Interesting, but ignores why cons have to propose dumb things that don’t work: few voters actually support small gvmnt or markets, so you can’t win on that agenda. Doesn’t mean voters are right, but as a conservative you may always have to ally with statists of some sort. 1/n
The other option is to be anti-democratic. Peter Thiel wrote an essay on this, but the trend of populism is in the other direction, “whatever is popular must be good.” Regardless of where you come down, people are ignoring the tension rather than thinking carefully about it. 2/n
There is also the McConnell/Ryan route, win on cultural issues then try to cut govt when people aren’t paying attention. It’s limiting, works to slow down or prevent new expansions of govmnt, but won’t roll anything back because people will notice and you still want to win 3/n
The GOP establishment at some point came to believe its own propaganda and thought their voters supported their economic agenda, which is why they were surprised by Trump. Irony is that Trump has basically enacted the traditional GOP agenda, so it didn’t matter. 4/n
Josh Hawley and a few others have adopted the Trump strategy, talking like economic populists but then on every single issue voting in line with McConnell. Works because voters aren’t paying much attention anyway, so why even run on the small gov stuff in the first place? 5/n
Anyway, the point is becoming moot, as public opinion shifts to the left on the cultural issues, giving the Rs nothing to run on. Populism won’t work because the right wing cultural issues aren’t even popular anymore, and you can’t get to the left of Dems on economics 6/n
The new populism takes liberal economic ideas but wraps them up in right wing garb, i.e., immigrants depress wages. Again, won't work because people are motivated by cultural issues first, you won't fool liberals or centrists into becoming cons through Socratic method. 7/n
In the short run cons will have difficulties. In the long run, they'll have to actually change the culture, when people are on your side it won't matter much what econ policies you run on, you can support what works. Reagan didn't win 49 states because of his economic ideas. 8/n
