The Volokh Conspiracy

Recent political developments have rekindled longstanding debates over "fusionism," the combination of libertarianism and conservative traditionalism that dominated the American right from roughly the late 1970s through the early years of this century. That dominance has been severely undermined and likely overthrown by the rise of nationalism and "postliberalism." But some would like to revive it. Reason editor Stephanie Slade's important new book Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right outlines one notable case for such a revival.

I agree with Slade, Jonathan Adler, and others that fusionism is far preferable to nationalism and postliberalism. But I am skeptical about its political viability. In addition, fusionism has significant conceptual flaws. Finally, at least in the short to medium term future, an alliance with "abundance liberals" is probably a more promising political strategy for libertarians than a revival of fusionism.

Despite my relative skepticism about a revival, I readily acknowledge fusionism's significant past achievements, and ongoing superiority over various other tendencies on the conservative right. Between the 1970s and the early 2000s, fusionist conservatives and libertarians (sometimes with the help of moderate/"neoliberal" Democrats) made huge contributions to such achievements as deregulation of many sectors of the economy, reducing tax rates, reinvigorating constitutional protection for property rights and limits on federal government power, and the West's triumph in the Cold War. While early fusionists sometimes undervalued the Civil Rights movement and were soft on racism, over time most of them came to promote color-blindness and and abjuring racial and ethnic discrimination in government policy. They even, for a long time, succeeded in making racial and ethnic color-blindness the dominant approach to such issues in the conservative movement. William F. Buckley and other fusionists also worked to purge the political right of its longstanding tendencies towards anti-Semitism. In combination, these are no small achievements.

The Rise of Right-Wing Nationalism and Postliberalism

But, especially over the last decade, fusionism has been displaced by nationalism as the dominant ideology of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Where fusionism sought to reconcile traditionalism and liberty, nationalism is a grave menace to liberty across a wide range of issues. Consider Donald Trump's massive tariffs, federal takeovers of numerous private corporations, attempts to use the FCC and other government agencies to undermine free speech, and policy of mass deportations (which threatens the civil liberties and economic future of native-born citizens as well as immigrants).

Instead of color-blindness and nondiscrimination, we now have a conservative movement increasingly permeated with racial and ethnic bigotry and anti-Semitism of the kind fusionists sought to purge. Prominent right-wing "influencers" go so far as to claim we need to bar Indian immigrants because they work too hard and undermine the objectives of "homogeneity" and "maintain[ing] a white majority in the country." Many congressional Republicans also promote religious discrimination in immigration and other policies. In foreign policy, Trump has undermined relations with liberal democratic allies like Canada, Australia, and the nations of the European Union, and kowtowed towards illiberal nationalist authoritarians like Vladimir Putin.

Trump's idiosyncratic personal predilections contribute to some of these developments. But most arise from inherent tendencies of nationalism, which gravitates towards a zero-sum view of the world that leads to expanded government control of the economy, repression of racial and ethnic minorities, undermining civil liberties, and authoritarianism.

The "postliberalism" advocated by many leading right-wing intellectuals and activists is just as bad. Postliberals like Adrian Vermeule and Patrick Deneen are very clear about their desire to massively expand government control over the economy and civil society, and destroy both economic and personal liberties. Unlike nationalism, postliberalism has little mass public support. But it does have considerable influence among the intellectuals and activists who may staff future Republican administrations and congressional offices.

Illiberal big-government nationalism holds a strong sway over the Republican base. The 2024 election dramatically illustrates that. In the 2024 GOP presidential primary, Trump was challenged by Nikki Haley (a prominent advocate of traditional fusionism) and Ron DeSantis (popular governor of a major red state who tried to, in effect, split the difference between MAGA nationalism and pre-2016 conservatism). And, yet, despite the events of January 6, 2021 and numerous scandals, Trump not only beat these opponents, but did so very easily.  While that was partly due to his particular type of charisma, it also highlights the influence of illiberal nationalism over the GOP. Even now, with Trump increasingly unpopular, most congressional Republicans shy away from challenging his worst policies, for fear of losing to MAGA types in GOP primaries. Many of those who are willing to challenge him on major issues have either been ousted in GOP primaries (like Rep. Thomas Massie), or chose not to run for reelection because of the likelihood of suffering that fate (e.g. - Rep. Don Bacon).

