Pop culture kitsch went from your living room TV directly to the White House. Archie Bunker became President, and a good portion of the population applauds it. How can we stand united after THAT?
5
How would you distinguish politics from aesthetics?
The one thing I am certain of is that Donald Trump will not read this piece. At least not in its entirety
5
The United States underwent a right wing coup in 2016. The electoral farce was based on Republican gerrymandering and systematic voter suppression combined with Russian hacking to somehow arrive at a mysterious Electoral College majority giving Trump the Oval Office with a mere 70,000 votes spread over three key states. Clinton had a popular majority of 3 million. To discuss liberalism vs conservatism in this context is to miss the point: We have become a Banana Republic owned and operated by the ultra-right wing owners of the Republican Party with the egomaniac Trump at the helm. Philosophy? Does the word fascism strike a note?
10
“We the people,” is exclusive and understanding that exclusivity is the “first principle of conservatism?” Really? What of the passage in that other founding document, “all men are created equal.” The problem with conservatism is that it has twisted "freedom" to mean free to get rich, and it has forgotten that "equality" carries equal weight with "freedom" in our founding ideals and documents. Enabling and encouraging "capitalism," incidentally, is not a founding ideal, while seeing to "Justice," "Tranquility," "common defence," "general Welfare" are explicitly required.
8
this "president" isn't educated on any topic whatsoever, why would you think he would 'get' Conservatism or any other philosophy/political stance? he doesn't read, he doesn't think, he doesn't do anything but try to advance his own interests, financial and personal/emotional.
7
In the Oxbridge Common Rooms that are Mr Scruton's natural home, this might resonate but, in a language he would abhorr :- get real. One can readily imagine the Roger Scrutons of earlier eras crafting elegant essays against whatever progressive legislation was being proposed. "Too soon", "Excessive" or "Unnecessary" while downing a rather nice cut glass of aged port.
Mr Scruton, we are here as a consequence of what your idols of the past, with you applauding on the sidelines, told us circa 1979 was inevitable: "there are no alternatives". Remember TINA ? You dont seem too happy as to where it has got us. Or was it simply that they failed to fully and correctly understand the refined subtleties of your argument ?
2
It's unbelievable bordering on insane to try to reconcile Trump to conservatism. Trump bears no relation to conservatism as it might be understood as a philosophy nor as it might be understood as a practical approach to governing. Those trying to "fit" Trump into conservatism will find something like associations but these are mere coincidences. The fact that conservatives claim ownership of Trump, taking advantage of the privileges of his power, says a lot about them; it says little about him. He probably simply accepts their support because it's all he's got and he's incredibly vain. Trump is a product of American culture, the worst impulses our society has nurtured since it was founded on stealing the land.
3
Liberal me tends to agree, but so what? How does this gentle backhand swipe contribute to getting rid of Trump?
The fundamental problem with this piece is that it is completely off point. Neither Donald Trump nor the Republican Party represent the conservative viewpoint as articulated by Scruton and those referenced herein. Conservatism as a political philosophy is completely irrelevant to those who wield power in this administration and the current incarnation of the GOP. Thought leaders in the conservative movement have been sidelined in service to the politics of white resentment started by the Southern Strategy, encouraged by Reagan at Philadelphia, MS, fanned by Bush (HW) with Willie Horton, fulminated by McConnell and Ryan during the Obama years, and now personified by Trump. While the conservatives were busy reading Locke and Smith, the actual GOP politicians and voters were winning elections based on Helms and Duke.
This essay, while interesting as a thought exercise, is akin to pointing out what a baby doesn't understand about quantum physics. The answer is "a great deal". But who cares? The baby has no use for quantum physics and never claimed to be acting in service to it.
12
Since Mr. Trump constantly insists that he does not read and does not need to read, he no doubt is unaware of Adam Smith's work.
"In another of conservatism’s founding documents, 'The Wealth of Nations,' Adam Smith argued that trade barriers and protections offered to dying industries will not, in the long run, serve the interests of the people."
His ignorance is leading directly to disaster for many businesspeople and farmers in this country. Even if they deserve it for their support of Mr. Trump, I don't wish disaster upon them. I keep hoping they will wake up and recognize that Mr. Trump is doing nothing that will counter or make up for the problems he is causing as he disrupts markets, alienates our allies and otherwise creates tumult in this country.
