When T.S. Eliot said that there are no lost causes because there are no won causes, he probably was not thinking of American conservatism,” begins the opening paragraph of Sam Francis’ seminal 1991 essay, “Beautiful Losers.”
“American conservatism,” Francis wrote, “is a failure, and all the think tanks, magazines, direct mail barons, inaugural balls, and campaign buttons cannot disguise or alter it. Virtually every cause to which conservatives have attached themselves for the past three generations has been lost, and the tide of political and cultural battle is not likely to turn any time soon.”
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