Donald Trump’s unstoppable rise in the polls is proof that populism and nationalism are now more important to Republican voters than conservatism, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh declared on Wednesday.
He said, bluntly: “Nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism in terms of appeal.”
Limbaugh explained, “[P]eople think that the arrival of Trump on the scene and the success he’s having has blown whatever alignment there was between the so-called conservative movement and the Republican Party.”
“[W]hat is being exposed … is that, yeah, there are a lot of people who are conservative, but many will not call themselves that, and they are not conservatives because of conservative policy,” he added. “In other words, they’re not wonks. They don’t understand all the ins and outs of classic conservatism. They’re just who they are. Therefore, it’s not conservatism that is the glue that has this group of people in this coalition held together.”
Limbaugh’s remarks came after he read a 1996 essay authored by Samuel Francis, a so-called paleocon and onetime advisor to Pat Buchanan.
Francis wrote, “[S]ooner or later, as the globalist elites seek to drag the country into conflicts and global commitments, preside over the economic pastoralization of the United States, manage the delegitimization of our own culture, and the dispossession of our people, and disregard or diminish our national interests and national sovereignty, a nationalist reaction is almost inevitable and will probably assume populist form when it arrives.”
The essay was brought to light in a column by the Week’s Michael Brendan Dougherty, who observed that Trump’s candidacy was the embodiment of Francis’ vision of a candidate who spoke to the concerns of the middle class by emphasizing nationalism over conservativism.
Limbaugh agreed that this helped explain the rise of Trump.
Conservatism as defined by supporting smaller government and free enterprise isn’t what defines conservative voters, Limbaugh continued.
“It’s quite a number of other things, and right now the glue is an absolute opposition to the Democrat Party, to the American Left, to the worldwide left, and everything they have done and want to continue doing,” he said.
“[I]f somebody comes along and convinces them that they’re serious about stopping this and reversing it, they don’t care if it’s somebody from Mars!” he added.
Conservatives and Trump supporters don’t care so much about lower taxes, free trade, free enterprise and smaller government as they care about “taking back” their country from President Obama.
“They are fed up with the modern-day Democrat Party. They’re fed up with Obama and all of these people who have set out to transform, which means destroy, this country and rebuild it in ways it was never founded to be or intended to be. They want it stopped. They’ve shown up at the polls twice, 2010, 2014, to get them to stop,” he said.
“The Republican Party establishment does not understand this. They do not know who their conservative voters are,” he added. “They’ve overestimated their conservatism, and by that is meant they think they’re dyed-in-the-wool conservative theoreticians absorbed in such things as the free market and all these other bells and whistles, and they’re not.”
It’s much simpler than that, he concluded. The “Establishment” doesn’t get that conservative voters are simply angry and that they’ll follow anyone who gives voice to that anger, regardless of whether that voice supports anything remotely resembling a conservative position on policy.
“So what’s happening here, nationalism, dirty word, ooh, people hate it, populism, even dirtier word. Nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism in terms of appeal,” Limbaugh said.
“And when this has happened, when it exposes — what people in Washington are afraid of — and that that is, you know, all this money we’ve asked people to send us and all these donations people have made, this movement, promote that movement, where is conservatism in Washington, they’re asking. Where is it?
“The Republican Party isn’t conservative. Where are all these conservative people that are contributing to policy being implemented in Congress or in the Senate. They don’t see it,” he ended.
