Why Nationalism Has Trumped Conservatism

In our previous article we referred to the new fault-line in American politics and how Donald Trump’s primary candidacy has exposed it. Here is an attempt to be more explicit.

Not so long ago the preoccupation on the Right was the betrayal of Conservatism by too many Republican politicians. The birth of the Tea Party was a grass-roots expression of the frustration of rank-and-file activists and voters. Conservatism, represented by the Chicago school of economics, Reagan/Thatcher policies, and subsequently articulated by Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and others, was a mix of free market economics, small government, strict Constitutionalism, lower taxes, fiscal discipline, private Health Care and reduced welfare commitments. Other Conservative issues included real marriage, gun rights, a strong military, voter identification, school choice and support for Israel.

The 2007 financial and economic collapse, the Bank bailouts with paper money, the Obama election victory, his strong-arming of ObamaCare and his increasing disregard for limits on the Presidency, all intensified Conservative angst among the Republican rank-and-file. But most of all the debate centered on Government financial recklessness and increasing Government power.

Although there was Conservative unease over immigration, lax border control and the Democrat push for citizenship and voting rights for illegal immigrants, Conservatives were coy about immigration in the belief that America had to be forever welcoming new arrivals – just as long as they were ‘legal’. Conservatives were also coy about questioning free trade, and unwilling to be associated with any kind of protectionism, no matter how many American jobs were lost.

Although Nationalism and ‘Americans First’ has seemed to be an instinctive Republican trait, and patriotism – long a dirty word on the Left – has had a home of sorts in the Republican Party, the Tea Party and Conservative anger was mostly about the RINO betrayal of fiscal rectitude and limited government.

A number of things have nudged that anger aside and propelled Nationalism to the center of Rightwing politics in 2015. The most insidious has been Obama’s relentless anti-American rhetoric and policies over seven years. More specifically, they include Obama’s ramping-up of illegal immigration, the critical loss of blue-collar jobs (especially for White working class men) because of international trade deals and the Big Business appetite for lower wages and escape from excessive taxation, and lastly and crucially, bloodthirsty Islamic Imperialism.

The appalling and brazen cruelties of Islam-on-the-march, the renewed Muslim terrorism (just as 9/11 was being forgotten, thanks to the MSM) in Europe and here in the USA, the invasion of Europe by hostile migrants, and the crypto/Muslim President’s bold importation of thousands of young Muslim men into the USA, have not only caused great alarm among Americans, but have married that alarm to the alarm felt about illegal immigration over the Mexican border.

All of this alarm was suppressed by the domination of Political Correctness reinforced by the MSM. This suppression might have continued into the Republican primaries so that the contest would have continued to center on Conservatism versus RINO collaboration. But then came Donald Trump and his denunciation of open borders and the influx of criminals, which he quickly expanded into a bigger criticism of immigration, unequal free trade treaties and then the dangers of Muslim immigrants. Trump’s speeches, unrestrained by political correctness opened the floodgates. Suddenly, American working people, especially Whites, but also others, felt empowered to oppose Internationalism. Nationalism has elbowed Conservatism aside on the Right, in the persons of Trump and Cruz. Some of us regret that the two ‘isms’ have come into conflict for we see them as interdependent along with Traditional Christianity. But we believe that Trump and his Nationalism should take priority at this time because immigration and Islam are the most pressing threats to America’s security, culture, identity and territorial integrity.

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