Not since the rise of Barack Obama has any candidate been able to accomplish what Donald Trump is doing. His stances on issues are vague and often contradictory, his campaign is vaccuous and driven by a cult of personality. And yet he is rising in public opinion polls. In assuming that his unique personal skills can fix world affairs, Trump shows the same arrogance Obama did when he first entered office.
Those are the similarities, but there are important differences, too.
In 2008, it took a smart figure with an optimimistic demeanor to attract voters to the terrible liberal ideas they had been rejecting for years. Trump, in contrast, brings a dark, dour, highly negative message to politics. He scapegoats foreign competitors and immigrants for America’s biggest problems. He openly entertains ideas about having Muslims carry special identity cards. He denounces international trade, the lifeblood of America, as the destroyer of its prosperity.
No one in the presidential race is further than Trump from the forward-looking, confident, conservative philosophy that Ronald Reagan popularized and brought to Washington 35 years ago. Instead, Trump incarnates the unfair caricature of conservatism that the liberal media has painted incessantly for decades. Even his own book is called Crippled America. And a disturbingly significant minority seems content to embrace the stereotype.
Despite recent weakness in Iowa, Trump continues to defy predictions of his demise. His candidacy is not troubling because he is an extremist. He is arguably less conservative than any candidate in the race. Until his run for president, Trump was outspokenly pro-choice on abortion. He supports single-payer healthcare and a wealth tax. He recently announced that he is backing a Democratic gun control measure. And of course, he has given generously to Democratic candidates.
On immigration, the one actual issue that has attracted people to his candidacy, Trump has only recently changed his position. In 2012, he was blaming Mitt Romney’s loss on his inartful use of terms such as “self-deport” when talking about illegal immigrants.
Yet by simply bad-mouthing the right people (especially news media) in a sufficiently shocking way, Trump has managed to lead many voters astray from genuine conservatism. His bombast, juvenile insults and shallow rhetorical flair cover a multitude of sins for which any candidate should be rejected by a party that seriously wishes to govern for the good of the nation.
Like other polls, the latest Quinnipiac survey indicates that Trump performs best with self-described moderate-to-liberal Republicans. But just over half of his admirers describe themselves as either “somewhat” or “very conservative.” These people, who comprise a quarter of self-identified conservatives, are overlooking Trump’s apostasy on every important issue, apparently bedazzled by his celebrity status and contrived image of Aristotelian magnanimity.
Let us put this in Trumpian terms, then: Trump is a loser. He trails both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in the polls. If he gets the nomination, Clinton will crush him like a paper cup.
The seeds of his defeat are there in the very same polls that show him leading for the nomination. Clinton’s unfavorable rating is high at 51 percent, but Trump’s is substantially worse, with 57 percent viewing him negatively. Again, Republicans see a potential advantage in the fact that 60 percent of voters view Clinton as dishonest and untrustworthy. But Trump forfeits this advantage, for 59 percent view him as dishonest, too.
This is more immediately important than Trump’s issue positions, because it means he will never have a chance to govern anyway. A Trump nomination would forfeit the election, at best repeating the disastrous John McCain candidacy of 2008 (the one that made Obamacare possible). But it probably would be considerably worse than that. It would tarnish the party in the longer term. And in the immediate term, it would dash conservative hopes of repealing Obamacare and replacing three or four aging Supreme Court justices.
There are talented, real conservatives among Trump’s rivals. Just the two most effective campaigners in Trump’s wake, Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, lead different strands of genuine conservatism. They are serious politicians with clear and consistent views on issues, as are others futher back in the field.
Conservatives who back Trump are not only straying from their own ideals, but are also playing with fire. They are putting at risk everything they purport to hold dear.
