Part of the problem is that people don't understand what progressivism is. They think it means left but it doesn't and never has. If you ask them what makes Trump a conservative they say things like Border control and putting America first but progressive party founder Teddy Roosevelt supported those things as did real conservative Calvin Coolidge and progressive democrat Woodrow Wilson.
Progressivism is primarily about giving government ever more power under the guise of helping. Teddy Roosevelt was conservative by our standards today but his progressive party platform supported things like the direct election of senators, social security, income taxes (all of which we got within a few years) and a national health insurance system (which we have now). His supporters will claim Trump is against all of those things but he's been vague about them as well as breathing fire.
Theodore Roosevelt was the archetype for what Michael D. Tanner---in his should-have-been-required-reading-before-2008
book
Leviathan on the Right: How Big Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution---isolated as
the big-government conservatism type called the "national greatness conservative," whose contemporary avatars Tanner
identified as John McCain and
New York Times columnist David Brooks (who sort of coined the phrase in the first place,
but eventually and almost quietly turned away from it by Barack Obama's re-election), arguing (as T.R. pretty much did,
and no shock, since he was one of McCain's political heroes) "Americans needed grand federal crusades to pull them away
from private, parochial concerns and invest their lives with meaning." (
Oy gevalt, just what the right didn't need, a
"conservative" version of the "politics of meaning" that once sprang a) from the left, and b) from the loins of Droopy Drawers
and Hilarious Rodent Clinton, both of whom rather admired the man who articulated it,
Tikkun editor Michael Lerner!)
As a conservative I want to see the power of the federal government diminished on every front. That includes the executive branch and the president himself. Just yesterday Mike Lee offered up the first test of conservatism of the new session and a direct shot across the bow of Trump.
Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Global Trade Accountability Act Friday, a bill that would subject all Executive Branch trade actions (including raising tariffs) to congressional approval.
When I saw Lee's proposal I could only imagine Donaldus Minimus's mental tumblers spinning to come up with
a nickname for Lee---something like "Pinky Lee," of course . . . ;)
A president should have the executive order available to him but using it should be exceedingly rare and they should be backed up by congressional legislation.
I think the executive order should be restored to what I think was its original purpose, administering the executive
branch and
not making an end-run around the legislative priority of Congress. The Constitution says the
president shall
recommend legislation from time to time,
not that his ideas for legislation become an
automatic consideration or approval from Congress.
