School of Social & Political Sciences

The recent spat between Vice President JD Vance and former British Conservative MP Rory Stewart reveals deep contradictions at the heart of modern Conservative ideology within Anglo-America

Nowhere is the division in contemporary conservatism thought more aptly displayed than the recent X spat between the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, and former Conservative party MP and Minister, Rory Stewart. The specific contents of their disagreement - over questions including Christian ethics, elitism, and the importance of IQ - can be analysed through a conservative lens, with the wider political implications of the argument telling a broader story of the chaos plaguing contemporary American conservatism. 

Conservatism: an 'anti-ideological' ideology?

To identify division within modern conservative thought, we need a sense of what constitutes the core conservative ideology. This may seem immediately contradictory. Other dominant political ideologies, like liberalism and Marxism, attribute their ideas to key canonical texts, which specifically aim to produce a 'doctrine'. 'Conservatives', on the other hand, largely trace their thought to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a text commenting on a particular set of historically specific circumstances rather than a 'grand theory' as with other political ideologies. Crucially, Burke and other conservatives directly criticised the grand schemes of liberals and socialists and their penchant for 'ideological' thinking. For example, Burke rejected the French revolutionaries' willingness to upend social order and hierarchy in the name of 'liberty'. He intimates that the radical change deemed necessary to achieve such an ideal would leave France 'a ruin instead of a habitation'.

For Burkean conservatives, centuries of accumulated learning produce tradition, habit, and prejudice, which together maintain social order and continuity. This can be contrasted with the kinds of political 'knowledge' associated with the Enlightenment projects of liberalism and socialism, where key axioms are derived through 'reason'. This, Burke warned, could unleash radical and destabilising forces. As a result, Burke emphasised the importance of reverence for established institutions. If change becomes necessary, this should be gradual and implemented carefully. The key point is that for Burkean conservatives, while progressive ideologies may be underpinned by good intentions, they are in fact highly dangerous to the societies they wish to change. "Universalist" ideologies that seek to impose on 'rational' framework of the world at large - think of the French or Russian revolutionaries - are particularly dangerous, as they fail to acknowledge that all societies have distinct political and social traditions. 

It would appear that Burkean conservatism has at its core an 'anti-ideological' essence. But have Burke's ideas - and the Conservative political thought that follows in his footsteps - themselves grown into a political ideology? Edmund Neill, in his succinct book Conservatism, posits that while conservatism is not an ideology in the sense that there is no abstract definition unrelated to historical time and place, it does have consistent central trends that can identify it as having a 'theory' of political life and a particular way of assessing it. 

One of these tenets is a cautiousness to change, one that favours controlling when and to what extent it happens, and potentially rejecting any change not seen to be 'natural'. This places emphasis on tradition and the status quo as an important facet of political stability. Another tenet is that the configurations of politics and society are somehow determined out-with individual control, by forces denoted by terms like: '"God", "history", "biology", or "order"'. This view that political society has an organic quality, and that change should be natural not radical, contributes to a third tenet: a scepticism toward conscious efforts to alter politics, society and culture, especially alterations intended not simply to fix, but to progress.

Anthony Quinton's assessment of conservatism compliments Neill's, branding these core elements as traditionalism, organicism, and scepticism. Though these are recognised as relatively steadfast elements of conservatism, there are many adjacent concepts that are and have been utilised by different conservative groupings. Some of these have arguably developed to be contradictory to the steadfast elements described, and so the 'conservative' branding of such groups is in question.

Contradictions of American conservatism

Returning to Stewart and Vance, it is interesting to compare the respective contemporary political views of two self-identified conservatives that, although from different national contexts and groupings, nevertheless have both been political actors within the context of globalisation and the issues associated with it. 

Stewart comments on a video of JD Vance, in which Vance promotes an ostensibly Christian concept of prioritising love and care for one's family and state before the rest of world, an order that has been 'completely inverted' by the left. Stewart disagrees with Vance's interpretation of Christian doctrine, as well as the theological nature of his argument itself. Vance counters this, replying that, quite apart from the theological reasoning (which he still defends, referencing the Catholic concept of 'ordo amoris', or 'Order of Love / Charity', developed by St Augustine), his argument makes 'basic common sense'.

