Andrew Sullivan: Crisis of Faith

Since the election of George Bush, and particularly since his re-election in 2004, tensions between the various branches of American conservatism have been rising. There have always been tensions, but the different groups have typically been able to brush aside their differences in favor of those issues on which they agree. But that is changing as the religious right element in conservatism grows more and more unrestrained in its ambition and power.

Andrew Sullivan has written a very good article on this. He breaks down conservatism into two very broad groups: conservatives of faith and conservatives of doubt. Breaking down the internal logic of these two groups, Sullivan explains how they have been able to work side by side for so long, and also why that collegiality is breaking down.

For the last few decades, enough has united conservatives of doubt and conservatives of faith to keep the coalition in one rickety piece. Both groups were passionately anti-communist, even if there were some disagreements on strategy and tactics. Today, both groups are just as hostile to Islamist terrorism and fundamentalism. Both groups have historically backed lower taxes. Both oppose affirmative action and gun control. And there have been conservative personalities who have managed to appeal to both sides--Ronald Reagan is the exemplar.

But recently the conservatism of faith has given way to a more radical fundamentalism which rejects any form of compromise.

Sullivan concludes that the growing gap between these two groups threatens the very substance of the conservative movement.

I'm not saying that Republicanism is headed for an institutional crack-up. What I am saying is that, unless the religious presence within Republicanism becomes less dogmatic and fundamentalist, the conservative coalition as we have known it cannot long endure. Advocates for government restraint cannot, in good conscience, keep supporting a party that believes in its own God-given mission to change people's souls. Believers in fiscal discipline cannot keep backing an administration that boasts of its huge spending increases and has no intention of changing. Those inclined to prudence cannot join forces with fanatics (at least not in times when national security doesn't hang in the balance). Retreating to the Democrats is not an option. Small government conservatives are even less powerful within the opposition's base than in the GOP's. Bill Clinton's small-c conservatism was made possible only by what now looks like a blessed interaction with a Republican Congress. The only pragmatic option is to persuade those who run the Republican Party that religious zeal is a highly unstable base for conservative politics: It is divisive, inflammatory, and intolerant of the very mechanisms that keep freedom alive.

How the Republican party deals with the gap between these two groups will dominate political events in 2006, 2008, and beyond.