The self-radicalization logic of the conservative intelligentsia

Much has been written about the GOP’s transition over the past few years from Ronald Reagan’s party to that of Donald Trump and his populist imitators. But at the same time a parallel shift has been taking place in the conservative intelligentsia.

The evolution of these ideas and temperaments was catalyzed by Trump’s political-to-political shift, but it failed to alleviate that shift. Ideas, like psychological tendencies, change according to their own logic. What we have been witnessing among a growing number of conservative thinkers is a process of self-radicalization driven by the interaction of political events with assumptions and previous ideological mood.

The most culturally pessimistic and alienated thinkers on the American right wing were hoped for – and that particular blend was the ideal fuel for political extremism.

During my time as an ideological conservative, which quite closely overlaps with George W. Bush’s first presidency, I worked under Richard John Neuhaus at First things magazine. Neuhaus was a conservative Catholic priest, but he was also an American patriot and (usually, although not always) an optimist wants to believe that all good things can go together. So he searched to develop an ideological perspective that defuses tensions between different institutions and projects: the Reaganite Republican Party, including the Bush administration’s Global War on Terror; the American experiment in democracy; free market capitalism; political liberalism, get it right; evangelical Protestantism; and the Catholic Church of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

According to the outlook cultivated and motivated by First things in that era, a person could – moreover, a right become – a moral traditionalist, a Republican, a supporter of American democracy and neoliberal economics at home and an American political economy and democracy abroad, and was a devout (orthodox) follower of the Abrahamic religion. (There are a small number of Orthodox Jews in First things orbit, and, prior to the 9/11 attacks, this magazine also provided responses to Muslims.)

Being a pessimist myself and someone prone to seeing dilemmas and contradictions around me, I came to quite vehemently opposed from this thought project and program. But more interesting in the history that follows are the private reactions of many members of First things intellectual circles to Neuhaus’ optimistic dynamics for political, ethical, economic, and theological synthesis.

Once a year, First things The board of trustees will convene in New York City, along with regular contributors to the journal, to discuss the state of the country and the world, the conservative movement, and related topics. I’ve worked at the magazine for almost four years, and each such meeting has been a whirlwind cultural despair, although a friend and Allies were subsequently detained in the White House.

That’s because the people in the room are profoundly alien to the moral, cultural, and spiritual drift of contemporary American life, and they don’t expect that to change. They support the Bush administration and are ready to provide defend the public on its policy agenda. But privately, they doubt any of that will fundamentally change the most unsettling trends going on around them. Abortion will remain legal. Homosexuality will continue to be normalized and even celebrated. Pornography will continue to infiltrate the culture. Euthanasia will be more widely accepted. Secularism will endure in its transnational march and institutions.

From the emergence of the first conservatives after the French Revolution, this has been the default disposition of those who have revolted despite cultural, moral and political change. The Latest changes in more always inspires gloomy conservatives. That is not to say that conservatives are always cubists. By contrast, they often ally themselves with other, less purely conservative, political factions to try to slow, halt, or even reverse the direction of change.

What became known as the conservative movement in 20th-century America was precisely a coalition, bringing together traditionalist conservatives along with factions more accurately described as fundamentalists. classical liberals or conservatives: foreign policy hawks as well as liberals to cut taxes and regulations. The project of Neuhaus is the most ambitious intellectual attempt to create a The dominant ideology is religious for this alliance.

But behind the scenes, many traditionalists doubt their faction will achieve their goals. Taxes and regulations can be cut. America can use its military might to challenge threats around the world. But cultural and ethical standards in this country will continue to fall further and further from where they were before.

Back in the early 2000s, these laments were mostly in terms of experience, associated with proof of failure in the world but not giving a coherent explanation that goes beyond the ubiquity of sin and the extreme difficulty of steering a ship off course for a long time. But as the decade passed, as Bush was succeeded after eight years of radical presidency by Barack Obama, and as the Supreme Court elevated same-sex marriage to a constitutional right, the conservative mood soured. darker.

By the time Trump boomed in the summer of 2015, the traditional right had almost given in to utter despair, even in public, with many turning purely defensive. No longer hoping to reverse the trend of the culture, now they hope they can received only modest federal protection from oppression at the hands of secular liberals are encouraged.

Initially, Trump’s campaign did not cause much optimism among disgruntled traditionalist conservatives. After all, he is a personal epitome of moral decay. However, once Trump secured the GOP nomination, and subsequently the presidency itself, the most pessimistic conservatives began to rethink. Could his surprise win open up other, more radical options for the future? Could his fierce, uncompromising hostility to liberal norms and institutions signal the openness of American voters to a fundamental rethinking of ideological premises, cultural limits and the range of political possibilities?

For a bunch of pessimistic conservatives – especially “Catholics” (Adrian Vermeule, Gladden Pappin, Patrick Deneen, Sohrab Ahmari, Chad Pecknold) and Philosophers Anti-Liberal and Anti-Progressive Writer in Claremont Institute and America’s Greatness website – Trump represented a new way to achieve old purposes. Instead of encouraging Republican presidents to fight within a liberal framework against the unalterable drift of the country, including its government and culture, toward the secular left, Conservatives may promote a project of political and cultural subversion that will seek to destroy the liberal framework itself. .

The problem with America’s conservative forms of the past, which these writers have believed for more than half a decade, is that they accept the validity of liberal assumptions – even if, as in the case of of Neuhaus, they reinterpreted them in Catholic-Christian terms. No wonder conservatives always lose and pessimism has become the order of the day.

Trump has opened up another path. The morally decadent real estate mogul and reality show star who bragged about sexually assaulting and cheating on his third wife with a porn actress couldn’t model one. better way in existing system. But he could work to dismantle the “administrative state” that uses government power to enforce liberal rules and regulations. He can aim rhetorical fire at elite political, legal, cultural, and economic institutions to rally masses to oppose their rule. He can defy the reigning consensus of bending history for justice to be defined in liberal-progressive terms.

Here’s how Trump’s idea of ​​electoral success was inspired: He (or a populist successor) can finally give conservatives their chance – not by slowing down. an inevitable march of the secular left that, by razing entire libertarian edifices, makes it possible for society to return on the right footing of conservatism.

That’s how Donald Trump gives hope to the most pessimistic conservatives – by convincing them that they don’t need to accept the existing arrangement of things as a given. Trump inspired them to be radical, even revolutionary, while maintaining their moral beliefs about the rational order of society. Now, those beliefs both fuel the nascent revolutionary spirit and serve as a guide to a post-revolutionary future, when conservatives are expected to gain the upper hand and ultimately will prevail over their opponents.

What happens next for these conservative intellectuals? Are they willing to offer unconditional support for another Trump running for the White House, despite his treacherous words and deeds in the two months following the 2020 election? Are there any lies from the potentially reinstated candidate or president that could prove to be deal-breakers? Any behavior or policy that is considered to bridge too far? Or will they be willing to do anything in exchange for the president’s promise to crush their notorious enemy, the liberal-progressive regime that now rules America?

We will soon find out the answers to these daunting questions.