New Fusionism
It’s said that great songwriting teams are always populated by people who need to work together to write great music, rather than people who want to be friends.
I’ve written often about the need for renewing the conservative- libertarian fusion, why I think this is a natural alliance, and the terms on which I think it should be forged. The actions of an assertive liberal (in the contemporary American sense) government are starting to illustrate this to the most interesting of those writers often termed crunchy cons, who often think of themselves in direct opposition to a hyper-individualized, commercial political culture on the Right. That is, as among the least natural candidates for fusionism imaginable.
The nature of this alliance is simple: crunchy cons want government to be limited to allow space for idiosyncratic local communities. It is a grudging acceptance of limits, rather than a full-throated embrace of large-scale politics. This strikes me as a healthy view of the role of politics.
