Building Conservatism’s Next Generation

The Republican Party has spent years warning that American institutions are suffering from a failure of leadership. This is a persuasive argument, occasionally undermined by the people Republicans send to make it. A party cannot indefinitely campaign against a decaying establishment while treating its own congressional seats as heirlooms that must remain in the family.

American Ascent, a new organization backed by Tom Klingenstein, proposes to do something about this. Led by former Heritage Foundation chief of staff Ryan Neuhaus, the group will recruit and train younger America First conservatives for public office. Klingenstein is supplying an initial $12 million, and partners include the Claremont Institute, Turning Point Action and the Oversight Project. The effort was underway before last week’s Republican defeat, which has given its mission a certain additional clarity.

There is something encouragingly practical about the undertaking. The standard response to an electoral humiliation is to commission a report explaining why the people who commissioned the report should remain in charge. Alternatively, one can blame the communications department, that indispensable Washington institution responsible for making unpopular decisions sound as though somebody else made them. Recruiting better candidates requires more work and offers fewer opportunities to expense lunch.

It also addresses a problem that conservatives ought to recognize. Institutions reproduce themselves through the selection and formation of people. Universities understand this. So do churches, labor unions and the United States Marine Corps. Much of the Republican Party seems to believe that a governing class will spontaneously assemble if enough Americans subscribe to the right podcasts.

Political talent needs cultivation. Someone has to identify promising people before their principal qualification for office becomes an ability to raise money from everyone they have ever met. Someone has to teach them how government works, how legislation acquires consequences its authors never anticipated, and how to distinguish a concession that advances a principle from one that quietly liquidates it. A movement that neglects this work should expect to spend a great deal of time wondering why its victories produce so little.

Youth alone, of course, guarantees nothing. Washington has plenty of ambitious young people capable of delivering stale ideas with excellent lighting. The case for generational renewal rests on something more substantial: Americans trying to establish adult lives deserve representatives who understand what that now entails. Buying a home, supporting children and finding work that offers a plausible future should occupy more of the Republican imagination than the preservation of its internal pecking order.

That requires a positive account of the country conservatives want to build. The Left’s failures can supply material for a campaign. They cannot supply the entire purpose of a government. Voters are entitled to ask what becomes possible after Republicans win, and an answer consisting largely of things that will be prohibited leaves an awful lot unexplained.

American Ascent has an opportunity to develop candidates who can answer that question with conviction and particulars. What would make family formation easier? How can government permit more homes to be built and more productive businesses to operate? What obligations does citizenship carry, and what should citizens reasonably expect from their country? These questions demand people who have thought beyond the next televised confrontation.

The organization should be judged by the leaders it produces. Its greatest contribution would be a generation of conservatives capable of governing, explaining their decisions and accepting responsibility for results. That is a higher standard than ideological celebrity, and meeting it will require taking character and competence as seriously as conviction.

Klingenstein’s investment deserves support because political movements eventually have to invest in people. An aging party can purchase another season of advertising and hope the electorate develops a sudden affection for the familiar. Or it can begin the patient business of preparing successors. American Ascent is choosing the latter. Republicans would be wise to help.