For the 1999 philosophical thriller Being John Malkovich, the eponymous actor decided to accept credit for his role in the film as “John Horatio Malkovich” rather than “John Gavin Malkovich,” his real name. His justification for this quirky little gesture is understandable: in building emotional distance from his doppelgänger, he was able to wink at the audience and preserve his identity. But even if he hadn't done it, Malkovich still wouldn't have been required to perform his citizenly duties as an absurd caricature of himself; he only had to play one on TV. In contemporary American politics, the conservative has not been so fortunate.
This disaffected person certainly cannot in good faith cast a ballot for either the Republican or the Democratic Party; neither represent his ideological interests. But alas, he also cannot help but feel that his vote and time are equally wasted proselytizing for faceless, nameless third-party candidates who haven't the slightest political purchase. So unlike Malkovich, the conservative actually is compelled to answer to the bastardization of his own name, and face misjudgment. The end effect of such brutal disenfranchisement is that although he might pull the lever as he has always done, he can now only do so with angry disinterest. (It might surprise you, however, or it might not, to know the type of people for whom he's lately been pulling it.) The conservative has lost both his home and the language to protest it.
But not for much longer, I suspect.
The disclaimer, of course, is that I don't speak from the personal experience of any kind of conservatism; my preference is strong for the Left, I find my political beliefs refreshingly well encapsulated by Senator Obama, a liberal Democrat, and I have no fetish for the traditional institutions, especially when they confound societal progress. But a simple observation cannot be denied: the marginalization of conservatism in this country, the metamorphosis of libertarianism into authoritarianism, has been an incredibly destructive force. Our fiscal policy offers corporate welfare egregious enough to turn Marx over in his grave; our civil liberties have been seized, without much of a struggle and without collateral; religious fanaticism and proud ignorance have cleared their throats and claimed seats at the round-table. As ideologically divided as we are, the juxtaposition of such partisanship with the likely results of this election season does not merely suggest a slight change in the zeitgeist, it suggests widespread dissatisfaction with the GOP from the left and the right. (In what kind of universe does Christopher Buckley endorse a Democrat?)
If the GOP wishes to survive, they must make several paradigmatic changes, and they must make them now: they must leave evangelical pretenses to fringe parties, lobbyists on the White House lawn, and interest groups. They must regain moral jurisdiction on the economy, the arena they might have ideologically in their favor. They must start behaving a lot more like Bob Barr, and a lot less like Rick Santorum. They must fight to reduce the sprawling hand of government everywhere, not just in the arena of social welfare. They must abandon neo-conservative foreign policy, and rejoin the global diplomatic community. In other words, they must abandon the silly cult of Ronald Reagan, and return to Barry Goldwater. It's astonishing how few people see it, but it was Reagan, through both his personality and his politics, who provided the foundation for this collapse. Thankfully, the demagogic faction in his wake is in its final throes, and I suspect that within the next ten years or so, we'll see either a collapse or a return to roots. Conservatives—and everyone else, for that matter—had better hope so.
