Essay: Refuting the distinction between right-wing populism and conservativism

This essay is an original work. Please comment only on the talk page.

I am not trying to sound rude, but I personally think that this entire section on the "right-wing populism" page should be deleted.

This section sounds like your average Con, Inc. propaganda designed to smear national populism. National populism is conservative and it does not have "anti-conservative" viewpoints. The only reason why it appears to have "anti-conservative" viewpoints is because it opposes the modern conservatism, which is a fake version of conservatism that arose in the 1960s and has accomplished nothing. Conservatism was redefined in the 1960s to basically mean less taxes, smaller government etc. when it is really about God, family, nation, tradition in heritage. Now don't get me wrong here, less taxes and smaller government in regards to regulation and welfare is nice and good and all, and national Populist support it, but it should by no means be the #1 priority of the conservative movement. National populists seeks to return conservatism to its pre-1960s authenticity and glory, and not keep it at its sorry state it is at today. But anyway, I plan to debunk this section paragraph by paragraph, so I will add on to this talk page section I have created in increments. -Mr. Nationalist (talk) 00:05, October 23, 2021 (EDT)

1. Although often associated with conservatism, right-wing populism takes many anti-conservative positions. For instance, they reject the principles of fiscal conservatism and small government, often expressing support for domestic social programs such as welfare, in addition to viewing the government as a crucial tool to solve societal problems (a liberal worldview). Some key right-wing populist ideals, such as nativism, are derived from early 20th century progressivism.

I kind of addressed this above, but there was some other stuff I wanted to get to. National populists see things like fiscal conservatism and small government (in regards to economic issues) as generally good, but differ in that they do not have a fanatic obsession with it like libertarians and neocons. Saying they do is misleading. Their main thing is they realize that these things are to be used as tools, and these things are not inherently conservative. Again, they favor it, but they realize you have to be careful with it because they can be used to benefit the left. Cutting the taxes of big corporations like Amazon who hate us and push LGBT degeneracy in Pride Month to the point where they have to pay practically nothing in taxes and deregulation them to the point of where they can do anything they want doesn't help us in fighting them. You have to look at it through a populist lens and see what is best for fighting them and actually being pro-market in order to stop them from attacking us. Corporations have more power than the government these days largely due to neoliberalism, and as a result are more dangerous than big government. It is no longer capitalism vs. socialism but an elite liberal regime vs. its dissidents.

Next, it is okay to show some support for welfare and to use the government to solve problems, which is not necessarily a "liberal worldview". National Populist are center-right on the issue of welfare, and they are supporters of reforming many welfare programs to make them more pro-free market. But running on a platform of completely getting rid of them isn't exactly going to win Republicans the future as it once did 40 years ago. Donald Trump ran on a platform of reforming welfare and not gutting it, and that is how he won. There are many minorities out there like some blacks and Hispanics (especially Hispanics), who agree with us on matters of social policy but vote Democrat because of Democrat economic policy. While national populist by no means endorse Keynesianism, running on a platform of right-leaning economic populism will help you pick up some of these voters and realign them to the Republican Party and help us save the country. I have heard many people say they hate Obamacare but vote Democrat because the Republicans can't get a plan together on healthcare and want to have no healthcare at all. We could easily pick them up if we simply adopted Rand Paul's healthcare plan instead of wanting to return to what we had pre-2009. All we are saying basically is that we need to be more like Eisenhower on economics than Reagan in order to win. Also Robert A. Taft, the leader of the Old Right, supported expanding welfare a couple times in his career with Social Security and with some of the more reasonable parts of the Fair Deal, so adopting the populist view isn't like a liberal Republican thing. If you look at who voted for Trump in 2016 too on the political compass map, it actually shows most Trump voters were somewhat middle-of-the-road on economics and only slightly leaned to the right because of blue collar workers who supported him. Simply put, economic populism is essential to survival in the future. Also the government can be used as a tool to solve problems, and the conservative movement's failure to do this is why they have so often lost lately. The government could be used to trust-bust big megacorprations like Big Tech that censor us and it could be used to stop things like mask mandates and vaccine passports in the private sector, but conservatives are too cowardly to wield power the same way that the left does. If the left plays 4D Chess with government power as they do now, we can't play 3D chess and expect to win. The government must be used to preserve tradition and morality, and only then can we have it step out of the way in other areas and enjoy liberty. As Burke said, "Liberty cannot exist in the absence of morality." Many conservatives throughout history understood this concept and how to use government. Alexander Hamilton, the Father of American Conservatism, understood this. Abraham Lincoln understood this. Teddy Roosevelt understood this. 1950s conservatives like McCarthy understood this when it came to having the government blacklist communists. Other foreign conservatives like Francisco Franco understood this too. It is time for conservatives to return to their old ways on this issue.

On the issue of nativism, it is completely untrue to say that it came from 20th-century progressivism. Woodrow Wilson, the 20th century father of modern progressivism, was in fact liberal on the issue of immigration. He vetoed the Asiatic Barred Zone Act in 1917. The only "progressives" that could have possibly been nativist were Teddy Roosevelt's band of progressives, which were not modern-day progressives as we understand them. Progressivism meant something completely different 120 years ago. "Bull Moose" progressives were really just Populist and nationalists who were fans of trust-busting "bad trusts". That's all there was too it. Saying "Progressives are the real nativists!" is phony and facetious, and should not be our rhetoric. Conservative anti-immigration stances go back farther than progressivism, as the Federalist Party, the Whig Party, early Republicans (even some Radical Republicans like Henry Winter Davis), and the Old Right took anti-immigration stances, and all were considered to be conservative groups. Anti-immigration stances do not have their roots in early 1900s progressivism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mr. Nationalist (talk)

2. Right-wing populists and left-wing populists share many key viewpoints on economics. Unlike conservatives who emphasize less government spending and more individual freedom, right-wing populists praise demagogic leftists such as Huey Long.

