There was a time a few years back when the postliberal intellectuals were more active on X. It made for some interesting moments. Most of them have now been deleted, scrubbed, or otherwise tossed down the memory hole, but who lived through that period could forget the time postliberal fans circulated a meme with the title “Postliberal Boy Summer”? It included a Mount-Rushmore image of Patrick Deneen, Adrian Vermeule, Chad Pecknold, and Sohrab Ahmari. Other popular fare from the period included heretic-burning fantasies, reposted CCP propaganda, and a renewed cult of Francisco Franco. It was a crazy time.
I had no clue that there was someone quietly taking notes. That person was apparently Stephanie Slade. I found this in the later chapters of her new fantastic book called Fusionism, named after the conservative philosophy of National Review’s late editor Frank Meyer, a philosophy explicitly endorsed by Ronald Reagan and many others in the golden age of conservatism.
Slade is an accomplished journalist at the libertarian magazine Reason. Like one or two of her coworkers, Slade is a culturally conservative, pro-life, and religious libertarian. But in her book Fusionism, she defends a big tent for fusionism that includes conservative libertarians, classical liberals, and those who prefer the title “free-market conservatives.” This includes national security hawks, doves, and pragmatists, and allows plenty of room for debate about the details.
Additionally, her book includes a charitable, persuasive, and conciliatory reading of debates between conservative-liberal icons like F. A. Hayek and Russell Kirk, with the former more conservative than he admitted, and the latter more libertarian than people realize.
Slade also tells the history of the early years of National Review, when fusionist philosopher Frank Meyer, as editor, had to navigate tensions with his friend, the libertarian-turned-Francoist Brent Bozell Jr. It turns out, as Slade relates, that Bozell battled mental illness throughout his turbulent political years, nonetheless finishing his life with almost saintly charity. Those are the details a good-faith author shares about her political opponents, and throughout the book Slade is extremely charitable, fair, probing, honest, and rigorous in her analysis. With her first book, Fusionism, she produced an instant classic that every old-school conservative who still cares about freedom and virtue should read (and share with friends who need persuasion).
There are a number of sticky issues that divide the old fusionists, so one naturally approaches a book like this curious about Slade’s take. She is no anarcho-capitalist, but she is a libertarian. She seems somewhat sympathetic to pacifism, though not a complete pacifist. None of that really mattered, however. Her analysis of Ronald Reagan, for instance, was positive, fair, but also honest in its assessment of his blind spots. She breaks through cartoonish accounts of him endorsed by both his friends and foes. Reagan was far more pragmatic and realistic than people give him credit for. He adjusted to the new realities and possibilities of diplomacy with the USSR in the 1980s, and even worked for nuclear disarmament, while promoting a missile defense program long before it was a practical possibility. He was even skeptical of the military draft.
It is difficult to see how virtue is better served by today’s corrupt politics, with all the sycophancy, cruelty, fiat decrees, and a brainless protectionism that only breeds cronyism.
I might quibble slightly with Slade’s discussion of Reagan insofar as she leaves out much discussion of the place of strength (“peace through strength”) in his foreign policy. It was strength and credibility that allowed him to avoid substantial foreign interventions while speeding up the end of the Cold War. Diplomacy was not enough; it also required rhetoric, which proved as powerful, if not more powerful, than legislation. This was true both in foreign affairs and domestically, where Reagan helped restore the confidence that Jimmy Carter famously observed was missing. People miss the greatness of Reagan, however, if they dismiss his rhetorical accomplishments as a “bark without bite.” No, it was the bite! But this is a mere quibble. Slade’s account of Reagan was nuanced. And it captures how much he cared about liberty; how pragmatic and flexible he was in the face of political constraints; and how effectively he seized unique opportunities.
Unfortunately, Reagan’s overwhelming success had an ironic downside. In accelerating the end of the Cold War and restoring America’s confidence, he led fusionists to declare victory too soon and thus drop their guard. That, at any rate, is Slade’s conclusion, and it is hard to deny it. The populist right’s schism became visible after Reagan left, starting with the GOP primaries in 1992, when Pat Buchanan challenged George H. W. Bush. Although unsuccessful, it was his populist, protectionist, isolationist, and sometimes (slight cough) prejudicial policy and rhetoric that would plant the seed that eventually sprouted with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Long gone were the days of Reagan, the happy warrior, the optimist. What emerged later was a politics of doom and resentment.
That transition is covered in the latter part of Slade’s book, which features a historical snapshot of the Dissident Right, who became more prominent after Trump’s election. She covers it all, from the Catholic postliberals to the National Conservatives, to the Groypers, White Nationalists, or Tankies. And she brings receipts. Though the first half of the book is more interesting from the standpoint of defending fusionism, the latter half of the book will be a reference several decades from now, documenting the astonishing craziness of the podcast right eventually became, with JD Vance as its most prominent representative.
Central to Slade’s argument in the book is that fusionism, rather than a mere coalition that only made sense in the Cold War but not afterward, is a coherent philosophy. Not only is it a philosophy, but it is also the philosophy of the Founding Fathers. It is the philosophy of liberty and virtue, and even a claim that liberty and virtue are mutually reinforcing. This philosophy will never be irrelevant, even if it is sometimes unpopular.
This has only become more obvious in the last few years, as a once hopeful new right has failed to present any credible alternative. All the efforts to install loyalists and seize power have only backfired. It turns out, as F. A. Hayek noted in The Road to Serfdom, that while it is easier to unite people around a common hatred, for instance, the hatred of the left, of immigrants, or the “deep state,” it is much more difficult to please everybody in such a coalition once power is seized. Consider what happened when Donald Trump was elected to a second term. The postliberal theorist Gladden Pappin confidently announced the inauguration of a postliberal era, even celebrating the training of loyalists to fill Trump’s administration. And yet, two years later, most postliberals openly express dissatisfaction with how Trump has used the power they helped give him.
Fusionists, by contrast, do not need to build coalitions around a common hatred because they can build one around a common love of freedom, peace, justice, prosperity, and the conditions of civil society that allow virtue to grow. It is difficult to see how virtue is better served by today’s corrupt politics, with all the sycophancy, cruelty, fiat decrees, and a brainless protectionism that only breeds cronyism.
Slade is not naïve to the fact that we fusionists have an uphill battle. It will not be easy. It might not be quick. We must build. We must persuade. We do not, by nature of our philosophy, have the advantage of using state power to help us where only persuasion and construction are legitimate. But we have time. We have the benefits that come from truth’s persuasiveness. There may be certain benefits to reap simply as the flipside of people’s fickleness. If it took the fusionists twenty years to build it, and the populists twenty years to destroy it, it should be possible to gain it back given sufficient time and effort. And when we do, Stephanie Slade’s fantastic new book will be an important contribution to that revival.
