Donald Trump has ridden a wave of conservative anger to the top of the Republican Presidential field. Republicans are seething with rage, at liberals certainly, but also with the Republican politicians who’ve been unable to stop Obama and the liberals in Congress. So they’re turning to Trump in desperation.
I believe Democrats can take advantage of this outrage, but they’ll only be able to do it if they understand where it comes from. The first place to look is history, and the long-running battle between liberalism and conservatism.
Conservatism began with Edmund Burke’s reaction to the excesses of the French Revolution. The French Revolution was the culmination of over two hundred years of political liberalism, though it wasn’t called that at the time. The first liberals were religious reformers, like Martin Luther, who said the church shouldn’t dictate matters of conscience. Other thinkers then challenged the church in other ways, and its power began to erode. Eventually political philosophers started to question the power of the state (the other dominant historic institution). They sought to liberate the individual from the state’s overweening control over all matters of human affairs. These philosophers and politicians eventually became known as liberals, because they sought to liberate. The French Revolution began as a push for liberal reform, but devolved into a blood-bath as some revolutionaries said that the only way to fully liberate French citizens was to – quite literally – decapitate the old order.
Watching from England, Burke was horrified, and said that there is much in traditional society and social norms worth conserving – hence conservatism. He said tradition is collected wisdom, and cultural norms and social institutions embody this wisdom and are the source of social stability. Burke wasn’t opposed to liberty, or the goals of political liberalism. He’d supported the American Revolution as a member of the British Parliament. But he did oppose radical change: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, particularly when history shows that many devils are released in the chaos of radical change.
Over the last two hundred plus years since the French Revolution the world has changed dramatically, and political liberals have been at the fore-front of most every change. In many cases these changes improved society – abolishing slavery, broadening the political franchise, expanding civil rights – but in other cases the changes were disastrous, most noticeably with communism and socialism. And at each stage political conservatives have been, in the words of conservative writer William F. Buckley, standing “athwart history and yelling STOP.”
But change didn’t stop, and the history of the last five hundred years is the history of conservative loss. From Luther on, liberalism has advanced and conservatism retreated. This is particularly notable in the United States. Conservatives lost the fight over slavery, women’s suffrage, laissez-faire economics, unions (though they’re making a come-back there), civil rights and segregation, and equality for women. Now they’re losing the fight over gay rights and marriage equality.
Conservatives have been on a five-hundred year of losing streak. For five hundred years, traditions, norms, and social institutions have been eroded, chipped away, and fallen. They may dispute the details, but there’s no doubt they feel the loss in their bones. This deep-seated sense of loss permeates their politics and explains their disdain for all things liberal. They’ve been pushed far enough. Now they’re desperately pushing back.