A Review of Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America
To successfully date a beautiful woman, you must study Heraclitus closely. You never meet the same woman twice. She is, as fire, always moving, changing, complexifying–creating and burning immense amounts of (your) energy. So how do you tame the fire? How do you know where the blaze is going? Read her next move? Women, fire, Trump: all must be traced and studied as repeated becomings.
Donald J. Trump, like my Mrs. Waters, cannot be understood simply by where she is at a given moment. This is the mistake many have made with Trump, a mistake I have yet to make with my wife.
Taking a snapshot of Trump at any given moment will reveal a multitude of seemingly contradictory opinions devoid of a clear political direction, yet taken as a trajectory, we see something very real and terrifying to the American Left. He has moved from Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley to Rubio 3.0 and Tulsi Gabbard; from Mike Pence and Jared Kushner to J.D. Vance and an army of frat boys. Trump’s political movement is hard to parse because we’re often standing too close when we need to see each stroke as a blue-sky Monet: Sometimes strange. Never expected. Always offensive.
Since 2017, writers, wonks, and nonprofits have been trying to make their mark by defining Trumpism after Trump. Now, after his nonconsecutive election to the presidency, his legacy comes into remarkable focus. His is the second coming of the long nineteenth century: a Reveille for Andrew Jackson’s America. President Jackson was the man who left no successor because America was his successor. Every man was his vice president, his lieutenant, his son. Jackson himself was Caesar in the American Empire of Liberty.
Even as no resource or conference or organization has contained Trump’s fiery complexities into an articulable agenda, Kevin Roberts’ work, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, comes very close to mapping his movement’s trajectory. Unsurprisingly, the whole book is built around the theme of fire (the subtitle was originally Burning Down Washington to Save America) and features a foreword by the heir-apparent of the torch: J.D. Vance.
The book is excellent on its own terms and offers a far more creative and original vision for the American Right than most contemporary Swamp-publications, blending Reaganite Western optimism for America’s future regarding technology and individualism with Southern prioritization of the family and tradition with distrust of federal overreach. In many ways, the whole of the past three decades of passion and thought on the right is synthesized for the moment in Dawn’s Early Light.
Optimism can be found on almost every page, and not just for the spirit of capitalism. In a move I have not seen his fellow Roman Catholics make, Roberts calls the Right “The party of Creation.” It’s a double entendre, as the Right is the confessor of God’s creation as it is, yet also as creators in their own right. This gives him the flexibility to stand upon the old tradition of natural law and nature’s God while viewing both basic familial life, like childbirth, as well as technical development, like space programs, through the lens of creative optimism.
Himself a devoted reader of C.S. Lewis, one wonders if Roberts believes The Abolition of Man is already complete, or so nearly complete that technological advancement is the only way to salvage the American image marred by “the party of Destruction.” Roberts himself admits that his parents’ divorce (amidst a terrible recession) and his brother’s subsequent suicide both revealed a quiet family network grounded in his centuries-long Cajun heritage, yet the crises of the 1980s also used up all the social capital he had there. As a successful educator and family man, he gratefully learned from his family’s past and has since moved to Wyoming, Texas, and now Washington, D.C., to preserve the way of life that saved him. But this reader was a little skeptical: is the fraying world of Roberts’ childhood still kicking? Are there any more Buchananite Cajuns waiting in the wings? Anyone who can place a strong, moralizing hand on the budding Right-wing techno-optimism?
The hometown decline that Dr. Roberts experienced in his childhood is a potential red flag for another reason: not only will small towns not produce the men who love their homes, but the development of technology might actually entrap those born leaders into a downward, entropic cycle. In the words of First Things reviewer Nathan Pinkoski, “We may be entering a world of scarcity, in which innovation will happen at two speeds. In such a world, actual innovation happens only among a few. For the rest of the nation, progress stalls.” Jeremiah warned against prophets who foresaw the coming destruction yet shouted, “‘peace, peace; when there is no peace.”
Maybe Kevin Roberts’ vision (and it’s a farsighted vision: he predicted an alliance between Silicon Valley Tech and social conservatism before Trump’s assassination attempt and subsequent apotheosis) is too good to be true, and he’s closed his eyes to the inevitable Managerialist decline of the United States. Put another way, “What if the American frontier has forever closed?”
