A New Presentation, Not New Principles

It’s no secret that conservatives want smaller government and more freedom.

The question, really, is whether or not the rest of America wants smaller government and more freedom.

The answer is yes and no.

Everyone wants smaller government and more freedom when their individual rights are the ones being infringed upon.

But when it comes to the concept of freedom as it applies to government as a whole, well, that’s where things start to break down.

The reason is simple: Americans love their government programs.

While most people can think of something they wouldn’t mind cutting, most people also have several programs they wouldn’t mind implementing, or at least a few they want to keep around.

Unless they are die hard libertarians, most people do not mind giving up some freedom in exchange for the benefits of government programs (whether they are real or perceived).

That does not mean that we need to abandon our smaller government principles in exchange for a new big government brand of conservatism.

What conservatives need is a new strategy. It is not going to work to just trumpet out the same old big government is bad routine.

And forget the long, detailed explanations of why big government is bad. With today’s sound bite culture, you won’t have people’s attention long enough to explain it to them.

We are not a nation of renaissance men like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. We are a nation of pop culture junkies.

What we need to do in order to adapt our message to mainstream America is learn to make our point briefly, in a way that resonates with people who are not as interested in public policy as we are.

Those are the people who decide elections, not us.

To reach them, our message needs to be concise and relevant to people’s lives and experiences.

Conservatism is not dead. But we are living in a different era and we need to learn to adapt our message to today’s audience if we want to see our ideas succeed.