VOLUME XVIII, NUMBER 1, WINTER 2018

A Journal of Political Thought and Statesmanship

Charles R. Hadley Kesler: Arkes Trump’s . First Year James R. Stoner, Jr.: e End of John Marini. Free Speech Michael M. Uhlmann David P. . Goldman: Bradley C.S. Condi Rice Watson: Goes to Bureaucracy the Seashore in America Matthew Brian Allen: Continetti: e New Senate African American Pages Museum Andrew Allen C. Roberts: Guelzo: VDH on e WWIIs Gilded Age Joseph Karl Rove: Epstein: William P.G. McKinley Wodehouse

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Book Review by Michael A. Needham Trumping Reagan? Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle, by Jeff Flake. Random House, 160 pages, $27

The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism, by Henry Olsen. Broadside Books, 368 pages, $27.99

vidence and logic go only so far requires conservatives to ponder licans stray from those principles, they suffer in democratic politics. To see things as the meaning of conservatism itself. electoral defeat, as in the backlash in 2008 af- Ethey are, rather than as we wish they ter George W. Bush. Flake fears the backlash were, is to recognize the importance of rheto- enator jeff flake’s history of yet to come, after four or eight years of a big- ric and myth in shaping public sentiment. In conservatism in Conscience of a Con- spending, big-government Trump Administra- the Left’s myth, the arc of progress points Sservative is familiar: tion disdainful of conservative principle. toward justice not yet attained. Progressiv- offered renewal to an intimidated, marginal- For all that, Flake is an unlikely Goldwa- ism deprecates the idea that justice is already ized Republican Party. Instead of being the terite. A conservative House member from inherent in our system in favor of the better tax collector for the Democrats’ welfare state, Arizona who led the successful campaign future’s truly just polity, which liberals are the party could offer a libertarian alternative against earmarks, Flake made a sharp pivot forging. As opponents of this myth, conserva- to the big-government status quo. Sixteen to the politics of bien pensant respectability tives defend not merely our own preferences years later, after all the votes were counted, upon election to the Senate in 2012. In recent but the republic itself. as George Will quipped, Goldwater’s 1964 years, he has seemed more devoted to scoring Conservatism’s counter-narrative centers campaign was ultimately victorious via Rea- media points by reaching out to Democrats on the Barry Goldwater-Ronald Reagan legacy, gan’s election in 1980. The principles of limit- than to advancing libertarianism. In Octo- a realignment that repudiates progressivism ed government and economic freedom fueled ber, he announced his retirement from the in favor of timeless constitutional principles. not only his campaign but also the modern Senate with a showy speech denouncing the Conservatism’s success depends, therefore, on conservative movement. This revolutionary president. that narrative’s resonance. Is the Goldwater- movement advocated extremism in defense Reagan myth, in essence, true? Does it speak of liberty, which the country embraced on onscience of a conservative con- to our present moment? Does conveying it re- the rare occasions the GOP offered a choice, veniently follows in this vein, bemoan- quire altering its finer points? And how does it not an echo. Because conservatism remains a Cing all manner of liberal bogeymen. account for ? movement of timeless ideas, its time has not But Flake knows well that America’s elites, Two recent books offer different answers to yet come and gone. now his primary audience, will not merely tol- these questions about the meaning of Trump Subsequent events have only underscored erate but embrace some renditions of liberty: and conservatism. The authors’ competing ap- the original lesson, Flake argues. When Re- mass immigration understood as a univer- proaches show that the choice of embracing publicans stand for conservative principles, sal quasi-right, and the free trade orthodoxy or rejecting Trump will shape conservatism’s they win hearts, minds, and elections: the that Donald Trump attacked in 2016. Thus, future course, but also the interpretation of White House in 1980; the House of Represen- the free flow of labor and goods plays an out- its past. Deciding how to regard Trump and tatives in 1994 and 2010. And when Repub- sized role in Flake’s account of the essence of

