In March of 2013, the Republican National Committee issued what soon became known as the “autopsy report,” which discussed how the party might improve its chances of winning presidential elections. Last Thursday in The Atlantic, reform conservative (or former conservative) David Frum provided the GOP with a sort of pre-autopsy document that it might consult after Donald Trump’s “almost certain failure in November.”
“The big internal conservative struggle of 2017 will be the fight to write the narrative of how Trump emerged and why he lost” the general election, predicted Frum. “Anti-Trump conservatives will want to say that Trump lost because he wasn’t a ‘true conservative.’ But 2016 to date is proposing that ‘true conservatives’ constitute only a pitiful minority of the Republican Party, never mind the country as a whole. Why should any practical politician care about them ever again?”
Frum argued that conservatives need a new approach which avoids both “toxic” Trumpism and “the entrepreneur worship of the past few years.” He mused that “much of the old conservative message is out of date. Not all of it, but much. Yet the people who formed the conservative coalition remain. They’ve misplaced their faith and trust in Donald Trump. But then, it’s not as if their faith and trust were honored by the party’s plutocratic former leadership, either.”
From Frum’s article (bolding added):
Traditional ideological conservatives will want to consider [that] Trump rose by shoving them aside…The social conservative veto has vanished. New York values have prevailed, with a mighty assist from Jerry Falwell Jr. and other evangelical leaders. It seems unlikely the religious right will return in anything like its awesome previous form…
Trump’s almost certain failure in November will likewise drag after him other conservative causes, notably immigration restriction…
The big internal conservative struggle of 2017 will be the fight to write the narrative of how Trump emerged and why he lost. Anti-Trump conservatives will want to say that Trump lost because he wasn’t a “true conservative.” But 2016 to date is proposing that “true conservatives” constitute only a pitiful minority of the Republican Party, never mind the country as a whole. Why should any practical politician care about them ever again?...
…A shrewd friend, active in the Republican donor community, described Trump as the political equivalent of a chemical accelerant, hastening events that were likely to happen anyway. The plutocratic cast of Republican politics since 2009 was unsustainable in a country where the rewards of economic growth seem to bypass so many people…
The job ahead, post-November, is to build a new kind of conservative politics—a politics with a broader social appeal than the entrepreneur worship of the past few years—that offers less toxic and futile answers than those heard from Donald Trump…
Much of the old conservative message is out of date. Not all of it, but much. Yet the people who formed the conservative coalition remain. They’ve misplaced their faith and trust in Donald Trump. But then, it’s not as if their faith and trust were honored by the party’s plutocratic former leadership, either.