This is the logic used to justify the Trump administration's doctrine of 'America First', manifested in executive efforts to radically alter the US's international orientation. Executive orders intended to remodel the US immigration system and the US Agency for International Development, as well as the removal of the United States from WHO and UNHRC, all point towards an internalizing, isolationist focus on the state.

Is this focus conservative? From the conservative perspective that society is organic, with cultural and political institutions that specifically complement it, this type of international interaction seems counterintuitive. Organisation that aims to implement universal human rights, especially, appears to be an ideological concept completely unethical to Burke's thought. Foreign aid and humanitarianism could also be viewed as unconservative, because it involves conscious effort to 'progress' other places, an aim that is odds with the idea of 'natural' development. Limiting immigration, too, could be viewed as simply an admission that individuals are most suited to the culture they were brought up in. Anxieties surrounding ethnic, racial, and religious multiculturalism are prevalent in paleo-conservatism, which Foley (2007) suggests is particularly focused on 'innate social order' - whether one thinks this is historical or mythical.

However, one could argue that a basic premise of American exceptionalism involves a multicultural calling - the American dream. In a society built on liberal ideals, a land where "anyone can be anything they want to be", is there an innate social order to be found? The reality of this liberal dream may be fanciful, but so is a paleo-conservative view of America. The rapid withdrawl from the international sphere is contrary to conservative scepticism. Additionally, the executive orders used to achieve such withdrawal, and the claim that these shouldn't be subject to scrutiny from the judicial branch, disregards a key facet of American political structure: checks and balances. These actions don't seem to reflect a conservative consideration of tradition. 

The use of Christian ethics in the first place, before Vance's claims of 'basic common sense', are what Stewart takes particular issue with. He is extremel sceptical of politicians assuming to 'speak for Jesus' when defending their arguments, especially as, in the contemporary Anglo-American sphere, there is an established and recognised need for the separation of church and state. Similarly, it is hard to reconcile the fact that the conservative critique of idealism and absolutism present in liberal ideology, can also be made of religious moral order. Religion in politics, as evidenced by the rise of the religious right, crosses the 'classic fault-line between supple traditionalism and fracticious fundamentalism'. This threatens the secular, pragmatic nature of institutions that many conservatives value, even if they themselves are Christian. The practice of conservatism in the US, as both very religious state and constructed from liberal principles, itself seems counterintuitive. 

From Conservatism to Populism

Indeed, Vance's next accusation - that Stewart's IQ is not as high as he thinks it is, and that 'This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years' - is evocative of populist talking points. Anti-elitism, a depiction of established institutions as incompetent and corrupt, and in this conception 'low-IQ', is a key facet of populist rhetoric. Vance's claim, that the judiciary should not interfere with executive orders as 'a president is elected by the People', is an example of equivocating the exact wishes of a politician with a popular mandate, in order to justify radical change.

While it is true that Vance's rebuke of the liberal elite seems to echo Burke's suspicion of 'sophisters, œconomists and calculators', surely the former's disregard for the American constitution, law, and global position, does not reflect the latter's warnings against radical change and the disrespect of established institutions. Certainly, the X spat does not seem symptomatic of a return to Burke's abandoned 'age of chivalry'.

Stewart, kicked out of his own party over the pond, represents a centre-right perspective that, if it became a 'fish out of water' in British right-wing politics, is radically becoming defunct on the American right. The moderate, pragmatic, non-ideological conservative roots identifiable in Stewart's One Nation Conservatism, and with tradionalists in the Republican party, are rapidly becoming overshadowed. The spectacle of Vance, the Vice President of the United States, squaring up to Stewart, emphasises just how Western conservatism has fractured. In America, at least, populist rhetoric and disruptive, radical overhauls seem to have replaced more traditional, Burkean conservative principles.

 

---

This blog is part of the SPS Student Academic Blog series. You can read more contributions from the series here.

First published: 10 April 2025