One thing the Right has forgotten through their bromides in favor of hyperindividualism and the meandering status quo-ism is that humans are inherently collective beings. While things like land collectivization and seizing the means of production are terrible as public policies, humans do yearn to connect with others under the banner of a shared culture, language, background, and history.

Families, tribes, churches, fraternities, and other voluntary organic collectives are an integral and necessary part of the human experience. One such collective, I argue, is more important than all of those: the nation. Without a strong nation, all else collapses beneath it. When Americans are united among a common patriotism, everything else seems to fall into place. When they are not, the Constitution becomes little more than a piece of paper and society crumbles.

The neoliberal and neoconservative consensus — indeed, two wings on the same bird of prey feasting away at what’s left of health and prosperity — have pushed a false ideology upon us. This ideology rewards rampant consumerism instead of thrift. It rewards selfishness at the expense of the greater good. It has caused free-falling birth rates, widespread cultural degeneracy, a fractured and atomized populous, the dumbing down of society, and now jeopardizes the future of Western civilization as we know it.