The only way to answer Pinkoski is to go back to, you guessed it, the American Founding.
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now.” So prophesied the American radical Thomas Paine. Paine is the persona non grata of the founders’ generation, everything conservatives stand against. Yet there was something he understood about the nature of the United States: that it was an opportunity not seen since the days of Noah. The atheistic prophet of biblical utopianism was not alone in seeing America as a new civilizational beginning. Terrified, the Federalist, Fisher Ames, wrote to a friend of America’s westward expansion that “by adding an unmeasured world, we rush like a comet into infinite space.” This was not a compliment for a New Englander.
Troublesome prophet and cranky Federalist alike testified to the truth: America is a new world. They were blasphemous in a strong, God-fearing civilization. New worlds emerge through treason, sedition, or national collapse. For any but God to deluge the world is mass murder. But once the judgment is done, outside man’s control, the only thing to do is to raise up an altar, be fruitful, and multiply.
Edmund Burke lived in a Christian civilization, surrounded by steepled temples–all belonging to the conforming Church of England. Nature in England was sanctified. But for the framers of our constitutional government, not to mention the Acadian settlers of Louisiana, the Scots-Irish cresting the Appalachians, the trappers, and explorers going even further west–the United States were a collection of outposts and cabins in a continent waiting to be reaped. And reaped it was. For the next century and a half, Americans tamed the West–nature itself–and all those who lived there. Theodore Roosevelt, realizing this closing of a sphere, frantically searched for ways of propagating that masculine greatness and spirit that had inspired Noah and his covenantal fulfillment in David Livingstone, giving dignity and life to the sons of Ham.
T.R.’s aims came crashing down in the world wars, technological nightmares, as America found herself crusading for an old world hellbent on suicide. In those two noble attempts to revive Christendom along American principles of liberty and sovereignty, three of T.R.’s sons died, and with them went the last vestiges of the old American right and their tripartite rally of life, liberty, and property.
It was the president of this second crusade, a Roosevelt whose bodily breakdown matched the decline of the nation’s old ways (and the precise inverse of his cousin’s physiological trajectory), that led to the split of the modern conservative movement from the political mainstream. The old WASPs were decadent and corrupt, uninterested in the past, and thereby unable to imagine a future outside of sex and materialism. If they served in the Second World War, they would not serve afterward. So, a Mexican-born Irish Catholic would take up the mantle of tradition–and, like another New England Catholic upstart, would take up the WASP aesthetic–calling himself a conservative.
As Matthew Continetti notes, Buckley’s conservative movement was something of an aberration in the history of the American Right. Is anyone surprised? Until then, the American Right was not merely conservative of a complete civilization, it was radical–a word Dr. Roberts keenly notes refers to the roots of a tree–and the more radically grounded in the soil of the past it became, the more it would blossom into something only partially known.
But America after 1945 was like those early twentieth century baseball teams, crammed into a city block, yet with a disproportionate amount of money, influence, and success. This new American Conservatism, fighting against the secular materialism, managerialism, and apathy to communism yet missing from its ranks the greatest scientists, innovators and businessmen (especially after exorcising the John Birch Society), was a fragment of the old American right without the conversation partners that made the old Right so American to begin with. It was an America without the Mohican, Mormon, or Mexican. No more Fifty-Four Forty or Fight, no more Knights of the Golden Circle, no more renegade Carnegie or upstart Vanderbilt. The United States put away childish things and joined the adult world. America was now about conservation, like managers of a dead uncle’s estate rather than a Johnny Appleseed planting trees for future explorers. America stopped becoming and started being. And America is really bad at being.
Some will object to this progressive language–Buckley would. But Buckley had his shot, and he couldn’t conserve his world, so why should we die on his hill?
Image: Rocky Mountains. Emigrants Crossing the Plains, Fanny F. Palmer (1866).
“Social conservatism” is just a polysyllabic way of saying ‘wife-beaters.’ Please be honest and quit pretending you care about any woman including your domestic drudge/ broodmare and any daughters she accidentally produces. (You will sell your daughters to the first loser who makes a decent bid for her when she’s 13.)
I’d be far more concerned with the ethics of silicon valley than with the social conservatives, since they actually do sell their embryonic children.
