They say that history doesn’t repeat itself, but that it often rhymes.
Some say that the 2020s bears substantial similarity to the 1980s: a Cold War with the Eastern Bloc, threats of nuclear war, strained relations with an economic powerhouse in East Asia, a resurgent conservatism, domestic racial tensions, and moral panic about LGBT people, especially in regards to a sexually-transmitted disease spreading amongst gay men (monkeypox/HIV).
While many of these conflicts are the result of historical happenstance or perennially pointless culture war posturing, it is worth considering the difference in the political dialogue between now and the Reagan era, especially amongst the Republican Party and their allied media operatives. Who are the conservatives, anyway?
Of Late I Dream of Charlottesville
It’s not an idle question, nor a meaningless one. These days it seems that the Republican Party suffers from a sort of multiple personality disorder as a result of their exceedingly absurd party coalition. The Democrats are often accused of ideological disunity: after all, what sense does it make that pro-union conservative Southerners like Senator Manchin and YDSA alumni like Representative Ocasio-Cortez call the same party “theirs”? Yet, despite their willingness to form an electoral coalition along the same lines as Reagan, the Republican Party seems far more politically confused.
The Reagan Coalition is not, in fact, a first-order coalition, in the same line as the coalition of centrists, liberals, and progressives who form the Democrats under the Sixth Party System. Rather, it is a coalition of coalitions. The two coalitions which form the Republican Party can broadly be described as one of the pro-business libertarians, and one of the “hard right,” and it is not hard to see which faction has become increasingly powerful in the post-Reagan years.
Originally, the power base of the Republican Party was distinctly blue-blooded. It was a party of Northeastern WASPs, who were moderate on both economic and social issues. These liberal conservatives were concerned about the economic health of the country, being strongly in favor of free trade and capitalism. Yet, these Rockefeller Republicans were not entirely opposed to affirmative action nor to policies that defended minority rights, since most African-Americans in the South still voted for the party of Lincoln and the Freedman’s Bureau. At the time, the incredibly bizarre Democratic Party drew its power both from poor Southern European and Irish immigrants in the North, and from deeply-conservative white Southerners.
By the 1960s, however, this system was beginning to change. A conservative Republican Arizona senator named Barry Goldwater decided to pursue the Presidency by appealing to the segregationist interests of the Southern planter class via the political euphemism of “state’s rights.” Though he lost (and badly), the Republican Party would slowly drag in the support of more and more conservatives, becoming itself increasingly right-wing, through the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who became a Republican hero by uniting the northern liberal-conservative Rockefeller coalition with the national-conservative Goldwater one. Himself aligning more with the latter faction, Reagan chose the blue-blooded Northerner George H.W. Bush to be his running mate, solidifying the Sixth Party System.
After Bush Sr. betrayed the coalition by breaking his promise to not raise taxes, the liberals mostly coalesced around the Democratic Party (though some liberal Republicans remain to vote R in their local- and state-wide elections, which is why New England states often have Republican governors despite voting for Democratic presidential candidates by 15+ points). The remaining Republican coalition was drawn from pro-business, small-government libertarian types, be they business leaders or hardcore Hoppean “liberals,”1 and from good old fashioned reactionaries, be they aristocratic Yaley fascists or working-class Christian dominionists. Such is the modern Republican voting bloc.
One can easily see the difference between the libertarians and the reactionaries by observing the arguments made by “conservatives” online. The libertarian argues that the Republican Party is superior, and worthy of your vote because they seek to preserve Constitutional rights, the concept of limited government, and the separation of powers. The Democratic Party is, by contrast, in the libertarian’s mind, unsavory because they trample upon the Bill of Rights and seek to expand government power. The reactionary argues that the Republican Party is superior because it acknowledges America as a Christian nation, and seeks to maintain the social order of the nuclear family and the international order of pro-Israeli foreign policy. The Democratic Party is, in the conservative’s mind, a cesspool of Satanic degeneracy.
The problem with this exceedingly tentative coalition is that it is on its very face completely and utterly nonsensical. However, if one observes conservatives of both varieties long enough, eventually, the libertarian makes a reactionary argument, and the reactionary a libertarian one. The libertarian will post cynically about gay rights, and the reactionary will soapbox about gun control. Why, then? Why does this coalition persist, and continue to have success at the ballot box? Why on Earth does Rand Paul share a party with Josh Hawley, when they so patently have absolutely nothing in common policy-wise? Why does your neighbor fly both a Thin-Blue-Line and a Molon Labe flag? Who does he think is going to try and “come and take” his guns—Beto O’Rourke himself?
The answer, which is rather awful to know, is that policy is a secondary consideration in the mind of the Republican coalition (which I will not, from now on, refer to as “conservative”—for reasons that I will investigate later, “conservatives” in the truest sense are only ever actually found in the Democratic Party). The primary objective is not ideological nor even non-ideological policy-making, but rather political power in and of itself. Republicans do not need to have a platform, they only need to not be Democrats, in the minds of their voters. Defeating liberals and socialists (“owning the libs,” to quote the memes which, despite what he would have you believe, are mostly designed to mock Ben Shapiro) is paramount—figuring out what to do with the power once you have it is subsidiary. This is why, perhaps, the Republican coalition has proved far more durable than the Democratic one: liberals are far too keen to criticize progressives and socialists within the party, to their detriment, and vice versa, whereas Republicans are willing to put ideological differences aside for the sake of victory—with one notable exception: Republican voters, by and large, will never accept voting for anyone who has ever compromised with a Democratic politician. RINO is, after all, a dirty word that essentially boils down to “competent statesman.”
