The Republicans Are No Longer Conservative

Trump has reverence for institutions and norms the way Jeffrey Dahmer has reverence for cannibalism laws

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Dan Gardner

scooped me on this one, having written a post almost exactly like the one I was planning to write. Check out his interesting blog post.)

The great conservative thinkers—Chesterton, Burke, Scruton, and Buckley—are anathema to the modern Republican party.

Conservatism is predicated on the idea that one should oppose rapid, radical reforms. When we live in the most prosperous time in world history, a dramatic transformation and abandonment of old institutions is a horrendous mistake, one made all too often by those crowing about revolution. Institutions that have stood the test of time and lasted shouldn’t be thrown out. This is well summarized by a quote from Roger Scruton (ht Gardner for this quote):

“Conservatism starts from a sentiment that all mature people can readily share: the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created.”

Chesterton’s famous fence was used to illustrate the philosophy. If you see a fence and can’t think of a reason why it’s there, a liberal would take down the fence. A conservative, by contrast, would not, on the grounds that one shouldn’t change things absent a good reason to. There’s a strong case for keeping the status quo when it has brought about wealth, flourishing, and prosperity, particularly given the poor track record and speculative nature of radical movements.

It is something of a historical accident that conservatives became associated with Republicans. There’s nothing particularly conservative about tax cuts and nothing in the nature of conservatism is opposed to immigration—so long as it’s done slowly and carefully. The right-wing bundle of political commitments generally has no particular logical connection with conservatism.

Trump and Trumpism more broadly represent the death of modern conservatism.

Trump’s platform was not about preserving institutions, but shaking things up. He primarily appealed to those of the view that the world is going to hell in a handbasket and needs major institutional reform. Already in 2016, Trump was not a conservative—he was a populist, interested in tariffs and immigration restrictions, and most of all, disruption for its own sake. He came to power on the platform of “things suck, those running our institutions are corrupt morons, and we need someone with a huge brain to change things.”

Trump’s reaction to Chesterton’s fence would be to Tweet “Totally Failed and Corrupt fence put up by the Democrats must be Put Down. Make America Great Again.” Personality-wise, Trump is the opposite of a conservative; he’s impulsive, firing off radical plans for major reform just to bring about change. No conservative advocates eliminating the income tax and replacing it with tariffs as a throwaway proposal.

That Trump is in any way interested in conserving anything is an absurdity about as great as anything could be—it’s the sort of thing that stretches the limits of the human imagination, that only the most committed dogmatists could think is true. Trump reveres institutions the way Nixon revered anti-spying laws, the way Blackbeard reveres anti-piracy laws, the way I revere the self-sampling assumption. Trump’s attitude towards existing norms is a bit like his attitude towards correct use of capital letters or the advice not to look at the sun, like Ayn Rand’s attitude towards anything not written by Ayn Rand, like Hitchens’ attitude towards the Bible.

During his first administration, Trump’s extreme recklessness was mostly kept in check by the people around him. He worked with serious people, and mostly didn’t do anything crazy for the first several years of his administration. The McMasters of the world kept him restrained.

When he lost, he sought out a team of fanatics and crackpots like Eastman and Giuliani. He engaged in an attempt to subvert Democracy, vitiate our institutions, and declare himself the winner in an election that he lost. He attempted to obliterate the norms that make America prosperous to keep himself in power.

This is the opposite of conservative. It’s about as unconservative as one can be. An attempt to overthrow the election is just about the most severe norms violation conceivable. It’s exactly the sort of thing that Burke would warn about—a way that good institutions go to die.

If you support the guy who attempted a coup because you prefer his policies, it’s hard to see on what basis you’re a conservative. The whole point of conservatism is that the robustness of institutions matters more than individual policies, that major institutional disruption isn’t worth a few slightly better things. While Republicans spent many years claiming that Obama and the Democrats undermined the fabric of our institutions, Trump has, like little else, undermined them.

Then we come to the issue of his appointments. The new Trump administration is being staffed by an eclectic mix of competent mainstream Republicans and demented crazy people. A conservative does not appoint Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Junior to his administration, purely on the grounds that it might shake things up. As Gardner notes:

The glee and excitement when Trump announces yet another major appointment or policy crazier than the last is palpable. It’s also familiar if you know the history of revolutions: It’s the giddy stage in which the revolutionaries have seized control and realize they can do what they like, so they radicalize — their talk grows more extreme, their proposals more sweeping, until they are renaming cities and changing the calendar and erecting statues the size of buildings. It is France 1791. It is Russia 1919.

What it is not is conservative. In fact, it is the polar opposite of conservative. Donald Trump has far more in common with V.I. Lenin than Edmund Burke.

Trump started up a new federal agency to try to eliminate government waste. Now, ordinarily, I might even support such an agency—I think we have too many government regulations and would like for someone to cut them. But does anyone think that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy heading the D.O.G.E department are competent to assess cost benefit analyses?

More likely is that they’ll cut left-leaning or dumb sounding government programs—and perhaps even agencies. As Vivek says “We’re not bringing a chisel. We’re bringing a chainsaw.” I’d expect, insofar as D.O.G.E manages to cut anything, it to be an insane and eclectic process, without careful thought. Chesterton’s fence as a parable is almost exactly about why having Vivek and Musk in charge of rapidly downsizing the government without doing careful cost benefit analyses is a bad idea.

And don’t even get me started on the corruption. Musk is part of Trump’s cabinet because he spent billions helping Trump and kissing Trump’s ass. If George Soros was appointed to an agency, despite having no relevant work experience, because he gave a lot of money to the Democrats, everyone would decry the corruption. Vivek is part of D.O.G.E because he’s young, speaks well, and praises Trump with every utterance. It would be a bit like appointing Harry Sisson to be in charge of downsizing the government.

Trump is just about the least conservative candidate one could imagine. He has taken an ostensibly conservative party and subverted it. He has adopted—quoting Gardner again—a brand of gangster isolationism that opposes defending our allies or preserving any of the international institutions that have brought such great prosperity.

Then he attempted a coup.

Then, he staffed the most significant institutional body in the world with kooks and fanatics, all in a flagrantly corrupt scheme to aid those who kissed his ass, many of whom support radically transforming the agency they staffed. In a manic spree, Trump is attempting to radically reshape the federal government in his own image, as he already has reshaped the Republican party. Trump, just about the most licentious and personally immoral person in the United States, has succeeded in making the Republicans not care about personal values in the slightest.

Say what you want about the man, those supporting him cannot deny that he’s a radical reformer. Yet major reform in the face of the most prosperous time in world history is disastrous. When things are going well as a result of uniquely successful institutions, you don’t shake things up.

Those supporting him have not learned the lesson of history—as Scruton says, “good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created.”