So, my comment to @DouthatNYT from earlier.
I think the fundamental error Ross makes in his article about Never Trumpers and conservatives is that we reject Trump because he represents something that has moved past our old-think conservative ideas. This is wrong in many ways. /1
I think the fundamental error Ross makes in his article about Never Trumpers and conservatives is that we reject Trump because he represents something that has moved past our old-think conservative ideas. This is wrong in many ways. /1
First, Ross's call is for "thinkers and writers who basically accept the populist turn, and whose goal is to supply coherence and intellectual ballast, to purge populism of its bigotries and inject good policy instead," as if populism is can be purged of such things. It can't. /2
"Good populism" is like "fat-free, milk-free, sugar-free fudge." It's the thing you want to enjoy but without the stuff that makes it what it is. The inherent nastiness of populism is a fight for another day, but Ross wants it led by conservatives who are not conservative. /3
That is, the whole point of the conservative temperament is not to cave to populism. That's the opposite of what we are: we don't reflect what the public wants at any given moment. We're small-r republicans, not small-d or even big-D democrats. /4
Ross thinks we better get on board by injecting "good policy." But it is part of the conservative temperament, imo, to care as much about *how* policy is achieved as by what it achieves, not least because we care about institutions that will be here after us. /5
I think it is a surrender - out of fear of the mob - to say: "Old conservatism is dead, and if you don't like populist nationalism, turn to the left." That, too, is a failure of conservative temperament and habits of mind. It is, in fact, panic. /6
I wonder, too, if the only rationale for all this is that "conservatives" now pretty much care about discrete issues in the public space: abortion, guns, immigration. I thought the conservative movement and idea was even bigger than those. I hope it is. /7
Finally, there is the problem that all of us in Never Trump keep pointing out: that Trump has no policies. He has no consistency. He has no views on anything beyond his impulses in the moment. This is not "an evolution" of anything. It's a ghastly mistake and aberration. /8
I appreciate Ross's point that excommunicating "conservatives" because you don't like our opposition to Trump is stupid. But it's no better to say we're not conservatives because we won't capitulate to populist ignorance and emotion. /9
Indeed, the one thing common to conservatives with whom I feel kinship is that we have refused to indulge in the opportunism afforded by the mob's anger. To refuse to repudiate Trump's unmoored, unprincipled, ignorant populism is, imo, the opposite of "conservative." /10x
