Freedom Conservatives disagree with National Conservatives and other elements of the Dissident Right on a range of specific issues such as free trade, federalism, fiscal responsibility, and the constitutional separation of powers.
The FreeCon and NatCon statements of principles exhibit some common elements but diverge sharply on the indispensability of individual liberty, the efficacy of free markets, and the proper use of coercive governmental power in a free and virtuous society.
Earlier this week, a shameful social-media post by a Republican candidate for statewide office in Texas provoked a firestorm of attacks, counterattacks, and political commentary. It also clarified what is at stake here. FreeCons and our allies aren’t just fighting for a conception of American conservatism capable of building broad coalitions, winning competitive elections, and governing effectively. We are fighting for the very soul of our nation.
In an editorial, our friends at National Review related the basic facts of the case and why it matters:
Few University of Texas at Austin students of South Asian descent cheered their football team’s dramatic comeback win against top-ranked Ohio State, and found themselves in the foreground of a picture worth a thousand tweets. Bo French, the Republican nominee for railroad commissioner (a more important position than its name might suggest, having jurisdiction over energy policy), did not like what he saw. “The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” he posted on X.
While other Texas Republicans criticized French — some vigorously, some tepidly — a retinue of online defenders ventured creative interpretations of what the problem was. The university catered too much to foreigners. Never mind that the picture did not disclose the citizenship or nationality of its subjects, and the law mandates that 90 percent of students be Texans. Its admissions standards are unfair to white Texans. French himself retreated to this position, but the university has no preferential standards for Indian Americans. In fact, French in the past joined the near-uniform chorus of Texas Republicans in supporting the university’s admissions system, which was designed to eliminate consideration of race and was defended for years by foes of racial preferences.
So the rationalizers had to go farther afield. Too many Indian Americans are Hindu: another trait not discoverable from the photo, and also one that appears to pose no practical difficulties for America’s republican institutions. They’re not assimilating. But the photo bears every possible visible sign of assimilation. College football is one of the most uniquely American of institutions and is unknown in India. Indian Americans are participating fully in U.S. life, generally know English, and have high intermarriage rates. Unless the test of assimilation is being white, they’re doing it.
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Barring what seems an unlikely mass conversion to their cause, the objectors will just have to get over it. Most Americans, of all races, find their repulsion itself repulsive. And white Americans, by and large, have too much sense to believe that greater racial consciousness is the answer to any problems they have.
The commenters who object to the picture are wrong about many things, but they are right to feel that their side is losing. Those harmlessly happy young people have found their perfect counterpoint in the toxically miserable.
Today we feature reactions by other FreeCon signatories and allies to the Bo French dispute and the broader challenge posed to conservatism and America’s future by cranks, bigots, and other extremists.
Oversized tent
Peter Laffin is a senior editor at the Washington Examiner and a FreeCon signatory.
In a recent column for the Examiner, Laffin reacted to a social-media post by Republican candidate Bo French that disparaged young men of apparent Indian descent rooting for the University of Texas football team. The GOP’s tent is “too big if Bo French fits under it,” Laffin wrote.
As the Trump era wanes, he continued, the conservative movement “is still arguing over whether national identity is rooted in shared heritage or a shared creed. And with 2028 fast approaching, the time to arrive at a compelling consensus is running out.”
Both cultural inheritance and adherence to the American creed are part of the nation’s identity, he wrote. “There are still arguments to be had around the edges, about whether the creedalist camp still tends to underplay the incompatibility of American ideals with certain foreign cultures, or whether the heritage camp too often veers recklessly into blood-and-soil nationalism, where no amount of assimilation is enough to make one a true American.”
“But if the argument brought to the general electorate in 2028 includes the crass identitarianism of French and his supporters, this debate will quickly become academic. The Democratic Party, now run openly by socialists, will sweep the elections and comprehensively dismantle Trump’s gains on immigration and border security.”
Raw, uncut bigotry
Karl Rove served as senior adviser and deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush and is author of The Triumph of William McKinley. He is also a FreeCon signatory.
In a recent column for The Wall Street Journal, Rove sharply criticized Bo French’s racist post about student fans at a University of Texas football game and announced that he‘d be voting for French’s Democratic opponent in the race for State Railroad Commission.
“Mr. French’s not-so-subtle claim that UT has too many Hispanics and South Asians — he later said his issue is too many ‘foreigners’ — is raw, uncut bigotry,” Rove wrote. “UT admissions are based on merit, not race, and 90% of each class comes from Texas.”
