On Burke, Etc.

Another view and worth reading. Yes, Burke was a sentimentalist; but he was also a Whig. We should indeed be careful when ascribing issues such as marriage reform to a man who lived centuries before such an idea would become mainstream. But an essay that does not include Burke's support for, say, the American Revolution in its account of his view of political change is incomplete, it seems to me. I might add that my own preference for a skeptical conservative approach to the modern liberal order is much more indebted to Oakeshott than to Burke.

As for Yuval Levin's backing for a Sam's Club conservatism, all I can say is that I admired Ross's and Reihan's contribution (although it isn't out yet), but I don't see government redistribution of taxes and welfare to the working poor to be a genuinely conservative response to growing social and economic inequality. It strikes me as a palliative. And I fear it is more about solidifying a Republican majority than reimagining conservatism in our times. But that's an argument we should probably leave until their book comes out.