Of the many concerns NeverTrumpers had about Donald Trump, one was that he would destroy the conservative movement by becoming the face of it.
Mission well on its way to being accomplished.
President Trump is not a conservative. He has never been a conservative. It is unlikely he has an adult understanding of what conservatism actually is. But he pretended to be a conservative to win the Republican nomination and successfully earned the support of a plurality of self-described conservative voters in many primary states.
The average person could not begin to make the distinction between being a Republican and being a conservative. For all intents and purposes, Trump is now the face of both to most of the country. On policy matters, that means many have come to associate populism with conservatism.
After the events of the last week, too many people will now, unfortunately, begin to associate white nationalism with conservatism.
What millennial would want to associate with conservatism (or the Republican Party for that matter) when they see the de facto face of conservatism refuse to flatly condemn the alt-right, which is just a euphemism for white nationalism?
There were many “very fine people” in attendance, the president said during a Tuesday press conference of last weekend’s alt-right rally which featured chants of “Jews will not replace us” and resulted in one attendee murdering a protester. “Define” the alt-right, the president demanded of a reporter at the press conference, as if the term is open for debate when the leader of the alt-right movement openly and proudly longs for the creation of a white ethno-state.
Trump did condemn the violence in Charlottesville and racism generally, but by suggesting decent people could associate with what was transparently a racist movement, Trump allowed the alt-right to claim a connection to the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
One of the effects of this is that it undermines conservative arguments in legitimate debates, such as how far should we go in removing historical statues of people who held views that are out of step with modern society and what should a reformed immigration system look like?
These are real and legitimate subjects of debate for people of good will. But when they become associated in any way with white nationalism, they immediately become toxic.
The alt-right is not defending the importance of preserving historical memory when it says it wants to save Civil War-era statues, it is celebrating the racist sins of the people the statues honor. The alt-right cares about immigration not because it thinks borders are important or because it believes too much immigration harms the middle-class economically, but because it believes non-white foreigners can never be Americans and that whites are inherently superior.
By deeming some of the attendees of Charlottesville’s alt-right rally as “very fine people” who were there to protest a legitimate cause, the president made the conservative brand toxic and undermined what it stands for.
It’s a shame for many reasons, not least of which is that the alt-right really has little to do with conservatism in America, at least as understood by seminal figures in the modern conservative movement such as William F. Buckley and President Ronald Reagan.
Richard Spencer, the man most credited with coming up with the term alt-right and the face of the movement, openly disdains American conservatism. An atheist who is “deeply impressed with Neo-Paganism,” Spencer is proudly pro-big government, openly pro-choice, staunchly anti-free market, disdainful of the Constitution and has even expressed regret that the U.S. beat the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
There is no reason why Spencer and his alt-right movement should have any association with conservatism or the Republican Party. Under almost any other Republican president, he wouldn’t.
As we watch, Trump is destroying the conservative movement – and, frankly, many conservatives are complicit for giving him the opportunity to do so.
Jamie Weinstein (@Jamie_Weinstein) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He hosts The Jamie Weinstein Show podcast and is founding partner at JMW Strategies.
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