What today's GOP could learn from Benjamin Disraeli

The 19th-century British lawmaker paved the way for decades of conservative dominance

An editorial cartoon from 1878 portrays Benjamin Disraeli as a headmaster reprimanding the head boys for mud-slinging.
(Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

"We must stop being the stupid party." So Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told Republicans assembled at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee last week. Breaking the stupidity habit, Jindal continued, means more than avoiding unforced errors like Mitt Romney's 47 percent remark or Todd Akin's reflections on gynecology. Although Jindal's speech was remarkably light on details, the governor argued that Republicans have outright failed to appeal to the problems and perspectives of most Americans.

By describing the GOP as "the stupid party," Jindal evoked the British philosopher John Stuart Mill. In 1866, when he was serving in Parliament, Mill confidently asserted that "the Conservative Party was, by the law of its constitution, necessarily the stupidest party." What Mill did not know was that Conservatives would, within a few years, be transformed from a reactionary rump into Britain's natural party of government.

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Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and was a postdoctoral fellow in Religion, Ethics, & Politics at Princeton University. His books include God's Country: Christian Zionism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and After Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). In addition to academic research, Goldman's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.