The Conservative Crackup

E. J. Dionne writes of the Conservative Crackup:

The cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, Robert Nisbet and William F. Buckley Jr. is now in the hands of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity -- and Sarah Palin. Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans, learned manifestoes by direct-mail hit pieces.

As to this point, it is a sad, sad thing. True conservatism of the kind into which I was immersed for about 15 years, from 1982-1997, is a sophisticated, intellectually profound enterprise, and one still worth the effort to study and learn from. One writer and scholar not mentioned in the list above, Russell Kirk (whom I had the privilege of meeting and studying with in 1987), is still well worth reading, especially his The Conservative Mind. But this movement has been overwhelmed lately by true yahoos and propagandists like Limbaugh and Hannity.

Conservatism has finally crashed on problems for which its doctrines offered no solutions (the economic crisis foremost among them, thus Bush's apostasy) and on its refusal to acknowledge that the "real America" is more diverse, pragmatic and culturally moderate than the place described in Palin's speeches or imagined by the right-wing talk show hosts.

I'm not sure that this is why Conservatism has 'crashed', but as a political cause, it definitely will be entering the wilderness for a time of purging (and this is true even if McCain were to win this election).