If defenders can excuse the Arizona Senate candidate’s abortion shift as pragmatism, their attacks on other conservatives for being ‘weak’ ring hollow.
If defenders can excuse the Arizona Senate candidate’s abortion shift as pragmatism, their attacks on other conservatives for being ‘weak’ ring hollow.
B lake Masters, the Republican Senate nominee from Arizona, has triggered a debate on the right (including here at National Review) for shifting his public posture on abortion. While softening rhetoric is a normal thing for a politician to do when transitioning from a primary to general-election candidate, the development is especially noteworthy coming from Masters, who during the primary was hailed as being part of the vanguard of a movement of new, more pugilistic, conservatives.
The emergent strain of conservatism has been described in many ways: MAGA, the New Right, National Conservatism, populist conservatism, and so on. In a column a few months ago, I used the term Fight Club Conservatism. My point was that the tactical divide among conservatives had become more powerful than specific ideological divisions. Many of the most bitter arguments taking place among conservatives at the moment boil down to the “fighters” arguing that traditional conservatives are too cozy with the ruling class, and too committed to existing institutions to do what is necessary to smash the Left. Those in the new crop of conservatives promise to be bold, not to back down from cultural fights, to embrace smashmouth politics, and to be twice as vicious to the Left as they are to the Right.
During the 2022 primary season, Masters was touted — both by himself and by his supporters — as an exemplar of this new, take-no-prisoners vision. Tucker Carlson called him “the future of the Republican Party.”
In an interview with National Review’s John McCormack during the primary, Masters highlighted how he had generated controversy for raising the “taboo” that “most victims of gun murder in America are black men, and most perpetrators of gun murder in America are also black men.” He said that his opponent, Mark Brnovich, wouldn’t say anything like it. “He’s just — not the worst; he’s just median; he’s just mediocre,” Masters said, echoing a familiar refrain about the so-called party elites. “Give the talking points, talk about how you love the Constitution, hope that’s enough, get into office, do an okay job, not a great job, and lose to the Left.”
He told the Jewish Insider that he admired Donald Trump because when Trump came along, he “was willing to speak plainly and boldly and say things that people knew were true but you weren’t quite allowed to articulate. He busted up the establishment.”
On the campaign trail, Masters declared, “It’s time for Republicans and conservatives to wake up and realize we’re in a culture war” and lamented that “too many Republicans still just want to focus on you know, economic policy.”
On another occasion, he said to Politico that he didn’t think Arizona voters were looking for a moderate. “Look, I’m bold,” he said. “I’m running a bold campaign. I’m not gonna mince words: I think our country is in a lot of trouble. And I talk about problems and solutions.”
When it came to abortion, Masters described himself in an interview with Allie Beth Stuckey as “unapologetically pro-life” and said he supported a federal personhood law, a policy he described as “a workable compromise we could get to in the next two or three years if we get a Republican House and Senate and presidency in 2024.”
While the Masters campaign insists that his views on abortion have not changed, he is clearly trying to shift his public emphasis on the issue. Recently, his website was scrubbed to remove mention of him being “100% pro-life” and a reference to his support of a human-life amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In a recent general-election campaign ad, Masters says, “I support a ban on very late-term and partial-birth abortion.” Emphasizing support for a ban on “very” late-term abortions is a far cry from backing a human-life amendment and claiming to be “unapologetically pro-life.”
To be clear, it is perfectly defensible to make the argument, as his defenders have, that the goal of conservatives should be to support the most pro-life policies that are politically feasible in each state — and perhaps the sorts of restrictions Masters is now talking about represent the ceiling in Arizona. However, there is a tension between advertising Masters during the primary as the “bold” candidate who isn’t going to sit silently like the previous generation of weak-kneed Republicans and then trying to argue that he’s pursuing the prudent approach by soft-pedaling his defense of human life.
For several years now, whenever traditional conservatives have pushed back against the current shift in the GOP (warning against embracing the Left’s view of expansive executive power, using the force of the state as a tool to reward friends and punish enemies, emphasizing the importance of constitutionalism and free-market economics), they are not only greeted with disagreement, but contempt. They have been pilloried as people who don’t understand the stakes and who want to surrender the culture war. Criticizing Trump and his refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 election, both on the merits and in terms of the atrocious politics of making an entire party subordinate to the bruised ego of an unpopular former president, triggers accusations of weakness, cuckery, and cowardice. And yet a leading light of this crowd, who declared, “It’s time for Republicans and conservatives to wake up and realize we’re in a culture war,” has climbed down on the most important culture-war issue, and the response from this same crowd is, “Well, that’s just pragmatic politics!”
Sorry, it doesn’t work this way. If the refined position among the Fight Club Conservatives is that it’s important to balance ideological goals against prudent political considerations, they don’t get to police who and who isn’t a real, manly, conservative.