The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has often served as an acute barometer for the state the American political right, which is why the invitation of European extremists Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, of France, and Nigel Farage, of England, is provoking fear among centrists and conservatives in the U.S. Maréchal-Le Pen is a particularly divisive figure because she does little to distance herself from her grandfather, National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. “I am the political heir of Jean-Marie Le Pen,” Maréchal-Le Pen told The Washington Post last week. “At the Front National, we all are his heirs. He was a visionary.” He was also an unabashed fascist.

Maréchal-Le Pen’s appearance at CPAC on Thursday “dismayed some establishment Republicans, who were not eager to associate with a political faction linked to the dark remnants of European fascism,” reported the Post’s Ishaan Tharoor. The “acceptance” her and Farage, who is speaking on Friday, “seemed to underscore the hard-rightward drift of the Republican Party.” Conservative columnist Matt Lewis complained on NBC News that “these are not conservatives. These are members of an international ethno-nationalist populist movement.” The New York Times’ Bari Weiss expressed similar concerns:

I know I should be over it, but the speed at which the organized conservative movement became the ideological home of Marion Le Pen, Seb Gorka, Nigel Farage, Dinesh D'Souza and their ilk remains shocking to me. — Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) February 22, 2018

But not everyone on the right regards Maréchal-Le Pen as a dangerous figure who should be rejected outright. Times columnist Ross Douthat, who has earlier written with measured but real admiration about Maréchal-Le Pen’s aunt Marine Le Pen, suggested that the younger Le Pen can be seen as a “Reaganite” figure:

Given her "fusionism a la française" positioning back home, Marion Le Pen could be one of the most Reaganite speakers at CPAC. — Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) February 20, 2018

National Review columnist Michael Brendan Dougherty found much to admire in the Maréchal-Le Pen’s speech at CPAC, calling attention to how her criticism of multiculturalism, globalism, and gender theory were rooted in a sense of France as a Catholic civilization. “Perhaps Le Pen’s heart is with her grandfather, who founded the National Front as a vehicle for just about every mid-century French villainy,” Dougherty concluded. “But her speech today was the speech of a modern right-wing French Catholic.” Rod Dreher of the American Conservative was enthralled by Maréchal-Le Pen’s “dynamic speech,” especially that she grounded her arguments in Catholic natural law traditions.

Maréchal-Le Pen’s warm welcome by some writers on the right belongs to the long tradition of American conservatives, especially those who are Catholic (like Douthat and Dougherty) or Orthodox (like Dreher), looking to European sources for inspiration because they feel the American political tradition is too infected with liberalism and protestant individualism.