Long War

We know the radical right when we see it. Across countries, idioms, and organizational forms, it returns to a familiar cluster of commitments: an organic and essentialized view of the nation, a deep suspicion of pluralism, a taste for hierarchy dressed up as common sense or natural order, and a determination to redraw the boundaries of belonging so that some citizens are always less secure, less legitimate, and less equal than others.

What links a polished electoral machine, a digital grievance ecosystem, and a violent extremist fringe? The fact that they do not share a handbook, but definitely share a political direction. The radical right does not simply propose a tougher immigration policy, a more punitive criminal code, or a more culturally conservative school curriculum. It is not merely offering a policy correction within democratic life. It is advancing a different moral order. Roger Griffin’s definition of palingenetic ultranationalism, first proposed in his 1991 book The Nature of Fascism, captures something essential: The dream of national rebirth is never only rhetorical. It is a project of reconstruction in which the political community is purified, enemies are named, and equal citizenship becomes conditional. Viktor Orbán’s embrace of the so-called illiberal state was not just a constitutional preference; it was an assertion that equality and pluralism should give way to a morally and ethnically homogeneous political community. And when Donald Trump speaks of immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the nation, he isn’t simply escalating campaign rhetoric; he is recasting membership itself in quasi-organic terms, as though the polity were a body to be cleansed rather than a civic compact to be shared.

To be racist is to see peoples of color as eternal immigrants. In 2019, President Trump told four congresswomen of color—three of whom were born in the United States—to “go back” to the “corrupt” and “crime-infested” countries they “originally came from.” Trump’s own paternal grandfather, Friedrich, originally came from Germany in 1885. He traveled back home in 1901 and met his wife, Elisabeth. They moved to the United States together in 1902 and returned to Germany in 1904. They came back to the U.S. for good in 1905—Elisabeth pregnant with Trump’s father, Fred. Trump’s mother, Mary Anne, immigrated from Scotland in 1930. Trump, a son of immigrants. To be racist is to see White people as eternal natives.

What other population could Camus have seen as new to Hérault in 1996, speaking another language, belonging to another culture, another history? White European immigrants. However, Camus melted the differences of these White European immigrants into the pot of White identity. He did not lament their presence in very old houses, walking down very old streets, speaking Spanish or Portuguese or Dutch or English.

Apparently, White immigrants do not signify that the country is changing. Apparently, Camus saw, in White people, those who belong in France—who France is for. Apparently, Camus saw, in Black and Brown peoples, those who do not belong in France—who France is not for.

Concerns about Iran’s activities in Latin America stretch back to the early 1990s, when U.S., Israeli and Argentine authorities blamed the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah for a pair of bombings in Buenos Aires.

The first bombing, in 1992, targeted the Israeli embassy in Argentina’s capital, killing 29 people and injuring 250 others. The second bombing, in 1994, targeted the headquarters of a Jewish community organization known as AMIA, killing 85 people and injuring more than 200 others.

In both cases, the evidence of Iranian and Hezbollah involvement was largely circumstantial. The 1992 bombing allegedly came as retaliation for Israel’s assassination of a Hezbollah leader named Abbas Musawi, and the 1994 bombing purportedly responded to Israel’s bombing of a Hezbollah training camp.

Compelling alternative theories suggested that agents of the Syrian government or Argentine neo-Nazis may have carried out the attacks. But American and Israeli authorities helped their Argentine counterparts build up the Iran theory, even though some officials acknowledged in diplomatic cables that the evidence was thin and the Argentine investigation shoddy.

Painting Iran as a rogue nation sponsoring terrorist attacks in the U.S. backyard bolstered arguments in favor of aggressively constraining the country’s military ambitions and nuclear program to ensure the United States and Israel could maintain the advantage against one of their primary global adversaries.

“They’re sick people, and a lot of them were let in here. They shouldn’t have been let in. Others are just bad. They go bad. Something wrong — there’s something wrong there. The genetics are not exactly, they’re not exactly your genetic,” Trump told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade in an interview released Friday. “It’s one of those problems, Brian. It’s a, it’s a terrible thing, and it happens.”

What is new among the post-liberals is the insistence, first, that liberalism itself is to blame for today’s woes and, second, that the solution requires affirming a public commitment to a more comprehensive view of the common good. In this they hope to correct liberalism’s pretenses to neutrality and the extreme license it gives its citizens. In short, they want to replace liberalism with some new, unifying outlook that better captures and answers man’s natural, moral longings.

The most extreme solution is offered by the Catholic integralists who explicitly seek to subvert “temporal power” (i.e., the state/government) to “spiritual power” (i.e., the Catholic Church). Along similar lines, Patrick Deneen proposes “Aristo-populism” to oust corrupt liberal elites. Add to the bunch National Conservatives, new-age Pentecostals, and Reformed Protestants and it seems that all the cool kids are coming up from liberalism. No solution is agreed upon. But all agree that the regime centered on the protection of individual rights must be replaced by some new system with more intrusive powers to direct our lost souls.

The leaders of this broad coalition are not stupid and, therefore, their arguments should be confronted honestly and given due diligence. But dissuading them from their objectives will require more than pointing out how illiberal, homophobic, or un-democratic they are. Nor will it prove sufficient to point out how unrealistic their aims are in the context of the United States. Movements always begin with foolish hopes. What is needed instead are modern examples of states where similar revolutionary projects have been executed and produced less-than-ideal results. One state fits the bill nicely: the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini’s project in Iran was surely more extreme and violent than what most post-liberals would endorse. But given the authoritarian affinities of many post-liberals (consider their muted defenses of Vladimir Putin, East Germany, and the Chinese Communist Party), a comparison to Khomeini’s Iran is more than appropriate. Indeed, given the character and aims of Khomeini’s Iran, it is necessary.

The example of Khomeinism in Iran is instructive because it illustrates two lessons that classical liberals have long known. First, when a special class of moral guardians is permitted to be above the rule of law, there is no check on their own corruptibility, which all but ensures future abuses of power. And second, using the full powers of the state to enforce religious belief will render both the state and its religion illegitimate in the minds of the people. If post-liberals are serious about reviving moral virtue or shoring up religious faith, they should study the tragic example of Khomeini.