A few days ago — before the terrible Orlando shooting — I wrote an op-ed for The Hill arguing that the lessons of this campaign season, especially for the right wing, extend far beyond the results in November. Since then a lot of news outlets have started covering more substance and less horse race, but whatever the media does, the larger fact remains: anti-Trump conservatives think they’re going back to business as usual in a few months, and they’re wrong. Here’s a bit of what I said.
Leading conservatives — people like Jonah Goldberg of the National Review, Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard and former RedState editor Erick Erickson — who now treat Trump as the entirety of the conservative movement’s problem are ignoring the decades that movement stalwarts and Republican Party standard-bearers have spent nurturing the same voter anger Trump is now channeling. Fixing what ails conservatism will mean critically examining deeply rooted mental habits, not just waiting for December to roll around.
Republican candidates have spent decades campaigning against impending left-wing tyranny. Again and again, often for short-term political gain, conservatives have stoked unreasonable passions and directed them at individual Democratic officeholders. From Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to President Obama, Democratic leaders have been vilified not just as politically suspect but as morally bankrupt, treasonous America-haters who have made this country weak. In supporting Trump and his political style, Republican voters have done no more than take their leaders at their word. [. . .]
In [anti-Trump conservatives’] telling, Republicans just need candidates who aren’t Donald Trump — even if they propose the same policies. To take one much-debated example, Goldberg, in a May 18 piece headlined “Despite the rise of Trump, conservatism isn’t dead yet,” argued in a single breath that Trump supporters suffer from “power-worship” and that “a wall on the Mexican border” — which Trump advocates — is “sadly necessary.”
In other words, Trump isn’t wrong, he’s just the wrong messenger. As far as Goldberg is concerned, conservatives need to get through this election and then find a pro-wall candidate for 2020 who offers more public polish.
The analysis is nothing new to Daily Kos readers. I’m hoping it starts sinking in with my Republican friends. If it can do some good, I hope you’ll consider sending it along.