Patrick J. Buchanan, a fervent Donald Trump supporter, wrote recently and approvingly that Trump’s campaign embodies “the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy.”
To which we say: No thanks.
Don’t get us wrong. We’re sympathetic to an enlightened populism. We’re friendly to a civilized and civilizing nationalism. But we’re even more committed to a constitution of liberty. We’re even more attached to the cause of self-government. What Buchanan dismisses as “the niceties of liberal democracy” we call the forms of freedom—and of civilization.
We’d go further. One of the historic tasks of American conservatism has in fact been to preserve and strengthen American liberal democracy. Conservatives have often been better at this than liberals have been, because conservatives are more aware than liberals of liberal democracy’s weaknesses and less complacent about its success.
So conservatives have trained their fire on the many threats to liberal democracy from, broadly speaking, the left: against a liberationism that cannot distinguish between liberty and license; against an egalitarianism that cannot distinguish between equal rights and a leveling down of natural or merited distinctions; against a nanny-statism that cannot distinguish between a safety net and a suffocating blanket; against a hopefulness that cannot distinguish between the world as it is and the world as one would like it to be; against a progressivism that cannot distinguish between learning from history and succumbing to History.
But American conservatism is also a conservatism that, while rejecting the intolerance of the present, disdains the bigotry of the past; that, while respecting the public, insists that vox populi is not vox dei; that, while pledging allegiance to the American nation, also does so to principles of liberty and justice for all; that, while cherishing our freedom as Americans, hopes that one day all men will be free.
Is this “liberal” form of conservatism—American conservatism—not fierce or ferocious enough for Buchanan? Is it too hesitant to grab at what it desires, too shy about pursuing only narrow self-interest, for Trump? They apparently think so. They scorn the American conservative tradition. And they scorn the Republican party, which has been the carrier of that tradition in recent times. Buchanan long ago left the GOP. Trump only recently joined it, and having seized its nomination, now attacks many of its most distinguished representatives.
What happens next? Who knows? Perhaps the Republican party once again can become a vehicle to strengthen liberal democracy. Perhaps a new third party needs to come into being, a liberal-democratic alternative both to the progressive, nanny-state left and the populist-nationalist right.
But whatever happens in the future, we remain convinced that American conservatism is vastly superior to European-style ethnic and populist nationalism. So to Pat Buchanan, we say the “niceties” of liberal democracy are preferable to the uglinesses of illiberal democracy. And to Donald Trump, we say, nicely: #NeverTrump.
