If people were rational about their politics, this was always a conversation worth having:
Is Donald Trump a greater long-term threat to the efficacy of the conservative movement than he is a short-term benefit over the woke craziness of the Democrat Party's alternative?
Unfortunately, people are not rational about their politics. The pursuit of earthly power and authority is among the greatest idols of our time, and therefore allegiance to, or even consideration that there might be something more important than it is anathema to our cultural conditioning. To even suggest that a conservative should be hesitant about supporting Donald Trump (for the presidency, and by extension, to become the de facto head of the political "right" in America) was met with thunderous condemnation, apoplectic moral outrage, and accusations of ideological betrayal.
But just a couple months into his second term, it has become clear to anyone paying attention that those conservatives pumping the brakes on the MAGA train have reason to feel vindicated.
On a recent episode of Real Time, host Bill Maher welcomed a left-wing journalist named Batya Ungar-Sargon who now considers herself a MAGA leftist. Maher was astonished how anyone on the Left could support the Republican president.
That's when Ungar-Sargon articulated in brilliant fashion precisely what Trump has effectively done: undermined and obliterated the political influence of traditional Reagan conservatism.
Watch this closely (language warning):
Pay attention to these words:
I was never a Republican or conservative. I was a leftist and I'm still a leftist. I'm just a MAGA leftist now because … when I look at what President Trump ran on and the agenda he's enacting right now, he took a Republican Party that was built on social conservatism, foreign intervention and wars, and free trade and free markets, and he basically took an axe to all of those.
That right there is precisely why many of us who are (and always have been) conservatives, were quite hesitant about the sudden adoration of a pro-choice New York Democrat as the standard bearer of our political movement.
To be fair to Trump and those conservatives who have supported his rise to power, I do not fully agree that (to this point) the president has "taken an axe" to all elements of social conservatism. Has he undermined it logically and made a mockery out of the right's supposed creed that "character matters?" Yes.
But facts are facts:
There were 3 Trump Supreme Court appointees who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade among other things.
RFK, Jr., Trump's previously pro-abortion Secretary of Health and Human Services, has announced an end to federal funding of research on aborted babies.
The Trump administration has taken steps to end the bizarre and embarrassing sexual anarchy nonsense in the country's military.
And there are plenty of other examples that could be cited that put the lie to the idea that Trump has been anything close to an enemy of social conservatism. It remains a legitimate fear, but to this point, I don't think it's fair at all to say that his administration has betrayed conservatives on social issues, even if (as Ungar-Sargon said) he is, "pretty pro-gay."
On the other two points, Trump has certainly proven himself to be against foreign intervention and an enemy of free trade. While it remains to be seen how costly (or not) those things prove to be for either conservative principles or the country at large, there's no denying it's a ground shift that is fundamentally remaking and reshaping political alliances in a way that mutes the once conspicuous voice of Reagan's three-legged stool.
Maybe that will prove to be best in the long run. Maybe it will be a short-lived aberration in political history. Maybe it's true that had Trump not won, there would have been no country left for conservatives or anyone else. Maybe it's true that compromising conservative principles was the only way to preserve our way of life.
I'm certainly open to any or all of those lines of argument.
But to pretend that the compromising didn't occur, hasn't happened, and isn't dramatically altering the effectiveness and strength of traditional conservatism in America is to be painfully unaware of our current moment.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
