I did not much like their book on the American Right–which I felt misunderstood the politics of social issues in America–but their piece in the Journal today on why conservatives should cheer up is pretty good (registration required). Let me qualify that approval in two ways: 1) Their defense of Bush’s record on spending is weak. 2) I think M&W miss a point about the Right, which is that it hasn’t found a way to mobilize without a lot of gloom and doom. This isn’t a problem limited to the Right–political movements tend to thrive on the sense that society is in some terrible crisis that demands action (now!). If the Right were basically satisfied with the direction and pace of political change, it would quickly become complacent. The pace would slow and the direction would change. (NRO’s Lawrence Kudlow and John Derbyshire are mentioned among the gloomsters, by the way.)