By Keith C. Burris

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I am slowly working my way through George F. Will’s “The Conservative Sensibility,” a wonderful title for a splendid book.

It’s the right title, of course, because to be a conservative is to be of a certain sensibility or disposition, perhaps naturally at first, but also by intentional habit of mind.

You really cannot be a conservative and be an ideologue, for conservatism is anti-doctrinal, anti-cookie cutter, anti-tribal.

The book could also be called “The American Conservative Mind,” because that’s what it is about — the American take on skepticism versus pie-in-the-sky; the American brand of doubt about power, doctrine, intellect and groupthink.

The book is dedicated, after all, to Barry Goldwater — one of the biggest “losers” in American political history and one of the finest, most independent, and most unabsorbable of human beings in that history.

Will calls him a “cheerful malcontent,” who fully lived up to both words.

Goldwater was a contradiction in another way: He was a skeptic about government who spent his life in government. He was devoted to limiting federal power but spent 30 years (five terms) in the U.S. Senate, trying to make sure everything from Air Force jets to national intelligence to the U.S. Senate itself worked better.

Like James Madison, the great designer of our system, and for Will, the font of our own distinctively American conservatism, both Barry Goldwater and George Will spent lifetimes thinking about politics and power — particularly how to limit it. That’s one curious irony at the heart of the American strain of conservatism: The limiters are also builders. It applies to William F. Buckley Jr. and Ronald Reagan, too.

In any case, I find almost nothing of American, or English, or Burkean conservatism in CPAC — the “Conservative” Political Action Conference — which gathered last month in Orlando, Florida, and reacted with goo-goo-like adoration to a 90-minute stand-up rant by Donald Trump.

American conservatism is all about limits — limits to the loyalty you will give, limits to the rights you will sacrifice, limits to what and who you believe (how much you will swallow), limits placed on all mobs and all orthodoxies and all would-be kings and saviors.

CPAC is not a conservative organization. It is a cult, as, increasingly, is much of the Republican Party.

At its core, its base, the GOP is no longer a party of constitutionalism, limits on spending and debts, or the rejection of grand promises. It is the party of Trump, of denial of science, of grievance, reaction and restoration to a past that never was.

So, too, the Democrats have become a cult — the cult of the precious, the woke; the guardians of what can be said and read and thought. Whether the offender is Lenny Bruce, or Mark Twain, or Mr. Bean, the woke, and the press and government in the service of the woke, will save us from the pain of exposure to that which upsets us. Even if what upsets us may be true, or have some merit or, God help us, humor. (Bruce would be canceled today, as would Mel Brooks and Peter Sellers.)

Once upon a time, the upset came from D.H. Lawrence. Back in the day, it was evolution. Now it may be someone’s assertion that toxic charity has failed or that boys should not play women’s sports.

But it’s not whether the upsetting may be debated as true or not that is at stake; it’s whether the upsetting may be spoken at all.

We need to have a little confidence in our fellow citizens. Americans can handle the dark side of Dr. Seuss.

As we watch the current comings and goings in Washington, we are, sadly, watching the posturing and virtue signaling — only to those of like mind — of two cults, when what we really need are two great political parties.

No Republican in the House voted for President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill. Not one. Is that because the country needs no relief? No money for getting the vaccine to people, funds for state and local governments, or relief for those in the hospitality industry?

And though two Democrats voted against it, no Democrat, including the president, has yet explained why Americans who are not broke, have not missed a day of work or a day of rent, deserve a $1,400 check from Uncle Sam — the third of its kind.

How, exactly, is giving money to people who are far from poor “progressive”?

Indeed, precious few Republicans (Rob Portman and Pat Toomey are exceptions) have risen to ask: How, exactly, will a massive spending bill create wealth or jobs?

Well, who is not for free money during a pandemic?

I am pretty sure Barry Goldwater would not be.

Just as the bailout is all posture and little policy, the failed Neera Tanden nomination was cult signaling. She was nominated not because she could run the federal budget office, but because she is a partisan tweet warrior. She was defeated not because she could not run OMB, but because she is a partisan tweet warrior, and the Republicans needed at least one head on the wall.

The minimum wage battle, similarly, has not been a matter of substantive debate, but a cult wrestle. The Democrats say it is a vital tool for reducing the relative poverty of those who nonetheless work. (And a living wage for hard work is still the best anti-poverty program.) Yet they are willing to sacrifice it. The Dems seem to care more about making useless college degrees free.

The Republican moderates say raising the minimum wage actually hurts the economy, but they propose $10 an hour instead of $15: It’s bad but we’ll go two-thirds of the way. Huh?

The two parties at their best and highest once stood for two great truths: positive government and limited government.

We need both, at different moments and in different applications.

If a pandemic does not prove the need for positive government, I don’t know what does.

If CPAC’s delusions, and Democrats printing money, do not prove the need for limited government conservatism, I don’t know what does.

We need two great parties. We have two juvenile cults.

And I see no cheerful malcontent, or humane skeptic, out there.

Keith C. Burris is editor, vice president and editorial director of Block Newspapers. Email: kburris@post-gazette.com.