2
A true conservative would argue for the Separation of Church and State arguing that political influence by any and all religions would corrupt the secular nature (and preferably limited role) that government should play in defence, free trade, and protecting the tenets of the Constitution. A true conservative would further argue that there should be a clear Separation of Corporation and State for the same reason and yet the current office holding 'conservatives' on their watch passed Citizens United that essentially finished what has been a slow moving coup by corporations to change the United States of America into the Corporate States of America where the corporate 'citizen' has more rights than the individual citizen.
The 'conservatives' in office today look more to Ayn Rand and Niccolò Machiavelli than Thomas Jefferson or Adam Smith.
The reality is there is no one in office today that represents the true conservative nor the true interests of humanity as a whole. With regards to who is represented by federal, state, and even in some areas down to local government, as George Carlin once said "It's a Big Club and you and I aren't in it".
The US is not a representative government "of the People" nor is it "by the People". For which people would want to be at war either directly or via proxy somewhere in the world for all but three and half years of its 242 year existence?
So where are the true conservatives? They definitely aren't in office.
8
That's it? That's conservatism? Here's my version of "liberalism": There are natural rights possessed by all, each person has inherent worth, dignity, and is owed respect by everyone else regardless of nationality, race, etc. One of those essential rights is the right to pursue one's own version of happiness; the ability to exercise this right in practice depends on certain conditions being met, among which are adequate nutrition and healthcare in childhood and sufficient education. The vast majority of parents desperately want to provide their child with those goods so that they can flourish as individuals; when parents are unable or unwilling to care for their children that we as a society have an obligation to supplement that parental care. In any society, power differentials arise, whereby some individuals and groups acquire more power than others. There is an inevitable tendency of the more powerful to benefit themselves in ways that diminish the ability of the less-powerful to flourish, and those concentrations of power can shift over time, at one time power being concentrated in religious institutions, other times in government institutions and other times in private business institutions. And finally, it is the our task and obligation, as individuals and as a society, to be alert to those deleterious concentrations of power, act to rein in excessive power and to foster countervailing centers of power to defend and enhance everyone's ability to flourish.
10
"They [words of the Constitution] refer to the people who reside here, in this place." True enough. But thereby, for some, begins a huge moral collapse all the way down to anti-immigrant hysteria.
4
“The people who reside here, if they are white and have sufficient money to never need others’ help...”
Despite his deep erudition, what Roger Scruton doesn't seem to get about American "conservatism" is that it's been hydra-headed for decades (same for American "liberalism"). When I was young, for example, "conservative" was applied to the likes of Joe McCarthy and William Jenner, in addition to Robert Taft (then known as "Mr. Conservative"), despite huge differences in their personal styles and political programs. Moreover, connecting their political outlooks to the subtle outlook of Edmund Burke seems an enormous stretch.
Our political language is impoverished: it is basically one-dimensional ("liberal" <—> "conservative"). However, our lives and our political views exist in multidimensional spaces, not along an inherently one-dimensional line.
6
I'm not quite sure how Mr. Scruton could "not have imagined that someone like Mr. Trump could occupy the highest office in the state." If he had watched Fox News for any length of time over the past 10 years or so, Trump's ascension to power would seem all but inevitable.
As for Mr. Scruton's charge that liberal Supreme Court justices are more interested in "revising" the Constitution than reading it as written, there are 2 important things to keep in mind. 1) Clearly, the Founding Fathers did not think of the Constitution as a document that would never be changed, and likely thought it would be changed far more frequently than it has been over the past 240 years. 2) They could not possibly have imagined the world we live in today, with all the new problems that have arisen. Logic and reason must be included when trying to interpret what their original intent was, and how they would've dealt with these modern issues.
15
I thank you for your thoughtful article. I am not a conservative voter but I am at times a conservative thinker and I think you give Trump more credit than he deserves.
I know more about conservatism than Trump does. He sees it as a tool to lure voters and keep them believing that he shares their principles.
As a young teen I learned more from watching Firing Line than Trump will ever know. He is coached and convinced and then quickly forgets.
I'm not sure that many of today's GOP congress understand principles of conservatism. Those folks are now 'Never Trumpers' and outside the party for now.
It's too bad because in the real world where progressives and conservatives exist there is bipartisanship and discussions of meaning and worth.
