Politics Post-Trump: The Death of Conservatism and the Emergence of the Next Political Realignment

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Oct 10, 2016

Donald Trump’s rise to the top of the Republican Presidential ticket shook up the postwar political consensus and stunned pundits on both sides of the aisle. As recently as this Spring, many conservatives thought that this election would be business as usual; an establishment Republican like Marco Rubio would face off against Hillary Clinton in a contest that would focus principally on how best to grow the economy, whether Obamacare should be repealed, and who had a better strategy for defeating ISIS. Instead, a businessman with no political experience is vying for the White House against the wishes of the GOP elites, and has adopted a policy platform and a rhetorical style that hasn’t been seen from a nominee of either major party in a very long time. In response to this unforeseen development, many on the Beltway Right are refusing to vote for their party’s nominee — some even going so far as to endorse Clinton — and mainstream commentators all across the country are wondering whether politics as they know it will continue to exist after 2016. Some conservatives, like Sean Hannity and Paul Ryan, are continuing to back Trump, believing that they can come to an agreement that would allow a Trump administration to act as a relatively stable, albeit unusual, vehicle for their agenda. Others, like Glenn Beck and Mitt Romney, are less optimistic, and would rather look forward to 2020 when they hope a more normal Republican, like Ted Cruz, can defeat Hillary. Both of these groups are wrong because they, like most members of the establishment, fail to fully recognize the truly transformative nature of the Trump campaign and the lasting, irreversible impact this election will have on the political landscape. Republicans need to understand that Conservatism is dying, and it can’t be saved. The result this November will determine the nature of its demise, and what will come to replace it on the American Right.

Here, I do not mean Conservatism in the classical Burkean sense, where Conservatives are simply those who wish to resist rapid, dramatic societal change. I am referring specifically to the modern Conservative movement, developed at the start of the Cold War in large part by William F. Buckley and the rest of the staff of National Review. This Buckleyite Conservatism was a mix of three ideologies: Conservative traditionalism, economic libertarianism, and an Anti-Communist foreign policy[1]. Social Conservatives became the modern Religious Right, and Anti-Communist hawkishness was replaced by Neocon hawkishness, but, for the most part, Buckley’s original fusionist Conservatism has dominated the Republican party for the last sixty years. Every politician who wanted to attain success in the GOP since Eisenhower knew that he was expected to appeal to all three groups, and, ideally, sincerely support all three branches of the Conservative coalition.

In this modern, fusionist sense, Trump is not a Conservative at all. First of all, Trump would be probably the least religious and socially Conservative Republican President ever. This is a man who, despite claiming the Bible was his favorite book, wasn’t even able to name his favorite verse from it, or say whether he preferred the New or the Old Testament[2]. He sided with transgender people in the North Carolina Bathroom controversy this April[3], and had Peter Theil speak at the RNC in part in an attempt to appeal to gay voters[4]. Besides a momentary comment (which he quickly retracted) about arresting women who have abortions, neither abortion nor gay marriage have been significant issues in his campaign. This is a stark contrast with his Republican rivals like Ted Cruz, and with previous Republican nominees, who made those major issues.

On economics, Trump is a mixed bag, and certainly isn’t sticking to the typical GOP line of free markets, free trade, and limited government. Although his tax plan is not unlike what we’ve come to expect from conservatives[5], his plan to place tariffs on international goods[6], invest a trillion dollars into infrastructure[7], and to spend government money on maternity leave[8] are all very much at odds with traditional Conservative economic policy. Even his support for immigration restriction[9] is somewhat surprising for a Conservative. Although he certainly isn’t the first Republican to attack illegal immigration and amnesty, his general opposition to new immigrants, legal and illegal, makes him an enemy of many on the libertarian, pro-business right who oppose barriers to free movement of labor.

