Competence in governance has been thrust to the forefront. This will be the new trend in politics now that Musk (and Trump) have begun generating the tools needed to measure it. Conservatism doesn’t need re-imagining, conservatives do. They need to integrate the long-held principles of conservative thought with methods to measure the benefit to taxpayers and provide aggressive transparency to the whole effort. The Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney “conservative” is a thing of the past. God willing…
Self government relies heavily on the quality of the people purporting to govern themselves. I think we have a problem. Unless that deficiency is addressed, all that Trump can do is buy some time before the collapse.
Populism is not a sustainable philosophy, it is pragmatic and transactional, good as that may be in the moment.
The problem I have with Populism & Populists (And GOD BLESS!!) is they have a tendency to Throw The Baby Out With The Bathwater. Example: Tucker, It Appears since he left Fox that everything he thought was true is False/A Lie, and tossed out.
Also i look back at history and Populists Ideology as far as it exists doesn't lead to a good place.
Well, we know where leftist ideology takes us. Populism is a reaction to bad governance. Unfortunately it only kicks in when things have become so bad the Regime can no longer hide the fact. It is unsustainable because by then the people have lost their ability and will to self govern, and are easily led down some other path; usually the leftist illusion of free stuff.
"It is unsustainable because by then the people have lost their ability and will to self govern, and are easily led down some other path; usually the leftist illusion of free stuff."
The young guys grew up in a woke world. They are revolutionaries, or counter-revolutionaries, not conservatives. They don't see much they want to conserve.
However, they are mistaken that the entire trend of modernity and the American Founding led to Drag Queen Story Hour, often used as a symbol of both the depravity and imbecility of the modern left. Rather, bad decisions led to that phenomenon and all it symbolizes. And it may have been a brief moment. One can hope.
The young men do need to be better informed about the Founding, since online memes are their main source of information about it. A big project, certainly. But essential. I don't especially want to live under an American Caesar, so we need to keep the Republic going.
Well written! But I think a few things should be noted, for example, the Reagan administration was not a genuine project of decentralization but instead a masterful exercise in political and economic centralization under the guise of deregulation and free-market rhetoric. While it used language of shrinking government, in practice, it selectively dismantled regulations that inhibited corporate consolidation while reinforcing federal power in ways that favored economic centralization. The airline deregulation authority, for instance, actively prevented local areas from subsidizing their airports under the supposed ideal of no "market interventions" while deeply hypocritically working with the localities where the newly cartelized industry wanted to place their hub-n-spokes to subsidize them there, effectively destroying smaller regional hubs and further concentrating economic activity in select national centers, they, in effective terms, acted like something not to far off from a soviet industry planning organization for the airline industry and used the awesome powers of the federal government to do it. And thats far from the only area they did that. The administration's industrial policy was just as real as anything Walter Mondale proposed, but it was carried out through defense contracts, financial deregulation, and selective market interventions that empowered large corporations while gutting regional economic diversity. It was not the absence of industrial policy, it was centralized industrial policy that masked itself as its opposite. In fact, the Bayh-Dole Act, in practice, may be at once one of the most centrally directed and resource intensive AND harmful industrial policies ever implemented.
The so called "fusionism" of the 1950s was in many ways a misdirection. Its intellectual architects, while claiming to uphold traditionalism and free markets in equal measure, engaged in the very same cultural and economic transformations they decried. The moral panic around the payola scandal, for instance, served as a smokescreen to distract from the fact that the centralizing corporate forces they worked for were themselves driving the cultural shifts that fusionists purported to resist. The reality was that by the mid 20th century, American political and economic life still retained a great deal of decentralization:: states and localities actively engaged in their own industrial policies, sometimes numbering in the hundreds in a given year. The postwar decades were a period of transition, where centralization was advancing, but the U.S. still functioned as a republic with decentralized governance and genuinely democratic structures.
