Interesting analysis, John. I agree that there are those who consider themselves conservative, but are not in the American sense of the word, and perhaps they are the ones who are supporting Trump, believing themselves to be Conservative.
However, the problem for me is that they are quite liberal no matter what they think of themselves. They are, as you say, nationalists and desire ethnic purity, but they are not even familiar with what's in the Constitution..... the document that has made America great.
Add to that the fact that these Euro-ethnicists are hanging around here calling American Conservatives liberals, and they know that is an outright lie.
Bottom line is, Trump is a liberal. He is a Democrat, who is ideologically indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton.
The "other" group who loves the guy are supporting a candidate, who by ANY definition, is a leftist.
The crux of the matter with the Constitution is that the 'Euro-Conservative' cannot stand the ideals for which it stands. For the Constitution embodies the lofty values of the Enlightenment period in history. Those values being freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and markets... all based on the concept that the individual is more important than the group/ethnicity/state.
And to those Euro-Conservatives, we are liberals. For at the time of the Enlightenment, our founding fathers were very liberal in comparison to the rest of Europe. Hence why American conservatism is, in essence, Classic liberalism.
We view them as liberal because in the modern American political discourse, it's been modern liberalism that has lumped people into ethnic groups, expecting people to vote with their group affiliation. Which is exactly the same as the 'Euro-conservative', just with differing goals.
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I used to call them 'anti-liberals', as they loved the government and its power just as much as any liberal... but only wanted it under *their* control. In essence, a liberal with a polar opposite political 'charge'.
It's been this election that's shown me that they are adamant in the belief that theirs is the 'one, true, holy conservatism'. And that they despise our fundamental American values of individualism and freedom.
The clue was the birthright citizenship issue, in which an "American" was shown to be, in their view, an ethnicity based in blood that could *NOT* be granted to just anyone born within the territory of America. And it was further confirmed when Trump stated that Judge Curiel, born in America and an American citizen... was not an American at all, due to his ethnicity.
Trumps supporters were in religious ecstasy over his proclamation.
