The growing peril of national conservatism

[BidenPresident]

William Buckley, a thinker of the old school, once quipped that “A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling stop.” By comparison, national conservatives are revolutionaries. They do not see the West as the shining city on the hill, but as Rome before the fall—decadent, depraved and about to collapse amid a barbarian invasion. Not content with resisting progress, they also want to destroy classical liberalism.

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[BidenPresident]

And nationalist conservatives matter because when they succeed in winning office everything changes. By setting out to capture state institutions, including courts, universities and the independent press, they cement their grip on power. That is what Mr Orban’s Fidesz party has done in Hungary. In America Mr Trump has been explicit about his autocratic designs. The people working for him have drawn up policy documents that set out a programme to capture the federal bureaucracy.