Ross Douthat has always had religion; now he wants to find history, too. That’s my field, not his. Having traveled to the UK and read a book or two, he thinks there is a direct line connecting the Jacobites to today’s right-wing populists. Is he right?
No, for two reasons:
- The current dichotomy between the reactionary countryside and the progressive city has no relationship to Jacobitism. The Country Party arose in opposition to the Stuarts, not in support of them.
- There was never any meaningful support for Jacobitism in England; it was a Scottish and Irish phenomenon based on nationalism. Is Scottish nationalism truly analogous to the battle between disgruntled white retirees and supposedly woke corporations and intellectuals? I don’t think so.
The historical analogy I would suggest to Douthat is between his friends in the New Right and the Ultras in the time of Louis XVIII and Charles X. Look it up.