We’ve made a lot out of the fact that conservatives don’t really govern. There is a subtle difference and that difference comes in the legacy of conservatism from 1981 forward. They have not offered any new programs or any significant plank that has made our lives better. Conservatives superpower is messaging. They have crafted a very simple message over time that has become so ingrained that people now assume it to be true. It really is a two-pronged message that relies on each other to pass muster.

Believe it or not, most progressives aren’t socialists. We like capitalism. We like the idea that someone can get ahead by building a better mousetrap. We like robust choices as consumers. The idea of someone getting rich isn’t repugnant on its own. The devil is always in the details. How did they do it? Now that they are rich and powerful, what are they doing to people lower than them on totem poll?

The first coup of modern conservatism was their ability to redefine success itself. What does it mean to be successful? If you ask them it means having a good job, making a lot of money, and buying a bunch of stuff. The person with the most toys wins. The person with the fanciest title wins. The person with the biggest bank account wins. However, we can redefine success to shun the notion of winning and losing. Deeply personal success happens without bank accounts, toys, or fancy titles. Deeply personal success happens when we manage to take our gifts and use them to make the world a better place.

Specialization just might be man’s greatest gift to the world. It might be the most important thing that separates us from all of the animals. Each of us can become an expert in something worthwhile. Either that, or we can use gifts of compassion, empathy, and deep human connection to help those that need our help.

If we begin to see success as a positive impact on the world around us then we cease to see it as winning and losing. If we surrender the notion that successful people win then we also repudiate the notion that life is a zero sum game. That is the second conservative plank and it is even more insidious than the first one. If there are winners and losers in the game of life then we also are bound to see connections between others’ success and our failure.

The concept of a zero sum game is easy to see as a sports analogy. Someone or some team must win the game. If they win then the other team does not. So, you either win or you lose. In life, that begins to look like the predatory capitalism we have seen develop over the past 40+ years. If I want to be successful then you can’t be.

In this paradigm it becomes easy to hate the other. The other turns into whatever we need to tell ourselves to feel good about what we need to do to be successful. It could be migrants. It could be ethnic minorities. It could be women. It could be members of the LGTBQ+ community. It could be whoever or whatever we need to convince ourselves that what we are doing is okay and justified. Therefore, government programs are bad. Charity for charity sake is bad. Mercy is bad. In order to combat this notion we have to fight the battle over the definition of success.