This (via Oliver Willis who also describes a Twitter exchange with Joe Scarborough) really cracks me up:
For much of the past decade, young conservatives enjoyed an array of job opportunities in the Republican-controlled Congress and at insulated, well-funded nonprofit organizations. But since Democrats gained control in 2006, many prized slots on Senate and House committees started going to the new majority. And now, there’s no Republican administration in power to offer jobs to its own.
Young conservatives could apply for regular jobs, they acknowledge…
[…]At the Union Pub, Dustin Siggins, 24, says he sometimes uses humor to deflect the awkwardness of being on the margins of his generation. “I met a girl today at the gym from Boston College. She was getting a law degree from George Washington. She was cute,” he says. “But she wants to work for the ACLU, and I said, ‘Oh, you’re one of those.’ “
Later, in a phone interview, Siggins says he struggles with some of his party’s more culturally orthodox ideals. “Because I am in this generation and was raised in a pro-gay-marriage era, I am only a little bit against gay marriage, but only a little, like 53 percent to 47,” he says. “I have about a dozen gay friends, 30 or 20, and they would all back me up. In college, I used to have lunch with them. . . . We went ice skating once.”
I bear these kids no ill will, but they probably should look for “regular jobs” at some point.
David Brooks thinks the future may be bright for these Burkean boys and girls, anyway:
In a New York Times column last June, David Brooks wrote that a new commentariat of young conservative writers — such as Julian Sanchez, Megan McArdle and Will Wilkinson — has come of age “as official conservatism slipped into decrepitude . . . put off by the shock-jock rhetorical style of Ann Coulter.”
Update: Burke makes a big appearance in Brooks’ column, natch:
As a consequence, they are heterodox and hard to label. These writers grew up reading conservative classics — Burke, Hayek, Smith, C.S. Lewis — but have now splayed off in all sorts of quirky ideological directions.
Something tells me young Dustin and his friends have splayed off a lot too.
Brooks does also mention some more conservative writers (than McMeghan and friends), like the 1994 Heisman trophy winner who wrote the Sam’s Club book with Ross Douthat.