Is the conservative movement dead?
The answer, now that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, seems to be &#8220;yes.&#8221; That&#8217;s according to some who cheer it and some who seem to lament it. Those who cheer it spring from the so-called alt-right, who have been insisting for months that conservatism is a &#8220;failure&#8221; and that it must be replaced with an ethnicity-based white solidarity movement, and from the Pat Buchanan paleoconservative wing of the party, which believes that free trade is economic voodoo, immigration from non-European countries is inherently problematic, and isolationism on foreign policy is the best way to protect the country.
Granting any of these groups leadership in the Republican Party spells disaster for conservatism, obviously &#8211; they&#8217;re outright advocates of overthrowing conservatism.
Take the alt-righters, for example. They openly state that they have no interest in conservatism or the Constitution &#8211; the ideas have been tried, and they have failed. The only way to preserve &#8220;Western civilization&#8221; is by allegiance to European ethnicity. What sort of &#8220;Western civilization&#8221; must be preserved? Not limited government; not individual responsibility; not equality of rights. The alt-right thinks that a white brand of ethnic polarization is the only way to protect against an invasion of Third Worlders, Muslims, and other undesirables.
The alt-right, needless to say, is thrilled with Trump, who may not share their motivations, but shares many of their police preferences.
Then there are the Buchananites. The Reagan coalition was famously based on three ideas: strong national defense, including realist interventionism when necessary; social conservatism; and free market economics, including free trade. Buchananism is based on opposition to free trade and little focus on reforming entitlements; isolationist national defense; and strong limits on non-European immigration. The only element Buchananism and Reaganism truly share is allegiance to traditional marriage and opposition to abortion. That&#8217;s why Buchanan couldn&#8217;t be happier with Trump &#8211; he&#8217;s more Buchanan than Reagan. Among those celebrating the transition from Reaganism to Buchananism is the author of the famous &#8220;Flight 93 election&#8221; essay, who wrote in celebration of Trump on precisely these grounds: &#8220;Since Pat Buchanan&#8217;s three failures, occasionally a candidate arose who saw one piece: Dick Gephardt on trade, Ron Paul on war, Tom Tancredo on immigration. Yet, among recent political figures&#8212;great statesmen, dangerous demagogues, and mewling gnats alike&#8212;only Trump-the-alleged-buffoon not merely saw all three and their essential connectivity, but was able to win on them. The alleged buffoon is thus more prudent&#8212;more practically wise&#8212;than all of our wise-and-good who so bitterly oppose him.&#8221;
Then there are the reluctant conservatives who seem to have surrendered to Trump. These people argue that the Era of Small Government is over, and that we&#8217;re now stuck in an infinite loop of moderate-left candidates running against far-left candidates. Rush Limbaugh seemed to say this yesterday on his program in praising the political &#8220;home run&#8221; of Trump&#8217;s new big government maternity leave policy: &#8220;Look, bottom line: I am the last person on earth who wants any expansion of government&#8230;I think just for people that are not ideological &#8211; which is a hell of a lot of people in this country. I think they&#8217;re going to respond so positively to this, and it&#8217;s gonna disappoint a lot of people.&#8221;
There may be truth to this. Perhaps we&#8217;ve already lost. As early as 2007, George Will wrote that Republicans had to acknowledge the American desire for &#8220;strong government&#8221; &#8211; i.e. big government. I acknowledged this problem, <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2007/03/21/is_the_era_of_small_government_over">and wrote at the time</a>, &#8220;Republicans, therefore, have a double task when it comes to economics: teaching and winning&#8230;It is a tough sell. It will require an articulate politician, and a courageous one &#8211; it is always easier to pander than to speak the truth.&#8221; Rush is one of those who has always focused on both teaching and winning; I trust that shrugging off Trump&#8217;s leftism isn&#8217;t the first move toward shrugging off the war against big government altogether.
But, starved of presidential victory, pandering has become an easier sell for many on the right. Thus, those who think that conservatism can never win an election comfort themselves &#8211; and small comfort it is &#8211; in the legacy of Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/14/a-manifesto-for-the-60-percent-the-center-right-populist-nationalist-coalition/">James Pinkerton</a>, a fellow I like and a writer I respect, has penned a two-part Trumpism defense on these shaky grounds. He touts what he calls a &#8220;60 percent majority&#8221;: &#8220;If you think, as I do, that at least 60 percent of Americans believe that yes, people should be working, that yes, the rich should pay their fair share, and that yes, the global elites should be respectful of patriotic values, then we&#8217;re getting somewhere.&#8221; Any coalition, Pinkerton says, must be built on principles approved by 60 percent of Americans. As examples of such politicians, he uses Teddy Roosevelt, the anti-business &#8220;trustbuster&#8221; who ushered in the Progressive Era, including a bureaucratic government and the income tax, and Richard Nixon, who imposed price and wage controls, created massive new government bureaucracies, and poisoned the Republican brand. In the process of pushing for such a &#8220;60 percent majority,&#8221; he talks about raising taxes to punish companies like Apple for being &#8220;scofflaws&#8221; and creating huge new public works programs, as well as rejecting the &#8220;invisible hand&#8221; of the market in favor of a &#8220;&#8216;visible hand&#8217; &#8211; that is, direct government action to save our citizens from the perils of idleness and the resulting despair.&#8221; And Pinkerton says Republicans should hijack elements of the Democrat agenda, too.
If this is what victory looks like, what exactly does losing look like for conservatives?
Conservatism will only die when its leading advocates become its detractors. This has been my fear of the Trump transformation &#8211; that in order to defeat Hillary Clinton, Republicans were willing to do anything, including embracing Hillary-esque policy. That&#8217;s happening. It doesn&#8217;t have to; there&#8217;s a rational position that rejects Trump&#8217;s ideas when they represent leftism, but still supports him over Hillary. That&#8217;s Mark Levin&#8217;s position, for example: educate about conservatism while making a lesser-of-two evils choice. There are also those, like me, who refuse to embrace a Republican candidate who fights against basic conservative principles.
But too many Republicans are so eager for a victory for which they hunger that they are willing to put a stake through the heart of the cause for which they supposedly fight. If they succeed, victory will turn to ash in their mouths.

