Having listened to a few podcasts on which Rich Lowry talks about his vision of "conservative nationalism," I have many thoughts, but mostly this one. Maybe people would love the nation more if anti-gov't and anti-tax conservatives hadn't spent 50 years starving its institutions. 
As in, maybe if we had well-funded systems of public education, public transportation, public housing, Medicare for everyone, etc etc. then people would have reason to feel more invested in and connected to their fellow citizens. Just spitballing here.
It's interesting because conservatives generally think of humans as self-interested, transactional beings. That's what makes the free market work, supposedly. But when it comes to politics, we're supposed to have a totally emotional, non-transactional relationship to our country.
In this interview, for example, Lowry's vision of "the nation" is entirely cultural. He picks out presumably "timeless" parts of American culture like the TJ Memorial (built in the 30s) & T-giving (started in 1863) as the sinews of "American nationalism." thefederalist.com/2019/11/07/pod…
The red meat in that interview involves the supposed "leftist, culture elite" plot to destroy "our culture" & "our history." Lowry imagines a future in which the TJ memorial & T-giving are cancelled. Vote GOP, or grandma's stuffing recipe is banished to the dustbin of history!
The two specific issues Lowry associates with this anti-American plot on the part of the "cultural elite" are Black Lives Matter and gender fluidity. I suspect working class black youths in St. Louis and trans kids in North Carolina were unaware of their "cultural elite" status.
What's going on here is as old as the conservative hills. People from marginalized communities organizing to demand legal rights and protections are figured as "un-American troublemakers" who do not speak for "the real America" which they supposedly "hate."
People in positions of power who take these protestors seriously, who listen to their experiences and use their power to advocate for them, are figured as "outside agitators" and "cultural elites" who are trying to "force their way of life" on the good, noble "real Americans."
Meanwhile, the people in positions of power (like Lowry and GOP politicians) who just want these "pesky" transgender and black American youths to "get over it and toughen up" are somehow not acting like "cultural elites," but are just salt of the earth, "real Americans."
This would be slightly less galling if Lowry and the host didn't also positively invoke MLK as one of their heroes, one of the people who articulated the sort of American nationalism these conservative men embrace. Puhleeze.
The way Lowry and the host talk about BLM and transgender activists is *exactly* the way their conservative predecessors talked about Civil Rights activists in the 1960s. They want to claim the gains of that movement, while demeaning its contemporary inheritors.
Even worse, they probably, if given the chance, would identify their own, conservative movement, as the true inheritor of MLK's mantle. This is the move D'Souza and Kirk make all the time.
But in the interests of historical accuracy, it's worth remembering that Lowry currently sits in the National Review editor's seat previously held by St. William Buckley, who had this to say following MLK's assassination. h/t @ifthedevilisix
@ifthedevilisix One last thought about "conservative cultural nationalism." "To devote oneself to the business of preserving and reproducing the culture of one's group is to risk one of the most terrible fates in modern society, obsolescence." Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club, p. 399.
@ifthedevilisix Here's the full paragraph from which that sentence comes. The anti-modernist thread in the American Conservative Tradition is becoming ever more apparent and prominent these days. Trump's "I know a guy" anti-institutionalism is textbook, gemeinschaft Know Nothing-ness.
@ifthedevilisix It also captures the "Flight 93" dead ender mentality we see in articles like this, and in the writings of paleo-conservatives like Rod Dreher. The modern world "hates us," hence we must either destroy it or be destroyed by it. amgreatness.com/2019/11/02/a-g…
@ifthedevilisix I understand that hysterical edgelord drama vamping like this generates clicks and book sales...but you'd think that conservatives who, by their own definition have an appreciation for history, would have a more nuanced grasp of how change happens.
@ifthedevilisix In the 1830s some people thought the railroads spelled the end of civilization as we know it. In 1865 many of the nation's white people thought giving black people the vote would be catastrophic. In 1900 most men thought that giving women the vote would unravel the nation.
@ifthedevilisix In 1922 folks thought radio sounded the death knell of our culture. In 1954 they thought the same thing about TV. Don't even get me started on the birth control pill. Or the electric guitar. Or gay people kissing each other on TV.
@ifthedevilisix And yet somehow...somehow...all of these cultural changes have happened and the rising generation has managed to survive and find meanings in their lives that resembled but also sort of departed from the meanings their parents and grandparents found.
@ifthedevilisix Instead of learning to ride the wave of historical change, the last several generations of American conservatives have decided to "stand athwart history yelling stop." It's never worked & never will. But it makes for copy that'll sell to grumpy people with power. And so it goes.
@ifthedevilisix We all have a "sky is falling" Chicken Little in our lives. American Conservatism has often taken the form of cultural Chicken Little-ism...whatever the new thing is, it's gonna make the sky fall. And then after the sky hasn't fallen, there's a new thing that'll make it happen.
@ifthedevilisix Rinse. Repeat. It's almost enough to make someone grab one of these conservatives by the lapels and say "why are you upset about the new ways young people are thinking about and enacting gender roles? It's no skin off your nose. GET OVER IT!"
@ifthedevilisix And the fact that so many of today's conservatives are boomers (and others) who love their 1960s and 1970s rock and roll that sounded so discordant and civilizationally destructive to the parents' generation is just [chef's kiss].