Maybe someday that will return but I won't be holding my breath.
6
This op-ed wants to explain what Trump doesn't get about conservatism, and the author starts by admitting that although he dedicated his entire life to trying to define it, he failed to do so ... ??
With friends like that ...
And then he goes on to support nationalism (without explaining why, nor defining it), and ... to reject the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ... ?!
All countries have adopted it, except, at the time, the Soviets and the other Communist countries, together with the Saudi Arabian dictatorship.
And now Scruton, posing as an anti-Trumper, in one single line nevertheless turns against it ... ? And with the completely absurd excuse that they would be "too abstract" ... ?
As a member of Amnesty International, dear Mr. Scruton, I can guarantee you that writing a letter to a government in order to make it stop torturing political prisoners who are imprisoned only because they used the right to have freedom of speech, is everything BUT abstract. And the relief you feel when under international pressure they indeed end up releasing that person (a son, a father, a brother, a colleague, a friend ... ), isn't abstract either. All you need to do is to take the time to study his case.
Conservatives in this country have completely lost their mind.
Here's a suggestion for the next conservative "intellectual" who wants to distance himself from Trump: maybe try to come up with a definition of conservatism first, so that at least we can have a debate ... ?
7
I think Trump perfectly understands conservatism which starts with self aggrandizement and accumulation of wealth with limited government interference. He seized on the anti-Obama prejudices and objectives of the
Tea Party in attempting to destroy the orderly process of Congress and to protect the white ruling class from the Black marauder. In fact, Trump led the charge on the false claims of the birther movement which was a reaction to the dark skinned usurper of the previously white dominated executive branch. Net result was major disruption in the orderly business of compromise and bipartisan legislation. The conservative movement gave us Newt Gingrich the Freedom Caucus , Mitch McConnell and Fox News. Trump was the icing on the cake.
Conservatives do not get it that the world and our place in the world has evolved since the 1920s and public welfare is the responsibility of a civilized country regardless of the exact wording of the Constitution and that a strong federal government is necessary for the US to function in today's ever changing world.
Trump is using Conservatives to justify destruction of the Executive branch except for maybe Dept. of Defense through use of demagoguery and fascist practices. Conservatives may dominate SCOTUS for years to come. They will however, eventually have to deal with the monster n the White House they created. Tariffs may create that opportunity because it hits them where the think- in their wallets.
2
Great essay. Thank you, Sir.
2
I think we an article headlined "What Conservatives Don't Get".
It could be long, long article.
5
" We The People", as to your point that these words refer to the people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance. This being the 1st principle of Conservatism. Your words...what about the people of the First Nation, or the Native people who lived here before 1492. These original Americans don't fit so neatly into your first principal do they? And the concepts that formed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, principals that this country was founded on, were inspired by the Iroquois People, or" Iroquois Confederacy". A group of tribes from upper New York that banded together for common purpose. How did they fare in you 1st principal of Conservatism? You don't have to be a genius to answer that question.We know how this has turned out for the "People", and we can see it happening again. A coalition of phony Christians and Corporate Greed, roll over anything in their way. What about Women's rights? the people who were brought here in chains? How does that fit into your concept of Conservatism?
4
So, in your line of thought what should those "real conservatives" of the GOP should be doing? Because so far, they are the enablers of this abomination.
6
Okay, a couple paragraphs in, I decided to drop what I thought might be a good read. But a snarky reference to Hillary Clinton here serves no worthwhile purpose beyond snarkiness, and I'll eat my hat if Thomas Jefferson was a conservative.
3
If today's conservatives followed the principles of Smith or Burke they would evolve naturally and become liberal Democrats. Instead, they followed pure propaganda that plutocrats created for them to believe in. They went the opposite way of founders of conservatism, which basically is nothing else but fascism.
6
Yes yes yes! Every word!
Wouldn't it be nice if we could stop pretending that conservative and liberal impulses are inevitably at odds? Mr. Scruton's characterization of conservatism as being rooted in tradition and liberalism as being rooted in universal rights is certainly apt. But so, too, is an even simpler characterization: the conservative impulse seeks to preserve that which is good about the status quo; the liberal impulse seeks to fix that which is bad. Since our society has plenty of both good and bad, surely both impulses are required!
