Donald Trump is remodelling the right

By J.A. | NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND

“CONSERVATISM can and does mean different things to those who call themselves conservatives,” said Ronald Reagan soothingly, in an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1977. He referred to social conservatism and economic conservatism, tendrils that then seemed disparate, but which he, speaking shortly after Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, would soon unite. “What I envision is not simply a melding together of the two branches of American conservatism into a temporary uneasy alliance,” he said. “But the creation of a new, lasting majority.”

It was tempting to wonder whether the speech Donald Trump delivered on February 24th to CPAC, an annual gathering for conservatives held on a Maryland bank of the Potomac river, signalled the end of that Reaganite consensus.

Mr Trump, who had been explicitly compared to Reagan by his loyal deputy, Mike Pence, the previous day, did sound a few familiar notes. “It’s time for all Americans to get off welfare and get back to work,” he said, adding, “You’re going to love it, you’re going to love it, you’re going to love it.” Also like Reagan, he extolled the need for strong armed forces: “Nobody’s going to mess with us folks. Nobody. It will be one of the greatest military build-ups in American history.”

Otherwise, Mr Trump veered so wildly from Reaganite principles it was interesting to wonder what his audience of conservative lobbyists, commentators and activists thought they were cheering for. Reagan, in what would be remembered as a great and prescient speech, lauded the free market, “the best mechanism ever devised by the mind of man to meet material needs”. In Mr Trump’s nationalist vision, markets cannot be trusted with American interests. “If they want a pipeline in the United States, they’re going to use pipe that’s made in the United States,” he said, referring to a protectionist clause he has inserted into a decree to unlock a proposed oil and gas pipeline. “Our country is being absolutely devastated by trade deals…So actually I like Bernie,” he said, claiming kinship with a fellow protectionist, Bernie Sanders, the only self-declared socialist in the Senate.

A greater contrast was between the moral vision that informed Reagan’s love of liberty with Mr Trump’s moral vacuity. “When a conservative says that totalitarian communism is an absolute enemy of human freedom he is not theorising—he is reporting the ugly reality captured so unforgettably in the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn,” said Reagan. For Mr Trump, the only ugly reality is the possibility of not being number one. “The core conviction of our movement is that we are a nation that will put its own citizens first,” he thundered.

Convinced of the moral force of his concerns for national security and, if they could only be roused, of the instincts of ordinary Americans, Reagan issued a stern warning against apathy: “Let us reverse the trend of public indifference to problems of national security.” Mr Trump, an opportunist, not an awakener, by contrast aimed to whip up the right’s already wildly exaggerated fear of terrorism. “I have a friend, he’s a very substantial guy, he loves the city of lights—he loves Paris,” said the president, who also said journalists should never use unnamed sources. “Now he doesn’t even think in terms of going there.”

In tone and substance, then, Mr Trump’s speech was an affront to much of what his party’s most successful modern leader stood for. And yet the cheers loyally came. “Lock her up!” the CPAC attendees jeered, reprising one of Mr Trump’s campaign chants, after he referred to his defeated rival, Hillary Clinton. “Build a wall!” they hollered, though, only minutes before, the same conservative crowd had applauded a panel discussion on the evils of eminent domain, which Mr Trump has used liberally in his building career, and would have to rely on heavily to build his promised border barricade.

The erosion of traditional conservative principles pre-dates Mr Trump’s emergence, of course—as Reagan’s speech also illustrates. It was an argument for small and local government; but not to the exclusion of the strong national institutions a well-governed country needs. “Those concerns of a national character—such as air and water pollution that do not respect state boundaries…must, of course, be handled on the national level,” Reagan said. He also decried “the trend of deteriorating faith in and continuing abuse of our national intelligence agencies.” Compare that to Mr Trump’s forthcoming attack on the Environmental Protection Agency and repeated assault on the nation’s spies. Both are consistent with the destructive anti-government arguments popular on the right, which were parroted by most of Mr Trump’s fellow CPAC speakers.

Reagan also stressed the importance of dialogue with political opponents. “If we truly believe in our principles, we should sit down and talk,” he said. “Conservatism is not a narrow ideology, nor is it the exclusive property of conservative activists.” Compare that to the foam-flecked denunciations of liberals, journalists and anyone in favour of gun controls that almost all the CPAC speakers dusted off to whip up applause. If conservatism has succumbed to Trumpism, partisanship was the enabler: against a mortal enemy, who cares about ideological purity?

Even so, it is unclear how complete the CPAC world’s embrace of Trumpism really is. The conference gave great prominence to the president’s populist guru, Stephen Bannon, and to the right-wing nationalist media outlet, Breitbart News, he formerly ran. Neither of them used to be welcome at CPAC; in 2013 and 2014, Mr Bannon organised a parallel event, called “The Uninvited”, to which he invited speakers who shared his suspicion of Muslims and antipathy to immigration. This time around, Breitbart had a prominent pitch outside the main auditorium, and Mr Bannon was one of CPAC’s most talked-about speakers.

The Republican congressmen who tend to be staple fare on the CPAC stage mainly stayed away, however; only one United States senator, Ted Cruz, spoke at the conference. Republican leaders are largely acquiescent to Mr Trump’s conservative heresies. Not many have embraced them. Yet if he remains his party’s champion and election-winner, the president’s reception at CPAC suggests, they surely will.