Which Way, Conservative Man?

The right is splitting. Pay attention to the Vance-Kelly bellwether.

JD Vance has been an eloquent exponent of a range of very important positions over the years. I’ve written positively about him in the past. But at heart I get the sense he’s driven by a desire to advance his own standing. This means that, at present, he’s fighting a losing battle trying to bridge a widening conservative split (see my note on that below).

In this context, and given his status as the possible next head of the Republican Party, he’s a reasonable bellwether for what’s happening on the populist US right as a whole. How he navigates things will provide an insight into the conservative direction of travel more broadly. And as almost everywhere else is downstream of the US politically, that isn’t only relevant to Americans.

A note on the split

At risk of repeating the note above, the fracture can be crudely summarised as follows: On one side you have the more ‘traditional’ MAGA-ish faction. On the other you have a burgeoning so-called ‘America First’ movement that views MAGA as too pro-Israel, and has become increasingly and openly conspiratorial/antisemitic — think Tucker Carlson (who now, among other things, claims demons attacked him in his bed, believes aliens have landed on Earth, implies the Jews killed Charlie Kirk, and acts outraged when Hamas are referred to as ‘radical jihadists’), Candace Owens (where to begin, honestly), Muslim YouTuber Myron Gaines - real name Amrou Fudl - who says stuff like ‘we like Hitler’, ‘all women are whores’ etc, and the rest of that ecosystem. The emergent figurehead of this grouping is Nick Fuentes, who, like Fudl, has repeatedly professed his admiration for Hitler.

As online pressure has grown to get on board with the latter worldview, those who lack firm principles have been shown up. From influential think tanks like the Heritage Foundation to podcasters, comedians and attention seeking fascistic bimbos, a swathe of conservative ‘thought leaders’ (if you can call them that) have, to varying degrees, cosied up to the America First contingent. Others, like Megyn Kelly, have adopted a kind of performative ‘neutrality’ — with most of their weight very obviously leaning toward the Carlson/Owens/Fuentes camp.

Vance is beginning to look like he may follow suit (emphasis on ‘may’; he’s earned the right not to be unfairly prejudged). In the past he explicitly disavowed Fuentes and his ilk, which was easy to do when they were still on the fringes. But now that these figures have become the driving force behind an influential social media grouping, the vice president has grown markedly less willing to distance himself. Indeed, as many have noted, he has conspicuously not come out against the obvious rise in explicit Nazism in his circles. He has stayed more or less silent there. But he has signalled a willingness to take a ‘tough guy’ stand against Jewish figures who do things like, for example, ask legitimate questions about his close association with Tucker Carlson’s son. The priorities are revealing.

The dynamic at play mirrors the pressure once placed on mainstream ‘liberals’ by woke fanatics. That bodes badly. The left was essentially captured by a cultish and deeply illiberal ideology, got pasted electorally, and still hasn’t shaken off many of its key articles of faith. The right could plausibly find itself charting a similar course, and bending the knee to a vocal and unpleasant activist wing.

There may be at least one upside to all this: clarity. Lines are being drawn. There has for a long time been a strand of bigoted, borderline psychotic thought within ‘heterodox’ and conservative politics. If its loudest proponents now splinter off and, say, join forces with the anti-Western left, or start carrying water for Islamic fundamentalists, it might mark a useful watershed and allow for new, less embarrassing allegiances to take form. That would be healthy in the long term.

Ultimately, how Vance, or Kelly, or any other individual figure handles this moment isn’t the real point here. Their reactions are symptoms of something larger. They reveal where the once somewhat coherent nationalist right, in America and beyond, now finds itself, and the choices it will be forced to confront in the coming days, weeks, months, and years. Many of its most prominent voices are already faltering in the face of this test.

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