The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Nate Hochman on National Conservatism

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

Conservatism has existed as a philosophy since the founding of the Republic. As the country has evolved and grown, so too has the political ideology that has guided America through its toughest trials. Conservatism again stands at a possible point of evolution. Much has been said about national conservatism, both for and against. Nate Hochman, a staff writer at National Review, says that national conservatism is both the future of the movement, and its past. “You can point to any number of issues, whether it’s a more sort of assertive social conservatism, immigration restriction, a sort of rethinking of conservatism’s relationship to big business, a kind of two cheers for capitalism approach to free markets,” he says. “All of those things have been aspects of conservatism since the modern American conservative movement was founded.” Hochman joins the show to discuss what national conservatism is, and why he feels it represents the future of the movement. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, September 19th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Doug Blair. On today's show, I speak with Nate Hockman from the National Conservatism Conference in Miami about just what exactly national conservatism is. We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a coach that is doing a lot more than just teaching her young players the game of football. Now stay tuned for today's show right after this. The Heritage Foundation takes the field on offense with their young leaders program. I'm Evelyn Homily from Hillsdale College.

I'm Harrison Stewart from the University of Virginia. I'm a journalism intern with the Daily Signal. I'm a digital productions intern in communications. For spring, summer, and fall semesters, the Heritage Foundation hosts undergraduate and postgraduate interns right here in the nation's capital to train our country's future conservative leaders. As a Daily Signal intern,

I've had the opportunity to cover exciting events here in D.C. And work in a fast-paced environment with some of the conservative movements best journalists. In YLP, interns are on the country, edge of the conservative movement, attending exclusive briefings from Heritage experts, members of Congress, and movement leaders fighting for the fate of our country. It's been exciting connecting with big names in the political world and better understanding our nation's greatest threats.

If you want to go on offense with other passionate, dedicated conservatives, go to heritage.org to learn more about the Young Leaders Program. My guest today is Nate Hockman, a staff writer at National Review. Nate, welcome to the show. Doug, thanks for having me. Of course. Always a pleasure to have a fellow Portlander on the show, by the way. So we are here right now at the National Conservatives Convention to hear about some of the, here's some of the brightest minds in the National Conservative movement.

I think for a lot of our listeners who maybe aren't aware of what that actually means, how do you define national conservatism? Yeah, I mean, that is the million-dollar question. I think one of the things that Peter Thiel was talking about at the first speech of the conference is that there's an enormous amount of ideological diversity at a conference like this. But I think essentially what national conservatism is about is something approximating the kind of policies that Donald Trump ran on in 2016. So immigration restriction, trade hawkishness on China, a more aggressive stance on the culture war. There's a sort of suite of different policy issues and that's expanded over time.

But to me, I think national conservatism is very much within the broader American conservative tradition. It's mostly just about a kind of reformulation of traditional conservative principles to confront the contemporary issues today, whether those are cultural issues, immigration, arising China, et cetera. You say it fits into the sort of traditional values of conservatism. Is this something that's not really new? It's just sort of a reformulation of old values, or is this something that's developed and is different now? No, I mean, I think, you know, this is everything that's being discussed at this conference is squarely within the American conservative tradition. You can point to any number of issues, whether it's a more sort of assertive social

conservatism, immigration restriction, a sort of rethinking of conservatism's relationship to big business, a kind of two cheers for capitalism approach to free markets. All of those things have been aspects of conservatism since the modern American conservative movement was founded. It's just that over the course of the last couple of decades, the argument from a lot of the people at the conference here is that conservatives have sort of become complacent and haven't really new policies to confront new problems. And that's what I see the project of this conference as being all about. You mentioned Donald Trump, obviously, is one of the sort of standard bears maybe of this movement, that a lot of his policies that he ran on are the national

conservative policies. Do we see that there are other candidates in the field who are adopting these policies, or do we see some pushback to some of them? Oh, well, there's both, right? And I mean, there's nothing more quintessentially conservative than fierce disagreements about what conservatives means, right? So that's not new either. But, you know, Ron DeSantis spoke last night. He's obviously someone that I think a lot of people at the conference are big fans of. Josh Hawley, you know, Blake Masters. Peter Thiel, obviously, is a, you know, a major figure.

