I am afraid that the predicted "struggle for the soul of the Republican party" is here, and, despite all the pundits' predictions it is not between "true conservatives" and "RINOs". No, from the posts I have been seeing, it is a struggle between those dubbing themselves "paleo-cons" and the rest of us, conservative and moderate alike. Granted there is some scuffling going on between the more and less conservative wings, but to be honest the conservatives are a foregone conclusion to win on paper and lose in reality. The real struggle is between the Reagan Republicans and Taft Republicans, or perhaps I should call them the conservatives and the Buchanan nativists.

First, let me deal with the struggle everyone anticipated, the conservatives and moderates. That was never an issue. I know many predicted an Obama victory would "force the party right", but that is absurd. The outcome is as deterministic as Newtonian physics. First, on paper,t he party will move right. No one wants to argue for "moderate" values, for being "sort of conservative", so the platform will be conservative, and probably move a little right. That won't matter in reality, however. In local elections, where Democrats had to run right, the party will move farther right, and in districts where Democrats won on left leaning platforms, the party will move left. On the national platform, it all depends on how much Obama is hated. If he is still going strong in two years, as the press almost guarantees, the national choices will be left of the party. If, on the other hand, Obama blows it so badly even a friendly press can't recover for him, then the party will move to the right. And none of it matters at all, as the incumbents and many of the newcomers, will throw the platform and election promises out the window and govern centrist as they have for many years now. So, yes, the conservatives "win", but it is such a pathetic win it doesn't even rise to the appellation of "Pyrrhic", that sad Epiriot would actually pity us our victory.

However, there is another group on the horizon, and one that seems to be making a stronger showing that anyone anticipated, the "paleo-cons". Seeing themselves as "the true conservatives", as opposed to their dreaded (if fictional) foes, "the neo-cons*", they are struggling to push the party in their direction.

Now, as they have a tendency to attract conspiracy theorists, "anti-Zionists" (who sound alarmingly antisemitic), theocrats, and other fringe elements which frighten the average voter, the paleo-cons are unlikely to actually gain control over the party. Even the views of the respectable paleo-cons tend to veer off into the conspiratorial, and much of what they propose will so obviously trash the economy that even Democrats shy away from it. But there is still a threat

No, the paleo-cons, and their fellow travelers**, will not seize control of the party. The risk is that they may latch on to a legitimate issue, such as immigration, and then use that to claim to represent a far larger minority than they do. With the power that brings they may be able to slip some of the less popular items on their agenda into the platform.

Now, I have written before about the struggle between the social and economic conservatives, and there is definitely some tension between those two groups, but, outside of a few fringe members on either side, most agree on the basic issues. Both camps want smaller government, they want to get the government out of the economy, they want to reduce taxation, and they want to stop the government from pushing a liberal social agenda. Whatever differences they have about the role of government, excluding a handful of authoritarian social conservatives and libertarian libertines, can be settled without too much difficulty.

That is not the case with the paleo-cons. Oddly enough, the paelo-cons are exactly what their name says, a throwback tot eh party of Taft and Roosevelt. The Republican party at the beginning of the century, which the paleo-cons seem to idolize, was not the party of today. Before Bryan and the Populists captured the Democrats, the political landscape was different, very different. the Democrats were the party of free trade and the gold standard, they were also the party of immigrants, and, as much as possible after the Civil War, the party of states' rights. The Republicans were the party that opposed the Democrats, calling them the party of "rum, Romanism and rebellion". The Republicans of that day pressed for protectionism, inflationary silver money, government involvement in business, and closed borders. In short, the mainstream conservatives of today would have been Democrats of the past. Yet there paleo-cons think they are conservative by supporting the failed policies of the Republicans of yore.

But, thanks to a confluence of issues, they may manage to, not win, but get a voice int he party, possibly out of proportion to their real numbers. Thanks to the disillusionment the McCain nomination brought about, combined with popular unhappiness with illegal immigration, the paleo-cons are set to win a PR victory, claiming to be the answer to all the Republicans' woes. And, if they manage to ride the immigration issue to victory, it will represent a major change in the direction of the Republican party. Gone will be the party dedicated to small government and freedom, in its place will be a party dedicated first and foremost to the sealing of borders, against both goods and people, a party "conservative" only in the sense that it wishes to turn back the clock to failed policies of a century ago.

