The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism.

• Author: Samples, John

The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism

Yuval Levin

New York: Basie Books, 2016, 272 pp.

Even prior to 2016, conservatism had been in a bad way for some time. As early as 1997, Congress passed a large new health care entitlement (the S-CHIP program) that marked the end of what spending restraint remained from the Reagan era. Then came September 11 and its subsequent wars that quickly evolved into an ongoing struggle to make the world safe for democracy. Another major health care entitlement (Medicare Part D) followed in time for the 2004 election. As the wars failed, Democratic control of Congress and the presidency followed. The first effort to create a post-Reagan Republican Party ended with the conservative lame duck's decision to bailout General Motors. Donald Trump then ran against Conservatism, Inc. and, indeed, against many policies long espoused by conservatives. Is conservatism nothing more than a word for ideas that make the GOP electorally competitive? Or does some other-dare one say, more traditional--conservatism have a future?

Yuval Levin's new book The Fractured Republic offers answers to these questions, answers that stimulate serious thought. After earning his doctorate at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, Levin has conquered Washington. He is the founding editor of National Affairs (a worthy successor to The Public Interest). He is also a named fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. In 2005 and 2006, he was a member of the White House domestic policy staff. Levin served as chief of staff of the President's Council on Bioethics. He contributes to National Review and the Weekly Standard, and co-founded The New Atlantis, where he still remains as a Senior Editor. In my opinion, Levin is the most interesting of the younger conservatives. His book prior to this one, The Great Debate, found sustained engagement from serious readers.

Levin begins The Fractured Republic with his big picture of post-World War II American history. He sees political, economic, and cultural changes that offered and offer benefits and costs. The benefits include increasing individualism, diversity, dynamism, and liberalization. The costs have been dwindling solidarity, cohesion, stability, authority, and social order. Levin here reveals himself to be a conservative liberal of the American type; where "brooding traditionalists" lament the benefits of the last seven...