How ‘national conservatism’ has changed the Right

The Trump administration has launched a counterrevolution in American culture and government. As much as the credit for this sudden and dramatic reversal belongs to the president, it is further being fueled by larger changes in the conservative movement.

These changes were set in motion in part thanks to the annual National Conservatism Conference, initially created by Yoram Hazony, author of The Virtues of Nationalism, and hosted by the Edmund Burke Foundation. The conference first launched in 2019 and just wrapped up its fifth such gathering on Thursday.

As a disclosure, I’ll note that my wife Inez Stepman is one of the hosts of the “NatCon Squad” podcast, an excellent weekly show that provides some of the most insightful analysis about contemporary politics. (Yes, I’m biased, but it’s true.)

The National Conservatism message has largely “won” on the Right. That’s in part because it’s strongly aligned with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Vance has spoken several times at the conference, including in 2024, when he spoke about how America is a “homeland” and not just an idea.

But in a certain sense, the movement has run alongside Trump and Vance’s success. It has thrived because it filled the vacuum of where the pre-Trump conservative message failed.

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