The conservative movement has a very vibrant intellectual sphere, particularly when it comes to economics, politics, and the law. Much of the Republican Party p

The conservative movement has a very vibrant intellectual sphere, particularly when it comes to economics, politics, and the law. Much of the Republican Party platform is nominally premised on the Laffer Curve (i.e. trickle down economics), "Taxation is Theft" (political meme delegitimizing government), Original Meaning (a particular vein of constitutional originalism), and Realpolitik (the zero-sum, might-makes-rights approach to foreign policy of neoconservatives). IMO, these radical concepts (at least radical in the context of conservatism) were reactions to leftist intellectual movements, and also have served to supplant moralism. The problem with intellectualism and moralism (which is being revived on the left with the social justice movement), whether from the left or the right, is that it makes is easier for people to think and speak in absolutes. Absolutism is where intellectualism and anti-intellectualism can reinforce each other.