CATEGORY: CONSERVATISM (5 min)

Back to basics

The conservative movement today might be more confusing than it ever has been. A host of “isms” like populism, fusionism, nationalism, and many more have countless Americans wondering: what does conservatism even mean anymore?

To discover that, Bradley Birzer says, we must go back to one of the movement’s luminaries.

In The Imaginative Conservative, Birzer appeals to the writings of legendary thinker Russell Kirk to refocus our minds on what conservatism actually entails. He specifically draws readers’ attention to Kirk’s analysis in The Conservative Mind, where Kirk listed six important tenets of conservatism.

These tenets include belief in divine supremacy, the uniqueness of the individual, the importance of order, the balance of property and freedom, “distrust of sophisters and calculators,” and a general doubt of innovation. They transcend the individual camps within our movement and give us a lodestar for understanding conservative thought.

Birzer urges readers to take Kirk’s arguments seriously as we consider the future of conservatism and sort out what it really means. Do you agree? Read his entire essay here.

CATEGORY: CONGRESS (2 min)

Too late to say sorry?

Republicans in Congress battled over the nomination of Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House earlier this month. It was a long debate that captured the attention of the nation, as a several GOP holdouts demanded concessions from McCarthy in exchange for supporting his speakership. In the end, after 15 ballots, McCarthy won the gavel, but many Republicans had taken to severe infighting in the meantime.

Former ISI journalism fellow and Conservative Conversations co-host Nate Hochman focused on some of this internal battling in National Review, analyzing Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s apology for a barb he threw at the anti-McCarthy Republicans. Crenshaw had referred to the minority as “terrorists” and “enemies.”

Hochman credits Crenshaw for apologizing for the remark, but he takes some issue with Crenshaw’s parting blow against the holdouts’ perceived “sensitivity.”

“Insofar as Crenshaw has been the subject of similar rhetorical excess, he presumably thinks it’s a bad thing, and bad things do not, as a general rule, justify more bad things,” Hochman writes.

Discover Hochman’s full take on the messy situation right here.​​​​​

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CATEGORY: REFORM(28 MIN)

Construction over destruction

Our conservative mindsets naturally tend to resist the excesses of government and left-wing ideologies, and rightfully so. But resistance alone brings with it a temptation to constantly tear down opposing viewpoints rather than building up our own. If we stand against everything, what do we stand for?

That’s the question Yuval Levin answers in our Intercollegiate Review archive. Levin, author of A Time to Build (winner of ISI’s 2021 Conservative Book of the Year Award), argues that conservatives must give the American people an actual vision of the future rather than simply preaching fear.

Levin puts forward a concept of conservatism as “reform-oriented,” as he believes a fundamental part of conservative views is the drive to change the government in accordance with those views. He points out that government should not be downsized for downsizing’s sake, but rather molded into a proper useful mechanism.

“A key task of conservative reformers today is to recover the more humble idea of American government at the core of our system,” Levin writes.

See Levin’s timely argument—and his vision for a reformed America—right here.

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