The Future of Conservatism

Since the Republican Party’s historic defeat in the 2008 elections, American conservatives have been seeking new ideas to rally around, new leaders to point the way forward. One year later, have they succeeded? Has President Obama’s job performance helped or hurt their cause? Are the headline-grabbing “Tea Party” protests a sign of the GOP’s weakness, or of its resurgent strength? And does Sarah Palin, whose hotly anticipated memoir debuts this week, have a political future? In a special series this week, Big Think poses these and other questions to four experts on “The Future of Conservatism.”

The series kicks off today with former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, whose FreedomWorks nonprofit has backed Tea Party protests across the nation since early 2009. In his Big Think interview, Armey castigated both sides of the aisle for failing the small-government principles he believes most Americans espouse. He also criticized the GOP for alienating Hispanic voters, accused both Bush and Obama for “bumbling” on foreign policy and economics, and drew on his early career as an economics professor to offer his own prescription for recovery.