Buskirk on Washington Post: The Conservative Renaissance Has Begun

I found this article in the Washington Post.

I was pleasantly surprised, since it was not just thoughtful and well-written, but the article shared strong, warm praise for President Trump and the conservative agenda which has enacted, in spite of massive opposition from members of both parties.

The conservative renaissance has begun

Christopher Buskirk

Christopher Buskirk is editor and publisher of the website American Greatness and co-author, with Seth Leibsohn, of “American Greatness: How Conservatism, Inc. Missed the 2016 Election & What the D.C. Establishment Needs to Learn.”

Thank goodness there are more people out there not afraid to take on the political class, which has gotten away with everything being handed to them without challenge or conviction from ordinary citizens.

As President Trump continues to remake the Republican Party in his image, calls for last rites to be given to American conservatism are not just premature — they’re entirely wrong. Accusing Republican voters of political apostasy for supporting Trump is wrong, too. These perspectives are also evidence that the accusers are missing an intellectual and political reformation that is reshaping U.S. politics.

Yes, they are. The millions of "Forgotten Americans" are still forgotten by the bereft, self-righteous establishment of both parties, especially Republicans. They would campaign on conservative principles, but then go along with the Potomac Two-Step, spending money that the country does not have while pushing an agenda which benefited the lobbyist and political careerist class.

When was the hurting going to stop for farmers, for small business owners, for families who witness the cultural decline throughout the country?

Blinkered by an outdated, hermeneutic based on the post-Reagan right-left split, the sentinels of the conventional wisdom have been predicting the demise not just of Trump but also of the entire conservative project for more than two years now. In fairness, it’s an easy mistake to make. Who thought an obscure monk from Wittenberg would upend the medieval social and political order? Like Martin Luther, Trump is an unlikely catalyst for this much-needed political reformation. Because the critics focus too much on the man and not enough on the message, their basic complaint about Trump voters has been: “You sold your principles to back a grifter for short-term political gain.”

What a perfect comment. Most of the conservative writers and prognosticators have gotten caught up in Trump's attitudes and rhetoric. They focus on what he says but ignore all the good that he has accomplished.

North Korean Defector

The North Korea-South Korea peace process has much to do with President Trump's outside appeal. He cares about this country, but he does not worry about the press and their en masse disregard for his power and legacy. Because Trump is not beholden to the Wall Street and the Big Business insiders, he has pressed ahead and put North Korea on its heels.

Let's talk about the comprehensive regulatory roll-back which he has steamrolled? The Deep State is getting deeply drained, and Trump was willing to do this because he owes no one a thing. In fact, the massive antagonism from both parties has made it easier for him to screw them all over by gutting the government and cutting through the crap. Most Congressmen cater to special interests because when they leave Congress, they want a job with any one of these agencies. Trump will have his business and brand to return to once he lives Washington DC.

I think it's a nice touch to compare President Trump to Martin Luther, the little monk who made a big difference. Of course, the comparisons are pretty slight beyond their iconoclastic take down of the political and cultural establishments of their times.

But who’s really been selling the snake oil?

For years, Republican voters were promised constitutionalist judges, fiscal probity and immigration enforcement. We got John “Obamacare” Roberts, runaway deficits, de facto open borders and multiple tries at Gang of Eight amnesty. If that weren’t enough, Republican believers in American primacy were led into a series of misguided wars by a small but determined foreign policy claque focused on implementing a policy of moral imperialism that runs counter to this country’s history and values.

Moral imperialism is a perfect phrase, and I must admit that I believed in it. Cultural changes are not as easy as removing a bad dictator and imposing Jeffersonian Democracy. Neo-conservatism hit a brick wall with George W. Bush, and Barack Obama turned the military investments not just into massive fail

Trump is Fulfilling His Promise

Against this butcher’s bill of failures and broken promises, look at Trump’s first year in office: Unemployment is low, the stock market is high and wages are rising. Ordinary Americans have more money in their pockets as a result of lower taxes. Illegal immigration has declined, regulations are being rolled back, Obamacare’s individual mandate is dead, and a slate of constitutionalist judges has been approved, with more on the way. 

But what about the record-breaking deficits?

