- Oct 17, 2011
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Donald Trump’s victory was not just a victory for his movement, but for the ideas of the people in this room. National conservatism is an idea whose time has arrived.
The battle for our future is not between democracy and autocracy, capitalism and socialism, or even “Right” and “Left,” in the old meaning of those terms. It is between the nation and the forces that would erase it.
For decades, many of those in power—not just here, but across the West—have been locked in a cultural war with their own nations. We see that in many of the countries of Europe today, where the immigration crisis threatens to transform the ancient fabric of those nations—and all who object are menaced by an increasingly totalitarian censorship state.
The old conservative establishment may have opposed something like illegal immigration on procedural grounds—simply because it was illegal. But they took no issue with it in substance, and if the same thing was achieved through “legal” avenues, many of them would celebrate and support it.
For the tens of thousands of Americans who were forced to train their foreign H-1B replacements just to get their severance package, the fact that it was “legal” is little comfort.
For decades, the mainstream consensus on the Left and the Right alike seemed to be that America itself was just an “idea”—a vehicle for global liberalism. We were told that the entire meaning of America boiled down to a few lines in a poem on the Statue of Liberty, and five words about equality in the Declaration of Independence.
If you imposed a carbon copy of the U.S. Constitution on Kazakhstan tomorrow, Kazakhstan wouldn’t magically become America. Because Kazakhstan isn’t filled with Americans. It’s filled with Kazakhstanis!
For years, conservatives would talk as if the whole world were just Americans-in-waiting—“born American, but in the wrong place.”
That’s what set Donald Trump apart from the old conservatism and the old liberalism alike: He knows that America is not just an abstract “proposition,” but a nation and a people, with its own distinct history and heritage and interests.
His movement is the revolt of the real American nation. It’s a pitchfork revolution, driven by the millions of Americans who felt that they were turning into strangers in their own country.
America, in all its glory, is [our revolutionary and pioneer ancestors'] gift to us, handed down across the generations. It belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny.
We Americans are the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims that poured out from Europe’s shores to baptize a new world in their ancient faith.
The first settlers in my state were mostly Scots-Irish ... As the historian David McCullough writes, the Scots-Irish families that first settled Missouri “saw themselves as the true Americans”:
But America does not belong to [the radicals, i.e. "them"]. It belongs to us. It’s our home. It’s a heritage entrusted to us by our ancestors. It is a way of life that is ours, and only ours, and if we disappear, then America, too, will cease to exist.
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Emphasis added. All opinions are Senator Schmitt's. National conservatism is a variant of conservatism that prioritizes the defense of national and cultural identity. In the United States, [Trump's ideas] can be considered a variety of national conservatism, which also gives its name to the National Conservatism Conference, organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation.
The battle for our future is not between democracy and autocracy, capitalism and socialism, or even “Right” and “Left,” in the old meaning of those terms. It is between the nation and the forces that would erase it.
For decades, many of those in power—not just here, but across the West—have been locked in a cultural war with their own nations. We see that in many of the countries of Europe today, where the immigration crisis threatens to transform the ancient fabric of those nations—and all who object are menaced by an increasingly totalitarian censorship state.
The old conservative establishment may have opposed something like illegal immigration on procedural grounds—simply because it was illegal. But they took no issue with it in substance, and if the same thing was achieved through “legal” avenues, many of them would celebrate and support it.
For the tens of thousands of Americans who were forced to train their foreign H-1B replacements just to get their severance package, the fact that it was “legal” is little comfort.
For decades, the mainstream consensus on the Left and the Right alike seemed to be that America itself was just an “idea”—a vehicle for global liberalism. We were told that the entire meaning of America boiled down to a few lines in a poem on the Statue of Liberty, and five words about equality in the Declaration of Independence.
If you imposed a carbon copy of the U.S. Constitution on Kazakhstan tomorrow, Kazakhstan wouldn’t magically become America. Because Kazakhstan isn’t filled with Americans. It’s filled with Kazakhstanis!
For years, conservatives would talk as if the whole world were just Americans-in-waiting—“born American, but in the wrong place.”
That’s what set Donald Trump apart from the old conservatism and the old liberalism alike: He knows that America is not just an abstract “proposition,” but a nation and a people, with its own distinct history and heritage and interests.
His movement is the revolt of the real American nation. It’s a pitchfork revolution, driven by the millions of Americans who felt that they were turning into strangers in their own country.
America, in all its glory, is [our revolutionary and pioneer ancestors'] gift to us, handed down across the generations. It belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny.
We Americans are the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims that poured out from Europe’s shores to baptize a new world in their ancient faith.
The first settlers in my state were mostly Scots-Irish ... As the historian David McCullough writes, the Scots-Irish families that first settled Missouri “saw themselves as the true Americans”:
But America does not belong to [the radicals, i.e. "them"]. It belongs to us. It’s our home. It’s a heritage entrusted to us by our ancestors. It is a way of life that is ours, and only ours, and if we disappear, then America, too, will cease to exist.
--
Emphasis added. All opinions are Senator Schmitt's. National conservatism is a variant of conservatism that prioritizes the defense of national and cultural identity. In the United States, [Trump's ideas] can be considered a variety of national conservatism, which also gives its name to the National Conservatism Conference, organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation.
