Issue 18
Tammy Bruce
By Alfonso Campos and Tarina TarantinoPhotos by Greg Endries
Los Angeles native Tammy Bruce describes herself as “an openly gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty, authentic feminist.” She voted for President Bush, but was a “lifelong Democrat.” An oxymoron to say the least, she considers herself a classical liberal with conservative ideas.
Tammy’s nationally syndicated talk show, The Tammy Bruce Show, on Talk Radio Network is beating Rush Limbaugh’s in terms of listeners on the internet radio stream hub Talk Stream Live. She is a political analyst for Fox News Channel, has written three bestselling books, and at age 27 was elected the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and served from 1990-96.
Who is your audience?
My audience is Democrat and Republican but identifies now as Independent Conservatives, or I-Cons—it’s a new term that one of my listeners came up with. They want small government, they want to keep as much of their money as they can—all of us do. They want to be able to live their lives and they want the nation to be safe. It means individuals [who are] worrying first about our country and our defense, caring about our sovereignty, and are listening to a pro-choice lesbian feminist who is a conservative. And they are OK with it. That’s the Independent Conservative.
When we talk about parties and identities, we are always looking for a collective in a certain way. We want to be on a basketball team. We want to have our family, our community. It’s human nature to want to belong. The Left asks you to give up your individualism to the group. Authentic conservatism asks you to bring your individualism into the group effort—that’s the difference. Maintaining yourself while contributing to the larger effort, as opposed to giving up yourself to the larger effort. I think that’s what creative people do, and I think that’s what matters to them, and those are conservative ideas.
One of the things I admire about you is how brave you were
to stand up for your beliefs when you came out as a conservative. What was that like for you, and what advice would you give others that may want to do the same but are afraid of
the repercussions?
I can’t tell you that there was a moment of saying, “I have decided to be a conservative.” The first president I voted for was Reagan. I liked the idea of always being myself. I never want anyone bothering me. Why would I want the government bothering me? I remember thinking this when I was 18. For me it was easier to do being on talk radio, having role models such as Ayn Rand, Ray Bradbury and George Orwell. When you have thinkers who are presenting ideas, you realize, all right, this is not unusual for me to be thinking this way. There are interesting transitions in life and it became more important and I was happier being able to wake up in the morning being completely honest.
Political people, aware people, come from all walks of life. I am independent and unique; I am attracted to the traditional. I think that contradicts itself. This is how it manifests; this is what I find so exciting. So if somebody truly, really wants to be a radical individual, become independent. Separate from groups that tell you they know what’s best for you. Become a Decline to State. And if you don’t want to be called a conservative, ask yourself, Why not? How has that been demonized?
I think what drives creative people to create ideas is the manifestation of making a vision manifest into an item—it’s brilliant. You can only do that if you are willing to say, “I wonder what would happen with that” or “I wonder how that would look.” You can only do it if you have an open mind and are curious. So whether you call yourself conservative to irritate people, which also works, or because it’s different, at least always know why you are doing what you are doing. And the moment people do that, the moment they are answerable to themselves, there is a natural tendency to move to what’s considered conservatism… living a life that is unimpeded by the authorities within a framework of an understanding of dignity.
The American people generally can be trusted when it comes to their assessment of what’s right. You don’t kick the dog, you save the kid in the lake, you treat other people decently, respectfully and have tolerance. You live your life nicely and you contribute to your community. What’s so difficult about that? But leave us alone. What I do in my home, who we are, how we love, the color of our complexion, the nature of what we do, is no one’s business. The point of the gay rights movement at first was a demand for the authorities to leave us alone, and that is now what the conservative movement once again argues for. Leave us alone, let us keep the fruits of our labor, let us build businesses and become powerful and independent—that’s what the conservative movement is.
At least think about being unaffiliated from either of the established political sides. Start that way and see what happens. The benefit of speaking up is not that you will change someone’s mind, but possibly have them question why they stand where they stand. Having the courage to be curious and to not be afraid of what it is you might find out—that’s the radical thing!
It seems that most creative people tend to be liberal. Why do you think that is?
Because of the historical attachment between religious restrictions and conservative ideas. Most Americans are raised and consider themselves Christian, and perhaps raised in an environment where they associate religion with oppression. Imagine if an 18-year-old were to come home to a Catholic family with pink hair—there would be problems. Or if she wanted to do something that was unique? The issue is that the Right represents, in this frame of mind, a restriction on who you can be. Then there is a natural attraction to the side that says, Come here, you can be whatever you like—but with these rules. You don’t find that out until a little bit too late. So the initial life experience, is restrictions based in faith—not everyone, certainly, but very often.
So you have creative people who recognize their creativity young, who know that they are different, whether they are gay, creative, they look different. And very often their first reaction by a family is resistance. So naturally there’s a tendency to be like, OK, so liberalism, that’s the section who wants me to be myself. They will not punish me for being different. And once you are in, you’re in the most restrictive framework of all. You’re not free to speak, you’re not really free to change once you’re there.