So there's a lot of conservatives, both actual elected Republicans and Republican candidates, but also, you know, conservative intellectuals and standard bearers who are interested in at least aspects of the program. But there are also, you know, a lot of Republicans and conservatives who have real concerns. And I think that debate is at least partially what, you know, a conference like this is all about. What are some of the threats that the National Conservative movement sees as some of the biggest ones facing the country right now? Well, to my mind at least, and I don't want to speak for all national conservatives, what a lot of this is about is understanding that those sort of primary fundamental challenges to America today are cultural. And they often flow from concentrated private power that the left exercises,

whether it's through major corporations, you know, foundations, civic activist groups, etc., which are really really, presenting an existential challenge to the American way of life. And something like the sort of of Paul Ryan era sort of tax cuts deregulation as the primary goal of Republican Party politics just isn't going to actually be capable of confronting those challenges. So someone like DeSantis is a model, right, where you're actually willing to use public policy to put the culture war and all of those sort of attendant issues at the forefront of your policy agenda. And, you know, being willing to rethink our relationship to institutions like big business, which oftentimes have been captured by activists on the left and, you know, proceed from there accordingly.

Does national conservatism have any equivalence maybe across the globe? We've seen that other countries, specifically in Europe, like Britain and Italy, have moved in a more rightward direction. Do those movements have any similarities to national conservatism here in the U.S.? Absolutely. I mean, look, again, national conservatism, the best understanding of the project is a rethinking of sort of traditional conservative principles to confront new issues. Those issues are often, you know, although there's sort of variations across geography,

they're consistent across all of the West, right? So the left and the sort of the way that it exercises power and its agenda in the United States has a lot of parallels with the left in the United Kingdom, in France, Germany, Canada, etc. So as a result, I think right-wing parties in all of those places are having very similar conversations, at least in some spheres, to American conservatives here. And, you know, there's a national conservatism conference in Europe as well, because I think there's an attempt to sort of take the intellectual resources from conservative parties and thinkers across Europe, not just the Anglosphere, but France and Germany and Belgium

as well, and to sort of share those conversations and how different conservative parties are thinking about it. Sure. Well, Nate, we've had you on the show before to talk about the Canadian trucker protests, the freedom rallies. And I guess my question is, is that sort of protesting, is that style of standing up to authoritative government? Is that a strain of national conservatism, or is that more of a populist strain of conservatism?

Well, I don't think the two are sort of mutually exclusive all the time. Obviously, it's tough to, when you have something that's sort of unruly as mass outpouring at protests, it's not always easy to assign like a coherent ideological framework to what's going on. So when I was on the ground, you know, in Canada, I talked to people, you know, vastly different ideological, you know, substraints. There were Christian groups there. There were kind of, you know, populist-minded truckers who were probably the Canadian equivalent of, you know, the Trump base here. You know, there were people who just didn't like vaccine mask mandates and wanted to sort of go back to normal life, right?

So there's all of those people had a shared goal. and I think national conservatives and, you know, right-wingers in general would do well to harness, you know, movements that spontaneously arise like that and share our goals. But that's, you know, mass political movements aren't always intellectually coherent. Sure. So national conservatives and conservatives in general should be looking at grassroots energy and trying to direct it towards the ends that they want. But that kind of sort of populist uprising isn't always exactly easy to pinpoint in terms of, you know, their subscription to national. conservative. Sure. Well, on that note, it actually makes me think about how that coalition sort of formed. I mean, power seems to derive when you can form a coalition to keep it.

Are we seeing that national conservatism is drawing in partners that maybe haven't been part of the conservative coalition before? Well, I think, you know, on the political, electoral level, that's clearly true, right? So if you talk about something like the Hispanic realignment in places like South Texas and, you know, Florida, where we are, clearly a lot of sort of non-white, non-college educated voters are moving into the conservative coalition. And I think that a lot of that has to do with the cultural issues that we're talking about. So insofar as national conservatism counsels an effort to sort of put these cultural issues at the front and center of the conservative understanding, you are going to win.