What this means is that neither classical liberalism, conservatism, nor any contemporary ideological framework was ever "in charge" of the USA prior to the Neoliberal Era. Instead, the country operated under a patchwork of decentralized political, economic, and scientific governance, with states and localities crafting their own industrial policies and shaping their own economic destinies. The supposed aversion to industrial policy that modern conservatives project backward onto history is anachronistic, there was no monolithic free-market governance before neoliberalism, but rather an interplay of local and state-led economic strategies. The real transformation was not Reagan’s supposed commitment to small government, but the consolidation of power in a way that made federal intervention serve private, centralized corporate interests rather than a broad, decentralized economic order. The current nationalist conservatives, while positioning themselves against neoliberalism, fail to recognize that the very system they critique was made possible by the Reagan revolution, which was not a departure from government intervention but a reconfiguration of it for different groups
This post provided much food for thought. I could expound but am not feeling up to writing as much as it would take to fetter all of that out here. Hey, we are only 2 1/2 hours away from Super Bowl LIX. The mind drifts. ;-)
I am not a young conservative. I am an old conservative, but I can certainly identify with the wonderment of how did our constitution, which I thought was designed to protect us from what we've experienced over the past ten years, fail us so miserably in this regard. No, I do not want to "throw the baby out with the bath water" (forgive me), but it seems apparent something sure as --- needs to be shored up. I do not want my grandchildren having this same experience (perhaps worse) thrust upon them and their children in the future.
I admit to being very low in the skills set for political philos/history. But I try, & sometimes get stymied. To wit: in your footnote 5 you say "...wherein [Hayak] admits that the term “conservative” makes sense in America because American conservatives, unlike European conservatives, are defending the liberal tradition". I get how American conervatives are/ were defending liberal traditions (WFB et al.), but who are the Eur conservatives who are against those, i.e. against liberty, freedom of individual, property, legal system, etc.?? I would expect those to be socialist/ commie/anarchists of France, Germany, Holland Italy, etc. Not "conservatives". This is minor point, to be sure!
Competence in governance has been thrust to the forefront. This will be the new trend in politics now that Musk (and Trump) have begun generating the tools needed to measure it. Conservatism doesn’t need re-imagining, conservatives do. They need to integrate the long-held principles of conservative thought with methods to measure the benefit to taxpayers and provide aggressive transparency to the whole effort. The Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney “conservative” is a thing of the past. God willing…
Thank you for posting this. I look forward to the balance of your article, as well as to your forthcoming book.
Self government relies heavily on the quality of the people purporting to govern themselves. I think we have a problem. Unless that deficiency is addressed, all that Trump can do is buy some time before the collapse.
Populism is not a sustainable philosophy, it is pragmatic and transactional, good as that may be in the moment.
The problem I have with Populism & Populists (And GOD BLESS!!) is they have a tendency to Throw The Baby Out With The Bathwater. Example: Tucker, It Appears since he left Fox that everything he thought was true is False/A Lie, and tossed out.
Also i look back at history and Populists Ideology as far as it exists doesn't lead to a good place.
Well, we know where leftist ideology takes us. Populism is a reaction to bad governance. Unfortunately it only kicks in when things have become so bad the Regime can no longer hide the fact. It is unsustainable because by then the people have lost their ability and will to self govern, and are easily led down some other path; usually the leftist illusion of free stuff.
"It is unsustainable because by then the people have lost their ability and will to self govern, and are easily led down some other path; usually the leftist illusion of free stuff."
Maybe, We'll see what happens this time.
I am hopeful, but not terribly optimistic.
I knew a Lifer in the AF told me "Hope For The Best..Expect The Worst.
The young guys grew up in a woke world. They are revolutionaries, or counter-revolutionaries, not conservatives. They don't see much they want to conserve.
However, they are mistaken that the entire trend of modernity and the American Founding led to Drag Queen Story Hour, often used as a symbol of both the depravity and imbecility of the modern left. Rather, bad decisions led to that phenomenon and all it symbolizes. And it may have been a brief moment. One can hope.
The young men do need to be better informed about the Founding, since online memes are their main source of information about it. A big project, certainly. But essential. I don't especially want to live under an American Caesar, so we need to keep the Republic going.
