It must be a measure of the breadth and depth of the American conservative movement that it has such a complex taxonomy. There are, as John Fonte writes:
economic conservatives, social conservatives, national-defense conservatives, neoconservatives, paleoconservatives, and even “crunchy” conservatives or “crunchy cons.”
But is that really enough? There is no better time to think through and revise the organization of the fighting forces than after electoral defeat. And Fonte wants to try a new label.
If I had to choose from the labels above, national-defense conservative would come the closest. But it doesn’t quite fit. So let me try a new label. I am a civic conservative, a “civ-con.”
Yes but what is a “civ-con?”
At the level of highest principle civic conservatism emphasizes the Unum in E Pluribus Unum and puts American national cohesion over any group interest.
In other words it puts the national identity of the United States as the primary group identification. And that means a certain approach to politics.
In terms of contemporary policy, civic conservatism emphasizes the following principles: the equality of American citizenship; the learning of America’s history and values, properly understood; the imperative of assimilating immigrants patriotically into the American way of life (what we proudly used to call Americanization); and the indivisibility of American sovereignty.
Who could argue with that? Well, plenty of people. Our liberal friends, for example.
Liberals believe that the “traditionally marginalized” deserve special privileges; they subsume American history and values beneath a post-nationalist narrative about a one-world government; they don’t believe in an American way of life, and they don’t believe in American sovereignty.
Ordinary Americans do believe all these things. A conservative movement that presented a soaring civic-conservatism to Americans could earn and could deserve their political support.
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