Donald Trump: The Last Conservative
With Donald Trump now a private citizen, the Republican Party is abuzz with post mortem after post mortem about its state. One of the biggest questions centers around if the GOP can handle the new “Trump Coalition” effectively. While these discussions are interesting, what if we look at it from a different perspective.
One of the most notable aspects of Trumps presidency has been how, despite a few notable differences, he governed as mostly an establishment Republican. His signature legislative accomplishment was a sweeping corporate tax cut. The first thing he tried doing was repealing Obamacare. His executive legacy is remaking the federal judiciary, including three new supreme court justices.
On issues where he was supposed to take the GOP in a bold new direction, it never really happened. Infrastructure week was a running gag. Very little of the wall was actually constructed. There was no sweeping legislative change on immigration. The only real change was an agreement with other countries on how immigrants to America are processed. This led to a more humane situation, and less illegal immigration, but it didn’t change the way America approaches immigration. On trade, we did not embark on a new protectionist/autarkic path but rather placed stronger emphasis on bi-lateral instead of multi-lateral trade pacts. This was inevitable as Britain left the EU, certain trading partners needed new deals to combat China, and we had to reorient with China. Free(ish) trade is still something Donald Trump supported.
This is rationalized by a great betrayal narrative, of Trump, the bold reformer, being stabbed in the back by his own aides and party from carrying out these major reforms. This is tempting, but I don’t think its very persuasive. The idea that Trump ever had a policy outside of bluster and “America strong” is dicey. He simply felt America would be strong with him at the helm, and made the deals he needed to accomplish to get elected.
I look at Donald Trump as The Last Conservative, as this title implies. The conservative movement as it existed from Reagan until today had two major roles for government: restrain the judiciary, and overhaul how America treats businesses so they are more competitive on the global stage. This has been combined with a more realist foreign policy (Bush the elder maintaining the balance of power) to an interventionist foreign policy (George W Bush/Mitt Romney), to a quite frankly warmongering policy of John McCain. There have been a wide variety of differences on other issues, but on matters of business and the courts, that is what united Republicans.
Under Donald Trump, he effectively took those issues off the table. Sure, there are additional things that could be done to make industry more competitive on the global stage. But the overhaul of corporate taxation did a lot to make those businesses more competitive. While one awaits the day when courts begin to roll back some of the excesses of judicial activism (chief among them the white whale that is ending Roe vs Wade), the Supreme Court now has a majority that is favorable to conservative causes. The district courts were fundamentally remade during Trumps era, in ways that will certainly annoy ambitious executives for years to come.
In short, the conservative movement has achieved its victory. There’s little reason to think that these issues will continue to have the salience going forward they originally did. While some have looked to the person of Donald Trump to help set the agenda for a future GOP, that ability is seriously in doubt after his election loss and deplorable behavior, culminating in the January 6th riots at the Capitol. Trump will certainly have a role to play, but the idea of a “Trumpist” wing of the party that presents a compelling alternative vision is almost certainly not happening.
What we’re likely to see now is a race to redefine conservatism, or for something to replace it as the dominant force in the Republican Party. There will always be a seat at the Republican table for conservative ideas. Yet the cohesion of what we would call “conservatism” might not exist at that table. Individual taxes are low. Corporate taxes are modified to be far more competitive. The judiciary is remade. State legislative assemblies are far more Republican, and have constrained Democratic power in meaningful ways. Perhaps it is better to look at Trump as not the first chapter of a new story, but the final chapter/epilogue of a previous book.
Time will tell what the next book will have written within it, and how much of it will be authored by Donald Trump. There are certainly intriguing possibilities. The party has grown increasingly rural and working class since 1996. Trump accelerated these trends drastically, and offered a real breakthrough with non-white voters. It is far from clear that these voters will particularly care about upper income tax brackets and deficit hawkishness. They tend to be more socially conservative, but its a question how much fighting over issues of sexual conduct/morality is what they define as their culture war. The suburbs have changed their vote patterns extensively, and its an open question of what a modernized or conservative republican party can offer them.
The answers to this question will define the Republican Party for the next several years. Before acting too quickly, the GOP should examine all their options before choosing a path.
