Posted on 12/15/2015 12:35:00 PM PST by No One Special
Alger Hiss (center), Soviet GRU agent, State Department official, and the first General Secretary of the United Nations
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Over on what we think of as the right side of the political spectrum, critiques of Donald Trump often include laments and/or teeth-gnashings over his "splitting the Republican Party," and/or his "not being a conservative."
Free Beacon editor Matthew Continetti approaches this same and, to him, alarming territory with an eye on whether Trump's candidacy portends a historic shift in the GOP as we have known it in recent decades.
He writes:
It's possible we are at the beginning of another political recalibration based on national identity. Already center-right parties in Japan and Russia and Israel have lurched in a nationalist direction. And where nationalists do not enjoy outright control, as in Hungary and Poland, they split the center-right coalition, as in France, the U.K., and Germany.
The tendency in Washington is not to take Donald Trump seriously. To describe him as a clown, as someone who will drop out, as someone whose beliefs are non-ideological. I believe that to dismiss him is a mistake. Since declaring his candidacy in June, Trump has been consistent on issues of immigration and trade and security. He has not deviated from building a wall on the southern border, slapping tariffs on imports, criticizing the 2003 Iraq war, praising Vladimir Putin, describing Ukraine as Germany's problem not ours, and saying Middle East peace depends on Israeli concessions.
NB -- On the point about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Trump said this: "A lot will have to do with Israel and whether or not Israel wants to make the deal -- whether or not Israel's willing to sacrifice certain things. They may not be, and I understand that, and I'm OK with that. But then you're just not going to have a deal."
Back to Continetti:
Trump's nationalism has far more in common with the conservatism of Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front, than with the conservatism of Ronald Reagan. Support for a "Muslim ban" is par for the course among European nationalists—by calling for it here all Trump has done is confirm how closely American politics resembles European
Rather, by calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration here, Trump has shown singular courage to articulate a long-overdue, common-sense reaction to the clear, present and shared danger posed by this recurrent cycle of Islamic expansionism to the wider West. As summed up by Geert Wilders -- for the third time since 2010 voted Politician of the Year by the Dutch public -- the more Islam there is in a society, the less freedom there is. The less security, too. What Wilders refers to -- and what is rarely even mentioned, let alone discussed in public debate -- is the totalitarian and all-encompassing nature of Islamic law (sharia), which accompanies Islamic immigration, shrinking liberty and security in the host societies, which quickly adopt the characteristics of dhimmitude.
Leaving "Le Pen" hanging there (I note that in such pieces it is invariably Le Pen, and not the far more well known and widely admired Wilders, who is trotted out as the European "nationalist" -- never "patriotic" -- model), Continetti continues with his Trump-is-not-Reagan argument. As an aside, if we recall Reagan's inexplicably, disastrously weak (non) reaction to the 1983 Iran-sponsored jihadist attack that killed 241 US Marines in Beirut, this is not in all cases a bad thing.
Reagan was an immigration advocate who signed the 1986 amnesty law.
The wide-open connotations around "immigration advocate" may render the label at least somewhat insufficient for Reagan, who also said: "A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation." In any event, Reagan signed the 1986 amnesty law in exchange for tighter border security and immigration laws (such as penalizing employers who hired illegals) that would never materialize.
But here is Continetti's central point:
Indeed, Republican nominees since Ronald Reagan have been internationalist in outlook. They have been pro-free trade and pro-immigration, have supported American leadership in global institutions, and have argued for market solutions and traditional values. A Republican Party under Donald Trump would broadly reject this attitude. It would emphasize protection in all its forms—immigration restriction, trade duties, a fortress America approach to international relations, and activist government to address health care and veterans' care. Paeans to freedom and opportunity and equality and small government would give way to admonishments to strive, to fight, to win, to profit.
This set of Republican/conservative criteria -- which CandidateTrump is said not to meet -- are quite fascinating to me, particularly in light of research vectors that both led to, and continue on after American Betrayal.
Let's take a closer look at Continetti's top four GOP markers: 1) internationalist in outlook; 2) pro-free trade; 3) pro-immigration; 4) support for American leadership in global institutions.
At one time, such positions defined the Left side of the American political spectrum, even the far Left -- even the Communist Party USA!
This is in not an exageration. The program Continetti describes as quintessentially Republican happens to intersect or mesh perfectly with the global systems helmed into existence, literally, by American Communist agents of the Kremlin at the time of or after World War II -- namely, to take the most prominent examples, Alger Hiss at the United Nations, and Harry Dexter White at the International Monetary Fund. What Continetti describes as "pro-immigration," I take to mean as a position that is the opposite of immigration restriction as enacted by conservatives (in both parties) in the 1920s and 1950s, and perhaps even in line with the unceasing mass immigration mainly from the Third World that has been demographically and culturally and politically transforming the USA since the infamous, Ted-Kennedy-managed 1965 Immigration Act.
