Labor Day Memory: Fusionist Frank Meyer fuels Conservative Theory Today
"I never met the late Frank Meyer but had the good fortune to know and work with his sons in my youth and in Washington, respectively. Both his sons were the political center of conservative and intellectual devotion in Washington. Like many friends over the past 50 years we were active in libertarian efforts or Young Americans for Freedom in the 1970s and 1980s. Along with Frank Meyer, William F. Buckley and National Review was our political guide." says Eugene Delgaudio president of Public Advocate. (Disclosure: there is no current affilation by Public Advocate with any neo-conservatives.)
Political commentator and American Spectator editor Daniel Flynn's excellent biography of the late Frank S. Meyer arrives at an opportune time for conservatives. The movement is embroiled in internal disputes and has splintered into multiple factions holding many mutually exclusive positions. Today's right must find agreement on fundamental principles, and those are exactly what Meyer, a longtime senior editor of National Review and founder or cofounder of multiple still-important conservative institutions, provided in the 1950s and '60s.
As Flynn argues in The Man Who Invented Conservatism, Meyer really did lay the foundations for modern American conservatism, and his vision for the movement is still the best course for the American right. Meyer's design for a politically, culturally, and intellectually viable American conservatism was called fusionism, which he developed and publicized widely through National Review magazine and individual conversations, especially by telephone, with others throughout the conservative movement, from the greats to the foot soldiers, plus his skill and delight in public meetings and debates..........
Meyer emerged as an important figure as a columnist and books editor at the new magazine National Review, which launched in 1955 and quickly became the flagship publication for the conservative movement. Meyer became the champion of the magazine's libertarian wing, which was greatly outmanned by traditionalists such as Russell Kirk and liberal Republicans such as James Burnham. (All were strongly anticommunist.).........