I will be taking a brief hiatus from the blog for the next two weeks because of the death of my grandmother last week and the wedding of a sister-in-law this coming weekend. I hope to get back to blogging more regularly the second week of June.
When asked recently by a few different people how I self-identify politically, I struggled. I have a visceral desire to identify as conservative, but I'm not sure that anyone would understand what I mean with the word. Thoughtful conversations and comments regarding my letter to Conor Friedersdorf and other posts have convinced me that trying to work out the meaning of conservative is necessary for effective dialogue. To begin this conversation, I will consider the origins of the modern conservative movement and what light it sheds on politics in the era of Trump. The modern conservative movement began in reaction to the French Revolution of 1789. It was (and usually remains) reactive, opposing change rather than advocating for it. As such, it has tended to lack a normative description of how the world should be, and instead has generally opposed changes that threaten the order that is. This was the key idea that drove William F. Buckley, Jr. to found the National Review in 195...
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