3 ms·

Interesting to see "conservatives" whining about urban sprawl and blaming it on Keynesian policies now -- while they had originally promoted it for nuclear surv

• amyjess 10y ago
  American Conservative is a paleoconservative magazine. Paleocons aren't the same as mainstream conservatives; for example, they rail against globalization, they advocate an isolationist foreign policy, they're much more likely to be openly racist and antisemitic (American Conservative is, to its credit, the sole remaining paleocon magazine that refuses to endorse antisemitism), and they take religious conservatism to a farther extreme than most Republicans are willing to go. Paleocons haven't been relevant in mainstream American politics for a very long time. After Robert Taft lost the Republican nomination in 1952, they took a backseat to mainstream conservatives, and since then they've mostly been relegated to third parties and fringe candidacies (like Pat Buchanan's 1996 and 2000 campaigns, and the Constitution Party). This may be changing, though, as Donald Trump's economic and foreign policy stances are straight-up paleocon, and his racism isn't a problem with paleocons because most paleocons are overtly racist (again, except the people who run American Conservative). The only reason Trump isn't 100% paleocon is that he's not nearly enough of a religious conservative; your average paleocon is at least as conservative as Rick Santorum on religious issues, while Trump has made few overtures to the religious right, and those few have all been empty platitudes. In short: I wouldn't take an article in American Conservative as being representative of mainstream conservatism at all.