Over at the Washington Examiner, Ian Haworth insists that American conservatives must understand the truth about European ‘conservatism’
(danke zu Stephen Green).
The American political system is unique: a system built in pursuit of deadlock rather than “progress,” a system that fully understands human nature and proactively defends against it, and a system that holds itself accountable, at least when it works as designed.
But at its heart, American politics is unique because the United States of America is unique. It is a miracle of human ideological experimentation that, thanks to the genius of the Founding Fathers, has almost single-handedly provided the country and the world with levels of peace and prosperity that would have seemed unimaginable at any other point in human history.
Despite these marvelous attributes, however, there is a persistent and dangerous flaw in the American psyche: an assumption that the rest of the world is just like us. You see it when leftists make the laughably absurd argument that all cultures are equal. If you think that’s the case, please explain how life in modern-day Nashville, Tennessee, for example, is as good as, say, that of the Mayans, who routinely performed child sacrifices to satisfy the hunger of supernatural beings.
The other side to this misguided coin is an insistence on seeing all other nations and cultures through an American lens as if Disney’s image of multiculturalism provided in Orlando’s Epcot is a window into global reality. And how does this manifest in the context of politics? One clear example is the projection of American politics onto other political movements in Europe.
How many times have British conservative politicians or figures been celebrated by American conservatives as their ideological counterparts, with even President Donald Trump praising former Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the British Trump?
How often do American conservatives celebrate nations such as Hungary for their supposed commitment to conservative principles? How often do American conservatives throw their weight behind foreign political campaigns after skimming the blurb and picking the self-professed conservative choice, as with Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk’s recent rush to cheer on the German AfD party?
But at the center of these misguided alignments, and so many others, is a fundamental misunderstanding: the assumption that foreign conservatism bears any meaningful resemblance to American conservatism. Newsflash, it doesn’t. In fact, it’s about as similar as chalk and cheese.
American conservatism is built upon a set of foundational principles, principles enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The rights to free speech, gun ownership, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly and the notion of limited government are not mere policy preferences. They are the core tenets that define what it means to be an American conservative. At least, they used to be.
True American conservatism is not just a political leaning. It is a philosophy rooted in the preservation of individual liberty and our God-given inalienable rights. Meanwhile, European conservatism is mere branding. What passes for “conservatism” in Europe depends entirely on the alternative, which often makes it little more than a nationalistic version of its left-wing opposition with a half-hearted call for marginally lower taxes and a growing opposition to unfettered illegal immigration.
Sure, these European conservative parties might occasionally borrow from the American conservative playbook in terms of their rhetoric, speaking passionately of freedom or tradition or liberty, but they lack the ideological backbone and the political will to turn these words into action. Let alone the fact that American conservatism is tied to the ideology that birthed the nation itself. European conservatism is tied to nothing.
In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party enjoyed power for more than a decade before being unseated by Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. What conservative values that are central to American conservatism did the Conservative Party defend? The U.K. is still anti-gun, still pro-abortion, still pro-socialized medicine, and still hostile to free speech.
Our trans-Atlantic cousins have hate speech laws that criminalize political expression, knife control laws that would be laughable if they weren’t so dystopian, and a public healthcare system that is as mandatory as it is inefficient. If that’s what passes for “conservatism,” count me out.
Hungary’s right-wing populist Fidesz party, led by Viktor Orban, is often praised by American conservatives for its hard-line stance on immigration and defense of national identity. While there certainly are aspects of Orban’s policies that merit discussion, let’s not kid ourselves. Hungary is not a beacon of conservatism in the American sense, and its claims of conservative victories often rely on a heavy dose of marketing-based creativity.
What about Germany’s Alternative fur Deutschland? While it brands itself as a nationalist, anti-globalist party while being arguably and oxymoronically pro-Russia, it is by no means a party that champions the ideals of small government and individual liberty. Germany remains deeply embedded in the European Union’s bureaucratic nightmare, and the AfD, despite its populist rhetoric, has shown no real commitment to dismantling this supranational control. Just like there is no word for “fluffy” in German, there is no German word for “small government.”
Then there’s France, where “conservatism” is often nothing more than a slightly slower march toward socialism. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party may reject mass immigration and Islamic extremism, but it is hardly a bastion of free-market policy or constitutional rights. You could even argue that it represents a nationalist brand of leftism, with economic policies that would make Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) blush.
Of course, the “America First” crowd will now ask: Why does this matter? Well, because if you care about American conservatism, you should care when our flag bearers start waving other flags at the same time. While it’s obvious that European politicians have a lot to gain by aligning themselves with us, when we align with European “conservatives” in return, despite sharing few or no actual ideological positions, we risk diluting our movement and becoming more like them.
If American conservatives look to Europe for inspiration, we risk normalizing the idea that big government is acceptable as long as it wears a different hat, and we risk embracing a watered-down version of our own ideology that makes room for policies we would otherwise reject.
The truth is we don’t need to look abroad for examples of conservatism. We already have the greatest example right here at home. We are a nation built on not only independence from a foreign government but independence from big government, a nation that enshrined inalienable rights into our Constitution.
Instead of looking to Europe for guidance, we should be strengthening what makes American conservatism unique. We should be fighting to uphold the principles of limited government, free markets, and individual liberties — not seeking validation from parties that wouldn’t recognize true conservatism if it smacked them on the nose.
So, the next time you see a European politician being lauded as the “Trump of [insert country here],” take a step back and ask yourself: What do they actually stand for? Do they defend the right to bear arms? Do they oppose government overreach in healthcare and the economy? Do they protect free speech from government interference? If the answer is no, non, or nein, then they are not conservative in the American sense.
And the American sense of conservatism is the only one that matters. Here’s a radical idea: Stop looking to Europe. We are still the best. Act like it.
