As those who read the article know, I included examples of how modified definitions of conservatism — social conservative, fiscal conservative, etc. — were created by faux conservatives to fit their agenda in a way that made it possible for them to call themselves conservative without taking a stand for conservative values.
This smorgasbord approach to conservatism is how our values were hijacked by Trump and the GOP and how they, along with groups like the House Freedom Caucus, have rebranded conservatism with Trumpism. It’s also the reason why outside organizations like the Senate Conservatives Fund promote Trumpism and why formerly conservative media outlets like BlazeTV have become little more than pro-Trump echo chambers.
While I generally agree with the tenor of this article, I disagree with the above...
Tumpism is a cherry-picking 'conservatism' just like the moderate wing's attempts at neo-conservatism.
American Conservatism has always been factional.
Those factions have always been libertarian conservatism, fiscal conservatism, and defense/foreign policy conservatism. Reagan rightly brought social conservatism into the fold, and joined it to Goldwater.
But the salient point can also be found in Reagan - The premise that we should not look to factional conservatism with one being considered in the popular movement of the day, while another is forced to the back of the bus, or thrown under the bus altogether.
Reagan Conservatism taught us to look for candidates that fulfilled ALL the immovable principles of all of the factions. NOBODY should be thrown under the bus, ever, because as it turns out, all of those principles lock together as puzzle pieces do, and without any one, the whole suffer.
It hurts a fiscal conservative not at all if the candidate is a fiscal conservative, and also a defcon, socon, and a libertarian. and likewise the others. We hang together in that, or we hang separately.
In that, it is the Reaganite (serving all conservative principles), that is the best promoted, as being the most electable, with the most chance of moving the Conservative ball down the field - Which is actual winning.
in settling for anything less, we fail. And that is Tumpism, neoconservatism, and every other hyphenated conservatism outside of the factions that define it.
