"I know nothing but my Country, my whole Country,
                                                                                      and nothing but my Country" 
                                                 
The Know Nothing Party of the 1830s and 1840s was an anti-intellectual, exclusionary movement whose rigid, ideological orthodoxy led to its eventual extinction.

Some 171 years later, they're back!

Today's Republican Party is morphing into The Know Nothing Republican Party: legitimate, collegial, partisan debate has been replaced with harsh, strident rhetoric - opponents are now enemies - with a maniacal fear and loathing of government.*  The party is hardly synonymous with conservatism or its heritage: it isn't remotely related to the basic conservative principles of civility and tolerance.

The sunny optimism of Ronald Reagan,** the intellectual heft and humor of William F. Buckley and the principled, civil, tolerant conservatism of Barry Goldwater are no longer the face of the Republican Party.

Today's Know Nothing Republican Party is the home of  litmus-test purists as exemplified by the  current crop of mostly permanently angry Republican presidential candidates and the likes of the Senate's leading ideological watchdog, Jim DeMint (R-SC) and the intimidating Grand Inquisitor,Grover Norquist, with his Taxpayer Protection Pledge nonsense: sign it or be damned all you Republican candidates and officeholders.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed column, Peter Berkowitz contrasts the reigning Know Nothing elements of the party to the kind of conservatism which use to be the foundation  of the Republican Party - and to which I subscribe - the conservatism of Buckley, Goldwater and Reagan:

“The notion of conservative purity is a myth. The great mission of American conservatism - securing the conditions under which liberty flourished - has always depended on the weaving together of imperfectly compatible principles and applying them to an evolving and elusive political landscape.

William F. Buckley Jr.'s 1955 Mission Statement announcing the launch of National Review welcomed traditionalists, libertarians and anticommunists. His enterprise provides a model of a big-tent conservatism supported by multiple and competing principles: limited government, free markets, traditional morality and strong national defense,” (The Myth of Conservative Purity, WSJ, September 7).

The Buckley, Goldwater, Reagan brand of conservatism (and my brand too) -rooted in the heritage of Edmund Burke and other great conservative thinkers - has no need for debasing, coarse rhetoric. Our philosophy doesn't require it and our heritage doesn't teach it. It's affirmative, cheerful and thoughtful not angry, shrill, strident or exclusionary.

The party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Robert Taft, Everett Dirksen and Dwight Eisenhower is no more. In its place stands the Know Nothing Republican Party  - a petty, small, aggrieved bunch of ideologues - which, if it continues on its current course, will eventually become extinct too. And that day couldn't come soon enough for me.

*The Republican Party of the 19th century was a stalwart advocate of  government as a way to enhance the virtues capitalism. 

**Horror of horrors: “Former Senator Alan Simpson (Republican, Wyoming): 'Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration. I was here. I was here. I knew him. Better than anybody in this room. He was a dear friend and a total realist as to politics.'”

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“Classical Conservatism: From Burke to Reagan,” (We Are Politics, June 28)

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