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Conservative Think Tank Offers Path for the Future of the American Right

Posted on Friday, December 22, 2023
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by Aaron Flanigan
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AMAC Exclusive – By Aaron Flanigan

Up from Conservatism: Revitalizing the Right after a Generation of Decay book cover

During a panel at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month hosted by the California-based Claremont Institute, one of the nation’s leading conservative think tanks, a group of self-styled “America First” legislators and political thought leaders discussed the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

With discussions centered around a recent book, Up from Conservatism: Revitalizing the Right After a Generation of Decay, the panel consisted of leading Republican lawmakers like Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH), Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC), Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), and Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY). Conservative intellectuals and influencers Michael Anton, Matthew Peterson, and Jeremy Carl also contributed to the discussions.

Vance, the first main speaker of the event (after a set of introductory remarks by Claremont’s Arthur Milikh, the editor of Up from Conservatism) left the audience with three key takeaways: (1) elected representatives must remember who they serve, and that American politics should be oriented toward “the lived experiences” of the voters rather than closed-door intellectual discussions in Washington; (2) conservatives shouldn’t be afraid of wielding political power for the betterment of their country and communities rather than capitulating to a flawed understanding of “limited government”; and (3) conservatives have to be less “ideological” and willing to build alliances and make compromises when necessary and appropriate.

Vance pointed to this year’s train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, as a key example of the failures of our nation’s political ruling class—observing that the derailment was just a symptom of a much broader political problem.

“This train crash was just another in a long line of leadership [failures] that kicked these people in the teeth,” he said, particularly following decades of setbacks from the effects of globalization. Even following the derailment, Vance continued, bureaucratic factors made it far more difficult to get Ohioans the help they desperately needed.

“I think the sacred tenet of conservatism is to remember who we serve, and to defend the people who actually make our communities what they are—not to defend railroad companies,” Vance stated. “Is it really our job to defend the railroads and not the people who had a chemical explosion set off in their community? If that’s your attitude about what’s going on in this country, then I think you’ve got a very screwed up notion of American conservatism.”

Vance also decried establishment Republicans’ refusal to wield government power for the betterment of the people they represent. “Isn’t it common sense that when we’re given power, we should actually do something with it?”

Rather than focusing on trimming down the government, Vance said, conservatives should instead focus on making it “more responsive to the will of the people”—particularly in the wake of the left’s weaponization of law enforcement agencies against conservative voters and its political opponents. Rather than simply calling for the Department of Justice to do less in our public life, Vance suggested, conservatives should appoint individuals who “actually take a side in the culture war—the side of the people who elected us—and not just pretend we don’t have to take sides at all.”

Vance concluded his remarks by reiterating the need for conservative officeholders to “get out of the abstractions and into the real world” and “focus on things that actually matter”—and to respond actively to the needs of the voters who sent them to Congress in the first place. “This is not a high-class debating society—this is the United States Congress, and it ought to actually respond to the people who give it all of its authority,” he said.

The event’s first panel, titled “Moving Up from Failed Conservatism,” featured Anton, Carl, and Peterson, and focused on ways the American right can work to improve its trajectory in the short term. Speakers proposed ideas like working more intentionally to take back the moral high ground from the left, as well as a wide slate of border security policies that could help to restore American sovereignty and fend off the left’s radical cultural agenda.

In his remarks, Peterson emphasized that the U.S. economy has become “a political and cultural warzone,” and that the right must not hesitate to treat it as such and become more diligent in resisting the tides of wokeism wherever they may appear.

The event’s second and final panel gave Reps. Babin, Bishop, and Hageman a chance to assess the right’s effectiveness in the House. Topics on the panel included the direness of the border crisis, the importance of Republicans using their House majority to effectuate real and lasting conservate change, and ways to hold the Deep State accountable—including by, in the words of Hageman, holding federal employees personally responsible for violations of the First Amendment and other constitutional overreaches, among other ideas.

