What conservatism means in Trumpism
Donald Trump was the big winner Super Tuesday, even if he didn’t do what he needed to put this race away. But he did well enough to cast some light on how he plans to run against Hillary Clinton if he gets the Republican presidential nomination.
He was smart to hold a news conference instead of a big rally. Even many of his fans are willing to concede that he hasn’t always come across as presidential. Having New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie introduce him — with all the enthusiasm of a hostage reading his captor’s ransom demands — and then stand behind his master like a dutiful valet cum vice president did lend the event a more presidential feel than Trump’s typical circus tent revival.
Except for the stray disparagement of “Little Marco” Rubio and a poorly veiled threat at House Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump was more magnanimous than usual. But the biggest hint came in what has already become his second favorite slogan — after “Make America Great Again” — “I’m a common-sense conservative.”
As slogans go it’s not bad. It has similarities to George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” — and differences. Compassionate conservatism was intended to correct the impression that movement conservatism is too mean-spirited. Contrary to a lot of left-wing rhetoric about his heartlessness, Bush grew government considerably, from a massive Medicare expansion to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security to increased federal involvement in education.
I never liked the phrase “com- passionate conservatism” because it suggested conservatism until Bush was uncompassionate. This is the logic of Great Society liberalism — that the quality of your soul is measured by how much you support large and ineffective government programs.
Trump is playing a similar game. He said Tuesday night, “Planned Parenthood has done very good work for some, for many many, for millions of women. And I’ll say it. And I know a lot of the so-called conservatives, they say, that’s really — ’cause I’m a conservative, but I’m a common-sense conservative.”
Trump couldn’t finish the thought, but you can see where he was going. Conservatives who oppose Planned Parenthood, in its entirety, are not only antiwoman, or lacking in common sense or not even really conservatives. They are so-called conservatives. This redefining of conservatism into Trumpism will hardly be limited to defending abortion mills. Trump is fundamentally opposed to entitlement reform. He is vaguely for some kind of health care mandate and praises European nationalized health care systems.
Indeed, he has never shown more than the briefest nod to traditional conservative concerns about limited government, personal liberty or the Constitution.
Democrats can’t see it, but Trump represents a massive victory for the left in so far as he’s the first major Republican figure to successfully reject libertarianism, even rhetorically.