Strategy for the Right? Look Left!

By Dylan Hales

Dan McCarthy has an interesting piece up on the TakiMag site about possible strategies for the right. McCarthy's piece is well worth reading, and I hesitate to provide a summary of it, but basically it boils down an analysis of three options; A) vote for and work with establishment Republicans and try and steer them our way, B) try and help elect more "moderate" Democrats that could be persuaded on some of our issues and hopefully pull the Republicans back to their allegedly conservative roots or C) wage an insurgent campaign using various institutions and methods to try and take over the Republican Party, as the Goldwater movement did post '64.

McCarthy weighs the pros and cons of each, but he is addmittingly an advocate of the insurgent concept. It is clear that Richard Vigurie and others have been pushing a similar strategic line over the last year, and in some respects Ron Paul could be the "new Goldwater" that Vigurie claims we need before we can get a "new Reagan" (why we would want a new Reagan I am unsure of..I'd prefer a new Eisenhower over a new Ronnie, but I digress).

I admit that on the surface this looks like the best option outlined by McCarthy. For starters it doesn't involve any selling out of political principles which is more than I can say for the other two options. Secondly it has been accomplished with some degree of success before in the Republican Party. In fact, in some respects it still succeeds within state and local parties around the country. It also is more exciting and frankly "revolutionary" than the other options.

On the other hand there are some obvious problems. The first problem is that intellectual vanguardism has not served this or any other country very well. Without playing the neocon or Bolshevik card, one need only look at another "conservative" ideological movement of recent years past; the Supply-Siders.

The Supply-Siders were of course the "revolutionary" aspect of the Reagan administrations economic policies. They were a well organized, well placed group of intellectuals, operating primarily within the usual Washington think tanks and using the Wall Street Journal as their active propaganda arm. Eventually they succeeded in cutting marginal tax rates, which is why they are usually regarded favorably by movement conservatives to this day.

There is only one problem here. While the Supply-Siders were good on taxes, and some of them proved to be excellent on other things, the selling point of their policy was that these cuts in taxes would actually INCREASE government revenue. I am not a genius, but it seems to me that a conservative movement promoting tax cuts, ought to also be promoting the sizing down of government. When the stated goal of Reagan Revolution was to "get government off our backs" because it was "part of the problem", the Supply-Siders actually pushed an agenda that did nothing for the cause and in fact led to an increase in government, particularly the already massively overfunded garrison state. The Fair Taxers are now busy making the same mistakes, proving that even populist, well meaning, vanguardist movements usually leave us worse off in the long run.

At this time I feel I should make a distinction between what Albert Jay Nock called "The Remnant" and vanguardism. Vanguardism is insurgency from within the institutions to push a certain strict policy or platform in a highly organized way. "The Remnant" merely refers to those liberty minded individuals who keep the faith even in the most desperate times, acting as a building block for future generations. The almost always exist outside of the institutions.

What is interesting about the latest manifestation of the "remnant" is that it has now spread into the previously foreign confines of the "left". There has always been a decentralist strain to the left but it has been ignored since the Marxists defeated the Bakunin led Anarchists at the First Internationle. In recent years however we, the "Left Conservatives", have become more visible. Our cheif theorists are Kirkpatrick Sale and Thomas Naylor and our major literary figures include Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. The "movement" historians are William Appleman Williams and Gabriel Kolko. Counterpunch is our journal and Alexander Cockburn is our fiery polemicist. Many first generation Naderites are now Paulistas. I know, I am one of them.

What does this have to do with Dan's piece? Simply this, it is not the moderate Democrats that are worth looking at for support, but rather the patriotic, populist, American Left. There are many of them willing to call a truce in the culture wars on states rights grounds and a shockingly large number of them have a dim view of our nations immigration laws (for a couple of prominent examples compare Ralph Nader to the average Republican, or the great eco-anarchist Edward Abbey to anyone, Tom Tancredo included). Michael Kazin's recent piece in World Affairs did a great job tracing the non-interventionist trend on the American Left (remember that Vidal and Norman Thomas were America First till the end) and Jeff Taylor's great book "Where Did The Party Go?" suggests that their views on trade and monetary policy can be integrated into an explicitly paleo program. They have always been good on civil liberties and have been coming around on guns and internationalism for a long time now.

There are always going to be differences between paleocons, paleolibertarians and the populist left, but they are allies more than they are enemies. Inroads were made with the Paul campaign, but the trends need to continue. Taylor and Cockburn have made some overtures recently, as have Josh Frank, John V. Walsh and even Stan Goff. It is time for those on the traditional right to reach back.

Addendum:

For clarities sake, there have been some cases of Left-Right cohesion in recent years. The North American Seccesionist conference in particular comes to mind. Also it is worth noting that while I identify as a "Left Conservative", my views on many issues are closer to Libertarians or paleocons than they are to folks like Cockburn or Nader..and that is precisely why I think an alliance is acheiveable and neccesary, even though I don't think it is the only avenue that should be pursued.

Addendum II:

My spell check option does not work on the substitute comp I am using right now. Nor can I easily link. Strange. Still I apologize for potential errors and my lack of plugs.