Posted on 12/23/2015 3:21:27 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It is as if Donald Trump just walked into a 40-year conversation on conservatism and instead of standing there, nodding his head politely as he got acquainted with the topic at hand, began shouting over the crowd.
It is essentially what Trump has done to conservative policy gurus this year. Trump has reached over anti-abortion diehards, foreign policy neocons, and supply siders to tell base voters directly what he thinks they want to hear and it's working. But he still doesn't have a grasp on how what he's promoting fits into long-term movement conservatism objectives -- nor does he seem to particularly care. Not only is Trump not beholden to the conservative movement, he seems more or less indifferent to it. And that as much as anything strikes fear deep in the hearts of longtime conservatives who see 2016 as a generational opportunity to control Congress and the White House simultaneously.
"If you are a more traditional conservative, someone who has been active in issues like abortion or tax policy and market regulation, yeah, I could see some of those people being quite anxious about Trump because he is a total wild card," said Matt Dallek, an professor of political management at George Washington University who studies the conservative movement. "They don't know him and he doesn't know them. It is not clear that he supports their policies on many issues. Conservatives who have been successful politically did not spend years shouting from the hilltops."
Typically, Dallek says that candidates who catch conservative lightening in a bottle do so because they spent years building a network and immersing themselves in the lingo. Take Ronald Reagan, for example, who Dallek says spent years talking to conservative organizations and emerged out of the anti-communist and pro-market wings of the conservative party, or Pat Robertson, the 1988 evangelical challenger to George H.W. Bush, who emerged from the Moral Majority movement.
Trump has come right out of left field.
The problem for conservatives goes beyond Trump's own positions, which over the years departed from the conservative orthodoxy. Trump lacks a basic sense of the values of the conservative movement, its jargon, or the deals struck over the years to hold the different elements of the movement together as a unified force.
As conservative columnist George Will put it, "Trump is indifferent to those conservative tenets."
For at least two generations, conservatives have been playing the long game on taxes, the judiciary, and abortion, to name a few pillars of the movement. They have carefully crafted plans to make incremental gains when the political winds were against them, and be well positioned to make dramatic gains when the winds shifted in their favor. They talk about their issues in highly refined, well-tested ways, and avoid the rhetorical pitfalls they've discovered the hard way.
Does any of that sound like Trump or his modus operandi?
Like so many other aspects of Trump's confounding rise, the business mogul has somehow captivated primary voters without fully following the movement's rules or understanding it. Trump says the words and attracts applause, but conservatives aren't convinced Trump truly grasps the gravity, the intricacies, and the nuances of the policies he's promoting.
In a Meet the Press interview in August, Trump said that “as a real estate developer and as what turned out to be a world class businessman based on what I've done, you don't ask questions about, ‘Gee, are you pro-choice? Are you pro-life?"
"It's just something that is not really discussed. As a politician, they discuss it all the time," Trump said.
On foreign policy, Trump's saber-rattling rhetoric carries echoes of conservative candidates of the past. How will Trump handle the Islamic State? He's going to "bomb the shit outta them." But past the surface similarities, it's not clear that Trump embraces any particular foreign policy school of thought, or has even given it much thought.
“I don't think he can get up to speed," says Dov Zakheim, a Republican national security advisor who has worked for GOP heavyweights from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney. “You cannot view a few slide briefings or an oral briefing and become a national security expert. It does not happen. You need some experience.â€
Other candidacies are plugged into the conservative tenets of foreign policy and most have their own crew of advisers to turn to. Trump, meanwhile, still has not publicly announced a foreign policy team and in August when NBC's Chuck Todd asked Trump to disclose his military advisers, Trump responded, "I watch the shows."
"He has made it pretty clear that he follows his own advice," Zakheim says. "He rejects Washington-type policy people. So the very people he would need to get him up to speed are the people he holds contempt for.â€
The Club for Growth, whose super PAC spent $1 million in ads against Trump in Iowa highlighting his past positions such as supporting single-payer health care, eminent domain and higher taxes, says Trump is taking conservatism off track just as the GOP has a chance to retake the White House in 2016.
"I think the conservative movement has waited long enough and if there are these concerns that Trump is not the full-orbed conservative he claims to be, then people need to be making that case," says Doug Sachtleben. "It is not like we are left with no one running. There are good choices. That argues all the more for why the conservative movement should speak up."
Some have tried. The anti-abortion movement, specifically, has shown a lot of skepticism toward Trump, who more than a decade ago billed himself as pro-choice.
"There are a lot of folks that distrust where Trump stands on life because of his track record and even his recent vacillations on Planned Parenthood," Lila Rose, a prominent anti-abortion activist, told TPM in August.
But other key conservatives have been reluctant to jump in to attack Trump's lack of policy knowledge or his detachment from their movement. David Keene, the longtime chairman of the American Conservative Union and a former president of the National Rifle Association, says the while he is always worried about any candidate coming up short on Second Amendment rights or seeing a candidate "talking about something they don't understand," he feels comfortable with Trump's basic stance on guns today even if Trump once supported a ban on "assault weapons."
"We believe in redemption," Keene said.
We Trump supporters are beyond politics...He's trying to save the Country from the New World Order...Do you have any idea how many so called conservative Republican politicians are members of the CFR and support the North American Union and the New World Order???
