Gen X Conservatives

American Conservatism is about to enter its third generation. Generation X is coming of age as the oldest children of the Boomers recently turned 40. Nobody seems to be noticing this fact, undoubtedly because Boomers still write the news and Boomers are, to say the least, a trifle self-obsessed. We children of the Boomers are used to this neglect. We did not even get a real name for our generation; the title Generation X just screams, “Oh, yeah, I suppose we have to call the kids something.” And, while Boomer Conservatives have been obsessed with cataloguing the assorted types of conservatives (movement, paleo, neo, libertarian, Straussian, postneocommunitarian), nobody seem to have noticed the Gen X Cons and what is distinctive about us.

To start with the obvious: all but the most precocious of us became politically aware sometime in the Reagan or Bush Senior Administrations. We never knew a time when a) conservatives did not dominate the Republican Party and b) conservatives were not electable. As a result, we Gen X Cons are rather attached the GOP and the political process in ways that older conservatives are not. That does not mean we are happy with the GOP; like everything else run by Boomers, it is a rather tiresome organization. (Tell me again what exactly the Republican capture of Congress got us?) We are, however, inextricably tied to the GOP.

The Gen X Cons’ attachment to the current political scene is nicely illustrated in the pages of National Review. Flip through the pages of the magazine from 40 years ago and you will immediately notice something missing. In the old days, the magazine did not contain a steady stream of signed articles on every facet of day-to-day politics. These days, on the other hand, every issue regularly reports on bills moving through Congress, behind-the-scenes looks at the Presidential administration, and reports from the campaign trail of not just Presidential candidates, but Senators and Representatives and Governors.

This obsession with the intricacies of policy as opposed to the broader philosophy of conservatism and this identification with Republican Party politics arise from a simple cause. Gen X Cons have no idea what it is like to live in a world without a dominant conservative presence. We have no idea what it is like to live in a world where conservative arguments are not expected to have an immediate political consequence. Our time horizon is shorter. The original editors of National Review would wait 25 years for a conservative President; Gen X Cons are dismayed by the prospects of 4 years without a Republican (conservative or not) president.

Gen X Cons are not without a broader political philosophy, however. We too have our libertarians and our traditionalists, but we are unified across this divide by a particular mindset, perhaps best illustrated with a few examples.

Consider the plight of the poor in America. Boomer conservatives just inwardly groaned, now certain that this is just going to become one of those incipient liberal pleas for a new War on Poverty. Sigh. I was 2 when LBJ left office. Charles Murray’s Losing Ground is right. We all agree. The Great Society was a failure. Conservatives won. Well, we won except for fact that there are still all those people living in circumstances that I personally would find intolerable.

I grew up in the suburbs of California. I am doing fine in small-town New England. If you put me on a farm in Kansas, I could cope; if I had to live out my life in Sioux Falls or Houston, I would make it. But, if I had to live in the inner city of Detroit? Uh, I’ll pass. But, here is the thing: there are people living in the inner city of Detroit. And those people are our fellow Americans. It is certainly correct that the Left’s policy proposals are failures and that we should scrap the Welfare State, but after we do that, what are we going to do for our fellow Americans who live in places I would be unwilling to live?

Boomer conservatives think small when it comes to helping those living in the inner cities. School Choice? It is a fantastic idea, but let us face it: a) it is not happening anytime soon and b) it is not going to solve the problems real quickly. More police enforcing Broken Windows policies? Also a fantastic idea, but while it lowers crime and makes life a little more tolerable, it is not going to solve the problem.

What will it take to help our fellow Americans? I do not know either. But, I do know that unless conservatives learn how to talk as if they care about the question, there is no way the problem is going to be solved. It is all well and good for conservatives to say the private sector should take care of the problem, but if we are not all, all of us, figuring out ways we can personally help, then our rhetoric is hollow. Try talking to a bunch of Boomer conservatives about our personal responsibility to help the poor sometime. See how quickly they assume you are campaigning for Hillary’s “It Takes A Village Crusade.”

Gen X Cons know all this and it bothers us. It bothers us that the inner cities exist and there is a horrific level of tolerance about it. A horrific level of tolerance. Helping our fellow Americans escape the intolerable conditions in which they live is surely one of the highest domestic priorities we have. And yet, it sure does not sound like it when you listen to Boomer Conservatives talk.

This is, of course, intricately tied up with the issue of race. Those fellow Americans living in the inner cities are predominantly Black. Does that matter to anyone? Boomer Conservatives were burned, and burned badly, in the race discussions of the 1960s. I, however, grew up in a very different world. Growing up, I never, and I mean never, heard anyone use a racial slur. I grew up in an age when everyone said that there was no difference between the races. I believed it. Then I got to college and was told by some Boomer Administrator that I was a racist because I objected to the claim that all of those with paler complexions are racists. To which I shrugged and responded, “Whatever.”

We Gen X Cons are sick of the neurotic and obsessive Boomer discussion about race. Sick of it. We want to help our fellow Americans because they are Americans, not because of the color of their skin. But, identify yourself as a conservative and enter a discussion on race and it will not be long before you are faced with being accused of wanting to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sigh. I was not even born in 1964. I bear no responsibility for Jim Crow or segregation or the pre-Civil Rights era. I feel no guilt on this matter. Yet, everyone assumes that since I proclaim to be a conservative, I must not care about Black Americans. Why is that?

