It’s not easy to be on the vanguard of a new Republican Party or a new conservative movement,” then-Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance warned at the “Restoring a Nation” conference in October 2022. “There is a risk that it gets folded into Fusionism 2.0,” he cautioned.
The gathering, which brought together academics and writers, aimed to reorient American conservatism away from its traditional pillars of individual rights, free markets, and limited government—commonly labeled “fusionism”—toward a more active federal role in the economy, resistance to atomized individualism, and social policies reminiscent of Catholic teaching.
This shift, known as the postliberal Right or “New Right,” surged following the 2016 realignment of conservative intellectual circles, solidified within new institutions during Trump’s time after 2020, and propelled into Washington largely due to its closest political ally moving into the Naval Observatory.
Yet what is fusionism? Like many Right-wing labels—such as neoconservatism or paleoconservatism—it has often been defined by opponents. The term “fusionism” was originally coined by Brent Bozell, one of its most vocal adversaries.
Stephanie Slade, a senior editor at the libertarian Reason magazine, clarifies this in her book Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right. She details fusionism through its key advocate, Frank Meyer, former National Review editor and intellectual companion to William F. Buckley Jr.
Slade identifies two foundational camps of postwar conservatism united by opposition to the New Deal: Austrian economist F.A. Hayek, who championed a classically liberal view emphasizing individualism, market forces, and anti-bureaucratic governance; and philosopher Russell Kirk, who drew from Edmund Burke to advocate for community-building and objective moral order.
These competing traditions formed the Right’s early structure but neither dominated. Frank Meyer emerged as the unifier.
Meyer began his career with the American Communist Party before shifting right after studying Hayek and Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences. He was intense, rarely sleeping, often smoking cigars and drinking while debating at home in Woodstock, New York. He worked at National Review from its founding in 1955 until his death in 1972.
Meyer’s most influential work, a 1962 collection of essays titled In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo, became his defining legacy. The title reflected his core belief: freedom.
Fusionism—though Meyer despised the term—describes his effort to “fuse” libertarian liberty and traditional virtue without political expediency, because freedom requires virtue and vice versa. As Slade states, “the two pillars on which a good society rests.”
Meyer’s synthesis became the bedrock of American conservatism.
His approach resonates with America’s constitutional framework. The Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and early debates established simultaneous commitments to individual liberty and objective moral values—principles that Meyer’s thought embodies.
Slade argues fusionist conservatism reached its peak during Reagan’s era, her “apex movement.” Reagan engaged deeply with the right, reading Hayek and Kirk—and Meyer.
In 1982, after a decade since Meyer’s death, Reagan told the Knights of Columbus: “There can be no freedom without order, and there is no order without virtue.”
A year earlier, at the Conservative Political Action Conference—Meyer helped found—the former president acknowledged Meyer’s journey from communist to conservative icon: “[Meyer] pulled himself from the clutches of ‘The God That Failed,’ and then in his writing fashioned a vigorous new synthesis of traditional and libertarian thought—a synthesis that is today recognized as modern conservatism.”
Yet did Reagan govern as a fusionist? He reduced taxes but the deficit soared. His pledge to dismantle the Department of Education went unfulfilled, and government expanded rather than shrank. The New Right also notes his support for no-fault divorce and reluctance on abortion.
Fusionism is not a policy blueprint or a political strategy to unite libertarians and traditionalists under one banner. Instead, as Slade writes, it provides “a coherent framework for thinking about how to tackle the challenge of building a good society and creating conditions under which people are likely to thrive.” It does not promise paradise.
The reminder of what true fusionism is—and what it is not—is timely. But does it matter? Slade concludes: Ideas matter. “The idea, not the nomenclature, is what needs saving.”
The New Right’s current efforts to build institutions, mentor young conservatives like Vice President Vance, and purge fusionist roots echo how 1960s insurgent conservatives—Meyer among them—overthrew the Rockefeller Republicans.
History will determine if Slade’s revival of fusionism marks its death or rebirth. But perhaps the greatest irony is that while the New Right might triumph over old conservative consensus, it will confront the same dilemma: How can a free and virtuous society flourish?
They would be smart to ask the fusionists.