Spencer KlavanAmerica is in the grips of more than an election. This is not simply a contest between two competing plans for life within the American system. It is a clash between two opposing philosophies — one of them friendly toward America and nationhood generally, another hostile toward America and the West. Republicans believe that America is the latest in a proud line of great Western civilizations, from Athens and Israel to Rome and the Europe of the Renaissance — each of them flawed but all of them fundamentally good. Democrats believe that this whole outlook is a lie — that the civilizations of the West are “systemically” oppressive of minorities and designed to hide that fact. They have articulated these beliefs not only in the New York Times’s 1619 Project but in the riots of summer 2020, which tore apart the cities and tore down the statues that represent America’s present, past, and future.
In this new series of articles, I’ll be arguing that these two philosophies — the philosophy of Trump’s Right and the philosophy of BLM’s Left — both have long histories, much longer even than the history of this nation.
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