Nicholas W. Drummond
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign messages of “America First” and “Make America Great Again” vowed to put the interests of “the people” before the interests of elites, noncitizens, and foreigners.1 As Trump reiterated in the State of the Union (2018): “My highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America’s children, America’s struggling workers and America’s forgotten communities. I want our youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want our poor to have their chance to rise.”2 In terms of actual policy, Trump promised the end of interventionist wars, tougher enforcement of immigration laws, the construction of a border wall, and the restructuring of trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement).
Neoconservatives have been critical of all these proposals, but Trump’s immigration policy has received the harshest denunciations. In this chapter, I discuss a repeated theme of these critics—that Trumpism is a betrayal of America’s founding principles. Through textual analysis of primary sources, I demonstrate this claim to be inaccurate because it relies on Straussian scholarship that ignores the anthropological requirements of America’s political system.3 Cultural and racial diversity have enriched the country in many ways, but if the Founders knew America would become a heterogeneous republic, they would have designed a very different political system. Some Straussians do acknowledge the Founders’ aversion toward diversity, but their analysis gives insufficient attention to the enabling relationship James Madison identified between heterogeneity and plutocracy.4
The name Leo Strauss probably means very little to most Americans, but it is a name they should investigate because the interpretation of the Founding associated with this immigrant professor from Germany has significantly influenced U.S. politics. Although Strauss had relatively little to say about America, his disciples reshaped America’s national mythology and political ethos, and in doing so, have facilitated its demographic and cultural transformation. Americans may be more tolerant and inclusive because of these changes, but the diverse country we are today is not the republic envisioned by the Founding Fathers. This alone should concern Americans because the person who designs something may have a better understanding of its limitations.
Straussians are unified by their shared respect for ancient Greek philosophers and for Strauss himself, but they have divided into two rival camps offering distinct but overlapping interpretations of the Founding.5 The East Coast contingent includes such widely celebrated scholars as Allan Bloom, Harvey Mansfield, and Thomas Pangle. They tend to regard the American republic as a Lockean project of individualism and rational self-interest. Instead of establishing a republic based on virtue, natural law, or religious ideals, the Founders are said to have envisioned a modern commercial regime built on the “low but solid ground” of self-preservation and the acquisition of property.6 A “homogeneous citizenry” would not be required to sustain this republic because America was a creedal nation in which law-abiding citizens “found a fundamental basis of unity” in accepting rights enumerated by the Declaration and protected by the Constitution.7 Thus, the great hope of this project was for divisive affiliations like “class, race, religion, national origin, or culture” to diminish in importance because citizens would become “universal, abstract” individuals.8
The West Coast Straussians include prominent scholars such as Harry Jaffa, Charles Kesler, and Larry Arnn. They tend to believe the Founders were influenced by an “Aristotelian-Locke” whose philosophy incorporated natural law and Judeo-Christian values.9 The Founding was thus a noble project of culminating political thought, codified by Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration, and fully applied by Abraham Lincoln’s assertion that America was “a new nation … dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”10 Instead of establishing the shallow and materialistic regime depicted by the East Coasters, the Founders are thought to have designed a republic for virtuous and religious citizens who strive for moderation, justice, and liberty.11 Despite these differences, the West Coasters share their rival’s view that America was a creedal nation. Citizens who differed by race, class, religion, or national origin could unify as one people if they embraced the “universal principles” of the Declaration.12
The Straussian version of the Founding has been critical for American politics because of its adoption by neoconservatives.13 These advocates may not be true disciples of Strauss, but they employ the universalistic language of the Straussians and they invoke the names of the Founders. Ironically, this is done to promote neoconservative policies that the Founders would have found problematic, like mass immigration and wars intended to convert other countries to American-style democracy.14 In this regard, the neocons resemble Al-Farabi, the Middle Eastern philosopher admired by Strauss who recommended the deceptive strategy of gradually leading the “vulgar” masses away from “accepted opinions” by dressing their opinions in familiar robes.15
Neoconservatives are best known today for being war hawks associated with the Bush administration’s military occupation of Iraq in 2003.16 Before Trumpism, they were despised by the Left for establishing “a dystopian national security state” and for murdering “hundreds of thousands of citizens” in the Middle East.17 Yet, in response to Trump’s ascendancy, the neocons have sought an alliance with the establishment Left because of converging views about foreign policy, trade, and immigration.18 Mutual concerns about Trump’s demagoguery may also be unifying this Left-Right coalition.19