You know, a lot of folks who might have tended towards the Democratic Party in a different era. And national conservatism is also counseling a move away from sort of, you know, fundamentalist free market libertarianism, which is also where you're going to get a lot more working class voters who might have been put off by a Republican Party that ran, you know, primarily on cutting Social Security or something like that, right? So all of those things are bringing these sort of socially conservative, economically moderate working class voters into the Republican Party. And that, to me, seems like the clear future of the Republican coalition and of, you know, conservatism at large. So we are seeing that those gains stick. I know a lot of

people following the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and then watching his vote share in 2020, we're unsure of whether or not that was going to stick if the party was going to be able to keep those gains. Are we seeing that that's happening? Well, hopefully, of course, we'll see in 2022, right, with the return. But from 2016 to 2020, you saw massive shifts in places like the Rio Grande Valley, you know, sometimes to the tune of 50 points

from 2016 to 2020 in these sort of 90-plus percent Hispanic areas. So that realignment, it'll be interesting to see how it looks in 2022 and 2024. But as it stands today, it certainly looks like that's where the trending is moving. and public opinion polling, while often not entirely reliable, has also showed that realignment continuing to happen since 2020. One of the things that I find very interesting about the conversation about national conservatism, at least with some of the people that I've spoke to, is the role of religion.

Specifically, many national conservatives I've spoken with view the church and in certain context, the traditional Catholicism as essential to the national conservative movement. Is that something that you find accurate, or is that maybe a misunderstanding of how the movement should work? It's obviously incredibly important, right? Again, if you're looking at a sort of conservatism that is primarily focused on social issues or at least organized around social and cultural issues, you can't have that conversation about discussing religion. Religion plays a fundamental role in our cultural debates and it will continue to.

So you don't have to be, I think, devoutly religious to be a national conservative, but you do have to affirm to a certain extent the importance of religion in civil society, and you can hear that if you listen to any number of panelists at this conference. One of those panelists we've spoken to is Yoramazoni. who has a view on religion as being essential. You cannot untie those two principles, otherwise it's not conservatism. One of the questions I always have for people who do kind of believe that is, where does that extent go in terms of foreign religions?

Does that apply to Hinduism? Does that apply to Buddhism? It's a good question. I don't know exactly how something like Buddhism plays in the American political context, just because, I don't know, I don't think the Buddhist voting block is, you know, there is some really funny polling about the fact that something, like 20% of Buddhists in America are Republicans. I would love to meet, you know, like the Buddhist Republican voter.

I haven't met any here necessarily, but, you know, it's obviously the sort of the preeminent religion in the United States traditionally has been Christianity, and you also have a lot of devout Jews at conferences like this. So the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and the sort of political and philosophical tradition that flowed from it are the foundation of the West and of the United States. And insofar as national conservatives are trying to preserve our, and defend. our cultural heritage, that's fundamentally what they're defending. But that doesn't mean that other religions which share our political goals, and I certainly think that there are plenty of

people who belong to other religions that do, aren't welcome in national conservatism and don't have something to contribute. Sure. Let's speak about the response to national conservatism from possibly our enemies on the left. How does the left perceive this movement? How have they moved to counter it? Well, I mean, it depends exactly what, you know, sort of leftist you're talking about, but there's been an enormous amount of somewhat hysterical coverage of national conservatism is basically sort of latent fascism, semi-fascism to use the president's turn of phrase. Obviously, I don't think that's true. I'm not a fascist, I'm a national conservative.

But I think the left correctly perceives that the ideas on offer here and the kind of, you know, Republican policy agenda that's being formulated here is a bigger threat to their cultural hegemony because it's actually focused on targeting their cultural hegemony as one of the primary goals. that is, you know, understandably concerning to them. I think they should be concerned. You know, it doesn't mean that anything being discussed here is illegitimate. I think the policy priorities are the correct ones. But it is a much more threatening kind of conservatism to left-wing hegemony than the one that, you know, primarily counsels tax cuts in occupational licensing. Do we see any particular arenas of the culture where the conservative movement, at least in the

national conservative space, is winning, where we're starting to see shifts from that, overarching power of the left, maybe moving either towards the middle or towards the right? Oh, certainly. I mean, I think one of the biggest political and cultural stories of the last two years is the, you know, parent-led grassroots uprising at school boards over critical race theory and also gender ideology subsequently. You know, the slate of anti-critical race theory laws that were passed in most red state legislatures at this point and laws restricting transgender athletes and women's sports. And obviously Dobbs, right, which is, you know, the culmination of basically what social conservatism is the political movement was founded on.

