With regards to Senator Lindsay Graham and his recent submission of a bill to criminalize abortion nationwide, much ink has already been spilled. Indeed, I come not to get into the nitty-gritty of his proposal (perhaps at a later time).
But this morning I was reading an essay by Richard Hofstadter (“Goldwater and Pseudo-Conservative Politics”) where the author quoted Goldwater disparaging “a government establishment that is preparing to nationalize our society while paying for it with the fruits of private industry.”
It occurs to me that, in our current political climate, Graham’s proposal falls flat because the most vocal contingent of the GOP—indeed, a plurality of the Republican electorate, from all appearances—is committed to nationalism. I suppose, from this perspective, Graham’s ideas fall right into place.
How does the GOP run both a paranoid style of politics that ostensibly is based on rugged individualism (per the ideology) and also attempt to advocate, as they did in the wake of Dobbs, for a semblance of “states’ rights”?
It’s not just a mixed message, though it’s certainly that. It’s also a betrayal of traditional conservatism—or, if not conservatism as a whole, then at least it betrays the tradition of the paranoid style itself, if it could be said that Goldwater established such a tradition.
Paranoia, at bottom, encourages people to be suspicious of everyone but themselves. This circle of suspicion widens to include government. Not just federal government but state government, too.
To fully embrace paranoid politics, as I see it, would mean to spurn all claims to a tenet of “states’ rights.” The two philosophies are incompatible. I don’t think conservatives are ready to do that.