This article crystalizes my transition from libertarian conservative to fusionist conservative to Burkean postliberal.
To the neo-cons like Thomas Howes and his Reagan Caucus (why not just name your group "zombie Reaganism"?) I have a simple question... In the 50 years you've controlled the GOP, what have you conserved?
The answer is "nothing". You and the liberals have collaborated on open borders for both goods and people and decimating American jobs and families. The only separation between you is minor differences in government spending and tax structure. Both of you agree that the only sacred thing in America is "maximal individual autonomy" -- the Right divinizes money while the Left features ever more bizarre sexual fetishizes, but both are 2 sides of the same Enlightenment-liberal coin.
Locke's value neutral state was always an illusion, built on a pre-existing Judeo-Christian moral order it could neither derive nor defend. Enlightenment liberalism has reached the end of liberationist course. It has removed every unchosen constraint and structure that might limit each person's freedom, and it destroyed society in the process. It makes complete sense that its last gasp would be the assertion of "trans rights"; human biology is the ultimate unchosen constraint, so liberalism's dominion was always fated to end in a war on human nature. It is humanity's sinful nature that causes oppression and injustice, so to liberate people we must destroy their humanity.
The fact that this make total sense from within liberalism, is why I finally gave up on it.
Note, that doesn't mean I've given up on the Republican Party. J.D. Vance's speech last night sealed the Party's transition: "the GOP will no longer be the party of Wall Street but of the working man". Translation: zombie-Reaganism is dead. The Democrats have embraced postliberalism in the form of wokeness and DEI; the GOP may finally be ready to do the same.
I lean slightly Freecon. I don’t believe that freedom is the ultimate value; justice is more ultimate. But to make the state act justly, you need to restrain it from acting unjustly; so you need constitutions, bills of rights, and independent judiciaries. So to keep justice, you need some freedom!
Francis Fukuyama, no libertarian , has said that all forms of government, apart from eternal vigilance, tend to degenerate to “patrimonialism,” I e crony capitalism; so the central issue of political science is how to slow or stop this process.
Also, I differ with even some Freecons in insisting that “limited government” (this doesn’t have to be the same as SMALL government) applies at all levels: to the state house, city hall, and perhaps even the Home Owners’ Association. It’s state all the way down! The authority of parents over children, and of business and property owners over employees and customers, has different teloi than that of the state, and therefore dos not have the same limits.
Behind these political factions are donors. My suspicion, having no insider information, is that the more libertarian faction is being backed by activist billionaire donors like Charles Koch, for whom libertarianism less about their business interests and more about ideology, while the more moderate "Trumpist" faction is being backed by more traditional corporate lobbies, who still care about the bottom line and are more invested in the material well-being of the country. See the 2016 Theda Skocpol article "The Koch Network and Republican Party Extremism".
A lot of corporate leaders know that if the Libertarian Party platform was enacted (40% cuts to federal spending, total deregulation of everything) the economy would collapse. Charles Koch could then go off to live on an island somewhere, but a local business owner with like $10M and 50 employees can't. A little Keynesianism could be good for the overall economy, a little protectionism could be good for certain industries, and a little welfarism could stop these working class, social security-loving MAGA voters from going over to the left. Among intellectuals, right-wingers with more moderate views on economics are often religious conservatives (like Bozell) or nationalists (like Buchanan). Hence you get the more moderate, but still conservative, corporate leaders backing social conservative and nationalist intellectuals, along with secular intellectuals with more moderate, but still conservative, views (Cass).
These factions are not well defined and a second Trump term, or a Vance term, would be a mix of a these influences, and probably incoherent in a lot of ways, just like the first Trump term. Take the "all tariff" tax plan recently discussed by the Trump campaign. Its a way to smuggle the Fair Tax (a Koch proposal) back into the discussion by portraying it as a protectionist measure. With a Kochist GOP Congress, it might end up on Trump's desk as the Fair Tax (i.e. a flat sales tax) with a small, unrelated tariff attached.
