Abstract
Conservatism has always been a reluctant ideology, more a pragmatic response to events than a coherent system of fundamental principles. The Newest Right, which has now emerged with renewed vigor in America, Europe, and beyond, is no exception. It continues to invoke powerful traditions and deeply rooted identities as the enduring foundations of social order and political authority. However, conservatives today also refuse to set limits on personal ambitions, economic programs, government activities, and even leverage their fundamental values. In America, the “War on Terror”—an undeclared war against an unknown enemy has unleashed a global politics, indeed, a global crusade, that is redefining national borders and constitutional doctrines with astonishing speed. In this article, I draw on four prefixes—” anti,” “neo,” “post,” and “proto,”—to characterize the implications of this newest conservatism without limits for the continuing evolution of conservative ideology. I claim that the Newest Right has invoked an unprecedented concept of national community, a homeland whose borders they would secure by terror, now on a global scale. This new conservatism gone global, I argue, poses a greater threat to democracy than its presumed enemies ever could.
