On Monday I wrote that “if Trump wins,
the conservative movement is finished.” Others, both during and after the
primary season, have made similar points that Donald Trump is not a political
conservative, that many of his policies as President would effectively be
identical to those of Hillary Clinton, and therefore that a vote for Trump is
essentially a vote for Clinton, and vice versa.
This argument, which is countered by
many Trump supporters who argue that their candidate is either (a) actually a traditional
conservative, or (b) redefining conservatism, highlights a problem which has
been steadily gaining importance on the Right for years. With virtually all
Republican officials and candidates now claiming the mantle of conservatism,
and the word coming to mean an increasing number of things to a variety of
individuals and groups, not all of whom necessarily agree, what does political
conservatism actually mean today? Over the next couple days I’ll attempt to
define my take on what truly constitutes a conservative in modern American
politics.
A key distinction first needs to be
pointed out between the terms “American conservative” and “European
conservative”, a distinction which goes a long way toward formulating an
appropriate working definition of the former. It’s a common occurrence,
especially for American mainstream media covering international politics, to
hear the word “conservative” used in a way that suggests commonality of
purpose, or that American conservatives will automatically support every item
on the agenda of European conservatives. While it’s true that conservatives
internationally may indeed agree on some critical issues (such as whether Britain
should remain in the E.U.), there is also an important distinction that colors
such issues.
Old World conservatives tend to be much
more attached to nationalism and a sense of common national identity than
American conservatives. This of course isn’t to suggest that American
conservatives don’t care about national identity or their country, but to
instead highlight the fact that Americans in general perceive national
identity, and patriotism, in a way different from many Europeans.
Whereas European countries evolved over
many centuries, are deeply rooted in changing territorial boundaries, and trace
their cultural lineage based on migrating tribes, languages, and historical
fealty to conquering monarchs, America is founded on a much different heritage.
From the beginning, America was based on ideas of liberty, equality, and
democracy, ideas deeply radical at the time the Constitution was written.
Rather than sharing a long history with
each other and with the land they inhabited, the American colonists at the time
of the Founding were immigrants or the sons and daughters of immigrants, mainly
from England or other English colonies in the Americas, who shared a desire for
freedom and a different government system than the intrusive monarchy they had
grown up under. Ideals of freedom and liberty, then, more so than any shared
history of blood or land, became what bound the new nation together.
These differing national histories
continue to shape the respective politics of Europe and America today. Where
the European Right concerns itself with preserving the physicality of nations
and institutions which have existed in various forms for hundreds of years,
perhaps even a thousand or more, the American Right concerns itself with
preserving the ideals that continue to propel the United States. America is the
only nation in the history of the world to have been primarily founded on
ideas, rather than shared land or languages, and this continues to color the
mission of the conservative movement.
Tomorrow I'll
conclude with some additional thoughts on the differences between European and
American conservatives, and how these distinctions can help us define the
latter in the age of Trump.
No comments:
Post a Comment