Trumpism Isn’t True Conservatism

Even he says so

In the cult of Donald Trump, the tens of millions who call themselves conservatives believe he is one of them. He has said he is not. I guess his followers didn’t get the memo.

True American conservatism has nothing to do with Trump’s plan for one-man rule or his tear-it-all-down approach to politics and government.  Let’s look at some examples:

·         True conservatives favor free markets. Trump would impose sweeping tariffs on imports, putting his thumb on capitalism’s scale.

·         Conservatives are for freedom. Trump would deploy federal troops to crush our rights to protest.

·         Conservatives support free speech rights and the freedom of the press. Trump routinely harasses reporters. During his presidency, his attorney general refused to rule out prosecuting journalists who published leaked stories.

·         Conservatives believe in the balance of power that keeps each branch of government honest. Trump regularly attacks the courts and the Congress and wants to control them.

·         Conservatives believe in limited government. Trump wants to expand the government’s reach in dozens of ways.

·         Conservatives believe in conservation (naturally). We true conservatives respect tradition and institutions. Trump has no respect for the wisdom of his forebears or the traditions that hold society together.

·         Conservatives believe in the sanctity of freedom and democracy. We are fervently anti-authoritarian. Trump and his followers long for a dictatorship.

As Trump has taken over the historically conservative GOP, he and his army of followers support an agenda that is so far from conservatism that the party’s agenda now called Trumpism, which confirms that there’s something very different – and anti-Republican – in this movement. Clearly those who call themselves conservative Republicans, don’t know policy and don’t know history. Consider our GOP presidents:

Abraham Lincoln, who is considered the founder of today’s GOP, (and is the president Trump says he admires most) waged war with the American South to eradicate slavery (lending liberty to 4 million slaves) but also to preserve and protect our democracy from Confederate oligarchs who would extend the rule of the elites to the North. Lincoln enlisted the middle class and the wealthy in the effort, by instituting a temporary income tax. As a leader who believed in opportunity for all, Lincoln created land grant public colleges. As a champion of the private sector, he opened federal lands to private citizens, granting 160 acres to farmers (and would-be farmers) who settled in the West.

Theodore Roosevelt famously conserved our natural heritage by creating national parks. Unlike Trump, who favors Big Business over all, Teddy was the “trust buster” who attacked and broke up monopolies that crippled competition. It was TR who created agencies to inspect food and drugs (especially meat) in order to preserve the health of the American people. He also  expanded the economy with the first policies to promote irrigation and hydroelectricity.

Dwight Eisenhower,  like Roosevelt, sought to protect (and conserve) the well-being of the nation by expanding Social Security. When the Soviets shocked the world by launching the satellite Sputnik, Eisenhower enlisted the country’s greatest scientific institutions in the effort to match and exceed this accomplishment. Ike promoted economic expansion with the development of the interstate highway system.

Richard Nixon, in the spirit of Roosevelt, famously created the Environmental Protection Agency in order to conserve the land, air and water. He went to China to create the ties that led to massive free trade relations. In contrast with Trump’s isolationism, Nixon worked with Leonid Brezhnev to reduce the threat of nuclear war with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.

Ronald Reagan, who was one of the most conservative presidents in US history, saved Social Security from bankruptcy. Never a bully, he worked amicably (and successfully) with Democratic Speaker of the House Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neil. And though he worked to reduce regulation, Reagan never sought to slash the federal workforce and deprive it of the expertise that kept the government running.

The Presidents Bush, who honored the legacies of both Reagan and Eisenhower, promoted education and private philanthropy. They were, in the words of George W. Bush “uniters” and not “dividers.” Unlike Trump, they were ardent supporters of America’s allies, especially members of the  North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Unlike Trump they believed America should engage with the world through diplomacy, trade, and treaties.

As you can see, divisive, isolationist, and anti-democratic Trumpism and conservativism are distinctly different. The vast majority of Trump’s followers would dispute this, because they are ignorant of philosophy and history and of their man’s confession, made recently on CNBC. When asked about the coming four years, were he to be president, he said, quite bluntly, “I’m not a conservative…”