The collapse of conservatism nobody wants to admit

From its earliest days, the United States saw itself as a nation with intense purpose. Not a static country, not a museum of inherited customs, but a project. Alexander Hamilton envisioned a commercial republic that would rival the great powers of Europe. The doctrine of manifest destiny pushed that ambition across a continent. After World War II, the same impulse extended outward into global leadership.America, in other words, has always kept its eyes on the horizon.But once the frontier had be...