Conservatism Can Still Represent the American People

Last week, during an interview on CNBC, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump proudly declared “I am not a conservative.” His third nomination is undeniably a sign that the Republican party is moving away from the twentieth century conservative movement.

  In a recent essay for Fusion, evangelical Substacker Aaron Renn labels this trend the emergence of a “post-conservative world.” According to Renn, attempts by National Review’s writers and Republican politicians to “fuse” together libertarianism, traditionalism, and anticommunism may have succeeded in the 1980 election. Yet a similar “fusion” would today prove to be an “uneasy synthesis.”

  In one respect, Renn is right. The policy initiatives of the last century cannot make conservatism relevant again. Not many are crying out for more federal tax cuts. Libertarian ideology can never heal the diseases of social isolation, substance abuse, and the decline of marriage afflicting this country. After the defeat of the Soviet Union, there is less agreement about the main challenge for American foreign policy.

  But Renn underestimates the spiritual vitality conservatism can restore to the American republic, in no small part because he misrepresents the history of the conservative movement.

Read more in Fusion Magazine.