Americans often appear indifferent to “Republicanism” (meaning the classical republican tradition) because the word has been almost completely hijacked in everyday language by the Republican Party. When most people hear “republicanism” today, they think of the Grand Old Party, Trump, culture-war talking points, or at best vague slogans about “limited government.” The deeper philosophical tradition — civic humanism, mixed constitution, virtue, corruption, the common good, rotation in office, independence from domination, etc. has been crowded out.
Several historical and cultural reasons explain this disconnect when you investigate. These are: (i.) exceptionalism and liberalism dominant in the Founding narrative, (ii.) Cold War anti-statism, and (iii.) the racial captivity of the civic republican tradition. The tradition is not only lost, it has been buried. Tiny fragments exist in our political language and in our democratic institutions, but it is diluted. Americans don’t understand or seem to care about the roots of their political and the philosophical heritage. If we did, we would not be in the condition we are in. American civic education and popular history emphasize Locke, natural rights, individualism, and the Constitution as a liberal rights-protecting machine far more than they emphasize Machiavelli, Harrington, Sidney, Montesquieu, or the country-party opposition tradition. “Republicanism” gets reduced to “we’re not a direct democracy” rather than a rich tradition of thought about power, virtue, philosophy and non-domination.
After 1945, anything that smelled of “civic virtue,” communalism, public spiritedness, or the common good was easily labeled “collectivist” or “socialistic.” Classical republican language therefore retreated into the academy and was replaced by rights-based liberalism and market individualism.Many Southern defenders of slavery such as John C. Calhoun, George Fitzhugh, and others explicitly used republican language (e.g., “republican slavery,” the Roman republic as a slaveholding model, etc.), and because the post-1960s Republican Party became the political home of White backlash, a large portion of the public now associates almost any use of the word “republican” with White Supremacy ideals. The fact that New Left historians in the 1960s–80s like Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood and J.G.A. Pocock recovered civic humanism as a central Founding ideology paradoxically made it easier for critics to say “See, the Founders were really into Roman-style republicanism. . .and Rome had slavery. . .so the whole thing is tainted.”
I strongly argue, that this attitude is not merely counterproductive, but further contributes to the wave of anti-intellectualism in this country. Firstly, the country is weaker if both parties or one of them is weak and full of incompetent, criminal and corrupt authoritarians, especially if their own President would not pass a civics test. Americans mistaking cunning intelligence for diversified intelligence in their leader is a collective failure. Secondly, despite the adrenaline it brings to the People to devolve their precious political system of competition into an entertaining sports game or celebrity match in who portrays an illusion of feeling more like their “dad,” we are a two-party system, not an autocracy. Both parties represent one, bundled (unified) Fraternity and One Nation. Both parties believe their adversary party shouldn’t exist or even have political power anymore, because the fate of the universe and race depends upon it. They are not the same, before anyone accuses me to deflect from this fact. I simply described the fact. Citizens’ attitudes toward their adversary party in this political age of sharp polarity indirectly and directly support autocracy (One party rule) and extended executive reach to destroy the other party’s ability to govern in the future, and then to counter this reach. This contributes to mutual destruction.
One solution would be to recover the civic republican tradition, not co-opt it, to seriously reinvent the Republican Party, but this takes unique statespeople of a different quality of mind and purpose. This takes a mouthpiece and advocates. It takes movement against Trumpism from a young maturing generation, not in cooperation with it. Creating new Schools of Political Philosophy with grand cohesive vision and strategy, but with organic development to replace other ones has been the history of politics. This would be the counter-coup against Yarvin, Vance, Vought, Thiel and the oligarchs. Things do not start from nothing. When people will say to me, that my idea would not work, I must ask them, where are your ideas. We need to start somewhere, and there are many organizations and people that have started somewhere and have influence they should not have. Just even imagine what good I could do if I had something like TPUSA with the kind of authentic quality I am reaching for. There are no such equivalents on “The Left.”
It takes people with vision, and given my ideas — I focus on the whole board and steps ahead. The strategy cannot possibly be to focus on making sure your particular favorite Party wins every election for the next twenty years or forget “to save America.” The strategy should be to either replace the parties, or strategically work to seriously fix them; whereas now, political leaders who claim to “clean out the Party of ‘RINOS’” for example, like Trump who is a RINO, are clearly authoritarian liars who turn the People against each other.
You cannot possibly think a multiparty will solve this country’s problems long-term when you haven’t even mastered and controlled the two-party system. We are a divided House, and can never return to a period of civil controlled normality in politics, because that normality and civility was not only an illusion, it is basically held together by competent and mature representatives and statespeople playing roles they fought for with their voters.
Those in political power in our day are essentially clinging both for dear life, and because it took themselves long to get their due or say in the political hierarchy, and do not truly trust or respect the next younger generations after them. However, our elder statespeople are not immortal, and the next generations have to step up and into the role of adulthood, and should be doing this much earlier than modern ideas of adulthood have extended out to. So, I don’t care if you still live with your parents. Dust the shame off. It does not mean you must still act and play the role of a child. The next generation have to begin to take initiative, and I think they are very receptive to the civic republican tradition. This tradition if it is reinvigorated and expanded in elaboration and depth in application to society today is not for one particular party. It is the country’s foundational heritage and key to our past and future.
Just as treasures are buried lest found — I have found a treasure to share, and sharing ideas can inspire people to become embodiments of those ideas.
Americans have difficulty with the word “republicanism.” I cannot say the word without people thinking I am referring to the Republican Party, or to corrupt greedy oligarchs and whatever negative connotation is attached to that word. It is owned by that Party. Well, we’re going to have to get over it. One important other reason I must deal with connected to the reason Americans often appear indifferent to the word Republicanism is because the tradition itself was abandoned and redirected, though diluted. It is not possible to really understand this issue, without understanding the political history and early socio-political thought of Black people in the United States.
The American Minervan 
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