Conservatism

November 02, 2023

Can We Unlearn Race?

This three-part series on race and the right began with a look at some truly telling statistics about how badly American conservatives are doing at taking on racial issues. Politically, 85% of Republican voters are white—the most racially homogeneous the party’s been since 2016 and the rise of Donald Trump. Continue Reading...

September 28, 2023

The Right’s Racial Suicide

“To be conservative,” wrote Michael Oakeshott, “is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery.” His definition of conservatism, not as a set of policy aspirations but as a deeper sensibility, explains the conservative respect for tradition and view of history as a source of norms—that’s the positive side. Continue Reading...

July 26, 2023

Young People Aren’t Becoming Conservatives. Here’s Why.

Almost everyone has heard the cynical political adage, generally attributed to Winston Churchill, that “Any man under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart, and any man over 30 who is not a conservative has no brains.” Continue Reading...

February 16, 2022

Why we need more O’Rourke Conservatives

So by now you’ve heard that P.J. O’Rourke, journalist, essayist, and, of course, humorist, has died at the age of 74. Those who knew him and those who read him have been pouring out encomia like so much best-for-last wine. Continue Reading...

November 16, 2021

“Political Catholicism,” liberalism, and the myth of neutrality

On Twitter and in essays at The American Conservative, Sohrab Ahmari has argued that the debates about liberalism, post-liberalism, and integralism are “exhausted,” and that what he calls “political Catholics” are taking “these battles in other, more concrete dimensions.” Continue Reading...

October 19, 2021

The political murder of Sir David Amess shines a light on the virtues of public service

The name of Sir David Amess, a Conservative member of the British Parliament for 39 years, was little known in the U.K., and almost certainly not at all known in the United States. Continue Reading...

October 16, 2021

Constitution protects nonprofits despite political activism

A healthy state protects life, secures liberty, and defends property. A totalitarian state does the opposite: it arbitrarily kills, compels, and seizes property. J. D. Vance recently appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson to discuss a verbal altercation between Arizona State University students, one of whom was the recipient of a Ford Foundation fellowship. Continue Reading...

August 24, 2021

An approach to land conservation conservatives should get behind

Some sects of environmentalists are well known for disrupting and interrupting land transactions for the cause of conservation, using whatever legal and regulatory means necessary to control, coerce, or prevent concerted human development. Continue Reading...

June 16, 2021

The necessity of boring politics

Movie audiences experience high emotional engagement when they identify personally with the characters. The same is true in modern American politics, which increasingly have become treated as a source of social identity and entertainment. Continue Reading...

February 22, 2021

Law and morality: not a simple affair

The role of the state, in spheres ranging from public morality to the economy, is one of several axes around which debates about the conservative movement’s future are presently revolving. In a 2020 article, I critiqued common-good constitutionalism for its misreading of how the natural law tradition treats the role of the state and law vis-à-vis morality. Continue Reading...

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