I have to disagree with your medical costs example: If one is a ‘principled conservative’ as I consider myself to be, then conservatism and pragmatism can intersect. Using your example, if medical costs are too high and one is a conservative, price controls are far from pragmatic. Any conservative knows that price controls distort the markets and create shortages, underinvestment, inefficiency and rationing, and eventually the markets find ways to thwart them, usually resulting in higher prices than before. How is it pragmatic to do something that doesn’t work? The pragmatic approach would be to eliminate ObamaCare, allow carriers to compete freely across state lines, dismantle the powerful crony health insurance big pharm lobbies and pass sensible tort reforms. While doing these things, I don’t care if a politician invokes conservative principles or uses conservative jargon.
I think there is a valid argument that someone like Trump may, by being pragmatic, behave in ways consistent with conservative principles, even while not invoking them, thinking about them or using the correct jargon. If he fires half the government employees on his first day as president, I don’t care if he does it in order to “limit the scope of government to those roles enumerated in the constitution” or simply because they are “incompetent”. If he eliminates the federal reserve fiat currency scam, I don’t care if it’s because it’s unconstitutional or if it’s simply because “we’re getting ripped off”.
I have no doubt that someone can be a conservative AND a pragmatic, I just have doubts that Donald Trump is one of those.
I believe he is pragmatic, but I have serious doubts that he holds a conservative world-view.
He wants to find solutions to problems, and he is very good at doing so, but I don’t believe he is guided by principles that are based on the founding ideas and principles spelled out in the Constitution.
I believe he would be a very effective President, and I have hopes that his solutions to problems and his policies toward governance would be in line with conservative principles, but I have very serious doubts.
As was seen in this last debate, Donald Trump himself has trouble defining what a conservative is.
Does this not bother those who claim he is conservative and would govern as a conservative?