The original essay from American Moment's founders that started it all. Released in November of 2020, 'We Will Not Go Back' was an opening salvo, declaring independence from the old ways of thinking that have burdened the Republican party.
For decades the American Right stagnated under an old consensus typified by loose borders, free trade absolutism, foreign adventurism in the name of “freedom,” technological stagnation, and a disregard for the substantive plight of the American family. In short: the relentless pursuit of a corporate agenda that left everyday Americans behind.
Then, in 2016, shockwaves wracked the American Right. The Republican Party and the conservative movement realized that old orthodoxies on trade, immigration, foreign policy, and countless other issues had paper-thin support among independent voters and the Republican base.
Incumbent political elites, many of whom feigned support for Republican voters and American families, saw Trump’s victory as a “fluke,” a racist “white-lash,” or dismissed it as a phenomenon that would come and go.
Because the elite classes of the American right held fiercely onto their outdated ways, President Trump lacked the critical infrastructure in and out of government to deliver on the agenda he ran and won on. Grifters latched onto his coattails, and the establishment painted “MAGA” onto their trojan horses and parasitized his presidency.
As we wait on the final, legitimate, result of the 2020 Presidential election, we know in our bones that whether President Trump leaves office in 4 months or 4 years that the old establishment will seek to return to an outdated agenda. Make no mistake: this process has begun and is underway at this very moment.
We know that the old consensus is an electoral and civilizational dead-end. The establishment of old has weakened America beyond imagination. But young Americans who will inherit the country know one thing above all:
We will not go back.
We recognize that the threats facing America in 2020 are not the same threats that faced us when Ronald Reagan rose to his era’s callings. Today’s challenges are different: cratering marriage and fertility rates, the complete dissolution of national solidarity, and a rising China that threatens the economic prosperity and security of all Americans. These problems require new solutions and an entirely new public policy framework if the American Right is to succeed.
Family, Nation, Work, Faith, Community, Sovereignty, and Substantive Growth must be the orienting values of an American right prepared to govern and lead this great nation in the 21st Century. These are the building blocks of any healthy civilization.
We don’t endeavor to liberalism-lite, a worldview that seeks to champion the Democratic platform of 2010, nor do we believe there is any way to restore the post-war era of the 1950s. We seek an America where families can thrive and grow, where faith and tradition are supported, where workers are treated fairly, where technological progress begins anew, and where our distinctly American identity is nourished and preserved.
As it has in generations past, young patriots will meet the challenges of this American moment and usher in the next chapter of the conservative political project.