Then there's free trade -- surely, the ultimate in free market economics, and, thus, an essence of what we think of as "conservatism," right?
Think again. I have long believed that bottom-line free trade which, for example, turned Americans into enablers of slave or quasi-slave labor in such dictatorships as Communist China, and bankrupters of our own manufacturing base in the USA, was a disaster. Not until I recently picked up Toward Soviet America, the 1932 book by Communist Pary USA Chairman William Z. Foster, did I realize global free trade was also in sync with Communism's assault on our nation's character as well.
In his predictions for Soviet America, many of which have come true as Marxist ideology has subverted our institutions, Foster writes:
A Communist world will be a unified, organized world.
Remember Soviet agent Alger Hiss acted as the first UN secretary general in 1945.
The economic system will be one great organization, based upon the principle of planning now dawning in the U.S.S.R.
Remember that Soviet agent Harry Dexter White was the first executive director of the IMF in 1946.
The American Soviet government will be an important section in this world organization. In such a society there will be no tariffs or the many other barriers erected by capitalism against a free world interchange of goods. The raw material supplies of the world will be at the disposition of the peoples of the world.
Of course! Free trade is just another weapon to break down the nation-state -- the ultimate globalist/Communist/progressive/Marxist/Democrat -- and, in our time, apparently, GOP -- goal.
As Continetti writes, "A Republican Party under Donald Trump would broadly reject this attitude."
Amen to that.
Thus, open borders, H-1B, Bad Trade...Constitutional Bypasses etc.
Much of "Conservatism" today is essentially anti-American.
You're avoiding a central question of this article.
Are conservatives globalists, free traders, free marketers and open borders advocates?
The constitution speaks for itself in often very general terms.
Honestly I just don’t respect your kind (Progressives) enough to waste a lot of time on answering you.
Lol, as you continue to avoid a simple question and resort to childish name calling.
Scratch below the surface and one often finds that posters who specialize in almost cryptic one-liners and short blurbs actually have very little depth to their ideas.
But I'll repeat the question that stumped you for any genuine conservatives who care to answer it.
Are conservatives globalists, free traders, free marketers and open borders advocates?
The Modern Conservative Movement most definitely is all of the above. Along with international interventions it's embodied in the Republican Party.
And has been for at least 40 years. And that includes Ronald Reagan, though he wasn't a true open borders advocate, bill signing notwithstanding.
The real question on the table is: What is Conservatism?
I suggest Nationalism is missing and that many of the issues above are not America First.
And, it's time to redefine Conservatism as it's currently intellectualized, debated and practiced.
That can only be done by winning a series of elections with America First as the principal underpinning, thereby reforming all the institutions surrounding the body politic.
Could that be the rebirth of the Paleo Conservative?
Nationalism without constitutionalism and liberty is meaningless.
The Modern Conservative Movement most definitely is all of the above. Along with international interventions it's embodied in the Republican Party.
Totally agree. The correct answer that many who consider themselves to be conservatives just can't bring themselves to provide.
And any rational definition of free markets on an global scale must include the free movement of labor. Some free traders believe that, but only a few will admit it. Many other 'free traders' conveniently want to say free trade does not include the free movement of labor, but the true definition definitely does.
We do need to make nationalism part of our international trade policies again. I actually believe in 'mostly' free trade with nations of comparable living standards, and tariffed trade with all these cheap labor nations.
As Trump says, we should negotiate agreements with individual nations, or small blocks of similar nations. None of the NAFTA and TPP type nonsense.
Paleo Conservative might be the most accurate description. We definitely need to start putting the interests of the US and her citizens first, and that means an economy that provides opportunity for citizens and legal residents at all skill levels.
And we need to decrease the annual trillion dollars of means tested poverty program payouts by creating jobs that the recipients can fill at all skill levels. That'd do more to reduce the budget deficit than anything. Trump has talked about that, but it's been a while since I've heard him mention it. That's also one of his great issues if he'd start tying it in with immigration/trade/the economy, etc.
If a conservative does not hold American nationalism above all, they are not conservative. I am not a citizen of the world. Most of the GOP is now loyal first to the international financial order, not to America.
The guys who wrote the Constitution financed the government with tariffs, did not tax income, warned us about entangling alliances, and not looking abroad for dragons to slay.
They did not create a central bank.
Today’s “conservatism” stands against most of what they created.
What Is a Conservative? A conservative believes in constitutionally-limited government, free markets, states rights, individual liberty, a strong but not overly ambitious foreign policy, and the preservation of what the late, great Dr. Russell Kirk called “the permanent things”.
What Defines the GOP? Their only principle is to hve no principles.
Their only strategy is preemptive surrender.
Their only plan for victory is to tick off their base as much as possible.
The Republican Party was founded to replace the Whigs because the Whigs refused to take a stand on the important issues of the day. Well, they did such a good job of replacing the Whigs that they have become the Whigs.
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