Politics & Power Quote by Matthew Continetti

“The realities of the modern global economy” is doing a lot of rhetorical heavy lifting here. Continetti frames his claim as a reluctant concession to facts on the ground, not a philosophical embrace of big government. That opening phrase preemptively disarms the usual ideological objections: if the world has changed, then the policy toolkit has to change with it. The move is pragmatic, almost managerial, and it’s aimed at readers who don’t want to feel like they’re defecting from small-government instincts just to admit that supply chains, capital flows, and technology dependencies now behave like strategic terrain.

The key pivot is the merger of “national” and “economic” security. That coupling reflects a post-2008, post-pandemic, post-Ukraine zeitgeist where shortages, sanctions, and semiconductor chokepoints can feel as consequential as troop movements. It also subtly argues that markets aren’t neutral referees; they can be weaponized by adversaries and distorted by rivals with state backing. Once you accept that premise, “substantial role” stops sounding like a progressive wish list and starts sounding like insurance.

There’s subtext, too, in the subject: not “the economy,” but “the people.” That’s a populist reframing that makes industrial policy, trade constraints, or strategic subsidies easier to defend as protection rather than interference. Coming from a journalist associated with center-right policy debates, the line signals a broader conservative recalibration: less faith that deregulation alone guarantees resilience, more willingness to treat government as an instrument of national strength in an era where globalization no longer feels like a one-way bet.