Of the myriad opinions offered up on the success so far of
Donald Trump in the Republican nominee race, the only consensus is that it is
the result of the failure of Republican leadership. Now, I’m far from a fan of
either Boehner or McConnell, think both have been too cautious, especially
since 2014, but I think this explanation for Trump is true only up to a point.
Moreover, it is a point which adheres to a rather comforting but delusional
trope that the fault is always with the politicians. Somehow in a democracy the
voters never get what they want.
Now to be sure the relationship between constituent and
politician in a democracy is a complex one. I’m not naïve enough to think that
politicians can’t have and pursue their own ambitions contrary to the voters,
but by and large I take politicians to have one real skill, getting elected.
And getting elected means being able to gauge votes. In making a point about
ISIL Charles Krauthammer observed that the cold war was won because it was
pursued by the leadership of both the Democrat and Republican Party. True
enough, but he left out that the faction in the Democratic Party that opposed that
war didn’t dominate the party like it does now. The point? It wasn’t the
leadership that has changed so much as the voters selecting the leaders.
If memory serves, it is in Maximum Feasible
Misunderstanding by way of explaining the social unrest of the late 60’s
that Pat Moynihan observes that frustration is the difference between
expectations and results. Moynihan’s point was that the War on Poverty and
other social initiatives of the Johnson administration greatly raised
expectations, when actual conditions on the ground didn’t change very much the
result was unrest, riots.
Alas, I think the Republican leadership explanation for
conservative ills is another example of Moynihan’s frustration equation.
Conservatives invested in conservative causes think the movement is far
stronger than it actually is. During the Bush years I regularly encountered the
notion that the US was a center-right country. I didn’t buy it then and I
certainly don’t buy it now. In Obama’s first term I regularly read conservative
opinion that seemed to think that if only the Republican leadership were stout
enough the Obama agenda could be thwarted never mind that the Republicans held
the House as against the Senate, the Executive, the media, and the culture. In
the aftermath of the 2014 election there was column after column on how the
Republican Party had never been stronger because of the gains made at the state
level. Great, Republicans are now in a better position to decide whether to institute
or not institute a health care exchange, to expand or not expand Medicare. Not
nothing, but not exactly a formidable position of strength either.
Yes, Republican leadership is part of the reason for Trump.
But I think more telling is that Trump wasn’t a conservative until yesterday, regularly
makes political statements that are anything but conservative. Theatrics and
frustration only covers all of this if you want it to, if you want the
MacGuffin to be of no account. But looked at more soberly I think it suggests
that even within the Republican Party conservative principles are only surface deep.
Trump, and just about anywhere else you should care to look, should tell you
that conservatism isn’t as strong as conservatives think it is. The first step
in recovery is to admit you have a problem.
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