Like that 'Hee-Haw' song

Gloom, despair and agony on me!
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery!
If it weren't for bad luck,
I'd have no luck at all!
Gloom, despair and agony on me!

That seems to have been Saturday's theme at The American Spectator Online, in response to Jeffrey Hart's piece at The American Conservative.

Christopher Orlet began by asking if " 'young conservative intellectuals' . . . are as gloomy about the movement's future as is the old guard?" J.P. Freire responded by noting Hart's surprisingly savage attack on Rush Limbaugh, and remarked:

"[I]t's curious that the older conservatives are gloomy. The ideas are still salient -- so who cares about political power? Us young folk got all the time in the world."

James Antle weighed in by naming Ann Coulter as an example of "cookie-cutter Republican cheerleaders"(!) and said:

I see leftward trends in American politics, an overidentification of conservatism with the electoral interests of the Republican Party, and so many conservatives seemingly resigned to government growth, it's hard not to feel a little gloomy.

Being neither young nor an intellectual, I suppose I'm imposing myself on the discussion, but what the heck?

• Antle is correct in seeing the current trends as hostile to conservatism. I would amend his first clause to read "leftward trends in American culture," because I believe culture dominates politics rather than the other way around.
• Friere is correct that young conservatives like himself -- he's about 25 years old -- are very optimistic. Anyone who thinks that the cause of conservatism is hopelessly lost should spend time around college conservatives, who tend to be gleefully combative.
• The post-9/11 security debate and the war in Iraq have highlighted the divisions in the conservative movement, while uniting liberals. Paleos and neos had been uneasy allies for years, but this internecine feud went spectacularly public after David Frum published his "Unpatriotic Conservatives" attack. (Did any paleo think of "Unconservative Patriots" as a title for a rejoinder to Frum?) It is possible for conservatives to hope that (a) the neos have learned a lesson from the disappointment of their more sanguine predictions for Iraq, and (b) the paleos have gained ground in the process, so that the postwar internecine feud might be somewhat more balanced.
• The Bush administration has been bad for conservatism. Almost from Inauguration Day, Dubya has done things that have gone 180 degrees against the sentiments of grassroots conservatives (e.g., No Child Left Behind). Many times I've found myself in arguments with liberals who would cite some specific Bush policy and taunt me, "How can you be in favor of that?" To which I'd answer, "But I'm not in favor of that. And neither is Phyllis Schlafly, or Pat Buchanan, or Paul Weyrich, or . . . ." Conservatives can therefore be grateful that the Bush years are near an end.

The causes of conservative gloom are easy enough to see, but despair is not warranted. Things are looking bad just now, but things were also looking bad in 1959, 1965, 1974, 1993, etc. There is every reason to hope for improvement. As a great man once said, "It is history that teaches us to hope."