“Conservatism” Is Now Just a Domination Fetish

1. Fetlife

At 3:00 p.m. EDT today I’m talking to historian Heather Cox Richardson on Substack; I hope you’ll join us. The subject of our conversation is going to be political conservatism in the American context.

So let’s start at the very beginning: What did “conservatism” used to mean?

At the foundational, philosophical level, conservatism was about slowing the pace of change in order to avoid unintended consequences. Which is why the obverse of conservatism wasn’t “liberalism,” it was “radicalism.”¹

Radicals wanted rapid, systemic changes. Conservatives prioritized three things that buffered systemic change:

1. The rule of law

2. Subsidiarity

3. Institutions

Radicalism insisted that change must come, as quickly as possible and by any means necessary. If laws stood in the way, then they should be overturned or obviated. If local or state governments were recalcitrant, then the federal government must overrule them. If institutions slowed change, then they must be either captured or scuttled.

It may sound like I’m loading the deck against radicalism, but I’m not. At various times in American history, the radicals have been on what we now deem to be the right side—most notably on revolting against British rule and abolishing slavery.

But the radicals haven’t always been on the side of the angels. Radicals wanted rapid systemic change away from democratic capitalism following the Second World War. Conservatives wanted to preserve existing systems.

This isn’t to cast either conservatism or radicalism as the “good” political philosophy. Each has had its time in the sun and more to the point: Every healthy society needs an element of both. It’s a yin-yang dynamic.

Instead, I want to suggest that:

• American conservatism is now the radical political philosophy.

• Its object is not “change” but domination.

I don’t think we even need to make the case that modern conservatism² is no longer interested in conservation; we can just take it as read.

The people who call themselves conservative today are actively hostile to the rule of law, subsidiarity, and the mediating power of institutions. I do not think many of them would dispute this characterization.

Conservatives seem to agree with Trump’s dictum that, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” At the very least they agree that Trump should not be subject to the rule of law. This is not a mere partisan point of privilege—the conservative majority on the Supreme Court created an entirely new legal doctrine to insulate the presidency from the law.

Conservatives are also vehemently against subsidiarity. Conservatives in Alabama do not believe that the people of California or Massachusetts should be allowed to make their own decisions about their children’s education, or health care, or even what policies local businesses might have concerning the wearing of surgical masks. They prefer a universal, federally mandated approach.

And conservatives are actively hostile to independent institutions. This is why they have embraced economic warfare against universities, the media, and private business. They seek to use government power to either compel institutions to submit to them, or risk destruction.

Yet at the same time, I’m not sure that what conservatives want constitutes “change.”

I argued that, historically, the radical persuasion in American politics was bent on evolving the status quo. But the direction of that evolution differed from moment to moment. In one era, it desired independence from the crown. In another it sought to abolish slavery. In another it sought transformation of the social compact.

Today’s conservatives are certainly radical in their disposition—in the sense that they are hostile to the rule of law, subsidiarity, and institutions—but what they want isn’t so much change as domination.

They want to set the laws. To force others to live by their preferences. To be able to extract wealth from whatever corner of the system they like. They embrace, nay, they celebrate corruption.³ They are in favor of political violence, so long as it is carried out by actors sympathetic to their cause.⁴

This isn’t a program that’s primarily concerned with changing policies or systems; it’s a fetish for domination. Stephen Miller said this explicitly last week:

The power of law enforcement, under President Trump’s leadership, will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and, if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.

As Andrew Egger said this morning, note that the concept of law comes last in Miller’s version of conservatism. The first principle is domination.

That’s not the only way to read modern conservatism, of course. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject, though.

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