11
The Constitution as its writers intended it made a place for slavery. Decades later, amendments were added that were intended to remove this place. This means that the Constitution is now at war with itself, since the intentions of the original framers and the amenders oppose each other. This war must be resolved by interpretation, no matter what the interpretation is.
There is no way to take literally a document that contradicts itself. Since logic allows anything and everything to be derived from a contradiction, taking the Constitution as it was originally understood allows it to be taken any way the interpreters want. The literal interpretation thus morphs into its polar opposite (which also happens when the Bible is taken literally, as history shows), which is surprising only to those who do not realize that reality is dialectical.
2
A lacuna so conspicuous in Scruton's now-tiresomely familiar critique of Trump's inadequacies raises serious questions not about Trump's qualities of mind but of Scruton's. Scruton addresses the high value conservatives have vested in the notion of "here," of OUR knowable community/culture as opposed to the radical liberal-left's universalism. America's rights, according to the Framers' documents, exist only for those who live in America and who, in the first instance, fought to achieve them. So far so good. But despite knowing little history and next to nothing about abstract ideas -- it is Trump who has acted on this principle. Far more than any recent predecessor, Trump has fought to maintain a specifically American identity by opposing mass immigration, especially its unlawful variety, has attacked divisive identity politics in favor of E Puribus Unum, has taken US sovereignty more seriously than his democratic rivals by seeking to close America's porous borders to the lawless, and who has unapologetically spoken on behalf of American workers and citizens as his first priority. This contrasts sharply with the leftist Obama who explicitly said Americans have "no right" to prefer their fellow citizens over others. Perhaps the intellectual elitist Scruton isn't pleased to have the vulgar Trump on his side, but where conservatism really matters -- and not as a set of abstract principles but as actually practiced -- Trump is his man.
2
I’m sorry, but the notion that conservatives adhere to “the wider conservative tradition, seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it, regardless of the elected legislature” is downright silly. Saying, as the court did last week, that freedom of speech rights preclude mandatory union dues for collective bargaining fees is not rooted in the constitution—it was a revision based on the political beliefs of the court. While I don’t agree with the decision, it was a majority, so it it what it is. But don’t try to say that “conservative” decisions are based on the founders beliefs. The current court is just a active as any other prior court.
7
"National identity is the origin of the trust on which political order depends."
I don't get why it is you think that "liberalism" opposes this idea. We all would obviously like to extend our national ideals throughout the world, but I think even the left recognizes that we have to achieve them here at home first. I suppose in your cartoon version of our current political divide, "liberals" think there is more to do on that front while "conservatives" believe that they have been achieved already, and furthermore, that the efforts of "liberals" actually threaten those ideals.
I have lived through the politics of the 60s until now, and that is not my take on the situation at all. In fact, i have seen the "conservatives" construct that set of myths as a way of consolidating their voting base, in order to stay in power. Once in power, they conduct wars and spend like the drunken sailors they accuse their opposition of being.
We are currently engaged in an argument as to who should be allowed into this country to participate in the achievement of the American ideal. I would refer you to the Declaration of Independence to see what side the Founding Fathers took on this position.
An important topic that Mr. Scruton fails to address is how conservatives view environmental conservation and protection. It is something that the founding fathers didn't have to worry about because resources seemed endless in the new continent. Only a centralized government that is acting in the long-term interests of the people as a whole can hope to enact policies that will protect precious, and in some cases irrrecoverable, assets that are needed for a sustainable quality of life. Private businesses and individual people do not have the motivation or the wealth, respectively, to solve our serious enviornmental threats. Modern conservativsm has not articulated a position on this serious problem and in fact seems to be denying that it is a problem at all. Because of this gap in the platform, I cannot see myself ever voting for a Republican candidate.
3
Scruton might be writing about the religious beliefs of some isolated tribe so far as I can discern. I see no strong correlation between his idea of conservatism and the ideas or positions of any of the various self-described conservative institutions in the U.S. Many of these conservative institutions simply carry forward the particular issues of their founding patrons and the only overarching principle is that of no government regulation of commerce, no unions, and no social welfare. Others talk of instituting what amount to religious beliefs about society into law, but only as it applies to the home and bedroom, not to business. Finally, there is conservatism rooted in a desire to return to some idyllic social hierarchy where everyone had an assigned place and stayed in it. These "conservative" institutions are just as likely to try to use Trump to further their own narrow aims as they are to resist Trump. Scruton's kind of conservative, if they exist, will not be Theodore Roosevelt's "man in the arena."
