This is why I call myself right-wing or reactionary, and shy away from the word "conservative." Obviously, I have no desire to "conserve" the liberal status quo.
>The whole point of conservatism is that the robustness of institutions matters more than individual policies, that major institutional disruption isn’t worth a few slightly better things.<
My viewpoint is that policy matters most above basically everything else. The point of institutions is to arrive at good policy! If the policy output is consistently wrong, the institutions must be reformed or demolished. This isn't complicated.
I also disagree with the notion that "living in the most prosperous time in history" means anything at all when it comes to people's political priorities. Yes, obviously, in some ways, it's better to be alive today than at any other time in history--the easiest example is the downright magical levels of technology available to the average person today, things that were pure science fiction within living memory.
This fact by itself has no relevance to whether or not one opposes evil things happening. Suppose for instance that someone had the ability to provide us with magic-level technological advances as described above, but in exchange for sharing this knowledge, he demands that he be allowed to rape virgins all day long. Would it make any sense at all for someone to pretend that the latter isn't evil simply because it is a condition associated with the former? No, obviously not. Even if you took his deal, you would still obviously prefer that he not rape people.
Perhaps an easier example here is the shrimp dilemma. Obviously, in times past, people had neither the ability nor the incentive to torture shrimp to death on such a mass scale as is done today! And you wouldn't accept "well you're living the most prosperous time in history" as some kind of excuse for why you aren't allowed to care about the well-being of those shrimp.
The conservative response would be, yes, change is sometimes necessary, but given how difficult it is to make good change, it is always beat to have evolution, not revolution.
On your second point, about evil, that only applies to a small subset of present issues and institutions. A big mistake MAGA-ites are making is to turn everything into a moral issue, so rather than say, eg, the FDA isn’t doing a good job, it’s “they’ve been taken over by evil people with a shadowy agenda!” … which invites a burn-it-down response rather than “so let’s fix it.”
With respect, I think you are conflating a practical evaluation ("is this institution doing the thing it's supposed to do?") with an ideological evaluation ("is what this institution does right and proper in the free society we want?").
I don't think that distinction is important. When Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds, it was evil. The fact that "the iraqi military as an institution was doing the thing it was supposed to do" doesn't make it not evil.
Practical evaluation: "Did the gassing have the military effect Saddam wanted?"
Moral evaluation: "Was it wrong?"
They're completely different. And of course you're right that an affirmative answer to the former question wouldn't change the answer to the second question. But I didn't suggest it should, so....?
And by the way, every time I mention this, I get lots of MAGA sorts responding with "hell yeah it should ALL be burned down!!!" Not a lot of "let's make this work" there....
A lot of that is kayfabe. Notice that no one who voted for Trump is upset that he's actually nominating people to head these agencies instead of declaring that he'll simply abolish them somehow.
I would also say there is a serious cause for "burning it down" with some parts of the government but that's a separate topic.
If I appoint the town arsonist to head the fire department, the message is pretty clearly not "the status quo will be maintained but improved." And let's not forget he has Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy promising to make one-third of the federal budget go poof! somehow. I'm pretty sure "the status quo will be maintained by improved" is not an option in that approach.
Again, you're representing the MAGA perspective incorrectly. Many MAGA people actually think RFK Jr will do a better job promoting public health than whoever Kamala Harris would've appointed. Your arsonist comparison translates to Trump nominating someone who promises to actively spread disease to head HHS. Even if that's how you see RFK Jr, that's not how Trump voters see him.
Yeah, that's one of the more reasonable nominations. If they were all like that, I'd withdraw the whole argument. But RFK Jr? Are you kidding? The main has spent his whole career opposing what "the establishment" supports. And the head of the CDC? Is a big vaccines-cause-autism guy. And appoint a literal apologist for Putin and Assad Director of National Intelligence?! I could go on (MATT GOETZ?!?) but I think the point is clear.
“Trump’s reaction to Chesterton’s fence would be to Tweet “Totally Failed and Corrupt fence put up by the Democrats must be Put Down. Make America Great Again.”” is a great line! It’s funny because it’s true. Well done.
Great article. I’d argue neoconservatism was also not conservative. “Even if this country has an absolutely monstrous government, invading and occupying it could easily make things way worse, so we shouldn’t do that unless we absolutely have to” should be obvious to anyone, and especially to people who are supposed to appreciate the importance and fragility of the social order. I can’t find it now but I remember Christopher Hitchens wrote a column criticizing left-wing opponents of the Iraq War for embracing a conservative focus on stability as fundamentally valuable. Which is a great example of how even when he was totally wrong on the merits, Hitchens still had a talent for identifying and clarifying what was at stake in any debate. Fortunately Republicans seem to have realized that neoconservative policy is often very reckless, but now they’re mainly embracing Trumpism which is also reckless. Maybe after Trump finishes his term or dies the Republican Party can become a genuine voice of caution committed to preserving institutions.
