Posted on 03/09/2016 5:58:07 AM PST by Kaslin
What a short, strange trip it's been for Donald Trump's conservative supporters. Ever since the Goldwaterite takeover of the GOP, the party has tried to convert voters to conservatism. This orientation has sometimes led it to follow a "better to be right and lose" axiom -- hence Goldwater's disastrous defeat in 1964. Now we seem to have tipped in the other direction, thinking it's "better to be wrong and win."
George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" was seen as a nod in this direction, and a great many conservatives -- myself included -- were critical of his efforts to triangulate against traditional limited-government conservatism.
After Barack Obama's election, the Republican Party lurched toward purity. The tea parties were a revolt not only against Obama's leftism but also, belatedly, against the perceived apostasies of Bush, as well as John McCain.
In 2009, then-Sen. Jim DeMint declared he'd rather have 30 reliable conservatives in the Senate than 60 unreliable ones. Ted Cruz launched his presidential campaign on the premise that deviation from pure conservatism cost Republicans the 2012 election. The only way to win was to refuse to compromise and instead give voters a clear choice. Many of the right's most vocal ideological enforcers cheered him on.
Until Trump started winning. Suddenly, the emphasis wasn't on winning through purer conservatism but on winning at any cost.
Consider Larry Kudlow and Stephen Moore. In August, the two legendarily libertarian-minded economists attacked Trump, focusing on what they called Trump's "Fortress America platform." His trade policies threaten the global economic order, they warned. "We can't help wondering whether the recent panic in world financial markets is in part a result of the Trump assault on free trade," they mused. As for Trump's immigration policies, they could "hardly be further from the Reagan vision of America as a 'shining city on a hill.'"
Months later, as Trump rose in the polls, Kudlow and Moore joined the ranks of Trump's biggest boosters -- and not because Trump changed his views. On the contrary, Kudlow has moved markedly in Trump's direction. He now argues that the borders must be sealed and all visas canceled. He also thinks we have to crack down on China.
What explains such Pauline conversions on the road to a Trump presidency? One argument they and many other converts make is purely consequentialist. "For me, Trump potentially represents a big expansion of the Republican Party, a way to bring in those blue-collar Reagan Democrats," Moore told the Washington Post. "That's necessary if the party is going to win again."
Lost in the discussion is any effort to win a mandate for conservative policies, other than an impossible crackdown on immigration (and even on this Trump has acknowledged that he would be more "flexible" than initially advertised). Instead of converting voters to conservatism, Trump is succeeding at converting conservatives to statism on everything from health care and entitlements to trade.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this sorry state of affairs is that many conservatives have been arguing for years that we must update Republican policies to help the very people Trump is now winning over through ideologically haphazard and substance-free demagoguery. Indeed, a diverse group of intellectuals associated with the Conservative Reform Network and the journal National Affairs developed a host of policies that apply Reaganite principles to today's problems.
As Ramesh Ponnuru (my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute and National Review) has argued, cutting top marginal tax rates were a priority when President Reagan took office in 1980 because they were at 70 percent. Now they're at 39.6 percent, so maybe other forms of tax relief should take priority? For instance, Ponnuru has championed beefed-up child tax credits to help struggling families raise the next generation of taxpayers.
Reformocons, as they're sometimes called, were trying to find a way to grow the party without abandoning Reaganite principles. For their efforts, they were dismissed as apostates. Kudlow and Moore heaped scorn on reformocon ideas. Rush Limbaugh, for his part, dismissed reform conservatism as "capitulation" to liberalism.
The irony is that reform conservatives almost uniformly oppose Trump's populist deformation of conservatism, and the former purists are now calling for unity behind the Mother of all Capitulations, rationalized by Trump's promise to win, conservatism be damned.
Whatever a “conservative purist” is I don’t want to be. I’m more conservative than Goldberg and I’ve done more for conservatism than he has.
Whatever a “conservative purist” is I don’t want to be. I’m more conservative than Goldberg and I’ve done more for conservatism than he has.
Speaking as a “purist” conservative who has been supporting Cruz, the thing I like about Trump is he is shaking the corrupt foundations of the lying snakes in the GOPe. At this point I still prefer Cruz but I’m no dummy, he’s not getting the nod. So I will happily support Trump and hope he does half of what he brags about, secure in the knowledge that at the very least he has really upset the GOP apple cart which badly needs to be done.
Jonah seems to opt for losing so often his ideals become ever more far fetched. Giving the Socialists the country and winning every 35 years is too infrequent.
Maybe JG it is because grownups recognize Politics is a conflation of interests why “remforocons” thinks purity uber alles is a “winning” strategy.
Sorry “Remoforcons” your “lose with honor” notions are the same notions that cause a child to throw a temper tantrum when they do not get their way. You are losing the debate and rather then accept that, like a grownups, you are throwing a childish temperamental. That might work in publishing, it is politically suicidal
There is no principal at work in the “reformocons” other then a bull head determination that ONLY their notions counts and any other solution is “heresy”.
Why so many different definitions of Conservatism? This does nothing more than divide us into groups and water us down.
The two main factions of Conservatism:
Neoconservatism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
Paleoconservatism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoconservatism
Which one are you?
I dont know that it is irony that conservatives are thinking "conservatism be damned", I think it is that we would rather have Trump over Hillary.
Wow, did Goldberg miss the mark on that one! That is the problem with so called conservatives who do not understand how the world works and that to make change in a conservative way will require sometimes using means to get there...like free trade...we have no free trade right now, to pretend that we do is blind. We have stupid trade, we give the other nations everything to beat our own American businesses with. To get to free trade we need to negotiate trade deals to actually reflect fee trade.
People who support Trump are from across the spectrum demographically...it is a broad based movement that has much more strength as conservative ideology that will actually get implemented, that is why we support Trump. We believe him and his ability to actually succeed.
Maybe because when everyone from Jeb Bush to Ted Cruz to John Karisch claim to be “the real Conservative” the word has been so bastardized it has lost all meaning.
Tht the problem for the Conservative Establishment like NR, Town Hall, Et All, they have no idea what the word “conservative” means anymore. Apprent “Conservative” is now any “GOPE approved politician”
Explain how CPAC give a standing ovation to “Conservative Hero” Paul Ryan who basically wrote Obama a blank check on the taxpayers for the last year of his Presidency?
Bingo!
The Matter is Jonah people kind of remember those lies and you were a part of them
The irony of Jonah Goldberg lecturing about what conservative purists “ought” to be doing.
Is this the guy that Trump said cannot afford pants?
Forfeiting is not victory. “Noble defeats” are not victory. Vacating the battlefield to let your enemy win is not victory.
No wonder we can never get a real Conservative in the White house. None of us even know what the hell it is anymore.
Double BINGO
That's it. Trump is not the perfect copy book conservative. However, the policies he advocates are basically and strongly conservative, although he approaches the advocacy in a different direction, thereby building a larger coalition to support his policy proposals. The upshot of all this is likely to be President Trump will actually move the country farther to the right than any of the other Republican candidates. Hence, I support him.
Of course, this is a risk, but one well worth taking in view of all of the "great conservatives", like Rubio who've really screwed us when it counted.
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