Episode 26 – Ben Connelly on Traditional Conservatism and Why It Matters

What does “traditional conservatism” mean to you? How has conservatism changed since President Trump came on the scene? Did it need to change?

One of the downsides of having just two mainstream parties, one of which has permanently claimed the mantle of conservatism and the other that of liberalism, is that those words come to mean whatever the parties say they do at the particular moment. What “conservative” and “liberal” mean today is different from what they meant in the 1920s, and 1960s, and 1980s. Is that a problem? Well, it depends. I’m not of the view the parties should never depart from traditional principles, but I do think it’s helpful to know what those principles are, and to understand when and why they’re being laid aside.

It’s also helpful to have clear and articulate exponents for each set of principles, people that can serve as reference points so we have a sense of where we’re going and can effectively question whether we should change directions. I am not a traditional conservative; Ben Connelly, a writer based in a city I love very much, Charlottesville, Virginia, is. He writes two Substack newsletters: Hardihood Books, an online magazine for short fiction and persuasive nonfiction, and Carrying the Fire, where Ben, under the pseudonym John Grady Atreides, defends “the principles of American conservatism, which George Will rightly described as the project of conserving the American Founding. In a world of actors seeking to destroy and uproot, conservatism (rightly understood) preserves and protects that which is good.”

To Ben, preserving traditional conservatism means extolling the virtues of free enterprise; individual liberty and natural rights; ordered liberty; limited government; civil society; American constitutionalism; the rule of law; American leadership abroad; strong defense; patriotism; Western civilization; tradition and a measured pace of change; religious faith; and, well, virtue. Ben comes by his views and intellectual heft honestly—his father is a celebrated emeritus professor of politics at Washington and Lee University.

I had Ben on the podcast for a fun, highly informative conversation on traditional conservatism: what it is, why it matters, what its limitations are, and how it differs from the conservatism of the modern Republican Party.

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