More on Anti-Intellectualism1

Our story so far: Jeffrey Hart writes a piece in the Wall Street Journal about the state of modern conservatism (short version: Burke good, DeLay bad--hard to argue with that) in which he makes this observation:

The most recent change occurred in 1964, when its center of gravity shifted to the South and the Sunbelt, now the solid base of "Republicanism." The consequences of that profound shift are evident, especially with respect to prudence, education, intellect and high culture.

This cheeses off the Cornerites, who call it regional prejudice but are really upset because they think Hart is saying they aren't innelekshuls.

Matt Yglesias (the one who writes for Tapped, not the other two) defends Hart's regionalist observation, then goes on to say

this is clearly entangled with the rise of a kind of populist anti-intellectualism as an increasingly prominent strain of American conservatism and that, in turn, is a non-trivial break with the past, albeit a break that's been useful to conservatism's electoral success.

Which is where I get off the bus. Break with the past? Huh?

The past is Reagan making a virtue of his apparent ignorance. The past is Spiro Agnew attacking the nattering nabobs of negativism. The past is Joe McCarthy's jihad against Ivy League intellectuals in the State Department. For more than 50 years the Republicans have campaigned on anti-intellectualism, courting the massive bloc of voters too insecure to want a president any smarter than they are.

Within that time, conservative intellectuals have never been more than window dressing. People like William F. Buckley provided a ready-made rationalization for wealthy people who happened to be well-educated to support the candidate who courted the ignorant but happened to be advancing their material interests. Genuine conservative intellectuals--people like Peter Viereck--grew disgusted with the party long ago (Viereck supported Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956).

If there is a difference, it is that the pretense is effectively abandoned. For reasons including the Southern Strategy (to which Hart alludes obliquely and euphemistically) and their embrace of fundamentalist evangelicals, the Republican Party no longer feels the need to appeal to smart people at all. That's a difference, but it's not the 'break with the past' Matt calls it, and (more importantly) it's not the sea change that Hart's self-serving nostalgia would have it be.

¹No pun intended.

[That's all, folks]