Have We Reached The End Of Conservatism?

Conservatism

Donald Trump

Pat Buchanan

On Wednesday, Pat Buchanan &#8211; a man who routinely suggests that what he calls white European ethno-nationalism must be the basis of a future America &#8211; admitted that Donald Trump shares his beliefs. Touting Trump, Buchanan <a href="https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/756130751347695618">exposited</a> on Trump&#8217;s philosophy: &#8220;You could call it tribalism. You could call it ethno-nationalism.&#8221;
Tribalism and ethno-nationalism are code-words for racism. There is no reason to suggest that conservative principles are an inherent part of such a philosophic perspective; tribalism, as <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tribalism">defined by Merriam-Webster</a>, is &#8220;loyalty to a tribe or other social group especially when combined with strong negative feelings for people outside the group.&#8221; More specifically, as <a href="http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/tribalism">Macmillan Dictionary</a> defines the term, tribalism means &#8220;a way of thinking or behaving in which people are more loyal to their tribe than to their friends, their country, or any other social group.&#8221;
Thus loyalty to one&#8217;s tribe, which for Buchanan has always meant loyalty to whites descended from Europeans, supersedes loyalty to one&#8217;s country, which is, in actuality, similar to the modern Democratic Party&#8217;s insistence on appealing to ethnic groups as separate entities, rather than the traditional American insistence on a commitment to shared values.
Some pertinent examples of Buchanan&#8217;s white racism:
From Suicide of a Superpower: &#8220;And as the faith that gave birth to the West is dying in the West, peoples of European descent from the steppes of Russia to the coast of California have begun to die out, as the Third World treks north to claim the estate.
From The End of White America: &#8220;Those who believe the rise to power of an Obama rainbow coalition of peoples of color means the whites who helped to engineer it will steer it are deluding themselves. The whites may discover what it is like to ride in the back of the bus.&#8221;
Buchanan, like Trump, can praise dictators; he <a href="http://archive.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/on_nazis.html">wrote</a> of Adolf Hitler, &#8220;He was also an individual of great courage, a soldier&#8217;s soldier in the Great War, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him. But Hitler&#8217;s success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path.&#8221;
<blockquote>
&#8220;The whites may discover what it is like to ride in the back of the bus.&#8221;
Pat Buchanan
</blockquote>
It&#8217;s not at all surprising that the same man who could praise Hitler and also <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/69035/the-heresies-pat-buchanan">denied</a> Jews were gassed at Treblinka in World War II, saying, &#8220;Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody,&#8221; would praise the same man who tolerates alt-right racist groups.
It&#8217;s not surprising that the same man who once <a href="http://fair.org/press-release/pat-buchanan-in-his-own-words/">wrote</a> of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, &#8220;Take a hard look at Duke&#8217;s portfolio of winning issues and expropriate those not in conflict with GOP principles, [such as] reverse discrimination against white folks,&#8221; would praise the same man who refused to denounce Duke only days before the Louisiana primary.
It&#8217;s not surprising that Buchanan feels free to endorse Trump with all of his tribalist, ethno-nationalist heart.

