This may also help explain the cultural sterility of present-day American conservatism. The American literary and intellectual culture people like me were brought up with--the one that still dominates English departments--has its origins in the Yankees of nineteenth-century New England, "that other Israel surrounding Boston", with Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Whitman (NYC, but still...), Dickinson, and others. As such, it's always been an embarrassment to those conservatives who would have preferred a culture rooted in the antebellum South; even a bona fide frontier writer like Twain was too anti-Confederate for comfort. Some have gone to the point of denying that the United States has any literary culture worth the name at all. (One anthologist of English-language literature for the right refused to include any American authors except for Hawthorne and Flannery O'Connor on the grounds that American writers did not understand the essential nature of evil.). In these circumstances, the idea of an American cultural tradition ranging from Emerson to the present is corrupt and illegitimate even before you consider the contributions of those who were Black or Jewish or whatever; best to rely on that Frenchman Tocqueville for your ideas on America. (And then they accuse us of being too indebted to Europe!). That leaves American artists and non-political intellectuals with precisely nothing to rely on, at least if you're as strong a proponent of cultural tradition as conservatives claim to be.
Faulkner is hard to enlist in the conservative tradition claimed by writers like the Southern Agrarians. Though he gives depth to the South as a regional culture, he exposes too much that punctures the white claims to being gracious civilization and an American nobility.
You'd think that, purely demographically, this would be a turn-off. How many Americans, even "white Christian Americans," can actually trace their ancestry back to the colonies pre-1776? Who the hell is this Kraut (probably a damned Papist) to lay claim to the legacy of the Pilgrim Fathers?
JD Vance is claiming seven generations of his family on American soil. Two glaring contradictions: his own children and his new religion. Is he a Papist now?
Vance was born in 1984. A generation is around 25 years, so his ancestors have been in the US since...the Madison administration? That's old, but it's not *that* old.
Pfaugh. My Amurrrican ancestry goes back to 1650 in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Who does this Kraut think he is? BTW I really like the sound of National Conservatism. Seems to remind me of something. And obviously he has the same perception, with a noticeably different association.
That's where whiteness comes in. The original migrants, the first colonists, the nineteenth century pioneers and settlers killing Indians and going to war with Mexicans––are aren't all from the same "stock" but they share a racial spirit. Without that quasi-mystical idea, the logic of the whole thing would fall apart.
As a descendant of a guy who lived next-door to Lexington and almost certainly was there to hear the shot heard 'round the world, I agree. Gad, sir, blood will tell - as Colonel Blimp said
Seems like Herr Schmitt is moving the goal posts to accommodate himself. How can this Aryan interloper claim to share the blood of the original Anglo founders? Doesn't his last name out him as just another "German come lately" like herr cankles mcTacotTits ( a.k.a. trump )?
This is really good, John. Not that you need any advice. It's so too bad that these NatCs do not read or learn the way historians like you and me were taught to. And it's a problem the subdiscipline of Intellectual History still finds difficult: assessing HOW ideas survive rather than simply WHETHER or not they do.
Our Host used the expression "anti-American interlopers." He would have saved a few pixels if he had used the word "Jews." White nationalism, plus a small dose of conspiracism, is the classical antisemitism of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
I'm puzzled by our media's reluctance to call what's unfolding in the White House fascism. Even if Trump himself has no actual philosophical belief system, he's surrounded himself with dyed in the wool fascists and is letting them run the show. I fear what happens when they decide he's no longer useful.
Back in the nineties Steve Erickson described Pat Buchanan as the 'anti-Lincoln' of American politics. His reasons were similar to your analysis of Schmitt. I don't know if you've read "American Nomad," and I'm curious as to what our favorite historian of the nineties thinks about it. I understand the gripes people had with the book back then, but it strikes me as one of the more anticipatory works of its time.
As I understand it, Schmitt is correct in that the Europeans who settled the American South and Midwest during the first part of the 19th century were basically engaging in a volkisch project based on racial superiority and religious fundamentalism. While the Founders were certainly engaging in an enlightenment project, the actual settling of the continent by whites was an exercise in nation building by a host of fringe groups who couldn't integrate into European society because they were (religious) freaks. The Civil War was about slavery but it was also sort of a battle between the Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment strains of Americanism...perhaps 160 years on, the victory of the enlightened side has expired.
"the outnumbered Kentucky settlers repelling wave after wave of Indian war band attacks from behind their stockade walls" - these people are some lame ass lameos
Beyond just being charisma-less turds not fit to shine Trump's boots as entertainment brands (the field on which politics is played now) it's just grimly funny to see these guys theorizing their way out of Trump's signal electoral triumph - making conservatism a saleable and growing commodity among the nonwhite workers for whom chuds like Schmitt radiate "worst boss I ever had" energy.
John, in a vacuum I would have assumed you were talking about Carl Schmitt, but I started Substack over at the Bulwark and got tipped off about your subject in the comments to JVL’s column today.
