Next week, thousands will flock to Maryland for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Hosted by the American Conservative Union, the event has always been the crown jewel of right-wing political advocacy. But this year, the speakers will include big-time Trump supporters like Gov. Matt Bevin, R-Ky., British politician Nigel Farage of Brexit fame, and even reality TV star Rick Harrison. With guests like that, the CPAC crowd seems ready to fully embrace President Trump and his agenda.
It’s not hard to see why. In the first year of his presidency, Trump signed a huge tax cut, appointed a conservative justice to the Supreme Court, and oversaw an enormous deregulatory effort that sent the economy spiraling upward. But if we really care about our principles, conservatives at CPAC should realize that President Trump’s commitment to our movement is far from consistent.
Conservatism is supposed to be the philosophy of limited government, individual liberty, free markets, and free minds. Trumpism is a different animal, where pandering to populism can sometimes come before practical policy. At times, the president has proved willing to trample over conservative principles and even the Constitution when they fail to overlap with his administration’s goals. So should we really be embracing him wholeheartedly?
After all, conservatives are supposed to revere the founding documents, but Trump views the Bill of Rights as an obstacle. During the election, he called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims” entering the United States, and one of the first things he did as president was try to ban immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. The long-lasting damage of an erosion in religious liberty could come back to bite conservatives when the high from President Trump’s economic success starts to fade.
But Trump’s hostility to the First Amendment doesn’t stop at restricting religion. He wages a never-ending war against the press, derides well-respected media outlets as “fake news” and threatens to revoke the licenses of those that cover his administration unfavorably. Many Republicans were initially shocked by such blatant disregard for the freedom of the press, but they really shouldn’t have been. Trump has praised dictators like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and flirted with authoritarianism throughout his presidency.
So the party of small government shouldn’t be so eager to embrace a man who seems willing to deviate from this principle. Ronald Reagan, long considered a conservative icon, famously said that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Trump sees no issue with a stronger central state, if it will help him push his agenda.
The president lifted a freeze on federal government hiring, gave his Department of Justice license to crack down on states’ rights to legalize marijuana, and even considered nationalizing the private sector’s mobile 5G network. Depending on your perspective, you might call that crazy or courageous — but you can’t really call it conservative.
It’s become clear that Trump’s commitment to fiscal conservatism isn’t much stronger than his so-called support for small government. The president railed against the previous administration’s deficits while campaigning, but recently supported huge increases in government spending, that has estimates projecting a $1 trillion deficit for his first full fiscal year in charge. Trump is starting to make former President Obama look frugal.
Still, conservatism is about more than economics. It has always placed a strong emphasis on a leader’s character as well. But if you extend the definition of a conservative to include social conservatism, then Trump’s inclusion in the movement becomes harder to justify. After all, the news recently broke that the president’s lawyer paid off porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about her affair with Trump, and we’ve all heard the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape where our president brags about grabbing women without their consent.
So while some of Trump’s policies have been conservative, at this point we have ample reason to question his character. When conservatives convene at CPAC this month, we ought to take a moment and ask: Is President Trump really one of us?
Brad Polumbo is a Young Voices Advocate. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Washington Examiner, and Spiked. He’s also appeared on Fox News and NRAtv. He can be found on Twitter @Brad_Polumbo.
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