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The “Meeting of the Mindless”: Why Conservatives Must Refuse an Alliance with the Far Right

Thesis: If conservatism is to remain true to its first principles—ordered liberty under a constitutional framework, pluralism grounded in equal dignity, and truth-seeking through free speech—it cannot “unite” with the far right/alt-right. That would be a meeting of the mindless, a merger with a movement that is anti-constitutional, anti-liberty, and ultimately anti-truth.

Conservatism’s First Principles (and Why They Matter)

Conservatism at its best is not a cult of power; it’s a discipline of limits. It affirms:

  • Ordered liberty guarded by constitutional constraints (separation of powers, federalism, due process).
  • Pluralism and equal dignity—one nation under a common civic creed, not tribe against tribe.
  • Free speech and open debate as the means of testing claims and correcting error.
  • Family, voluntary associations, and local institutions as the bedrock of a healthy civil society.
    These principles stand in direct tension with the motivations that repeatedly surface in far-right/alt-right ideology.

What the Alt-Right Actually Is (in Their Own Words)

Serious histories of the alt-right—separating signal from online spectacle—agree on a core: rejection of liberal democracy, racialism, and an ethnostate ideal. This genealogy traces to dissident-right and paleoconservative corners that broached racism and antisemitism, were ejected from mainstream institutions, and then built fringe ecosystems obsessed with race, immigration, and Jews.
For a standard reference summary, see Britannica’s overview of the alt-right’s white-nationalist profile here:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/alt-right. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Also see a broad (and frequently updated) digest of the movement’s white-separatist commitments:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right. (Wikipedia)
Bottom line: the alt-right is not “the true right.” It is a perversion of conservatism’s first principles—trading truth and ordered liberty for tribal power.

The Far Right’s Motivations—Point by Point

1) An Oppression Mindset (Mirroring the Far Left)

One hallmark of revolutionary politics—left or right—is the manufacturing of “dialectical space”: blur true/false and good/evil until only raw power remains. That tactic mystifies reality (truth married to lie), invites followers into “gnostic” secrets (we alone possess the hidden knowledge), and funnels opponents into lose-lose reactions (act out or submit). These are cult tactics, not conservative habits of mind.
Conservative response: Refuse the spell. Name the mystification and exit the rigged frame. Insist on clear, reality-based distinctions and the norms that sustain them.

2) Authoritarian Longing (Putin, Hitler, Mussolini Nostalgia)

A recurrent temptation on the far right is admiration of “strongman” models that cast constitutional guardrails as “handcuffs.” Contemporary research on right-wing parties’ positioning vis-à-vis Putin, plus analyses of European far-right networks, show the gravitational pull of such illiberal alignments and their geopolitical utility.

3) Speech Control and “Blasphemy” Politics

The far-right’s theocratic streak frequently collides with free speech. Calls for blasphemy restrictions or sacred carve-outs are inherently illiberal; blasphemy regimes become tools to persecute minorities and dissenters.

4) Conspiracy as a Replacement for Critical Thinking

The far right often substitutes conspiracy for inquiry, collapsing evidence-based argument into motivized mythmaking—exactly what dialectical agit-prop seeks. Guardrails that could falsify or refine claims (free debate, open data, adversarial testing) get smeared as enemy plots. That is the opposite of conservative epistemology. See Lindsay’s treatment of mystification and the action–reaction funnel:
Conservative response: Re-center prudence and proof. Debate, measure, replicate—then legislate.

5) Racialism and Scapegoating

Where conservatives want every American to rise under a common creed, the far right peddles racial separatism and white ethnostates—poisonous to the American promise and national solidarity. Standard references: Britannica on white supremacy: https://www.britannica.com/topic/white-supremacy. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Conservative response: E pluribus unum. Equal protection is not a negotiable “nice-to-have”; it is the constitutional glue of the Republic.

6) Misogyny Masquerading as “Tradition”

Conservatives rightly promote marriage, family formation, and real early-childhood support. In contrast, a not-small stream of far-right rhetoric flirts with rolling back women’s civic status—up to and including the repealthe19th meme. Documentation of that discourse:

7) Pessimism About the Present (and Romanticizing a Fantasy Past)

The far right’s grievance logic depends on telling you “everything is worse.” Reality, while mixed, does not support that blanket nihilism. Consider just one bellwether: child mortality. Within two centuries, it fell from near-ubiquitous tragedy to historic lows—a civilizational gain worth conserving.

8) Contempt for the Constitution

Because the Constitution diffuses power, illiberal movements (left or right) see it as an obstacle. That is precisely why conservatives defend it. The alt-right program—ethnostate, illiberalism, “friend–enemy” politics—requires shredding the very restraints that keep us free.
Conservative response: Double down on limits. Checks, balances, federalism, due process—these are not “handcuffs”; they are the conditions of liberty.

9) Performative Morality and Grifter Incentives

A final tell: performative transgression that gets young people to “crash for the content.” As James Lindsay warns in his letter to MAGA youth, the “woke right” trajectory is heading for a crash; influencers who egg you on don’t share your values—they chase clicks and cash, sometimes artificially amplified by foreign actors.
Historical analogue: Mao’s Cultural Revolution used and discarded radicalized youth—“to rebel is justified”—once they’d served the strongman’s aims. Don’t become anyone’s Red Guard.

Why a “Unity” with the Far Right Would Be a Meeting of the Mindless

  • Mindless about truth: Dialectical mystification replaces reality-testing with power games.
  • Mindless about liberty: Theocratic blasphemy instincts and authoritarian longings trample bedrock freedoms. (FIRE)
  • Mindless about America: Racial separatism repudiates the civic creed that makes e pluribus unum possible.
  • Mindless about families: Misogyny is not family policy; disenfranchising women is not pro-child. (Women’s Suffrage and the Media)
  • Mindless about the future: Nihilistic pessimism ignores real civilizational gains worth conserving. (Our World in Data)
    A conservative–alt-right merger would not be “fusionism 2.0.” It would be a suicide pact—trading the American settlement for a performative, illiberal politics destined to burn everyone who touches it.

A Conservative Blueprint: Expose, Oppose, Rebuild

  1. Expose the tactics. Teach people to spot mystification, gnostic bait, and action–reaction traps. Then refuse struggle sessions and exit the rigged frame.
  2. Oppose illiberalism—left and right. No blasphemy laws. No racial separatism. No ethnostates. No “strongman exception” to constitutional limits. (For a compact definitional reference, see Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/alt-right; Wikipedia overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right.) (Encyclopedia Britannica)
  3. Rebuild civil society. Strengthen families, churches/synagogues, schools, youth leagues, and local associations—the mediating institutions that form character and channel dissent productively. Stabilize local communities, remove abusers of power by lawful means, and educate relentlessly to defeat mystification.
  4. Choose grateful realism over nihilism. Affirm the good (and measurable) gains of modern life while debating hard trade-offs honestly. See long-run health and child-mortality improvements: https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality; UN update: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/global-child-mortality-rates-dropped-2022-progress-slow-un-says-2024-03-13/. (Our World in Data)
  5. Say ‘No’ to demoralization. Demoralization is a strategy—don’t grant it. Act steadily, don’t react spasmodically.

Conclusion

The far right is not a shortcut to victory; it’s a shortcut to self-betrayal. Conservatism must expose its motivations, oppose its illiberal program, and rebuild a confident, constitutional, pro-family movement that can persuade the middle and protect the future.
Don’t trade the American way for a meeting of the mindless. Keep the inheritance—liberty with responsibility, under a Constitution that binds power to principle.

Notes & Further Reading (plain-text links)