I have no doubt that Peter Smith loves the West. You can feel it in every line of his writing – the anger at its enemies, the contempt for its betrayal, the frustration at its leaders who lack the courage to defend it.
While Peter is writing in response to my recent essay, I share his frustration. And I suspect we share something deeper still: a sense that we were born into a civilisation worth preserving, and that we now live in a time when that task has never felt more urgent.
Peter sees Donald Trump as a defender of the West. I do not. I see a figure who, claiming to protect the house, is tearing out its beams.
And so this is not an argument about politics. It is a reckoning – a test, not of Trump, but of us.
Let us examine this more closely. Peter celebrates Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship by executive order, describing it as merely giving “the Supreme Court the opportunity to re-address the matter.”
But he then asks, “What does ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States mean in today’s world?” That question reveals more than he perhaps intends.
For decades, it has been progressives – not conservatives – who have championed the idea of a “living constitution,” in which the plain meaning of constitutional text must yield to modern sensibilities. Conservatives, by contrast, have long insisted that constitutional provisions must be interpreted according to their original meaning.
So it is curious to find Peter now invoking precisely the interpretive method that conservatives have spent years opposing – not to clarify the Constitution, but to make space for executive circumvention of it. The irony could hardly be more telling.
In fact, the original meaning of Article 14 is clear – notwithstanding protestations to the contrary. The 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” As I explained in a recent column, the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was extensively debated during the Amendment’s drafting. The Supreme Court affirmed in 1898 that it excludes only children of foreign diplomats and hostile occupying forces (who are indeed not subject to the jurisdiction of domestic laws) – not immigrants, documented or otherwise, who are plainly subject to American law.
If we accept the premise that constitutional protections can be rewritten, what remains of constitutional order? Tomorrow, perhaps First or Second. Constitutional rights would become subject not to the fixed meaning of the text, but to shifting interpretations – shaped by politics or executive preference – rather than amendment through the constitutional process.
The same pattern appears in Peter’s dismissal of limited government. When he scoffs, “Since when has government been limited?” his argument essentially becomes: because the principle has been eroded, we should discard it entirely.
This logic, if applied more broadly, would suggest abandoning every virtuous pursuit that meets resistance. If honesty has declined in society, should we abandon the ideal of truthfulness? If free speech becomes unpopular, should we stop defending it? If property rights are routinely infringed, should we cease to uphold them? Surely part of conservatism is holding fast to enduring principles even – or especially – when they are under siege.
Peter says that when one is attacked in a dark alley, it is foolish to insist on Queensberry rules. Perhaps. But we are not in an alley. We are on the steps of the Capitol. We are in parliaments and courts and newspapers. We are supposed to be stewards of a tradition that believes even in war, there are limits. Even in crisis, there is law.
To abandon those restraints – to treat politics as a blood sport where only the strong survive – is to become what we fear. It is to join the vandals in breaking the furniture of civilisation merely because the other side did it first.
Consider the matter of trade, which animates both Peter and Trump. Peter admits to having once supported free trade but has since “wobbled.” His justification – “free trade is a myth” because “countries cheat” – rebrands protectionism as realism.
But this ignores economic reality. As I explained in The Art of the Fail, when governments impose tariffs, the costs are borne primarily by their own citizens, not foreign exporters. A 25 per cent tariff on imported steel becomes a 25 per cent tax on American manufacturers who use steel and ultimately on American consumers who buy their products.
The recent market reaction to Trump’s sweeping tariffs was not political theatre but the predictable response to policies that raise costs, disrupt supply chains, invite retaliation, and threaten global recession. The $6.6 trillion market loss in two days represents real economic harm to Americans, including many Trump voters.
Are we to believe that free market principles, long a cornerstone of conservative thought, should be abandoned the moment they become politically inconvenient?
Peter would say this is naïve. I say it is conservative.
He writes that Trump’s deviation from constitutional norms is exaggerated. But Trump has declared that “he who saves his country violates no law.” That is not constitutionalism. That is absolutism. That is the cry of every tyrant from Caesar to Napoleon. And now, apparently, of the American right.
I do not believe Peter is a tyrant. Far from it. But I do believe he is falling into the oldest trap in politics – to fight the monster by becoming it.
In Goethe’s Faust, we meet a scholar who trades his soul for worldly mastery. In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gave us Gollum, a creature once noble, corrupted by the power he sought to wield. In both stories, the tragic irony is the same: the hero who forgets that how we fight determines what we become.
This pattern recurs throughout the conservative movement’s embrace of Trump. Take his handling of independent regulatory agencies. By executive order, Trump now demands that all such agencies submit their decisions to White House control.
These agencies were designed by Congress to operate with meaningful independence, protected from direct political interference. Their autonomy allows them to enforce laws without partisan manipulation. Trump’s order would transform them into instruments of presidential power – able to reward allies and punish enemies through selective enforcement.
A conservative might once have opposed such concentration of power on principle. Today, many celebrate it because their side holds the reins. But power changes hands. The tools of executive control forged today will eventually serve different masters.
Traditional conservatives understood this, which is why they valued institutional restraints that transcended partisan advantage.
Peter defends all this – Trump’s tariffs, his rhetoric, his disdain for convention – because he sees them as necessary; as a way to beat the left at its own game. But conservatism was never supposed to be a mirror of the left. It was meant to be its antidote.
Edmund Burke, whom I sure Peter will have previously quoted, warned against tearing down institutions in fits of moral fervour. He feared, above all, the triumph of passion over prudence – the kind of populist energy that, unmoored from principle and tradition, threatens the very fabric of civil society.
I understand Peter’s anger. I even share some of it. But there is a difference between righteous anger and vengeful power. The former corrects; the latter corrupts.
Peter ends his essay by invoking Churchill. But Churchill did not gain his greatness by shouting louder than his enemies. He gained it by standing for something deeper – for liberty under law, for civilisation under restraint. Churchill operated within parliamentary norms even during wartime emergency. He respected judicial independence. He maintained the civil service’s integrity rather than demanding personal loyalty. He understood that saving the West required more than bluster. It required honour, discipline, and moral seriousness.
If the West is to be saved, it will not be by mimicking those who threaten it. It will be by remembering what made it great: a belief in rules over rulers, in principles over passions and in institutions over idols.
This is not sentimental idealism; it is practical wisdom. The prosperity and freedom that we seek to defend were built on the very principles now being discarded: limited government, constitutional restraint, free exchange, respect for law.
If we abandon these in our haste to defeat our opponents, we may win the battle but lose the civilisation we were fighting for.
I do not ask Peter to become a liberal. I ask him to be what he already is – a conservative. And to remember that to conserve is not merely to win, but to preserve.
Even in a house fire, some walls are worth saving. And sometimes, those walls are the only things holding up the roof.
To read the full article on the Quadrant website, click here.
Thanks for this thought provoking post, Roger... it is well worth reading.