Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Henry Grabar: You wrote this in March 2018, which was a pretty banal month by Trump administration standards. Do you remember what you were thinking of specifically?
Frank Wilhoit: I don’t believe there was a topical stimulus. I was responding specifically to that particular posting on Crooked Timber. And the mildly viral quote was just the punchline of a substantially longer posting, which attempted to lay out some of the context. Of course the context could easily be exploded to book length but no one’s got time for that.
— Frank Wilhoit
Thread in question he was responding in