Many on the right have come to believe that the hour is late for America’s republic—so late, perhaps, that it cannot be saved. In their view the Constitution exists in form only, drained of substance by the political and cultural Left’s relentless advance over the past century. The system is now rigged: nothing short of regime change can halt the radicals’ comprehensive takeover.

For such critics, modern American conservatism has been an abject failure. Born in the 1950s as an intellectual movement, its remnants now lie scattered across think tanks and fundraising enterprises, which have little to show for the billions they’ve spent. Trumpism is merely the crude political manifestation of a “New Right,” seeking to be born.

Up From Conservatism makes these and related points with force. Edited by Arthur Milikh, director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, it features 19 short chapters spread over 289 pages. The Right, in his words, “could not even prevent its core constituency, corporate interests, from going left.” The “establishment Right” long deluded itself into “belief in the eternal stability of the country” as it systematically failed to grasp the “nature of the Left.”

Establishmentarians not only misjudged but feared the Left. They feared losing what establishmentarians value most: