Conservatism and the People

From Burke to Buckley to Trump, the Right has always had a populist current.

Peter Berkowitz

f all the strange and remark- ment of the middle class. A recurring complaint able features of politics in the reverberates across nonurban Pennsylvania, Trump era, among the least Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa; similar strange and remarkable is grievances roil swaths of the United Kingdom, the alliance that has emerged France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland, and between conservatism and Israel. An imperious ruling elite, say many populism. That it seems so citizens in the United States and other nations, Ostriking to many conservatives reflects a certain has imposed laws, cultural norms, and social disconnection from their tradition. The uncer- practices that radiate disdain for the people’s tainty and agitation that the alliance introduced beliefs and endanger their way of life. From this into conservative ranks underscore the impor- perspective, elites have conspired across politi- tance of recovering a lively appreciation of con- cal parties to promote globalization and mass servatism’s origins, major ideas, and perennial immigration to benefit themselves, while ig- task. noring the costs for the less educated and less This isn’t to deny the improbability of Donald wealthy. J. Trump having made himself—or having been Meanwhile, many right-leaning members of made into—the tribune of conservative hopes the political and intellectual elite believe that and popular anxieties. Nor should we discount progressive elites—who dominate the main- the marvel, two years into his presidency, of stream media, the entertainment industry, and strong economic growth; of historically low un- the universities—despise them. The scorched- employment (notably, for African-Americans earth tactics unsuccessfully employed against and Latinos); and of a Supreme Court with, for now-justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the first time in post–World War II America, a the Supreme Court reinforced a sense shared majority of justices devoted to interpreting the by committed conservatives and many red-state Constitution in accordance with its text, struc- and purple-state voters that they face a common ture, and history. For a brash billionaire New political foe. York real-estate developer, for a longtime real- In fact, the alliance between conservatism and ity-TV star, for a playboy celebrity who over de- the people—between elites devoted to preserv- cades hobnobbed with Democratic Party royalty ing tradition and local communities and the and contributed significant sums to their cam- people who want them preserved—is as old as paigns—for all that and more, Trump’s political modern conservatism itself. Its roots go back to accomplishments are strange and remarkable. British statesman Edmund Burke’s seminal real- But Trump did not invent the alliance be- time critique of the French Revolution. About tween conservatism and populism—or, to speak 150 years later, the founders of the conservative less polemically, between conservatism and the movement in America—the post–World War people. He rode the wave of a popular revolt II, made-in-America conservatism associated,

sweeping across the West. In liberal democracy above all, with William F. Buckley—renewed the PHILIPPE HALSMAN/MAGNUM PHOTOS after liberal democracy, right-wing politicians made common cause with a disaffected por- For William F. Buckley, limited government tion of the working class and a perturbed seg- protected traditional morality.

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relationship between the Right and the people. Burke is the founding father of modern con- That relationship has driven American conserva- servatism because he was the first to confront tism’s rise over the last 75 years to intellectual directly the challenge of conserving modern influence and political prominence. Not the least freedom. The challenge is simply stated: tradi- practical benefit of understanding that relation- tion teaches us to do as our forebears have done; ship is its capacity to calm nerves and cool judg- modern freedom authorizes each to do as he or ment. The conservative challenge in the age of she deems best. But sometimes what we think is Trump calls for nothing less. best conflicts with what our forebears thought necessary and proper. Moreover, the spread of the modern idea that human beings are, by na- In 1790, in Reflections on the Revolution in France, ture, free and equal provided a handy standard Edmund Burke threw into sharp relief issues that for evaluating existing governments—and for would define modern conservatism. They re- finding them wanting. volved around the reconciliation of freedom and Burke drew no hard-and-fast distinction be- tradition. More than two centuries later, weav- tween conserving and reforming; reforming, he ing together freedom and tradition has emerged grasped, was essential to conserving. Indeed, for as modern conservatism’s ongoing challenge. most of his long parliamentary career—stretch- The challenge in Burke’s day was fresh. Not ing from 1765 to 1794—Burke was best known because freedom was new—the desire for free- for defending political freedom against the dom is coeval with civilization—but because the abuse of power. He sided with the American idea of a political freedom to which each person colonists in their demand for representation in justly laid claim was still young. The conserva- decisions about their taxes. He espoused tolera- tive impulse is also of ancient origin. Before the tion for Irish Catholics, who suffered under Brit- rise of the modern conception of freedom in sev- ain’s discriminatory Penal Laws. And he waged enteenth- and eighteenth-century England, con- an extended campaign against the British East servatism had been humanity’s default option India Company for cruelly subjugating India’s because tradition generally prevailed. Conserva- indigenous population. tism didn’t generate a specific body of political It’s thus not so surprising that Burke’s vehe- thought because, on the whole, traditions teach ment criticism of the French Revolution shocked that political authority stems from tradition and his fellow Whigs. They saw the uprising against cultivates the disposition to preserve tradition. It the old regime as heralding a new age of freedom. follows that conservatism is not one, but many. Burke discerned a novel and monstrous threat to Conservatisms will be as numerous and varied liberty. He had not altered his principles, he in- as are traditions. sisted; he was honoring their implications in the But doesn’t the disposition to preserve typi- struggle against an unprecedented peril. cally rest on certain convictions? The short an- swer is yes. Across time and culture, conserva- tives have tended to recognize the unruliness of The French Revolution, Burke argued, aimed at the passions and the limits of reason. They be- “total revolution.” History abounded in attempts lieve that recondite reflection and abstract the- to alter governments. But the French Revolution ory tend to obscure practical matters; as a guide sought to overthrow in addition “sentiments, man- to politics, conservatives strongly prefer experi- ners, and moral opinions.” It wanted to replace ence and practical wisdom. And conservatives religion with “doctrine and theoretic dogma.” It see individuals as social creatures, whose char- sought to emancipate society from inherited at- acters are formed by—and whose fulfillment is tachments. For enlightenment’s sake, it would re- achieved in—family, local community, civic as- fashion culture and conduct. It aspired to perfect sociation, national life, and religion. politics by transforming humanity. Burke shared these convictions. They coex- This was madness, Burke contended. The isted in his soul with a love of liberty. revolutionaries’ project betrayed a fundamental

