5 National Conservatism

The next section about the NatCon --- National Conservatives --- which starts by highlighting Peter Theil, the billionaire Libertarian, overlaps with the Extreme Libertarians and Christian Nationalists categories in Hanson and Kopstein (2024). Theil, like the other Extreme Libertarians to include Elon Musk, claims Democracy is not compatible with individual Freedom, at least not the unfettered (even be cruel if you wish, empathy-based ethics are in the way) do as you please form of Libertarianism favored in said extreme.  Using DIT, no shared other-interest beyond what favors the Libertarian counts. Theil has been a big supporter of Yoram Hazony, and the book The Virtue of Nationalism, on which Field focuses. Hazony borders on being a  Christian Nationalist, ironic in that Hazony is Jewish, so perhaps it would be better to characterize it as Religious Nationalism. Or, in the case of the Zionist State of Israel, we  might say Judaic (not inherently Religious) Nationalism.  Hazony (with family) lives in Israel, and, indeed was an advisor to Netanyahu at one point, who has become ever more an Authoritarian Nationalist in recent years. See the DIT?? review of the book.  

Virtue of Nationalism Frame Ignores the Realty the US is Already Multicultural

Field clarifies that Hazony is of the Ideas First frame of mind underlying much of the MAGA New Right, which largely ignores empirical reality.   For example, while the US is multicultural going back to the very beginning, somehow it is now to become a homogeneous, narrowly “us” framed culture held together by a few loyalists under a vertical rule of men styled law in an Authoritarian Nationalism. Such a move is patently impossible, so no empirical reality underlies the claim.  It is also not fixed by deporting the 10-11 million illegals currently working and contributing in productive ways to the economy and culture of the United States.

Hazony has Nationalism framed by going back to the tribes of ancient times, with said tribes finding some common ground (shared other-interest) to build that Nation.  Said Idea has some merit, until one considers the possibility that introducing another tribe and it’s culture could actually make or an even stronger Nation.   The Hazony (and MAGA New Right) Nationalism wants to stop time, and,  perhaps even go back in time, to that supposed better time being when white men ruling using a misogynist,  homophobic, and racist frame.  Hazony claims that is not the case, but rather Nationalism  and the Nation is (Field 2025, p. 105, quoting Hazony):  “distinguished from all of humanity in that it possesses a quite distinctive character, having its own language, laws, and religious traditions, its own past history of failure and achievement.”  Race is not to be part of it, nor any “phobic” or other “ism.” 

DIT Clarifies a Nation Can Indeed Evolve Out of Multiculturalism

It is one of the Ideas First claims, without much empirical credibility, unless one refines it with DIT to clarify a Nation could hold a somewhat unique set of shared other-interests, like framed by the US Constitution, or, even perhaps the kind of food people eat, like in French and German and American Restaurants. Said Nation than would seek overlap in shared other-interests with other Nations, like in sustaining the Spaceship Earth system with regulations and laws on carbon dioxide emissions.  Hazony (and the MAGA New Right) never seems to acknowledge such essential frames, rather each Nation is to be a bully to all other Nations, as in the America First frame. It is an Idea without merit.  Any kind of universalism and internationalism wherein all Nations agree to some common ground (perhaps to environment law, or to support an International Court of Justice) is framed as a kind of tyrannical imperial domination. Said somewhat differently, it is some kind Libertarian Nationalism with only the shared interest of the Libertarian Nation in play.  Such an Idea lacks in any kind of empirical reality.

Cutting to the chase, Field (2025, p.  ) notes that:  “If you spend enough time with Hazony’s work, the entire intellectual artifice of The Virtue of Nationalism comes into focus as little more than a reason-giving exercise in the denial of human rights, or worse, to the Palestinians.”  Yes, indeed, that is what it does.   And, for the  MAGA New Right, it is about denying human rights to any and all illegal and not illegal immigrants who are trying to become Americans.   It is an “us” and “them” frame, with “us” nebulously claimed to have the right to form that Nation, and impose the culture and history of whatever it is on the “them” with no evolution of said Nation being possible. 

