Abstract
Barack Obama’s rhetoric of “CHANGE” proposed a new America that was inclusive in its emphasis on identity politics driven reform, rather than customary reverence toward national tradition. Donald Trump’s charisma is largely explained as a populist reaction against that specific assertion of America’s identity. It is the absence of a viable classical conservative ethos in contemporary politics that has helped contribute toward the increased presence of demagogic practices across the ideological spectrum. Rather than viewing itself in terms of an “alt-right vs. social justice warrior” dichotomy, conservatism in the Trump era needs to return to the foundational ethos of a generational compact, as defined by Burke. For Burke, a political community is cemented by the contract of societal care existing between generations of the past, present and future. The main challenge for contemporary conservatism is to re-envision a national compact that provides both stability and accountability to a united commonwealth.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Mr. Bannon was President Trump’s Chief Election Executive and Senior White House Advisor until he resigned from his government post on August 18, 2017.
- 2.
I differentiate between “populism ” and “popularism” because Bannon himself says this is the key difference in understanding him from Trump. I will make this distinction clearer in what follows.
- 3.
CBS 60 Minutes, Sept. 10, 2017.
- 4.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Stanford University Press, 2001, p. 328.
- 5.
Ibid., p. 328.
- 6.
Brian O’Toole, “The Danger of Forsaking America’s Civil Service”, The Hill, Sept. 18, 2017.
- 7.
The Rubin Report, Interview with Scott Adams, Sept. 1, 2016.
- 8.
Carl Jung , “On the Nature of the Psyche,” The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung , Modern Library Edition, 1993, p. 100.
- 9.
Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot, Regnery Publishing Inc., 2001, p. 19.
- 10.
Edmund Burke, pp. 358–9.
- 11.
Walter Goodman, “Irving Kristol : Patron Saint of the New Right”, New York Times, Dec. 6, 1981.
- 12.
Michael Brake, Comparative Youth Culture: The Sociology of Youth Cultures and Youth Sub-Cultures in America, Britain and Canada, Routledge, 1985, p. 94.
- 13.
Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool, University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 232.
- 14.
Jason Horowitz, “Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists”, New York Times, Feb. 10, 2017.
- 15.
Julius Evola, “The Aryan Doctrine of Combat and Victory”, The Metaphysics of War: Battle, Victory and Death in the World of Tradition, Arktos Media Ltd., 2011, p. 97.
- 16.
Ibid, p. 98.
- 17.
Jeffrey Tucker, “Five Differences Between the Alt-Right and Libertarianism”, Foundation of Economic Education, Aug. 26, 2016, https://fee.org/articles/five-differences-between-the-alt-right-and-libertarians/
- 18.
The Living Dead: On the Desperate Edge of Now (BBC), 1995.
- 19.
Since Hegel , many historicist works in both philosophy and social research have richly defined the intellectual outlook of the modern era. I am not as keen as someone like Karl Popper, in his two volume work The Open Society and Its Enemies, to dismiss all historicist work of political thought as authoritarian at its core.
- 20.
M. Lilla , The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction, New York Review Books, 2016, p. xi.
- 21.
Richard Bourke, Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke, Princeton University Press, 2015, p. 3.
- 22.
Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, Project Gutenberg, 1770, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15043/15043-h/15043-h.htm#Page_433
- 23.
Stephen Browne, Edmund Burke and the Discourse of Virtue, University of Alabama Press, 1993, p. 102.
- 24.
Leo Strauss , Natural Right and History, University of Chicago Press, 1965, p. 296.
- 25.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 261.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, Harper Press, 2017, p. 126.
- 28.
Patrick Deneen, “Conservatism in America? A Response to Sidorsky,” American Conservatism, New York University Press, 2016, p. 155.
- 29.
Early post-war conservatives such as Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver did see the ‘writing on the wall’ when it came to America’s generational relations.
Bibliography
60 Minutes, CBS, September 10, 2017.
Bourke, Richard. 2015. Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brake, Michael. 1985. Comparative Youth Culture: The Sociology of Youth Cultures and Youth Sub-Cultures in America. Britain and Canada: Routledge.
Browne, Stephen. 1993. Edmund Burke and the Discourse of Virtue. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Burke, Edmund. 1770. Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15043/15043-h/15043-h.htm#Page_433.
———. 2001. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Deneen, Patrick. 2016. Conservatism in America? A Response to Sidorsky. In American Conservatism, ed. Sanford Levinson, Joel Parker and Melissa Williams. New York: New York University Press.
Evola, Julius. 2011. The Aryan Doctrine of Combat and Victory. In The Metaphysics of War: Battle, Victory and Death in the World of Tradition. Budapest: Arktos Media Ltd.
Frank, Thomas. 1998. The Conquest of Cool. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Goodman, Walter. 1981. Irving Kristol: Patron Saint of the New Right. New York Times, December 6.
Horowitz, Jason. 2017. Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists. New York Times, February 10.
Jung, Carl. 1993. On the Nature of the Psyche. In The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung, Modern Library Edition.
Kirk, Russell. 2001. The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing Inc.
Lilla, Mark. 2016. The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction. New York: New York Review Books.
———. 2017. The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics. New York: Harper Press.
O’Toole, Brian. 2017. The Danger of Forsaking America’s Civil Service. The Hill, September 18.
Strauss, Leo. 1965. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
The Living Dead: On the Desperate Edge of Now (BBC), 1995.
The Rubin Report, Interview with Scott Adams, September 1, 2016.
Tucker, Jeffrey. 2016. Five Differences Between the Alt-Right and Libertarianism. Foundation of Economic Education, August 26, 2016. https://fee.org/articles/five-differences-between-the-alt-right-and-libertarians/.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jarvis, D. (2018). The Ideological Rhetoric of the Trump Platform and Edmund Burke’s Theory of a Generational Compact. In: Sable, M., Torres, A. (eds) Trump and Political Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74427-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74427-8_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74426-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74427-8
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)