**
In the morning on August 8th, 2022, the FBI raided former president Donald Trump's Florida mansion. This prompted fury among Republicans, who portrayed a police raid against a senior politician as a terrible violation of norms.
As legal commentator and blogger David Allen Green points out, these are the same people who called for Hillary Clinton to be not only investigated but imprisoned. As Green has it:
The only explanation for the two stances is hyper-partisanship.And like many hyper-partisans, he has invoked constitutional arguments of first principle when it suits his cause, but does not apply them the same way against his cause.
I have a great deal of respect for David Allen Green as a commentator, but on this subject I believe he is entirely wrong.
The "two stances" here are that a) Hillary Clinton must be investigated and prosecuted for suspected crimes related to official documents, and b) Donald Trump must not be investigated and prosecuted for suspected crimes related to official documents. Looking at the matter this way, there appears to be an obvious hypocrisy. But this is not the only possible explanation at all.
In 2018, US composer Frank Wilhoit posted an excellent description of conservatism:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
If we take this description of conservatism as a guide, we see that there is no contradiction or hypocrisy. To US Republicans, Trump belongs to the in-group and Clinton to an out-group.
In their worldview, the law protects Trump, but does not bind him: in his press release on the raid, Trump was indignant that his safe had been broken into. In the conservative worldview, his property must be protected, but cannot be investigated.
Conversely, Clinton must be bound by the law and is not to be afforded any of its protections. After all, the chant was never "investigate her", it was always "lock her up". Trump routinely referred to her as a criminal. Investigating Trump for a crime is unacceptable, but Clinton is not even granted the due process of an investigation.
If we accept Wilhoit's definition of conservatism, the Republican response to the Mar-a-Lago raid is consistent and perfectly understandable. Speaking as a historian, it has greater explanatory power. Republicans do not hold two contradictory opinions - two stances - but rather one.
On our side of the Atlantic, the day before the raid on Mar-a-Lago, British Conservative MP Nadine Dorries described a parliamentary inquiry into outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson's conduct as a "witch-hunt" and a "kangaroo court", and demanded Tory MPs refuse to participate in it. She is hardly the only British Conservative politician who seems to likewise believe that Johnson is above both law and parliamentary scrutiny.
To ascribe behavior like this to a general "hyper-partisanship" is, in my opinion, a poor explanation. It fails to account for the fact that this is not a bipartisan phenomenon, but rather a conservative one. There is no comparable movement on the left demanding their political leaders be above the law.
**
This confusion is only one example of a broader trend. For whatever reason, large parts of the media and the liberal commentariat do not treat conservatism as a political ideology with its own particular history. Instead, they largely accept conservatives' own formulations of their ideology at face value, and ignore the history of conservatism. There is also a marked reluctance to question conservatives in ways that representatives of other political ideologies are questioned.
As a political movement, conservatism was born as a reaction to the French Revolution. The guiding ideal of the revolution was enshrined in the motto "liberty, equality, fraternity". The conservative mission was to oppose this. US political scientist Corey Robin and others have defined conservatism as an ideology that defends an unequal, hierarchical society. If conservatism is seen in this historical context, the reason why they subscribe to the worldview described by Wilhoit is clear. Equality before the law is incompatible with the idea of hierarchy.
It's instructive to look at the history of the idea of the rule of law. The rule of law and the German Rechtsstaat are liberal concepts, formulated in opposition to conservative hierarchies. In the English-speaking world, the idea of the rule of law was conceived as a criticism of the idea of the divine right of kings. The American Revolution was fought, according to its proponents, on these principles: that even kings should be subject to law.
The American and French revolutions are the origin of the modern idea of human rights. Conservatives everywhere have consistently opposed these rights. Of course, they routinely misrepresent this history. The idea that the political right was ever in any sense liberal was an artifact of the cold war, where human rights were a useful rhetorical weapon against the Soviet Union. After the Soviet bloc collapsed, conservative parties in the west have been progressively abandoning the idea of human rights, to the point where entire conservative parties are represented by authoritarians like Trump and Johnson.
Both Trump and Johnson are thoroughly illiberal politicians. They do not accept, indeed do not even seem to understand, the idea that there should be any limit to their powers, or that they should be accountable to anyone. Both gleefully attack any institutions that they deem hostile to their ambitions. Trump instigated a coup attempt against the US Senate; Johnson has consistently fought parliamentary oversight and even blatantly lied to the Queen. While they flagrantly break the law, they fulminate about law and order.
To conservatives, there is no contradiction, because to them, law and order means using state violence to enforce social hierarchy. It does not mean, and never has meant, rule of law.
If we imagine conservatism as the defence if established structures, both Johnson and Trump seem profoundly unconservative. Some right-wingers have argued that they are not, in fact, conservatives at all. This is not very persuasive, because in both their countries, the conservative parties wholeheartedly support these disgraced leaders. Clearly, to most US and British conservatives, these men represent their values.
Those values are privilege and hierarchy. Both Johnson and Trump come from immensely privileged backgrounds. Neither has ever done a day of honest work in their lives, let alone actually earned a living - supposedly conservative values. They constantly break the norms they claim to uphold, and this barely dents their popularity with their supporters. Again, this is because conservatives do not believe they should be bound by these norms, but rather that others should. They are the in-group, we are the out-group.
It's worth noting that the backlash against Johnson only began after he started lying to his own supporters. He remains very popular among members of his party.
To conservatives, the impunity with which Johnson and Trump break laws and conventions demonstrates their superiority. It "triggers the libs" by making the hierarchy of society visible. Johnson can violate lockdown regulations without penalty, while others are fined. To conservatives, this is as it should be.
**
If we conceive of conservatism in terms of hierarchy and privilege, it becomes obvious why conservative parties are so fanatically opposed to fighting the climate crisis.
The conservative worldview is based on the idea that the privileged in society are entitled to do what they want. Rules and regulations are for other people. Even to supposed law-and-order conservatives, the idea of the law being enforced on them is an abomination.
Twenty-first century conservatism reflects the values of individualism and fossil capitalism. Regardless of their station in life, conservatives tend to believe that they are the ones who create value for the economy, and therefore to society. They believe this entitles them to a privileged position in it. In fossil capitalism, this means they must be allowed to consume more than others. Any restriction of their consumption is a restriction of their privilege, which amounts to a denial of their superior position in the hierarchy. Therefore it is unacceptable.
This is why things like private car ownership, flying and eating meat have become fetishes of right-wing policy with such astonishing speed. Conservatives believe they are entitled to these things as marks of their superiority over others.
If we believe conservative rhetoric about the importance of responsibility, the common good, future generations and so on, it is impossible to explain why conservatives are everywhere at the forefront of the fight against environmental protections. They talk about responsibility and preservation, and defend limitless consumption and destruction. When we realize that this rhetoric of responsibility is only ever mobilized to oppose policies that would lead to a more equal society, conservative policy is much more coherent. Throughout, they are defending their privilege.
**
Whether it be Donald Trump's assault on the US political system or the infinitely more serious matter of the climate crisis, we are consistently failing to see conservatism as an ideology of hierarchy and privilege. This means that for the most part, conservative policies and attitudes are not seen as what they are, and are not effectively critiqued. Instead, the media largely pretends conservatives share the same values as the rest of the population, and treats clear indications to the contrary as some kind of errors of thought, rather than manifestations of their values.
When it comes to environmental policy, this reluctance to engage with conservatism as an ideology provides a smokescreen for their obstructionism and sabotage. By opposing policies that are necessary to control the climate crisis, conservatives are literally destroying our planet. And they are doing it to sate their unlimited greed.
We have to stop them.
