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dajoki

(10,678 posts) Sun Aug 4, 2019, 11:25 AM Aug 2019

The Coming Scourge of "National Conservatism

The Coming Scourge of "National Conservatism
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/85899

From Will Wilkinson, an eminently thoughtful analysis of the growing threat of "national conservatism," which one could fairly label as Trumpism 2.0, with a significantly added touch of augmented fascism.

(For those unfamiliar with this latest lunatic ism., from a pro-national conservatism piece, "The Preference for State Control," the author unembarrassingly describes its Teutonic origins: "When you consider the various proposals of the national conservatives, it certainly seems like they embrace a right-wing version of the Prussian model that was successfully appropriated by the Left a century ago" — such as Bismarck's national healthcare program and workers' compensation? "Those who identify as national conservatives may bristle at this label, but it is a fair characterization. Empowering the state to advance a concrete vision of the common good, guided by enlightened statesmen with the right set of social values" — I love that term: 'the right set of social values' — "is the hallmark of the Germanic policy sciences."

Counters Wilkinson:

"Barack Obama claimed resounding victory in two presidential elections on the strength of a genuinely conservative conception of pluralistic American identity that embraced and celebrated America as it exists…. The nationalist’s nostalgic whitewashed fantasy vision of American national identity cannot be restored, because it never existed. What they seek to impose is fundamentally hostile to a nation forged in the defining American struggle for equal freedom, and we become who we are as we struggle against them. Whether couched in vulgarities or professorial prose, reactionary nationalism is seditious, anti-patriotic loathing of America hiding behind a flag — our flag."

This pernicious, ultimately post-Trump movement of national conservatism is championed by such intellectual luminaries as Puckered Carlson, John Bolton, Michael Barone, Yuval Levin, Rich Lowry, and Amity Shales, a purported Great Depression historian who doesn't know the 1930s from the 1300s. I've read her, and it was painful. But such minds travel together, reassuring one another of their superior intellects and higher visions of a greater America, one in which the pledge of allegiance, written by a socialist, is addressed to a small, red-white-and-black corner of the American flag.

National conservatism is no more of a joke to be laughed off than was Donald Trump. It's the next iteration of Goldwater conservatism, Reagan conservatism, Gingrich conservatism, and now Trumpian unconservative-fascism. It's real, and it's coming

3 replies

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The Coming Scourge of "National Conservatism (Original Post) dajoki Aug 2019 OP

Sounds too close to National Socialism.... aka NAZI........ nt mitch96 Aug 2019 #1

Me too; K&R with a 5th recommendation real Cannabis calm Aug 2019 #2

Odd that the "Edmund Burke Foundation" (est. Jan 2019 in USA), behind that National Conservatism muriel_volestrangler Aug 2019 #3

mitch96

(13,925 posts)

1. Sounds too close to National Socialism.... aka NAZI........ nt

Reply to dajoki (Original post)

Sun Aug 4, 2019, 11:39 AM

Aug 2019

real Cannabis calm

(1,124 posts)

2. Me too; K&R with a 5th recommendation

Reply to mitch96 (Reply #1)

Sun Aug 4, 2019, 12:25 PM

Aug 2019

muriel_volestrangler

(101,361 posts)

3. Odd that the "Edmund Burke Foundation" (est. Jan 2019 in USA), behind that National Conservatism

Reply to dajoki (Original post)

Sun Aug 4, 2019, 03:14 PM

Aug 2019

website and conference that is discussed, chose the same name as the Dutch Edmund Burke Foundation (est. 2000), which already has the Wikipedia page. Another critique of the 'National Conservatism' conference:

This simple truth, and national conservatives’ will to elide it, were both reflected in the conference’s keynote speech by Missouri senator Josh Hawley. Hawley has established himself as national conservatism’s most vigorous proponent on Capitol Hill. Unlike other Republicans who have gestured toward the new consensus, Hawley has put economically heterodox legislation where his mouth is. But for all his avowed concern with America’s descent into “faction” (and broadly resonant critiques of concentrated capital), Hawley has no interest in unifying our actually existing nation, only the traditionalist one that lives in red America’s nostalgic imagination.
...
The idea that there is no great divide between red and blue America rings false when voiced by Third Way Democrats. Coming from a politician like Hawley — who wants to outlaw all forms of abortion, defund sanctuary cities, and combat Nike’s attack on American values — it’s patently absurd. The “leadership elite” aren’t the only ones who oppose Hawley’s vision for the country, and “the broad middle of our society” isn’t unified behind it.

To camouflage this reality, Hawley uses variations on the phrase “the American middle” to conflate our nation’s broad middle-class with the conservative-leaning, geographic middle of the country. He then implies that social liberalism is an esoteric ethos unique to those at the very top of America’s socioeconomic hierarchy. Together, these two moves allow him to recast the red-blue culture war as a populist conflict between the many and the few:
...
Here, Hawley suggests that the only Americans who prioritize social change over tradition — or their careers over tending to the communities they were born into — are cosmopolitan elites who “run businesses or oversee universities”; in reality, this describes the lion’s share of Americans who work in urban-based businesses, or graduate from universities. He then suggests that no American “whose labor sustains this nation” or “whose sacrifices protect our republic” has been well-served by “social libertationism.” Which makes sense if one pretends that only Davos attendees disagree with conservatives on abortion and LGBT rights. If one acknowledges that there are some feminists in the United States who work for a living, or that there are LGBTQ individuals who serve in the armed forces, Hawley’s assertion becomes absurd. When the senator says that the cosmopolitan elite “regard our inherited traditions as oppressive,” it is plain that the “we” he speaks for is only “the great American middle” if that term is a synonym for conservative Christians.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/josh-hawley-national-conservatism-social-cohesion.html

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