Well written! But I think a few things should be noted, for example, the Reagan administration was not a genuine project of decentralization but instead a masterful exercise in political and economic centralization under the guise of deregulation and free-market rhetoric. While it used language of shrinking government, in practice, it selectively dismantled regulations that inhibited corporate consolidation while reinforcing federal power in ways that favored economic centralization. The airline deregulation authority, for instance, actively prevented local areas from subsidizing their airports under the supposed ideal of no "market interventions" while deeply hypocritically working with the localities where the newly cartelized industry wanted to place their hub-n-spokes to subsidize them there, effectively destroying smaller regional hubs and further concentrating economic activity in select national centers, they, in effective terms, acted like something not to far off from a soviet industry planning organization for the airline industry and used the awesome powers of the federal government to do it. And thats far from the only area they did that. The administration's industrial policy was just as real as anything Walter Mondale proposed, but it was carried out through defense contracts, financial deregulation, and selective market interventions that empowered large corporations while gutting regional economic diversity. It was not the absence of industrial policy, it was centralized industrial policy that masked itself as its opposite. In fact, the Bayh-Dole Act, in practice, may be at once one of the most centrally directed and resource intensive AND harmful industrial policies ever implemented.
The so called "fusionism" of the 1950s was in many ways a misdirection. Its intellectual architects, while claiming to uphold traditionalism and free markets in equal measure, engaged in the very same cultural and economic transformations they decried. The moral panic around the payola scandal, for instance, served as a smokescreen to distract from the fact that the centralizing corporate forces they worked for were themselves driving the cultural shifts that fusionists purported to resist. The reality was that by the mid 20th century, American political and economic life still retained a great deal of decentralization:: states and localities actively engaged in their own industrial policies, sometimes numbering in the hundreds in a given year. The postwar decades were a period of transition, where centralization was advancing, but the U.S. still functioned as a republic with decentralized governance and genuinely democratic structures.
What this means is that neither classical liberalism, conservatism, nor any contemporary ideological framework was ever "in charge" of the USA prior to the Neoliberal Era. Instead, the country operated under a patchwork of decentralized political, economic, and scientific governance, with states and localities crafting their own industrial policies and shaping their own economic destinies. The supposed aversion to industrial policy that modern conservatives project backward onto history is anachronistic, there was no monolithic free-market governance before neoliberalism, but rather an interplay of local and state-led economic strategies. The real transformation was not Reagan’s supposed commitment to small government, but the consolidation of power in a way that made federal intervention serve private, centralized corporate interests rather than a broad, decentralized economic order. The current nationalist conservatives, while positioning themselves against neoliberalism, fail to recognize that the very system they critique was made possible by the Reagan revolution, which was not a departure from government intervention but a reconfiguration of it for different groups
This post provided much food for thought. I could expound but am not feeling up to writing as much as it would take to fetter all of that out here. Hey, we are only 2 1/2 hours away from Super Bowl LIX. The mind drifts. ;-)
I am not a young conservative. I am an old conservative, but I can certainly identify with the wonderment of how did our constitution, which I thought was designed to protect us from what we've experienced over the past ten years, fail us so miserably in this regard. No, I do not want to "throw the baby out with the bath water" (forgive me), but it seems apparent something sure as --- needs to be shored up. I do not want my grandchildren having this same experience (perhaps worse) thrust upon them and their children in the future.
I admit to being very low in the skills set for political philos/history. But I try, & sometimes get stymied. To wit: in your footnote 5 you say "...wherein [Hayak] admits that the term “conservative” makes sense in America because American conservatives, unlike European conservatives, are defending the liberal tradition". I get how American conervatives are/ were defending liberal traditions (WFB et al.), but who are the Eur conservatives who are against those, i.e. against liberty, freedom of individual, property, legal system, etc.?? I would expect those to be socialist/ commie/anarchists of France, Germany, Holland Italy, etc. Not "conservatives". This is minor point, to be sure!
A less than sunny ending
Look up John Lindsay's NYC Mayoral opponents in 1969, Mario Procaccino (D) and John Marchi (R).
Also, by Vincent Cannato:
https://www.commentary.org/articles/vincent-cannato/1968-new-york-city-school-strike-revisited/
https://www.vincentcannato.com/books/ungovernable-city/
Late 1960's political themes in NYC are back, nationwide.