Not all populists agree on economics. They do not share many key viewpoints on things. They only share some. They support tariffs, trust-busting, and anti-neoliberalism. National populists oppose central banking, inflation, centralization, and anti-capitalism. Left-wing populists oppose all of these things. The main thing is national populist are not obsessed with economics like Con, Inc. and want to see an economic system that helps in creating strong families first rather than primarily focusing on a strong GDP. Rejection of the latter is what national populists and left-wing populists mostly share in common. Again, national populists reject excessive government spending and are supporters of individual freedom for the most part when it comes to things like deregulation, but they are not hard-core on it because less spending and individual freedom are not inherently or necessarily conservative. "Individual freedom" can be defined to mean literally anything, like the freedom to engage in sexual immorality or have an abortion or take birth control pills or take part in some other degenerate leftist behavior. Going back to that Burke quote, individual freedom must be regulated in order to prevent it from breeding liberalism. Thus, liberty is regulated in order to preserve morality. Human nature is just too imperfect to give it all the individual freedom there is.

Huey Long was not a demagogue. Sure, national populists disagree with many of his economic policies. But he was still a pretty cool anti-establishment populist. He wasn't all bad, and can be seen as an model in some ways. Think of him running against FDR as Bernie Sanders running against Joe Biden. Sanders is left to Joe Biden on economics and Biden is sometimes more reasonable on issues like that, but Sanders is the one who is ultimately getting snubbed by the DNC. While we might oppose most of his policies, he still serves a threat to the very system we are trying to defeat. Thus, we support his efforts to stop the Democrat establishment. Huey Long can be viewed in the same way. He was against the corrupt liberal elites of his day so that's always something good. The Kingfish should be looked further into in my opinion.

3. Unlike conservatives who believe in a merit-based immigration system, right-wing populists tend to favor prohibiting immigration altogether.

That part is true, but, and I know this might stir some controversy, this is not necessarily a bad thing. While national populists would change the immigration system to a more merit-based one if they could, that should not be the end goal and it will not by itself solve the problem. We should at least have a 10-year moratorium and at the very least we need to repeal the Hart-Celler Act and restore the National Origins Formula. Simply cutting immigration rates in half will not stop the immigration problem. Democrats have benefitted so much off if immigration since the 1960s and it is largely because of that that there will never be a Republican landslide ever again like there had been in 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988. Immigration has caused New York and California to turn blue and Texas and Georgia to turn purple. Immigrants come from different cultures and even after assimilation, they still usually prefer their culture over our own. They are inclined to vote for Democrats and will only help their cause more and more as time passes on. Time will be the only thing delaying an unstoppable Democrat supermajority. Also with a merit-based system immigrants from places like the Middle East could still come so long as they passed the merit tests. People like Charlie Kirk thing that a merit system is all there is to it because America is an idea. Not a place, a people, a nation, but an idea. Immigration undermines cultural nationalism, so we must halt it to a very strong extent in order to foster unity again. Or else America will continue to develop into a place where there is no uniting factors outside of where we go to eat or what television shows we watch, and it will eventually collapse.

4. Right-wing populists often demonstrate a lack of sufficiently understanding history, an example being their support for Jacksonian Democracy. They tend to extol the founders of the racist Democratic Party, particularly Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, despite the fact that Jackson and Polk were bitterly opposed by the conservative Whig Party.

I disagree on this one. Jacksonian Democracy has many good elements in it that should be emulated today, like Manifest Destiny and anti-central banking. Also Trumpism has it roots in Jacksonian Democracy, so you kind of have to praise it and support it a little. Jackson and Polk should be remembered as heroes for what they did, as we can look to Jackson for inspiration on how to fight the Federal Reserve and we can look to Manifest Destiny as one of our country's greatest achievements that resembles modern nationalism. Yes, I understand that the Whigs were the conservatives (as I mentioned above) in the sense of wanting stricter controls over everything and Jackson and Polk had a few liberal elements. But if you transport that over to today, they would be ultra-conservatives. Just because they were slaveowning Democrats does not mean that we cannot look to them for inspiration on how to deal with our problems in today's world and defend America's greatness and achievements. Jackson and Polk were mainly liberal in the sense for wanting looser controls over everything, but conservatism and liberalism 200 years ago was completely different from what it is today. Also, calling the Democrats "racist" is not going to work and this whole "Democrats are the real racists" gig started by Dinesh D'Souza has got to stop. Yes, it was funny when he released his 2016 movie and it kind of is hilariously ironic when you consider the fact that they complained about systemic racism and America's supposedly racist history when they are the ones who started Jim Crow, but today's Democrats and Republicans are different from what they were 150 years ago, and nobody advocates explicit racism on either side of the political aisle at all now. And just because they took the wrong stance on slavery doesn't mean they did not do good things. If that is the case, statues of Thomas Jefferson ought to go down because he owned slaves and founded the Democratic Party's predecessor. Never mind the fact he was integral to our Founding. The same things are being done by Con, Inc. to people like Jackson. Establishment Republicans like Dan Crenshaw celebrate the removal of monuments to old Democrats simply because they were Democrats. But anyway, Jackson and Polk were forerunners to the America First conservative movements, so there is no reason why we should not admire them.

Anyway, I think that sums it up. I hope that clears up the distinctions between national populism and conservatism and shows that national populism's ultimate goal is to restore conservatism. I hope the readers of this essay will understand after reading it that national populism is not a movement based around obstructing conservatism in any sense, and will only obstruct the Republican establishment.