How to take back a country

Inside the thoughts of a man shaping Trump 2

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Millions of people across the West are now asking themselves the same fundamental question. How can we take back our country?

Take back our country from mass immigration. Take it back from broken borders and illegal migration. Take it back from crime, disorder and chaos. Take it back from a world in which violent Islamism and sectarianism seem to be part of everyday life. Take it back from an aggressive and expansionary woke ideology that repudiates and wants to deconstruct who we are. And, most important of all, take back our country from a hapless, corrupt, selfish, and out-of-touch political elite that no longer represents or even respects the Forgotten Majority.

The last point —taking on the ruling class—is, by far, the most important. It’s what I call the ‘first-order problem’. Everything else lies downstream from that.

From Europe to America, many people now (rightly) complain about mass immigration, the breakdown of borders, what we teach children, the rise of Islamism, and, ultimately, the dilution if not deconstruction of Western nations.

But these are all second-order problems which flow from the first-order problem— the need to change the ruling class, change the elite, change the institutions they dominate, reconfigure the state how it works. Do this and you will much more easily address the second-order problems.

One group of people who get this are Team Trump, who unlike their first term in office, in 2016-2020, now recognise that to take back a country you must start with taking back the bureaucracy of the state, with taking back the institutions, with establishing a ‘counter-elite’.

One group of people who have failed to recognise, on the other hand, are the British Tories, who despite having an enormous majority in 2019-2024, showed zero interest in this first-order problem and hence fumbled their way through trying and spectacularly failing to manage these second-order problems.

Comparing and contrasting the two is instructive. Trumpian Republicans want to smash the status-quo; British Tories are basically comfortable with it.

Trumpian Republicans want to take back control of the state; British Tories don’t really talk about it. Trumpian Republicans leaned into and expanded the realignment; British Tories completely squandered it. Trumpian Republicans understand the need to take on the institutions; British Tories are too scared and status-conscious to do anything that might upset their friends in the media and legacy institutions.

And Trumpian Republicans grasp we have now entered a completely different political era in which conservatism must change or die; British Tories, from Team Badenoch appointing the same advisors who guided the disastrous regime of Boris Johnson, to a Conservative parliamentary party that embraces the cultural left status-quo among the elite, have very clearly not.

Which is why, exclusively, today, I want to introduce you to the thoughts of one man who does get the new politics: Dr. Kevin Roberts. Kevin is a friend, president of the incredibly influential Heritage Foundation, one of the most powerful think-tanks in Washington, and somebody who has shaped Trumpian Republicanism.

Some of you might remember that I gave a talk at Heritage back in August, in which I explained to our American cousins why the hapless Tories had just been completely demolished at the general election and why I think Nigel Farage and Reform are ideally placed to become the main beneficiaries of the ongoing realignment.

This week, Kevin was in London so we took the opportunity to have a chat about the realignment, the future of conservatism, the Reform movement, Trump 2, and more.

All you need to know about Kevin and Heritage is they have been completely in tune with the political realignment and, like this Substack, ahead of the curve.

They were not only vindicated by the 2024 election result, and will play a key role in Trump 2, but deserve to be heard because, ultimately, I think their vision is about to go global, including here in Britain.

As Vice President-elect JD Vance has said: “The Heritage Foundation isn’t some random outpost on Capitol Hill; it is and has been the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump”. They symbolise and embody the ‘new conservatism’.

So, exclusively for our Founding and Paid supporters, here are some key thoughts and points from Dr. Kevin Roberts, whose new book Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, I recommend. If you want to take your country back then, trust me, you need to read the following. These ideas are about to go mainstream.