Published for www.commentarymagazine.com, February 22, 2012

Among conservatives today, there’s a phrase that has become an all-purpose term of derision: “the establishment.” The purpose of the charge is to call into question the bona fides of self-proclaimed conservatives and Republicans. The choice is supposed to be between “true” conservatives and “establishment” ones.

I wonder, though, how many conservatives who rail against the establishment these days realize they are appropriating language from the 1960s, when the New Left attacked the authority structures in society and presented themselves as “anti-establishment.” Back in those days, it was conservatism which saw its role to protect society from the radical tendencies of those on the left and defend the beneficial social effects of an establishment. Yet today, even so quintessential an establishment figure as Newt Gingrich explains opposition to his candidacy chiefly in terms of opposition by the “Washington establishment” rising up to block “bold change.”

But that’s where this critique begins to break down. Many members of the conservative establishment, after all, were hoping Mitch Daniels or Paul Ryan would run for president because Daniels and Ryan are arguably the most committed and best informed when it comes to the most urgent and difficult domestic issue of our time, which is reforming the entitlement state, and Medicare in particular.

To complicate things even more: polls tell us that many members of the Tea Party, which embodies anti-establishment feelings, are lukewarm when it comes to reforming programs like Medicare. And many of the loudest voices against the establishment have spent relatively little time laying out the case for structurally reforming Medicare. In fact, some of these conservatives have criticized President Obama for cutting Medicare (albeit to pay for the Affordable Care Act rather than as part of a broader reform agenda).

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