The battle for the right’s post-Trump future has begun
Conservatism is a big tent, but there should be no room in it for those who deny the dignity of all human beings
Michael Strain
The rot on America’s political right runs deep.
It spilled into the open in October following Tucker Carlson’s much-discussed interview with Nick Fuentes, a Hitler-admiring, antisemitic white nationalist.
Some Maga insiders believe that as many as one-third of young Republicans in Washington may be followers of Fuentes.
Perhaps because of their growing numbers and influence, some on the right — including, prominently, the leadership of the influential Heritage Foundation and vice-president JD Vance — apparently seem to believe that the political success of the Republican party requires playing footsie with racists, bigots and antisemites.
What are conservatives to do?
First, recognise that those of us who prioritise individual liberty, limited government, free markets, personal responsibility, economic opportunity, America’s “credal identity” and US global leadership are a faction on the political right, and not the whole of the right.
Second, conservatives must push the broader political right to enforce ideological borders against extremism.
Third, conservatives must resist the ascendant effort to redefine American identity as blood-and-soil nationalism.
To be clear, the broad political right should be a big tent featuring substantial internal disagreement.
For example, it should have room both for pro-business Republicans who want much higher levels of immigration and for more culturally minded conservatives who want to keep net migration in check.
Many free-market enthusiasts want to let technological change rip, while many social conservatives are worried about disruption — both groups should be welcome.
And conservatives should defend the rights of the racists, bigots, sexists and antisemites to hold and express their appalling and dangerous views.
Moreover, we should engage with them.
But we should not enter into a coalition with them or those who would ally with them as a media or political strategy.
Why?
Because conservatives cannot do so without repudiating their deep commitment to the inestimable and inherent dignity of each and every human being.
This core conviction animates specific policy views.
For example, because we hold their dignity in such high regard, conservatives are especially concerned about low-income Americans becoming trapped in dependency by welfare programmes.
And conservatives are willing to spend blood and treasure advancing democracy abroad in part because we prize the dignity of those living under tyranny.
I arrived at these commitments from my Catholicism.
Pope Benedict XVI expressed this beautifully: “Each of us is the result of a thought of God.
Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us if necessary.”
Others find the foundational importance of universal human dignity in the Declaration of Independence.
Of course, progressives ground their views in the aspirations of the declaration, as well.
And many of the great debates of recent decades between the right and the left are over which parts of the broad American creed to emphasise: liberty or equality, personal responsibility or economic security, order or licence, a common or diverse culture.
Conservatives have long viewed the centrality of the American creed as one of the most important things we seek to conserve.
As the historian Gordon Wood recently observed: “To be an American is not to be someone, but to believe in something.”
America is a credal nation.
If you believe in the aspirations of the declaration, in the guarantees of the Bill of Rights, in the primacy of the rule of law and in the American Dream, then you become fully American after swearing your oath of citizenship — whether your family arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 or on a passenger jet in 2025.
But an ascendant movement on the political right now seeks to push that creed aside by defining American identity through race and lineage.
Adherents call themselves “Heritage Americans”.
In a speech this summer, Vance claimed: “America is not just an idea.
We’re a particular place with a particular people and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.”
Our ancestors tamed “a wild continent”, Vance continued, and that is “our heritage as Americans”.
Unlike the Fuentes filth, Vance’s argument is defensible in a vacuum.
But the public debate does not take place in a vacuum.
The way this rhetoric will be understood is that Jews, Black people and immigrants who arrived in the 20th and 21st centuries are at best second-class citizens.
Still, there are signs of hope.
Senator Ted Cruz slammed fellow Republicans in the wake of the Carlson-Fuentes encounter, arguing that Carlson has “spread a poison that is profoundly dangerous”.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican candidate for Ohio governor in 2026 with presidential aspirations, wrote a strong critique of Heritage Americanism last month.
For conservatives, the only way out of this mess is through it.
The fight to keep extremists, their allies and those who would redefine American identity at bay can’t be sidestepped.
Welcome to 2026.
The battle for the post-Trump future of the political right has begun
The writer is director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute
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