Of course, the real losers will be those dedicated to any sort of economic conservatism. Those who are solely interested in social conservative issues may be able to reach an understanding with the paelo-cons, but the economic libertarians, along with the federalists and anyone else interested in reducing the scope of government, in short most everyone we would normally describe as "conservative", will find themselves without a home. The paleo-cons, for all their lip service to smaller government, have a rather broad agenda, and one which requires a large government, no matter what they say. They may pretend they are defenders of the Reagan Revolution, but once you begin to shut down trade, close borders, and enforce pro-labor laws, you have to build up the massive bureaucracies, whatever you may claim. There is simply no way that the paleo-cons can enact the agenda they espouse without a massive, and all powerful, government.

Of course, this all may come to nothing. It is possible, even likely, that other conservatives will adopt the immigration issue, steal the paelo-cons' thunder and turn this into a non-issue. Or perhaps the issue simply won't resonate with voters and the paleo-cons will once again be reduced to impotence. On the other hand, it is also possible that the paleo-cons will manage to pull off the trick some other fringe groups have from time to time and parlay a loud voice and one compelling issue into political influence completely out of proportion to their actual numbers.

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* I am not denying there are people identifying themselves as neo-cons, what I mean by "fictional" is that the neo-cons as portrayed by the paleo-cons don't exist. The warmongering slaves of Israel they paint as their rivals are a figment of their imagination. Much like the Learned Elders of Zion, the neo-con conspiracy they imagine never existed.

** Thought hey would never admit it, the Buchananites are actually very close on a number of issues to the union Democrats, especially on protectionism. Nor are they that far form even the mainstream Democrats, as their positions on Iraq, Iran, and Russia show. They are also close to the LaRouche segment of the Democrats, yet another similarity they would deny. It is part of the reason I deny that Buchanan and most paelo-cons, especially the protectionists, deserve to be called conservative. Saying "Christian" and waving a flag does not make you conservative. But I dealt with that topic before, so I will waste no more space on it.

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APPENDIX

Rather than littler the post with links, I have decided to provide a list of relevant old articles here, broken down by subject.

On Protectionism: Exploiting Workers?, Protectionism, Fear of Trade, The Limits of Econometrics, Authoritarian Oil Talk, Stop Big Porcelain Now!, I Have Seen the Light, Free Trade, Employment, Outsourcing and Protectionism
On Isolationism: The Problem with Ron Paul, Correlation Versus Causation, What Happened
On Paleo-Cons and Buchanan: Many Types of Conservatives, Term in Search of a Definition, I'm Sorry, Mr. Buchanan, Buchanan and Obama, A Question for "Paleo-Conservatives", Right on One Issue is not Enough, I Am a Conservative, But..., Pat Buchanan Becomes Putin's Lord Haw Haw
On Social Conservatives: Many Types of Conservatives, The State and Morality, A Bit More Explanation, The Need to Correct Ourselves, Congress and the Reppublican Future, What We Deserve
On Politics and Conspiracy Theories: Bill Clinton Murdered Leon Trotsky!, Dismissing Conspiracy Theories, Our New Paranoia, Isn't History Enough?, The Appeal of Conspiracy Theories, A Shortcoming of Conspiracy Theories, Absurdities on Oil, Revival of an Old Absurdity, Your Fellow Man, Tips for Conspiracy Theory Buffs #1
On the Problem of Third Parties: Why I am not a Libertarian, Third Party Problems

POSTSCRIPT

The paleo-cons cause one other problem for the conservative movement as a whole, besides confusing the question of what constitutes conservative beliefs, and periodically reviving absurd protectionist and mercantilist theories. Thanks to nativist writers like Buchanan, who periodically evince a fondness of Nazis, they have manage dot keep alive the absurd myth that there is some "political spectrum" along which the National Socialist movement lies at the conservative end. In short, they manage to revive the myth that Nazis are conservative.

Of course history shows the absurdity of that theory. Both Mussolini and Strasser were former communists, the Nazis grew out of a fusion of nationalist and socialist political groups, while the fascists arose out of disillusioned communists, but still the myth persists. I think the best response is to stop distinguishing between communism and nazism, and instead use Von Mises description of "socialism of the Russia variety" (state ownership) and "socialism of the German variety" (state control). (We can ignore the Fascist "corporative state" as its confused theory puts it mostly in the German category, but with its own particular inefficiencies.) If we call both socialism maybe it will finally destroy this theory that modern conservatism has anything to do with national socialism.