I've a feature in this month's American Prospect on the death of small government conservatism and the rise of what I think will be its successor, pro-family conservatism. Here's a taste:
Small-government conservatism is anachronistic, but not because of Newt Gingrich’s failures. Rather, three longer-term factors have deprived the ideology of both intellectual legitimacy and popular support: structural changes in the GOP’s coalition, accelerating economic insecurity, and the empirical failure of supply-side economics.
Of these factors, the first is the most noteworthy. Through its use of cultural and “values” issues -- and, since September 11, security concerns -- the Republican Party has captured the allegiance of working-class, socially conservative whites and seen its coalition's center of gravity shift from West to South. But recent research shows that these voters, whatever their views on gay marriage, are quite fond of the stability and protection of the entitlement state.
The dilemma for conservatism is obvious: How can a pro-business, pro-tax cut, and anti-entitlement creed such as today's conservatism cater to this constituency without abandoning everything it has believed for 40 years? For much of the old guard, such a radical re-imagining of conservatism may prove impossible. But some younger, less tradition-bound conservative thinkers are sketching out a pro-government philosophy that supports conventionally progressive proposals like wage subsidies and child-tax credits but places them in a new context -- as rear-guard protective actions in defense of the nuclear family. That is, whereas progressives argue for economic justice for a class or classes, these conservatives are arguing for economic favoritism for families, buttressed by government policies that encourage and advantage them as the central structure of American life. It isn't hard to see the potential appeal of that approach, and it could corner Democrats and liberals into being the party of the poor, while the GOP becomes the party of parents.
