Divorce culture

FreeCons challenge nationalist assaults on American institutions

In our work, Freedom Conservatives defend the principles, traditions, and institutions that form our country’s constitutional order.

Some challenges to American self-government come from the progressive Left, from individuals and organizations trying to centralize power in Washington and expand the reach of government into vast swaths of our personal, commercial, and spiritual lives.

FreeCons will always resist these challenges. But we also resist challenges to the constitutional order from the populist Right. National Conservatives, for example, express little interest in the federalist principle.

“The best way to unify a large and diverse nation like the United States,” we say in the FreeCon Statement of Principles, “is to transfer as many public policy choices as possible to families and communities.

“Much of the discord in America today comes from the fact that too many decisions are made for us by centralized authorities. The Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for granting government the just authority to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power.”

Today, we spotlight FreeCons who defend our constitutional order against critics from across the political spectrum.

Better read than Red

Tyler Syck is an assistant professor of political science at Kentucky’s University of Pikeville and a FreeCon signatory.

He’s the editor of the forthcoming book A Republic of Virtue: The Political Essays of John Quincy Adams and is completing a second manuscript entitled The Untold Origins of American Democracy.

Syck’s articles on politics, philosophy, and history have appeared in such publications as Law & Liberty, Carolina Journal, and the Louisville Courier-Journal.

In a recent essay for Persuasion, he analyzed calls by some nationalist-populist leaders for a “Red Caesar,” a leader “whose post-Constitutional rule will restore the strength of his people.”

In reality, “Caesarists view equality, tradition, virtue, or some other cultural institution as the chief aim of politics — and they are willing to do anything to achieve it,” Syck wrote.

“In this way, they reveal not only their tyrannical impulses but a dearth of basic political knowledge. Art, virtue, and everything else of value that defines a society must be left to evolve organically.

“The will of a single individual cannot bring into being art — for innovation requires freedom. A strongman cannot build a well-ordered people — for that requires self-government. Caesar can never cultivate a great culture — he can only manage decline.”

In National Review, American Enterprise Institute fellow Philip Wallach made a related point about the nationalist-populist Right’s “Red Caesar” fixation.

“Previous generations of Americans were preoccupied with Julius Caesar,” Wallach wrote, “but he was a purely negative example. His enemies, Brutus and Cato the Younger, were held up as symbols of republican virtue to be emulated.”

Today, some on the populist Right suggest this “preoccupation with unjust rulers has distorted Americans’ political imagination,” he continued. Those of us who “still believe in self-government” need to be “keenly aware of this acid and keep it from corroding our constitutional institutions.”

Central panning

Tony Woodlief is State Policy Network’s senior executive vice president and senior fellow for SPN’s Center for Practical Federalism. He is also a FreeCon signatory.

Woodlief previously served as president of the Bill of Rights Institute, the Market-Based Management Institute, and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. An alumnus of the University of North Carolina, he has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan and an MFA from Wichita State University.

The author of I, Citizen: A Blueprint for Reclaiming American Self-Governance, Woodlief has appeared in numerous media outlets including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, National Review, and C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.

In a piece for Governing magazine, Woodlief argued that advocates of true self-government need not wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on a legal challenge to the federal government’s longstanding Chevron doctrine of deference to administrative agencies.

Instead, state and local officials can challenge federal “guidance” that seeks to impose centralized control over public policy without any legitimate constitutional or statutory authority.

“Regardless of how one feels about important issues like racial disparities in schools, how welfare eligibility is determined, or myriad other areas where federal agency guidance has shifted from clarification to policymaking,” Woodlief wrote, “most Americans likely agree that it undermines democracy to let unelected officials make choices for the entire country in a manner that avoids public scrutiny.”

In a recent National Affairs essay, Law & Liberty editor John G. Grove argued that a preference for centralization makes the National Conservatism movement less relevant and persuasive to American audiences.

“Attempting to superimpose the vision of a culturally, religiously, or geographically homogeneous nation on American politics points to either top-down cultural engineering or disintegration,” Grove wrote.

“Perhaps this is the reason why politicians and public commentators who share National Conservatism's understandings of nationhood are, ironically, often the ones most likely to talk about the possibility of ‘national divorce.’”

Vision of the Founders

Gregg Nunziata is executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law. He is also a FreeCon signatory.

An attorney and policy professional, Nunziata previously served as chief nominations counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, playing a key strategic role in the confirmation proceedings for scores of federal judges and executive branch appointees.

He also served as policy counsel to the Senate Republican Policy Committee and as general counsel and domestic policy adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio. Earlier in his career, Gregg served in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and worked as a litigator in an international law firm.

In a recent piece for The Dispatch, Nunziata defended the successes of the conservative legal movement, of which he’s been a part for decades, while warning that its future is uncertain.

“The next generation of legal conservatives must put as much emphasis on the political branches performing their proper constitutional roles as the previous generations did on the judiciary,” he wrote.

“A new emphasis on a limited federal government, a properly constrained executive, and narrowed agency powers could lower the stakes of presidential elections. Promoting federalism and local control would allow for diverse policy choices properly suited to a diverse country.”

And “a renewed commitment to the First Amendment and a broader culture of free speech affirm the ongoing process of democracy and the indispensability of mutual toleration,” Nunziata added. “These values can move us away from a quadrennial battle for lasting supremacy which justifies alliance with the worst actors on our political scene, in favor of the sustainable self-government vision of our Founders.”