American Conservatives Contemplate the Next Four Years
Immediately after the election results came in yesterday evening, making clear that Sen. Barack Obama would become America’s next and first black president, conservative bloggers, columnists and thinkers started exchanging ideas about what they thought they would have to do in the coming years. If they will indeed behave like they say they will, the coming four years will see a far less angry opposition (than the opposition to George W. Bush), which is focused on the issues and on principles.
The first thing one notices when one reads said posts is that the attitude is quite respectful. Four and eight years ago, Democrats and progressives responded angrily to Bush’s victories, claiming that he had stolen the elections and saying that the coming years would be ‘war.’
Conservatives seem to take an entirely different approach. They are not happy with Obama’s victory, but realize and point out that Obama’s victory is a victory for America (against racism), and they make clear that they will oppose Obama’s policies, which they think will be progressive in nature, without disrespecting the man and his office.
This while progressives truly declared war on the presidency in the last eight years, doing tremendous damage to the political debate, truly poisoning it.
Michelle Malkin, for instance, called on her readers to “gird their loins,” to “stand up for our principles as we always have ? through Democrat administrations and Republican administrations, in bear markets or bull markets, in peacetime and wartime. We stay positive and focused.”
She goes on to write: “We do not apologize for our beliefs. We do not re-brand them, re-form them, or relinquish them. We defend them. We pay respect to the office of the presidency. We count our blessings and recommit ourselves to our constitutional republic.”
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This is very, very different from what we saw on progressive blogs after Bush won the elections, and the difference should be pointed out.
Power Line takes the same approach, urging readers to recommit to conservative values and to defend them, but to pay respect to the office of the presidency regardless of its inhabitant, and to be honest and do what is in the best interest of the nation.
The Volokh Conspiracy explains what conservatives need to do in their role as the country’s opposition: oppose executive power, try to control spending, act responsible, criticize policies that won’t go anywhere, defend policies that will work. Defend principles, but do so a reasonable manner.
These coming years could be very different from the last four years in so far that the ‘opposition’ could behave far more civil than the opposition to Bush behaved. Lets hope so, for the American political debate desperately needs some sanity.
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