Foreign Policy Splits the Parties

In 2024, foreign policy doesn’t pit Republicans against Democrats so much as it pits Republicans against Republicans and Democrats against Democrats. For Joe Biden’s party, Israel is the fault line, with Democrats split between supporters of the Jewish State and those of Palestinian sympathies. For the party of Donald Trump, the internal conflict is over Ukraine, and the bitterness of the battle risks costing Mike Johnson his speakership. These crises in the Middle East and on NATO’s frontier are catalysts for tensions that have been growing in both parties’ coalitions since the end of the Cold War. The United States is the most powerful nation in the world, by far; what obligations does that impose on us for using our power to promote our values? And what are those values anyway? The anti-colonialist left thinks America is too wicked to do good on the world stage. The anti-interventionist right thinks the world is too unlike us to benefit from our crusading — which instead only undermines what makes us special and strong at home. The more internationalist right, on the other hand, sees greater danger to our institutions and way of life arising from insufficient engagement with a dangerous world, which will turn away from our values and interests if we don’t actively promote them. That requires, they say, supporting friends and allies around the globe and confronting hostile states, ultimately, if necessary, with military force, and by every means short of that in the meantime. The interventionist left, for its part, has the same confidence in government’s ability to improve the world outside our borders as it has in the competence of government at home. And if engaging with the world erodes American distinctiveness, as some on the right fear, that’s a benefit rather than a drawback as far as these progressives are concerned. These are basic dispositions. They’re complicated by several hard realities that can’t be avoided no matter what one’s ideal policy might be — external threats, for one thing, and the limits of America’s unprecedented but not unlimited wealth and power for another, as well as the limits of national morale and political will in support of any long-term project. There are serious debates to be had both on the left and the right. Yet on the left, as is typical for that side of politics, protest often takes the place of serious discussion, especially on college campuses. To judge by social media, one might think the right can’t have an adult conversation about foreign policy, either. But an event I recently moderated suggests that conservatives can grapple intelligently with their differences. The University of Texas at Austin held a debate — organized by UT’s Civitas Institute and my employer, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute — on the proposition “Resolved: America’s Defense of Ukraine Is Vital to Upholding the Liberal International Order,” with National Review’s Noah Rothman affirming the proposition and former Trump administration national security official Michael Anton opposing it. Although Rothman and Anton didn’t come to a meeting of minds by the end of the debate, each made points that arguably worked in the other’s favor. After an audience member asked Rothman how his fears of further Russian aggressions beyond Ukraine differed from Vietnam-era “domino theory,” Anton added that Singapore’s leader Lee Kuan Yew was reputed to have said that America really won the Vietnam War. How so? The resolve America showed in fighting the war signaled to the wider Indo-Pacific region that Communism could not expand easily and without resistance, even if Washington proved unable to save South Vietnam. That message fortified the willingness of other states to resist Communism, including Singapore. I asked Anton if this lesson applied to Ukraine. Would it mean that even if American support wasn’t enough to defeat Russia, the heightened cost of Putin’s war would still discourage further depredations by Moscow — or anyone else — and strengthen other nations’ inclinations to resist them? Anton wasn’t convinced the precedent would apply in today’s circumstances. Nevertheless, in sharing Lee’s opinion, he helpfully complicated the debate. In turn Rothman acknowledged that his support for Ukraine did not extend to sending American troops to fight for Kyiv, even if Anton proved correct in his contention that nothing less than that would secure victory for Ukraine. Rothman believed, however, that supporting Ukraine was the best way to keep America out of a European conflict, as Russian success would foment chaos on NATO’s borders and weaken the alliance architecture that kept Europe at peace. There were no concessions on either side, yet the debate showed how conservatives with starkly different views could compare them productively. It also showed a college campus can still hold a mature debate, not just another protest. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com

PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.

