The Elusive ‘Conservative Consensus’ | The American Spectator

Under Donald Trump, the American Right wields more power and influence than it has in 40 years. It is therefore worth recalling the groundwork laid by earlier right-wing thinkers who expanded conservatism’s ranks by uniting cultural traditionalists with economic individualists. This synthesis — known as fusionism — was the crowning achievement of political philosopher Frank S. Meyer, the man who writer Dan Flynn, in his remarkable new book, called the “man who invented conservatism.”

Before Frank Meyer became a leader of movement conservatism, he was first an advocate for Marxism. He was born in 1909 to an upper-middle-class Jewish family in Newark, N.J., growing up a smart but rebellious teen who became an atheist and a full-fledged communist. His radicalism was so strong in essays and writings that he had to withdraw from Princeton University during his sophomore year. Still, he did go on to complete his undergraduate studies at Oxford.

Later on, he would enroll in the London School of Economics, and there he formed the communist student movement and even started a communist newspaper on campus. Meyer’s political activities led to his expulsion from school and deported from England to America in 1934.

Back home, his Marxist activism continued and he actively enlisted Americans to take Soviet Russia’s side in the Spanish Civil War in the late 30s. Slowly over time, he began to see the errors of communism. By serving a stint in the Army during World War II, he encountered working-class men and discovered the communist perception of their plight was wrong. His failed thesis of tying communism to the American founding left him at a political dead end.

Subsequently, Meyer had a philosophical revelation when he read The Road to Serfdom by Austrian economist F.A. Hayek and Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences. He would go on to testify in congressional hearings to convict Communist Party USA (CPUSA) leaders who plotted to overthrow the government.

Soon, he quit writing for Marxist publications such as the New Masses and started writing for a libertarian outlet called The Freeman. By the 1950s, Frank Meyer was officially on the Right, and he joined William F. Buckley in 1955 for the creation of National Review, a magazine that would soon become the epicenter for conservative thought for the next half-century.

As a senior editor for NR, Meyer’s writing style was a unique blend of conservative philosophy and the political realism of the present day. In the 1950s and early 60s, conservatism was unorthodox and, according to Lionel Trilling in The Liberal Imagination (1950), amounted less to a full-blown ideology than a set of “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.”

Even so, Meyer took it upon himself to bridge the gap between social conservatives and libertarians, bringing them under the conservative umbrella. His efforts to unite these seemingly disparate groups were instrumental in shaping the modern conservative movement, and his commitment to tying conservatism to the vision of the Founding Fathers is a testament to his dedication to preserving traditional values.

In 1962, Meyer released his seminal work on fusionism with a book titled In Defense of Freedom, where he revealed that the government’s role is to protect freedom and that the state has three legitimate functions: police, standing military, and a judicial system. In summation, fusionism is “utilizing libertarian means in a conservative society for traditionalist ends”.

Personally, Meyer was not a fan of the word fusionism, as he would rather it be called the “conservative consensus.” The state would honor an individual’s freedom, but it was up to that person to seek virtue. He eventually would convert to Christianity and believe in divine law. In his book, he wrote that conservatives are seeking to preserve, “The Christian understanding of the nature and destiny of man.”

Over the course of his career, Meyer was dubbed “Air Traffic Control” by Bill Buckley. The reason for this is that he took it upon himself to recognize and take charge of the different variations of American conservatism and to make sure the right ideas made it off the runway and stuck the landing.

With Meyer having been a young Marxist advocate, he was able to use his political outreach skills and organizational abilities to form organizations such as Young Americans for Freedom, the American Conservative Union, and the Philadelphia Society. He was a gifted public speaker and went on speaking tours, and was known for making late-night phone calls on politics and public policy. Reports show that roughly 60 percent of his earnings went to pay for telephone service.

Amazingly, much of the resistance to Meyers’ politics came from fellow right-wing peers. His colleague Russell Kirk believed that Meyer’s view of individualism would lead to “social atomism” and would destroy a conservative society. In contrast, L Brent Bozell argued that the purpose of politics was not freedom, but instead creating “a Christian civilization.”

As it turned out, fusionism was better in practice than in theory, as Frank Meyer would become an early supporter of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, the first national candidate to run on a fusionist agenda. After his landslide loss, Meyer turned to Governor Reagan of California for president in 1968 due to his principled stances and “ability as a campaigner,” only to see the Republican establishment coalesce behind Richard Nixon again.

Unfortunately, Frank Meyer died of lung cancer in 1972 and was a frequent critic of the Nixon Administration’s policies. It would not be until eight years later that President Reagan would prove fusionist conservatism as a winning formula nationwide. As Dan Flynn writes in The Man Who Invented Conservatism, “Ultimately, the Big Idea united the right.”

Still, it’s probably fair to say Frank Meyer would have many of the same problems with President Trump as he did with Richard Nixon. The same schisms between conservatives exist today as in Meyer’s time, and Trump’s brand of nationalist populism, embodied in a closed border and higher tariffs, has further irritated libertarians. The Right must rediscover the right balance of freedom, order, and tradition if it wants to continue being a winning national movement.

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