Last week David Azerrad posted on American Mind a detailed critique of the ‘statement of principles” issued by Freedom Conservatism, a movement that came into existence this summer. David recognized in his subjects the remnants of a desiccated Reaganism, from whence arose the Never Trump persuasion. Almost all signatories to the document have been outspoken opponents of the former president and profoundly upset by the rise of the populist Right. Most of their rhetoric has an unmistakably shop-worn appearance. “Fiscal sustainability,” “American exceptionalness,” “the shining city on a hill,” “a nation of immigrants,” and ”immigration is a driver of prosperity” are among the document’s less than inspiring tropes.
Most striking about this apparent appeal to “principle” is the striking insincerity of much of what is affirmed. The statement expresses support for what the signatories are not likely to bring about or perhaps are not even interested in giving us. They are not exactly itching to restore our traditional constitutional freedoms and fiscal integrity. Instead, they are really focused on combatting what they designate as “authoritarianism” at home and abroad. The signatories are also high on America’s “distinctive creed,” which is now being allegedly challenged from both right and left. The struggle against authoritarianism abroad, I take it, is a call for more military engagements in the name of “democratic” values. Perhaps our “distinctive creed” is also a call to arms, whatever else it may be.
What we are offered are warmed-over neoconservative positions, plus the promise of returning us to some Reaganite golden age, presumably with due recognition of LGBT and other socially leftist victories that have been achieved since the 1980s. Not at all surprisingly, Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, and Bill Kristol’s surrogate and son-in-law, Matthew Continetti, are featured prominently among the statement’s endorsers. Equally present are the signatures of such reliable neocons as Mona Charen, George Will, Charlie Sykes, and Noah Rothman.
Although I may have picked on him once too often, I find it remarkable that one of the statement’s signatories, Jonah Goldberg, still pretends to be some kind of libertarian. Jonah, as David easily shows, was a longtime supporter of affirmative action for blacks; and he became obviously annoyed, when Rand Paul complained that the Public Accommodations Clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 led to an attack on freedom of association. I’ve no idea what concept of freedom Goldberg and others who signed this document embrace. But for me freedom means freedom of association and the absence of government social engineering. For them, however, freedom may mean enhancing the influence of the pre-Trump Republican establishment.
We are also given the impression that anyone to the right of where the signatories have placed themselves has stumbled into right-wing extremism. What evidence is there that the populists (who may be the true target here) and those struggling American workers whom populists defend but whom Kevin Williamson, another signatory, wishes to see dead, are not perfectly law-abiding, responsible Americans? Of course, we and our friends may see the world differently from some of the better-connected signatories. After all, we don’t run a large Washington think tank; nor are we exactly welcomed as dignitaries at National Review.
Perhaps the single most unsettling part of the statement, and here I must echo David, is its palpable indifference to antiwhite racism, that is, the racism that is deeply embedded in our popular culture, universities, government hiring practices, and publishing world. For example, the statement lets us know that we must pay a “promissory note,” as Martin Luther King phrased it, to make up for the cumulative sins committed over many generations by white Americans: “Many who descend from victims of this system now face economic and personal hurdles that are the direct result of this legacy. We commit to expanding opportunity for those who face challenges due to past government restrictions on individual and economic freedom.”
Although the signatories claim to “adamantly oppose racial discrimination in all its forms, either against or for any person or group of people,” they are clearly avoiding the obvious here. Shall we assume that the signatories are unaware of the raging explicit antiwhite bigotry that pollutes our society and the difficulty of rooting it out, given how relentlessly our two national parties but particularly the Democrats promote it? Perhaps it is not ignorance that has caused this apparent oversight. “Freedom Conservatives” are reaching leftward in search of new allies because their present enemy is the surging populist Right. Since the Left plays up white racism, “freedom conservatives,” as their would-be allies, are making similar noises.
It is hard for me to find anything, except perhaps MSM rants against racism, sexism, and homophobia, that is quite as stupefying as this statement of principles. This is the soporific response of the well-heeled Washington Republican establishment to those on the right who scorn its rule. As punishment for our resistance, our would-be leaders are flooding us with platitudes that should have been retired eons ago.
These “Freedom Conservatives” are nothing more than cuckholds for the establishment. They run interference for the globalist one-world autocrats, rationalize for black-supremacist racists and their paramilitary arm, BLM, and smugly condescend to those American conservatives who truly value freedom.
Although I detest leftists and consider them little more than demonic orcs in human form, my visceral contempt for these establishment apologists knows no limit.
I read this “Freedom Conservatism” screed last week and thought all it was was the same discredited nonsense but with new buzzwords.
“…the remnants of a desiccated Reaganism…”. I’m glad he added the qualifier because Reagan would have nothing to do with them. They don’t even qualify for “pale pastel” status.
“Nation of immigrants” and immigration driving prosperity are both palpable, self-evident, loads of crap. But American Exceptionalism, hated and misunderstood most intensely by Obama, is an essential concept. “The shining city on a hill” is a concept with which we all innately agree. It’s the reason that lawlessness and degradation of our cultural norms cut us so deeply. Fiscal responsibility, I’m convinced, appeals to nobody in Washington. The few that talk about it and fight for it are treated as pariahs, mocked, ostracized, and starved of party campaign funding. Democrats and RINOS have both set out to destroy our currency and enslave our posterity. Even the Trump administration’s record on this was terrible. (In fairness, he never really claimed it would be a priority.) That these insincere grifters (freedom conservatives) pay lip service to it doesn’t mean it’s not critical. It’s about to become front-burner issue #1 again as our globalist enemies, mostly domestic, come with their alleged magic bullet “great reset” which is nothing more than the digital pen into which they have always wanted to herd us.
It was really difficult to be Reagan in 1981. The only media not openly hostile to Reagan and his voters was National Review. That’s it. That’s the list. It’s a damn shame that these men without chests were NR’s heirs. Talk about desiccated. It, and it’s bastard-child spin-offs are irrelevant. But their insincere mentioning of these three concepts in their unimportant document doesn’t mean we shouldn’t rededicate ourselves to fighting for them sincerely and ruthlessly. We may not be able to stop them from invoking Reagan’s name, but we can ram some real Reaganism down their throats so hard they no longer want to.
Is there a ceiling on failing upward? What, in your opinion, will “trigger” the public’s rejection of the class?
Good question. My first blush, sarcastic answer is when have the sheep ever revolted over being sheared?
But upon reflection–assuming the frogs (us) don’t boil first in the ever increasingly hot water–is that hubris has always been the fatal flaw of tyrants and despots. Yes, incompetence can certainly be a mortal failing, but usually the intoxication of power, combined with the perceived invincibility against reprisal usually results in mistakes. And those mistakes lead to collapse.
Read this the other day. Good stuff.