Many of the politically serious and respectable ideas of conservatism have been squeezed out of the public space by a glut of far-right populism, a phenomenon irresponsibly fueled by pundits and popular media barons.  While many of their tactics are off-putting, one aspect of right-wing populism is especially alarming: the tendency to appropriate and distort the nation’s founding to support their own political agenda. The political and philosophical legacy left by the founding fathers leaves room for spirited disagreement and broad interpretation. We should be wary whenever any one group or movement claims to speak authoritatively for the founders’ intent.

It would seem uncharitable to classify this pathology as ‘far-right fundamentalism,’ but it seems appropriate. A common characteristic of any sort of fundamentalism is the longing to return to a lapsed ‘golden age’ or set of undiluted and uncorrupted principles.

This narrative is framed by an intense dissatisfaction with the present, pointing out the many flaws, both real and imagined, of the status quo.  Naturally, the solution is a return to original principles and methodologies—the only way, we are promised, that all our problems will disappear.

The first problem is that the idea of a golden age is misleading. We tend to idealize the past and sometimes don’t recognize how the distance of time and circumstance conspires to undermine the relevance of the past to the problem set of the present. In other words, simply because something worked well or was the conventional wisdom at the time does not automatically make it the most legitimate approach for the present.

The second problem is one of interpretation.  Fundamentalists naturally appoint themselves as the arbitrators of which fundamental principles count and thus establish the new orthodoxy. The unavoidable problem is that, in trying to return to the past, all they can offer is the substitution of their own ideology and particular interpretation.  In reality, there is not and can never be a return to the past. An ad hoc reinterpretation is required. In this way, fundamentalists promise purity but only deliver a self-serving and incomplete reinterpretation, which is often more rigid, ideological, and less workable than the source of their inspiration.

The far right would resent any comparison between themselves and Islamic fundamentalists, but one thing the Taliban and the far right have in common is this unforgiving and monolithic fundamentalist worldview.  This is alarming because when a small segment of the political body is disproportionately angry, vocal, and active in current political affairs, it makes bad politics worse.

On their own, the actual policies and ideas that the far right claim to represent—lower taxation, a strict and limited interpretation of the Constitution, opposition to expensive government programs, etc.—are not controversial, and there are many good reasons to support such policies. One bad reason to support these policies is the mistaken idea that only these viewpoints stay true to American values or the intent of the founding fathers.  Cherry-picked and decontextualized statements from Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine do not represent the final word on the founders’ political beliefs.  And the idea that certain policies are unconstitutional because they aren’t alluded to in the actual document indicates a misunderstanding of the Constitution, not a legitimate attack on active government.

In fact, the founding fathers end up frustrating the far right just as much (if not more so) than supporting it. The Constitution itself was created to strengthen central government and give it greater power to address national problems. And while there were those among the founding fathers with a libertarian streak who wrote eloquently about limited government, there were also others who supported government led industrialization and a broad interpretation of the government’s power and role. For instance, in the Federalist Papers and during Washington’s administration, Alexander Hamilton supported a broad interpretation of the Constitution’s various clauses that made it possible for him to pass ambitious policies like state-debt assumption and a national bank. Political opponents like Jefferson and Madison opposed him, but his views ultimately prevailed in both cases. In any case, disagreements between the founding fathers about the Constitution and nature of government were just as vigorous (and often more sophisticated) than they are today, and it is fallacious and dishonest to promote a fundamentalist and one-dimensional narrative of the nation’s political heritage.

In the contemporary debates about the role of government, executive power, health care, stimulus spending, and so forth, opponents of an active government should fulfill the obligations of their conscience by opposing initiatives that they believe will undermine the nation’s welfare. But they should do so on the basis of informed reasoning and empirical arguments, not on a fundamentalist ideology which, far from accurately representing America’s founding principles, instead abrogates and distorts America’s political heritage for the sake of its own agenda. Politics should be about finding workable and efficient solutions to contemporary problems, not promoting a fundamentalist narrative of America’s heritage. The founding fathers, and the country, deserve better.

Alex is a senior studying philosophy and international relations.