Unfortunately, the Hazony justification for the Jewish State, which does have some empirical credentials as no state with Judaic Framing every existed prior to 1948, and was needed, does not justify what is going  on in the US with the MAGA New Right.  It is an absolute fantasy to claim the US as framed by the Constitution is not already a Nation, and has been so since  1787. It has not ever lost the frame of Nationalism, no matter what the MAGA claim: Show me, even though I am not from Missouri.

Spaceship-Wide Pandemic of Nationalism is in Play

Yet, here we are, and, it is a Spaceship Wide pandemic to call for Nationalism. Field quotes a Demuth who has called for “ the ‘spirit of nationhood’ (for the US) represented in the spirit of the far-right movements of Britain, Poland, Hungary, Italy, and the ‘neo-nationalist parties of Germany and France’ (Field 2025, p. 112).”  Such rhetoric has led to the “Somewheres” who are the “us” and the “Anywheres” who are the “them” and the enemy of the “Somewheres.” The “them” then become the enemy within, the enemy of the “us” --- which leads to a kind of Neofascist frame reflecting 1930s European Fascism. All such things obfuscate the real problem, that of the Plague of Extreme Inequality being the main one, which was especially in play after the 2008 crash and leading up to the results in the 2016 election.  The Plague caused resentment, and as always --- read economic history --- drives the turn to the ideologues arriving on the scene promising to fix it all, who are generally authoritarians with fascist tendencies.  Empirical reality, please.

Seems MAGA Wants the New Deal Order Back into Play

Intriguingly, one of the NatCon meetings had a speech by Krein, which sounds more like New Deal Economy than something coming from the Right Wing:   “Krein’s powerful speech began with a scathing critique of twentieth-century conservative economic policy. He stated plainly that Americans have ‘constructed an economy increasingly geared toward producing financial wealth for narrower segments of the population, rather than growing through productivity gains, innovation, and widespread improvements in real economic conditions.’ Krein also, refreshingly, acknowledged that the American conservative movement ‘bears special responsibility for this.’ He delineated how destructive conservative laissez-faire economics had been, effectively arguing that none of the financial beneficiaries of corporate profits had ever decided to reinvest their earnings in the American economy. When he turned to the question of what should be done, the first thing he suggested was that it was time to leave behind ‘moralistic debates about the free market versus socialism or whatever’ (Field 2025, pp. 113-114).”  The day after the Krein speech, another NatCon Oren Cass called for an Industrial Policy. JD Vance gave a speech calling for getting beyond Libertarianism in economic policy.  Well, both Krein and Cass, and even JD Vance, are pointing to something akin to The New Deal Order  1930-1980, which the Biden Administration was trying to re-introduce during the 2020-2024 period.  It sounds like the NatCons finally get it, but, are unwilling to admit it.  

Progressive Women of Color Under Assault

But, on racism, well, the NatCons were not successful, assured by “the Don” attacking all the Progressive women in the US Congress who had a genetic background from non-white areas of the Spaceship.  So, along with misogyny, racism was put on the table with the White Nationalism frame. Also, religion came into play, as in applauding the Orban – Hungary move to keep all Muslims --- Islamophobic framing --- from immigrating into Hungary.  It also came to be that “woke neo-Marxism” and a supposed kind of anti-white racism emanating on the Left was claimed.  Nationalism with  political ideology and religious theology in play it is, no matter how much the Hazony and the NatCon framing denies it.  

Hazony is unabashedly putting religion in the core of the Nationalism in mind, as in Christians building on the Jewish Frame in the Old Testament are to be in charge. Not providing any empirical evidence, Hazony proclaimed the US “… was a Christian nation, historically and according to its laws, and it’s going to be a Christian nation again (Field 2025, p. 119).”  So, what happened to the Nation created by the 1787 Constitution, a Nation built on the separation of church and state?  Show us, please, with some serious and systematic inquiry in the science and humanities to back said claim. Enough with the unfounded conjecture.

Field (2025, pp. 122-123) closes the chapter with the claim that National Conservatism “…  stands for a reversion to particularism, tribalism, and closed-mindedness. And it is entirely comfortable with illiberal forms of politics that stamp on individual rights and instead embrace raw exertions of majoritarian (or, if necessary, minoritarian) power. The predominant national group calls the shots. Case closed.” It is about Authoritarian Nationalism in an Autocracy and has nothing to do with Democracy.