The right cannot strategize: At least, not in the realm of politics. The reason they cannot strategize is that, ultimately, to create a political strategy is to undermine the traditional social order conservatives seek to uphold: It is to ask the question, how do we change things to benefit our side? And if you cannot change things at all, well, you also cannot change them to benefit your side. In short, they do not want to engage in the rationalization of the social order that political strategizing requires—as rationalizing the social order is the very thing that a true conservative definitionally is opposed to. They can react, but to do anything else is, on some level, to become a leftist oneself. That said, if we cannot force ourselves to strategize, we cannot hope to win—and if we lose, the world win change more, and much for the worse, than if we change it to ensure we win. Only Faust can trick the devil.
To break free from our psychological inclinations, let's explore ideas that force us to deviate radically from our usual mindset. Specifically, let's ponder the following question: What would we conservatives do if we were no longer so devouted to defending tradition; what would we do if were were “evil”?
The answer would be: Let’s do exactly what our enemies have done; after all, we think they are evil. Where would this idea take us? What have our enemies done.
The left has taken control of the educational system.
The left has have taken control of the media.
The left prefers government and academic jobs to jobs in private industry.
The left has made it impossible to discuss certain ideas by making them seem bigoted and impolite.
We could achieve the first item by privatizing education—not only would this remove the left’s control of education, but it would use the left’s preference for government employment against them. By pushing for vouchers, we can shift students from public schools to religious schools—or, at least, schools that focus on economically valuable skills rather than the teaching of political platitudes. Furthermore, the right should push for anyone with an advanced degree to be able to teach, not just a degree in education in order to reduce the power schools of education have.
We have a rare opportunity to wrest control of news and entertainment from the left: The fact that the right has fewer political taboos than the left means that we are free to entertain. If you want to know why Christian movies suck, it is because the ideological straitjacket of evangelical religion prevents it from presenting interesting scenarios and ideas. All it can do is, well, preach. As the left becomes more cultish, we should be able to take in the other direction by funding movie projects that embrace the entertaining styles and political incorrectness of the past. Similarly, we can use the absence of politically correct stricture to make our news coverage more entertaining: Does CNN or NPR feel engaging to anyone at this point?
In truth, this third idea stumps me: And I am not certain how to move more conservatives into the DOJ or state department. To do this, we might have to alter the incentives structure and qualifications: Requiring military service, let’s say in the JAG core, before you can seek DOJ employment might be an interesting start. Of course, the left will reverse this at the first opportunity. Making our strategy stick will require strategy of its own.
I don’t think this last step should be imitated: It is epistemological suicide to close off certain hypotheses from discussion. Instead, we have to tap into people’s frustrations with these strictures. We have to cast the left as having the cringyness of a Christian broadcasting station while simultaneously casting them as anti-Christian. They need to seem like a severe, unAmerican foreign cult.
Only by forcing ourselves to leave our normal habits of thought can we win. The irony is that, while we fight to uphold tradition, we have to acknowledge that if conservatism thinking were right, we wouldn’t be here. Clearly, we are doing something wrong and must learn from our enemies.