Conservatism After Trump
The following is a preview, exclusive to RealClearPolicy, of William Voegeli's piece in the Winter 2019 edition of The Claremont Review of Books. The full piece is now available.
Less than seven months after president Trump’s inauguration, conservative pundit William Kristol called for “liberating…conservatism from Trumpism”—a battle cry that treats conservatism and Trumpism as separate entities, impossible to reconcile or synthesize. To ask whether that premise is sound raises a question that is difficult, interesting and, above all, important. For many years to come, conservatism’s fortunes and meaning will turn on how conservatives interpret Donald Trump’s political career.
The first step, however, is to reflect on the meaning of their cause prior to, and apart from, Trump. Two hundred years ago, following the chaos unleashed by the French Revolution, people began to describe the fundamental political antagonism as “liberalism” versus “conservatism.” There has been conflict and confusion over the two terms’ meaning ever since. There is an asymmetry, however: only “liberalism” has a clear referent. Liberals promote liberty, even as they disagree among themselves and with their opponents about what it encompasses and requires.
To declare oneself a conservative, on the other hand, is to employ a verb without providing its direct object. What, exactly, does conservatism exist to conserve? And whatever those objects of its solicitude might be, why must they be conserved, rather than being able to fend for themselves?
