April 29, 2020
nATIONALISM IS NOT cONSERVATIVE:
Who's a conservative?: A vigorous debate is under way about the future of the right -- and it is a mistake to question its survival (Oliver Wiseman, May 2020, The Critic)
What is left of the American conservatism tradition has, he argues, "acquired a reputation as both noxious and intellectually disreputable". It's hard not to see Bacevich's point. Take a look at the agenda for CPAC, the annual conservative gathering that has become a festival of shockjockerry and Trump worship. Or consider the ideological gymnastics many on the right are willing to perform to keep up with the president's political whims. This is the motley crew from which Bacevich (right) claims to be doing the reclaiming.Bacevich says American Conservatism is representative of only the "best" conservative writing of the twentieth century according to his own prejudices. Those prejudices include hostility to much of US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Bacevich, who is president of the anti-intervention Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, was even mentioned by Politico as a left-field choice for Secretary of Defense in some (extremely premature) speculation about a Bernie Sanders cabinet.Hence his otherwise puzzling decision to exclude neoconservatives from the anthology, something he signposts in the introduction, claiming that, while they "for a time made a considerable impact on the national conversation and even arguably on US foreign policy, they were never genuinely conservative". Confusingly, Bacevich goes on to break his own rule by including an essay by Irving Kristol, the "godfather of neoconservatism".Elsewhere, he is ecumenical enough to include liberals like New Republic founder Walter Lippmann, free-range libertarians like Murray Rothbard, and writers who eschew easy categorisation like Wendell Berry and Joan Didion. The volume is richer for these contributions, and for casting a net beyond the limits of "movement" conservatism. But the exclusion of neoconservative authors is churlish, and will leave readers with an incomplete picture of conservative thought on the American right.That the anthology is steered by Bacevich's conservatism, rather than anything more broadly representative, is clear from the first sentence: "The modern American conservative tradition -- roughly dating from the dawn of the twentieth century -- emerged in reaction to modernity itself." The choice of starting point is eccentric given that conservatism as a self-conscious and organised movement in the United States is very much a postwar phenomenon.
Actually, the overlap of Donald and Mr. Bacevich is the most obvious thing about their politics. Both are essentially isolationist, viewing the West as having no interest in nor obligation to extend democracy to captive peoples. The quarrel with the neocons is at best just a matter of their desire to go to war with Iran, at worst has whiffs of anti-Semitism. Of course, the opposition to W's WoT generally is largely Islamophobic, reflecting a belief that Muslims are incapable of or uninterested in democracy.
This sort of isolationism/Realism has always been a part of the right, especially the Continental Right, but since the turn of the 20th Century has been even more marginal than in the past. After all, Churchill was a leader of WWI, WWII and the Cold War, the last of which was driven by American conservatives, and W began the process of democratizing the Middle East after 9-11. And, nevermind just Conservatives, Donald is the first American president to embrace totalitarianism over democracy promotion since at least late-era Nixon/Kissinger.
One suspects that Mr. Bacevich's real objection is seeing his reflection in Donald.
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 29, 2020 12:00 AM