Life In A Vacuum

Nicholas Beaudrot prods the right:

Lately I seem to be having conversations with wonkish right-of-center types who have this-or-that idea about how to design a simpler, more efficient, and more effective policy to deal with taxation, climate change, health care, whatever. But it always stops there. No one talks about managing the transition. No one talks about convincing Mitch McConnell to back these ideas. No one talks about sixty votes. No one talks about the interest group dynamics in Washington. No one even talks about working for a decade to elect members of Congress who might be more amenable to these sorts of policies. It’s just policy in a vacuum. Which is an interesting intellectual exercise, but not a legitimate substitute for governance, an ultimately messy endeavor.

The better "conservatism" succeeds as entertainment and business, the less it succeeds at looking like a philosophy of governance. And the wider that gap grows, the longer it will take to bridge it.

It will get worse before it gets better.

(Hat tip: Ordinary Gentlemen)