3
What is the purpose of this essay? I discern 2:
1) To promote the author's concept of conservatism, by associating it with revered thinkers of the past, and especially by contrasting it with DJT, loathed by all who value civilization.
2) To, in contrast, posit and rue a "cultural decline that is rapidly consigning our artistic and philosophical inheritance to oblivion".
But it's well known that this positing and ruing has been written as long as there has been writing, and presumably extends as far back as there were cultures that could hypothetically decline.
On what date does Mr. Scruton mark culture's high water? What (besides the combed-over and pants-suited candidates of 2016) are his pet markers of its decline? And crucially: who's to blame? I suspect he considers the answers too obvious to state, which is precisely the problem: too much emotion and too little reason. What's called for are specific policy proposals, with clear explanations of their intended effects, and evidence they'll achieve them. All else is name-calling.
4
Excellent questions, Mr. Coleman. I hope Mr. Scruton will answer them.
I applaud Mr. Scruton for hitting the head of the nail of conservatism: it is simply the word "WE", the most important word of our constitution and probably of all other constitutions. Along with Burke many other philosophers, such as Vico in Italy, Herder and Hamann in Germany and others celebrated the WE and supported it with strong arguments. But that was at the end of the 18th century an the beginning of the 19th century. Since then the worlds population has grown from about 1 billion to about 8 billion humans. Without the horrific slaughter of people on all continents except where our We live the collective We would perhaps be ca.10 billion. The technological capacity of man since the WE of our constitution has been incalculably advanced, both for the good and for the bad. Unless the WE of conservatives like Scruton and the I and ME living in the world of Trumpiana is "defeated" and or replaced by OUR, where OUR is EVERYBODY including non-humans, I think its all down hill from here. Or as Franz Kafka famously remarked "There is hope but not for us".
3
Here's where Mr. Scruton's conservatism splits from that of Trump's adherents:
"'We, the people'...Those first words of the United States Constitution do not refer to all people everywhere. They refer to the people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law, and who are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance. Grasping that point is the first principle of conservatism."
Mr. Scruton's conservatism is one in which that "we" includes all the people who've been included in it since the Constitution was signed: women, blacks, Native Americans, men without land. Trump's adherents, originalists all, don't include those people in their "we."
Donald Trump is not a conservative, he uses them. Trump is a flim-flam man working for gangsters and dictators.
2
Trump is not a liberal or a conservative, whatever those labels mean. He has no political or, for that matter, moral compass. He is an opportunistic narcissist.
5
Conservatism is nothing more than the elites trying to maintain control and enlisting the masses to help them keep control.
4
Mr Scrunton ,
It’s baffling to me how you portray Mr Trump as “ having a grasp “ on certain conservative ideologies but not getting the whole picture. Your are a thinker and well educated man, how can’t it be clear to you that the man sitting in the Oval Office has no ideology. No knowledge of history, law, politics, diplomacy, world affairs and global economics (among others ). The worst part of this ignorance it’s the fact that Mr Trump has no desire to learn or improve . He does not need to . He has a loyal base that will blindly follow him to the cliff and be happy to do so . He has a political party that turns a blind eye and only seeks to capitalize on having “a republican president” so the interested parties can pursue their own agendas . Mr Trump is egocentric and only cares about himself, (and apparently about his closest family ) he craves adulation and approval. “Wining” is his motto. Mr Trump lives happily in His own world, why should he care about ours? Why worry if He is “presidential “enough ? Climate change? As long as He is comfortable in is palatial homes, the waters won’t rise on his estates. The same goes for the well educated and wealthy supporters of his party agenda. Let Trump be Trump , it’s good for that demographic. What about his base ? It might turn out no so good for them.. I believe that if America continues on this path of division, hostility, lack of empathy and compromise, Red and Blue country will suffer alike .
1
As a liberal, I don’t disagree with much that was in this article except this, “Moreover he (Trump) has understood that the legal order of the United States is rooted in customs that the Constitution was designed to protect”
Trump was a liberal Democrat for most of his life and his Republican rebirth has more to do with vengeance against the moneyed class of Democrats than Constitutional customs. He has no more use for the Constitution than he does for used toilet paper. He is hell bent on getting revenge on all the people of NY (and California) that shunned him for good reason.
