What would a right wing anti-war movement look like?
A brief history of anti-war resistance on the right, and some guidelines as to what would make an effective right wing anti-war movement today
Oh AI “art,” I both love and hate you. :-)
I
A brief sketch of previous right wing resistance to foreign wars
Because the boomers were so successful at promoting “the 60s,” though TV and movies, most Americans have a certain stereotype of what an “anti-war movement,” looks like based on the anti-Vietnam war protests. Namely an anti-war movement is leftist and features crazed hippies, or in the modern context blue haired screeing harpies. But nothing could actually be further from the truth, in fact from George Washington’s Farewell Address through 200 years later with the Paleo-Libertarian Ron Paul movement, there has always been a strong right wing conservative distrust of the authoritarian nature of a nation at war, and pleas that America remain safe and secure within its borders only and avoid foreign wars.
For the purpose of this essay I am just going to briefly hit some conservative/right wing events in the American tradition of resisting unnecessary foreign wars, before turning to a practical look at what a present day right wing anti-war movement would look like.
To start out, George Washington in his Farewell Address of 1796 warned of passionate attachments or hostility towards other nations as leading to wars, and that war time governments are more authoritarian with rash ill considered policies.
“In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated.”
George Washington Farewell Address 1796:
George Washington’s Farewell Address set the tone for American foreign policy for the next 100 years that America’s proper role in the world was as a peaceful trade partner and not a nation searching abroad for foreign monsters to destroy. While the deviation from this in essence isolationist America First policy came fairly soon in the form of The Monroe Doctrine, full scale hostilities with overseas foreign countries did not happen until the annexation of the Philippines and The Spanish American War of 1898.
The American government’s aggression in the Caribbean war showed that America had changed a lot in the 100 years since Washington’s Farewell Address, an industry owning elite establishment had risen that despised the rural yeoman farmers of America’s founding culture, and they used the “yellow press” to propagandize for wars that served the interests of the economic elite in America’s coastal cities. This engendered a reaction from many Americans including traditional Americans who correctly saw that having an overseas empire was a betrayal of baseline American values. This led to the formation of the Anti-Imperialist League, an interesting alliance of bankers, writers, public intellectuals, etc. Mark Twain was the most famous member of the AIL and wrote this savage sentence mocking the annexation of the Philippines:
“And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one—our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.”
Mark Twain 1901
So the original founding spirit of Washington’s Farewell Address was still alive in the American population at large especially among rural “prairie radicals,” while it had pretty much vanished in America’s urban coastal establishment elite and in the editorial boards of the large circulation newspapers that were being increasingly used to propagandize Americans to support foreign wars.
The yellow press would be even more important in getting America into WWI, and that ideological blitz led to the formation of the formal science of propaganda headed up by Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays. Since this is not a history paper, but a brief sketch of right wing and conservative resistance to American overseas wars, I am going to leave my coverage of the world wars to that brief remark, though obviously there is more to say abut political propaganda and the world wars that I will perhaps address in a future essay. Instead for now I am going to skip ahead to near the present day and the Libertarian resistance to the second Persian Gulf war that was spearheaded by Ron Paul.
After a long near absence from WWI through Vietnam, the antiwar isolationist right was picking up the ball again in being a leading voice of resistance to foreign wars. Dr. Paul wisely said:
“The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.”
We can be grateful Dr. Paul is still with us today, and he will no doubt still be an instrumental figure in resisting a drive to WWIII due to the establishments repeatedly poking and taunting the bear in Russia.
The time to organize a movement against a war is ideally before the war happens, so it can be ready in full force if the fateful bombs drop and conscription is rolled out. So what would this modern anti-war movement look like, and what can it learn from the success of past right wing wing anti-war movements and the failure of more recent left led anti-war “activism?”
II
A modern right wing anti-war movement should have several important features
Free speech for all comers left and right, but the speech anyone engages in as part of the movement needs to be focused on stopping NATO/U.S. foreign wars and drastically shrinking U.S. military bases overseas only. It will be crucial to be firm and actually cut off the mic of anyone who starts ranting about LGBTQ or “the Green New Deal,” etc.
More of a focus on symposiums, public lectures, media and social media appearances than street demonstrations. Street demonstrations are a left activist culture thing. And even when the right does street demoes they are usually disastrous like Charlottesville.
Laser like focus on stopping the war only, clown show left style demonstrations that bring in every idpol, class and environmental issue under the sun like scantily clad alphabet people will be verboten. Snappy and professional will be key. This will be a serious movement about a serious subject, not a bunch of stoned hippies playing bongos badly and dancing worse. Not that there is anything wrong will amateur music and dancing badly, but leave it at the bar or concert venue.
III
Resources for right wing anti-war warriors
1. Antiwar.com, the IMO best right leaning anti-war website.
2. The American Conservative online.
3. The Mises camp of Libertarians.
5. Responsible Statecraft from The Libertarian Institute/
7. Judge Napolitano, “Judging Freedom,” Interviews with many right leaning anti-war people.
9. Full text of George Washington’s Farewell Address, a classic America First, isolationist document.
Note many of these sources are directly or indirectly associated with the Mises Caucasus of the Libertarian party, while I personally am not a big L Libertarian, we are all going to have to be flexible about who we work with, and big L Libertarians will certainly be a strong part of any right wing anti-war coalition.
This is of course merely a brief sketch, let me know what you think below, and most especially hook me up with right wing anti war articles and literature I didn’t mention.
If you would like to support a reactionary hermit anti-warrior you can support me with a direct subscription here, or 3 other ways.
On Ko-Fi which is nice because they currently aren’t charging any fees
At Buy Me A Coffee with an individual donation, or a 2 dollar a month membership.
I also accept Paypal raven200@gmail.com
Or consider buying one of my paper cuts, 40 dollars via Pay, or shipped free if you commit to a year subscription to my Substack of at least 55 dollars.
I think it would be great to see the right organize to stop war, while the left continues its demonstrations, actions, etc. It's an all hands on deck moment.
This is a handy list, thanks!