The State of American Conservatism

If you listened to American mainstream media in late October and early November, you could easily get the impression that a man named Nick Fuentes had suddenly risen to some position of intellectual leadership over President Trump’s MAGA movement.

This is not true. The recent controversy around Fuentes, which began when he was interviewed by conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson, has given the man far more credit than he deserves. He has never had, does not have, and will likely never have any consequential influence on the conservative movement. He tries hard to give himself influence, in good part by being a political shock merchant, and he seems to have almost enjoyed the attention it gave him when he was labeled a ‘white Christian nationalist’ and a ‘white supremacist.’ 

Fuentes may or may not deserve those labels; it is not worth our time here to analyze his podcast, the substantive value of which deserves no more than the niche of largely young, male listeners he has. With that said, though, the ‘white so-and-so’ labels have been applied with such abundance in the heated American political discourse that when they do pop up somewhere, as in this case, it is hard to identify their consequential meaning.

A number of critics of Carlson, such as talk-show host Mark Levin and author and political commentator Ben Shapiro, have heavily criticized Carlson for the interview. So have influential Republican politicians like Senators Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell. Based on the intensity of the criticism, an outside observer could get the impression that Fuentes is some sort of intellectual heavy-weight. He is not. He does in no way carry enough weight in the American conservative movement to match the barrage of criticism that Carlson’s interview has drawn.. 

It has even been suggested that Trump’s staffers listen to Nick Fuentes in their White House offices. That is simply not true: those who work for Trump are the elite of the elite among Republican political staffers, whose professional judgment has been honed over 10-20 years in the world’s most cutthroat political environment. I have seen this environment from the inside: those who make it to the absolute top would never choose to listen to a shallow rhetorical shock merchant like Nick Fuentes. 

They also would not have the time: working for President Trump, more than any other president, is a 24/7 commitment. Only the aforementioned elite of policy staffers can endure the enormous time and quality pressure that comes with a job in the Trump White House. They do not waste their time on trivial matters like podcast punditry.

That is not to say podcasters and other commentators are entirely irrelevant, even to those at the top of the political food chain. All politicians of any meaningful rank have media monitors on their staff. Their job is to see what is said and written about the politician on social media platforms and on podcasts and other audio-visual outlets. 

Historically, media monitors read newspapers and watched the evening news. Nowadays they have to browse the vast virtual ocean of the internet. The ease of internet access to opinions and information allows for an asymmetric flow of ideas that—on occasion—can give an otherwise small commentator unusual influence. The Fuentes-Carlson controversy is an example; thanks to Carlson’s interview and the heated public rhetoric it inspired, Fuentes has probably seen a spike in his listenership. 

It is also possible that influential politicians have asked their media monitors to add Fuentes to their list of who to keep an eye on. One reason for this is that there is currently a battle for the minds and hearts of tens of millions of America’s conservatives. One side of that battle decided to use Fuentes against the other side, hoping to pin him on the MAGA movement—and, as with the aforementioned White House allegations, on President Trump himself.

It is right here, in the artificial connection between Fuentes and Trump, that we find the big clue to why Tucker Carlson stirred up so much dust with his interview. The American conservative movement is currently engaged in an ideological civil war with decades-old roots. A brief history review is merited.

In the mid-20th century, a tectonic shift took place within the Republican party. At that time the party was heavily influenced by the ‘Goldwater Conservatives,’ whose presumed ideological herald was Sen. Barry Goldwater. Starting in the very last years of the 1950s, they were challenged by a new, young, media-savvy generation of conservative thinkers. Centered around publicist William F. Buckley and his close ally Irving Kristol, this new movement gradually earned the name ‘neoconservatives.’

In a nutshell, the disagreements between the two conservative camps were focused on three policy issues: the fiscal size of government, the role of the traditional family, and America’s role on the world stage. The Goldwater faithful preferred a small government with a strictly limited budget, they fiercely defended traditional marriage, and they were wary of American military engagement abroad.

By contrast, the neocons favored the modern welfare state (with marginal differences from the political left) and gradually separated themselves from the traditional family. However, their biggest controversy with the Goldwater tradition had to do with America’s military role on the world stage. Where the traditional conservatives proposed isolationism, the neocons advocated global interventionism. 

The neocons won the battle for the Republican Party. By the early 1980s, they had enough power to reshape American foreign policy; it was easy to use the Cold War to stir up patriotism and support for a large, active, even interventionist American military. It was enough to keep them in control of the Republican Party through the end of Bush Jr.’s eight-year White House tenure.

The problem for the neocons was that they ignored the federal budget. They had not noticed that right-of-center Americans are far less fond of budget deficits than the neocons are. By the time President Obama went on his mindless deficit-spending spree, a new generation of conservatives emerged, making their opposition to deficit spending a high priority. 

Adding war fatigue from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, this reborn traditional conservative movement was more or less formally recognized as the ‘Tea Party’ movement. 

This was the movement that Donald Trump capitalized on. He morphed it into the broader MAGA movement that catapulted him into the White House in 2016. Promising, and delivering, restraint with military deployments abroad, President Trump immediately affirmed one of the major points that traditional conservatives made. 

He also brought a cultural shift on a broader scale. Many conservatives felt that the political and media establishment for a long time had allowed a creeping encroachment on traditional conservative social values. With Trump, the stigma associated with, e.g., traditional family values rapidly went away. 

Since Trump’s emergence on the political scene a decade ago, the center of gravity in the American conservative movement has shifted in the traditionalist direction. It has become culturally and socially acceptable—some would almost say ‘cool’—to harbor traditional values. At the same time, this has not come with any backlash against competing values; the reignited belief in faith, family, and fiscal conservatism—which is essentially what the MAGA movement is about—has not made villains of atheists or other religions.

It is important to note this, because part of the current debate among conservatives has brought up the question of antisemitism. There have been suggestions that the MAGA conservatives harbor antisemitic sentiments, including allegations that Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes was an expression of said antisemitism. 

While I cannot speak for Tucker Carlson, conservatives in America are not antisemitic, especially not those in the traditionalist fold. They harbor very favorable views of Judaism, the Jewish people, and Israel. 

The only point of contention where neoconservatives and traditional conservatives could have a disagreement with regard to Israel is on the question of why America is sending foreign aid to the Jewish state. While neoconservatives have no reservations here, there is some hesitation among Trump’s most loyal MAGA voters on continued assistance to Israel. 

While this may seem like a major issue, it is not. The reason why there have been questions in the MAGA movement about U.S. aid to Israel has nothing to do with Israel being a Jewish state. It is part of a broader concern for the federal government’s excessive spending. 

Support for fiscal conservatism runs deep in the MAGA movement. Its most immediate demand—a balanced budget without tax hikes—has yet to be recognized by President Trump and the Republican party in general. This is a source of frustration, but it would be easy to address it and to silence all questions regarding U.S. aid to Israel. All it would take is that Congress balances its budget and does so without raising taxes on working families. 

A balanced budget is the key to the hearts of conservatives who are concerned about leaving unbearable debt to their children and grandchildren. When the deficit is gone, there will be no more questions raised about America’s generosity toward the Jewish state.

Overall, American conservatism is healthy and vibrant. The tensions within its ranks are not insignificant, but they also inject vitality into conservative policymaking. This vouches for an interesting future, where neoconservatives and the MAGA movement—while still in disagreement—can inspire policy solutions that continue to improve the American project.

As an interesting appendix to this dynamic discourse is the fact that American conservatives have a fair amount of international influence. The traditional strain has ties with the growing national conservative movement in Europe; the apparent strong friendship between President Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is an example of what those ties can produce.