Did Trump cause post-liberalism, or a disaffection with constitutionalism? I would say he emboldened and intensified trends already operative.
Conservatives have long complained that things are skewed against them, first of all the news media and other cultural institutions, but also the permanent bureaucracy. They’ve ignored the ways ou…
Did Trump cause post-liberalism, or a disaffection with constitutionalism? I would say he emboldened and intensified trends already operative.
Conservatives have long complained that things are skewed against them, first of all the news media and other cultural institutions, but also the permanent bureaucracy. They’ve ignored the ways our political system in combination with demographics gives disproportionate representation to Republicans – though surely that’s one reason they always voiced a commitment to the constitutional order.
The sense of being victimized by the system has been part of conservative thinking for a long time, and it’s a theme that generates passionate attachment to the cause. Trump played into the anti-institutional grievance, and along with his fanatical cult following he intensified it.
Large numbers of rank-and-file conservatives anointed Trump their one true champion against everything they saw as unfair and everything they disliked about the direction of cultural and political change. They said that people who criticized or opposed Trump were not real Americans.
That devotion to one person as the embodiment of patriotic righteousness is especially dangerous when the person in question is as pathologically self-centered and amoral as Donald Trump. It’s obvious that he regards any impediment to his desires as fundamentally wrong – even if those impediments are the law and the Constitution. The Trump cult takes the same view: If Trump says something is unfair and evil, it must be so. Trump is there to save America, so whatever goes against Trump cannot be allowed.
Conservative thought leaders should be able to see that Trump’s moral code is extraordinarily solipsistic – and maybe some of them do, but rationalize it away as long as he’s useful to their agenda. The deep thinkers of MAGA world have echoed the rank-and-file view that whatever goes against Trump must be wrong. If anyone in “the establishment” calls him out for wrongdoing or insists that even he is not above the law, it just proves that the whole system is corrupt. MAGA thinkers point to the fervent cult following to say “This is what the American People want. Establishment be damned!” And election results too, apparently.
Trump’s amorality combined with a rabid cult following, and set against institutionalists who retain some ethical standards and respect for law, encouraged some conservative thought leaders to be more radical in their critique of the system or the establishment. Instead of just complaining that the culture was going against them, they began to cast doubt on the constitutional order that allowed it to happen, and on the principle that people in government owe allegiance to the Constitution and not to a president who does what conservatives want.
In the past, conservatives seemed to have some scruples against a “by any means necessary” approach to getting what they wanted. Trump and his cult emboldened elements of the right to abandon those scruples.
Modern conservatism is not newly post-liberal. Seeds of authoritarian leader admiration were sown with Reagan. His disciples are aging boomers still finding themselves “surprised” that the dog whistles became open bigotry a mere generation or so later. Anti-union, scientific limits on private enterprise, bad blackness, police/military adoration, and the poisonous justifications of thievery embodied in trickle down have hollowed out the working class and destroyed the dreams of a middle class. Any wonder the commitment to liberal democracy has declined. Under Republican administrations, or by their out of office obstruction, the system has not worked for them. Look back JVL; listen to Joe Scarborough twist himself in knots explaining his cultist devotion to Reagan. Geez …not hard to see.
Did Trump cause post-liberalism, or a disaffection with constitutionalism? I would say he emboldened and intensified trends already operative.
Conservatives have long complained that things are skewed against them, first of all the news media and other cultural institutions, but also the permanent bureaucracy. They’ve ignored the ways our political system in combination with demographics gives disproportionate representation to Republicans – though surely that’s one reason they always voiced a commitment to the constitutional order.
The sense of being victimized by the system has been part of conservative thinking for a long time, and it’s a theme that generates passionate attachment to the cause. Trump played into the anti-institutional grievance, and along with his fanatical cult following he intensified it.
Large numbers of rank-and-file conservatives anointed Trump their one true champion against everything they saw as unfair and everything they disliked about the direction of cultural and political change. They said that people who criticized or opposed Trump were not real Americans.
That devotion to one person as the embodiment of patriotic righteousness is especially dangerous when the person in question is as pathologically self-centered and amoral as Donald Trump. It’s obvious that he regards any impediment to his desires as fundamentally wrong – even if those impediments are the law and the Constitution. The Trump cult takes the same view: If Trump says something is unfair and evil, it must be so. Trump is there to save America, so whatever goes against Trump cannot be allowed.
Conservative thought leaders should be able to see that Trump’s moral code is extraordinarily solipsistic – and maybe some of them do, but rationalize it away as long as he’s useful to their agenda. The deep thinkers of MAGA world have echoed the rank-and-file view that whatever goes against Trump must be wrong. If anyone in “the establishment” calls him out for wrongdoing or insists that even he is not above the law, it just proves that the whole system is corrupt. MAGA thinkers point to the fervent cult following to say “This is what the American People want. Establishment be damned!” And election results too, apparently.
Trump’s amorality combined with a rabid cult following, and set against institutionalists who retain some ethical standards and respect for law, encouraged some conservative thought leaders to be more radical in their critique of the system or the establishment. Instead of just complaining that the culture was going against them, they began to cast doubt on the constitutional order that allowed it to happen, and on the principle that people in government owe allegiance to the Constitution and not to a president who does what conservatives want.
In the past, conservatives seemed to have some scruples against a “by any means necessary” approach to getting what they wanted. Trump and his cult emboldened elements of the right to abandon those scruples.
Modern conservatism is not newly post-liberal. Seeds of authoritarian leader admiration were sown with Reagan. His disciples are aging boomers still finding themselves “surprised” that the dog whistles became open bigotry a mere generation or so later. Anti-union, scientific limits on private enterprise, bad blackness, police/military adoration, and the poisonous justifications of thievery embodied in trickle down have hollowed out the working class and destroyed the dreams of a middle class. Any wonder the commitment to liberal democracy has declined. Under Republican administrations, or by their out of office obstruction, the system has not worked for them. Look back JVL; listen to Joe Scarborough twist himself in knots explaining his cultist devotion to Reagan. Geez …not hard to see.