What exactly is neoconservatism and how has it influenced the Right? In a seminal essay answering this exact question, the “godfather” of the neoconservatives Irving Kristol said, “The historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism [is] to convert the Republican Party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy.”20 Given that Kristol traces the origins of this movement to “disillusioned liberal intellectuals in the 1970’s,” it might be the case that neoconservatives reshaped the conservative movement to fit their own interests and values.21 A more academic interpretation is that Kristol and other neocons have successfully executed the strategy of entryism, which is when a political group “enters a larger [organization] with the intention of subverting its policies and objectives.”22 Incidentally, this strategy was popularized by Leon Trotsky, a Marxist intellectual esteemed by some neoconservatives.23
In his discussion of the American roots of neoconservatism, Kristol makes no reference to the Founding Fathers. Instead, he associates his political “persuasion” with the “20th-century heroes … TR, FDR, and Ronald Reagan.”24 His seminal essay also mentions the influence of Strauss, an intellectual whose teachings and writings have guided neocons like Abram Shulsky and Bret Stephens.25 Other neoconservatives like Robert Kagan and Paul Wolfowitz may deny Straussian influence on their thinking, but the universalistic and human rights themes of the Straussian Founding permeate their writings and speeches.26
The Straussian Founding is particularly evident in the neoconservative critique of Trump’s immigration policies. For example, Stephens has called Trump “a loudmouth vulgarian” whose policies constitute a rejection of America’s “founding creed,” which Stephens reduces to (1) “all men are created equal,” and (2) Emma Lazarus’s 1883 poem, “give us your tired, your poor.”27 Jennifer Rubin has said “antagonism toward immigrants and a preference for White Europeans over brown and black people remain the default setting for Trump and increasingly for his party.”28 Rubin supports “robust legal immigration” from all corners of the globe because “it demonstrates fidelity to the Founders’ vision that the country be defined not by race or ethnicity (blood and soil) but by adherence to the ideals of the republic.”29 Former president George W. Bush has described Trump’s hard-line views on immigration as “nativism,” emboldened “bigotry,” and “blasphemy against the American creed.”30 He supports this critique by appealing to the Founders and the values they bequeathed us: “We become the heirs of Thomas Jefferson by accepting the ideal of human dignity found in the Declaration of Independence. We become the heirs of James Madison by understanding the genius and values of the U.S. Constitution.”31
There is no denying that Trump has said controversial things about immigrants, but neoconservatives who appropriate Straussian ideals to attack Trump’s immigration policies are misrepresenting the Founders.32 Uncomfortable as it may be for scholars to admit, the Founders established a republic that assumed racial and cultural homogeneity, and they attempted to preserve this homogeneity with governmental control of naturalization. This sentiment is most evident in The Federalist Papers, no. 2, where John Jay describes the unity of the American people as follows: “A people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”33
Scholars have accused Jay of exaggerating America’s homogeneity, but some of these scholars are guiltier of exaggerating the country’s heterogeneity. They do so by overstating the political, ethnic, religious, and linguistic differences of Americans; or by highlighting social forms of diversity (e.g., diet choices, fashion, and sexuality) that likely exist in all nations and probably most small cities; or by including within their demographic calculations three groups excluded from citizenship—slaves, Indians, and Tories who fled America after the Revolution.34 America in 1787 was clearly not a small, homogenous republic of uniform manners, but that hardly means its internal divisions were as salient as they are today.35
The best data we have on the demographics of this period (1790) indicate that (1) approximately 60 percent of whites were ethnically English; (2) around 86 percent of whites hailed from the British Isles; and (3) most of the remaining whites traced their ancestry to Western Europe.36 Furthermore, according to the census of 1790, America’s population of 3,893,637 disaggregates as follows: 3,140,207 (80.65%) were white; 694,280 (17.83%) were slaves; and 59,150 (1.52%) were free nonwhites.37 The nonwhite citizen population was therefore about 1.85 percent of the total population. As for culture, divisions certainly existed that were associated with region, economics, and sectarianism, but Jay dismissed these differences because America’s majority culture was Protestant Anglo-Saxon, which meant the country was “a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties.”38 Although George Washington and Madison viewed the possibility of Jewish and Catholic integration favorably, Madison echoed Jay’s sentiment when he said Americans were “mutual guardians of their mutual happiness” because they were “knit together … by so many cords of affection.”39 This included the “kindred blood” that made Americans “fellow citizens” capable of living “together as members of the same family.”40 Madison also said Americans were British in their “language … usages … & … manners.”41
