Conservatives: The Republican Sir Robins

Why Conservatives should stay in the Republican party despite - or even because of - Trumpism.

Bravely Taking to Our Feet

A movement is afoot once again in the Republican party. But I am not referring to the March of the Trumpites nor the #NeverTrump resistance to the candidate and whatever his following may represent. Rather the next move by conservatives in the Republican Party seems to be to declare that, should Trump win the nomination, they will burn their party registration cards and walk away. This is folly for a host of reasons.

Whatever your favorite pet theory of Trump it is more than likely he is a sui generis populist moment within the Republican Party, not a movement. We have seen the Ross Perots and Pat Buchanans come and go before. They simply did not have the benefit of a slight TV time advantage, (I mean- wow) along with 30 years of a manufactured marketed image culminating in a Reality TV show. The two terms of economic malaise under Obama along with the rising cost of everything did not help either; the Trump “manufacturing jobs” theme is simply a synecdoche for a near decade of lost income and wealth. Many Trump voters are either fringe Republicans, disaffected Democrats, or Burn It Down Republicans whose anger at the Establishment causes them to make emotional decisions. Walking away from the Republican Party as a conservative in this moment is no different from that last group with the same outcome- a Republican Party remaining the vessel but with no conservatives to steer it.

I am sympathetic to the Walk Away group. I am as dismayed as anyone by an election that was completely winnable for any decent moderately conservative to very conservative candidate for the first time in years versus a Democratic opponent who may be indicted before all is said and done. I understand completely what was at stake after 8 years of disastrous Presidential leadership, the rise of ISIS and Russian aggression, and the next generation of Supreme Court composition.

I also understand the idea, as with the #NeverTrump movement on Twitter, to disassociate ourselves from Trump himself and his core of supporters; conservatives do not endorse Trump as a person, candidate, party representative. And whatever grievances Trump supporters may hold, conservatives desperately want to shun and disavow the ten percent or so of white nationalists, racists, bigots, and nativists who comprise Trump’s support and exuberant online army. Whatever Trumpism is, it’s not conservatism nor are Trump’s followers conservative. But leaving the Party assumes two things: 1) the Party Establishment is somehow to blame and 2) It will accomplish anything more than empty posturing.

Blaming the Establishment

The Establishment, whatever it may signify to the user of the term, at least means The People in Charge of the Republican Party. But this could mean the Republican National Committee (RNC), various senior elected Republican officials, donors, and the various factions of moderates who comprise at least the simple majority of Republican voters. The RNC is an organization. I am sure it is staffed with wonderful people who mean very well and try hard. However, it is just an organization. Its goals are to perpetuate the Republican Party, attract as many people to the group as possible, and get people who claim membership in the Party elected to public office. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Part of the disillusionment that conservatives are experiencing with the Establishment is the realization that conservatives, and conservatism, are only one minority faction within the Republican party. For the Democratic Party, the Hard Left is no different in terms of minority status with the distinction that they predominantly run the Democratic Party instead of being one of many.

The Establishment faced a Hobson’s Choice with Trump. On the one hand, all of the Pet Theories of Trump blamed the Establishment for not listening to the People, resulting in the rise of this supposed anti-Establishment antagonist. Therefore they are supposed to listen to these disaffected people and incorporate them and their grievances into the fold, no? But no, because on the other hand, Trump and his populist, and distasteful, brand of politics does not represent the Republican party. We don’t need him or them!

What’s an organization to do? In the end, they decided to remain neutral. (Well, by and large. The addition of one more debate after the first debate in which Trump had a disastrous meltdown signaled that there were wheels spinning to get Trump to replicate the performance in the hopes it would dent his surging support. Subtle.) The Establishment is not actually an all powerful group of people steering the Republican party for their nefarious ends with all else being a kabuki theater stage-play; just ask Jeb Bush. Thinking otherwise, that in fact they could have prevented Trump just as they could have done much more during the Obama era but chose not to, leads to a very unsettling and false conclusion.

Burn It Down

The Burn It Down crowd within, and outside, the Republican party is a small but vociferous minority. The theory is that the parties, both of them, are beyond redemption. America is at an apocalyptic crossroads and should we not change course, will be lost forever. Unless…. Unless this political League of Shadows can intervene, bring America crashing down under the weight of its own bad ideas and sins, causing a permanent and nearly Utopian reset. The entire idea is a fantasy and ego trip. But, those who would leave the Republican Party now because of Trump, even if they do not agree with the Burn It Down crowd, are aligning themselves with it. But rather than some deus ex machina reset of American principles, we’d simply find ourselves to be Western Europe. For all its ills, the Republican Party is the only conduit for conservatives. A third party dream is just that; America has always been a two party system for better or worse and while parties have come and gone, two always remain. It would take a generation or more to recover from a Republican Party collapse. And even then, there is no guarantee that what emerges is any better or that somehow conservatives remain in control. (After all, at the first sign of trouble, Conservatives will bolt, right?) In the meantime, the only bulwark against the unrelenting march of the Left, that has conquered so much territory in the last century, will be gone.

Conservatives have been here before, of course. For mostly good reasons, people began leaving the cities beginning in the post-WWII era and accelerating during the upheaval of the 1960’s. But approximately eighty percent of the U.S. lives in cities and that has left most of the U.S. population under the control of the Democratic party. We also abandoned the media, Hollywood, academic institutions, etc to the Left. I was told on Twitter that this is like saying we must send our children to public schools individually to reconquer them. The problem with this analogy is that when you send your child to a different and better school, they benefit completely. A new administration is in charge, one that is not beholden to public teacher unions. And should that school not work, you can always move elsewhere. Aside from Belize and Canada, we cannot move elsewhere to avoid national politics. To coin a phrase, you may not be interested in what is happening in D.C., but they are interested in you.