Lastly, and possibly most dramatically, Trump’s statements on Foreign Policy represent a radical departure from the Conservative agenda of the last 60 years. Recently, Conservative foreign policy strategists have typically been very interventionist, favoring a major American presence in the world to spread democracy and combat the influence of Russia. This basic attitude was prominent on the right during the Cold War when Conservatives wanted to prevent the spread of Communism and is currently promoted by neocons who had a lot of influence in the second Bush administration and were largely responsible for the Iraq War. Trumpism is essentially the opposite of this Republican status quo. First of all, he has declared an end to nation building[10] and attacked the last GOP commander-in-chief for his misadventures in Iraq[11]. Second, he would completely reverse Republican policy on Russia, praising Putin as a strong leader[12] and advocating working with Russia as allies to resolve the situation in Syria[13].

Given that Trump has a very real chance of being the next President, and his platform looks like nothing either party has put forth in at least several decades, it is quite likely that he will transform the future of American politics. Both possible outcomes in November are almost certain to greatly disrupt the two-party system as it is currently constituted, but I’ll first consider the impact a Trump victory would have on our political situation.

If the Republicans win the White House next month, Conservatives will be forced, either by action or inaction, to aid their own destruction. Those Republicans who have voiced major objections to Trump’s policies will have to decide whether or not to compromise their principles for their party. Substantial Republican dissent from Trump’s agenda would fracture the GOP and make it very difficult for their party to remain a dominant political force in the near future. Trump’s inability to consolidate his fellow Republicans in Congress would probably render him an ineffective, one-term President, and likely cause a weakened Republican party to face serious losses in the House and Senate as well (although they would at least be able to place a Conservative on the Supreme Court during those four years). Ultimately, the Right will end up the same way in this scenario as they would if Clinton was elected this year.

The more interesting possibility is that Trump wins and bends reluctant Conservatives to his will. If this occurs, he actually has a chance of turning a significant amount of his platform into reality, and a more unified GOP would be a formidable force going into 2020. This Trump-led Republican party would have demographics on their side, assuming Trump went through with the mass deportations and immigration reduction that he has proposed. They would also be able to place at least one Justice on the Supreme Court, and might be able to get two or three if Trump wins a second term and Ginsberg and/or Breyer leave the Court. However, what would this new Party be like, and how would the Democrats respond?

In this scenario, Trump will be remaking the GOP in his image, and so it will certainly not be the Conservative party of old. Instead, it will be a Nationalist-Populist Party, resembling France’s National Front more closely than anything in American politics. Like Trump, it will be protectionist, anti-immigration, and opposed to spreading democracy through foreign intervention. Although this Nationalism isn’t the ethno-Nationalism or White Nationalism many on the Left claim it is[14][15], it will leave the more overtly racialist elements of his base (the movement now known as the Alt-Right) with much more ideological space to operate than it ever has had before. It’s hard to predict exactly how radical this new party would get, but it would definitely be to the right of the modern GOP on issues like Race, Islam, and immigration. It would make much less of an attempt to garner the support of minorities, and would be more likely to directly appeal to its White base. It could do this by forcefully fighting movements such as Black Lives Matter, (Trump has already indicated his opposition to this with his “Law and Order” rhetoric) directly attacking policies such as Affirmative Action and Section 8 Housing, and maintaining a strong stance on positions that Whites support in far greater numbers than other groups, like gun rights[16]. It’s very likely a Trumpist GOP would move in this direction because it’s the attitude Trump has personally taken, because that party would be unlikely to appeal to many Blacks and Hispanics no matter what it did, and because it’s opposition to immigration means that it wouldn’t have to fear a changing demographic situation in the way the current GOP does.

This Republican party transformation would force the Democrats to shift their positions in response. In order to appeal to Neoconservatives and free trade libertarians who would feel alienated by a Nationalist Right, they would want to adopt a more purely Globalist stance on issues like trade and foreign policy. The Bernie wing of the Left would lose power, for two reasons. First, its attack on big business, desire to reduce interventionism, and opposition to free trade deals would distress pro-business centrists that this new Left would want to appeal to. Secondly, it would be able to count on the votes of the hard left no matter what it did, because most Bernie supporters would view the Nationalist Right as so horribly racist and xenophobic that they would feel they have to vote against it. This possibility, where Trump wins and becomes a relatively popular President, at least among the Republican base, would lead to a political realignment along Nationalist-Globalist lines that would be the most important change in the American political landscape at least since Nixon pursued his Southern Strategy. If this happens, I predict that in 2024, the Democrats would put up Joe Biden or someone similar to him, and would face a Republican like Senator Steve King of Iowa. This could easily be the prevailing dichotomy in US politics for decades to come.

