After

I'm taking a little break from social media. I need to stay away from the gloating, the heralding of a liberal savior sent to save the world from big, bad conservatives. 

Roger Kimball seems quite eloquent.

For conservatives, it is a depressing situation. Ron is right, too, about “the coming crisis of a growing entitlement state” and the myriad foreign policy challenges, not least the challenges of radical Islam, that Obama, and the country at large, will continue to face. I fear that what an English friend just wrote me is true:

You just don’t care about being a Great Power any longer. That’s what this is about. The world should start sucking up to China instead now, as Americans have shown they’ve no appetite for world leadership any longer. You’ve had a century in the sun, and now you’ve decided to become Sweden instead of shouldering the burden. The 47% have won and you’re going to slip into social democracy and in 4 years time no-one — Christie, Rubio, Ryan — will be able to do anything about it.

RIP American Exceptionalism

It is said that the one unforgivable sin is despair. Depression is not quite despair, but it is an allied and a corrosive sentiment. I agree with Ron that “it is essential that conservative intellectuals do not abandon the effort to change the culture . . . and do all possible to challenge the ascension of a failed intellectual liberal ideology, whether it be in the form of Progressivism, liberalism or socialism.” But I misread and misread badly both the mood of the country and the depth of support for Obama’s failed policies. I will doubtless get around to rejoining Ron in the battle, but a little hiatus for reflection will not come amiss.

And Jonah:

That Mitt Romney got fewer votes than John McCain is dismaying on any number of levels. We were told, by strategists and by what seemed like common sense, that the McCain coalition was a floor for Romney to build up from. The possibility that it was in fact a ceiling is pretty awful to contemplate. It is also pretty infuriating when you think about what the Romney campaign was telling us about their path to 270.

I’ll be blunt: I do not think Mitt Romney ran a good campaign. Don’t get me wrong, I think he worked his heart out as did many who worked for him. I think he made himself into the best candidate he could (which is different than saying he was a great candidate). But I also think that Romney’s theory of the contest was wrong. As I wrote at the time, the Republican convention was a mess. I think Romney strategist Stu Stevens’ contempt for ideas – never mind conservative ideas – was absurd. I think the failure of the Romney campaign to offer a compelling explanation of any kind (at least until the second debate) for how it wasn’t a third Bush term was fatal (as I discussed here and elsewhere). Politics is about persuasion. And persuasion requires making serious arguments. Stevens, by all accounts, has contempt for serious arguments.

I think ultimately, ideas win. America may move "forward" but it is off a cliff. And I fear we took a big step backward tonight. But the world will continue to turn, and ultimately, as we debate and discuss what the next four years will bring, those of certain ideas will unite behind a better candidate in four years. And the bench is deep--Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Bob McConnell, Rob Portman, many others will step onward and we'll rebuild a better country. I hope.