Thanks to a too-timid congressional leadership, deficits remain a problem, but we’ve at least gotten major pro-growth policies. And with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s impending departure, we have a chance at a more energetic effective leadership team.

Please! Let's hope that we can hold the House of Representatives going into the Mid-term elections and then into next year.

And in some ways even more significant, Trump has pushed back against the stultifying political correctness that has chilled free expression and thereby undermined the foundation of free government in the United States.

Yes! Check out Kanye West:

The Republican big-wigs were actually small-ball players who wanted to get along to go along. Their sheer lack of courage is unfathomable to me. Then again, it probably all comes from their determination to listen to others, especially their big money donors. They can't say anything out of line or court controversy, lest they get shut down and shut out.

People can't run for office without money. There must be a better way to run for office and have adequate funding without having to capitulate to donors and their limited demands.

Yet, a cottage industry in eulogies for the Republican Party, and “conservatism” more generally, has sprung up. These observers miss the point, just as they missed the 2016 election. American conservatism isn’t dead or dying. It’s thriving, but you’d have to look outside the Beltway and the legacy institutions to see it. This once-in-a-century reformation is revitalizing a political movement that was in danger of fading into irrelevance.

Exactly. Conservatism isn't dying. It's alive and well. In fact, conservatism is actually happening now because Donald Trump is not afraid to fight. Most of the conservative intelligentsia are more interested in getting invited to the major parties and receiving awards. In other words, these individuals are more interested in sitting at "the kool kids' table".

There's just one problem: the "kool kids" are not cool.

What is dying, however, is the smug elitism of the old establishment and all of the gentry-class pretensions that alienated voters. Despite some high-profile gadflies who receive more media attention than their influence with voters should justify, conservatives find themselves remarkably unified. The empty ritual of high-church coastal conservatism is yielding to an intellectually deeper and politically robust small “r” republicanism that hopes to build a new political consensus from the ground up. At the heart of this movement are the millions of people of good faith who back Trump and, more important, his agenda, because they believe that it is consistent with the best of the American political tradition and that it will do more good for more people than anything else traditional Republicans or Democrats have to offer.

Small "r" republicanism: I love that! We need less politicians and more liberty. We need more American and less Washington DC. The political chattering classes didn't get anything done. What good is a conservative if he isn't conserving anything?

This conservative renaissance is young but vigorous. It embraces — but is also bigger than — Trump. While the American left is absorbed in a game of competitive victimhood, the American right is engaged in a serious debate about how best to develop and sustain civil society, how to foster good citizens and how to sustain U.S. peace and prosperity in the face of unprecedented challenges from an aggressive, confident China.

Trumpism is moving hard, even in California. When Los Alamitos voted to opt out of SB 54, I told the press that this event was bigger than Trump's election. California citizens are rising up against the corrupt, regressive leftist phalanx which is throttling Sacramento and draining all of us financially, morally, and physically.

We the People of California have had enough!

Central to this new political project — denigrated or just plain ignored by many anti-Trump partisans — is genuine respect for the individual and the restoration of a high view of citizenship, its rights and duties, informed by the natural “inalienable” rights political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence. This cuts across the traditional partisan divide while allowing Americans to engage in real political debate while affirming what Jefferson said after the contentious election of 1800: “We are all republicans. We are all federalists.” That’s where the energy is on the right, you just have to know where to look.

The push for individual value and liberty is fundamentally essential to a thriving constitutional republic. Yet even this is under attack among the otherwise conservative "red-pilled" youths who are convinced that group think in terms of ethnicity is the way to go. The collectivist mindset is outrageous, unsupportable, and unacceptable.

We need to confront this nonsense.

Final Reflection

Too many conservative writers, thinkers, and consultants were more interested in controlled failure than chaotic victory. They wanted to look good for the photos, get calls to attend the best parties, and be liked.

Being liked is not going to help us stay free. Even Machiavelli understand that good leaders must demonstrate power and consequences, and so much of our liberties are being flushed away from us. Our political leaders who claim to be our champions are throwing us away, putting aside the best interests of the nation to make themselves look good long enough to get elected, and then get by without any concern for the rest of us.

Thank God for Trump, and thank goodness that so much of the tepid, weak leadership is getting pushed out little by little from the House of Representatives on both sides of the aisle.