Trumpism and Conservatism

by: Valkyrie Laurence, Co-Communications Director

“The challenge with Trump is that he’s really not a conservative, by the classic Burkean way. He’s a populist, more than anything else. He tells people what they want to hear, but his policies are mostly grievance-backed. We used to be a fiscally conservative party; we’ve forgotten that, now we crank the printing press even more than the Democrats do.” - Mike Murphy, political consultant.

In saying this, Mike Murphy gets at the root of the radical changes that the Republican Party has undergone since 2016. Looking back at the policies and stances of Republican nominees and officeholders of the last several decades, there have been several trends deeply-rooted in the Republican Party, from small government to limiting gun control. However, Trump, by the 2016 election, had already begun to drift away from a lot of these values, presenting a new set of social, diplomatic, and economic stances (which has since been dubbed “Trumpism”).

Where classic conservatism supports free markets and unrestricted international trade, Trump has handed out tariffs to dozens of countries. Where classic conservatism supports government staying out of private citizens’ lives, Trump has used the U.S. military against its own citizens. Where classic conservatism focuses primarily on economic and international policy, Trump has assigned a new set of priorities to the country from mass deportations to repealing DEI protections.

Generally, though, Trumpism has been a politically effective strategy. While its goals aren’t necessarily aligned with the old Republican Party, its rhetoric is, as Mike Murphy says, populist; rather than talking about financial abstractions and important but sometimes opaque matters of international policy, Trumpism gives people targets to focus on and catchy slogans. This is the “telling people what they want to hear”; when people can rally around a perceived enemy, they become much more politically engaged than when their party’s goals don’t feel connected to peoples’ day-to-day lives.

Trump has co-opted the Republican Party, reshaping it from a conservative party focused on retaining the US’s international power and economic stability to a radical one centered around mass deportations, levying massive international tariffs, and amassing more power for itself. However, in a country that is yearning for radical solutions, Trumpism’s tangible targets may present a more appealing set of political goals than classic conservatism.