Yes, affirmative action is a failure and an offense to fairness and equal standing under the law. We conservatives all agree. But, what are we going to do about the fact that a disproportionate number of those living in the circumstances we find intolerable are Black? It is all well and good to say that we should treat them the same as we treat everyone else, but is it not obvious that the larger society in which they live is not the same as the larger society in which I live?

Despite the repeated insistence of Boomer Leftists, the problem we need to solve is not racism. It is not even clear that the real problems are related to race. When a Black student at an elite college complains about the discrimination she faced growing up as the daughter of a Palo Alto doctor, I think we can all agree that that is not exactly what we mean by bad social conditions. The problem is the poor kid who has no father around, and does not know anyone who has a father around, going to a school which has teachers who cannot pass tests on the subject they are nominally teaching, walking home to a dilapidated building in which gang members hang out in the stairwell and sell illegal substances at the curb. What exactly are we going to do for that kid?

This is not a theoretical problem; it is a real problem. Sure, conservatives are tinkering with ways to fix it, but where is the conservative rhetoric of outrage that our fellow Americans are living like that? And where is the conservative outrage that Black Americans are disproportionately living like that?

Gen X Cons care a lot about these issues. We want to fix the terrible mess that the Boomer generation is leaving us. But, we have no idea how to do it yet. And, as long as the discussion is burdened by the tone-deaf rhetoric of the Boomer conservatives, we are not going to make any progress on the matter. As long as every attempt to discuss matters like these is set into the context of the battles of 40 years ago, then we will not be able to have a discussion on how to tackle these difficulties in the next quarter-century.

The divide between Boomer Conservatives and Gen X Cons is, I suspect, going to become the clearest on the issue of gay marriage. The traditional conservative argument on the matter crucially hinges on the fact that marriage has always been a heterosexual union designed to stabilize the family and rear the next generation. Let us all agree that heterosexual marriage is a great idea, that it provides for a sound basis for the future, and that defending the traditional view of marriage is a battle well worth fighting. But, where exactly does that kind of marriage currently exist?

We Gen X Cons grew up in the age of no-fault divorce. If your parents were not divorced by the time you were 21, then your friend’s parents probably were. This whole “mom and dad raising the kids” story is ancient history. So, before we go worrying about gay marriage, how about repealing no-fault divorce laws? Not going to happen? So, what was that argument against gay marriage again?

That sounds cynical? Whatever. The war on marriage was lost when Boomer parents decided that getting divorced was a Fundamental Right, and let us be honest, even Conservative Boomers jumped on that bandwagon. So, when those same Boomers on their second marriage start preaching the benefits of a stable home life, we Gen X Cons can at best say, “It sure sounds nice.” In the modern age, the best we Gen X parents can do is to say, “I will not get divorced; I will raise the next generation.”

That personal responsibility will, I suspect, form the basis of the mantra of the Gen X Cons: The solution is not in the government, it is in myself. Myself, not ourselves. The original latch-key kids, raised by divorced parents or two-earner households, we are well used to independence and figuring things out for ourselves. We do not need some Boomer bureaucrats telling us what we can and cannot do.

The shape of things to come can be seen in a curious feature of Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Cons. Set aside whatever you think about his argument and take a look again at his ten-point manifesto opening the book. Nowhere in it is there a legislative proposal; it is purely a manifesto on how to live an individual life. Arguments about the proper size of government are not enough for Gen X Cons. We all know that Big Government is, alas, here to stay; we have never lived in a world which was any different. Naturally, many Gen X Cons will make a vocation of politics; there will be the usual array of politicians, journalists and policy-wonks fighting for better government. However, the tendency will not be towards becoming Big Government Conservatives or Small Government Conservatives, but rather towards Agovernment Conservatives; not anarchists or libertarians, but simply conservatives who bypass the whole debate over the role of government and discover the power of moral suasion and personal responsibility.

It is going to be an uphill battle, though. There is an inherent tension in our mindset. We were raised by the Boomers and taught the primary importance of Self-Satisfaction. Eager young Boomer teachers made me sit through more lessons on building my self-esteem than I could count. I matter! I am important! But, as we age, we are getting tired of the perpetual adolescent revolt of the Boomers and we want to, well, make a difference in this world. Yet we are skeptical of the Grand Cause, the Group Effort, the Government Program. We are conflicted by our desire to do good and our awareness that the problems left to us are monumental, our inherent self-sufficiency and our belief that the individual is largely irrelevant. We are just now figuring out how to talk about these issues which concern us without using the rhetoric of the Boomers.

At a recent Philadelphia Society meeting, a panel of young conservatives was asked if they were optimistic or pessimistic about the future. They were optimistic on the whole, directly counter to the Boomer perception that we are all a bunch of disaffected, pessimistic slackers. The panelists reflected the mindset of Gen X Cons as we hit middle age. We believe we will change the way things are going and in time we will change the tone of conservatism.

But, if you want to be pessimistic, just take a look at Generation Y; those kids are nihilists.