Where did all the conservatives go?

In order for you to understand me, you will first need to understand my friend Eric. The first thing about Eric is he is different from you and me. I teased him for being different, we all did. You see Eric isn’t just different from you and me, he was different from everyone else I knew. The thing that makes Eric different from the rest of us, and different from the vast majority of the Bay Area, is that he is a conservative.

I have countless memories from college of Eric and I arguing endlessly about politics. Tax policy, entitlements, the role of government were our favorites. These arguments weren’t examples of great discourse, we mostly just parroted back whatever I read in the Times and he in the Journal. Nevertheless, I count those conversations among the most important in shaping my own politics.

During a recent reunion lunch an old friend used the term “conservative racists” and Eric meekly interjected “Are those the same thing?” That was it, that was all I heard Eric say about politics over the three day reunion. Politics wasn’t the point of the trip and other than a few jokes, some brief conversations about global warming and taxes we didn’t discuss politics. During those brief moments Eric didn’t say a word.

I’ve been back in the Bay Area for a few months after nine years of living abroad. Since I’ve been back I can’t recall a single encounter with a conservative. Where did they all go? Did every person who argues for small government just disappear? Where are the people who are suppose to remind us that free markets are more efficient than government programs? Who is going to point out that our new social program is also going to saddle our children with debt? I don’t know about the rest of you but I need a ying to my yang.

On November 9^th we all agreed that we had been living in a bubble and that we should do something to correct that. A few of us went traveling middle America, others started reading the Wall Street Journal, I watched a few Nascar races, and now we are all right back in the same bubble we started in. I use to have Eric around to make sure my bubble was popped from time to time, but while I was away something was done to my friend Eric and he isn’t the same anymore. I love him just as much but there is a part of me that selfishly misses the old Eric.