Imagine making a documentary about one of the 20th century’s leading opponents of the Ku Klux Klan — without ever talking about the evil of the KKK itself. If that sounds like malpractice, consider PBS’s new documentary on the life of William F. Buckley Jr. “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley,” the latest installment in the “American Masters” series, has much to say about anti-Communism but never reckons with the murderous reality of Communism itself. In failing to do so, producer and director Barak Goodman unintentionally reminds his viewers of why Buckley was needed in the first place — and why he still is. Never mind that Buckley died in 2008, and next year marks the centenary of his birth. The liberals who already reigned in America’s universities when Buckley was a Yale student in the late 1940s have not learned any lessons in the decades since then. Faculty and administrators still will not speak frankly about evils emanating from the left end of the political spectrum, from Communism to the many violent groups that claim to act in the name of anti-colonialism. The PBS documentary gets Buckley’s resume right but understands little of its significance. In 1951 Buckley published his first book, “God and Man at Yale.” Four years later, when he was not quite 30 years old, Buckley launched National Review, which became the all-but-official publication of the nascent conservative movement. He had a hand in the creation of other institutions, too, such as the right’s student activist arm, Young Americans for Freedom. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan drew political support and intellectual sustenance from the movement Buckley built. And after Goldwater’s crushing defeat in the 1964 presidential election, Buckley restored conservatives’ spirits with his run for mayor of New York City the following year. “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley” is right to suggest that although WFB’s mayoral campaign never had a shot at winning — Buckley joked that if he won, he’d demand a recount — it taught conservatives how to mobilize urban Catholics and voters fed up with escalating crime. The Nixon coalition, which would win the White House in 1968 and 1972, was the Buckley coalition first. His mayoral run made him a media sensation and led to a career in television, on top of the several careers he already had as an author, editor, lecturer and movement-maker. He even started his own highly successful interview show, “Firing Line,” which ran for more than three decades, mostly on PBS affiliates, starting in 1966. “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley” tantalizes viewers with clips of WFB’s exchanges with “Firing Line” guests such as Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg. But the documentary is reluctant to let Buckley speak for himself; voiceovers from historians offering their own spin break in after only a few words from the subject himself. The filmmakers prefer to highlight defeats and embarrassments: the debate Buckley lost to James Baldwin at Cambridge University in 1965 on the resolution “The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro” and WFB’s explosion on live TV, while covering the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when Gore Vidal taunted him as a “pro- or crypto-Nazi.” Buckley, losing his composure for once, retorted by calling Vidal a “queer” and saying he’d “sock” him in the face — “and you’ll stay plastered!” — if he kept up the abuse. Vidal delighted in getting this rise out of Buckley and thought it made great television, but the conservative was mortified. The trouble with “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley,” though, isn’t that it showcases such episodes but that it finds its subject incomprehensible at the most important level — the meaning of his life’s work. When Goodman isn’t presenting Buckley as a figure fit for “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” he and the historians he’s enlisted press the thesis that Buckley was an irresponsible elitist who dabbled with populist forces he could not control. The documentary ends with scenes of Donald Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. But it’s elite liberals, not Buckley, who created the opening for Trump. Buckley’s institutions, notably National Review, opposed Trump — yet their opposition wasn’t enough to offset demand for Trump from voters whom liberals had alienated. By failing to learn the lessons Buckley tried all his life to teach, and refusing to moderate their left-wing prejudices in light of an articulate conservative critique, liberals in politics, media and the academy guaranteed the rise of populism. From the Cold War to crime in the cities, they blamed America for every problem. Thirty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, liberals like those behind “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley” persist in treating Communism as a footnote to McCarthyism. They have their history, and their view of Buckley, upside down. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com

Who Wants to Be House Speaker?

Mel Brooks said it’s good to be the king — but is it good to be speaker of the House of Representatives? You’re the most powerful legislator in Congress, if not the world, and just two heartbeats away from being president. If you’re a Republican, though, your task is thankless and possibly hopeless. It looks that way for Speaker Mike Johnson right now. With the barest Republican majority in the House, another resignation or sudden death could throw control of the chamber to the Democrats and hand the speakership to Hakeem Jeffries well ahead of November’s election. Even if the GOP suffers no attrition before Election Day, Johnson could lose his head at any time to another revolt within the party’s ranks. House Republicans were unruly enough when they enjoyed a majority of almost 60 seats under Speaker John Boehner nearly a decade ago. Donald Trump wasn’t a factor back then, and Barack Obama gave Republicans an opponent to unite against — yet they still couldn’t cohere as a party. Boehner finally gave up and resigned the speakership in 2015, letting Paul Ryan take over. The Wisconsin congressman was until then a rising star in the GOP, but after three years as speaker, he was done with politics and bowed out of Congress altogether. Kevin McCarthy knew what he was getting into when he grabbed the gavel after Republicans most recently took back the House, but he overestimated his odds of survival. Rebellious backbenchers overthrew him nine months into his speakership; then he, too, quit Congress. How long will Johnson last — and who would want to succeed him? Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise vied to replace McCarthy, but the same factional instability that prevented either of them from securing the votes they needed would have poisoned the prize even if one of them had been able to win it. Johnson was nobody’s first choice for speaker, and that’s partly why he got the job; he wasn’t loved enough to be hated either. But now Johnson gets the blame when the House passes continuing resolutions that keep the government open, at the cost of failing to use the threat of a shutdown to wring policy concessions from Biden. Of course, if the speaker did allow a shutdown, he and the GOP would get blamed by the media for the mess — and probably by voters, too. Politically it’s a lose-lose proposition for the party, though in 2011 a Republican House resolved such a standoff by limiting both domestic and defense spending with a law that came to be known as “the sequester.” It worked — but it was equally unpopular with those House and Senate Republicans who wanted to spend more on national defense and with their Democratic counterparts who craved more money for projects at home. Now neither party wants to try that again. Spending is grease for the gears of Congress, which is one reason why Democrats dominated the House for 60 years from the Great Depression to the Gingrich Revolution, with only two non-consecutive two-year terms of GOP control from 1931 until 1995. House majorities are traditionally held together by logrolling and pork-barrel spending — buying the votes of your colleagues with taxpayers’ dollars. That approach still works well for the party of the New Deal and the Great Society; it doesn’t work for the party of Ronald Reagan or even Donald Trump. Conservative Republicans oppose drunken-sailor spending, but without it, what incentive is there for party discipline? In the old days, challenging a speaker or a committee chairman would jeopardize the earmarks on which individual congressmen depended for paying off voters back in their districts. It was a corrupt system, and conservatives were determined to reform it. After Republicans won the House for the first time in four decades in the 1994 midterms, the new speaker, Newt Gingrich, set about changing the way Congress worked. But 30 years later, government is bigger than ever, and deficits are dizzying. Weakening House committees had the paradoxical effect of concentrating power in leadership and making the speaker more important in setting the majority’s policy direction — which only turned the speaker into the focus of every member’s discontents and created stronger opposition to him within the party. The solution to the otherwise intractable problem every Republican speaker now faces begins with putting more responsibility back on committees. The speaker is too much of a monarch; Congress can only operate on the republican principle of divided power and mediating institutions. Committees are the institutions that mediate between the speaker (and leadership in general) and members. It’s good to be the king if you’re Mel Brooks. If you’re speaker of the House of Representatives, though, take heed of Shakespeare: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com

Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home

It’s the new season of “The Apprentice,” only this time Donald Trump isn’t looking for the next business whiz, he’s in the market for a running mate. He has his eyes on several possibilities close to home — his original and adopted home states of New York and Florida, that is. Lee Zeldin, the former congressman whose campaign for governor of New York two years ago helped Republicans around the state overperform expectations, is one VP contender who hasn’t received as much attention from the national media as he’s getting from Trump advisers. Florida Rep. Byron Donalds is in the same category. There’s been more open buzz about New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, and many grassroots conservatives dream of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis making the ticket — a possibility that well-informed sources say hasn’t been ruled out, despite lingering tensions between the governor and Trump over DeSantis’ bid for the presidential nomination. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s name has also come up in recent press speculation — though my sources discount his chances. Why are so many New York and Florida prospects on Trump’s list? Neither state is up for grabs in November. No Republican has come within 15 points of winning New York in a presidential election since 1988. Florida is much more competitive, and after North Carolina it was the state Trump won in 2020 by the smallest margin — less than 4 points. Yet any scenario in which Joe Biden can win Florida in 2024 is one in which he almost certainly won’t need it, as he’ll also have prevailed in the more closely contested battlegrounds that put him over the top in 2020. By the time Florida comes into play, the Republican ticket will be facing not only defeat but a crushing humiliation. Trump, however, only looks on the bright side — which is both the secret of his success and the source of some of his biggest troubles. It was inconceivable to him that he could lose in 2020. Even after he won in 2016, Trump believed the magnitude of his victory was much greater than official numbers gave him credit for. He bounced back from a series of bankruptcies in his business career the same way he’s hoping to bounce back from a presidential defeat — through the power of positive thinking on a scale that mere mortals find delusional. Does he really think he can win New York? Or is it that the best way to achieve success is to aim too high rather than settling for what merely appears realistic? There’s a method to what others see as madness, at least where these VP calculations are concerned. Conventional thinking in both parties obsesses over identity politics, which factors into the New York and Florida talent search. But Trump also wants a partner fiercely loyal to him — which is why if he wants a Black running mate, he might prefer Byron Donalds, one of his staunchest defenders in Congress, to Sen. Tim Scott, whose all-in enthusiasm for Trump is a recent development. Zeldin and Stefanik have likewise impressed Trump with their outspokenness on his behalf. Both have an identity-politics angle; Stefanik might help with women, while Zeldin would give Trump a Jewish running mate at a time when the Democrats’ coalition is cracking along Israel-Palestine fault lines. But Zeldin also demonstrated with his gubernatorial campaign what a disciplined GOP effort can accomplish in a blue state short of actually winning it. A Trump-Zeldin ticket might not win New York or other Democrat strongholds, but it would maximize the Republican vote in those places, improving the party’s odds in down-ballot races with control of Congress hanging in the balance. Trump takes personal pride in being a New Yorker: ambitions of winning his native state, however implausible, may keep his morale up in the midst of an arduous national campaign. Morale is also the consideration — for the whole party — with Ron DeSantis. The governor excites conservatives who are willing but not eager to vote for Trump. Eight years ago, Trump picked Mike Pence as a running mate who’d reassure conventional conservatives. Now Pence won’t so much as endorse Trump, and while the former VP has no following himself, there is a spectrum of Reagan Republicans, Christian conservatives and policy-minded right-wingers who harbor doubts about Trump. DeSantis could do for them what Pence did in 2016, and perhaps, given his youth and policy successes, a lot more. But if Trump chooses anyone from Florida, he or his running mate would have to pick a new state of residence: the Constitution penalizes tickets with presidential and VP candidates who hail from the same state. Trump has residences in several places, including his native state — which means there’s more than one way the GOP could wind up with a New York-Florida ticket this November. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com