On the other hand, if Trump loses to Clinton, it won’t just be the Conservatives that die out, but the entire Right-Wing of the country. Hillary will almost certainly be a two-term President, even if she disappoints many of her voters, for three reasons. First of all, her immigration policy will bring a lot of new voters to the Democratic side. She plans to legalize the illegal immigrants who are here and provide them with a quick path to citizenship, in addition to importing many new immigrants from overseas[17]. These new voters will form a nearly unanimous Liberal voting bloc, not only because they are from demographics that typically vote for Democrats but because they’ll know that if it were up to the most recent GOP nominee, they wouldn’t even be in the country. This demographic shift will likely turn Arizona and Florida, two very important swing states, blue. Second, Hillary will be facing a divided Republican party in 2020. If the GOP nominates a Trump-style candidate, the exodus of centrists and libertarians from the Republican party will only continue. If they bring forward a more establishment Conservative to go against Clinton, the hardcore Trump base will probably stay home rather than support someone who represents the very wing of the Party they felt has betrayed them. Lastly, without SCOTUS on the line, Republicans will be much less animated to vote. A Clinton administration would be able to appoint three young leftists to the court (Breyer and Ginsberg could resign to allow her to do that) and we’d see a Supreme Court with only three Justices to the Right of Kennedy for more than a generation.

Between these three factors, it seems like it will be incredibly difficult for the GOP to muster the votes to remove Hillary, and she’ll last until 2024. At that point, Demographics would simply destroy the GOP. According to the New York Times, in 2024 America would have 360 million people if Clinton wins and only 323 million if Trump wins[18]. It’s hard to imagine many of these voters supporting the Republican party and opposing the one that is responsible for legalizing and naturalizing them. In addition to their direct, self-interested reasons for supporting Democrats, they tend to agree with liberal principles more than Right-wing (conservative or nationalist) ones. Hispanics, by a large margin, tend to support a larger government with more services and a more substantial role in people’s lives than the average American does[19]. As this country’s demographics shift to have a larger share of Hispanics, the left will gain power. This process is already happening fairly quickly, but will be sped up if Clinton wins[20]. By 2024, this should enable Democrats to send a Bernie style candidate like Elizabeth Warren to the White House. By the time the Republican party can recover from the ideological fracturing this election is causing it, immigration will have rendered them and their ideas entirely irrelevant. Our politics will be like Europe’s, but with two parties and no growing nationalist movement. We will have our Labour-type Democratic socialist party and another party that resembles Europe’s centre-right (what would be center-left here).

The choice this November is one on the direction of this country and its politics, and your vote should be based far more on which option you want to see in the long-term than on your personal views of either candidate. If you want to see a Nationalist-Globalist realignment, vote Trump. If you’d prefer to see a culturally left country with a larger government, vote Hilary. No matter what happens, Conservatism isn’t coming back.

[1] http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Populism--I--American-conservatism-and-the-problem-of-populism-8462

[2] http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/27/politics/donald-trump-favorite-bible-verses/

[3] http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/04/trump-transgender-bathrooms-222257

[4] http://time.com/4418475/republican-convention-peter-thiel-lgbt-gay-rights/

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-lot-for-conservatives-to-like-in-donald-trumps-tax-plan/2015/09/28/df28d696-6610-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html

[6] http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-tariff-party-1467240379

[7] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/donald-trumps-big-spending-infrastructure-dream/494993/

[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/13/donald-trump-joined-by-ivanka-trump-to-outline-child-care-policy/

[9] https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-address-on-immigration

[10] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trump-declare-end-nation-building-elected-president/

[11] http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/trump-goes-after-bush-cheney-for-iraq-war-744891971632

[12] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin.html?_r=0