Name: Opinion | The GOP has gone from tea party libertarianism to Trumpian authoritarianism
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Opinion | The GOP has gone from tea party libertarianism to Trumpian authoritarianism

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This article was published more than&nbsp;2 years agoCommentGift SharecorrectionAn earlier version of this column misspelled the name of Yoram Hazony. This version has been updated.In 2014, Tom Cotton ran for the U.S. Senate proclaiming: “.” Seven days ago, amid massive anti-racism protests accompanied by scattered looting, the Republican senator from Arkansas the deployment of at least five Army divisions to the streets. “No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters,” he wrote, employing a military term for “take no prisoners.”There was no conceivable justification for such a draconian move. But Cotton’s panicky, premature demand is symbolic of the Republican Party’s transition from tea party libertarianism to Trumpian authoritarianism.When President Barack Obama was in office, Republicans fulminated against executive orders and government spending. Now, they’ve learned to stop worrying and embrace both at unprecedented levels. (The budget deficit is projected to be this year, more than six times higher than when Obama left office.) The rejection of libertarianism isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What’s worrying is that the Republican Party has become increasingly hostile toward liberal democracy.AdvertisementThe spur for this development is, of course, President Trump. He , “I have to the right to do whatever I want as president,” and acts as though he means it. He has spent money on a border wall that Congress hasn’t authorized; locked up immigrant children in cages; blocked immigration from multiple Muslim nations and now (under cover of the coronavirus pandemic) ; ; and issued cracking down on social media after Twitter fact-checked him.When demonstrations swept the country following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Trump acted like a would-be authoritarian: He threatened to have , demanded that the National Guard “” the streets, and wanted to deploy . The Pentagon balked at his demands, but security forces did gas peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so he could stage a photo-op. Scott Walker, the Republican former governor of Wisconsin, could not conceal : “Hard to imagine any other @POTUS having the guts to walk out of the White House like this.” (Presumably, he is unaware that some previous presidents were actual war heroes.)Trump claims to be “,” but he is again NFL players who would kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality. The truth is, he sees anti-racism protests as a threat no matter what form they take, while expressing sympathy even for violent white supremacists (the “” in Charlottesville).AdvertisementTrump blames recent disorder on “,” even though there is that antifa — a loosely knit group of far-left activists — is behind any of it. “Is there a shorter term for anti-anti-fascism?” historian Kevin M. Kruse . Yes, there is, and Republicans are increasingly flirting with fascism.A coterie of power-loving intellectuals has reverse-engineered an entire doctrine — “national conservatism” — to justify their infatuation with the would-be strongman in the Oval Office. Because Trump proclaims himself , the Israeli writer has written to rehabilitate nationalism from the bad reputation it developed after two world wars triggered by extreme nationalism. (He claims that the Nazis weren’t really nationalists, just as Marxist true believers claim the Soviet Union wasn’t really communist.)Illiberalism is especially strong among some right-wing Catholics. New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari “autonomy-maximizing liberalism” and wants to reorder the public square for “the Highest Good,” while Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule judges to display “a candid willingness to ‘legislate morality.’ ”AdvertisementThe Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban is to the “authoricons” — the authoritarian conservatives. The influential Notre Dame professor Patrick J. Deneen, author of “,” traveled to Budapest to meet Orban and described his rule as a “” for American conservatives. The Claremont Review of Books, the leader of what passes for Trumpian thought, ran an essay by journalist praising Orban as “blessed with almost every political gift — brave, shrewd with his enemies and trustworthy with his friends, detail-oriented, hilarious.”Among Orban’s fans in Washington is , a Trump appointee to the U.S. Agency for International Development. She called Orban “the shining champion of Western civilization” and denounced “liberal democracy” as “a front for the war being waged against us by those who fundamentally despise not only our way of life, but life itself.” That sounds almost sane compared to what right-wing commentator Kurt Schlichter, who has been , just : “If the left gets rid of the Trump we have, normal people will turn to the Pinochet we need,” referring to former Chilean dictator .Cotton — who as an Army lieutenant in 2006 advocated New York Times journalists for reporting on how the government was tracking terror financing — is returning to his authoritarian instincts as he bids to become Trump’s successor. But he will face stiff competition from the likes of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who wants to and “a philosophy of . . . unrestricted, unfettered free choice.”AdvertisementU.S. conservatism has been drifting in an authoritarian direction for a while. Last week’s demonstrations merely made the danger more manifest.Read more: CommentsGift ArticleTOP STORIESAdvice for Real LifeAdvice for the relationships in your life and how to boost your own well-being.Try a different topic or to save your preferences

This article was published more than&nbsp;2 years agoCommentGift SharecorrectionAn earlier version of this column misspelled the name of Yoram Hazony. This version has been updated.In 2014, Tom Cotton ran for the U.S. Senate proclaiming: “.” Seven days ago, amid massive anti-racism protests accompanied by scattered looting, the Republican senator from Arkansas the deployment of at least five Army divisions to the streets. “No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters,” he wrote, employing a military term for “take no prisoners.”There was no conceivable justification for...

Opinion | The GOP has gone from tea party libertarianism to Trumpian authoritarianism

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