2
I doubt the relevance of "what Trump doesn't get about Conservatism". The greater danger is in "What Conservatives don't get about Trump".
As far as Trump is concerned, Conservatives are only a convenient means to an end, the end being power for Trump. He cared nothing about party or ideology or policy, as long as he got elected, nothing else mattered. But now it does, and it matters a lot. If Conservatives continue to vote Republican, we are at risk of a Trump dictatorship, and that would be disasterous for the world, for our country and for all of us.
2
Both 'Conservatives' and 'Liberals' used to value the rule of law, believe that their efficient enforcement protected the fruits of hard work - so enabled prosperity, AND protected the welfare of the most vulnerable in society which liberals are supposed to care so much about. But 50 years of open borders anarchy because Conservatives and Liberals insist on access to 100's of millions of slave-wage workers either overseas or imported as immigrants, and neo Marxists/democrats who also want to destroy the middle class so the majority of voters have to vote democrat to get enough gov dispersed crumbs to stay alive have made a mockery of both traditions! Trump at least pretends that he wants to fix the mess of 12-20 million illegals and the colossal organized crime of their illegal employment and draining of social services. He implies he wants to stop our elites' shoving of ever more Americans into "free trade' poverty that has been justified by lying misrepresentations of Adam Smith's theories that readers were again insulted by in this article. The "free trade" examples in Smith's writings and his theory assumed trading partners with approximately equal standards of living and human rights. Forcing citizens of liberal democracies to 'compete' with no-rights slaves either overseas or mass immigrated in our nation can only result in most Americans becoming slaves as well. Stopping our decline to 3rd world status is more important than arguing about what "Conservatism" is.
1
Once again, a conservative bemoans "liberal" willingness to modify the interpretation of the Constitution. Has he ever addressed the "conservative" modifications to, say, the 2nd amendment? If we assume that the founders wanted anyone to be able to buy, sell, or stockpile any quantity of arms and ammunition (did I hear explosives?), then what does a "well- regulated militia" mean? Further, why have conservatives wanted a national ban on abortion since before Roe v Wade? Is there no Conservative American since 1800 that the author can back away from? He certainly knows that Lady Thatcher was not an American.
5
It’s taken me two long, miserable, and, yes, I admit it, somewhat slow, years to fully realize that, as bad as DumpTruck is (& he is very bad indeed for all Americans, regardless of their age, income or political leanings), that it’s the GOP as a whole that is currently actively attacking, and in some areas, destroying, the traditional laws, values and principles of the United States of America. In real time.
Not just the obvious ones, either, the hateful pit bulls in the so-called Freedom Caucus, and their smugly venal, billionaire-supported, ‘leadership’, but the rank and file, the millions of armchair adherents and online supporters of a once viable conservative philosophy which has now fully metastasized into a new, but still thoroughly reprehensible, version of fascism, plain and simple.
It is a heart-breaking, and deeply alarming, development, and one which every thinking person on Earth must fight before the gangsters really take over and darkness engulfs the entire world.
The free citizens of Europe and the USA are, as has happened before, the last holdouts, hence the nearly-hysterical daily attacks, from both within AND without, above AND below, on any and all American companies, citizens and public institutions that present, and represent, things like the plain truth, real freedom, and actual/factual accountability. Don’t kid yourself: if and when too many more norms and laws go, civilization, and all of us go, too. Quit laughing at the monsters, they’re real.
9
Mr. Scrotun writes,
“Unlike liberalism, with its philosophy of abstract human rights, conservatism is based not in a universal doctrine but in a particular tradition, and this point at least the president has grasped.”
I’m genuinely interested in what Republicans believe those “particular traditions” are. They NEVER explain what American “tradition” is. They talk about god given unalienable rights. Yet, like in this moment, those god given rights are apparently an abstraction. When you tell them Trump lost the popular vote by over 3 million, they retort “We’re a republic, not a democracy”.
It seems to me the Republican “tradition” that they seem hellbent on protecting is a “tradition” that benefited a select few, equally of opportunity for any straight white man, and a neck on the boot to anyone else.
