In the early days of National Review, William F. Buckley and Frank Meyer coined the term “fusionism” to describe their political philosophy. The goal was to wed classical liberalism (democracy and capitalism) with a kind of generic Judeo-Christian traditionalism. Some of today’s most prominent fusionists include David French, Yuval Levin, and Ben Shapiro. Fusionism has been the prevailing ideology of conservatism for a long time, but some brave anti-fusionists, such as Tucker Carlson and Sohrab Ahmari, are now questioning it. To better understand this debate, some historical context is needed. In medieval Europe, most governments existed to preserve a hierarchy
