Why Conservatives are Always wrong
By Jefferson Smith
Suppose you had a friend you had known for many years, one who was very opinionated, who always seemed absolutely certain about everything, and yet who was always turning out to be wrong. He got you to buy stock in Enron and swore it would just keep on rising. He bet on the Yankees to sweep the Red Sox in 04. He said mobile phones were just a fad, and before long people would give them up and go back to sending telegrams.
Would you trust this persons powers of analysis? Would you continue putting any faith in his predictions?
Conservatives, or those who call themselves this nowadays, have an equally good and much longer record of faulty analysis and wrong prediction. In order to exist as a viable movement, they depend on everyone forgetting that theyre basically always wrong.
Unfortunately, progressives and liberals have obliged. They seem to have forgotten who theyre actually dealing with. Im not the first to point out that conservatives are always wrong on any longer view, its hard to miss but after years of observing the dispirited moderate left and the hapless, helpless leadership of the Democratic Party, I thought it was about time for a few reminders. If we step back from the issues that preoccupy us at the moment, its easier both to see that conservatism has consistently been failing and to examine the deeper reasons why. There are flaws in conservative positions that eventually cause them to collapse, and those same flaws are at work today. Its true that one side in Americas great political debates is playing a very weak hand. Fortunately, that side isnt ours.
If they recognized this, if they remembered how reliably the conservative cause has come to grief in the past, I think my fellow progressives would be in much better spirits. I hope the analysis Im offering here will not only brighten their mood, but suggest some specific arguments and approaches they might find useful once they figure out that theyre already winning and have been for a very long time.
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