The American New Right Looks Like the European Old Right: When conservatives reject constitutional limits on executive power and foment civil conflict, what exactly are they conserving? (Jack Nicastro and Phillip W. Magness, 9.26.2025, reason)
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Illustration featuring (left to right) Auron MacIntyre, Curtis Yarvin, Carl Schmitt, Yoram Hazony, and Darryl Cooper | The Auron Macintyre Show, Tucker Carlson / YouTube, Illustration by Adani Samat
(The Auron Macintyre Show, Tucker Carlson / YouTube, Illustration by Adani Samat)
There was a time when the American right was conservative: appreciative of inherited wisdom, skeptical of rationalism, wary of excessive government power, and against radical change. Exemplified by figures like William Buckley Jr. and Ronald Reagan, American conservatism is, in the words of The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg, a political philosophy that defends “the revolutionary ideals of classical liberalism.”The New Right is not interested in defending these distinctively American ideals. Drawing instead on collectivist, nationalist, and even monarchist traditions from continental Europe, this New Right seeks to wield the tools of government to advance its own social, cultural, and religious priorities. For years, the New Right, by its own admission, has rejected the tenets of classical liberalism, including individual liberty, mutual toleration, and limited government. But, following the recent assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, the New Right has doubled down on its authoritarian tendencies by reviving the cultural teachings of Carl Schmitt, one of Nazi Germany’s chief legal minds.
Not only is the Right’s ideology anti-conservative and anti-American, it’s anti-Christian.