Yes There is Room at the Inn

The post-WWII American conservative movement started out as an elite movement, with crusty old thinkers, neo-Tories, and the rich-bitch Bill Buckley fusing with European intellectuals pitched out of Europe by Nazism.

But then a funny thing happened. Ordinary people started asking to join. In the Seventies it was the pro-lifers. In the eighties it was the Reagan Democrats. Now it’s the aspirational working class. It’s the Alaska fisherman and the Ohio plumber at the door today.

Every time a new group has asked to join there has been something of a tussle in the conservative movement because conservatives, like any group, have people worried about lowering the tone of the neighborhood. In the Seventies and Eighties it was the conflict between the blue-blood Rockefeller Republicans and the blue-collar Reagan Republicans. In the early Nineties it was between Christian conservatives and more secular conservatives. Now that the Palins and Plumbers are joining, we are seeing once again the more sensitive sort, the Christopher Buckleys and the Peggy Noonans, getting nervous about conservative real-estate values.

We should all hope that the latest generation of Nervous Nellies stays within the big Republican tent to extend a friendly welcome to the newcomers. The record is that each new group that has knocked on the door of the conservative inn has been welcomed in. And each addition has revived and broadened the conservative family.

Let’s not be afraid of the new rough diamonds on the conservative table. We old-timers could do with a bit of the sparkle they bring, and they are doubtless eager to acquire a bit of polish.

There’s an article in the Wall Street Journal today that says that the rich are for McCain and the super-rich are for Obama. You’d expect that. The newly rich are still aspirational; the super-rich are worried about the challenge from below. And there’s nothing like a nice little tax increase to slow down the ascent of the nouveaux riches.

I’ll pitch my tent with aspirational Americans. They are the people that make the country work.