Thread by @tzimmer_history

One reason to be skeptical about anti-Trump Republicans is that they tend to propagate a diagnosis of Trumpism as a mere aberration from an otherwise noble conservative tradition. Such self-serving mythology misleads the political discussion.
 
My new piece (link in bio):
 
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If America is to claw its way out of this crisis to something better, it must do so on the basis of an honest assessment of what Trumpism is, what fueled its rise, and where it came from. The anti-Trumpers, however, are offering something very different. 2/

In their standard tale, Trump executed a hostile takeover of the GOP and turned it into something that has nothing to do with the party’s former real self, that supposedly venerable “Reagan Republicanism” anti-Trumpers almost invariably invoke as their ideal. 3/

Two diametrically opposed narratives emerged in response to Trump’s rise before the 2016 election. The one the anti-Trumpers are propagating is the aberrationist tale, according to which the venerable tradition of principled American conservatism has been hijacked. 4/

Trumpism, in this interpretation, is fundamentally not conservatism, entirely separate from what came before, an accident, an insurgency, something hostile to the “soul” of the GOP – a narrative that allows “moderate” conservatives and Never Trumpers to self-exonerate. 5/

On the other end of the spectrum, there is an interpretation claiming that Trump’s rise was really no big surprise: This is what conservatism, at its core, had always been – a reactionary movement, fueled by racial and cultural grievance, animated by anti-liberal sentiment. 6/

Everything else was just a front, a veneer of intellectual depth and respectability. There had been no venerable tradition to begin with, rather a fairly straight line from Buckley to Ronald Reagan to Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich to Sarah Palin to, finally, Donald Trump. 7/

Neither the continuity nor the aberration narratives stand up to serious scrutiny in their most simplistic forms. The challenge is to grapple with both the recent radicalization, but also the long-standing anti-democratic tendencies and impulses on the Right. 8/

We need to acknowledge both the extent to which far-right factions and ideas have recently managed to take over the power centers of conservatism, but also the fact that extremism has always been an influential feature of the rightwing coalition. 9/

Modern conservatism as a political project arose in the middle decades of the 20th century as an alliance between different factions who agreed that a fully realized democracy was the enemy of the “natural” order defined by hierarchies of race, gender, wealth, and religion. 10/

The central conflict on the Right has always revolved around the question of how far conservatives had to go to preserve this “natural” order – with far-right forces pushing for a more radical politics and more drastic action – for a reactionary “counter-revolution.” 11/

GOP elites and “moderate” conservatives have often tried – and always failed – to harness far-right popular energies that ultimately fueled Trump’s rise. They have never been able to control the accelerating radicalization that is now threatening constitutional government. 12/

This interpretation stands in stark contrast to the self-serving aberrationist tale of Trumpism as an accidental departure. And it has profound implications for a society that will have to find a way to contain and overcome Trumpism. 13/

Things would be so much easier if Trump really were the cause, rather than himself a symptom – if all we had to do was to get rid of Trump and let the country, and the Republican Party, revert to “normal.” 14/

But since the rise of Trumpism is more in line with long-standing extremist tendencies, a manifestation of a deeply entrenched anti-democratic political culture, then merely turning the clock back to a pre-2016 “normal” can’t be the answer. 15/

That pre-2016 “normal” allowed Trump to swiftly take over the Republican Party and the Right more broadly. If the goal is for a stable democracy that truly deserves the label to emerge out of the current mess, America – and conservatives – will have to do better.

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