Don’t Redefine Conservatism to Fit Trump

A recent study by the nonprofit Public Agenda and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University reveals a Republican voter base that is much less monolithic than previously thought. This study drew on focus groups and surveys of more than 4500 Americans, so the findings should be taken seriously.

Three major groups were identified: 1) Trump-First Republicans, 2) Constitution-First Republicans, and 3) Party-First Republicans.

The Trump-first Republicans are the hard core MAGA base. They are much more likely to believe Trump should be able to go around Congress or ignore court decisions he doesn’t like. They are also much more likely to think Trump should be able to run for a third term. Surprisingly, this group makes up only 29% of the party.

The Constitution-First Republicans are the most likely to be uncomfortable with Trump’s abuses of the rule of law and to be concerned about the direction in which the party is going. This group is larger than the Trump-First group at 34% of respondents.

The final group, the Party-First Republicans, is even larger, consisting of most, if not all, of the remaining 37%. For these Republican voters, partisan loyalty is more important than personal devotion to Trump.

I have met many registered Republicans who would fall into this last category. Many of them find Trump to be a repugnant person but support many of his policies. They are increasingly uncomfortable with a lot of what is going on in the first year of Trump’s second term, but they see themselves as conservatives and view Trump as a conservative alternative to the Democrats, whom they view as unacceptably radical.

However, conservatism should not be defined as whatever the latest Republican president says it means. Conservatism is a complex and multidimensional political philosophy, but it cannot be stretched to fit all Republican presidents. Four core elements will be highlighted here. 

The first element is a realism about what it is possible to achieve through politics. Although not all conservatives are religious, all share a pessimistic view of human nature.  The reality and intractability of human sin set distinct upper limits on man’s capacity to make the world a better place through politics.  Accordingly, conservatives reject grandiose plans for transforming society and view prudence as the highest virtue of the statesman.

The second element, which flows out of the first, is a distrust of concentrated power.  Conservatives embrace the checks-and-balances built into the Constitution. In particular, they have traditionally opposed the steady expansion of executive authority, preferring instead a Congress strong enough to serve as a check on presidential power.

Third, conservatives believe in a subsidiary role for government. The things that matter most to people, from the conservative perspective, do not come from government. The vast majority of our material desires are met through the market, with government playing a supportive and regulative role at best. While our material wants should not be paramount, of course, government is even less equipped to satisfy our spiritual needs.

Fourth, conservatives have traditionally believed in the power of reasoned argument. Conservative efforts to influence opinion through rational persuasion date back to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. William F. Buckley engaged prominent liberals in spirited intellectual debate, not only in print but also through his pioneering television program, Firing Line.  Barry Goldwater originally gained national prominence through a book advancing the case for constitutional conservatism.

President Trump breaks sharply with all four of these core elements.  First, there are no limits on what it is possible to achieve through politics for the overpromising President Trump, and no objective observer would ever characterize him as prudent.

Second, Trump rejects the very concept of checks-and-balances, seeking instead to concentrate power in his own hands. He circumvents Congress by executive orders and criticizes courts whenever they rule against him.

Third, Trump has completely abandoned the GOPs faith in free trade and free markets. He has imposed tariffs on most countries of the world, devastating small businesses, creating uncertainty, and imposing a tax on Americans without congressional approval. He has also inserted himself into mergers and acquisitions, even making the federal government a stakeholder in private companies.

Finally, rather than employing reason, Trump wages war on it, lying relentlessly, denying science, firing experts, and creating an alternative reality that advances his political interests. He employs vicious and juvenile tweets to intimidate anyone who disagrees with him, often arousing his base to threaten dissenters. 

Whatever Trumpism is, it is not conservatism. Rather than redefining conservatism to fit Trump, we need to rediscover its core values: a healthy skepticism about what it is possible to achieve through politics, a distrust of concentrated power, and a view of government as auxiliary rather than primary. Above all, we need to reaffirm conservatism’s confidence in the power of reason to make converts to its cause.