Earlier this month, a conference on “national conservatism” in Washington, DC, showed that the terms of debate on the American right are changing. Intellectuals on the right are increasingly likely to cast their arguments in terms of what serves the nation, rather than what serves the individual.
Beyond these shared terms, there sometimes seemed to be little agreement. For instance, dovish Tucker Carlson and hawkish John Bolton were both keynote speakers. And among the conference speakers, at least three distinct ideas of nationalism were defended. Charles Kesler, editor of what may be America’s finest magazine, the Claremont Review of Books, defended a subtle form of “creedal nationalism” that defines America in terms of a common creed: all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
