I came into Washington, D.C., for the fifth National Conservatism convention last week, and let’s get started by talking about the capital itself. I was told, by neurotic weirdos in the regime media, that the capital was an armed camp under military siege. Shockingly, the regime media was lying. It looked great. It was clean, with very few hobos, junkies, losers, criminals, and scumbags – at least where I was hanging out – and there was a definite positive vibe in the air. It helped that it wasn’t 10,000,000° with 174 percent humidity, as is common in the summer. I chalked the vibe up to the presence of armed National Guard troops, all of whom looked squared away – no fatties or slobs – as well as the presence of various super-buff federal agents federal agenting in an appropriate manner. That appropriate manner means hassling criminals and not grandmothers taking selfies in their Capitol building.
I got up to the Capitol to have lunch with a senator – it’s kind of weird that a suburban guy from San Mateo, California, is having lunch with senators, but you guys matter a lot to them, and since I get to talk to you, they pay attention to me. You can be sure I brought the heat, but this was one of the good ones, so no heat was required. Just know that some of the folks up there are pretty based.
Walking around the Capitol, I was a little surprised to see that it was beautiful. I’ve only been inside a few times since I worked there as an intern 39 years ago for the original Duncan Hunter, who was as crazy as his son but in a different way. Back then, it was old, dark, and grimy, with filth in the corners, gross fluorescent lighting, and a lot of ugly linoleum floors. Today, it’s bright and clean, and it looks like an appropriate Capitol for Americans. It was the same day that that piece of crap ex-Green Beret light colonel who volunteered to be the pretty boy on the cell block for the Palestinians decided to get himself arrested for screaming and yelling while wearing his old uniform. Note that everybody in the military thinks he’s garbage; I’m baffled why Tucker Carlson would have that human dirt snake on his show. I didn’t cross his path, which was probably for the best for both of us.
Let’s get to the convention. The news is good. The Nat Con idea is that conservatism needs an intellectual base, and this convention was about figuring out what that’s going to be. There were a lot of disputes and a lot of competing ideas. Some people said some pretty stupid things, but also some pretty brilliant things. Normally, when I go to these events, I don’t sit and listen to the panels. I’m out networking, talking to people, making moves on the street, you know, like a right-wing Huggy Bear. Yet, I found myself listening to several panels because the ideas were so interesting.
I hate to admit that. Conservative intellectualism has a bad reputation, evoking images of George Will-loving incel virgins with bowties writing white papers and occasionally begging you to sign up for their cruises. Not that cruises are inherently bad – when Townhall VIP has a cruise, it’s going to be amazing – but you get the idea. To them, it’s a job and a grift, not a calling. That’s why people like porky Jonah Goldberg could so easily go from an actual conservative to a Democrat adjunct when he realized we normals were holding him accountable for promoting a conservatism that didn’t conserve anything. As soon as grifting us became a dry hole, he went to grifting liberal billionaires.
But we do need an intellectual foundation. We do need smart people talking about ideas. We do need people who have studied history and philosophy deeply and can bring the best of that to the forefront. We also need people who can kick ass. I was there as part of the kick-ass contingent. Although I grew up around the conservative intellectual movement – I took a liberal girl on a date to see William F. Buckley in college – I prefer throwing fists. That’s just kind of my vibe.
My panel was on the Trump Doctrine. There were four of us, and each of us had about 15 minutes to talk. Victoria Coates was solid, outlining an American foreign policy that puts America first. I wonder where we’ve heard that before? There was a National Review guy who somehow thought that isolationism would bring dictatorship and that the Constitution places foreign policy in the capable hands of the House of Representatives. Not sure where that came from. And then there was a Georgetown professor who pretty much said America should not be the foremost power in the world, and that we are somehow obligated to be submissive to Third World potentates, not least of all the Iranians – he was not happy with us taking out their nuclear program. And he was not happy with me when I explained that we should kill a bunch of the mullahs because they have killed Americans.
I talked about the New Jacksonianism and began with a land acknowledgment that went as follows: “We acknowledge that we conquered this land, it’s ours, and if you want to try to take it, or control us or dominate us, you’d better come heavy.” I explained the New Jacksonianism as the idea that we will leave Third World barbarians alone in their Third World hellholes, but if they screw with us, we will kill everybody they ever met. Apparently, the administration agreed because it signaled its approval by blowing 11 drug-smuggling cartel scumbags into oblivion. People seemed to dig my talk.
Folks loved Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Civil Rights Division, who came and talked about how she’s redoing the Department of Justice. If you are a lawyer, particularly a young one, I would strongly suggest you go give the DOJ a shot. You’re not going to get better experience anywhere and do better and more important work outside the Department of War. I unreservedly love the idea of changing the name back to the Department of War, by the way. One should always call things by their true names.
That’s what my friend Dr. Sebastian Gorka, the President’s Counterterrorism Director and a Salem Media alum, did when he talked to us. Did you know they’ve killed 317 terrorists since taking over last January? You get the impression Dr. Gorka considers those rookie numbers; if you’re considering investing in terrorists, go short. America is now promoting its own interests, and that means defeating our enemies instead of catering to them.
That was the theme of Nat Con 5, which never clearly defined national conservatism but sketched its outline effectively. It’s about putting Americans first, whether about the economy or about crime or about jobs or about war. The American government should be focused on making things better for Americans, not on achieving bizarre, often pagan and leftist goals dreamed up by a transnational globalist ruling elite, goals that we were never asked about, never consulted on, and never agreed to. Today, it’s pretty clear that national conservatism is largely the Trump program – he’s the avatar of this populist movement, if not its creator. But he’s not going to be here forever. We need to carry this movement forward when Donald Trump heads into his much-deserved and triumphant retirement. Nat Con was part of figuring out our agenda for when that day comes.
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