So I think a lot of what national conservatives have been talking about for the last few years since the conference began in 2019 have begun to turn into material sort of policy wins. And the momentum, to me, is a vindication of the argument for national conservatism. If we actually focus on these cultural issues, we can win. We can use public policy to advance conservative ends. And we should continue to do so because it's crucially important. Sure. One of the maxims I tend to live by is the Breitbart.

maxim, which is politics is downstream of culture. And I almost see some of these discussions that we're having right now, specifically surrounding Dobbs as we won this victory at the Supreme Court. However, it is entirely possible that the federal government will then pass a law that allows for abortion across the states. With that being said, how do conservatives counter that sort of prevailing cultural narrative while still attaining victories at something like the Supreme Court? Well, I think part of it is understanding that, you know, I actually am not convinced that strictly speaking politics is downstream of culture. Obviously, sometimes it is. It would be naive to say that politics exists in a vacuum and isn't affected by culture, but culture is also downstream

of politics sometimes, right? If you look at any number of major Supreme Court cases, Roe v. Wade, for example, it's impossible to deny that Roe v. Wade had a profound effect on American culture, right? Same thing with major laws that were passed. Every major policy decision, the Iraq war had a profound effect on American culture. American culture would not be the same if it weren't for something like the U.S. invasion of Iraq. So public policy and American culture do not exist in mutually exclusive spheres from one another. They're constantly in conversation with one another. And that doesn't mean that you can completely engineer culture through sort of central planning and, you know, via top-down government or something. But it does mean that you have to think of public

policy as intertwined with culture. I mean, it comes to something like education. I think, you know, Ron DeSantis has been a really good model of understanding that and not just focusing, on banning poisonous ideologies like critical race theory, but also really focusing on a positive vision of renewed civics education, where we're actually teaching about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence again. We're teaching that America's a good country and explaining to students why. All of that stuff is public policy that has a profound effect on the cultural understanding of the next generation, and that's what conservatives need to be focusing on. Absolutely. As a final note, who are some of the people that, you know, our listeners might be able

to look into or who might be able to research and say, okay, I have a good understanding of what national conservatives believe and what their plan of action is. Well, I think, I mean, obviously the speaker roster for national conservatism is a good place to start. So on the sort of political level, you've got people like Ronda Santis who's leader, you've got candidates like Blake Masters and J.D. Vance. You have elected Republicans like Josh Hawley and then in the House, you've got folks like Jim Banks, right? Those are all people who have really been tuned into a lot of national conservative priorities. In terms of sort of the intellectual sphere, it's important. It's important. to sort of compile a comprehensive list. I won't bore your listeners. But, you know, my colleague,

Michael Renadorty at National Review is someone who's, you know, worth listening to. Obviously, all the folks at the Claremont Institute have been, you know, really involved in this. Neuron Hizoni, who's the organizer, right? Like, I would, I would suggest that all of these people are worth listening to. But if you want to see the sort of actual policy agenda in action, there's a number of Republicans, and I think there will be even more after 2022 who are, at least national conservative friendly. I guess just as a quick aside, are we seeing any Democrats who are maybe moving more towards that movement? Or has the Democratic Party been entirely taken over by the left?

I mean, I don't see any Democrats who I think national conservatives would identify as their friends for the most part. There are Democrats who will work with Republicans on some priorities that national conservatives like. So something like family policies, you know, an area where national conservatives are interested in something like a child tax credit. That's something that you can get a lot of progressives on board with. but the cultural agenda, I think Democrats are pretty much uniformly opposed to what national conservatives believe in. That was Nate Hockman, a staff writer with National Review. Nate, I always appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Doug.

Do you have an interest in public policy? Do you want to hear lectures from some of the biggest names in American politics? The Heritage Foundation hosts webinars called Heritage Events Live. These events are free and open to the public. To find the latest heritage events and to register, visit Heritage. Thank you,org, slash events. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature our favorites right on this show.