I had just been planning to write a Substack article about this too.
The Trump administration has also been highly unconservative on reducing the deficit, defense hawkishness (isolationist rather than interventionist), entitlement spending, and trade policy (protectionist rather than free trade). Trump personally is also not very pro-life.
I think it's the least conservative Republican administration of the modern era.
Isolationism and protectionism are historically conservative positions, though, it's only relatively recently with the advent of neoconservatism and neoliberalism that the right became associated with interventionism and free trade. So in this regard Trump is returning us to a conservative state of affairs.
Conservatives didn’t tear down the fence though, that was liberals. Conservatives are just tearing down the crappy fence that was built by liberals to maintain the liberal order which was originally overthrown in the 20th century.
I think the conservative counterargument would be that our current institutions have been ideologically captured by a movement that is highly receptive to any shifting of the Overton window to the left.t
Chesterton's fence is just a demand to know why the fence is there. In DC most of the fences are clearly there just to enrich special interests and pay a coalition of leftwing footsoldiers. Those fences can be safely torn down.
Yes, conservatism has been a complete failure for the right. They have lost institutions so badly that at this rate, the institutions they are trying to conserve are progressive. You need someone to crash through these institutions to break that progressive power stranglehold if you want any breath of air for a right wing political project.
Honestly, I cringe to hear someone call themselves a conservative. Like, what the fuck are you wanting to conserve? Dead documents that the state has long found work arounds for?
Of course you lament the old conservatives no longer being relevant. Because they conserved nothing, and were the Washington Generals of politics. What you're really afraid of is your view losing.
"Then he attempted a coup." Lol. The sitting commander in chief of the most powerful military on earth attempted a coup utilizing an unarmed, disorganized mob. This is why no one takes you retards seriously.
I think most Trump supporters would agree with this assessment, but with the values inverted.
They support Trump precisely because things are NOT going well. Things are so bad that adherence to the old norms is no longer important. We need a strongman who will shake things up.
The correct way to model most Trump supporters' psychology is cult fanaticism.
Trump cuts taxes then creates the largest budget deficit of any President pre covid.
He promises to build the wall then fails at getting any border legislation passed with Republican control of both houses of Congress.
He tries to cut Obamacare, fails, then tries to take credit for preserving preexisting conditions coverage.
He says the 2020 election is stolen and fails to get any state to authorize alternate electors, loses 60+ lawsuits, and all his accomplices argue in court that they weren't making statements of fact when talking about election fraud or that they had a first amendment right to lie about it.
He negotiates NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, then says in a Bloomberg interview that actually we should tariff Mexico 20% because they're making cheaper cars there.
He says his foreign policy plans are secrets that he can't reveal.
Trump is just a plain retard and there is very little salvageable from his rhetoric and actions that doesn't make modern Trump supporters look like cultists. His only condition is that you support him no matter what he does, which is the sad, pathetic, and schizophrenic state the Republican party is in nowadays.
Trump had the most hawkish border policy in decades. This was done through a state of emergency and executive orders rather than legislation. e.g. Remain in Mexico policy. Thousands of miles of border fence were built.
Trump did not negotiate NAFTA. NAFTA was in place since the 1990s. Trump ran as a free trade skeptic, which is how he governed.
Trump pushed against the fiscally conservative faction of the Republican party, which is why he run such a large budget deficit. He did not run as a fiscal conservative, in fact he has run as the opposite, explicitly promising not to cut social security.
I don't even agree with all of those policy positions, but to say that Trump had no effect on policy is inaccurate.
>Trump had the most hawkish border policy in decades. This was done through a state of emergency and executive orders rather than legislation
EOs that were only lawful due to covid. And failing to do something through legislation is bad, especially when your party controls both houses of Congress. Trump sowed so much division and chaos that he couldn't get Obamacare repealed or pass any border legislation despite running on those issues.
>Remain in Mexico policy
When Biden rescinded the policy it only let in 25,000 people. It was not an effective policy to curving illegal immigration, although yes it was net positive in reducing immigration.
>Trump did not negotiate NAFTA.
You are correct, NAFTA expired and Trump renegotiated it into the USMCA United States Mexico Canada Agreement. Now he wants to tariff both those countries.
