A Primer on Conservatism

Senator John C. Danforth’s opinion piece in the WSJ today is a must read for Republicans as they head toward the 2024 presidential election. Entitled “The GOP Can’t Afford to Indulge Populism,” * it nicely sums up the differences between true conservatism and the fire-eating machinations of the MAGA crowd.

Danforth, the respected former Senator from Missouri, 1976-95, cites the views of Mike Pence and Josh Hawley to contrast the values of traditional conservatism with the populism current in the Republican party. Quoting Pence and Hawley, Danforth argues that voters must choose between conservatism or its antithesis, the Trumpian “siren song of populism.” He points out that normally voters can disagree on issues while sharing principles, but the differences in principle between conservatism and populism makes them incompatible.

Populists live in a “us vs. them” world, promote themselves as fighters, wage culture wars and stoke grievances. This is in contrast with Lincoln who on the eve of the Civil War pleaded with his countrymen “We are not enemies, but friends, we must not be enemies.” Lincoln, of course, struggled to bring people together for the good of the nation. Trump posing as a populist “openly flouts the standards of basic human decency and appeals to rage” evoking our basest instincts. Who can forget, “I am your retribution.”

Danforth continues citing conservative adherence to the Constitution and orderly government while invoking the memory of the great Edmund Burke, who warned of the chaos that would follow populist insurrections. In contrast, Trump inspired populists have “relentlessly undermined our Constitution” and “falsely asserted that elections are rigged, that President Biden is illegitimate and that we should ignore our courts. They have opposed the peaceful transfer of power and encouraged a mob to attack the U.S. Capital. To this day, they turn Americans against the government, claiming that it is no longer our servant but has been “weaponized” to attack us…None of this is conservative. All of it is radical.”

In Danforth’s view, conservatism is being ransacked by the MAGA movement. During the Trump presidency, the national debt rose 40% and limited government was replaced by “massive intervention in the marketplace through federal controls on prices and interest rates and, in Disney’s case, using government to punish a corporation” for its opinion. “In their big-government activism, populists more resemble progressive Democrats than traditional Republicans.”

As to foreign policy, Danforth laments that many populist Republicans, in face of the recent Russian aggression, have extolled isolationism threatening the strong anti-communism favored by the party since World War II.

Danforth makes a strong case for conservatism while debunking the slight- of-hand activism of the MAGA Republicans. Limited government, rule of law, integrity of the courts, reverence for the Constitution, and orderly elections make sense to me. Lincoln and Burke are good company.

*Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, September 26, 2023