Here at PoMoCon, we’ve largely stayed out of electoral politics for this cycle. We may have more to say with the campaign in full swing in the autumn, but one reason we have not spoken more about it so far is that Republicans have steadfastly & resolutely refused to “nationalize the election,” which is also true, to my surprise, of most of the conservative pundit class. Who are we to disagree with such august & authoritative bodies?
But I have stated my support publicly for two Senate candidates backed by the only billionaire-genius on the right side of the political fight, Peter Thiel, who was also their boss for a long time so he must have believed in them: Mr. J.D. Vance, who won his primary in Ohio recently, & Mr. Blake Masters, who just won his primary in Arizona yesterday. So I offer my congratulations to the two gentlemen here, & you can see my posts recommending them last year here & here. I’m modestly pleased to have picked these two & am modestly confident that they’ll win in November, at least if they receive the help they deserve from conservatives. They are both young men, with families, what passes for an elite education in our times, against which, to their credit, they have rebelled, & we can expect them to know a lot more about technology than most GOP Senators or other politicians, a subject of importance & great urgency. They have both embraced Trump & earned his endorsement, which seems to be the only way to get into Republican politics now, which is one sign of seriousness. They also both have the support & political friendship of Tucker Carlson, the only conservative opinion-maker of national importance who seems to care about getting GOP politicians that have much interest in or even knowledge of their electorate & the possibilities of forming a majority coalition.
I don’t know either of the gentlemen, but I’ve listened to their speeches at some length over the last year, as well as asked conservatives working in D.C. & conservatives at intellectual conferences about them, & to the best of my ability, I’m confident they’re a much-needed improvement on what the party now offers, never mind the opposition. So I’ve made an effort to find out the best case for them & to make that case myself, especially to the young men in conservative politics who need to hear it.
I hope they’ll campaign with all the necessary seriousness; I’m sure they’ll do much better than most campaigns, but not everything in politics is reducible to judging a man compared to the alternative, not even in elections. Some things are supposed to transcend that competition & show what is inherently important in politics, why man’s dignity is inseparable from justice & nobility. In that respect, I don’t dare say that these campaigns will be memorable, nor am I convinced that the men even aim at becoming memorable. I think this might endear them to conservatives—it might even get get them elected Senators. Conservatives, you can say, are naturally modest people, who are therefore very skeptical of politicians & politics; they would rather be doing something else—a real job, maybe. For my part, I am afraid this is a mistake in the current circumstances, where every election is somehow also something much bigger than a two-year majority or minority, but involves the hopes & fears of vast millions of Americans, who don’t quite know what America is or what it’s about these days. I would be reassured if these men gave serious thought to what it takes to inspire millions of young Americans, because it is a very serious burden that someone will have to bear.