The Vanishing Tradition: Perspectives on American Conservatism (ed. Paul Gottfried)

Gottfried, Paul. ed. The Vanishing Tradition: Perspectives on American Conservatism. Northern Illinois University Press, 2020.

We place before the house the definition of our term: a neoconservative is a former liberal who is anti-Soviet and pro-Israeli. When I use the phrase “neoconservative” or “neocon,” I do not mean it in a pejorative sense. At least not in this review. Indeed, some neoconservatives, particularly the West Coast Straussians, are decent human beings. They are wrong, to be surer, but they have honor. Not so those on the East Coast.


One other introductory remark: what is the relationship between the philosopher Leo Strauss and Neoconservatism? Leo Strauss, by all accounts an impressive and powerful thinker, marginalized religious belief for the sake of philosophy–but he did so in what appears to be a somewhat conservative bent. He believed in natural rights. His disciples took his natural rights philosophy and reinterpreted the Declaration of Independence around it. No longer was the Declaration an American document listing specific abuses by a specific king. It was now a manifesto for all of humanity. In other words, America is no longer a place or even a people, but an idea.


The Big Con


Beginning in the 1980s, neoconservatives repositioned themselves, infiltrating (infecting?) think-tanks and DC groups. Conservatism no longer meant a commitment to community, tradition, and the values undergirding them. It now means what former Trotskyites say it means. And while the contributors to the volume did not make this explicit, the purges the neocons engaged in were almost identical to (minus the firing squads) the Stalinists engaged against the Trotskyites, further compounding the irony.


The Mel Bradford Affair


Mel Bradford, a world-class scholar, was chosen by Reagan (or Reagan’s aides) to head the National Endowment for the Humanities. Aside from the fact that such an institution should not exist, Bradford would have been an ideal choice. Neocons were in panic-mode, for if Bradford got the job, he would send most of the money to Texas and Oklahoma and not to the east coast universities where the neocons worked. That was unforgivable.


In response, the necons dug up some old remarks of Bradford on Lincoln. On one level, Bradford’s remarks had little to do with slavery, as Bradford, like everyone else today, opposed it. Bradford merely pointed out that Lincoln’s rhetoric made empire possible.


Evaluation


Neocons promote specific global aims at the expense of the American people. The clearest manifesto of Neo-Conservatism was David Frum’s vitriolic attack on godly Americans in “Unpatriotic Conservatives” (2003). Anyone who had questions concerning the Iraq invasion simply hated America or was probably a secret Muslim (which was particularly awkward for the Jewish paleoconservative Paul Gottfried). That is ultimately why the Neoconservatives hated Trump. Although he is vulgar and brash, Trump’s ultimate sin was questioning neocon foreign policy.


One could argue that Trump is not a conservative. But on issues regarding homosexuality and abortion, the main issues on which Trump faltered, it is hard to see how he is any less conservative than Norman Podhoretz or David Brooks. Trump did not “move” conservatism away from its true moorings The Neocons already did that in the 1980s.


Not every essay in this volume is equally good, though some are near-perfect. Gottfried ends with an autobiographical reflection on various neocon purges in the last few decades.