The event concluded with a brief set of remarks by Rep. Banks, who urged the audience to remember that the right is now engaged in a “war” to preserve America’s status as the greatest nation in the history of the world. He finished, however, by signaling optimism for the conservative movement heading into 2024—stating that the “chaos” of some of the Republican Party’s internal fighting over the last year, as well as actions of the party’s freshman members like Vance, Hageman, and Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), “are a sign of the new GOP winning.”

Banks concluded by saying, “Republicans are starting to fight back like we haven’t fought back before… and we’re going to keep doing it over the next year, so that after 2024, we have a chance to end and win this war for America once and for all.”

Ultimately, Republicans like Vance, Babin, Bishop, Hageman, and Banks are slowly but successfully leading the congressional GOP out of the establishment mold that has for too long hindered the party’s ability to effectively represent its constituents. With groups like the Claremont Institute at the forefront of the right’s intellectual movement, conservative voters have many reasons to be optimistic for 2024 and beyond.

Up from Conservatism: Revitalizing the Right After a Generation of Decay can be purchased here.

Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.

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Rik
Rik
9 months ago

Conservatives must stand together to fight the Democrats Big Government takeover of America. We the People were given the Constitution by our founding fathers to Guarantee AGAINST BIG GOVERNMENT CONTROL! Today, the so-called Democratic Party wants to ignore the Constitution and institute One Party Democratic Rule over our lives while especially weakening our military might to protecting America and the world. WE MUST NOT LET THIS HAPPEN!

Robert Zuccaro
Robert Zuccaro
9 months ago

Perhaps this “think tank” could figure out a way to get that message out to these independent non-partisan ignorant voters who realize their lives are not better after three years of Biden but will still vote for him again because the only message they’re getting is from the Democrat Media Machine.

Lew
Lew
9 months ago

This article is Pablum, which is baby food for infants if you don’t know. Trust people that call themselves conservative to come up with 1) don’t shrink the size of government just make it “more responsive” to “the people”, 2) “don’t be afraid” to be conservative, and 3) compromise more ” to get stuff done.
More of the same crap I have been hearing for the last 50 years. None of which has worked for the last 50 years. If you want to do more if this I classify it as insanity. “Insanity, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”, a non-conservative Albert Einstein.
The government consumes 37+% of the GNP, per statisa.com, look it up. Otherwise said as, government spending is 1/3 of the entire economy. Two questions come to mind 1) is there nothing the government is doing that stopping the spending would not improve? 2) are we getting our money’s worth?
I would offer three alternate proposals to this Pablum, just my thoughts on this stuff.:

  1. The Federal government should be reduced by10% per year for the next 5 years, a 1/3 headcount reduction over 5 years.
  2. Reduce the number of Departments, Agencies and other entities in the government by the same amount over period of time, eliminating redundancies and unnecessary functions (e.g. Dept of Education).
  3. All remaining government Depts., Agencies and entities should create by RIF a turnover in personnel of 3-5% per year, and it should be performance based turnover (and random motion, or just plain activity, is not performance).

Personally, I am tired of the same dishwater being shown as something new when it is not. I am tired of being told that our best hop is to set our sights just a little lower. I am tired of politicians and academics being touted as “experts” or other categorical leader of thought. I prefer goals or objectives to accomplish something and then measure the progress. I would suggest the (US) government needs to be involved in things that no other entity can accomplish. Right now it is involved in loaning money to students, providing healthcare and retirement to citizens (only a limited list) things that should be done by the private sector.

Buck
Buck
9 months ago

It is an excellent set of concepts and is beyond needed. A step up. Far too many elected to assume they are all knowledgeable, democrats especially, and it is disgusting! The public is apathetic and does not insist on engagement. Thus, representativeness has flown the coop. Why are citizens not engaged in the business of government behind voting, which has been stolen from us by the criminal element?
Politics becomes an excuse, a crutch, and it is time to end that dependence. Scrap politics and work from values, standards, characteristics of right and wrong, common sense, America First, etc. We allow excuses to rule, and the elected sheep must be immediately removed. New and focused Americans should be immediately elected if they stray from values that are positive to all people of this American citizenship. Could you tell me why do we wait? It is time to regain control of the elected and not wait until it is too late. Stop following the lies feigned by non-leaders and exert your courage as Americans. It is a far pastime to correct our thinking and end corruption. Removal is at hand for those who sold America for personal gain and favor.
Americans need to take back control of the government, which is far, far gone, corrupt, and indeed lies and does not give a fig for any of us, as evidenced by some.
Time to engage all people with Republican/American ideals and values to stop this rape of the country and end the self-importance and uncaring of the fools who engage in self at the cost of the rest of us. RESET America !!!!!

