> Anti-immigrant policies, are always conservative.

I'm less familiar with this in the US, but in many other countries unions, which have traditionally been leftist-leaning organizations, are a major force against liberal immigration policies.

Good point, though I think that's for economic reasons and not for nationalistic reasons. Unions in the U.S., for example, long supported (and organized) immigrant workers who already were in the country and were early supporters of civil rights for blacks.

I think you're falling for the fallacy of assigning political opinions to a one-dimensional spectrum of liberal v.s. conservative, and doubly so by asserting that your opinion on a given issue can only be caused by being on one end of that spectrum.

Even if you assume a one-dimensional political spectrum there's plenty of reasons for why someone might by for or against immigration for any number of reasons.

For simplicity's sake let's use the stereotypical US definitions of conservative and liberal, even then you can find plenty of reasons on both sides to be for and against immigration.

You could be conservative and be for it because you're a business owner and it implies cheap labor, or against it because you're also a xenophobe and just don't like people from other countries.

You could be for it as a liberal because you believe in some pan-nationalistic idea of humanity without borders, or against it because you think the influx of cheap labor will ultimately create a lower class within society which interferes with the project of a socialist state.

You mentioned Scotland as an example among the rise of the rise of right-wing ideals in Europe. I think it's entirely unrealistic to mention that in the same paragraph as nationalism leading to "massacres, and other oppression". If anything bad things might happen because Scotland is being denied national autonomy, just look at what's been happening in Ireland.

Sometimes people just want to do their own thing in their own little piece of the planet. I myself am from Iceland which has a long history of a nationalist movement that has nothing to do with any of that stuff. Sometimes people just want a bit of self-determinism without negatively impacting others. Ascribing that desire to left or right or conservative or liberal is a gross and inaccurate oversimplification.

Nationalism has a strong component of devotion, an emotional attachment, to the state. Its a derivative of statism, which itself is a derivative of tribalism. You can have either liberals or conservatives subject to such an emotional appeal to the state. Due to the strong emotional appeal in nationalism, the political ideology is more nuanced. In classic liberalism, power comes from the individual who then grants a revocable delegation of that power to form a state (government). In conservatism, power comes more broadly from society, culture, and affinity for stability. The Bolshevik revolution is an example of a left of center revolution, it certainly was nativist, nationalist, and was not conservative. The Cultural Revolution, likewise a left of center revolution, its ideology was very centered on empowering the individual, it was nationalistic, nativist (the purging of "impure elements" of Chinese society), and certainly not conservative.

There are many examples of liberal and conservative nationalist movements. I think it requires some research to demonstrate if one or the other is more inclined to nationalism, or jingoism.

Thanks for raising some interesting issues

> the political ideology is more nuanced ... I think it requires some research ...

I agree on one hand. On the other, any issue like this is much more complicated than what can be presented in an HN comment, so we all need to simplify things a little.

> You can have either liberals or conservatives subject to such an emotional appeal to the state

In theory, yes. I find this response by you and others to be odd. Nationalism is a tenant of conservativism, I believe, and I think that's widely accepted; I think most conservatives I can think of would embrace it. It almost seems like people are pushing back against anything that reflects badly (in the context of my original post) on conservatives, and/or are trying impose a theory of equivalence on a real situation where it doesn't exist. But I could be wrong, of course; I don't see significant evidence I'm wrong, I see plenty in my favor, but it's not conclusive.

I'd have to find a list of parties and their positions to know for sure, which is beyond the scope of what I'm going to do for this discussion. I'd be interested in seeing it if someone has one. More valuable would be surveys 'nationalist' attitudes, however those are defined, and other political beliefs (a quick online search didn't turn up any).

The correlation doesn't have to be perfect, of course. Some here pointed out the Scottish National Party, a left-wing but nationalist (or separatist) party. Also there is the Christian Democratic Union in Germany; its leader and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is pro-immigration (though I don't know about the rest of the party). Also, we might learn some nuance to tmy simplistic model by understanding what drives those parties.

