The Conservation of the Constitutional Republic

Abstract

Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review, author of Whittaker Chambers, a Biography–a finalist for the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize in 1997–proclaims in The Death of Conservatism that the conservative movement should shed its ideological narrowness in favor of the “broad-majoritarianism” that liberals and progressives accepted over a decade ago. Tanenhaus’ treatise of conservative dissipation was published in the early days of 2009 and was part of the headlong rush of commentators who competed to offer the wisest eulogy for American conservatism after the 2008 election. However, on its own terms, the book seeks to transcend any particular political moment and offer an authoritative criticism of American conservative thought. Tanenhaus’ witty and all too often deprecating tome is, perhaps, less a prescriptive statement of future political trends in American life than one that fits squarely within broader intellectual liberal tendencies. These have mostly sought to categorize conservatism as a hapless servant doctrine that must accommodate itself to the breathless trends of American society in what is essentially a nation founded on progressive ideas. This said, within the swirl of voices for the permanent liberal majority, Tanenhaus provides the most philosophically compelling treatment, enlisting Edmund Burke, Benjamin Disraeli, and the voice of Whittaker Chambers, in his version of conservatism’s demise. However, this walk through the erudite voices of the past is framed, unfortunately, by the author’s straw-man of American conservative philosophy, epitomized in the presidency of George W. Bush. As Tanenhaus states in rather accentuated terms: