Freedom Conservatism

At the American Institute for Economic Research - AIER publication The Daily Economy, Freedom Conservatism signatory Adam Millsap celebrated the classical liberalism of the Founding, an essential part of what today’s American conservatives seek to preserve and expand.

“The Declaration of Independence clearly articulated a set of principles that had been developing for centuries,” wrote Millsap, a senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, “namely, that people are born free and possess an inherent right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

“Seven years later, after a long and arduous war, they realized their dream, and the United States of America began its grand experiment: a nation governed by its citizens rather than a monarch or dictator, with liberty placed firmly at its center.”

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At Civitas Outlook, the journal he edits, Freedom Conservatism signatory Richard Reinsch explored the goals the Founders hand in mind when drafting and promulgating the Declaration of Independence.

“The Declaration was built on centuries of law, history, philosophy, and theology that inspired the Second Continental Congress to ratify and proclaim the document,” Reinsch wrote. “The Congress’s bravery and insight are forever reflected in the Declaration of Independence, establishing America as a new nation committed to liberty and law.

“The ideas and arguments in the Declaration are timeless; they remain true across each generation of Americans. They are our heritage and a source of pride and living memory that must — and will — continue to guide us as we live as citizens of this great country.”

The final panel of the 2026 Freedom Conservatism Conference was entitled “America at 250: The Founding Principles and the Future of American Conservatism.” Moderated by Kent Lassman, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the discussion explored how the country’s founding principles can and should guide policymakers today.

Freedom Conservatives repeatedly reference the “Founding Era,” Lassman observed, citing famous phrases from the Declaration of Independence, the unique structure of the U.S. Constitution, and the powerful arguments found in the Federalist Papers for the “constitutional order” America’s initial leaders sought to create and preserve.

“When I think about our Founding, what is really compelling is the idea of the pursuit of happiness,” said Beth Anne Mumford, vice president of state operations at Americans for Prosperity. “How do we make sure freedom and opportunity give a way for people to be able to build the life they want to build and flourish in a way they can find and pursue their own happiness. That’s really what this work is all about, right?”

“The struggle right now is that Congress is voluntarily giving up its role in the Constitution,” said Mark Strand (left in picture), former president of the Congressional Institute. “Freedom has been protected in our country by a Constitution that has checks and balances, that has limited government, and that prevents any one of the branches from exceeding it.”

“There is definitely a lot of energy and interest in these ideas beyond the federal level,” said Ben Klutsey (right in picture), executive director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “There are some challenges there, but across the states there is so much hunger.”

Avik Roy is co-founder and chairman of FREOPP and one of the creators of the Freedom Conservatism project.

During his opening remarks at the 2026 Freedom Conservatism Conference, held May 20 at Capital Turnaround in Washington, Roy quoted a recent defense of American Exceptionalism by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well as an earlier defense by former Rep. Jack Kemp of the “American idea” that “the Declaration of Independence applies to every individual,” that “everyone should have the opportunity to rise as high as their talents and efforts can carry them,” and that “while people move ahead, we should endeavor to leave no one behind.”

“Our ideological competitors on the Left and Right think such sentiments are quaint and passé,” Roy continued. The rise of these “supposedly post-liberal ideologies was disorienting to many of us. Post-liberals declared the death of the American idea and argued that the very concept of an American idea was a lie — that America was just like any other country, just a collection of people who share the same blood and soil.”

Freedom Conservatives know better, he concluded, “and our time is coming once again.”

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a Freedom Conservatism signatory.

During his speech at the 2026 Freedom Conservatism Conference, held May 20 in the nation’s capital, Ponnuru observed that “those of us who retain the skepticism about ambitious government that once seemed to define the Right are ceaselessly told that we are obsolete. We do not, the cliché has it, know ‘what time it is.’

“It is, to judge from various articles and social-media posts, a time for strongman rule; a time to let go of a Constitution that has served our country reasonably well (exceptionally well when we have actually adhered to it); a time to forget everything we have ever learned about how government plans can go awry.”

Ponnuru described many positive trends that ought to “reset the clock” for wayward conservatives, such as the recent spate of tax cuts and school-choice reforms by conservative-led states and legal victories on racial preferences, religious freedom, federalism, and the separation of powers.