Additionally, this is probably why Republicans do not hold their nominees to the same level of integrity as Democratic primary voters. Ostensibly, Republicans are rather discomforted by Muslims and are (or at least used to be) terrified of foreign Islamic interference in American democracy. Yet, Pennsylvania Republicans chose an immigrant Muslim who served in a foreign military to be their nominee for the Senate: Dr. Oz. In Georgia, a Republican football player who had repeatedly abused his family and paid for several of his mistresses to receive abortions, nearly won the election, despite the usual GOP pro-life messaging. Ideology and policy positions—even ones that Republicans claim are deeply important, like the sanctity of life—do not actually matter. All that matters is paying lip service to the party—personal morality is utterly meaningless.
If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was revealed to be a Daughter of the Confederacy, she would never win another election, now would she?
Camelot and the Cathedral
Much of the modern Republican Party’s platform in the twenty-first century—even if they do not realize it—is a result of the normalization and outgrowth of a particular form of reactionary conservatism ultimately born of the Internet generations and the philosophical movements arising from chan culture.
This group of “neo-reactionaries,” “alt-right,” “Nouvelle-Droite,” or whatever you wish to call them, philosophers is perhaps most well known for their anonymity, which is an intrinsic property and cultural milieu of the Usenet-BBS-messageboard-IRC-4Chan-Discord-cozy.tv sub-subculture. However, there are some famous names and faces to this group: Nicholas Fuentes, Peter Thiel, Richard Spencer, Laura Loomer, and Gavin McInnes are the most well-known, though not the most influential. Ultimately, all of these pundits are mere derivations of the original Plato and Aristotle of the Dark Enlightenment movement: Curtis Yarvin (pen-name “Mencius Moldbug”) and his successor, Nick Land.
I will not devote much time to an in-depth criticism of the Dark Enlightenment,2 as there are others who have explored this ideology-of-the-outcasts far more thoroughly than I ever could, but it is sufficient to say that the Moldbugian outlook goes behind the traditional conservative assertion that egalitarian movements (socialism, feminism, parliamentary supremacy, racial reconciliation) have “gone too far,” and asserts instead that democracy and equality themselves are evil, or at the very least unnatural. In contrast to the traditional fascists and reactionaries, who proposed racial or feudalistic hierarchies as the default, and therefore ideal, social structure, these remix-reactionaries have found a new mechanism by which to sort humanity: free-market capitalism. Whereas ordinary conservatives are resistant to traditional fascism because they—at least on the surface—eschew racism in favor of theoretical equality of opportunity, they are far more willing to accept the hierarchy of capital as being “just.” Therefore, the Dark Enlightenment has found far better company amidst the Republican Party and other national-conservative movements in the West and around the world as vehicles for their ideology. Often enough, more sincere racists—like Hoppe—will use the Dark Enlightenment anti-democratic worldview as a motte-and-bailey style argument to deflect anti-fascist arguments: “no I’m not a Nazi, I’m just a capitalist!”
The clearest argument against the Dark Enlightenment, from a conservative perspective, is that people like Land and Fuentes fundamentally misunderstand the nature of conservatism itself. Conservatism is meant to be an ideology of the status quo (in the case of the United States, family-centric neoliberal democracy), rather than a reversionary reaction to social change. It is an ancient and clichéd liberal political tagline, but you cannot legislate personal morality. Virtually every right-wing dictator who has ever held the reins of power has attempted to do what sincere liberal conservatives like Burke understood was impossible: mandate social structures.
The Old-New Right, the Buckleys and Goldwaters and Eisenhowers, understood that traditional social structures—the nuclear or extended family, the church, the local community, etc.—can only thrive in the absence of state power. These are institutions that must always exist outside of the purview of the Leviathan. To enforce their existence by the threat of state violence, as was done in Francoist Spain or Nazi Germany, will always result in an anti-traditional backlash that will last for generations. To those of us who value the family and the village, we have long known that their preservation requires salutary neglect, not the heavy hand of the lictor or the magistrate.
The alt-right presumes not just the existence of a social structure that cruelly mandates false equalities of race and sex—whether they call it the “Deep State,” the “Cathedral,” the “Longhouse,” or the “Matrix,” they presumptuously declare that they, and only they, have the power to turn these vast, complex institutions (which, for the record, are far too byzantine and dysfunctional to ever intentionally implement any kind of coherent policy, let alone one of a particular political or social agenda beyond seeking preservation) against themselves and in favor of these micro-societies found in Sunday Schools, synagogues, and stitch-and-bitch clubs.