This may also help explain the cultural sterility of present-day American conservatism. The American literary and intellectual culture people like me were brought up with--the one that still dominates English departments--has its origins in the Yankees of nineteenth-century New England, "that other Israel surrounding Boston", with Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Whitman (NYC, but still...), Dickinson, and others. As such, it's always been an embarrassment to those conservatives who would have preferred a culture rooted in the antebellum South; even a bona fide frontier writer like Twain was too anti-Confederate for comfort. Some have gone to the point of denying that the United States has any literary culture worth the name at all. (One anthologist of English-language literature for the right refused to include any American authors except for Hawthorne and Flannery O'Connor on the grounds that American writers did not understand the essential nature of evil.). In these circumstances, the idea of an American cultural tradition ranging from Emerson to the present is corrupt and illegitimate even before you consider the contributions of those who were Black or Jewish or whatever; best to rely on that Frenchman Tocqueville for your ideas on America. (And then they accuse us of being too indebted to Europe!). That leaves American artists and non-political intellectuals with precisely nothing to rely on, at least if you're as strong a proponent of cultural tradition as conservatives claim to be.
Claremont Institute, from Harry Jaffa to JD Vance. What a falling off there was.
Where in this post does Faulkner fit in? Not to mention Walker Percy, or digging even deeper William Gilmore Sims?
Faulkner is hard to enlist in the conservative tradition claimed by writers like the Southern Agrarians. Though he gives depth to the South as a regional culture, he exposes too much that punctures the white claims to being gracious civilization and an American nobility.
You'd think that, purely demographically, this would be a turn-off. How many Americans, even "white Christian Americans," can actually trace their ancestry back to the colonies pre-1776? Who the hell is this Kraut (probably a damned Papist) to lay claim to the legacy of the Pilgrim Fathers?
JD Vance is claiming seven generations of his family on American soil. Two glaring contradictions: his own children and his new religion. Is he a Papist now?
In this century rightwing Catholics are the new "fiery" Protestants.
Vance was born in 1984. A generation is around 25 years, so his ancestors have been in the US since...the Madison administration? That's old, but it's not *that* old.
Pfaugh. My Amurrrican ancestry goes back to 1650 in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Who does this Kraut think he is? BTW I really like the sound of National Conservatism. Seems to remind me of something. And obviously he has the same perception, with a noticeably different association.
That's where whiteness comes in. The original migrants, the first colonists, the nineteenth century pioneers and settlers killing Indians and going to war with Mexicans––are aren't all from the same "stock" but they share a racial spirit. Without that quasi-mystical idea, the logic of the whole thing would fall apart.
Still, one would imagine that the memory of inter-ethnic conflict (Irish vs. Italians, who even shared a religion, say) would undermine any such feeling of solidarity, to say nothing of the implicit exclusion of Spanish- and Portuguese-Americans with no non-European ancestry: https://www.masslive.com/news/2025/03/military-dei-photo-purge-set-to-erase-medal-of-honor-recipient.html
I love the quote from Groucho at the end. If that's not America, what is?
Boston was (and I hope still is) the Athens of America, not the new Jerusalem.
The next revolution will come again from Lexington and Concord and stymie these idiots.
As a person who recently relocated from DC to Boston I hope you’re right!
As a descendant of a guy who lived next-door to Lexington and almost certainly was there to hear the shot heard 'round the world, I agree. Gad, sir, blood will tell - as Colonel Blimp said
Hi neighbors!
Seems like Herr Schmitt is moving the goal posts to accommodate himself. How can this Aryan interloper claim to share the blood of the original Anglo founders? Doesn't his last name out him as just another "German come lately" like herr cankles mcTacotTits ( a.k.a. trump )?
This is really good, John. Not that you need any advice. It's so too bad that these NatCs do not read or learn the way historians like you and me were taught to. And it's a problem the subdiscipline of Intellectual History still finds difficult: assessing HOW ideas survive rather than simply WHETHER or not they do.
Our Host used the expression "anti-American interlopers." He would have saved a few pixels if he had used the word "Jews." White nationalism, plus a small dose of conspiracism, is the classical antisemitism of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
I'm puzzled by our media's reluctance to call what's unfolding in the White House fascism. Even if Trump himself has no actual philosophical belief system, he's surrounded himself with dyed in the wool fascists and is letting them run the show. I fear what happens when they decide he's no longer useful.
Back in the nineties Steve Erickson described Pat Buchanan as the 'anti-Lincoln' of American politics. His reasons were similar to your analysis of Schmitt. I don't know if you've read "American Nomad," and I'm curious as to what our favorite historian of the nineties thinks about it. I understand the gripes people had with the book back then, but it strikes me as one of the more anticipatory works of its time.
As I understand it, Schmitt is correct in that the Europeans who settled the American South and Midwest during the first part of the 19th century were basically engaging in a volkisch project based on racial superiority and religious fundamentalism. While the Founders were certainly engaging in an enlightenment project, the actual settling of the continent by whites was an exercise in nation building by a host of fringe groups who couldn't integrate into European society because they were (religious) freaks. The Civil War was about slavery but it was also sort of a battle between the Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment strains of Americanism...perhaps 160 years on, the victory of the enlightened side has expired.
"the outnumbered Kentucky settlers repelling wave after wave of Indian war band attacks from behind their stockade walls" - these people are some lame ass lameos
Beyond just being charisma-less turds not fit to shine Trump's boots as entertainment brands (the field on which politics is played now) it's just grimly funny to see these guys theorizing their way out of Trump's signal electoral triumph - making conservatism a saleable and growing commodity among the nonwhite workers for whom chuds like Schmitt radiate "worst boss I ever had" energy.
Steven Hahn's Illiberal America is a good followup.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/150778691-illiberal-america
John, in a vacuum I would have assumed you were talking about Carl Schmitt, but I started Substack over at the Bulwark and got tipped off about your subject in the comments to JVL’s column today.