Part 2 of a two-part series.

ACT III:
ROSS: . . . and with that, I guess I yield the floor.

DARA (whispered): You can always tell a former debater.

HELEN (whispered): Did Ross do debate at Harvard?

DARA (whispered): I don’t know.

ROSS: So, questions? Yeah, there.

HELEN: You said that one tragedy of the Bush years was the fact that nobody came up with a way to talk about values without lapsing into evangelical-sounding language. In other words, we’ll never get cosmopolitan elites on board with social conservatism if we can’t talk about social conservatism without sounding like Baptist preachers, and we’ll never get them on board with localism if all of our localists sound like Wendell Berry and talk about the virtues of farm life. That sounds true and I’m on board, but I have some cause for hope: for instance, most war movies fall flat with Ivy League audiences but there are a few that make them stir with feelings of patriotism. So, looking at the future, do you have a vision for a cosmopolitan cultural conservatism?

ROSS: You know, my own post-9/11 insanity took the form of a hope that conservatives could get everyone in the country on board with patriotism and other right-wing values, but that, of course, didn’t materialize. Now, I think our best bet is to take our agenda one baby-step at a time. Take the article I wrote about pornography; I was speaking to a largely cosmopolitan audience and trying to get them to admit the very modest point that pornography, maybe, sometimes, isn’t completely okay.

REIHAN’S GHOST: I disagree-ee! But I’ll have to pu-u-ut it! In a mixta-a-ape!

ACT IV:
KATE: Would you like a different answer to the question you asked Ross?

HELEN: Go for it.

KATE: There already is such a thing as social conservatism minus Jesus-talk. It’s called the Moynihan Report. It’s called City Journal and sociology. It’s called neocons actually do care about domestic policy. "So now you know…"

HELEN: But they don’t frame it in "values" language.

KATE: That’s right.

HELEN: And they offer political solutions, not cultural ones.

KATE: That’s right.

HELEN: And that’s the beauty part, insofar as bicoastal elites are put off by Jesus talk, and insofar as cultural battles shouldn’t be fought politically.

KATE: That’s right.

HELEN: So there’s political capital to be had in neo/paleo fusionism right now.

KATE: It’s like I don’t even need to be here.

TRISTYN: But I can’t be a neocon. It’d break my mother’s heart…