{"id":87413,"date":"2025-11-09T10:47:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T10:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=87413"},"modified":"2025-11-09T10:47:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T10:47:50","slug":"the-us-right-wing-is-devouring-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/11\/09\/the-us-right-wing-is-devouring-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"The US right wing is devouring itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Financial Times has reported\u00a0<\/a>that Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, which is the most influential conservative think-tank in the United States, is facing an internal revolt after defending Fox News host Tucker Carlson\u2019s decision to interview Holocaust denier and prominent misogynist Nick Fuentes.\u00a0That act of indulgence towards outright neo-Nazism has exposed deep cracks in the American right, and that matters.<\/p>\n

First, it matters because of who is involved. The Heritage Foundation is not some fringe group. Since the Reagan era, it has provided the ideological architecture for American neoliberalism, promoting low taxes, small government, privatisation, and deregulation,\u00a0 all of them dressed up as freedom. It was also the creator of Project 2025<\/span>, the openly authoritarian blueprint for a second Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

Second, it matters that this crisis sits within Trump\u2019s orbit. Fuentes dined with Trump in 2022, while Carlson has long been one of his most important media allies. Roberts\u2019s refusal to condemn Carlson outright shows how far the conservative movement has travelled from the old right of principle to a new right of power that will excuse almost anything in the pursuit of dominance.<\/p>\n

Third, this was always where neoliberalism was heading. When you build a political creed around self-interest, deregulation and the idea that markets should replace morality, the eventual collapse of moral boundaries is not an accident but a logical outcome. The neoliberal right first stripped ethics out of economics, and now it is stripping them out of politics too.<\/p>\n

What we are witnessing at Heritage is not a one-off scandal but the implosion of a movement that has lost the ability to distinguish between liberty and license, or between conservatism and fascism.<\/p>\n

Roberts has offered an at best half-hearted apology to staff at the Heritage Foundation for his actions, but it is clear that the damage is done, including them. The fa\u00e7ade of discipline that once hid the contradictions within the right - between libertarians and authoritarians, and between oligarchs and populists - is falling apart. Associates and funders are already fleeing from the Heritage Foundation. Its embrace of deep misogyny and anti-Semitic neo-Nazism is the rock on which it is foundering, and which will break it, but with that, the whole far-right will fall apart.<\/p>\n

And this matters here in the UK. The British right, located in Tuforn Street, London SW1, imported neoliberalism from the US wholesale: the think tanks, the slogans, and even the contempt for government. Now it is likely that it, and its spawn, Reform UK, will import the same collapse from the USA.<\/p>\n

As the moral vacuum of hate at the core of neoliberalism is exposed, it is clear that it does not offer renewal, but rot. Heritage\u2019s embrace of extremism is the logical endpoint of an ideology that worships power and wealth while claiming to defend freedom. It will tear the right apart. The only question is whether democracy can survive the wreckage it leaves behind.<\/p>\n

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When commenting, please take note of this blog\u2019s comment policy,\u00a0which is available here<\/a>. Contravening this policy will result in comments being deleted before or after initial publication at the editor\u2019s sole discretion and without explanation being required or offered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Financial Times has reported\u00a0that Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, which is the most influential conservative think-tank in the United States, is facing
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