What Trump Has Really Exposed About The Conservative Movement

There has been a lot of talk of late about what is to blame for the Trump phenomenon. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about this, and everyone is happy to share their opinions.

What those opinions happen to be was put best by Yuval Levin. In an appearance on The Federalist Radio Hour with Ben Domenech, he said:

“Everybody who talks about Donald Trump ends up basically saying that it confirms what they’ve always thought.”

Hardly anyone has come up with a brand new thought as to what it is about the GOP that has caused Trump to “happen”. We all sit around and talk about how Trump is being successful because of any specific reason, but that reason is always one we have known about for some time. And in most cases, whoever it is who is talking about said reason now, in the context of Trumpism, had been talking about the very same thing before Trump as well.

There’s a very simple reason for this tendency. We are, after all, human beings, and being human, we abhor change. If Trump is a reaction to problems in the party we have been aware of & we have been pointing out before Trump, then there is no reason for us to change anything.

As long as we can all continue to point to any specific thing that we aren’t the ones lacking in, and we can figure out a way to plausibly tie that to the ascension of Trump, we remain safe. We are both not to blame for what has happened, and there is nothing we personally need to change.

But here’s the thing. I think that almost all the (serious) theories for Trumpism are correct. And if that’s true, they’re all wrong as well.

What saying “Trump happened because of X” is essentially saying is that if variable X did not exist, Trump would not have happened. But the truth is that there really is no variable X which is solely responsible for Trump. Trump happened because of the confluence of so many failings on the part of the GOP. That mix of many reasons is why people are embracing him.

Think about it. If it were any one policy issue that were responsible for Trump, voters could support another candidate who takes a hard line on that one policy issue. If it were a non-policy issue, (like anti-establishmentism) the ability for another candidate to exploit & co-opt it wouldn’t have allowed for Trump.

No, it’s about everything. If you’ve heard a sound theory about Trump, that probably plays into his supporters essentially abandoning conservatism & embracing Trumpism.

Which brings me to my main point, one I only realized after hearing Levin say what he said about people using Trump to validate their already existing theories. We keep talking about & wondering who and what is responsible for Trumpism & the fact that his supporters have inexplicably abandoned conservatism for him. And while there are many reasons to blame many people, especially those inside the beltway & the members of the “establishment” (whatever that means), the ultimate blame isn’t with them.

It’s on me.

Oh, not just me. It’s on you too. It’s on every single one of us. I’ll explain.

Why is it we can identify & recognize all these problems within the GOP and despite all that, we haven’t felt the desire to join The Trump Train?

It’s because for all the faults the GOP has, the cronyism, the lack of accountability, the over-promising & under-delivering, we couldn’t allow ourselves to join together with Trump — because Trump is the antithesis of conservatism. We wouldn’t be advancing conservatism by standing behind him.

And that’s where we are culpable. Why do we get this, but those who support him don’t? It’s because we have some understanding as to what conservatism really is all about. But have we done anything to educate other people and help them understand conservatism better?

Don’t get me wrong. There are wonderful conservative publications which do a wonderful job creating conservative content for us to consume. But we blew it. Those publications are great, but what they do, in essence, is preach to the choir. And who is preaching to the congregation?

That’s our culpability. We allowed the dumbed-down (& frankly, false) versions of conservatism to be peddled by many in talk radio, certain websites & most of the Fox News hosts, telling ourselves that it was “good enough” because it kept the base in line & somewhat informed.

But what does conservatism mean to them now? I’m not quite sure. Maybe it’s nothing more than tribalism. But if you’d ask an uneducated “conservative” what conservatism means to them they’d probably tell you something like “illegal immigration, Obama, strong military, China, jobs” with no real understanding of the issues or conservative values at all. Because that’s all they’ve ever been taught about this strange version of conservatism.

It’s hard to really educate people. And we’ve been lazy. But we can now see what happens when we are lazy, and don’t try to educate the uneducated. We are left with a base that doesn’t understand what conservatism is, because they have had awful teachers, who don’t themselves know what conservatism is.

If we are to win our party back, (& I sincerely hope, while watching other candidates engage in a circular firing squad as Trump gains momentum, that it isn’t too late,) we are going to have to do a much better job at educating people — the ones who are already on our side — as to what conservatism really is.

They want to learn. They turn on their radios, and are the ones watching the shows on cable — because they care. We just have to figure out how to make sure they get the right teachers.