Facing a difficult political environment in the 2026 midterm elections, some congressional Republicans have become more willing to criticize a few of Trump's policies, such as the badly mismanaged Iran War. But very few have repudiated his big-government nationalism across the board or called for a return to fusionism.

Perhaps this will all change once Trump leaves the scene. But we shouldn't count on it. At this point, the major likely contenders for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination - Vice-President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio - seem like they are vying for the mantle of inheritors of Trump's worst tendencies, not opponents of them.

Inherent Limitations of Fusionism

Even if fusionists do manage to regain control of the Republican Party and the conservative movement, the ideology's inherent limitations might undermine its value. The extent to which fusionism is compatible with strong protections for economic and personal liberty is actually ambiguous. Frank Meyer, a key founder of fusionism in the 1950s and 60s, famously argued that liberty and virtue are mutually reinforcing because liberty is what enables people to be truly virtuous. A person who only does the right thing because he is forced to by the state isn't truly virtuous at all. Think, for example, of a man who only refrains from violence and theft for fear of going to prison. A paragon of virtue he is not.

This position has considerable merit. But most social conservatives, including many otherwise sympathetic to fusionism, don't fully buy it, or even come close. They argue that, at least in many instances, we want to achieve virtuous behavior, regardless of the motivation for it. Or, at least, that doing the right thing for a bad reason is far preferable to not doing it at all. Thus, if you believe that using pornography, prostitution,  gambling, taking various drugs, and so on are inherently immoral, then you may well advocate using government power to suppress these activities, even if people who only refrain out of fear of punishment are not as virtuous as those who abjure them voluntarily.

Many conservative fusionists do, in fact, believe that a wide range of consensual activities like the above are inherently evil. Alternatively, many believe that we have to suppress at least some of them out of paternalism. For example, they argue we must suppress drugs, prostitution, and gambling, because people who do these things don't understand what's good for them.

For these reasons, most conservative fusionists have in fact been willing to endorse many policies that severely curtail liberty. Even Ronald Reagan - the president whose administration most exemplified fusionism - promoted a major expansion of the War on Drugs, a federal policy that massively curtails liberty by killing or imprisoning hundreds of thousands people merely because they have used, possessed, or distributed substances the government considers too risky. Reagan's drug policies were not as bad as Trump's policy of outright murdering supposed drug dealers in the Caribbean and Pacific. But they were very bad, even so - and a striking example of the limitations of fusionism.

Elsewhere, I have argued that, at this moment in political history, the best available potential allies for libertarians are "abundance liberals." They are by no means perfect. But they agree with us - to a large extent - on numerous major issues, including trade, immigration, nuclear power, "YIMBY" housing deregulation, and more. And, like us, they tend to oppose both left and right-wing ethnic identity politics (on which latter point see recent articles by Matt Yglesias and Kelsey Piper). On the whole, they are less paternalistic and less prone to advocate suppression of consensual activities than most fusionist conservatives. They also have considerably greater influence over the Democratic Party and the political left, generally, than fusionists currently have in the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

The left, of course, has its own dangerous illiberal menace in the form of "democratic socialists," whose statism has much in common with that of MAGA nationalists. But this faction is nowhere near dominating the Democratic Party and the political left to the degree that nationalists have come to dominate the right.

None of this proves that libertarians cannot continue work with fusionist conservatives at all. There are many issues on which there is still room for cooperation. I myself have worked with such conservatives in the Society for the Rule of Law, and in the effort to combat Trump's tariffs (where they played crucial roles in the litigation that led to the invalidation of Trump's IEEPA tariff power grab by the Supreme Court and in currently ongoing efforts to challenge his attempts to use other laws to reimpose sweeping tariffs).  Some conservative fusionists are more pro-liberty than others. And, for most, there is considerable variation across issues.

And, perhaps, things will be different in a decade or two. The Trumpist moment in right-wing politics may dissipate over time, though it seems unlikely to do so quickly.

Productive cooperation between libertarians and (some) conservatives is still very much possible. But we should recognize that fusionists are unlikely to regain control over the conservative movement anytime soon, and that fusionism has notable inherent limitations. Thus, we should look for other allies, and carefully limit the percentage of our eggs that we put in the fusionist basket. At this point, it cannot safely hold very many of them.