“We Freedom Conservatives know it is not 1981,” he observed. “We face different problems than Ronald Reagan did, and the solutions must be different too. Some of us had been saying so for years before our self-appointed timekeepers came along. The Left is different too, and thus also the character of the battles.

“But we also know that the changes in our circumstances have made some free-market, limited-government reforms more urgent rather than less.”

Erick Erickson hosts a nationally syndicated program for Atlanta radio station WSB and writes a column distributed by Creators Syndicate.

A former editor-in-chief of RedState, practicing attorney, and commentator at CNN and Fox News, Erickson served for nearly four years on the city council of Macon, Georgia.

During his speech at the 2026 Freedom Conservatism Conference in Washington, he referenced the Populist Right’s frequent accusation that FreeCons committed to limited government, constitutional safeguards, and constructive dialogue among Americans of differing views “don’t know what time it is.”

“It is time, they say, for a new system,” said Erickson. “A new movement. A new strongman. A new revolution from our side of the aisle.”

But in reality, he continued, the nationalists and populists “mean to use our movement as a costume while they smuggle in the very ideas — the central planners, the tariffs, the strongmen, the grand designers — that conservatism exists to resist.”

“We know our ideas are still right,” Erickson concluded. “Progressives have no sense of history because they always ‘move on’ from it and circle back to the bad ideas of the past.”

As for “our friends on our side who have gone a little wobbly,” Erickson urged them not to “embrace the ideas on the ash heap of history” but instead to “hold firm to what works — because, at the end of the day, the markets do work, and families work, and individuals work, and Washington rarely ever does.”

Richard Morrison is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, host of the “Free the Economy” podcast, and a Freedom Conservatism signatory.

At his Substack Great Capitalism, Morrison offered his reflections on the 2026 Freedom Conservatism Conference, held May 20 in Washington. The first panel of the day featured a discussion of liberty, virtue, and the fusionist take on American conservatism.

“Yes, government economic policy should leave us free to work, employ, build, and invest with minimal interference from the state,” wrote Morrison, “but it is still incumbent upon us all to cultivate and encourage virtuous citizenship. In fact, it is only under a government with minimal state coercion that we can be free to organize our lives toward a maximally virtuous expression in the first place.

“The argument is not that spiritual virtues are too unimportant for the government to bother enforcing, it’s that they’re too important to allow the government to monopolize and pervert them.”

“The only practical off-ramp from greater conflict between religious and quasi-religious materialist beliefs,” he continued, “is exactly what the experts at the Freedom Conservative conference recommended – pluralism and maximum freedom of conscience for every person and family in America.”

Vance Ginn is an economic consultant, host of the “Let People Prosper Show,” and former associate director for economic policy during the first Trump administration.

An original Freedom Conservatism signatory, Ginn attended FreeCon 2026 last week in Washington. D.C. and chronicled the experience on his Substack.

“The American political Right is in the middle of an identity crisis,” he wrote. “Many conservatives correctly see that progressive economics has failed. But too many are tempted to respond with a conservative version of the same mistake: more tariffs, more subsidies, more mandates, more industrial policy, more executive power, and more government management of private life.”

Freedom Conservatism matters, Ginn continued, “because it reminds the right what it should be conserving.

“Not state power. Not political favoritism. Not managed capitalism. Not bureaucracy with a flag pin.

“We should conserve the American promise: liberty under law, strong families, free enterprise, property rights, personal responsibility, sound money, federalism, and civil society.”

At The Wall Street Journal, Freedom Conservatism signatory Judge G***k detailed the COVID-era use of federal funds to aid shuttered theaters and the $10 billion in improper payments that resulted, often to well-off talent agents and celebrities.

The law was “written broadly enough to include touring companies and other companies tied directly to musicians, who could pay themselves money with little documentation,” wrote G***k, director of research at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

Rapper Lil Wayne “spent more than $1.3 million in grant money on private-jet flights and nearly half a million more on clothes and accessories. Rapper Chris Brown’s touring company received the $10 million maximum, of which $5 million went directly to Mr. Brown.”

“When politicians and the press push the government to hand out more cash without strings, ordinary Americans pay for it.”