Up from Conservatism: Why the Right is Wrong for America

"The Republicans have a problem. The economic program of American Conservatives, if enacted in its entirety, would devastate the middle class while helping the American overclass. Income would be redistributed upward, while taxes would be redistributed downward.... How can conservatives expect to win votes for an economic program so inimical to the middle class? The answer is they cannot--and they know it. Therefore, most conservative ideologues... have done their best to change the subject from the economy to what they like to call, 'the culture'..." Michael LindUP FROM CONSERVATISMFrom Chapter Five, "Whistling Dixie" My copy of this book is looking more and more as if I am studying for a final exam based on its contents; every other paragraph of every chapter is a ten-megaton bomb of an aphorism worth quoting. "Perhaps however, my statement of the problem is mistaken. The question was, 'Why have there been no world-class American conservative intellectuals?' when it should have been "Why are there so FEW American conservative intellectuals [emphasis mine]?" By intellectuals I do not mean propagandists or causists, who provide the party faithful with the party line on the subjects of the day. I mean independent thinkers, who may be "conservative" or "liberal" or "libertarian" or "socialist" in terms of their basic principles, but who are free to draw their own conclusions without looking over their shoulders and fearing punishment for heterodoxy..." "If further proof is needed for my contention that much of today's conservative political theory is merely Marxism with the substitution of "bourgeois" for "proletariat" and "culture" for "class," it can be found in Joyce's call for enlisting art and literature in the service of Republican conservatism, a program that is indistinguishable, except in its content, from the aesthetic orthodoxy of American communities during the 1920's and 1930's...the literary and artistic techniques used by communists and fascists alike would be adopted to disseminate conservative ideology...For the time being, it seems, Americans will have to be content with the work of conservative public policy intellectuals." Michael Lind, UP FROM CONSERVATISMFrom Chapter 3: "The Triangular Trade: How the Conservative Movement Works" Michael Lind's detailed analysis of the overall psyche and political agenda of the power brokers of the Conservative movement in modern America is beyond prescient, beyond clear--and beyond frightening. It's also beyond superlatives."The resemblance between Marxism and the classical liberal economic utopianism of the American right is a family resemblance. Marxism and free-market fundamentalism are squabbling twins, the offspring of the Enlightenment's naive belief in inevitable progress.... In the former communist countries, the high priests of economic dogma were the Marxist dialecticians; in the United States and Britain (though not in Japan or continental Europe), neoclassical economists serve as g

Lind makes a convincing argument that the American conservatism of Lincoln and Dewey has been hijacked by extremists like Pat Robertson, Patrick Buchanan and Wayne LaPierre. That much is easy for anyone to see. What made this book more interesting is the author's contention that there has also been a change in the Left's priorities, evidenced by the rise of neoliberalism (Carter, Clinton and the DLC, for example) and the shift from working class and immigrant concerns to that of identity politics. What remains is a gaping void where middle class working folks reside -- moderate-to-conservative on social issues and liberal on economics -- left-populists. Essentially, both parties are looking out for the economic concerns of corporations and the affluent, while each does its best to appeal to various special interests in order to get votes. When is the last time either political party decided to strengthen employees' rights, keep jobs in this country, reward workers for having the best productivity in the world, or eliminate the obscenity of a class of working poor?It was interesting to read this book post-9/11. I expected a lot of it would be outdated and made irrelevant by that awful morning, but much of what the author said then still rings true, though at the time of writing he had no inkling (who could?) of GW and the 2000 election debacle to come. Lind discusses the religious right's stranglehold on the GOP even without knowing that they would sabotage John McCain with a disinformation campaign in South Carolina in 2000. He traces the myths of the success of supply-side economics and the failures of the public schools and social welfare even before knowing that the Bush administration would bankrupt the country for upper-income tax cuts and push faith-based programs and school vouchers through the back door. He denounces the whacko anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynistic, irrational rantings of Pat Robertson that conservatives allow to go unchallenged because he controls a vast grass-roots network of voters. (This is what finally led him to renounce his own conservative affiliations.) But my favorite chapter has to be the one attacking the conservative myth of the Golden Age (the 1950s for Newt Gingrich, the 1930s for Trent Lott). It is very funny. Tragically, scandalously funny. Lind calls attention to the hypocrisy of conservatives who call for law and order (at the same time they let the NRA halt even the most basic controls on weapons), smaller government (at the same time they establish the department of Total Information Awareness headed by situational ethicist John Poindexter), fiscal responsibility (at the same time they dip into Social Security in order to give tax breaks to the top 1%), pro-family (at the same time they tax families to give tax breaks to the rich), and non-intervention (at the same time they send young people off to die in order to divert attention from a poor economy and constitutional shenanigans).Lind, most intere

Granted, this book is not an easy read, but it is well worth the effort. It lays out what has been lacking as a political choice for voters over the last quarter of a century: centrism in the tradition of FDR, Truman and Eisenhower. This book is not only critical of the radical right, it is also critical of the left and the lukewarm conservatism of Clinton. He predicts, and I sincerely hope he is right, there will be a re-emergence of the sort of centrism the country enjoyed from 1933 to the early 70's--as odd as that may sound--in the decades ahead. If you believe the radical right and the loony left are not representing the best interests of the vast majority of Americans, you will find this book compelling.

Michael Lind was once an up-and-coming conservative activist until he realized that his mentor, William F. Buckley, Jr., refused to condemn televangelist Pat Robertson for his book "The New World Order." Lind became disillusioned with the conservative movement as it veered away from the old-style conservatism to embrace the radical right. Because he has the advantage of having been an insider, his book is much more powerful and persuasive than books by those outside the movement. Lind shows the reader the roots of modern day conservatism, he discusses the think tanks that are behind much of today's conservative thought, and he focuses on three conservative hoaxes very popular with the public. The best part of his book, however, is a chapter based upon a review Lind wrote in the New York Review of Books about Pat Robertson's "The New World Order." Lind is absolutely brilliant in exposing Robertson's plagarism of anti-Semitic works which Robertson in turn sanitized to a more conventional conspiracy theory. And yet there was very little negative comment about Robertson, especially from fellow conservatives. Lind calls this silence a result of a "no enemies to the right" policy.Lind's book isn't perfect. His explanation of the genealogy of American political thought becomes rather confusing in places. Some readers will no doubt object to Lind's attitude toward affirmative action (he's against it). But all in all, it is still an excellent book.

Lind, a former conservative, does several things in this fine work. First, he describes how the conservative movement has been taken over by the reactionary right, totally abandoning the great tradition of Daniel Webster and Dwight Eisenhower. He goes issue by issue, explaining why the right is wrong on education, welfare, economics and other issues. He explains the racism in three books that got me disgusted when I read them but which conservatives now use as their "bible" on certain issues. Lind shows how conservative populism is and always has been an oxymoron, showing the conservative fear of true populism even as they preach it on occasion. He shows how the modern right has catered to extreme groups that the Eisenhowers and Fords would never have dealt with. He also emerges as critical of the conservative Clintonites who would seek the wreck the progress created by FDR, Truman and LBJ. A very expansive work that lives up to the challenge of covering all those bases in considerable depth without-> getting dull. A good companion to this book is "Who Speaks for G-d?" by pastor Jim Wallis, which explains why the Religious Right is wrong and violates its religious roots.