Western conservatism collapses under the weight of MAGA

Or: Niall Ferguson and the emptying of the right-wing mind

In December 2024, flushed by the defeat of the hated libs, the historian Niall Ferguson wrote a jaw-dropping hymn of praise to Donald Trump. It now reads like an obituary for western conservatism.

Instead of being alarmed by the arrival of a far-right president, Ferguson and many of the other Anglo-American conservatives who gather around the Free Press and the Telegraph, were delighted.

Trump had clearly displayed his willingness to attack democracy after the 2020 presidential election. He had announced his admiration for the “savvy” Vladimir Putin and his contempt for Ukraine on multiple occasions, and declared his “love” for tariffs almost as often.

Our pro-American claque either did not notice or did not care. Their hatred of the left blinded them to the existence of the far right. Any enemy of the “woke” was their friend.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,” said Maya Angelou. But Ferguson and a legion of conservatives could not and would not see who Donald Trump was, the first time, the second time….the thousandth time.

Their wilful refusal to understand the stakes represented a breakdown of what was left of civilised right-wing thought. Western conservatives, who put the interests of Trump’s America first, became like western communists in the 20^th century, who upheld the interests of Stalin and the Soviet Union above all others.

In theory, they should have been able to oppose both woke authoritarianism and the far right simultaneously, just as their predecessors ought to have been able to simultaneously[i] oppose Nazism and communism in the 1930s. But it was too much to ask that they walk and chew gum at the same time.

Instead, Ferguson celebrated what he called – in ridiculously hip language for a man of his age – a pro-Trump “vibe shift”.

I will leave it to the venerable professor to explain

“The vibe shift in culture is about founder mode versus diversity, equity, and inclusion committees, the global vibe shift is about peace through strength versus chaos through de-escalation. It’s Daddy’s Home—not the fraying liberal international order.”

The awfulness of his prose reflected the shoddiness of his thinking.

Ferguson was right on one thing. There is the mother of all “vibe shifts” going on. As Trump orchestrates the collapse of the West, there is an explosion of fear of and contempt for his version of America. As it has turned out, “peace through strength” means betraying Ukraine. “Daddy’s home” means Daddy is rigging the crypto market, and “founder mode” means….well, God only knows what Ferguson meant by that. Perhaps it’s best not to ask.

In the late 20^th century, the right could claim with a certain smugness that the facts of life were conservative. Grown-ups understood that, in the words of Irving Kristol a “neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality”. Now it is the other way round. You cannot face reality and remain a pro-Trump conservative.

We didn’t realise, conservatives cry. We didn’t know.

Well, as they used to say in Ferugson’s Scotland, “Aye, if ye dinnae ken, ye ken the noo”

Now not just Ferguson, but Andrew Neil, Douglas Murray, Andrew Roberts, and Rupert Murdoch’s representative on earth, Gerard Baker –almost an entire generation of British admirers of the US right – are recanting.

They could stomach anything, but not the betrayal of Ukraine. As late as December, Ferguson could write “Putin is realizing that Trump is not going to hand Ukraine to him on a plate”. He and his friends know better now

But before you go too soft on the old brutes, however, it’s worth remembering that they still have an enormous distance to travel.

They have yet to grasp that Trump is destroying the politics of the Western right and far right. Conservatives, who believed that they were true patriots for so long, have not come to terms with the fact that you cannot be a patriot for your own country and support Donald Trump. If you go along with a movement that puts “America first” then – by definition – you put your own country second.

Profound changes are coming to Britain, where the right made a terrible bet that America could replace the EU as our major market and guarantor of our security, as well as to much of Europe.

You can see the future in the miserable fate of Canada’s conservatives.