Conor Lynch is a writer and freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the Week, the New Republic, Salon, Truthdig, and elsewhere.
Past conservatives devoted enormous energy to downplaying America’s history of brutal imperial expansion. But in the second Trump administration, the New Right is doing something different: it’s openly celebrating and seeking to revive it.
As Donald Trump’s GOP grows more and more fanatically xenophobic and rabidly anti-socialist, it’s worth examining how the American right has long fused its hatred of both immigrants and radicals to carry out a larger reactionary program.
Donald Trump’s profligate spending on America’s domestic militarization, coupled with tax cuts for the rich and continued military adventures abroad, suggests that much in American conservatism today remains similar to what it was under George W. Bush.