National Conservatism, Uncertain Prospects

After a well-covered conference in Orlando, and a few sallies in the Wall Street Journal, politics is still buzzing about the “national conservatives” — whether they offer a coherent addition or challenge to existing conservatism, and what their prospects are for the future.

I’ve been a national conservative since well before it was cool to say so. I remember what it was like to feel like a tiny, unwelcome ideological minority within the Right, when none of us could convince ourselves that we had any future. I remember at the time we talked about how one measure of our success would be that political chancers, opportunists, and the plainly insincere would come to parrot our views.