100 CITY JOURNAL misunderstanding of freedom and of people. Brit- themselves of the general bank and capital of ish freedom derived from beliefs, practices, and nations, and of ages.” Nor did he conceal the associations that developed over centuries and political importance of excellence: “There is no that lay beyond government’s routine purview. qualification for government but virtue and wis- It was indissolubly bound up with an awareness dom, actual or presumptive.” of debt to previous generations, of responsibility At the same time, Burke championed the peo- to fellow citizens, and of obligation to those to ple’s interests. He set forth the first great conser- come. vative critique of the progressive interpretation The British people needed no new schooling of modern freedom. He did so in the name of in liberty because they received an exemplary traditions in and through which the people had education from what Burke called “prescrip- governed themselves and prospered. Burke’s tion” and “prejudice.” Prescription included au- reconciliation of freedom and tradition proved a thoritative tradition, harbinger of alliances custom, and law. to come between con- Prejudice—pre-judg- The modern tradition servative elites and ment—comprised the the people. accumulated wisdom of freedom that Hayek of community, nation, “ undertook to preserve and faith. The people Like the conserva- internalized the teach- leaves the people to their tism that Burke inaugu- ings of the past and own devices. rated, the conservative learned the ways of movement in America liberty in the “little was forged in response platoon”—family, neighborhood, town, and to a crisis—a pair of crises, in fact. Classical lib- church. These institutions cultivated the virtues, erals and” traditionalists, the component groups fostered cooperation, and encouraged respect for in American conservatism, had their differences. rights and duties. Classical liberals sought to conserve limited gov- A leading literary light, blessed with extraor- ernment and the ideas that underwrite it. Tradi- dinary rhetorical gifts, Burke allied with the tionalists strove to conserve traditional morality people against “the political men of letters”—the and the local communities that embodied it. Yet progressive public intellectuals of his day. A during the 1940s and 1950s, both agreed that Roo- man of immense learning and intellectual refine- sevelt’s New Deal, which greatly enlarged the ment, Burke proclaimed: “In this enlightened age federal government, as well as expansionist Com- I am bold enough to confess, that we are gener- munist totalitarianism, presented profound new ally men of untaught feelings.” threats to freedom. The revolutionaries wanted to purge the London School of Economics professor Fried- people’s prejudices. Burke replied that the Brit- rich Hayek’s 1944 book The Road to Serfdom—a ish “cherish” their “old prejudices.” They did so surprise bestseller in the United States—ex- “because they are prejudices; and the longer they amined the effectively despotic ambitions of have lasted, and the more generally they have “modern planners.” These intellectuals and prevailed, the more we cherish them.” Burke had technocrats, spiritual descendants of the French particularly in mind the prejudices—we might revolutionaries, favored a “central direction of say “widely shared assumptions” or even “self- all economic activity according to a single plan.” evident truths”—that favored freedom. Curtailing economic freedom, Hayek warned, Burke did not pander to the people. “We are would subvert all freedoms. afraid to put men to live and trade each on his Classical liberals are not known for their own private stock of reason,” he wrote, “because populist propensities. Yet the modern tradition we suspect that this stock in each man is small, of freedom that Hayek undertook to preserve and that the individuals would do better to avail leaves the people to their own devices, able to

