Vox - In a March article in the American Mind, Claremont’s blog, writer Glenn Elmers declares that “most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.” If Trump voters and conservatives do not band together and wage “a sort of counter-revolution” against these “citizen-aliens,” then “the victory of progressive tyranny will be assured.”
And an August essay in the Claremont Review of Books by scholar Angelo Codevilla describes a country whose government is clinging to “an illusion of legitimacy” after “a half-century of Progressive rule’s abuse” has demolished American society.
Views like these — that repudiate America’s core institutions and ideals, up to and often including its democracy — are becoming more and more mainstream on the right. They can be found at right-wing intellectual gatherings, like the National Conservatism conference. They can be found from one of the right’s leading moneymen, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who once argued that “I no longer think that freedom and democracy are compatible.” They even have champions on Capitol Hill, like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a critic of “woke capitalism” who has argued that the idea that a person should be free to “define your own values” is a kind of “heresy.”
It’s easy to dismiss this kind of illiberal language as purely rhetorical: radical posturing with few practical implications. But the past year of conservative politics, from the January 6 riot to the spread of voting restrictions and extreme gerrymandering to the rise of Rufo’s war on the education system, has shown that the right’s illiberal impulses are actually shaping our reality.
Conservatism, in theory, is supposed to be an ideology of preservation. But the current right is increasingly being shaped by a reactionary impulse bent on the radical transformation — if not the outright destruction — of America’s leading institutions.
Yep. Pretty much.
Vox - In a March article in the American Mind, Claremont’s blog, writer Glenn Elmers declares that “most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.” If Trump voters and conservatives do not band together and wage “a sort of counter-revolution” against these “citizen-aliens,” then “the victory of progressive tyranny will be assured.”
And an August essay in the Claremont Review of Books by scholar Angelo Codevilla describes a country whose government is clinging to “an illusion of legitimacy” after “a half-century of Progressive rule’s abuse” has demolished American society.
Views like these — that repudiate America’s core institutions and ideals, up to and often including its democracy — are becoming more and more mainstream on the right. They can be found at right-wing intellectual gatherings, like the National Conservatism conference. They can be found from one of the right’s leading moneymen, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who once argued that “I no longer think that freedom and democracy are compatible.” They even have champions on Capitol Hill, like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a critic of “woke capitalism” who has argued that the idea that a person should be free to “define your own values” is a kind of “heresy.”
It’s easy to dismiss this kind of illiberal language as purely rhetorical: radical posturing with few practical implications. But the past year of conservative politics, from the January 6 riot to the spread of voting restrictions and extreme gerrymandering to the rise of Rufo’s war on the education system, has shown that the right’s illiberal impulses are actually shaping our reality.
Conservatism, in theory, is supposed to be an ideology of preservation. But the current right is increasingly being shaped by a reactionary impulse bent on the radical transformation — if not the outright destruction — of America’s leading institutions.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/11/19/22787269/conservatives-america-chris-rufo-patrick-deneen
and... https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/thiel-silicon-valley-and-the-rise-of-tech-neo-reaction