Skeptical conservatives who remain wary of “America First” populism might want to listen closely to Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a constitutional conservative and a strong critic of Trump’s candidacy who not that long ago wondered whether the party was done for. Now, he has a plan to deliver principled conservatism to the president’s populist mandate. In a speech Wednesday morning at the Heritage Foundation—“Conservatism for the Forgotten Man: Reform in a Divided Society and Global Economy”—Lee laid out a vision to protect American interests without descending into protectionism.
Senator Lee, who was first elected to the Senate in 2010, campaigned as a constitutionalist and made the American worker—big government’s forgotten man—his first term’s fighting cause. The Trump presidency need not kill conservatism, he says, but brings a chance to revive it.