> The Cultural Revolution, likewise a left of center revolution ... was nationalistic ... and certainly not conservative

It was indeed the opposite of conservative! I'm not sure I agree about nationalism. It was mostly the radicalization of a younger generation to reject and take power from the prior one (with plenty of self-serving political machinations mixed in, of course). I'm not sure how to map 'nationalism' to something like that. Also, much of Chinese communist ideology was service to the proletariat and, I think, to international Communism (and against capitalism), and not to the state.

Wars are a particularly fine pointed example of nationalism. Woodrow Wilson, Democrat, liberal, World War I. F.D.R., Democrat, liberal, World War II.

Nationalism a tenant of conservatism is absurd. My degree is in political science, it's not widely accepted. Nationalistic sentiment within the U.S. Republican party, and conservative libertarians? Perhaps. But that is a narrow sample.

Widely accepted is the actual denotation of nationalism, which doesn't include left vs right tendencies.

Consider emotional attachment, appeals, devotion, strong desire to easily identify nonbelievers, all part of nationalism. Similar to religious belief, but involves deification of the state (or some idealized future version of it, via violence, like the 2nd coming).

One example for a non-nationalist conservative party would the German CDU (Merkel's party): They were one of the driving powers behind the ECSC, EEC and later EU, and staunchly pro-NATO, even at the cost of German sovereignty.

I agree - in fact if you read the comment you responded to ... :)

> The Bolshevik revolution is an example of a left of center revolution, it certainly was nativist, nationalist, and was not conservative.

Actually, it was a fascist coup pretending to be a "left of center revolution".

Fair enough. It's better to say authoritarian. Lenin was a dictator, and spawned generations of them. Also, he was supported by the Kaiser, to keep Russia out of WWI. Fascism is much closer to corporatism. But I'd call it authoritarian corporatism.

"Nationalism has a strong component of devotion, an emotional attachment, to the state."

Actually, as the name itself suggests, it is about devotion to the nation not the state. Nationalism never ceased to be promoted, even after ww2, but the attention bias caused much of it to go unnoticed. The so-called "rise" of today's nationalism is in fact more of a rise in public awareness to it from (globally) opposing sides.

> Actually, as the name itself suggests, it is about devotion to the nation not the state

Nations are called States commonly. Sometimes even referred to as "Nation-States".

The USA is unique in that we have states within a nation, rather than a single nation state and/or provinces.

"Nations are called States commonly." "The USA is unique in that we have states within a nation"

I understand where you are coming from, but I have to disagree that nation and state is the same. They are different as concepts (state is organized territory, nation is people), and although usually states and nations reside in roughly the same place, not all of them do! USA have managed to develop itself as a nation to some degree, but there are enough countries out there that didn't! To understand this it's enough to look at the states with separatist movements or in general at ones in which the feeling of appurtenance to the country is very low to say the least. There are people inside the same country very foreign to each other (speaking from group attachment perspective), close to the report between any given two foreign people on the planet. Is India a state? Well, it has states within it, like USA, and its overall organization is like a state too. Is India a nation? Not really! People inside it fought together for independence, and they may have common problems like a nation does (defense, foreign policy, etc), but the ethnic groups in there although living peacefully with each other don't really adhere much to something "national". Not yet at least. It's the same with Iraq, a state inhabited by different ethnic groups which the head statesmen failed to make a nation from. The same for a bunch of African states. Nation is different from the state.

Technically they are two different things, in the language of political science. I'm don't know exact definitions, but a nation is something a group of people have an emotional attachment to, a cultural entity; a state is a political entity. If you're lucky, the two coincide and you a have a nation state.

The U.S. usage of 'state' has a different meaning. Maybe when the states were more independent entities (with their own currencies, militias, etc.) around the time of the Revolution, it carried the standard meaning.

> criticism of liberals is that they are unpatroitic and 'don't love America'

Being patriotic has nothing to do with being nationalistic. It's one thing to love your country, support it, etc... but it's another thing entirely to believe your country is so great, all others fail in comparison, everyone's out to get you (because you're so great), your nation must always be "top dog" and set all global policies, etc...

Being ultra-nationalistic could be paralleled with a phobia of sorts.

> lack of response by liberals and moderates in authority positions - why are they silent?