>Trump pushed against the fiscally conservative faction of the Republican party, which is why he run such a large budget deficit
Which is stupid not in and of itself, but because he also issued tax cuts, unless you think he literally just wants to maximize the deficit.
>to say that Trump had no effect on policy is inaccurate
It's not that he had no effect, but that he contradicts himself at every step. He has no coherent vision for the country, and so neither do his supporters. They support him because he's a cult leader. If they wanted someone to shake things up they would have voted for Vivek who ran on dismantling government bureaucracy. If they wanted a competent strongman they would have voted for DeSantis who has a history of successful legislative stunts in Florida against wokeness and big corps like Disney. Trump and his supporters don't care what Trump does, just that their cult leader is out acting retarded as usual, otherwise they would be at least a little outraged when Trump engages in self sabotage due to his demeanor and inability to lead the nation.
The 4 years of Biden are the most prosperous time ever,except the previous 4 years the people want to go back to,with lower crime,inflation,wars and less religious institutions
I’m happy you wrote this. I will say two things. First, many of these agencies are new, and hence do not really fall under “Chesterton’s Fence.” Moreover, the conservative wants the tried and tested, the familiar to the unfamiliar, but not out of inherent respect for institutions, but out of skepticism of the unknown. Knowing that the institution is an utter failure, the conservative is fine with appropriate change. Nonetheless, you are correct that we may be prey to some swooping issues; but skepticism of rationality and collectivism are all very conservative principles, embodied in the administration.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, are the social aspects. Here, they are assuredly conservative. The party does not wish to strain the institutions of marriage, family, and gender, which have been around for a properly long time. I am not here to argue the point, but to say that surely that is conservative!
This is why I call myself right-wing or reactionary, and shy away from the word "conservative." Obviously, I have no desire to "conserve" the liberal status quo.
>The whole point of conservatism is that the robustness of institutions matters more than individual policies, that major institutional disruption isn’t worth a few slightly better things.<
My viewpoint is that policy matters most above basically everything else. The point of institutions is to arrive at good policy! If the policy output is consistently wrong, the institutions must be reformed or demolished. This isn't complicated.
I also disagree with the notion that "living in the most prosperous time in history" means anything at all when it comes to people's political priorities. Yes, obviously, in some ways, it's better to be alive today than at any other time in history--the easiest example is the downright magical levels of technology available to the average person today, things that were pure science fiction within living memory.
This fact by itself has no relevance to whether or not one opposes evil things happening. Suppose for instance that someone had the ability to provide us with magic-level technological advances as described above, but in exchange for sharing this knowledge, he demands that he be allowed to rape virgins all day long. Would it make any sense at all for someone to pretend that the latter isn't evil simply because it is a condition associated with the former? No, obviously not. Even if you took his deal, you would still obviously prefer that he not rape people.
Perhaps an easier example here is the shrimp dilemma. Obviously, in times past, people had neither the ability nor the incentive to torture shrimp to death on such a mass scale as is done today! And you wouldn't accept "well you're living the most prosperous time in history" as some kind of excuse for why you aren't allowed to care about the well-being of those shrimp.
The conservative response would be, yes, change is sometimes necessary, but given how difficult it is to make good change, it is always beat to have evolution, not revolution.
On your second point, about evil, that only applies to a small subset of present issues and institutions. A big mistake MAGA-ites are making is to turn everything into a moral issue, so rather than say, eg, the FDA isn’t doing a good job, it’s “they’ve been taken over by evil people with a shadowy agenda!” … which invites a burn-it-down response rather than “so let’s fix it.”
We tried to fix it for 80 years and we got nowhere, so at this point burning it all down is the only reasonable response.
Also, the evil actions of the regime involve more than a few side issues.
Civil rights law / affirmative action is evil.
Family court is evil.
Indoctrination of children in public schools is evil.
With respect, I think you are conflating a practical evaluation ("is this institution doing the thing it's supposed to do?") with an ideological evaluation ("is what this institution does right and proper in the free society we want?").
I don't think that distinction is important. When Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds, it was evil. The fact that "the iraqi military as an institution was doing the thing it was supposed to do" doesn't make it not evil.
Practical evaluation: "Did the gassing have the military effect Saddam wanted?"
Moral evaluation: "Was it wrong?"
They're completely different. And of course you're right that an affirmative answer to the former question wouldn't change the answer to the second question. But I didn't suggest it should, so....?
In that case I misunderstood what you were saying. What are you saying?
The Department of Education has only been around since 1980. Education hasn't gotten any better despite it costing much more. Why not burn it down?
Nominating Marty Makary to head the FDA is a move intended to fix it (or at least try to start fixing it).
And by the way, every time I mention this, I get lots of MAGA sorts responding with "hell yeah it should ALL be burned down!!!" Not a lot of "let's make this work" there....
A lot of that is kayfabe. Notice that no one who voted for Trump is upset that he's actually nominating people to head these agencies instead of declaring that he'll simply abolish them somehow.
I would also say there is a serious cause for "burning it down" with some parts of the government but that's a separate topic.
If I appoint the town arsonist to head the fire department, the message is pretty clearly not "the status quo will be maintained but improved." And let's not forget he has Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy promising to make one-third of the federal budget go poof! somehow. I'm pretty sure "the status quo will be maintained by improved" is not an option in that approach.
Again, you're representing the MAGA perspective incorrectly. Many MAGA people actually think RFK Jr will do a better job promoting public health than whoever Kamala Harris would've appointed. Your arsonist comparison translates to Trump nominating someone who promises to actively spread disease to head HHS. Even if that's how you see RFK Jr, that's not how Trump voters see him.
Yeah, that's one of the more reasonable nominations. If they were all like that, I'd withdraw the whole argument. But RFK Jr? Are you kidding? The main has spent his whole career opposing what "the establishment" supports. And the head of the CDC? Is a big vaccines-cause-autism guy. And appoint a literal apologist for Putin and Assad Director of National Intelligence?! I could go on (MATT GOETZ?!?) but I think the point is clear.
You might think the picks are retarded, but from the MAGA perspective, these are also improvements over the status quo.
“Trump’s reaction to Chesterton’s fence would be to Tweet “Totally Failed and Corrupt fence put up by the Democrats must be Put Down. Make America Great Again.”” is a great line! It’s funny because it’s true. Well done.
Great article. I’d argue neoconservatism was also not conservative. “Even if this country has an absolutely monstrous government, invading and occupying it could easily make things way worse, so we shouldn’t do that unless we absolutely have to” should be obvious to anyone, and especially to people who are supposed to appreciate the importance and fragility of the social order. I can’t find it now but I remember Christopher Hitchens wrote a column criticizing left-wing opponents of the Iraq War for embracing a conservative focus on stability as fundamentally valuable. Which is a great example of how even when he was totally wrong on the merits, Hitchens still had a talent for identifying and clarifying what was at stake in any debate. Fortunately Republicans seem to have realized that neoconservative policy is often very reckless, but now they’re mainly embracing Trumpism which is also reckless. Maybe after Trump finishes his term or dies the Republican Party can become a genuine voice of caution committed to preserving institutions.
I had just been planning to write a Substack article about this too.
The Trump administration has also been highly unconservative on reducing the deficit, defense hawkishness (isolationist rather than interventionist), entitlement spending, and trade policy (protectionist rather than free trade). Trump personally is also not very pro-life.
I think it's the least conservative Republican administration of the modern era.
Isolationism and protectionism are historically conservative positions, though, it's only relatively recently with the advent of neoconservatism and neoliberalism that the right became associated with interventionism and free trade. So in this regard Trump is returning us to a conservative state of affairs.
You seem to confuse “conservative” with Reagan/Bush era neocons.
There is nothing inherently un-conservative about an isolationist policy.
One of your best articles!! Well said and thought out.
Conservatives didn’t tear down the fence though, that was liberals. Conservatives are just tearing down the crappy fence that was built by liberals to maintain the liberal order which was originally overthrown in the 20th century.
‘Conservatism’ aka Classical Liberalism must die. I hope you’re correct here.
I think the conservative counterargument would be that our current institutions have been ideologically captured by a movement that is highly receptive to any shifting of the Overton window to the left.t
But the conservative countercounterargument is that even if institutions are suboptimal radical reforms are dangerous.
Yes, it’s “evolution not revolution.”
Chesterton's fence is just a demand to know why the fence is there. In DC most of the fences are clearly there just to enrich special interests and pay a coalition of leftwing footsoldiers. Those fences can be safely torn down.
Yes, conservatism has been a complete failure for the right. They have lost institutions so badly that at this rate, the institutions they are trying to conserve are progressive. You need someone to crash through these institutions to break that progressive power stranglehold if you want any breath of air for a right wing political project.
Honestly, I cringe to hear someone call themselves a conservative. Like, what the fuck are you wanting to conserve? Dead documents that the state has long found work arounds for?
True. They conserved nothing.
MAGA.
Of course you lament the old conservatives no longer being relevant. Because they conserved nothing, and were the Washington Generals of politics. What you're really afraid of is your view losing.
