Even by Virginia standards, this May and June have been particularly glorious, and to top it off, Eric Cantor lost! He’s classy enough to have announced he won’t try to run a write-in campaign in response, and however regrettable his becoming the scapegoat for a broader pattern might be, I am incredibly grateful for this unexpected blessing. My peaceful easy feeling today is based on the assumption that Jonah Goldberg is probably right that, at long last, amnesty-grounded comprehensive-immigration reform is finally dead.
Today a very sensible moderate yet conservative-leaning Facebook friend of mine today was worrying about the influence of the Tea Party and their bad “crusading” approach to politics, prodded, I’m suspecting, by some standard media story on the subject in the wake of Cantor’s loss.
My response was basically as follows:
It’s an odd day to be voicing this sentiment, since IMO, the defeat of Eric Cantor by voters who, whether organized by tea-party groups or not were in broad sympathy with them, likely kills a Republican buy-in to amnesty-grounded immigration reform. That was a major albatross around the party’s neck, and if it really is killed by this, GOP prospects in 2014 and 2016 go up substantially. Don’t buy MSM auto-pilot “analysis” about tea-party “extremism” hurting the GOP.
As to your broader points, against the Tea Party and despairing of the possibility of “deliberation” occurring in our politics anymore, National Affairs will be publishing an essay of mine this summer (“The Five Conceptions of American Liberty,” which I outlined here) that will recommend a conservatism less tied to a dogmatic and economistic conception of liberty, and which shows how Americans can deliberate about their more fundamental disagreements about politics. There is hope for deliberation about first principles, as my essay can show you; and hope for such about specific policy issues, as the work of Joseph Bessette can show you. Just remember, in a family fight, which is what we’ve been having, it can be the case one side is more at fault. Unless and until a critical mass of Democrat activists and leaders become more demanding of fair play and of genuine respect for the other side, a la William Galston, the basic polarization will continue and will be necessary.
I’m sharing all this not simply as an act of self-promotion, but to explain why moderates-in-spirit, such as myself, might welcome Cantor’s loss.
Now as to immigration, I’m willing to debate particular policy points about reform packages, and whether a partial amnesty, enacted well after a pattern of interior and border enforcement of the freakin’ law has been demonstrated, should be part of such a package. I’m willing to debate where guys like Cantor and Ryan actually stand in that debate, so long as it’s admitted that complex policy wonkery, especially when combined with secret negotiations with today’s Dems, lends itself to the breeding of mistrust in the conservative base. Acknowledging that as a general fact, even if it may be a non-decisive one for many issues, is crucial for those of us friendly to the larger project of reform-conservatism to recognize. But what is not debatable is that this immigration-reform threat that moderate Republicans, particularly of the donor class and through the machinations of the D.C. Republican establishment, would stealthily come to a compromise with the Dems, has deeply and repeatedly demoralized the conservative base. It has been the key fact used by those who want to establish a narrative of rampant RINO-ism that excuses their abstaining from voting, or voting libertarian. So, a sober nod of respect towards Eric Cantor, best wishes and prayers for the victor Dave Brat, and despite Rush Limbaugh’s worries to the contrary, a rousing chorus of “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead!” to celebrate amnesty’s passing.