The Necessity of Conservative Dissent
A healthy movement allows for serious self-criticism.
Back in August, over at The Federalist, DC McAllister called on unrepentant #NeverTrumpers to “fire on the real enemy” — the progressive left — rather than criticize the president and his supporters. By her lights, criticizing the president means that we are “colluding with Democrats” and “throw[ing] conservatives under the bus,” giving “unwitting support” to the “leftist juggernaut.” She ascribes our position to resentment over lost influence.
But her main criticism appears to be that we are disloyal. She argues that whatever our criticism of the president — and even McAllister acknowledges that he is not conservative — we should keep quiet about them because criticism hurts the team, hurts the cause, gives ammunition to the other side and makes victory for our side harder to achieve.
Self-Criticism Makes Us Stronger
As a card-carrying, unrepentant #NeverTrumper, I disagree with McAllister for a number of reasons. Self-criticism makes us stronger, not weaker. A movement immune to self-criticism is one that will quickly become dogmatic, inflexible and stultified. A free and open discussion about what our movement is and what it stands for is healthy — and, by the way, necessary in a democracy.
This was the heart of J.S. Mill’s argument for democracy and free expression: the free market of ideas makes society stronger because it allows better ideas to out-compete the others. So, too, within a political party or political movement, the last thing we should want is a taboo against pointing out our own flaws. How else are we to recognize and correct them?
William F. Buckley famously helped drive the John Birch Society out of the conservative tent he was building. Buckley, above all, knew the importance of a big tent — but he also knew to keep the tent from getting so big that it let in some people who drove everyone else out. Bill Clinton famously denounced Sister Souljah for her racist invective in 1992 — and it helped him win the presidency.
What is our side anyway?
McAllister’s argument is problematic for another reason: in subordinating the meaning of conservatism to political expediency, she risks obliterating any distinctiveness to conservatism altogether. She wants our side to win, fears criticism from the right will make it harder and thus counsels us to keep quiet our misgivings about Trump. But just how far can we take that logic?
If someone registered as a Republican, ran for office on a platform of socialism and won, would it be okay to criticize them? Following McAllister’s logic, it seems not. So long as they campaign and govern under the big red “R,” we’re supposed to hold fire for the sake of team loyalty. But if we can’t criticize a hypothetical socialist who happens to be a Republican, then what does it mean to be a Republican anymore?
It is important to hold our side accountable for doing the things we claim to stand for. Historically, the Republican Party has been the party of limited government and human dignity. When we see politicians doing and saying things inconsistent with that, criticizing them is part of how we defend who we are and what we stand for, lest the party drift into something completely unrecognizable and unsupportable.
McAllister herself does so: in her piece she (rightly) criticizes elected Republicans for their complicity with liberal legislation, their failure to repeal Obamacare and their other policy compromises. If she can criticize them for those failings, why should we refrain from criticizing Trump?
America Needs the Conservative Critique
The most important thing McAllister gets wrong is that if the only critique of Trump and nationalism is coming from the left, people will be forced into a choice between two bad options. If American is forced into a choice between the progressive left and the nationalist right, we have already lost. We cannot afford for progressivism to have a monopoly on anti-Trumpism. If they do, the right will be tarred by everything Trump is and does, with no excuse and no recourse, and America will lurch instinctively to the side that appears more principled.
This struck me in May, reading New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s speech on the removal of Confederate monuments from the city. The speech was powerful and excellent. He appealed to the viewpoint of a child (typical for progressives) and asked, “Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential?”
“This is not about politics,” he said, belying the most political act of choosing whom to honor in public spaces. “Indivisibility is our essence. We now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people.”
Landrieu’s is still the best one out there on Confederate monuments because too many conservatives have been silent on the issue, or have actually defended them. And if his is the only one arguing against Confederate monuments, it will get my applause. It looks like progressives are the only ones who get it right on this issue or offer a positive way forward for Americans as a whole.
And therein lies the danger of conservatives staying silent about Trump — or staying silent about the other ills and dangers on the right. If progressives are the only ones who criticize Trump, or criticize nationalism or criticize anything else on the right — if we are silent when our side screws up — we are granting progressives an unearned and undeserved monopoly on moral authority. We look like pure tribalists and they look like principled philosophers by comparison. This is obviously far from the whole truth, but we are allowing them to get away with the pretense by ceding the field them without a fight.
If there is no critique of Trump and nationalism from the right, then Trump and his brand of nationalism define the right and there is no room for maneuver. Do we want America to conflate “Trump” with “conservative” and “Republican?” Do we want America to dismiss conservative political thought as merely the paperwork we shuffle before rotating the next dynasty into power?
Allowing room for the conservative critique of Trump is essential for ensuring that there still is such a thing as conservatism distinct from — and after — Trump. It is essential for ensuring that progressive voices are not the only ones who advance any sort of critique. It is essential for showing America that our side stands for something other than the personal advancement of the president. It is essential for ensuring that America has a credible alternative: that those who are unable to support the president are not driven into the arms of the progressive left by default.
Paul D. Miller teaches public policy at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a research fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
