Thread by @Tracinski

So I traced this Sohrab Ahmari thing back to its root, which is a little manifesto published in First Things a few months ago. 1/

firstthings.com/web-exclusives…

None of this is really about David French. It's an attempt to launch a civil war within the right, with the goal of purging advocates of economic liberty. 2/

I don't think it's even about Donald Trump, because he's an utterly implausible standard bearer for going back to that old-time religion. But he is contemptuously indifferent to free-market ideas and principles, so he emboldens them to express their own hostility. 3/

Note in that manifesto the sneering references to "individual autonomy," "the cult of competitiveness," "free trade," "economic libertarianism," "investors and 'job creators'," "the demands of capital," and "warmed-over Reaganism." 4/

I said a few days ago that we were only weeks away from conservatives trashing Reagan in order to back Trump. I was behind the curve. It was already happening. 5/

But they don't just want to eject the free-marketers. They want to let in the nationalists: "We embrace the new nationalism insofar as it stands against the utopian ideal of a borderless world." They talk about "communal solidarity" and "the human need for a common life." 6/

And who are the bad guys? Supposed "jet-setters," "citizens of the world" who can "go anywhere" and "work anywhere" in a "borderless world." I'm surprised they didn't just go straight to "rootless cosmopolitans," really. 7/

And here's what they have to say on immigration: "some have argued for immigration by saying that working-class Americans are less hard-working, less fertile, in some sense less worthy than potential immigrants. We oppose attempts to displace American citizens." 8/

It's all stated vaguely, so I'm trying to figure out that the difference is between this "displacement" and the "white genocide"/"great replacement" arguments. It is certainly a zero-sum view of immigration. 9/

So this is a paleo-conservative putsch. It's the old Pat Buchanan wing of the right using Trump as a figurehead in an attempt to assert dominance over the movement and kick out the "soulless" free-marketers who believe in individual autonomy. 10/

In practical terms, they are fooling themselves. An electoral coalition on the right that rejects prosperity and free markets in favor of imposing religious values is a much smaller coalition. It's a plan for fewer but better Republicans--and more socialist Dems in power. 11/

In ideological terms, they are trying to decouple religion from advocacy of individual liberty. This is a "told you so" moment for us secularists, who always wondered if making common cause politically with religious believers would backfire on us. 12/

But overall, I don't think having one less group standing up for freedom is good for America in any way, especially as the left become emboldened in standing for socialism. 13/13

At any rate, the upshot of all of this is that we now know where Trump and Trumpism are taking us, and it's nowhere good.