We can preserve these institutions, and we should do all we can to at least try. But the solution does not—and never does—lie in authoritarianism. Regardless of the anti-social nature of modernity, which does all it can to crush the human spirit, we should resist with all force we can to prevent these sorts of individuals from herding us all into the fascist malebolge that they hold so dear. Their utopia isn’t just a dystopia for the rest of us, it is a dystopia for everyone. I, for one, reject authoritarianism with all my spirit, and I would prefer to face God and walk backward into Hell than bear the guilt of collaborationism.
The Times That Try Mens’ Souls
These can be dark things to think about, and I can practically hear the anguish in your voice, dear reader—is there any hope? Is there any way out of this duopolistic mess, where I am constantly caught between two unpleasant choices? Must voting always be a choice between eating strychnine and drinking hemlock?
The solution to duopolistic party politics lies, as things often do, in the structure of our democracy itself. We all (more or less) agree upon the concept of democracy: power resides with the people, and they must exercise this power via the ballot box. Further, since direct democracy is all but impossible except on the scale of smaller municipalities qua New England, we mostly agree that democracy on a national scale must mean election: the people choose their representatives, who are required to maintain the confidence of their electorate in successive elections.
However, the mechanism by which the preferences of the people are converted into functional governments is decidedly unclear—literally centuries of political debate and academic work have been spent trying to ascertain the ideal means by which to make this conversion. The American system, which is to run elections in hundreds of gerrymandered districts, wherein parties select their candidates, each voter is allowed one vote, and the candidate who wins a plurality of these votes takes the seat, has had considerable successes, of course: the United States has one of the longest-living still-used constitutions anywhere in the world, and has more or less been stable for its entire existence. However, the first-past-the-post single-member district pluralitarian system has also created and maintained a strict two-party political system. Third parties almost never win enough votes to secure any kind of electoral victory on a national scale (no American presidential candidate has ever won except those for one of the two major parties).
A number of alternative methods for electing national politicians have been developed over the past two hundred years, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. Indeed, one of the methods most popular across the world was proposed by none other than John Adams in a Revolutionary-era pamphlet,3 though he was not successful in convincing the delegates at the Constitutional Convention to adopt his method: the hallowed proportional vote. Much bellyaching has been heard over the years over the fact that such-and-such percent of House seats were won by Democrats in the last election, but they actually won such-and-such percent of votes cast, and isn’t-it-so-unfair and so on.
The proportional vote is rather simple. Voters choose a political party, and votes are apportioned among such that whatever deliberative assembly the election was held for has the same makeup as the electorate: Party A received 30% of the votes and gets 30% of the seats, or as close as is reasonably possible (with some minimum threshold usually set). Seats are actually filled according to party lists: political parties write lists of candidates to theoretically fill every seat in the legislature, and seats are filled top-down. The legislature has 100 seats, and Party A with its 30% support gets 30, and so the top 30 people listed are seated. The lists themselves are compiled by any of a thousand different mechanisms—the party bosses may write them after much deliberation, or the party’s voters may order them in some mechanism, perhaps even by an intra-party proportional election (turtles all the way down-style). Along with a number of other statistical and mathematic advantages, the clearest benefit to proportional representation is its conduciveness to party pluralism: all a party needs is to clear some small arithmetical hurdle in order to get its foot in the door, as it were. No need to worry about spoiled votes.
There is a clear and rather obvious drawback to the proportional system, though: district-based systems give voters a clear idea of who their representative is. I know what Congressional district I live in, so I know who to throw eggs at when he displeases me, but in a proportional system, against whom should I hold a grudge? This is not a meaningless complaint with proportionality, either: it is important for the sake of democracy that any member of the electorate can easily know who “their guy” is, for good or bad.
There is a solution, inelegant as it might be: the mixed-member proportional system. Like many engineering marvels, it is to be found in Germany.
Here is my proposal for a better election scheme. First, the number of members to be elected to the House of Representatives should be calculated as the cube root of the population of the United States. The United States should then be divided, using pre-existing political boundaries as often as possible, into districts numbering half rounded-down of that first number, but with at least one district per state. Voters are then provided with a two-column ballot for the House. On the left side, voters choose a political party, and on the right, voters may mark their approval or disapproval of a list of candidates for the House. In each district, the person receiving the most approval votes on these ballots is elected. The entirety of the House is seated as such: the makeup of the entire house must be proportional to the percentage of votes cast on the left side of the ballot for that party. Therefore, seats allocated to each party are made as such: first, each Representative for that party who has won a district race is seated, and then additional representatives may be added from the party’s list. However, in situations where a party has been allocated fewer seats than they have won in district elections, all members who have won districts must be seated. These are called overhang seats, and ensure that every district has a distinct, singular Representative. As a result, there may be a handful more representatives in the House than there were “assigned” according to the cube-root method.
This is of course not a panacea against the growing cancer of fascism and pseudo-fascism in the West. The work that is to be done will not be easy. The solutions will be political, social, economic, and perhaps even spiritual, delving into every corner of Western life. It will require an understanding of how these things tend to emerge—no one is born a fascist. These truly are the times that try mens’ souls.
I use the term “liberal” here with the most insincere of scare-quotes.
Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007, Nick Land, 2008.
Thoughts on Government, John Adams, 1776.