This article crystalizes my transition from libertarian conservative to fusionist conservative to Burkean postliberal.
To the neo-cons like Thomas Howes and his Reagan Caucus (why not just name your group "zombie Reaganism"?) I have a simple question... In the 50 years you've controlled the GOP, what have you conserved?
The answer is "nothing". You and the liberals have collaborated on open borders for both goods and people and decimating American jobs and families. The only separation between you is minor differences in government spending and tax structure. Both of you agree that the only sacred thing in America is "maximal individual autonomy" -- the Right divinizes money while the Left features ever more bizarre sexual fetishizes, but both are 2 sides of the same Enlightenment-liberal coin.
Locke's value neutral state was always an illusion, built on a pre-existing Judeo-Christian moral order it could neither derive nor defend. Enlightenment liberalism has reached the end of liberationist course. It has removed every unchosen constraint and structure that might limit each person's freedom, and it destroyed society in the process. It makes complete sense that its last gasp would be the assertion of "trans rights"; human biology is the ultimate unchosen constraint, so liberalism's dominion was always fated to end in a war on human nature. It is humanity's sinful nature that causes oppression and injustice, so to liberate people we must destroy their humanity.
The fact that this make total sense from within liberalism, is why I finally gave up on it.
Note, that doesn't mean I've given up on the Republican Party. J.D. Vance's speech last night sealed the Party's transition: "the GOP will no longer be the party of Wall Street but of the working man". Translation: zombie-Reaganism is dead. The Democrats have embraced postliberalism in the form of wokeness and DEI; the GOP may finally be ready to do the same.
I lean slightly Freecon. I don’t believe that freedom is the ultimate value; justice is more ultimate. But to make the state act justly, you need to restrain it from acting unjustly; so you need constitutions, bills of rights, and independent judiciaries. So to keep justice, you need some freedom!
Francis Fukuyama, no libertarian , has said that all forms of government, apart from eternal vigilance, tend to degenerate to “patrimonialism,” I e crony capitalism; so the central issue of political science is how to slow or stop this process.
Also, I differ with even some Freecons in insisting that “limited government” (this doesn’t have to be the same as SMALL government) applies at all levels: to the state house, city hall, and perhaps even the Home Owners’ Association. It’s state all the way down! The authority of parents over children, and of business and property owners over employees and customers, has different teloi than that of the state, and therefore dos not have the same limits.
Behind these political factions are donors. My suspicion, having no insider information, is that the more libertarian faction is being backed by activist billionaire donors like Charles Koch, for whom libertarianism less about their business interests and more about ideology, while the more moderate "Trumpist" faction is being backed by more traditional corporate lobbies, who still care about the bottom line and are more invested in the material well-being of the country. See the 2016 Theda Skocpol article "The Koch Network and Republican Party Extremism".
A lot of corporate leaders know that if the Libertarian Party platform was enacted (40% cuts to federal spending, total deregulation of everything) the economy would collapse. Charles Koch could then go off to live on an island somewhere, but a local business owner with like $10M and 50 employees can't. A little Keynesianism could be good for the overall economy, a little protectionism could be good for certain industries, and a little welfarism could stop these working class, social security-loving MAGA voters from going over to the left. Among intellectuals, right-wingers with more moderate views on economics are often religious conservatives (like Bozell) or nationalists (like Buchanan). Hence you get the more moderate, but still conservative, corporate leaders backing social conservative and nationalist intellectuals, along with secular intellectuals with more moderate, but still conservative, views (Cass).
These factions are not well defined and a second Trump term, or a Vance term, would be a mix of a these influences, and probably incoherent in a lot of ways, just like the first Trump term. Take the "all tariff" tax plan recently discussed by the Trump campaign. Its a way to smuggle the Fair Tax (a Koch proposal) back into the discussion by portraying it as a protectionist measure. With a Kochist GOP Congress, it might end up on Trump's desk as the Fair Tax (i.e. a flat sales tax) with a small, unrelated tariff attached.