But then you grow, get out of your family, you’re living your life and then who becomes the oppressor? Daddy? Family? It’s government. The problem is you’re not shifting out then when you are adults into realizing now daddy is government and now I need to be a conservative. Because in order to have the same freedom I had when I left home, I have to make sure that government stays as unobtrusive as I wanted my parents to be when I was finding myself as an adolescent. This is a natural shift that has to happen, but once you’ve moved into the liberal framework, and your friends are all liberal, there are punishments about changing. No one discusses the need to apply the same values in adulthood to government, which wants to do the same thing your parents did: “We have these values and we’re going to be a part of your life. We’re going to tell you how to live, we’re going to pay for your healthcare, we’re going to ban plastic bags, we’re going to ban trans fats, you can’t say these words to people or it’s a hate crime. We’re going to do all these different things.” And that’s a thing that has to be combated.
The I-Con movement sounds promising. Do you think there is a possibility of a viable third party emerging in our lifetime?
Absolutely. This is the time for that to happen. Transformation is occurring and we’ve been forced into it. But I think it’s a good thing overall, especially for authentic conservatism.
Right now the Democrat Party has changed into the Socialist Workers Party. It’s the far left. You’ve got the Republicans shifting into the Democrat Party as it was operating under John Kennedy, believing American values, which are universal values, should be exported, it’s the way to improve people’s lives. Also New Deal aspects about government providing a safety net, but not too much. The third party will have to really envelop this. This is where the internal civil fight will come with conservatives, is how religious politics has always tried to co-opt conservative politics, because the two naturally come together in the social sphere.
People do mistake religious ideas for conservative ideas, but the two are very separate. Being pro-life has nothing to do with being conservative. That’s a separate religious point of view. If you want government to start interfering with what women can say to their doctors that is not a conservative point of view. That is sending the government into a doctor’s office. How is that conservative? It’s not.
And then you have religious points of view. These views thrive locally when governments are small. It benefits people of faith to have small government. But don’t get involved in government because the natural tendency is to feel that government has the responsibility to promote religious values. No it doesn’t! As a matter of fact it harms it. When the federal government gets involved it completely messes everything up.
What has kept conservatives from coming together in a lot of ways is the interference of the religious. And it doesn’t help the religious communities, it harms them, and it certainly doesn’t help a coalescing of authentic conservative politics, which in the long run helps people of faith at the local level in every city of this nation. That’s the argument, and that’s what you’ll see manifest. A third party is necessary and will have to happen: it’s natural with the emergence of the new radical individual.
Can you explain who the new radical individual is? We are in one of those significant periods. Probably the next decade will be the defining framework for the next 100 years. The regular American is actually the new radical. Those of us that are personally involved in what it is we are doing politically, what we want for our children at school, what’s being taught to them at school. Everything has become important because politics has moved through every infrastructure of the government so you’ve got to care even in preschool, kindergarten at public school and private school—what is it my kid is hearing? I don’t want my 5-year-old watching a condom being put on a cucumber. I am the moral tutor of my child. That’s my business, not yours, not the government’s, and not a special interest group’s. It’s more difficult to find, so everything is political because politics has become individualized. In the long run that will be good but right now we are in the birth framework of what is going to manifest.
Americans have generally voted center-right. And that is because of the conservative framework of American values. We are all revolutionaries. We are here because we wanted government out of our lives. We’re here because we wanted to be independent. Americans vote on independence on every one of the issues. Only conservative politics feed that, incorporate it, and protect it and help facilitate it. Liberal politics is its antithesis, which is why America has never been a center-left country. It’s the antithesis of what we stand for because we are people who want personal freedom and individualism. The left has simply co-opted these terms. It’s a co-option of what is important to Americans. Then they say, “We are for tolerance and freedom,” then they provide policies that kill these things. But they keep saying it and saying it. And we’re supposed to think, Oh if we become collectivist we’ll really be free. It’s the newspeak of Orwell. Black is white, collectivism is freedom—that kind of thing.
Can you explain your Groupthink theory as referred to in The New Thought Police? “Groupthink” is a political term that addresses a type of behavior exhibited by close-knit groups who are so committed to conformity of thought, and believe they have sole possession of the truth, they deride and ultimately eliminate any critical thinking or challenges to the prevailing leadership point of view. When you believe that you have sole possession of the truth why should you speak to somebody else or why should you even consider what they have to say? You know everything and as a result those who dissent are to be punished and are dangerous. It’s a pathology that gets fed within controlling group dynamics. You ignore other evidence; you ignore the nature of what’s really happening. If I can save people five years, then I will have done my job. I don’t even want to change what people think. Eventually people realize this. People come around but they do so more when they realize that other people are out there thinking the same way. Or at least thinking differently! That’s the key! Not even agreeing with you but the ability to think differently and not be threatened. And the key benefit of speaking up is not that you will change someone’s mind but possibly have them question why they stand where they stand. Conservatives have quiet revolutions. We don’t need necessarily to be marching around. You do your work, you run your company, you raise your family and then you go vote. As long as—and this is where internet and talk radio come into play—there are avenues where people can hear alternative ideas, then at least conservatives, who don’t feel it’s safe to speak up, are able to listen, even on the periphery, to the discussion of these other ideas, and say, All right, this is an idea that we can explore because it’s happening. What you do with it is your business. And it will be different for everybody. For me it’s a personal experience, for all of us it’s a dynamically personal thing, and it will always be that way. But that’s my point: own why you think what you think. As Winston Churchill said, Americans always do the right thing—eventually.