What is this new nationalism?  What is nationalism?  Wiki states that “Nationalism is a shared group feeling in the significance of a geographical and sometimes demographic region seeking independence for its culture or ethnicity that holds that group together.”  Michael Savage might define it as a cause and call for the preservation of our nation’s borders, language, and culture.  Currently, Donald Trump is running under this flag of nationalism; which Mark Levin calls a nationalist/populist progressive movement.  All aboard!  The nationalist Trump train is making it’s mad dash to the White House and many are heeding the call.  However, not all are getting aboard.  Truth circumspectly warns “wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.”  Endorsement does not come without rejection.  What is the opportunity cost of this new nationalism?  The first expense was Lion Ted’s head on a platter.  In 1979, video killed the radio star, but in this 2016 presidential cycle, nationalism killed the conservative star.  Trumpmania may very well win the Republican nomination and even win the Presidency for the Republican Party, but as Elizabeth Bennet rejected her sister’s offer to match-make, so must the prudent Republican answer, “I thank you for my share of the favour, but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands.”

What kind of nationalism is on the march?  Oh dear!  There’s more than one?  Sure there is; the most popular being the socialist type.  The Nationalist Socialist Party of Germany is by far the most accomplished of them all.  Perhaps, it’s the communist flavor of nationalism that Mao Zedong sold.  Them Chinese were very patriotic.

There’s no need though to look outside America’s borders to find a selection of nationalism.  Is it similar to Teddy’s New Nationalism, the one that gave us those wonderful New Deal programs like Social Security?  Ooh, that one really worked!  How about that sweet 16th Amendment that Teddy got for the “good” of the nation?

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

That’s nationalism for you.  I don’t think it means what you think it means?  I think nationalism is Latin for federal withholding.  Or is it like the nationalism that the Populist Party of the 1980s boasted?  KKK Grand Wizard, David Duke, was their presidential nominee.

The point is that nationalism can take many forms.  In defense of nationalism, the American Revolution was a nationalistic movement.  Indeed, our founding father’s nationalism is the kind we most desperately need, but that is not necessarily the kind we’re getting.  What is this new nationalism?  What’s in this nationalist Trojan horse that’s entering our city?

“It’s time to abandon conservatism as the defining principle of our movement.” ~Savage

Michael Savage claims his book, Government Zero, is Donald Trump’s playbook.  Savage has stated on his radio program several times that he is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.  Savage states, in the chapter entitled Saving a Nation with Nationalism, “It’s time to abandon conservatism as the defining principle of our movement.”  He explains how the meaning of conservatism is so confusticated that instead nationalism, an “America first” philosophy, is a better principle to restore our nation.  Savage does not advocate abandoning conservatism in a classical sense of it’s meaning, but rather abandoning the watered-down perversions of conservatism that have permeated the Republican party.  He states that “True conservatives were also nationalists.”  What Savage does not address, however, is that not all true nationalists are conservatives.  Therein lies the folly of the rise of Donald Trump.  In the case of Savage, Rush, and Hannity, sometimes a person wants to see something or someone come about so intensely and so passionately, that they’ll believe any mirage that comes upon the horizon.