Trump’s America First nationalism isn’t patriotic or conservative (Pt. II)

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As we learned yesterday, Trump’s America First nationalism isn’t patriotic, it’s racist and xenophobic. While this fact alone is reason enough to reject nationalist ideology, there are other consequences to this cheap rebranding of conservatism we should be aware of.

I’ve been pointing out for quite some time how the socialistic big-government ideology of Democrats and the Far-Left has been given a “conservative socialism” makeover resulting in a host of “conservative’ versions of leftist ideals — a reality growing worse as time goes by.

At the National Conservatism Conference (NCC) I mentioned in yesterday’s piece, the motivation for the get-together was to explore new ways to empower government with the means necessary to right the wrongs brought about by traditional conservatism. And if liberty has to be sacrificed to accomplish that goal, it’s a price nationalists are willing to pay.

“Today we declare independence,” NCC organizer Yoram Hazony said, “from the set of ideas that sees the atomic individual, the free and equal individual, as the only thing that matters in politics.”

Taking that idea a step further, FOX News host Tucker Carlson — he loves Elizabeth Warren’s “Economic Patriotism” platform because it sounds like “Donald Trump at his best.” — said in his keynote speech that big government was less a threat to liberty than the free market. “The main threat to your ability to live your life as your choose does not come from government anymore,” Carlson declared. “It comes from the private sector.”

It its coverage of the conference, Reason.com concluded:

“The true object of the nationalists’ ire is much closer to home: They cannot abide individual Americans making social and economic choices they do not like. For consumers, the question might be whether to buy foreign or domestic. For a business owner, it might be where to open a factory.

“Regardless, the new nationalists have decided not only that there is a right answer from a moral perspective but that government should force you to choose correctly.”

Some of the other so-called conservatives you might recognize who were in attendance included Sen. Josh Hawley (MO) and National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Hawley, a darling of the faux-conservative crowd, began establishing his conservative socialist bona fides back in April when he co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Rick Scott to impose price controls on prescription drugs — a bill so socialistic in nature it was described as legislation Bernie Sanders could have written.

In a keynote speech that sounded more like something you’d hear at a Democrat fundraiser, Hawley attacked the “powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities,” and called for “a new consensus” to address the “discontent of our time.”

Many are trying to disconnect Donald Trump from the goings-on at the NCC — several radio listeners tried to do so yesterday after hearing Part I — but he always planned on using the presidency to advance Ivanka’s feminist socialist agenda. Additionally, candidate Trump in 2016 promised to create a Bernie Sanders-styled “worker’s party” to address America’s “unjust” economic system.

In a nutshell, the self-proclaimed nationalist occupying the White House is completely simpatico with the tenets of the National Conservatism Conference.

Trump’s America First nationalism is being called “conservative,” but it’s not. It’s socialism. It’s big government. It kills liberty. And there’s nothing conservative about it!

 

 

David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative.

His daily radio commentary is distributed by the Salem Radio Network and is heard on stations across America.

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