They aren't silent. The US Executive Branch is currently liberal (as is the State Department, and Secretary of Defense... all foreign policy makers), and certainly has aided the growing sense of extreme nationalism with all the anti-non-european-countries rhetoric. The general message often conveyed is, if you aren't part of North America or Europe, then you're out to get us.

This instead of saying "We may have our differences, but we have worked together in the past and achieved great things, and we can work together now to achieve great things."

> The more nationalistic parties, pushing nationalistic and nativistic (e.g., anti-immigrant) plicies, are always conservative: The Republicans in the U.S., the Tories and the right-wing extremists in the UK

This is extreme partyism, and just as wrong as extreme nationalism.

All parties are guilty. As are all ideologies. They just have different ways of showing it.

In many countries other than the US, patriotism is seen to be crass at best and dangerously close to nationalism at worst. The dearth of national flags adorning houses in Australia, England and Germany are part of this.

> Internationalists, international cooperation ... are the province of the left and of moderates.

This is the first time I've heard this charge. Consider which group is constantly demonized for globalization, and which group riots at WTO conferences. Democrats, for the last 100 years, have been protectionists.

Hmmm ... interesting points.

On one hand, conservatives in the US have rejected multilateralism. For example, the latter Bush administration openly denigrated and ignored the UN and our European allies. Conservatives criticize even attempting to follow international law or legitimizing US military action through multilateral support, calling it weakness. They say they don't want to be tied down and see the US going it alone. Also, they tend to be more isolationist. Fringe conservatives (a small group) talk about UN black helicopters and world government conspiracies.

On the other, you bring up some good points:

> Consider which group is constantly demonized for globalization, and which group riots at WTO conferences

Just some ideas:

* Perhaps globalisation isn't international cooperation as much as international action - it's seen as the US imposing itself on other nations. The economic equivalent of military action.

* Maybe the WTO is an exception to that, or maybe it's the US creating a legal and bureaucratic tool to further it's power.

* You're mostly talking about the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. They are substantial, but the moderate wing rules and the progressives also criticize Bill Clinton and Obama for globalization.

> Democrats, for the last 100 years, have been protectionists.

This I strongly disagree with. Clinton brought NAFTA to the US, Obama is trying to implement the TPP. That's more than any GOP administration since ... I don't know when. There are protectionist elements in both parties, including unions and progressives among the Dems and businesses in the GOP; I don't think it favors one or the other (but that's just my impression).

> This is the first time I've heard this charge.

I assure you it is nothing new. I will point out that you are talking about economic issues, which is perfectly valid; I was thinking of political issues such as immigration, conflict, etc.

> Perhaps globalisation isn't international cooperation as much as international action

I'm not sure what kind of cooperation has a more positive impact than economic. It brings peace and prosperity.

> Clinton brought NAFTA to the US, Obama is trying to implement the TPP.

NAFTA was Bush Sr. The GOP has a lot of reasons to resist the TPP, but the main beef seems to be the executive branch's attempt at role reversal in the crafting of legislation.

> I will point out that you are talking about economic issues...

All politics are local, and nothing weighs move heavily on the minds of voters than an empty stomach.

> NAFTA was Bush Sr.

NAFTA was negotiated under George H. W. Bush, but passed (by Congress) during (and with the support of and active lobby by) the Clinton administration.

> The GOP has a lot of reasons to resist the TPP, but the main beef seems to be the executive branch's attempt at role reversal in the crafting of legislation.

The GOP (including as recently as this year) has supported what you characterize as this "role reversal", through legislation on fast track negotiating authority and trade promotion authority.

>> Perhaps globalisation isn't international cooperation as much as international action

> I'm not sure what kind of cooperation has a more positive impact than economic. It brings peace and prosperity.

I agree that economic cooperation brings peace and prosperity (speaking very generally). My point is that many see globalization not as cooperation but as an economic assault.

There's a long history of it: Back in the 19th century at least, trade "agreements" with weaker countries were often signed under threat of military action. In the early 20th century, the US military protected US corporate investments in the Americas. The U.S. overthrew Iran's government in the 1950s when they threatened to take control of their own oil industry. Many trade deals long have been considered to be one-sided, benefitting only a few narrow interests in the U.S.

I'm not advocating that side, only making the case that they have a strong reason to doubt that globalization is cooperative.