Alexander Hamilton likewise regarded American culture as predominantly British, and he said the country was sufficiently homogenous for the Constitution to work as designed.42 He also warned that national security required “the energy of a common National sentiment,” which would be eroded by immigrants of “foreign bias” who harbored antiliberal values and were attached to the “customs and manners” of their native countries. An “influx of foreigners” was therefore likely to produce a heterogeneous compound,” which would “complicate and confound public opinion” and “introduce foreign propensities.”43 These concerns were shared by other Founders such as Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Winthrop.44 Madison likewise believed that naturalization should be limited to those immigrants who “really meant to incorporate into our society.”45 He declared on the floor of Congress that citizenship was a privilege and should be restricted to “the worthy part of mankind” who could “increase the wealth and strength of the community.”46 Madison never mentioned race or culture during this speech, but he supported the bill under review, which limited naturalization to “free white persons … of good character.”47 Known to be an avid opponent of slavery, he nevertheless believed the long-term solution to America’s “original sin” was the recolonization of freed slaves.48 This separatist mind-set can also be found in Jefferson and even Abraham Lincoln.49 Racial integration would end badly for the country because of white prejudice and black resentment, and because both races acquired vices from the institution of slavery.50 Madison’s regard for America’s indigenous peoples was equally pessimistic: “Next to the case of the Black race within our bosom, that of the red on our borders, is the problem most baffling to the policy of our Country.”51
West Coast Straussians do acknowledge some concerns the Founders had about excessive heterogeneity. For example, Thomas West notes that America’s forefathers opposed racial diversity, were suspicious of illiberal cultures, and rejected mass immigration because of the difficulties of assimilating too many people at one time.52 West believes the latter two concerns are legitimate. He contends that since 1880, most immigrants and their descendants have become Democrat voters who reject the Founding ideal of limited government in favor of a growing “centralized and bureaucratized modern administrative state.”53 He also thinks assimilation is failing today because rapid mass immigration is overwhelming a country whose people no longer proudly regard their “way of life” as “best in the world.”54 On the contrary, Americans since 1960 have taught immigrants that the United States is racist, sexist, and intolerant, which means nonmajority groups require politically designated benefits rather than equal rights.55
From West’s perspective, the only thing that can save the Founders’ republic is “an indefinite moratorium on almost all immigration combined with significant penalties for employers of illegal aliens as well as for the illegals themselves.”56 Neoconservatives would call these policies a betrayal of the American creed, but West believes his views are perfectly compatible with the Declaration itself, which says “one people” can dissolve itself from others and “assume among the powers of the earth a separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.”57
Michael Anton thinks the Founders’ republic has been rejected by the identity politics of the Left, and he worries that demographic changes will secure a permanent electoral victory for Democrats.58 He also believes Americans have every right to implement Trump’s hard-line immigration policies because “we are originally a nation of settlers, who later chose to admit immigrants, and later still not to, and who may justly open or close our doors solely at our own discretion, without deference to forced pieties.”59 The forced pieties Anton has in mind are (1) diversity is our strength, and (2) America is a nation of immigrants. Neoconservatives such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain consider Anton’s views a betrayal of America’s founding principles, but Anton supports his stand by invoking the preamble to the United States Constitution, which includes a specific reference to securing “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”60 In other words, “the Constitution and the social compact it enshrines are for us—the American people—and not for foreigners, immigrants (except those we choose to welcome), or anyone else.”61
Anton’s emphasis on intergenerational duty can be supported textually. Hamilton spoke of “framing a government for posterity as well as ourselves,” and Jefferson said the republic was established to secure the “rights of ourselves and our posterity.”62 Washington, Adams, and Madison all regarded the republic as an inheritance that would indebt future generations to their forefathers.63 According to Madison, Americans obtained a “precious heritage … from the virtue and valour of their fathers,” and they had a “sacred obligation” to transmit “to future generations, that precious patrimony of national rights and independence, which is held in trust by the present, from the goodness of Divine Providence.”64
A major gap in the scholarship of West Coast Straussians is the Founders’ perspective on diversity as it relates to class politics and plutocracy. This shortcoming may derive from an undue emphasis on natural rights philosophy rather than political science. With this possibility in mind, it may be helpful to consider Hamilton’s warning to Marquis de Lafayette about the impending direction of the successful French Revolution: “I dread the reveries of your Philosophic politicians who appear in the moment to have great influence and who being mere speculatists may aim at more refinement than suits either with human nature or the composition of your Nation.”65 Madison echoed this sentiment when he said that political thinking should be guided by what is “compatible with the course of human affairs.”66
When it came to designing the new republic of 1787, the Founders relied on the emerging “science of politics” rather than on Locke, philosophy, or divine revelation.67 Practical thinkers like Madison and Hamilton identified principles of government through (1) experiential service, (2) the study of ancient and modern regimes, and (3) the study of influential thinkers like Baron de Montesquieu and David Hume, who also engaged in case study analysis to develop advanced political theories.68 It was this reservoir of empirical knowledge that gave the Founders hope that a new kind of self-governing regime was possible, one that would avoid the pitfalls that had ruined so many republics and confederations of the past.69 This scientific approach also provided the Founders with a pragmatic understanding of diversity.
The question of diversity was the center of gravity during the Constitutional Debate (1787–1788). Ratification required convincing the states that America would not suffer the fate of extensive republics like ancient Rome and Greece.70 The predominant theory was Montesquieu’s argument that large republics were unsustainable because of diversity, wealth inequality, and socioeconomic complexity, all of which eroded civic virtue and impaired the public’s capacity to vigilantly check elites.71 A large republic would therefore succumb to plutocracy unless the people—hateful and envious of the patrician class—threw their weight behind a populist demagogue who promised liberty but delivered tyranny.72
Founding thinkers like Hamilton and Madison were impressed by two solutions that Montesquieu proposed for overcoming this problem: a confederate republic based on Lycia and a tripartite government based on England’s constitutional monarchy.73 At the Philadelphia Convention, these two models were synthesized into a federation system, where state governments would share power with an energetic national government that now had the authority to nullify state laws.74 Federal authority would be limited by the enumeration of powers in the Constitution and by the internal checking of the national government’s legislative, executive, and judicial branches.75 Not everyone agreed this political system would preserve liberty. Anti-Federalists warned that constitutional provisions like the supremacy clause and the necessary and proper clause would enable the national government to annihilate state governments, which meant America would eventually become a consolidated state, and thus suffer all the problems anticipated by Montesquieu’s thesis.76 However, in contrast “to the prevailing Theory,” Madison argued that larger size could be a republic’s salvation rather than its ruination.77 An extensive territory meant a greater diversity of affiliations (e.g., religious sects, regional interests, economic professions, economic class, and factions under the sway of demagogues). Consequently, subgroup loyalties would break apart majority factions that might otherwise legislatively oppress minority interests. Extensive size also meant a larger pool of “enlightened” and “virtuous” candidates to serve as representatives in the federal government.78
Scholars have made much of Madison’s turning Montesquieu on his head, but a fuller explanation of his thesis appeared in a letter written to Jefferson shortly after the Philadelphia Convention. Madison cautioned against an excessively large republic because of its diversity. He warned that “a defensive concert” of the people “may be rendered too difficult against the oppression of those entrusted with the administration.”79 The outcome would be despotism by means of “divide et impera,” a threat Madison emphasized in the 1790s when he thought plutocratic forces were “reviving exploded parties and taking advantage of all prejudices, local, political, and occupational, that may prevent or disturb a general coalition of sentiments.”80 Excessive diversity worried Madison because he regarded the checks and balances of America’s political system as “auxiliary precautions.”81 The primary defense against despotism was the “vigilant and manly spirit” of sufficiently patriotic citizens.82 If diversity eroded the “mutual confidence and affection” of the people, then Madison believed this checking force would short-circuit.83 His solution was therefore a “sphere of a mean extent”—that is, a republic that was large enough to mitigate majority factions without being so large that plutocracy emerged.84
Madison did argue that it was possible to “extend the sphere” with federative governance and by nurturing social homogeneity.85 The latter could be done with a true Republican Party, education, progressive taxation, and communicative activities like road building, commerce, and the circulation of newspapers.86 However, Madison never indicated that the size of a republic could expand indefinitely or that his solution to class warfare could operate in a racially and culturally diverse country. On the contrary, the preponderance of evidence supports the opposite conclusion.
The research findings of this chapter point to two concluding thoughts. First, there may be plenty of good reasons to criticize Trump. His critics may not be entirely wrong when they identify him with the populist demagogue whom Montesquieu and the Founders warned against.87 That said, Trump’s immigration policies would not have offended the Constitution’s authors, who were not really celebrants of diversity. Had the Founders known that America would become the diverse country it is today, they would have established a different form of government. What this regime would look like extends beyond the scope of this chapter. But we can assume that if Madison were around, he would be warning us that cultural diversity has rendered America vulnerable to plutocratic elites ruling over a divided citizenry.88 He and other Founders might even recommend that we imitate their actions in 1787: scrap the Constitution and begin anew. By now, the United States is so fractured along moral, ideological, and cultural lines that the old federal framework may have been rendered obsolete.89
For those interested in this topic, an appropriate place to begin would be the Anti-Federalists. Many of these thinkers rejected the Constitution because they believed preserving liberty in a republic the size of America required a decentralized political system in which the domestic affairs of diverse peoples could be locally governed.90 Localism would ensure that representatives had real affinity for their constituents and a true understanding of their particular needs. Failing that, corrupt or incompetent representatives could be held accountable by culturally similar constituents who understood local politics, wanted the same things, and retained the social capital necessary to form defensive concerts against tyranny. Some Anti-Federalists also favored a decentralized system because people could escape despotism by moving to more congenial states.91