The Giving Review: Gen Z and the end of fusionism

This article first appeared in the Giving Review

Conservatives are in their post-fusionist era.

That is, the days of big tent-ism on the political right have reached an end. Conservatives, particularly of the younger variety, are unmoved by appeals to coalesce behind a shared enemy.

Whereas the Communist threat was enough to galvanize the movement under William F. Buckley, Jr., in the mid-20^th Century, the conservatives of 2026 feel no such need to join forces with those whom they deem to be co-conspirators with the left in a shared neoliberal project.

In Anti-Civilization: The Collapse of Society & the Case for the Common Good, Canadian Zoomer Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard makes the case for an uncompromising common-good conservatism, divorced from—what some pundits on the New Right have called—the “Zombie Reaganism” of years past.

Much like his Gen Z contemporaries, Beauregard is underwhelmed by the cookie-cutter conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher—typified by free trade, economic liberalism, and the primacy of individual autonomy over the common good, among other things.

Beauregard advocates a conservatism of a communitarian bent, not dissimilar to that of Edmund Burke and the Southern Agrarians of the American political tradition. In his praise for rootedness over atomization, robust domestic industry over unquestioned economic globalization, and tradition over “misguided freedom,” he sounds an awful lot like Richard Weaver, Wendell Berry, and others of that ilk.

Disdain for negatively defined ideology

A Québec-based researcher for the Cardus Institute who previously served as a speechwriter for and strategic-planning adviser to the Québec premier, Beauregard is also the author of two previous books on political thought.

Given his obvious disdain for mainstream rightist parties and conservative shibboleths, one might be tempted to label Beauregard a populist, in the vein of a Donald Trump or Pierre Poilievre. One, however, would be wrong.

In fact, Beauregard dedicates an entire chapter of his book to meticulously disentangling his brand of common-good conservatism from that of right-wing populism, which he describes as being “not immune to temptations as destructive as the progressivism it opposes.”

Right-populism, not unlike left-progressivism, Beauregard explains, is a negative ideology. That is, it is defined more by what it is against than what it is for. A movement, in other words, only typified by its opposition to something cannot put forth a sustaining positive vision for the future.

Populism, thus, becomes an ideology based on grievance and victimhood, hardly a desirable alternative to leftism.

What’s more, the kind of “Make America Great Again” populism promoted by Trump and MAGA is inherently reactionary. “Great again” suggests the desire to go back in time. To the halcyon years of the 1950s, perhaps. Beauregard, conversely, advocates not a return to the past, but, as he describes it, a “return to the center.”

Commonness and Kirk-esque conservatism

The common man, Beauregard explains, is not ideological. He is neither a left- or right-wing animal. Rather, he is conservative in the truest sense of the word. Common, ordinary people “seek stability, predictability, and order within the context of a system that is broadly fair.”

Thus, fighting for the common good means working to maintain the institutions that serve as the bedrock of civilization—family, church, and community. Such institutions have historically depended upon voluntary association and private philanthropy—forms of civic engagement that are themselves expressions of the common good, of course.

In his Russell Kirk-esque plea for a politics of prudence and tradition, the young Beauregard is distinct. Increasingly, Zoomers are gravitating to extremes. Identitarianism is all the rage, whether it be of the anti-white leftist bent or the Euro-centric rightist bent. What’s more, both variations propose radical change in their respective visions. They speak not of how they can improve their localities, but of grander, national questions. This runs contrary to Beauregard’s more-communitarian philosophy.

Beauregard’s message is an important one, clearly indicative of the erosion of an old conservative paradigm, and the emergence of a new one. His salient message, however, is sometimes lost in a didactic writing style that might limit its accessibility and risk unfortunately relegating it to certain circles.

Even if only there, however, Anti-Civilization is an instructive and timely read.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-giving-review-gen-z-and-the-end-of-fusionism/