Re-alignment
Where the New Right moves "left"
In lieu of an original essay today, I highly recommend watching this interview by Freddie Sayers at UnHerd with Oren Cass of American Compass, who is one of the more intelligent and articulate masterminds of the New Right. He is a non-traditional economist in favor of defending workers, families, and the basic social fabric of American communities.
What’s especially important — it comes out at the end— are the distinctions emerging between the New Right and the old conservatism (including Wall Street, big tech, free trade, market liberalism, and the “country club” social set), between the New Right and Trump himself, and the “re-alignment” from (old) Democrats to (new) Republicans. Basically, there’s been a flip-flop. Key issues are still under debate within this New Right.
To my mind, one of the most interesting developments is the de-fusioning of the New Right away from economic free market liberalism (libertarianism). On this, see the new Fusion magazine at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER). I previously covered an old debate between Cass and Stephanie Slade, probably my favorite libertarian spokesperson: Part 1 and Part 2.
You can subscribe to Cass’s new Substack here:
The upshot? It’s not all black and white, good versus evil. There are real policies, foreign and domestic, real demographics, and real economics at stake. There will also be an America after Trump.
Without listening to both sides, without considering who is moving in which direction, it’s impossible to get any clarity, much less any sense of reality. I know regular citizens and voters don’t have much influence or say, but we have to try. Listening carefully, I hope, will incentivize better thinking, speaking, and decision-making in a dynamic situation.
