A couple days ago, I was reading an article on yet another instance of where new progressive orthodoxy, critical race theory, was being shoved down the throats of school children. Reading this, I contemplated, yet again, the inadequacy of conservative message infrastructure. If you live in a red state, a red town, led by conservative leaders, law enforcement, and educators, this isn’t a concern. Everyone else are sitting ducks. Conservatives are bailing out a leaky basement while progressives have a firehose inserted into the other side through the basement window. It’s like mom and dad offer the kiddos a two-minute talk about their values at the dinner table and then those youngsters head to their bedroom for five hours that night, open their device and get a diametrically different message. Conservatism needs far more and far better platforms, whereas most conservatives are focused solely on message.
What’s the difference between platform and message? Critical race theory is a message. Public schools are a platform. If you spend all your energy attacking messages when the platforms are inherently corrupt and entrenched, you lose. Conservatism needs new platforms, [emphasis plural]. Churches have been leaned on to be that platform. They continue to have critical mass in some regions but have lost significant ground in the rest of the country. Complicating that is what I see as a trend for millennial demographic-intensive churches to no longer be a reliable ally for conservative values. They’re visibly skewing left.
The United States used to have a healthy range of civic structures, but this is far less the case today. The Grange, the VFW or American Legion, The Oddfellows or Masons, ethnic fraternities were huge in some cities, social clubs; these existed alongside of churches in many communities. Now, most of these are relics of a day gone by, at least in my region, their buildings falling into disrepair. I’m not suggesting that these specific organizations can and should be tapped for revival and repurposed to inculcate conservative values; I suspect that most are too far gone for that and their memberships too old for any new flourish of cause. The point here is that our social fabric – our breadth of civic platforms used to be much broader and that we need to figure out how to reinvent it in some new form.
In the place of real face to face platforms, we now have virtual platforms; everyone is connected to one another through the Internet. This is absolutely relevant and positive for the cause of conservatism. It’s a huge reason conservatism has the strength that it does today. But is it enough? If you’re connected to hundreds of people on social media, and they live all over the United States or even the world, how invested are your associations in the matters of your local public school, being dictated to by the county and state boards of education which are perhaps led a Princeton or Northwestern or USC indoctrinated school superintendent, actively pushing a radical progressive agenda? At that point, your healthy friend list is mostly ineffective. What happens when FB starts to filter and bully even your local oriented posts as fake news? We live in a real world, our kids and grandkids are mostly in a face-to-face environment or will have to interact in a real world sooner or later; school, then social life, and work. Virtual interactions cannot be the end all and be all. Using a war analogy, sending in B1s and cruise missiles is all well and good, but sooner or later, you’re going to have to send in troops or your war is over and you did not win. The enemy is on the ground.
My appeal here is conceptual because I’m not proposing a specific platform, but I can offer a few specifications. The first caveat is that for those of church orientation, there must be an additional outlet. Especially in a purple or blue region, politically speaking, church simply is not broad enough to capture a critical mass of people. Churches generally have legitimate scruples about veering too far into civic affairs and for the sake of both church and civic matters, those should be honored. The unifying point of agreement or cause of organization should be an organic shared interest. Play for keeps. An organization should not be based on just an urgent emergency need – like the latest outrage at your local middle school, although that may be initially helpful for organization. Shoot for permanent influence, for after the emergency passes. Plan on bequeathing the shared values of that organization to an ongoing and perpetual slate of new members. Meet face to face at regular intervals and by all means, share food, desserts – homemade if possible, as well as the best coffee imaginable. Start with ten members but shoot for one hundred, a number proven by social scientist to be the maximum number for organizational cohesiveness and a good point to divide into new chapters. Stay local.
Progressives are deeply committed to what you’ll see described in the news as ‘community organizing’. Obama was reportedly invested in that kind of effort. That worked pretty well for him and for keeping Chicago deeply progressive. Urban radicals have embraced it aggressively. Meanwhile, comfortable suburbanites grab a latte, sit alone in their UGG boots, and scroll through their phone for hours. Compare and contrast.
We need a 40-year horizon and a plan to get there. Conservatives have to rediscover the local civic/social organization.