After generations in the shadows of American political discourse, the phrase "constitutional conservatism" burst onto center stage after the disastrous conclusion of the George W. Bush administration. The junior Bush left office in 2009 with a 22% approval rating, in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. But the failure wasn't just about one president or his policies. wasn't just Bush who had failed. In the New Republic, Sam Tanenhaus offered this summary:
After George W. Bush's two terms, conservatives must reckon with the consequences of a presidency that failed, in large part, because of its fervent commitment to movement ideology: the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy; the blind faith in a deregulated, Wall Street-centric market; the harshly punitive "culture war" waged against liberal "elites."