Not only is Trump not beholden to the conservative movement, he seems more or less indifferent to it. And that as much as anything strikes fear deep in the hearts of longtime conservatives who see 2016 as a generational opportunity to control Congress and the White House simultaneously.
C'mon now...It wasn't that long ago that the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the Presidency...And the Dems still got everything they wanted...
And on ‘social conservatism’...
The main assault on that has been by the courts and I expect Trump to use judicial appointments to ‘pay off’ the conservatives. It’s a politically low cost way of doing so. He may mostly hand the job off to a conservative group or person.
At the risk of over-extrapolating, I suspect the contractual nature of conservative constitutionalism even appeals to him.
Reagan gave conservatives a lot of red meat, it’s true.
But if that was all he was, he might have won narrowly or lost narrowly. He didn’t win MA twice, NY twice, NJ twice, IL twice and MD once based on his conservatism.
Remember the “there’s a bear in the woods” ad? Remember him buying a round at the Eire Pub in Dorchester?
THAT is what brought the landslides.
I know.
I frequently praise/criticize both of them and hostile idiocy is far more often the response, when they disagree, of Cruz supporters than Trump supporters.
Trump isn’t a Conservative—he’s a capitalist and a Patriot. Will be become the leader of the Conservatives and Tea Party-—YES. He will prove to be the most conservative we have had in many a year. I think he may well be a sort of John the Baptist—crying in the wilderness—after him will come a true conservative—The nation isn’t ready for a real conservative just now.
I’m not so sure. Trump lives “left” rather than “right,” and his wife and kids are probably the same and a major influence on him. At some point, his Manhattan background is going to catch up with him and he’ll leave social conservatives far behind. That’s probably how the country is going, but social conservatives who something from Trump are likely to be disappointed.
Jim, we’re probably talking past each other here.
I’m sure I agree with you in some ways. In others I don’t.
I saw him as a very Conservative guy right off. Maybe others didn’t. I remember his platform, and it was pretty decent for what I’d expect a Conservative to be.
Maybe you weren’t looking at it that way, and those other things overshadowed it for you. That’s okay. I’ve got no axe to grind. There is one aspect to it that I think is important though. It’s a message the RNC has missed for decades.
I will say that I think it’s important we examine the man Reagan was, evaluate him realistically, and conclude that the people will support Conservatism if it is presented in the right manner.
I was reading on the forum today (possibly yesterday) that Trump doesn’t craft his speech to the crowd. He gives that speech to everyone. Blacks like it. Hispanics like it. Women like it. Men like it.
Good values will sell. Even good Conservative values will sell when you have a guy that isn’t bashful about them or apologizing every two seconds for having uttered them.
I don’t think Trump is pounding it into everyone’s head that he’s a Conservative, although he does touch on it, but it’s the agenda that he is driving that is important to him, and others buy in because they can see he’s earnest about it.
Hope this makes sense.
And, Lauren, honey, learn how to proofread.
an professor?
lightening in a bottle?
As someone who continually screws up spelling and other mistakes, I’ll cut her some slack there. LOL
She is a professional though. Well..., I do use that term loosely.
Well I did open the door up to extrapolating LOL!
Do you think he’d be foolish enough to pull a Bush ‘read my lips’ type double-cross? The incident is so recent and he’s running his campaign against the Republican establishment for doing just that. He’d have no electoral power or support if he did.
His positions are very popular with moderate voters, he owes nothing (to say the least) to the media- I don’t see any reason for him to ‘go liberal’.
After all, his move to the right is rather conveniently recent.
I also suspect that most of Trumps FR supporters also supported flaming liberal suddenly turned conservative Mitt Romney last time around.
A pattern perhaps?
Cruz is the obvious choice for conservatives.
He had me at Filibuster.
He never could have gotten 60% and >500 EV on the basis of conservatism.
What? Conservatives aren't patriots?
I hope that's not what you mean. But it is what you said.
Trump has revealed no respect or knowledge of the Constitution. He has no concept of checks and balances.
Some anti-immigrant voices fear the US will become a banana republic. With Trump, the son of Juan and Evita Peron, they will confirm it.
You went a little too far there...I'll vote against anyone who even hints at that move...The last thing I want is that moonbeam who runs your religion in charge of my Country...
That says it all...where did all these years of "deals" get us....sold down the river to Obama and the dims.
Time for a fresh broom to sweep the trash out.
Somebody who quotes George Will with approval is in no position to accuse anyone else of failing to understand conservative ideas.
I know. I was sorta saying in jest. Religion in our government would be horrible overall.
I think that might be due to my being in the military and don’t really understand that part of it. I would probably be the worst person on Earth to be in charge of liberties because I am so used to them being “losely lost” during 24 years in. I had urinalysis all the time, had computers monitored, couldn’t go freely anywhere unless on liberty, couldn’t say what I wanted.....I really think the civilian world should have SOME of the military rules. It really keeps the populous in line which would help our country so much. I also think that we should pick occupations the way the military does too. You go to work where the test says you will enhance yourself. It works very well and keeps jobs under control population wise. If a job gets overstaffed, they will convert some to other jobs (mainly the ones not up to par). The United States would be incredibly successful if we would adopt some of this.
No of course that’s not what I meant.
Reagan’s huge majorities included a lot of Democrats, pro tax and pro union, who loved his “put America first, make America strong” message.
A pure conservative cannot win those people.
Why not? Aren't conservatives patriots, too? Why can't they "put America first, make America strong"?
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