Karen, gaslight much?
Karen has to be a fake account. No one can genuinely believe the absurdities she routinely spews forth.
American Reformer is apparently blocking my comments as a rural working class community member concerned with rural health. American Reformer clearly is not interested in significant policy discussions, and definitely NOT interested in working class values and priorities.
Let’s see if I can trick the ELITE SNOT BOT at American Reformer by posting my comments in sections:
I watched a summary of the book BY the author AT the author’s Youtube channel. It may be more logical that the American Reformer Elite Enot reviewer made it out to be.
I am a lifelong resident of Southern rural working class communities, born and raised in small working family farm. I chopped wood for the cook stove – that mother used for making meals, canning vegetables, etc … and keeping the downstairs warn and cozy. I milked the family cow (Brown Jersey, etc) daily. Mother sold cream for household money. Father worked in a local factory but the farm was the work that he loved. I never knew – through my teens – that Thanksgiving was about ‘turkey’: that was the day we have community hog butchering because it was the first predictably COLD enough day that most men and women had off their off-farm jobs.
I’d be interested to know how the apparently posh elite snots who contribute most articles here spent their Thanksgivings through their teen years.
I am a long-time advocate with rural health. The health of rural populations and communities have been systematically neglected for generations. Rural communities have highly disproportionate rates of poor health, chronic illness, disabilities, aged and child poverty. I have found Democrats and Republicans about equally abusive of rural folks’ health. On the one hand Ds ridiculously promote ‘abortion on demand’ as if that is the highest health priority of rural folks; on the other hand Rs claim to love babies, and especially unborn ones, but whenever I ask decline to show any concern – through law, policy and budgeting – to ensure adequate, affordable, available maternity and infant health care in rural communities. HUNDREDS of rural hospitals, clinics, maternity units, cancer units, mental health units, etc have CLOSED in the past 10 years! HUNDREDS more are at risk of closure.
At least the Biden WH came up with the Rural Emergency Hospital model and DID SAVE at least 32 rural hospitals: search at the Beckers Hospital Review website for ’16 things to know about rural emergency hospitals’
I DARE the elite snots who write most of the pieces at American Reformer to
– DETAIL articles from their publications (e.g. the writer of this piece’s publication Providence Magazine, and the others) that FOCUS on rural American communities
– DETAIL how their local congregations – and how they personally – are following Jesus’ commands and direct example of bringing health to rural working classes and struggling households
– DETAIL policies of the Trump Administration that are ensuring hospitals, clinics, and health supports RETURN and THRIVE in rural communities, to replace the HUNDREDS that have closed
We rural Americans are eager to know. We also are not stupid and know how to read … and as most Southern working class folks can do … to ‘read BETWEEN the lines’ of folks say or write. It is fairly easily ‘read between the lines’ of lots of American Reformer pieces that ya’ll are infected – whether you know it or not – with an elite snot eugenics that makes up hierarchies of human dignity, putting yourselves and your posh pretty families and colleagues at the top, and everyone else below. And, it does shine through that you – along with the your early 20th century ‘Progressive’ elite snot eugenical forebears – ranks those with ‘Black’ skin at the bottom, and working class rural folks (where there is considerable affiliation and marriage with Black folks) barely above the bottom.
I DARE you to prove otherwise.
Thank you.
From Beckers: rural hospitals saved in the Biden Administration
Arkansas – 4 rural hospitals
Georgia – 3 rural hospitals
Kansas – 2 rural hospitals
Kentucky – 1 rural hospital
Louisiana – 1 rural hospital
Michigan – 1 rural hospital
Minnesota – 1 rural hospital
Mississippi – 6 rural hospitals
Missouri – 1 rural hospital
Nebraska – 1 rural hospital
New Mexico – 1 rural hospital
Oklahoma – 4 rural hospitals
Tennessee – 1 rural hospital
Texas – 5 rural hospitals
Rural hospitals save in Trump1 Administration – ZERO
Rural hospital saved in Trump2 Administration – ZERO so far, and tinkering much with Medicaid will DEFINITELY SHUT some down, and tinkering much with Medicare (e.g. enforcing more ‘Advantage’ plans – that typically underpay rural hospitals) WITH ABSOLUTELY SHUT more down
My heart goes out to rural hospitals. I have friends who serve in them, friends who have been healed by them, and my own wife who was born in one. We have a physical and spiritual health crisis in this nation, and your comment has reminded me to pray for those suffering today. God bless.
