The New Right is this newly formed variant of American popular conservatism (and elsewhere in the Anglosphere) that has been inspired by the Trump phenomenon and reacted against many taboos that they perceive have been far too hegemonic in right wing spheres of influence for too long. They claim a populist framework and a more explicitly class-conscious right wing thought against an elite ruling class, which is claimed to be no less empowered by the private sector than it is the public, maybe even more so! They seek to overturn (or at the very least, make significant challenges to) the Reagan/Goldwater/Buckley Jr. consensus.
There’s nothing so fundamentally wrong with these things. The Reagan consensus is and was far from perfect. This stems predominantly, in my opinion, from the extent which Reagan did not go far enough in the promises he made, as well as all manner of mechanisms of the state he utilised not much less than previous administrations. Reagan’s legacy of foreign wars is also suspect. Whilst I find Reagan’s speeches particularly insightful and inspiring, particularly those from before he was first elected president, the unacknowledged flaws in his concrete legacy have indeed been effectual on the years after it, whether it be under “conservative” or “liberal” administrations.
But if the New Right wanted to truly turn things around, why don’t they assess what was the conservative consensus before Reagan? They are deriving an awful lot of presuppositions, ironically, from the presuppositions of every other current mainstream talking point. Maybe this is natural as you still want to win votes by sending out a message that people in the current nationwide political culture can comprehend without much difficulty. One of these flawed presupposition is that all must be achieved through aggregated nationwide regime change. This itself is a flaw of the Reagan consensus too. There was all the talk of “liberty” and the inefficiencies of government but very little talk of the fact that liberty is most effectually manifested when the political office from which liberty is ultimately granted to and protected for (or taken away from) the population is best when as local as possible.
The issues of local autonomy, states’ rights etc. were amongst the most championed conservative causes in the years between the wars and the advent of Reagan. They were concerning themselves with the newly derived UN Charter and its meddling of local legal affairs across the United States. They were fighting against the menacing influence of Cosmic Justice many years before Thomas Sowell coined the term. This is also important in the consideration of the US constitution; people might mistakenly think that the constitution is about the liberty of population in their personal endeavours and behaviour (the sort of liberty more commonly championed by the Reaganite conservatives) but it is instead the liberty and autonomy of accountable local state endeavours (originally, the Thirteen Colonies) in determining law and policy of the lower-down aspects of everyday life. The lengths that such laws would go in limiting the population’s personal endeavours, whilst still hopefully maintaining a fundamental commitment to liberty, was ultimately still secondary.
Where is the evidence that The New Right have a negligence of the issue of localised autonomy? In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, many have expressed their admiration of Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis for his lack of draconian restrictions in his state. But their more abstract interpretations of the implications of this has been less that it is maximally important to respect local autonomy in policy but instead to more often immediately ask the question “When is he running for president?!” “Trump DeSantis 2024!” Why does he need to do that? Why wait (at least) three years for DeSantis to get to a point where the respect of liberties he has can trickle down to the rest of the states when instead the states (or whichever other local authorities) can be inspired by his example immediately?
This isn’t to say that it is not at all admirable or understandable why people on the right would have nationwide aspirations. It is quite easy to assume that an immediately logical consequence of such staunch patriotism and love of one’s nation is to think of the nation as a whole as the framework for new political change. But this still remains a flawed presupposition, and outside of mere popularity contests, the Right will effectively succeed very little if not setting their sights on manageable portions of political change which can then go on to organically inspire others elsewhere, as opposed to the whole nation in one go.