Kim
Kim
9 months ago

When cities burn during riots, businesses are bankrupted, and people are murdered while leaders of those cities prohibit “interference” from law enforcement…
When people can be fined for calling someone by the wrong pronoun…
When men in bras are permitted to compete in women’s sports competitions…
When trans people pile on makeup and weird notions of feminine dress and shove their personal lifestyles in our elementary school children’s faces during story time…
When young readers’ classics are removed from library shelves and replaced with books that teach how to have sex with same-sex children…and that’s okay with the school board…
When 8 million people have poured though the southern border since biden became president, yet DHS Secretary Majorkas claims it is “secure”…
When fentanyl coming through that border kills 80,000+ people in their prime each year (since biden…) and no one bats an eye…
When “climate change solutions” and the energy sector have been so badly managed that they facilitated Russian aggression in Ukraine, Iran-backed atrocities in Israel, and China’s dream to take over the entire world…not to mention raised prices across the board…
When China is allowed to buy hundreds of thousands (is it millions by now?) of acres of farmland–coincidentally close to sensitive areas–and establishes their own police stations within the United States…
When Chinese spy balloons are not shot down immediately upon discovery…
When a president who doesn’t know what day of the week it is, how to exit the stage, let alone how to complete a thought or run a country without profiting from it…
…we have a whole helluva lot more serious problems than reeducating Republicans on the value of being less ideological and more conciliatory (takeaway #3). As long as Republicans think independently (of course, as one, I’m glad for it, but dems win more easily with groupthink) and are unable to voice a clear, unified, and targeted mission statement, we will continue to shuffle along, winning elections now and then but frustratingly not be able to win over huge swaths of the voters.

Seeing how poorly this country has fared over the past 3 years should be proof enough that the liberal, progressive, woke, socialist democrat style of governance doesn’t work for The People. We should be able to win over huge swaths of voters based on the performance of the other party…so what’s the problem? Let’s start a with revision of the public educational system. But how to go about doing that…I haven’t a clue that could work in the short term.

So, for the short term, fellow Americans, vote out all democrats from public office. Each one of us must vote. This is no time to sit it out, but it is time to grow up–hold your nose if you must–and think about the future health of this great country. We’ve heard it a thousand times before: Our freedoms are at stake and democrats are only too willing to torch the Constitution and everything that made this country great. Don’t let them do it!

David Millikan
David Millikan
9 months ago

With President Trump we have a future of freedom, prosperity, safety, and peace.
With Dictator Beijing biden we have gone back to the 1930’s (Hitler and Great Depression era) while still regressing backwards and selling us out to Communist China including taking bribes from foreign countries and businesses while former VP and currently in the White House. To add he’s got us on the brink of WWIII. Add he wants us to fund 2 Wars he helped create since being in office while Americans suffer under his failed Socialist/Communist policies, such as killing our Energy Independence taking us into the dark ages as Communist China builds 10 Coal Power Plants every week. And this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg of his corruption.
President Trump has my vote.

Melinda
Melinda
9 months ago

Vance is correct that the people we elected should be more responsive to our needs. However, that does not mean spending our money on pork barrel projects to benefit constituents. That has happened too often

anna hubert
anna hubert
9 months ago

Conservative government conducive to business is the only solution if the country is to be saved and survive Population that had been hand fed for 50 years has no idea how to survive without hand out will not vote in such government Too much beyond comprehension

Oh they are involved alright
Oh they are involved alright
9 months ago

Your ideas made democrats more involved in the election process where they weren’t before that’s for sure lol

Chuck
Chuck
9 months ago

Aaahhh, become more involved with the deep state…..coool

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