The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait, 9 Sept 2025: The Intellectual Vacuity of the National Conservatives, subtitled “The post-liberal American right set out to destroy the guardrails that restrained anti-Semitism, without giving any thought to what might happen next.” [gift link]
This is an essay about how the political parties have evolved in recent decades.
National conservatism, the post-liberal movement that theorized the use of state power to wage right-wing culture war, stands historically triumphant. And yet, as the natcons met last week in downtown Washington to celebrate their conquest and stomp on the face of liberal democracy, they encountered a nettlesome problem. It was the same one that has popped up recurrently in right-wing nationalist movements over the centuries: what to do about the Jews.
I’m going to set that issue aside.
This is not a small problem. Liberalism constitutes the idea that governments must be bound by neutral rules designed to protect the rights of the individual. The most charitable reading of the national-conservative point of view is that, because the left constitutes an existential danger to liberty and is itself illiberal, the right is entitled, indeed obligated, to destroy it using any means necessary.
And get to this:
National conservatism is not so much a new way of wrestling with the dilemmas posed by liberalism as permission to avoid wrestling with them at all. The philosophy, such as it is, can be summarized as: impunity for us, punishment for them.
You see this every day. Trumps gets away with things that Obama would have been vilified for. It’s all about how conservatives are more tribally oriented; they let their leaders get away with anything, never mind principles, rules, and law.
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Stories are more important than anything.
Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, 8 Sept 2025: HUD Secretary Scott Turner Spreads False Christian Nationalist History
Just as predictably, Turner use the opportunity to spread Christian nationalist mythology.
“What if one million people prayed for our country every single week between now and next July 4th,” Turner asked. “More specifically, what if believers all across this great nation got together with 10 people—friends, family members, colleagues, work associates—10 people each week to pray for our country and for our fellow citizens?”
“Think about the miracles that would take place over the next year,” Turner said. “Think about the transformation that you and I could witness in communities all across the land. Sons returning to their fathers, daughters returning to their mothers, families coming back together, health being restored, financial needs being met, mountains being moved. Think about it.”
Turner then cited as precedent the call to prayer issued by Benjamin Franklin during the Constitutional Convention, which has long been a favorite myth promulgated by Christian nationalists.
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And maybe stories *are* more important than anything, for some people. If stories support survival. On the other hand, acknowledging the reality of the universe has advanced human society, and human health, immeasurably in recent decades and centuries, which have supported human survival in ways no religious myths have done.
It’s not any one thing.