"Then he attempted a coup." Lol. The sitting commander in chief of the most powerful military on earth attempted a coup utilizing an unarmed, disorganized mob. This is why no one takes you retards seriously.
I think most Trump supporters would agree with this assessment, but with the values inverted.
They support Trump precisely because things are NOT going well. Things are so bad that adherence to the old norms is no longer important. We need a strongman who will shake things up.
The correct way to model most Trump supporters' psychology is cult fanaticism.
Trump cuts taxes then creates the largest budget deficit of any President pre covid.
He promises to build the wall then fails at getting any border legislation passed with Republican control of both houses of Congress.
He tries to cut Obamacare, fails, then tries to take credit for preserving preexisting conditions coverage.
He says the 2020 election is stolen and fails to get any state to authorize alternate electors, loses 60+ lawsuits, and all his accomplices argue in court that they weren't making statements of fact when talking about election fraud or that they had a first amendment right to lie about it.
He negotiates NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, then says in a Bloomberg interview that actually we should tariff Mexico 20% because they're making cheaper cars there.
He says his foreign policy plans are secrets that he can't reveal.
Trump is just a plain retard and there is very little salvageable from his rhetoric and actions that doesn't make modern Trump supporters look like cultists. His only condition is that you support him no matter what he does, which is the sad, pathetic, and schizophrenic state the Republican party is in nowadays.
You're misinformed about quite a bit of this.
Trump had the most hawkish border policy in decades. This was done through a state of emergency and executive orders rather than legislation. e.g. Remain in Mexico policy. Thousands of miles of border fence were built.
Trump did not negotiate NAFTA. NAFTA was in place since the 1990s. Trump ran as a free trade skeptic, which is how he governed.
Trump pushed against the fiscally conservative faction of the Republican party, which is why he run such a large budget deficit. He did not run as a fiscal conservative, in fact he has run as the opposite, explicitly promising not to cut social security.
I don't even agree with all of those policy positions, but to say that Trump had no effect on policy is inaccurate.
>Trump had the most hawkish border policy in decades. This was done through a state of emergency and executive orders rather than legislation
EOs that were only lawful due to covid. And failing to do something through legislation is bad, especially when your party controls both houses of Congress. Trump sowed so much division and chaos that he couldn't get Obamacare repealed or pass any border legislation despite running on those issues.
>Remain in Mexico policy
When Biden rescinded the policy it only let in 25,000 people. It was not an effective policy to curving illegal immigration, although yes it was net positive in reducing immigration.
>Trump did not negotiate NAFTA.
You are correct, NAFTA expired and Trump renegotiated it into the USMCA United States Mexico Canada Agreement. Now he wants to tariff both those countries.
>Trump pushed against the fiscally conservative faction of the Republican party, which is why he run such a large budget deficit
Which is stupid not in and of itself, but because he also issued tax cuts, unless you think he literally just wants to maximize the deficit.
>to say that Trump had no effect on policy is inaccurate
It's not that he had no effect, but that he contradicts himself at every step. He has no coherent vision for the country, and so neither do his supporters. They support him because he's a cult leader. If they wanted someone to shake things up they would have voted for Vivek who ran on dismantling government bureaucracy. If they wanted a competent strongman they would have voted for DeSantis who has a history of successful legislative stunts in Florida against wokeness and big corps like Disney. Trump and his supporters don't care what Trump does, just that their cult leader is out acting retarded as usual, otherwise they would be at least a little outraged when Trump engages in self sabotage due to his demeanor and inability to lead the nation.
Disagree about Buckley. He was an opportunist and sometime during the first administration would have come around to supporting Trump.
The 4 years of Biden are the most prosperous time ever,except the previous 4 years the people want to go back to,with lower crime,inflation,wars and less religious institutions
I’m happy you wrote this. I will say two things. First, many of these agencies are new, and hence do not really fall under “Chesterton’s Fence.” Moreover, the conservative wants the tried and tested, the familiar to the unfamiliar, but not out of inherent respect for institutions, but out of skepticism of the unknown. Knowing that the institution is an utter failure, the conservative is fine with appropriate change. Nonetheless, you are correct that we may be prey to some swooping issues; but skepticism of rationality and collectivism are all very conservative principles, embodied in the administration.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, are the social aspects. Here, they are assuredly conservative. The party does not wish to strain the institutions of marriage, family, and gender, which have been around for a properly long time. I am not here to argue the point, but to say that surely that is conservative!
But Trump clearly does. He's just about the most sexually immoral and debaucherous person on the planet!
Bill Clinton hasn't died yet.