Never Trust a Neocon
11th October 2022
ZMan jerks back the curtain.
One of the great tricks of the neoconservatives was to reshape opposition to radical causes into support for their own radical projects. In the early days, this allowed normal people to strongly oppose limits on corporate power, in the name of fighting the communist threat from the Soviets. Alternatively, working class people could support the military industrial complex as their patriotic duty. Their own interests and genuine opposition to the Left was always secondary.
After the Cold War, this game rapidly evolved so that so-called conservatives supported a massive expansion of government, as well as a massive expansion of foreign policy entanglements, all in the name of freedom. Most conservative people assumed the end of the Cold War meant America could go back to being a normal country again, but those feelings were quickly channeled into new causes. The old tricksters were up to their old tricks, turning virtues into vices.
This is why conservatism never conserved anything. In the Reagan years, the conservatives were too busy fighting the Soviets to roll back the cultural revolution or clean up the welfare state. In the Bush years they were too busy spreading freedom and smart bombs to address domestic concerns. Despite promising to promote conservative causes, conservatives instead found some war to fight. Meanwhile, the bad guys got to run riot in the culture.
The Coming of Trump caused the neocons to revert to their radical roots–the Kristol Krew at The Bulwark, and the Goldberg Group at The Dispatch, spend their days bashing Republicans and ignoring Democrats, presumably in hopes that The Mammon of Iniquity will have a mansion or two to spare.