Beyond Conservatism?
Last week I saw The Federalist editor Mollie Hemingway tweet the following
Ms. Hemingway used to be a stalwart conservative, before becoming a hardcore Trumpist in recent years. And the piece she shared showed a future for where conservatism may be going.
And it’s not good.
The premise of the piece by David Azerrad for The American Conservative posits that conservatism has been standing athwart history yelling “Stop!” while Rome continues to burn. Among the things that he suggests is that conservatism is more concerned with capitalism than demographic change, focuses on limited government despite the continued existence of New Deal policies, endless wars, nation building, outdated international alliances, and “cowardice and accommodation in the face of leftist hegemony.”
Needless to say, Mr. Azerrad is not a fan of actual conservatism. He lionizes the “dissidents, contrarian thinkers, and courageous gadflies who refuse to lick the boots that crush them.”
No doubt, Mr. Azerrad things himself to be among those stalwarts in the later group.
Azerrad believes that conservatism is dead because it is “counterrevolutionary” and has lost the war already. He thinks that the “new right” should supplant current conservatism, a new right that is focused not on ideology but on power. Power to create new institutions or to crush old ones. Power that is, to quote Azerrad, “comfortable wielding the levers of state power.” Power that will make colleges and universities and toe their party line. Power that promotes, primarily, an America that is full of white, nuclear families.
This “beyond conservatism” as Azerrad calls it is a bastardization of the term conservative. But worse than that, what Azerrad is suggesting is a rejection of the American ideal. It is a rejection of limited government. It is a rejection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is a rejection of the idea of an American education. It is a rejection of the idea that American government should be merit based and not politically biased.
If this is what the conservatism of the future is going to be, than I want nothing to do with it. This isn’t any representation of conservatism that I know. It is an embrace of the fringe elements of the far-right wing, most often seen in European political parties and European governments. This kind of nonsense has more in common with Greece’s Golden Dawn movement than it does with any sort of serious American political movement.
This, ultimately, is the problem with Donald Trump winning the GOP nomination in 2016 and ultimately the Presidency. Trump has no real political compass to speak of. Hence his flirtation running for the Reform Party nomination in 2000 and all those donations he made to Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. Trump’s political philosophy begins and ends with whatever is best for Donald Trump and the Trump brand. Sure, occasionally he trips himself into doing the right thing occasionally, but Trump believes most in Trump himself. And that is why Trump gravitates most of all to strongman leadership and strongman leaders in other countries.
Because of Trump’s comfort with strongman leadership and strongman, the Republican establishment and many in the conservative establishment, have gravitated toward strongman theory. Azerrad is one of many establishment conservatives who have been seduced by this idea that the only way to create a conservative America is to act like the leftists whose tactics and way of governance we have despised.
There’s a certain irony in that. Azerrad talks about how modern conservatives know they have already lost the war, and that is why they have been coopted by the current order. However, Azerrad’s solutions is literally to become the modern left, both it tactics and in ideology to the extent of believe in extreme statism to push a political agenda. Azerrad wants the right to become the left, just for differentiating political ends.
This “beyond conservatism” charade is like Beyond meat. It may look like conservatism, and it may talk like conservatism, but it ain’t conservatism. If Azerrad’s vision comes to pass small government conservatives (as in those conservatives who have not been seduced by the allure of Trump) may very well need to redefine themselves in order to avoid the stink of “beyond conservatism.”