is that the True Cons are going into the night like the Bourbon Democrats faded in the wake of William Jennings Bryan. We are succeeding in reshaping public opinion. The progress that we are making can seem glacial at times, but there was a big change over the last decade and it started well before Trump announced that he was running for president. It is important to remember that the electorate skews significantly older and that Congress is a gerontocracy.
It wasn’t our time yet ten or twenty years ago. There is going to be a big shift in power and influence though over the next five years due to generational turnover. A decade from now, we will look back on Trump’s victory in 2016 as the very beginning of a new populist era in American politics.
Note: The previous two populist eras lasted from roughly 1828 to 1860 (Jacksonian Democracy or the antebellum era) and from 1896 to 1929 (the populist and progressive era). Back then, the media said all the same things about Jackson and Bryan’s followers that they say about us today.
That was truly a gay read.
It’s about as gay as those Paleocon nerd articles that praise Trump as some sort of right wing hero despite his presidency doing nothing but empower the left
Written by Kenneth HERSH.
@ we need truth tellers, not sooth sayers.
Compassion? Sounds ghey. Warlord – “What is best in life?”- Conan the Barbarian – “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.”
CC memories mean TSA, no Constitution, lotsa bombs, money for nothin’ (if a corrupt bank, rich).
A real conservative would bounce the likes of B. Shapiro, L. Loomer,
J. Sekulow (Jew for Jew, Israel and Jesus), A. Fleischer, D. Prager.
The “populism” thing is bullshit because Trump himself recently mentioned “low taxes and regulation” as one of the pillars of Trumpism. Trump is more fiscally conservative than Ronald Reagan and so is DeSantis, who will be the next GOP candidate most likely.
Ron DeSantis is basically a closed borders libertarian.
‘Compassion’ was a word I once cared greatly for.
Yet, knowing what is, and, indeed, has been made of it, as soon as I see it, within a political context, I immediately take for someone who is prepared to give up more of what little is left of White America.
And, as such, I am immediately turned off.
Compassion means more weakness and pandering to special interest groups and minorities.
@John…
I totally agree, and said as much, as well. We’ve been ‘compassioned’ to death since at least 1954.
Funny how there’s absolutely no difference of opinion whatsoever in any of the establishment newspapers these days. So much for the lie that we have a free press.
America cannot be saved, and we should hope for its fracturing. This country without borders and common culture and folk is a Frankfurt School socially engineered abomination upon the nation’s of the earth, and the unfortunate redpilled people who inhabit this Whore of Babylon beast.
@November…
Absolutely correct that this version of America can be saved, nor ought it be.
That said, what America really was can be brought back, and, yes, as you said, it will take fracturing to do.
The fact is, however, that fracturing has already occurred, in oh, so many many ways.
All that remains to do is to formalize that with a redrawing of political lines.
Typo alert : ought to have read…
“Absolutely correct that this version of America canNOT be saved, nor ought it be.