An American Conservative’s Dream, Seen Walking in London


Published December 16, 2019

The Washington Post

Have you ever seen a dream walking? I saw mine last week in London, and it was beautiful to behold.

For 10 years, I have urged my fellow Republicans and conservatives to reform. Our ideas grew cold as our voters grew old. To renew America’s promise for us and our nation’s posterity, we needed to follow our principles but adapt our policies. Only then could we meet new challenges and find new friends.

These new policies would return conservatism to its roots, shorn of the sectarianism and libertarianism that have choked it. The return to the idea that stable communities and families were of equal value to individual liberty would allow us to provide help to those who needed it. The return to faith in our unifying civic principles, what Lincoln called our “political religion,” would preserve religious liberty while allowing all creeds to share in its blessings. This renewed conservatism would allow us to talk with those who find modern movement conservatism disturbing, the blue-collar whites and minorities who want neither socialism nor unbridled capitalism, neither secularism nor sectarianism.

Click here to read the rest of this piece at the Washington Post’s website.

Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.


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