Pat Buchanan: Trump’s A Tribalist Just Like Me!

&#8220;Middle-class white folks&#8221; and &#8220;working class whites&#8221; are &#8220;culturally under assault,&#8221; said Pat Buchanan on Saturday, speaking with left-wing CNN&#8217;s Michael Smerconish on the anchor&#8217;s eponymous show.

Speaking about an<a href="http://buchanan.org/blog/great-white-hope-125286"> article</a> he published last Thursday, Buchanan headline &#8220;The Great White Hope&#8221; described Donald Trump as appealing to the aforementioned whites as he said President Barack Obama appeals to blacks.

&#8220;<a href="http://www.metrolyrics.com/are-the-good-times-really-over-lyrics-merle-haggard.html">Are the good times really over?</a>&#8221; was being answered in the affirmative by disillusioned white voters, aid Buchanan.

Pointing to Trump&#8217;s<a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/twelve-thirty-seven/2016/04/donald-trump-popular-vote-record-222510"> record-breaking volume of total votes</a> in the Republican presidential nomination process, Buchanan said the majority of the increase was driven by the whites he identified.

&#8220;Nationalism and populism,&#8221; aid Buchanan, were primary drivers of Trump&#8217;s base of white supporters.

&#8220;Are you helping or hurting [Trump] when you cast his campaign in those terms?&#8221; asked Smerconish about the racial element of Buchanan&#8217;s analysis, a question not asked of Democrat appeals to racial, ethnic, gender, and other identity politics.

&#8220;But isn&#8217;t Donald Trump stirring that base by pointing in the direction of the others, and laying off the blame on them for what&#8217;s going on among this core constituency?&#8221; asked Smerconish.

Building a wall along the America-Mexico for border security, said Buchanan, was not &#8220;anti-Mexican&#8221; but an attempt to &#8220;preserve the character and laws of the United States&#8221; which he said &#8220;are under assault.&#8221;

Adding &#8220;40 or 50 million&#8221; new immigrants to the United States since 1965, in addition to millions of illegal immigrants, said Buchanan, depresses wages by increasing the supply of labor. &#8220;Real wages have been stagnant for American workers and American families of the working and middle class&#8221; since 1974, added Buchanan, lamenting the outsourcing of manufacturing operations.

&#8220;Are demographics not destiny?&#8221; asked Smerconish, wondering is Buchanan&#8217;s analysis &#8211; if correct &#8211; meant doom for the GOP&#8217;s future.

The Republican Party is under a demographic death sentence,&#8221; said Buchanan. &#8220;Even if you get, say, 60 to 65 percent of the white vote &#8211; which Nixon got and Reagan got, both of them winning 49-state landslides &#8211; when the white vote diminishes, it&#8217;s not about 72 percent of the electorate &#8211; 63 percent of the population &#8211; as it goes down further and further, you&#8217;re gonna have to get Hispanic votes, you&#8217;re going to have get some more African-American votes, and you gotta get more Asian-American votes, or quite frankly the Republican Party&#8217;s gonna go the way of the Whigs,&#8221; concluded Buchanan.

H/T<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/05/28/buchanan-working-class-white-americans-look-to-donald-trump-the-way-a-lot-of-african-americans-looked-to-barack-obama/"> Breitbart TV</a>

Follow Robert Kraychik on<a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k"> Twitter</a>.
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Pat Buchanan

Have We Reached The End Of Conservatism?

Pat Buchanan: Trump’s A Tribalist Just Like Me!

Buchanan: GOP ‘Under A Demographic Death Sentence’