Forced to grapple with Donald Trump’s success in the Republican primaries, a number of prominent conservatives are hoping that the energy fueling Trumpism can be channeled toward conservative ends. This is wishful thinking.
Let’s review how Trump’s successes pose a problem for conservatism. Trump has run a campaign that is devoid of the type of conservatism that has mobilized activists for decades. His record prior to seeking the GOP nomination would have placed him as a liberal — advocacy of a socialized health system, stricter gun laws, and confiscatory taxes; opposition to banning partial birth abortion; and support for massive government spending on public works projects to fuel the economy.
Though he has modified a number of his positions since then — and throughout the campaign — he has still taken many stances while seeking the nomination that are incompatible with conservative ideology.
Trump still touts massive federal infrastructure spending as the key to boosting the U.S. economy. He generally doesn’t want to touch the nation’s unsustainable entitlement programs, except for when it comes to having the federal government set drug prices. He has opposed free trade and defended Planned Parenthood (along with status quo abortion laws).
Though all of these are typically seen as disqualifying in a Republican primary, Trump has thrived. Conservatives may content themselves by pointing out that (at least before Tuesday’s New York primary) he has not won a majority in any state and that he still may be denied the nomination. Though it’s true he has a rugged path to capturing a clear delegate majority before the Republican National Convention, he still has the only realistic path to doing so. He has won more delegates and more states than any of his competitors, and has amassed about 2 million votes more than his closest rival. If Republicans stop Trump from being the nominee, it will only be by the skin of their teeth after pulling out all the stops. And this isn’t for lack of a real conservative in the race — in Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican voters have the chance to nominate the most conservative candidate in decades.
This should be worrisome for conservatives. We lament that the Republican Party always ends up nominating liberal or moderate Republicans such as Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Even George W. Bush, who isn’t typically lumped in with this group of general election losers, ran as a big government conservative and went on to expand Medicare and the federal role in education. Trump’s success in spite of his overt deviations from conservative orthodoxy should trigger some soul-searching. Is the so-called Republican base actually not that ideologically conservative? Or put another way, do ideological conservatives make up a smaller segment of the Republican base than we assumed?
A number of thoughtful conservatives who have grappled with this problem have argued that Trump is merely the result of the failures of the Republican Party. Republican leaders have paved the road for Trump, the argument goes, by broken promises and a failure to come up with an agenda that appeals to working-class voters rather than the donor class. The solution they propose is to take the raging populist river of discontent that has propelled Trump, and divert it into the service of conservatism.
For instance, on Tuesday, I spoke with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a thoughtful and earnest constitutional conservative who has spent the past several years both battling Republican leadership and urging the right to get serious about policy. I pressed him on whether he was concerned that the rise of Trump suggests that perhaps a large percentage of the GOP electorate isn’t animated by support for traditional conservatism.
He responded that it, “puts a spotlight on the need to have policy proposals to address concerns that people have, including and especially the voters who have been supporting Donald Trump. I think the solution to that to those who share that concern is to have more conservative proposals, more proposals for reform that involve constitutionally limited government, that involve economic and social conservatism. If we can offer up proposals that address the concerns that are driving people in that direction I think we’d be better off for it.”
He went on to tout the Article I Project, which aims to reassert congressional authority over the executive branch, as one way to appeal to voters disenchanted with government.
But there’s no evidence that Trump supporters would be energized by a more faithful adherence to the U.S. Constitution — if anything, the opposite is true. Trump’s whole candidacy is based on the idea that he’d be a strongman in the executive branch who wouldn’t be bound by legal niceties in wartime — and he even floated revising the First Amendment to make it easier to punish the press.
Michael Needham of Heritage Action has argued that a conservative populism – one that attacks the way the federal government works for the well-connected – could appeal to Trump voters. But Trump ran in Iowa as a supporter of ethanol subsidies. Though the Export-Import Bank hasn’t really come up in the GOP primaries, I’d bet that if Trump said we have to double it to take on China, his supporters would welcome the idea. Those who want a conservative with a populist streak are likely already voting for Ted Cruz.
National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru has argued that Trump’s rise has vindicated reform conservatives such as himself, who argued that the GOP needed to revise its policy agenda to appeal to lower-income Americans. Consider me skeptical that more serious policies would appeal to voters who are attracted to a candidate who has made a mockery out of policy.
I’m not saying I have any clear solutions for the conservative movement in the wake of Trumpism. But as we work through its implications, I’d encourage my fellow conservatives to avoid wishful thinking.
