NatPros and NatCons

My mixed reactions to NatCon 2024

Eugene Kontorovich, an Israeli legal expert who was on a panel at the National Conservative Conference, said that he was reluctant to define National Conservatism. But he said that he could be clear on what he was against: international progressivism.

That remark resonated with me. I found that the best thing about being at the conference was feeling surrounded by people who see clearly when radical progressives are telling lies and peddling moral absurdities.

Yoram Hazony, the conductor of the conference, likes to see disagreement among the speakers. You can contrast Vivek Ramaswamy with Josh Hawley. So even with a statement of principles, there is not enough definition to make the NatCons march in lock-step under the banner of a specific program. Maybe it is sufficient to know what it is that they are against.

The NatCons have long been heavily invested in Mr. Trump.¹ After Mr. Biden’s faceplant in the debate, their mood should have been giddy. But many of the speakers did their pre-planned we-are-persecuted-because-we’re-white-male-Christians shtick. Whatever truth there is to that, this might have been a good time not to present themselves as soreheads.

In the hallways, on the other hand, one could sense energy and excitement. My guess is that it would have been much more subdued if it had been Mr. Trump who had faceplanted.

Pluses and Minuses

For me personally, the NatCons have pros and cons. I think that the main “pro” is their determination to speak their mind. They do not live by lies.

For the NatCons, taking flak from the left is a sign that they are over the target, not that they should tone down their rhetoric. If they say something that offends you, they would view that as your problem for taking offense, not their problem for telling it the way they see it.

On the con side, I believe that the NatCons are needlessly contemptuous of the Republican establishment. I heard only one speaker at the conference, Douglas Wilson, express respect for other conservatives. He said that from the 1950s through the 1980s the fusion of social conservatives, libertarians, and anti-Communist military hawks played a constructive role. I heard him as suggesting that the 21st century brought new problems to the fore, and the older establishment no longer provides a solution.

Many of the other speakers heaped scorn on others within the broader conservative movement. They scapegoated libertarians. (Although Vivek was able to offer some libertarian notions without getting booed off the stage.)

I find it ironic that in foreign policy, the NatCons tend to be realists, meaning that they are willing to overlook another state’s corruption or un-American values if it is a useful ally; but for the purpose of playing domestic politics many speakers acted as if they would rather do away with allies. They regard other approaches to conservatism as rivals to be put down, not partners to cultivate.

Can they function outside of a philosophy seminar?

But the biggest con for me is that I did not feel personally drawn to the typical attendee. They seemed only to inhabit the world of academia and think tanks.

For example, I spoke to one young law student who happened to be conversant about the topic of artificial intelligence. I told him enthusiastically, “If I were you, I would go to Silicon Valley. I really wish I had gone to Silicon Valley when I was younger.” But he said that he would rather come to Washington and work on policy, preferably as a Presidential aide. I could only shake my head in disappointment.

Fortunately, my life course took me out of that bubble. Once I finally landed in business, I became drawn to other sorts of smart people, who were coping with problems in software development, product design, project management, sales, negotiation, and trying to control risks from market fluctuations and counterparty behavior.

I got far more education from my experiences in business than I did while earning a Ph.D in economics. Those experiences completely changed my perspective as an economist.

I view my subsequent life as a scholar as less challenging and less personally enriching. What I can say for writing books and essays is that I find it a more relaxed, less emotionally taxing way to live.

The idea of someone with a newly-minted postgraduate degree in law, political science, or public policy going directly to a job in Washington strikes me as a mistake, both for the individual and for the country. Instead, I would prefer to see someone become seasoned by working in business, K-12 education, the military, or some local government agency. In short, as I like to say about my daughters, “I wish that they would work for a profit.”

I have the sense that too many of the young NatCons would find life outside of political philosophy seminars alien and confounding. I felt like someone should tell them: please don’t try to get involved in formulating or executing public policy. Stay in academia.

The conference selects for people whose idea of a good conversation is to talk about how something that the last speaker said relates to Aristotle or Nietzsche. I have no desire to spend time with such folks.²

I was reminded of a story told by David Halberstam in The Best and the Brightest about the early days of the Kennedy Administration, when Lyndon Johnson was Vice-President.

What was not so widely quoted in Washington (which was a shame because it was a far more prophetic comment) was the reaction of Lyndon’s great friend Sam Rayburn to Johnson’s enthusiasm about the new men. Stunned by their glamour and intellect, he had rushed back to tell Rayburn, his great and crafty mentor, about them, about how brilliant each was, that fellow Bundy from Harvard, Rusk from Rockefeller, McNamara from Ford. On he went, naming them all. “Well Lyndon, you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say,” said Rayburn, “but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once.”

1. He, on the other hand, seems to recognize that in the pursuit of power they need him but have nothing to offer in terms of a constituency.

2. If you think that I have a natural home in academia, then you have me pegged wrong. Instead, I like people who have written computer code and whose knowledge of economics or politics is that of an autodidact. Or people who have spent time in organizations and can tell stories that convey which of their experiences offer general lessons and which of their experiences were idiosyncratic to particular institutional cultures. And I really get pumped up talking to entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who have the upbeat, can-do attitude characteristic of Silicon Valley.