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make their own decisions about labor, produc- in Buckley’s judgment, embodied the organic tion, and consumption. The protection of eco- moral order. nomic freedom, Hayek maintained, established a sturdy fence around religious and political freedom. Thirty years later, Irving Kristol endorsed what During the early 1950s, in The Conservative he called “the new populism.” In a 1985 Wall Street Mind, author Russell Kirk reconstructed a tra- Journal column, Kristol observed that distrust dition of thought that emphasized conserving of populism suffused America’s founding. The traditional morality. Like Hayek’s classical lib- Constitution established a limited government eralism, Kirk’s traditionalism did not emanate through complex institutional arrangements de- from the people. Yet, also like classical liberal- signed to keep government within its prescribed ism, it shielded people from elites bent on rescu- boundaries. To that end, the sovereign people rule ing them from themselves. Out of “affection for indirectly under the Constitution and, at a dis- the proliferating variety and mystery of tradi- tance, through elected representatives. tional life,” and in opposition to the “narrowing Since the nation’s founding, “ Ωpopulism≈ has uniformity and equalitarianism and utilitarian not had a good name among American politi- aims of most radical systems,” Kirk condemned cal scientists, jurists, and social critics,” observed the ambition of progressives to impose a new Kristol. Associated with demagoguery, it has moral orthodoxy across the land. been “taken to signify a movement of popular Despite their shared opposition to collectiv- passions to overwhelm the political and legal ism, classical liberalism and traditionalism—or process by which our democracy has tradition- the partisans of freedom and the partisans of tra- ally operated.” But a new populism arose in the dition—often clashed. The enthusiasm that some mid-1960s. The people were justly dismayed by traditionalists demonstrated for legislating their their government’s inept conduct of the Vietnam morality offended classical liberals. And the in- War, by courts intruding into social policy, by difference that some classical liberals displayed schools abandoning the education and discipline about the moral foundations of free societies of students, and by a criminal-justice system scandalized traditionalists. losing interest in fighting crime. Consequently, With the founding of National Review in 1955, Kristol noted, the “common sense—not the pas- William F. Buckley set out to unite the conser- sion, but the common sense—of the American vative factions. In part, Buckley responded to people has been outraged over the past 20 years a practical imperative: any viable conservative by the persistent un-wisdom of their elected and government majority in the United States would appointed officials.” depend on both classical liberals and tradition- The new populism differed greatly from—in- alists—something that remains true today. But deed, it is nearly the opposite of—the “blind re- for Buckley, the marriage was not one of mere bellion against good constitutional government” convenience. It improved both partners. Lim- feared by America’s founders. The new popu- ited government protected traditional moral- lism “is rather an effort to bring our governing ity, Buckley believed; and traditional morality elites to their senses.” For that reason, Kristol taught the virtues of freedom. asserted, “so many people . . . who would ordi- Like classical liberals and traditionalists, narily worry about a populist upsurge find them- Buckley underscored the threat to the people selves . . . sympathetic to this new populism.” posed by progressive elites. In its first issue, Na- Conservatives’ political prospects have risen tional Review’s mission statement proclaimed: and fallen with the new populism. In 1980, Ronald “The profound crisis of our era is, in essence, Reagan owed his presidency in part to disgruntled the conflict between the Social Engineers, who blue-collar Democrats and an energized religious seek to adjust mankind to conform with scien- Right. In 1992, George H. W. Bush lost his bid for tific utopias, and the disciples of Truth, who a second term because 19 percent of the elector- defend the organic moral order.” The people, ate—drawn disproportionately from conservative

