Politics > Political Theory

The Center-Right’s Long March Backward

There is a structural weakness within the “fusionist” center-right. As long as we ignore it, the left will always come out on top.

Brian Cabana | April 13, 2026

One of the few rules of politics that has held throughout history, almost without exception, is that right-liberals, in the long run, lose.  The sort of Thatcherite political coalitions that prioritize “open markets” and “economic freedom” while being indifferent to cultural affairs might win elections in the short run — often in the wake of the left severely overstepping its mandate — yet they always end up ceding more political ground than they seize.  They always finish their terms having barely slowed down the pervading leftward cultural drift they were elected to stave.

This recurring outcome suggests a structural weakness within the “fusionist” center-right: It lacks a coherent vision for social order.  Rather than functioning as a true political movement, centrist liberalism — often labeled “mainstream conservatism” in the West — operates more as a form of political escapism.  Its adherents either treat politics as an extension of market logic or attempt to minimize political engagement altogether.

Real politics concerns itself with asserting a particular social order.  Political actors seek to take control of the machinery of governance so as to write the rules of the prevailing social game.  But the center-right does not do this.  It does not seek to assert its own social order — to write the rules.  Rather, the center-right exploits the prevailing order, seeking to bend the left’s rules in its favor for short-term financial gain.  Hence, while the center-right can issue vaguely “ideological” platitudes about the virtues of the open market and entrepreneurial capitalism, it does not aim for broad-scale economic reforms that would foster a free, prosperous, and entrepreneurial social order.  Rather, the center-right........

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