Virginia, who's up first? In response to my recent piece discussing Senator Lindsay Graham's bill to prohibit abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Randy Bergeron of Davidson, Michigan, writes, Dear Daily Signal, Our very souls are what separates mankind from animals. Therefore, I personally believe it morally corrupt, except in time, of war or self-defense to ever destroy another human being, since from the moment of conception, regardless of the circumstances, that human being is a gift of God. I also believe that at the very core of our constitutional freedom is our belief in God and the biblical values from which we,

as a Judeo-Christian society, used as the foundation from which to build the framework of our constitution. We must fight darkness with light in order to protect. are in alienable rights and freedom. Therefore, this legislation is a step in the right direction. And in response to Fred Lucas's piece, DOJ subpoena's conservative group for documents in Alabama transgender case, Murray writes, this is like everything in the news, shocking and disappointing. No child should ever have medical treatments of any kind when a body is not ill or diseased, period. Doctors have sworn an oath to do no harm, and yet they're getting away with it every day, it seems. Parents are the authority of their children, not the local, state, or federal government,

and our representatives have got to get these overreaching politicians shut down. We, the conservatives, need to flood our representatives with phone calls, letters, etc., to challenge the DOJ's authority to intervene in the everyday lives of Americans. Your letter can be featured on next week's show, so send us an email at letters at dailysignal.com. We've reached a critical point in American history. Capitol Hill has become ground zero for pushing back against the left, and we want to equip you for a career there. Our Ready Set Hill program prepares you to not only find a job on the Hill, but advance conservative principles and impact public policy. It's just a two-day commitment, and we're currently taking applications for August, September, and October.

Get more info and sign up at heritage.org slash training. Just look for the Ready Set Hill program. Virginia, I believe you have a good news story to share with us today. go ahead. That's right, Doug. Thanks so much. Well, you know, it is nearly fall, and the reason why we know that is because football is back. All across the country, kids are putting on their football uniforms and heading to practice. But for the boys and young men who play on the Colorado Cowboys Youth Organization football team, they are learning a lot more than just how to play football when they go to practice. Coach Theodora Warrior does not just want her young players to love football as much. as she does, she wants them to know they are loved, powerful, and can make an impact in this world. Many of the boys she has coached over the years are now young men, like Chevelle Early. He says Coach Theo taught him how to excel not just in football, but also in life, as he told Denver 7. Definitely taught me a lot, like a lot in life and a lot about growing up and maturing as a person and being a man.

Players know that they can go to Coach Theo if they have a problem. or just need some practical help. Say somebody like a new kid comes in and needs a right home or I need some food, like to do anything for them in this organization. Coach Theo even kicked off this football season with a back-to-school barbecue where she gave all of her players backpacks filled with school supplies to help them succeed off the field in the classroom. The coach says her grandmother always dreamed of adopting a child,

and she is fulfilling that dream today through the investment she is making in the lives of the young she coaches. My grandmother used to have us watching this show called I'm a waiting child and she's always talking about adopting kids. This was my way of adopting all the kids. Coach Theo was just named a Denver 7 everyday hero for her dedication to her community and her players. But we know here at the Daily Signal that there are so many men and women out there listening today who may also be giving your time to coach kids in your community, to tutor young people, or just invest in some capacity in the lives of the next generation. So from all of us at the Daily Signal, we want to give a special thank you to all of you who are giving that time to serve your community. Virginia,

what a great story. I'm so glad to hear about people like Coach Theo who are out there making an impact in these kids' lives because, again, kids are the future. And if they're not getting that help they need, then we as a country are going to have some really serious problems. That's right. They are truly worth investing in. because they are indeed our future. Well, we're going to leave it there for today, but you can find the Daily Signal podcast on the RICOchet Audio Network.

All of our shows can be found there at DailySignal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review in a five-star rating. It really means a lot, and it helps us spread the word to other listeners.

And don't forget, follow us on Twitter at Daily Signal and Facebook.com slash the Daily Signal News. Have a great week. We'll see you later for today's Top News. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. The executive producers are Rob Blewey and Kate Trinko.

Producers are Virginia Allen, Doug Blair, and Samantha Rank. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visitdailySignal.com.