Claremont Review of Books w Winter 2018 Page 15 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm conservatism, standing in for a more broadly Reagan in his revisionist history, The Working his 1964 “Time for Choosing” speech Reagan libertarian agenda. Trump’s protectionism, Class Republican. Many movement conserva- claimed, “We’re for a provision that destitu- Flake tells us, is of a piece with his general tives would regard this as a distinction with- tion should not follow unemployment by rea- openness to big government. This argument out a difference. To the contrary, says Olsen: son of old age, and to that end we’ve accepted reduces the fight against big government to Reagan’s conservatism succeeded because he Social Security as a step toward meeting the the defense of globalism. transcended rather than perpetuated Gold- problem.” Olsen traces similar concessions The belief that the rising tide of global GDP water’s ideas. throughout Reagan’s career, disabusing us of lifts all boats by no means defines pre-Trump Working Class Republican casts Reagan as the notion that such apostasies were outliers conservatism, but it does represent the sort a legatee not of Goldwater but of Franklin rather than fundamental beliefs. of abstraction that characterized the move- Roosevelt—a controversial, counter-intuitive ment Goldwater founded. Trumpism suc- thesis. A senior fellow at the Ethics and Pub- hese brushstrokes portray a rea- ceeded by rejecting the universal and abstract lic Policy Center, Olsen disputes what “ev- ganism that rejects more than it affirms for the particular and concrete: the particular erybody knows” about Reagan: that Reagan’s Tconservative orthodoxy. Rarely did communities harmed by trade; the particular conservatism was libertarian, that the essence Reagan argue that any ongoing or proposed workers losing jobs to immigrants; the eleva- of his philosophy was the reduction of gov- government intervention in the service of a tion of concrete issues like joblessness, crime, ernment’s size and scope; that he would today worthwhile goal was constitutionally or phil- and the opioid crisis over the abstract goal of join those who decry most of modern govern- osophically illegitimate. Moreover, his objec- shrinking government. Flake may not be an ment as unconstitutional overreach. Even “ul- tions to government programs often focused ideal representative of his brand of conserva- traconservative” readers, to use Reagan’s par- on flawed execution rather than illegitimate tism, but he is among the few in its ranks will- lance, will find it difficult to dismiss Olsen’s ends. Mostly absent and never central in Rea- ing to take on Trumpism so publicly. He is not reinterpretation of Reagan. gan’s lexicon, contra Flake, were buzzwords wrong to recognize Trumpism for what it is: Olsen makes his case by drawing atten- like “liberty.” Arguments about federalism an existential threat to a conservatism that be- tion to Reagan’s frequent departures from the were more prominent, but never as dispositive gins and ends with reducing “big” government. small-government ideology routinely ascribed considerations against some government ac- to him. For example, Reagan’s “There you go tion in the service of a legitimate need. n the broader view, conservatism is again” retort during the 1980 presidential But Olsen’s Reagan is not without prin- prudent, not defined by and limited to lib- debate set up remarks on his support for an ciples. His philosophy, embodied in Reagan’s Iertarian abstractions. Where Flake choos- alternative to Medicare that would have pro- “Creative Society” speech delivered in 1966 es Goldwater as the lodestar for American vided federal financial assistance to states to when he was running for governor of Cali- conservatism, Henry Olsen chooses Ronald establish old-age insurance programs. Even in fornia, boils down to three emphases: self-

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Claremont Review of Books w Winter 2018 Page 16 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm government coupled with interpersonal ob- orking class republican will vided the most comprehensive longitudinal ligation, serving as a bulwark against central be embraced or scorned by most study yet produced of the attitudes that control; the identification and addressing ofW conservatives based or whether drove Trump’s surprise victory. As described public needs; and human dignity. they feel it carries Reagan’s openness to gov- at VoterStudyGroup.org, Olsen argues persuasively that Reagan’s ernment too far and underestimates his role conservatism is best understood in terms of in creating the anti-government image that The 2016 VOTER Survey (Views of the human concerns it addressed in his day, has animated the conservative movement the Electorate Research Survey) was not the small-government abstractions he is since 1989. Olsen’s new account, that Rea- the study group’s first original research. known for. It was a conservatism that spoke gan had more in common with Roosevelt In partnership with YouGov, it polled to concrete problems rather than from philo- than with Goldwater, is not fully persuasive. 8,000 adults—most of whom had sophical axioms. Though fully aware of the But whether he has captured the essence of participated in similar surveys in mid- dangers of government overreach, it never Reagan matters less than his critique of the 2016, 2012, and 2011, which allowed substituted concern about government’s size story he aims to supplant, of a doctrinaire for a unique longitudinal data set and for concern for human flourishing. conservatism that Republican primary vot- deep exploration into many hotly-de- Reaganite conservatism, as Olsen under- ers, supposedly its strongest enthusiasts, bated subjects of the election. stands it, shares an enemy—big government— rejected last year in favor of something radi- with libertarianism but defines that enemy cally different. Of particular interest is the analysis of differently. The issue is not the size of govern- That rejection should not be over-inter- Trump’s voters conducted by Emily Ekins ment’s footprint but the bureaucratic control preted: for most of the prolonged Republican of the Cato Institute. On one side of the and micromanagement that stifle Americans’ primary contest Trump secured pluralities, Trump coalition, she found, are two sub- aspirations. Its antipathy for government, not majorities, against an array of more con- groups often lumped together in the “conser- therefore, is contingent not on government’s ventionally conservative challengers. Still, the vative” column. There are the “staunch con- size but on its nature. For such a conserva- numbers reveal two groups of voters, divided servatives” at 31%, who are what we tend to tism, the character of the elites who operate not by conservatism versus moderation but on think of when we talk about conservatives: the machinery of government—precisely the the basis of two different conservatisms—the loyal Republicans who are anti-tax, pro-gun, ones Flake appeases in his alternative vision— ones on offer from Flake and Olsen. and socially conservative. Then there are matters at least as much as the size and scope The best insights available on that coali- the “free marketeers” at 25%, conservative of government. The contrast with Flake’s low tion come from another project of Olsen’s— on economics but moderate to liberal on cul- regard for populism—cast as an enemy of the Democracy Fund’s Voter Study Group— tural issues and identity politics. Together, conservative principle—could not be clearer. to which I served as an advisor. It has pro- these two groups establish a majority intra-

