How Big a Tent?

When over-the-air television broadcasts went all-digital this summer we lost our signal, at first with some misgivings. Living in modern America without TV seemed unthinkable. But now, just a few months later, I am amazed, not just at how well we've adapted, but at how much more we get done. We read to the kids more, we play outside more, we cook and talk and simply live more.

I kind of wish we had ditched TV earlier, say a year ago, during the height of election season. Not just for the election ads that bombarded our humble swing state, but for the other, less obvious aspects of the presidential campaign. I speak specifically of the conventions, an archaic holdover from the era of cigar-smoking obese men who made backroom deals and decisions, a holdover which is poorly adapted to the world of mass media and instantaneous communication. They drive me crazy, with the pomp and self-importance of political parties (there's a reason I register independent), the pontificating speeches and fake drama of it all.

But the most jarring part of last year's convention season was not the size of the crowd in Denver or the small-time acts by Guliani and the other nominee also-rans, but the shots of the crowd at the RNC in Minneapolis. This homogeneous group of middle-aged white people was a perfect symbol of what I believe is the ultimate undoing of conservatism in America: its failure to understand, appreciate, and foster a diverse, pluralistic society. This profound failure marks conservative thought as antiquated and obsolete, much like the conventions themselves.

I approach this topic with a great sense of hesitation, based primarily on my own identity as a middle-aged white heterosexual Christian male. (It has always been odd in job interviews to answer the obligatory diversity question: “I think we need a diverse faculty to represent the multiplicity of cultures and viewpoints in our community. We should hire fewer white men. Let's start that as soon as you hire/promote/reward me.”) I am simply too racist, sexist, and homophobic to get on a soap box here when traditional discussions of diversity come up.

But I can speak of what I find to be the most indicative but underappreciated instance of bigotry and prejudice in the contemporary conservative movement: the debacle that was Mitt Romney's primary race last year. Now, I don't like the former governor of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. I find him vapid and uninspiring, and, obviously, I disagree with many of his stands on the issues. (In other settings I have referred to him as my least favorite Mormon, but it seems Glenn Beck is intent on holding that title indefinitely.) But the fact is that a qualified and electable candidate with policy views in line with the mainstream of his party who poured millions of his own dollars into the campaign had no realistic chance of getting that party's nomination.

And why was Romney so soundly beaten by hacks like Huckabee in the southern primaries? It all comes down to simple, unadulterated prejudice. A Mormon candidate in the GOP primary in South Carolina has a huge disadvantage due entirely to the conservative mindset that labels any identity outside of the narrow definition of mainline Christianity as unacceptable. And this is evident time and time again in the right-wing, as moderates like Senators Specter and Snowe are either driven away or derided as phonies. Anytime your movement is so narrow as to exclude even those who tend to agree with you, you know you've painted yourself into a corner and out of the mainstream.

So I'm not sure what to suggest to conservatives concerned about doing poorly in elections when the female and minority votes break bad for them. When your political philosophy is built on the idea that those who have traditionally held power and wealth should be the first and primary voices in debating, setting, and benefiting from national policies, it's hard to feel sympathy when demographic and social transformations undermine your political viability. It's time at that point to not just revise a platform or alter a message. It's time to admit that conservative views toward contemporary American society--who we are and how we interact with a range of people--have become provincial and useless in the 21st century.