“When I came to Texas in December 1976, the state was so blue that you could almost hold a GOP state convention in a phone booth,” he continued. Republicans subsequently turned Texas red by “fielding candidates who understood the strength of our state’s diverse population and welcomed voters who shared our conservative values.”
“The GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches — and not only in Texas. Conservatism and the party it dominates have an increasing number of bigoted advocates of a ‘heritage America’ composed of white descendants of the original European settlers. There are “just asking questions” Jew-haters, misogynists who worship hypermasculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking clicks for profit, and religious bigots who won’t differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots.
“These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it. I’ll have no part of it.”
A spiritual problem
Erick Erickson hosts a nationally syndicated talk show, was formerly the editor-in-chief of RedState, and previously served on the city council of Macon, Georgia. He was also a featured speaker at the 2026 Freedom Conservatism Conference.
In a lengthy Substack post, Erickson detailed extensive relationships between prominent leaders and institutions of the Dissident Right and donor/activists with extremist views about race, women, and American democracy.
“They all embrace racial grievances,” he wrote. “To varying degrees, they embrace white nationalism, antisemitism, and even Nazi sympathies.” Some even believe that the U.S. is at “a tipping point” and want to “push it over the edge and rebuild it in their image.”
“Conservatives spent 60 years arguing that the family and the local community, not the state, should decide what the good life looks like,” Erickson continued. “The socialist Left rejected that because it loves the collective. The postliberal Right now rejects it because it is certain it knows better than your household does.”
“This is ultimately a spiritual problem rather than a political one. Inside the church, Satan spreads kinism, racism, and ethno-nationalism, and he does it by telling frightened men that their blood is their birthright.”
Do the hard work
Casey Mattox is vice president for legal strategy at Stand Together, a board member at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and a FreeCon signatory.
In a recent edition of his Substack Casey and Controversies, he restated the case against “Flight 93”-style rhetoric and the radical politics that inevitably accompanies it.
“Demands that we treat an election like ‘Flight 93’ or the new most important election of our lives aren’t a solution,” he wrote, but instead “evidence that we’re failing to keep the republic and undermining the Constitution’s plan to address exactly the problem they’re identifying.”
The Constitution “does not promise to make Americans agree more,” Mattox continued. “Federalism permits different states to reach different conclusions about many questions. Separation of powers prevents any temporary political majority from readily concentrating all governmental authority in its own hands and using it against the rest.”
“If we find ourselves today believing that our fellow citizens are our enemies who must be defeated to preserve our way of life, the response isn’t to charge the metaphorical cockpit every four years, it’s to recognize that restoring and following the Constitution is the answer as much now as it was in 1789. And then to do the hard work of making that real.”
In the mix
• On Substack, FreeCon signatory Rachel Lu reflected on the recent release of Stephanie’s Slade’s new book Fusionism and the “quiet work of rebuilding American conservatism.”
“To me at least, it seems very evident that right-wing populism is tired and going nowhere,” wrote Lu, a senior editor at Law & Liberty and a contributing writer at America magazine and National Review.
“For years it felt to me like the conservative intellectual world was in absolute shambles, hell-bent on chasing absurd fantasies and fighting civil wars, a mess of clownish attention-seeking and posturing. Now it’s starting to feel less oppressive. Like maybe it’s possible to build something worthwhile again.”
• At Law & Liberty, FreeCon signatory Paul Mueller urged his fellow scholars and activists to “make economics humane again.”
“Postliberals as a group have made no secret of the fact that they view mainstream economics as inhumane with its focus on consumption and GDP growth,” wrote Mueller, a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. “Sometimes their arguments are questionable, but it’s true that modern economics has a way of embracing a flat, utilitarian view of the world, sometimes pushing that view into realms where it doesn’t belong.”
Economics “remains indispensable for checking misguided, utopian policies,” he concluded, but “we need qualitative judgments, not simply quantitative calculations. Evaluating metapreferences — our choices about what we want to value — is a good starting point for taking that seriously. Humans are ethical beings, not simply utility maximizers or rational decision-makers.”
• At RealClearMarkets, FreeCon signatories Edward Lopez and Jon Murphy poked enormous holes in the Trump administration’s attempt to defense tariffs imposed purportedly to rectify a “balance of payments deficit.”
“As filing deadlines for the administration's appeal arrive soon,” they wrote, federal courts and the public are being asked to treat its report as “neutral economic expertise rather than as advocacy manufactured for litigation.”
But “it is a reverse-engineered definition to fit a legal conclusion already reached,” they concluded, and “it falsely portrays its arguments as having support from reputable studies.”