Dan McCarthy writes that, along with Ron Paulites, post-industrial localist conservatives are a hopeful sign on the Right, and kindly mentions this blog as a small data point. Whether this adds up to a “movement” is anyone’s guess, but the blogosphere (ironically) has given me the opportunity to be exposed to people who take issues like localism, food, sustainability, and the environment seriously, but from a distinctly conservative point of view (often, but not always, rooted in a religious view of the world).

I have in mind here folks like Russell Arben Fox, Patrick Deneen, John Schwenkler (who Dan also mentions), Rod Dreher, the Caelum et Terra bloggers, and the now defunct New Pantagruel webzine, among others. It remains to be seen, though, whether a) this impulse is confined to a few blogospheric eccentrics and malcontents (and I mean that with all affection!) and b) whether it’s properly seen as part of “the Right.” On the last point, I’m not terribly hopeful that American conservatism can or particularly wants to address the concerns that these folks are raising.