Noah Rothman of Commentary magazine offers suggestions for those who want to maintain an adherence to conservative principles in the age of a populist Republican president.
If American politics becomes a contest over which party will lead a liberal and increasingly statist country, then the set of ideas that have undergirded modern American conservatism—the preservation and advancement of individual liberty as a universal right and the unapologetic stewardship of the national interests of the United States—will be thrown onto the ash heap of history. Trump himself occasionally seems to grasp the value of conservative ideas. Conservatives cannot, though, pin their hopes on the day-to-day actions of a mercurial political novice.
It is, therefore, necessary to articulate principled conservatism as it applies to modern life and the daily policy debates that consume news cycles. In some respect, the Trump administration is an opportunity for conservatism. Where past presidents could be relied upon to guide the development of the movements they came to lead, Trump’s lack of ideological convictions suggests that he may be more reliant on the conservative movement than the movement is on him. Practical conservatism is, in many ways, instinctually accepted by Americans. Ours is a culture that cherishes self-sufficiency, prudence, and frugality. These are also conservative values, but conservatives cannot assume they are universally accepted as such.
Responsible conservatives have ceded the latitude to shape conservative positions to disreputable provocateurs, thus repulsing persuadable voters. Sober-minded conservative Republicans are obliged to take their ideas back.
Rothman goes on to list those ideas as the disaster of central planning, the error of government mandates, the need for a strong (sometimes pre-emptive) national defense, the necessity of failure, a rational immigration policy, and the superiority of incrementalism.