My friends, the tradition they want to defend is fascism. If you believe anyone in the modern day GOP believes in enlightenment principles. You’re sadly mistaken.
9
The president does not care about conservatism or any other governance or economic theories. He is a person who is informed only by his personal experiences and knowledge (including what he does know) and acts accordingly for his world view and legacy.
There is much to be debate between liberal and conservative ideas on government and economics. As long as any of us insist on an either/or perspective the country's problems and solutions will suffer.
"Mr. Trump has shown himself to belong to the wider conservative tradition, seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it, regardless of the elected legislature."
How does this align with conservative judges' and justices' votes to strike down gun laws, the ACA, and California's law regulating "crisis pregnancy centers"? And I'd love to hear the author's reasoning that supports the implication that liberal justices and judges "revise" the Constitution.
"Unlike liberalism, with its philosophy of abstract human rights, conservatism is based not in a universal doctrine but in a particular tradition, and this point at least the president has grasped."
-------
There is more to our political and legal tradition than just the Constitution. There is also the Declaration of Independence, which pre-dates it
It states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ... ."
This is a universal, not a particular, statement (especially now that it is understood to apply to women as well). It is one thing that conservatives don't always seem to have grasped.
2
I enjoyed your definition of conservatism. I has , over the last few decades, forgotten about intellectual conservatives, because you have been usurped by the anti intellectual,wing nut faction of conservatives. Installing judges who interpret the constitution plainly is a lofty, but misguided, goal. The constitution is not, was not, nor will ever be, the dead document conservatives tend to believe it is. There is an option for changing it right in the text.
The present government has been keen on installing activists on the court. One cannot claim a corporation deserves the same free speech rights as an individual, and not be engaging in activism. The new court will bend over backwards to reverse decades of settled law, whether it be Roe, or voting rights.
The opening words to the constitution are critical, but no less critical that the protections to all residents of the US, citizens or not, ensured by the 14th amendment. I'm sorry but I don't see many, if any, conservatives who agree .
1
What Trump doesn't get: Everything. His immaturity and self-satisfaction prohibit rational, reasonable thought.
Racism is what binds Trump to the GOP and conservatives. Nothing new there. What is new is that Trump has gone all in and abandoned the dog whistles. The talk of "infestation" etc. is straight out of the European anti-semitism playbook of the 1920-30s.
The GOP has fallen in line and accepted the racism because it is useful in securing their economic agenda of protecting the interests of the economic elites (and setting themselves up nicely to join these elites after they leave Congress).
4
The author, as is typical with self-described conservatives, says "Institutions, traditions and allegiances survive by adapting,..." but also decries changes in societal norms and a living breathing Constitution.
These type people want the world to conform to their own desire of an idealized life from way back when; a life that never existed except in their own fantasy version of the past.
The founders, way back in the 1700's, never envisioned poor people learning to read much less having access to an "Internet" or "Twitter", when they wrote the 1st Amendment to the Constitution which gives us the right to Speak Freely without government interference. Imagine what our right of free speech would look like if they had Facebook back then?
Conservatives conveniently forget that there is nothing in the Constitution that allows for restricting immigrants coming into our nation, and in fact until the late 20th century there were few actual restrictions on general immigration. It was not until "conservatives" became dismayed that more brown people were coming into the nation than white people, that immigration became a problem. Then through now the conservatives have increasingly become more shrill about terrors of immigrants. In the process they have both ignored the words of the Constitution and altered the very traditions they claim to cherish.
U.S. Liberals have many problems, but hatred and fear are the province of Conservative Americans
6
It is ingenuous to say that for conservatives, "education, culture, ... marriage and the family" lie outside the market sphere. (1) Slavery treated families & reproduction as markets. (2) Privatizing education & for-profit education have been a conservative aim. (3) Culture: Copyright law favors corporate owners. (4) Historically, the family was a productive unit and marriages were explicit economic transactions.
3
Mr Scruton invokes Edmund Burke as an intellectual hero
about 10 years ago, on Brad Delong's webblog, there was piece to the effect that Burke, after a lifetime of saying even a penny of aid to the poor would corrupt their work ethic, begged the gov't for a royal pension, so his old age would be comfortable
that is conservatism
12
Implied in this opinion is that Republicans are in fact philosophical Conservatives and Democrats are philosophical liberals.
