It does seem that Conservatism, Inc. has outlived its usefulness.
Link to JAG article: https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/10/farewell-to-the-conservative-movement/
This article goes off track right in the first paragraph.
Trump isn’t a movement conservative. That has nothing to do with his personal life, and everything to do with certain policy positions. Most conservatives don’t want a billion-dollar infrastructure bill, or a “reformed” healthcare bill, for example, yet President Trump has publicly thrown his support behind those things.
Most “movement” conservatives (and I speak as a lifelong conservaative who has been involved in numerous conservative organizations) believe that in general, trade is good and should be as unfettered as possible. President Trump has been a long-time advocate of tariffs, an not just on countries that are hostile. Many here agree with him, many don’t.
He tends to endorse Establishment RINOs like Ryan, Romney, McCain, and Strange over conservative challengers.
President Trump has done a lot of good things, a lot of conservative things, but let’s not kid ourselves. He’s not a Movement conservative, nor a consistent conservative. He has certain liberal views.
While I have no use for Big Government pseudocons, they’re not movement conservatives either. They may think they are, but they’re not — and I tend to be a fairly “big tent” conservative. (i.e., I have room for hard traditionalists (I did study with Russell Kirk, after all, and named my YAF chapter after him) and for reasonably conservative libertarians.)
So I’m not inclined to exclude peoplefrom the movement. I hve room for Buckley, Kirk, Meyer, Michael Savage, Rush, Hannity, Beck, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, for Goldwaterites and Reaganites, for Rand. For Howard Phillips. But not Big Government people.
But again, they’re not the conservative movement.
The conservative movement has conserved nothing while providing an outlet to decompress any serious right wing reaction.
Fortunately, the conservative movement is dead.
bump
The last 40 years of “Conservatism” and “Liberalism” were simply a manufactured binary intended to suppress the Americansim Trump’s election heralded.
The former “Conservative-Liberal” uniparty has united in opposition to America
I have a simpler analysis:
The real Conservative Movement is alive and well - thriving as never before under the able leadership of Donald Trump.
The only “conservatives” suffering a setback are the MSM anointed “conservative leaders” who are jealous of Trump’s success and resent him for it.
Self-appointed Conservative leaders have essentially the same problem as self-appointed black leaders - they are creations MSM.
The MSM has always ordained who will be the “black leaders”, like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc., bringing them on as guests, handing them a microphone as if they represent African Americans - but the AAs never had a say in this - it’s all a fiction created by the MSM, and the so-called black leaders are seduced by the media attention into believing it themselves.
The same is true of so-called “conservatives” like George Will, Bill Krystol, etc.. - 100% media creations - they are and always were nothing more than useful idiots for the Leftist media - they were not chosen by conservatives to speak for them - they were hand picked by the Left as token conservatives - they have no conservative following, but due to their vanity, they think they do.
In 2015-2016, their “leadership” was put to the test when they led with #neverTrump and nobody followed. Every Trump win was a humiliating defeat for them.
Conservative “leaders” have been dethroned, but the conservative movement is thriving. We have a POTUS who wakes up each morning at the crack of dawn and starts hunting down job-killing regulations, job-killing trade deals, job-killing taxes, job-killing sanctuary cities, baby-killing abortionists, truth-killing fake news outlets, 2nd Amendnent killing leftists, efficiency-killing bureaucracy, Liberty-killing judges, Western Civilization killing ISIS, America-killing globalists, etc., etc., etc...
Trump is the best thing that has happened to conservatives in a long time - he’s the worst thing that ever happened to the Left and the Left-anointed “conservative leaders”.