National conservatives think that President Trump has tapped into a new populism for conservatism, and they want to take advantage of it. President Trump used the term nationalism. I think I understand why some people will be attracted to the concept of nationalism. In fact, they go to the very essence of what it means to be an American. It's something historically and philosophically different, and those differences are not merely semantic, technical or the preoccupations of academic historians. It's not even the same thing as national pride. It's not the same thing as respect for national sovereignty. Nationalism is not the same thing as national identity. If you have to spend half of your time explaining, 'Oh, I don't mean that kind of nationalism,' why would you want to associate a venerable tradition of American civic patriotism, national pride, and American exceptionalism at all with the various nationalisms that have occurred in the world? After all, American conservatives have argued that one of the great things about America was that it was different from all other countries. We could then give ourselves permission to castigate anyone who doesn't agree with us as 'misunderstanding' or even libeling us.īut who actually is responsible for the misunderstanding here? The people who are trying to redefine the term, or the people who remind us of nationalism's real history and what nationalism actually has been in history? Which raises an even bigger question: Why go down this road at all?

I suppose any of us can take any tradition that has a definite history and simply redefine it to our liking. Defined in these terms, it sounds like little more than simply defending nationality or national sovereignty, which is why Lowry, Hazony, and others insist their definition of nationalism has nothing to do with the most virulent forms involving ethnicity, race, militarism, or fascism. There is nothing particularly controversial at all about these statements. It means 'that the world is governed best when nations agree to cultivate their own traditions, free from interference by other nations.' In his book, “The Case for Nationalism,” Rich Lowry defines nationalism as flowing from a people’s 'natural devotion to their home and to their country.' Yoram Hazony, in his book “The Virtue of Nationalism,” also has a rather anodyne definition of nationalism. At first glance, the new nationalism of conservatives will seem benign and even uncontroversial.

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