Thank you. We’ll see if the elite snot writers of most of American Reformers’ piece have anything to say. I asked several questions. They are prolific writers – betraying privileged backgrounds and livelihoods – unlikely in the trades, construction, manual/machined manufacturing, agriculture, trucking and delivery, nursing home or hospital health care delivery, etc – so, NOT to respond tells a tale. Thank you again, God is a great blessing, always.
Beckers (a BUSINESS publication not a ‘government’ or ‘think tank’ publication) just published a piece – 10 states where hospitals will struggle most – ABOUT the BUSINESS of rural hospitals:
“The potential rollback of federal support for Medicaid expansion could significantly hamper hospital revenue — particularly those serving rural or underserved communities — leading to substantial declines in hospital spending and increases in uncompensated care. … House Republicans could drastically alter [the Medicaid] funding model by imposing per capita spending caps, work requirements and reducing the enhanced Federal Medical Assistance Percentage from 90% to each state’s standard Medicaid matching rate, which varies between 50% and 74%. A federal Medicaid funding cut would likely force some states to drop Medicaid expansion altogether, leading to an estimated 10.8 million more uninsured Americans, according to the analysis. This would have dire financial consequences for hospitals, which rely on Medicaid reimbursements to offset the costs of providing care to low-income populations.”
American Reformer elite snots are UTTERLY UNSERIOUS about policy description, discussion of tradeoffs, and outcomes. The just mouth ‘Woke Right’ cancel culture … just like the ‘Woke Left’. They care nothing about working class folks, and particularly care nothing about rural working class communities.
For example there is a strong policy argument for requiring some scope and level of work or other contribution to premiums and/or economic vitality of the local community. BUT rural communities RARELY have adequate variety of jobs and access to workplaces that would be required for all rural Medicaid beneficiaries to comply? WHAT THEN? And there is usually NO reliable transportation into exurban or suburban areas that have adequate job availability. SO WHAT ABOUT THAT?! Rural populations have higher or much higher rates of serious chronic illness, disabilities, and activity-limiting conditions. Even if these rural folks could get assistive transportation to exurban/suburban workplaces will there be adequate supportive workplaces for them to work? Hummhhhh?!
Use your big ol’ pampered elite brains please American Reformer-ites: WHAT are your policy discussions about these few factors?
And of course we can raise many more policy factors after you’ve worked through these. For example: these health-burdened workers may need special accommodations (required by law, and morality). Discuss that. They will need to FIND clinic and hospital care near where they live: BUT HUNDREDS of those have closed and many HUNDREDS MORE are likely to close. So, where – pray tell – where these rural workers get care?
If you live in one of these states, or have family or dear ones there, or care AT ALL about Americans there –
Indiana
New Mexico
Oregon
North Dakota
New York
Arizona
Louisiana
Oklahoma
North Carolina
Washington
– that are the most likely to have the greatest adversity from tinkering with Medicaid –
what are your plans to keep rural hospitals working.
OH, and not only working but with UP TO STATE services and QUALITY? I know many rural folks who call the closest poor-quality rural hospital ‘a band aid’ or ‘stomach ache’ hospital, meaning they don’t think they or a loved one would survive if they went there with a difficult pregnancy, life threatening injury (and many rural folks have such horrible accidents), a stroke (again, disproportionately common in rural populations), and a hundred other conditions that require expertise, advanced imaging, etc).
AND we’ve not even begun to discuss one of the LARGE – and little known – Medicaid programs: NURSING HOME CARE for those unable to return home. And if you’re too sick or disabled to return home you are likely unable to work.
Unless you’d like to milk the disabled elderly for blood.
There are 3 constants when it comes to understanding Trump. The first is that he does and says what he does and says for his own self-recognition. Here we should remember how many times he has praised himself and marketed himself as the only person who can fix things.
The second is that profit margin is one of the bottom lines by which he judges the legitimacy of American institutions and our relationships with other nations.
The third is that Trump has consistently shown the desire to increase his own power in government.
To praise Trump while ignoring the above 3 traits is both disingenuous and deceitful.