Conservatism has spent much of the last generation trying to survive. There have been strengths and victories, but these are seemingly always one vote away from destruction. The left made major strides by playing the long game and quietly changing the very platforms that make a difference, not just one election, one issue, one interest group. They were patient. They came, they saw, they infiltrated, they conquered. They substantially own major media, entertainment, tech, and education. An argument could be made that they, ironically, even own big capitalism. With Trump, we see just the beginning of peeling away their advantage in the judiciary.
Conservatives need a 40-year plan, something that goes beyond just the next election cycle. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t wish for the following out of conservatism:
Must create own media/tech
While conservatives have made some strides in creating their own alternative media, it remains a parochial niche for different stripe sub-groups. A website is fine, even a news aggregator is fine, but where is the search giant, the growing social media platforms, the advertising platform to make it all self-sustaining? Conservatism needs more coders, not more pundits. Seed money needs to flow into startups as much or more than candidates.
Must vet own legitimate members
While the dominant press has had some success in painting all conservatives as bigots or supremacists, there has to be a way to better define ourselves. Neocons are so far out of the tent as to wonder, with friends like that, who needs enemies. There are also real neo-Nazis, surely over counted but they’re out there. The Republican party is not a reliable organization for counting membership. While every vote in an election is welcome, the test flaps that define what conservatism cannot be an open field. Thinking ahead, this need might be best accommodated into the future by a tech platform, not necessarily by a chartered organizational entity.
Must get rid of the beggarly outlook for validation
I detect that conservative leaders and pioneers have a healthy outlook about conservatism, but this is not shared by the rank and file conservative. Everything I hear or read from conservative friends and peers starts with an underlying premise of persecution. Surely, addressing the prior listed needs would go far in addressing the conservative underdog mentality. While Trump has been great for middle American conservatives, his whole existence right now revolves around actual persecution and more importantly, he could be gone in a mere four more years or in two and a half months. Conservatism needs to lay the groundwork to move on, yesterday.
Must invest in schools and students
Liberals made a long-term commitment decades ago to place their people into academia with a view toward conquest. They won that battle, now conservatives have to win that ground back. We must not settle for a one-year plan or a ten-year plan. It took a generation to lose education, it’ll take a whole generation to take it back, forty years. A majority of conservatives alive may not see the fulfillment of this goal in their lifetime, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t start.
Must be hard on itself
Viewing conservatives and its institutions, viewing the dire straits that the movement continues to experience, it might feel like there’s no room for introspection, self-censor, or coming down hard on questionable behavior. Of course, when we don’t, others will. This will not be an organizational function, but rather, it has to be built into the ethic of leadership. If conservatives are routinely vocal in small and middling matters of conduct and creed, we can expect big bombshells to be few or non-existent.
A Young Leadership
More than male or female, white or black, it’s helpful to promote leadership that with some experience but yet, are still ‘young’. For example, looking at Democrats, their two successful runs for President in recent history, Clinton and then Obama, were considered young at their start. It’s a lesson that party is already forgetting. While I certainly won’t minimize the material benefit to conservatism played by both Reagan and now Trump, as a rule of thumb, a movement is most healthy when a visible segment of its leadership is young. To the extent that the general population is demographically skewing younger, if the movement’s leadership is going the opposite direction, something is very wrong. That must be rectified not just for parity, but for domination.