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Republican voting bloc for free-market mes- erning coalition that opposed the right-side- into the harsh reality of the failure to repeal sages. These are the voters who might have of-history myths that looked so ascendant in and replace Obamacare. Absent a modern voted for the sort of candidate Flake admires. the Obama years with a new story of its own, governing majority, conservatism’s policy as- But they are not the whole of the Republi- one that reclaimed the true Reagan (if you pirations can be achieved only through parlia- can coalition, nor do they represent anything believe Henry Olsen), or moved beyond him mentary sleights of hand or executive actions close to a national consensus for a drastically (if you don’t). Yet it’s unclear whether Trump temporarily free from the constraints of pub- downsized federal government. or Trumpism actually points toward durable lic opinion. Successfully building a governing On the other side are three Trump-voting principles of governance or whether Trump’s coalition will require something more: mak- subgroups whose politics are far less tradition- victory is best attributed to his own singular ing the non-ideological half of the Trump co- ally Republican—and that therefore proved appeal. If a new account is centered entirely alition inhabitants in, rather than visitors to, far more decisive in Trump’s victory. First, at on one man, it is a cult of personality destined the GOP. 20%, there are the “American preservationists,” to fracture when he departs the scene. who fear cultural change but otherwise sup- hat have these voters received port liberal economic policies. Then there are e do see in trump’s rhetoric since Trump’s election? Propos- the “Anti-Elites,” some 19% of Trump voters, about globalism versus national-Wals to end the trade deals Trump who are less skeptical of cultural change and Wism the effort to build a Trumpism told them were stealing away their jobs have immigration than American preservationists that might prove more durable. But Trump been downgraded to “renegotiations” and are are, but incline toward a populism of compro- himself seems to approach his takeover of the likely to be downgraded, again, to rebranding. mise and asking more of the rich. The remain- Republican Party as a transactional arrange- Core Trumpist priorities like ending Presi- ing 5% are disengaged, politically uninformed, ment rather than an effort to offer anything dent Obama’s illegal amnesty seem to be little and alienated from our political debates. new. At times his rhetoric seems merely for more than bargaining chips to be thrown away These three groups may not be the majority show: the real work is in brokering deals to Chuck Schumer with the hope of preserv- of the Republican Party, but they are a sizable among the GOP’s factions, which have been ing the construction of some physical struc- enough chunk of its voter base that victory left unchanged by his election. ture at the border. For all his time as presi- is impossible without them. Donald Trump, Many conservatives are mostly happy to dent, the most tangible achievement Trump who received somewhere between 11% and have it this way. Trump, they believe, owes can point to on their behalf was the Carrier 15% of his votes (depending on which study them for their votes, without which he would deal inked before he took office, financed not you consult) from people who voted for Barack not have won the presidency, and they expect by any Trump Administration initiative but Obama in 2012, would not be president with- to collect his support for their priorities. They by then-Governor Mike Pence’s Indiana state out these defections. did not elect Trump to rewrite their agenda, government. and with a new president eager to put victories For some, Trump’s inability to translate his he question republicans now face on the board, they see no reason to do so. All rhetoric into results validates the pre-Trump is how to keep and incorporate these vot- they needed was a president who would sign conservative worldview. It would be more pro- Ters. Flake’s conservatism, which would Obamacare repeal and corporate tax reform ductive, however, for thoughtful conservatives have Republicans basically dismiss their con- into law. As it turned out, the main obstacle to apply conservative principles to the chal- cerns, barely commands a majority of Republi- they faced was not the Trumpist realignment lenges Trump diagnosed. Conservative think can voters, and so offers little hope of securing but their congressional leadership’s incom- tanks and publications exist for just this pur- majorities from the entire electorate. Perhaps petence and the intransigence of moderates, pose—to equip conservative and Republican this explains Flake’s paeans to bipartisanship. whose long tenure in Washington rendered office-holders to succeed. Trump’s presidency Unhappy with his party and its coalition, he them averse to draining its swamps. proves the importance of these institutions cannot explain how to promote an ideology Although proponents of this view had sev- and their work: to specify and justify an agen- with too narrow a constituency to govern. eral successes to celebrate in 2017—the eleva- da that produces tangible results. A coalition this divided needs a new public tion of to the Supreme Court, account of itself if it is to maintain political an inspiring deregulatory agenda, and the Michael A. Needham is the chief executive officer power. The 2016 election saw a fractured gov- passage of a massive tax cut—they also run for Heritage Action for America.

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