A nautical Republican analogy.

[Here's an essay I wrote in January 2019. Even with Trump exiting (slowly) stage right, the long transformation of his party that resulted in his victory won't be shaken for some time. American Conservatism is intellectually weak and politically weaker in 2020, I'm not sure where the movement goes from here.]

Conservatism in the United States has long revolved around strong but limited government. The power of the federal government should be curtailed in its ability to limit or infringe upon individuals civil, economic, and legal rights. However that government should also be strong enough to enact and maintain its authority outside of the borders of the states. The ability to play global peacemaker, policeman, and democracy bringer have been integral parts to the conservative movement. Donald Trump rode populist waves to the white house, espousing few of the classic conservative ideals. However, his first two years in office has been more or less on par with how any other conservative president would operate. His administration with congress passed a tax cut for corporations and high-income earners, slashed regulations across numerous government agencies, and promoted industry and economic growth as the measuring rod for success. But the big difference to date has been an eroding of institutional norms and standard procedure. Conservatives in the halls of congress, on the pages of the national review, and in the studios of Fox News have said little to the continued defacement of norms and procedures. Why has the ideology that used to stress caution and warn against change suddenly decided that it no longer matters?

Granted, before Trump secured the republican nomination (and even afterwards), there was a strong chorus of conservative voices sounding opposition and dismay at his campaign. Were these voices really only concerned that Trump had no chance of beating Clinton? Maybe, many a never-trumper have quietly professed their sins and joined ranks behind the president, either for a position in the executive branch or simply to avoid scathing remarks on social and cable media. Where’s the backbone? There are some never-trumpers who have remained staunch opponents to the vision brought to the white house by Trump. But many of these conservative writers and intellectuals were already on the outside looking in to the republican party well before Trump rode down the escalator. 

What are we to make of a conservative ideology which doesn’t stress conservative beliefs? I suppose you could argue that limiting immigration, both legal and illegal, is conservative. It's an idea that maintains a certain status-quo. But what about the degradation of the judicial system? Even as conservative ideologues take hold of the supreme court for the foreseeable future, the president still takes to twitter to demean legal decisions he doesn’t agree with by arguing the judge making them is either insignificant or unqualified to make such decisions. That seems the opposite of the idea the Federalist Society would like to promote. And what too of the media? The degradation of the tradition check on government actions is continually demeaned by the president. Wouldn’t a true conservative want a strong press to push back on the excess of big government and to investigate wrongdoing in whatever agency they find it in?

Conservatism in the Trump era is a forgotten idea. The name persists as a stand-in for party but has little to do with the word it actually possesses. And it is that party which is to blame for despoiling the ideology they chose to associate with. The Republican party proudly labels themselves as conservative yet do everything in their power to prevent meaningful questioning of their executive and party leader. Trump’s behavior is generally disagreeable or embarrassing to most party officials yet they dare not say anything untoward to the man they let take their chairmanship. Asked to comment on the latest Trump tweet most republican senators and congressmen will shirk the questions, deflect to their own legislative business or claim they don’t have the time to keep up with the direct messages from their own party leader. Why has a party which only recently considered itself home to the ‘real Americans,’ party of ‘family values’ and the party of truth, no matter how unfortunate, dug itself into a hole with a man who represents none of those things?

The reality is that the traditional conservative movement just wasn’t very popular. Conservatism by its very nature doesn’t offer quick fixes or easy solutions to complex problems. Conservatism stresses a belief that we need to steady the ship, tie up the mainsail, and stay the course. If it’s worked to this point it will work in the future too as long as we don’t make any fool-hearted attempts to transform the ship into something it was never meant to be. This is why conservative jurisprudence stresses a close reading to the constitution as it is written and as it was intended when written. Nevermind how difficult it is to fly an airplane when the instructions tell you where you need to direct the sails. The ship is enough! But declaring the ship is enough isn’t very popular when we now can travel by plane or by car. So the conservative movement which had tethered to the Republican party in the 1960s was used as an ideological backboard while the party itself used other means to attract popularity and votes. The often discussed under whispers ‘southern strategy’ was used to attract racist southern democrats who had felt alienated by their own party’s push for the civil rights act. In the 1970’s and 80’s Nixon and then Reagan used the moral dissatisfaction with the counterculture movement to bring in the ‘silent majority’ and the ‘Christian right’ to the party. In the 1990’s New Gingrich used CSPAN and the floor of congress as political theater to stoke anger at a changing America and embroil a sense of nationalistic pride at previous generations. The 2000’s saw the push against gay-marriage as a means to solidify a republican base. And finally in 2016 the republican party elected Donald Trump to be president. 

The conservative movement first took in social conservatives of evangelical Christians and racist southerners as a means to an end: electoral success. But by this point the monkeys have taken to run the zoo. Decades of using social policy to support fiscal conservatism has resulted not only in an ends-justify-the-means system of politicking, but also a politics that have traditional conservatives on the outside looking in. 

The dismantling of institutions by the current president of the United States while his own party of ‘conservatives’ look on is just the final act for a brand which holds little political authority any longer. The ends do justify the means, even if they dismantle what was once held dear.