102 CITY JOURNAL FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE / ART RESOURCE, NY The founder of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke was the first to confront the challenge of conserving modern freedom. ranks—voted for populist upstart Ross Perot. In part to Trump’s aggressive campaigning, added 1994, Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America—an slightly to its Senate majority. agreement with voters apprehensive about First Lady Hillary Clinton’s ambitions to overhaul the health-care system—led to the first Republican Since Burke’s time, conservative elites have majority in the House of Representatives in 40 regularly joined forces with the people against years, as well as control of the Senate. In 2000, progressive elites armed with transformative George W. Bush won the presidency because left- projects. Recognizing the historical continuities wing populist Ralph Nader took tens of thousands provides inspiration and perspective. It is also of Florida votes from Al Gore. In 2010, populist crucial to grasping how today’s conservative- Tea Party energy fueled a stunning turnaround populist coalition differs—and not only because for the Republican Party, producing a GOP ma- Trump himself is different. In 1790, Edmund jority in the House that stymied Barack Obama’s Burke regarded British morality, civil society, and plans for “fundamentally transforming the United political institutions as healthy. He sought to pro- States of America.” In 2016, Donald Trump defied tect them from baleful Parisian ideas. In 1955, Wil- the experts with a promise to make America great liam F. Buckley worked to defend entwined com- again that resonated among disillusioned swing mitments to freedom and faith that he believed voters in states that had previously formed the ordinary people honored. In 1985, Irving Kristol Democrats’ “blue wall.” And in 2018, while Demo- found a repository of good judgment in the peo- crats produced a House majority by making head- ple and saw their decency and dependability as a way among suburban voters, the GOP, thanks in bulwark against progressive overreach.

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Today, the people are restive and in distress. In the near term, to fill the college curriculum’s The danger to their communities is not distant gaping holes and counteract its illiberal lessons, and vague; it has breached the town walls. It has conservatives should multiply the supplemental occupied neighborhoods and infiltrated homes. programs outside universities’ purview they have In 2012, in his bestseller Coming Apart, social already established. These include the Abigail scientist and political thinker Charles Murray ex- Adams Institute, the Adam Smith Society (estab- plored the multifaceted crisis of America’s lower lished by the Manhattan Institute, City Journal’s middle class. It is beset by plunging marriage publisher), the Alexander Hamilton Society, the rates, a rise in births to unwed mothers, erosion AEI Summer Honors Program, the Berkeley Insti- in men’s industriousness, surging crime, and a tute, the Claremont Institute’s Publius Fellowship, steep decline in religious faith. Add to that the the Federalist Society, Hertog Political Studies, disruptions visited upon the nation’s industrial Hudson Institute Political Studies, the Jack Miller heartland by globalization, workplace automa- Center, the Public Interest Fellowship, and the tion, and opioids. Then there are the calumnies— Witherspoon Institute. racism, sexism, xenophobia—that progressive These initiatives expose students to major ideas elites regularly heap on ordinary people. Social and classic books that today’s professors typically media spread these slanders like wildfire, which neglect, disparage, or exclude from the under- intensifies ordinary people’s resentment and dis- graduate curriculum. They introduce students to trust of elites. a spirit of free and vigorous inquiry increasingly As a result, preserving and reforming no lon- rare on our campuses. And they form a network ger suffice. To conserve, one must also restore. of young men and women grateful for the oppor- The challenge is formidable. It calls for tenac- tunity to grasp the principles of liberty, because ity, broad learning, and shrewd judgment. To they have studied the great debates about liberty. restore America’s beleaguered lower-middle- Yet valuable as they are, the conservative- class communities—indeed, to earn the support built supplements to college education are only of people throughout the nation, regardless of a start. Enormous work lies ahead. After national socioeconomic class—conservative elites must security and economic prosperity, what could convince the people that individual freedom, be more important to the public interest than a limited government, free markets, robust civil liberal education, one that prepares students to society, and a strong America in the interna- conserve the advantages of liberal democracy tional arena advance the people’s long-term in America and to undertake reforms to bring it interests. Also, conservative elites must listen more in line with its finest principles and most more to the people to understand better their as- exemplary promises? After all, without such an pirations, discontents, and fears. This will aid in education, how will citizens fully comprehend developing policies—informed by the principles the imperatives of national security and eco- of constitutional government—that address the nomic prosperity? people’s immediate priorities, starting with the It’s true that liberal education has always been good jobs essential to healthy communities. the province of elites. It’s also true, though, that, To fashion sound policy, liberal democracy beginning with Burke, conservative elites have in America must be well understood. A proper brought their learning to bear on behalf of the liberal education yields that understanding. interest they share with the people in conserving However—to put matters gently—few of our freedom, including the freedom to conserve lo- institutions of higher education transmit knowl- cal community, national tradition, and religious

edge of, and cultivate the spirit of, freedom. In- faith. KEITH MEYERS/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX stead, our colleges and universities increasingly specialize in inculcating the practices and spirit In a 1985 article, Irving Kristol declared that the “common sense . . . of the American people of the tribalism that disfigures our politics. has been outraged over the past 20 years by Conservatives, therefore, must also restore lib- the persistent un-wisdom of their elected and eral education. That’s a long-term undertaking. appointed officials.”

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