KNOW THINE ENEMY: What Is a Crunchy Conservative?

This is a bit creepy, but interesting. It seems that there's a bit of jealousy in the GOP camp, and they want to be "Cafeteria Republicans," picking and choosing from the liberal buffet while claiming that they are toeing the party line:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5256754

All Things Considered, March 10, 2006 · At a time when the Republican Party seems to be fracturing from within, commentator Rod Dreher says it's time for the GOP to return to its roots. And he thinks conservatives could find inspiration from fellow Republicans who embrace a counter-cultural yet traditional conservative lifestyle -- what Dreher dubs "Crunchy Cons."

"Crunchy cons prefer old houses and mom-and-pop shops to McMansions and strip malls.... Many of us homeschool our kids, and cheerfully embrace nonconformity. I read Edmund Burke and wear Birkenstock sandals. Go figure."

The Ron Dreher book excerpt (at the same link) is especially unsettling:

A few summers ago, in the National Review offices on the east side of Manhattan, I told my editor that I was leaving work early so I could pick up my family's weekly delivery of fruits and vegetables from the neighborhood organic food co-op to which we belonged.

"Ewww, that's so lefty," she said, and made the kind of face I'd have expected if I'd informed her I was headed off to hear Peter, Paul and Mary warble at a fund-raiser for cross-dressing El Salvadoran hemp farmers.

Lefty? Moi? But on the subway home to Brooklyn, I had to admit she was right.

A taste for organic vegetables is a left-wing cliche, and here I was, a writer for the premier conservative political magazine in the country, leaving my post on the front lines to consort with the liberals in my neighborhood as I filled my rucksack with the most beautiful and delicious broccoli, carrots, greens, and whatnot in the city. What's up with that?

And come to think of it, what's up with those Birkenstock sandals on my feet? It just about killed me to buy them the summer before, given what Birkenstocks symbolize (you know, patchouli, pot, and ponytails on men). But New Yorkers walk a lot, and my sensible wife persuaded me that durable, comfortable Birks made sense for hot summer sidewalks. She was right. So that's how a pair of hippie shoes found their way onto my right-wing feet, which--alas!--had begun marching to a different beat than many of my conservative chums. Funny, I didn't feel any more liberal....

A desire to have one's cake and eat it too? A longing for the good life? An attempt to pull the disgusted and disillusioned, who have turned away from those cretinous, greedy bastards, back into the fold? What's next from this bunch?

Their real problem, and they just do not see it, is that the "roots" of the Republican party (the party of Lincoln) are now found in the Democratic garden. The crap growing in the GOP garden is nothing but weeds. Lincoln would have nothing to do with those clowns running the country, nowadays!!

Can't fault him for any of that....though it sounds like he's more into the superficial stuff associated with progressivism.

but bypassed it. I'll have to check it out next time. Takes all kinds to revolve the world...

but that is who the party consciously appeals too.

There is some overlap between granolas and the religious right, but more on superficial issues like food and alternative medicine.

they thought the "fuck you" celebrity route might be their next incarnation once the religious right withers or returns to a schizophrenic catatonic state, but without the religious window dressing, the real economic agenda was naked for all to see. So now they will try this--the granola, New Age conservative.

There are probably about as many of those as there are black conservatives.

They realize that the vast GOP middle are sick to fucking death of their fire and brimstone, greed is good philosophy, and their core voters--not the base, mind you, but that chewy, meaty center that they need every bit as much as their base--are drifting away in droves, pulled by brutal realities like a sucky environment, no real tax breaks for them (trade ya three hundred buck federal refund increase for a thousand or more in increased local taxes...a good deal? NOT!), and the drums of war that beat ever louder as their progeny approach draft age.

The blatant, pandering attempt to pull them back in by telling them "Gee, lookie here! You can LOOK like a 'librul' and be able to socialize with these cool folks, but still stay in our little club!" Of course, the real question is, why would anyone WANT to stay in that club?

Ahhh, beware the Birkenstocks!! They are the first step on the road to lifting the veil of bullshit from one's eyes!!!!

It's not like repubs are monolithic any more than dems are--there are wealthy business owners who don't treat their employees well on both sides. I've known staunch conservatives that treated their employees, even the temps, like gold, and liberals (in their voting, most of their beliefs, and their activism) that treated their employees, even permanent ones, like crap. The proportion's different, that's all.

Even back in the early '80s I knew a lot of repub Reagan supporters--and people that thought Reagan was sort of soft to be a 'true' conservative--that frequented health food coops and would backpack into wilderness areas, they'd raise their own food and not be militia members. They hated when Whole Foods and its ilk started taking over: too much packaging, it was too unnecessarily expensive and there was too much pre-prepared, high-salt crap. The mainstreaming of health food forced the coop and and other decent little stores to become preppy and trendy or die. It was hard to find places to take your old mason jar for oil or locally produced honey (complete with bee bits ... yum!), no more using an old yoghurt container for getting your almond or sunflower butter.

And still, they were truly staunch social and fiscal conservatives hobnobbing with the counterculture in Oregon. The funny thing was they'd had their same political and social views for years before I met them, and were convinced the one good thing that came from the hippie movement was health food stores.