Welcome to Thursday’s edition of Washington Secrets. We spent Wednesday getting our FreeCon or something, hanging out with one of the factions in the Republican Party preparing for what comes after Donald Trump. Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) delivered a “fireside chat” — there was no fire or fireside — in which he said he wished things “sucked more.” That could be the boldest political slogan that Secrets has ever heard.MAGA, “America First,” paleoconservatism, integralism, Christian nationalism, social conservatism, the disruptor Right, and fusionism all the way through to the Never Trumpers: The conservative Right is not short of labels to describe all its different factions and beliefs.On Wednesday, it was the turn of Freedom Conservatives to gather in an auditorium in Washington to take stock and plot a course ahead.
Once upon a time, they did not even need a label. Their mix of free markets and liberal trade, small government and low taxes, foreign restraint, and the importance of individual liberty was simply known as the Republican Party.
Things are more complicated today.
Their annual conference kicked off with a session that simply asked, “What is Freedom Conservatism?”
Avik Roy, of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, summed it up by saying that opportunity through freedom was the best way to reduce the cost of living and restore the nation’s fiscal sustainability.
