Conservatives Need a New White Post
There is a friendly, sustainable, biodegradable right wing that believes conservatism means preserving everything. A Right that treats order, peace, and tranquility as supreme goods. A Right that hates conflict. We should read Chesterton’s Orthodoxy more often: “All conservatism is based on the idea that if you leave things as they are, you leave them as they are. But you do not.” “If you leave something alone, you leave it to a torrent of change,” the Londoner adds. “If you leave a white post alone, it will soon become a black post. If you really want it to stay white, you must keep repainting it; that is, you must always be having a revolution. In short, if you want the old white post, you must have a new white post.”
This is the kind of Right that was outraged when Donald Trump stood up to the UN, complained about NATO’s ineffectiveness, or walked out of the WHO — an institution that, in this century, has come to embody the discrediting of globalist bodies and the exhaustion of a formula that may once have worked in a different time and place. It’s not that this Right disagreed with Trump’s criticisms; it’s that it saw it as reckless to antagonize America’s longtime partners. Like in certain broken relationships, it’s easier to pretend everything is fine than to stand up and admit the harshest truth: the love is gone.
A few months have been enough to vindicate Trump and expose the inertia of this Right: Which allies are truly willing to do anything to defend American interests? The Strait of Hormuz is full of friendly eyes looking the other way.
Every time Trump presses his European allies, I’m reminded of myself showing up to math class, again and again, without having done my homework. I was the fastest guy in the world at making excuses. What I didn’t know was that my teacher was writing them all down — and that a few months later he would call me into his office and show me the page, an endless list of evasions I had piled up to avoid doing the work. In truth, that page was a work of art. My teacher didn’t see it that way, and he failed me. Then again, you don’t expect a math teacher to reward improvisation; as far as I understand it, math is the opposite of improvisation.
They say that the first time someone deceives you, it’s their fault; the second time, it’s yours. It may not sound very conservative to sever ties with nations you once fought alongside, but more important than sounding conservative is not looking like a fool to someone who has been deceiving you for far too long. I write this with a mix of frustration and resignation, but there is no reason to trust Europe’s governments as long as their voters keep making the same choices. Weak governments; Christian Democrats terrified of being called fascists; Social Democrats obsessed with raising taxes and covering the landscape with solar farms; and establishment parties whose chief mission is to block emerging New Right movements from competing on a level playing field. The result: revolving governments, erratic policies, and agreements that aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. American conservatives have two options: close their eyes and pretend everything is fine while they fight alone for everyone’s interests, or raise a finger and ask, “What the hell is going on here?” Sometimes it’s better to be alone than in bad company.
Returning to Chesterton, conservatism means changing everything that is wrong and preserving everything that is right. Fail to do that — out of cowardice, stupidity, or betrayal — and you end up proving P. J. O’Rourke’s old line: “Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass from your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work—and then they get elected and prove it.”
After all, throughout the centuries, those who fought against far-left revolutions didn’t call themselves “conservative, peace-loving, eco-friendly, dialogue-oriented moderates.” No. They called themselves counterrevolutionaries. Why do you think that was?
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