A passing thought on the fall of Conservatism.

It seemed to me throughout the time I maintained a subscription to National Review & the American Spectator that the writers rarely quoted from contemporary sources that were not openly hostile (at least in theory) to the aims of these magazines's editorial board when discussing culture & art. The entire staff were constantly pointing readers towards sources such as the New York Times Review of Books. The NYT & the New York Review of Books dominated cultural discussion, but Partisan Review, the Atlantic & other publications were referenced constantly. While the writers, at the time, were not openly advocating deconstructionism & Cultural Marxism, their contents were virtually indistinguishable from the cultural ruminations at the New Republic. National Review never made reference to any existing Right Wing periodicals. I grew up thinking that the left held all the cards culturally. I knew nothing of Chronicles or any other paleocon periodicals. The old Right had been fully unpersoned by the Buckleyites. I thought of this while reading Radix's republished article by Samuel Francis from 1997 lamenting the fractiousness of the American Right. This constant internecine strife produced by the restive Right led to the complete surrender in the culture wars.

This seems so familiar:

"All it can do is worry over who is and who is not a "real conservative," which merely means who does and who does not let the self-appointed swamis of the Right do his thinking for him. Depending on the personal strength and success of the particular swamis that lead them, the cults of "movement conservatism" may flourish indefinitely, continue to publish their endless series of unreadable tracts and sermons to their own choirs, and actually meet the payrolls of their staffs, but no one—least of all the swamis in charge—ever expects to gain substantial power or take charge of the rudders of history."

I am not merely referring to the fauxservatives, cuckservatives, & conservatarians attacking the Alt Right, but each little difference becomes a new faction that, as always, begins excommunicating everyone else. This results in each faction anathematizing itself cutting it off from contact with any wider movement. Just in the last year I've seen the Techno-commercialists Neoreactionaries excommunicate  Ethno-Nationalists & religious traditionalists (theonomists) from its ranks. I've seen all of them censure the White Nationalists. I've seen White Nationalists split with much of the other Alt Right factions over sexual morality, insufficient jew hatred, & excessive jew hatred. Pagans exile Christians, Christians exile Pagans, etc. ad nauseum. Right now the Alt Right/Dark Enlightenment penumbra is already fighting to divide the spoils of victory without ever actually winning a thing.

The Trump candidacy alone has forced all, but the most committed splitters beneath the Alt Right/Dark Enlightenment penumbra, to come together with the paleocons, race realists, committed nationalists, and prole Trumpkins to get him elected. Most Rightists with a brain expect Trump to fail them, but seek at least to pull the Overton Window a little further right. I honestly don't see what's to be gained by the reactionaries & neoreactionaries sitting this out. I would think the neoreactionaries would want to make themselves useful to a potential western Lee Kuan Yew or American Sulla. Especially since Asian Lee Kuan Yews don't seem to need them. The rest of the Right seems to be coalescing around his candidacy nonetheless. Will this nascent right seize the opportunity or will they fritter it away in ever more quixotic quests for ideological purity which seems to be the bane of Anglo-Saxon Rightists? Is there any reason to think they won't?

The Radix article is here.