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An Ideologically Chastened New Right

It seems to me that there are two options for people on the right, whether they be social or economic conservatives, to deal honestly with the failures of the last eight years. First, they can admit that certain ideological propositions require revision. Or second, they can begin to manufacture Bush-presidency narratives that allege a mismatch between theory and practice.

The second option is what keeps bad ideas alive so we can expect a fair amount of that (it also keeps good ideas alive, so chill). This will certainly be applied, for example, to neoconservative foreign policy. And not unfairly: no matter the abstract problems with neoconservatism, the Bush Administration has failed as its chaperone. Triumphalist interventionism didn?t get a fair shake.

But I wonder if any right-favored policy has been implemented in a sufficiently ideologically faithful way to make that second strategy unavailable. The best candidate here must be economic policy. The search is already underway for a regulatory bugaboo, a penny on the tracks that derailed the free market (the Community Reinvestment Act, for example. Or a flaccid SEC). Nonetheless, I think that search will fail. And if it does, then what?s left of the long, heated battle between free marketers and central planners? Just boring technical arguments about incentives, the public good, and mercifully, data. With no brimstone in sight.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on October 30, 2008 (boomark / email).