In Brief: The Right’s New Divide
Reminiscent of Tolkien’s illustration regarding using the Ring of Power, some are Frodo and others are Boromir.
The more fascinating political debates are often among those on the Right, not the ones between Right and Left. Tony Woodlief opens a window into a big part of that debate.
After attending NatCon, the recent National Conservatism conference featuring academics, wonks, theologians, and politicians like Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, and Ron DeSantis, I realized there are two factions within American conservatism: Team Frodo and Team Boromir.
Readers of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring remember Frodo as the hobbit tasked with destroying the Ring of Power lest it fall into the hands of the evil Sauron. Boromir was the traveling companion who urged Frodo to let him use the Ring’s power against their enemies. “Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our hands to serve us in the very hour of need?” he asked. “Wielding it the Free Lords of the Free may surely defeat the Enemy.”
Judging by which statements garnered enthusiastic applause, most NatCons identify as sons of Boromir, seeking to turn the massive power of the administrative state against a legion of enemies that include Big Tech, the Chinese Communist Party, and “woke Marxists” who now infest, it appears, public and private institutions alike, from universities to newspapers to Fortune 500 companies.
He points to several examples of speakers at the conference who argued that the Right needs to fight the Left with its own infrastructure and rules. Indeed, Donald Trump tapped into that sentiment, behaving like a Democrat to overcome the Democrats. It’s an understandable desire, and even arguably a very useful one. But Woodlief says that “Frodoists” aren’t entirely absent, either. They are the ones who urge great caution about such tactics, in large part because “government coercion of virtue usually backfires.”
He concludes:
The Boromir instinct, however, is to fight fire with fire. We in the Frodo faction don’t disagree about the threats posed by unaccountable federal agencies, unlimited wars, critical race theory in our schools, and other NatCon targets. It’s just that where NatCons would replace federal agency personnel with loyalists to reward friends and punish enemies, we Frodoists would fire the lot of them, remand their authority to states and communities, and go back to our gardening. While NatCons would ban CRT, Frodoists would break up big school districts, with confidence that local citizens can best decide how their children should be educated. Where NatCons would tax or even seize university endowments, Frodoists would route all federal subsidies through state legislatures, forcing greater accountability for universities to the publics they claim to serve.
The sons of Boromir believe in redirecting federal power, but we Frodoists say disperse it. Where NatCons admire Hungarian strongmen, Frodoists trust We the People, if only because we remember Lord Acton’s warning: “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Many NatCons would do well to remember, further, the admonition of Elrond, Lord of Rivendell regarding the Ring: “The very desire of it corrupts the heart.”
