"conservative intellectuals had no party"

this is another one of those "holy shit" moments. it looks like the conservative movement has lost richard posner. his post about why, by one of the right's leading intellectuals, is really remarkable. matthew yglesias has already excerpted the key bit from the post. but i really can't resist reposting the same part:

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.

By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party.

And then came the financial crash last September and the ensuing depression. These unanticipated and shocking events have exposed significant analytical weaknesses in core beliefs of conservative economists concerning the business cycle and the macroeconomy generally. Friedmanite monetarism and the efficient-market theory of finance have taken some sharp hits, and there is renewed respect for the macroeconomic thought of John Maynard Kenyes, a conservatives’ bête noire.

this touches on something that i've thought about a lot lately: the current republican party's own internal dynamics make it impossible to do the things it needs to reverse the failures of its movement. at least in the short term. right now, the party remains committed to the ruins of the failed movement.

in most parts of the country, any republican who tries to break from the movement will have trouble winning the republican primary. but the republicans who can survive the primary often cannot win in the general election. that dynamic renders the republican party is effectively unelectable much of the nation. unless either movement conservative changes to abandon its failures, or the republican base abandons movement conservatism, the republican party will remain in the political wilderness on the national level. based on their actions in the first half year since the election, it looks like the republican base is in too deep a state of denial to take either of those actions. you'd think that a post like posner's, from such a well-respected conservative thinker, would jar them to their senses. but i suspect there aren't enough intellectuals in the republican party left to notice.