Commentary
I was in New Haven this past week for a couple of events at Yale, one of which was a William F. Buckley, Jr. Program debate for a primarily college-age audience on “common good conservatism.” During the debate, I argued on behalf of the more “muscular,” more forceful and less “liberal” approach to political economy and political gamesmanship frequently associated with the ascendant “New Right.”
My interlocutor, the amiable lawyer and National Review writer Dan McLaughlin, offered a substantive defense of orthodox “Reaganism” and an attitudinal appeal for conservatives to remain the “grown-ups in the room.” According to this logic, it is incumbent upon conservatives—actually, right-liberals—to act as righteous stewards of civic decency and defenders of the sacrosanct norms of liberal proceduralism, no matter how much our political foes have strayed.
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