Both parties are built on coalitions. The Democratic party in it's hay-day was a coalition of Blue Collar Union workers, Jim Crow South and Western defense interests.
The Republican party today has coopted the Jim Crow South and Western defense interests into a coalition with disaffected White undereducated none Union workers and religious fanatics to garner a minority that wins on the tilted playing field of our Republic.
Sadly, Conservatives have been willing to eviscerate education and abandon the protection of minorities to pander to religious zealots, racists and nativists.
I suspect they have done this for the less than honorable conservative principles. By actually control spending they have been able to dole out the nations treasury and natural resources to themselves at the expense of the Country.
At the end of the day, Power, money and property Trumps principles.
4
You could just title this "What Trump Doesn't Get" and leave it at that...
4
There are not enough inches of space in the NYT to list them all!
2
So do conservative principles include racism? Unequal enforcement of the law which the people involved said was a policy of disenfranchisement. Does it include voter ID laws and the gerrymandering based on race?
Does it include women not having their rapes investigated? Does it include the silence on sexual harassment? Does conservatism include deciding what others do consenting in their own bedrooms? Does it include the rights of all to have access to the public market, to schools?
Because the right in America has been against all of this for the past 40 years, Trump or no Trump. Maybe the right in Britain is different, but from the other shore. Brexit does not make it appear so.
7
"Moreover [Trump] he has understood that the legal order of the United States is rooted in customs that the Constitution was designed to protect."
When I read this, I laughed so hard I cried. Except for the part about laughing.
6
Trump doesn't "not get" conservatism.
He's never "tried" to "get" it, never had to.
His appeals are completely "visceral", his motives strictly "personal". He cares not at all about ideology, it could not be more irrelevant to him. To even take the time to write a piece about what he "doesn't get" about conservatism completely misses the point about Donald Trump.
He ran as a nominal republican only because he knew he could easily win over enough of their morally compromised base.
Trump enjoys breaking things for it's own sake, regardless of whether these things were working or not. If something is there, he is compelled to break it, so he can then put his ownership stamp on it.
All things must be his.
Before Trump, "Bad", after Trump, "Good".
He's like a Gorilla that has to beat his chest about everything.
8
The Republican Party has been subverted by radicals It began in 1964, flourished in 1980, and took command in 2016. Conservatives ("RINOs") have left the party (see George Will) or could easily say the party left them (said by many.) Right now the radicals are torn between an Aynrandian faction and a quasi-fascist faction. It remains to be seen which, if either, wins.
4
One thing is for sure that Donald Trump would never read this article! But if does see the title, he's for sure going to tweet that "Roger Scruton is lame!!!". And if does start reading (lets just assume that he can do that!) he would not read more than first two paragraphs before he loses interest. And if he does end up reading the whole article for some odd reason, by the last sentence he would know why he read this article and what was it about.
If you have seen his speeches in past couple of years then question is not if he is conservative or not, question is that is he even sane?
1
It's amusing when conservatives try desperately to convince us that Trump is not a real conservative, not really even a Republican.
Whatever his views, wherever his past political donations went to over the years, he chose to run as a Republican. He won the nomination of that party. He was elected by voters in red state America who continue to love him. He is cheered uncritically by conservative media like Fox News..
He's yours.
8
I think Mr Scruton has too easily dismissed the vital link between the Constitution and the ideas forming the basis of this country, and the so-called "liberal" ideas of "abstract" rights on the other.
The Declaration of independence is quite clear about universal rights:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That ***to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men*** [emphasis mine], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...,"
Where do "real" conservatives fall on this? Are universal rights simply the brainchild of Hillary Clinton and "Democratic Socialists"? Just ask Thomas Jefferson.
1
Why can't we face the truth? That Mr. Trump's campaign made it possible for misogyny, racism, ultra-nationalism, anti-LGBTQ sentiments, greed, etc., that were hidden, all to be acceptable and cherished as virtues. He was the end of a process that started sometime ago. Now shall we regress or move forward?
4
Where is this article printed elsewhere, to share with Trump supporters who won't dismiss it out of hand, solely because it is the NYTimes?
5
With all due respect to all christians and all other people of faith and religions. We must keep Church and State separate. Freedom of religion must have its boundaries, and primarily remain in the private sphere. Conservatism tends to blurr these boundaries. Only this way can we all have, and expect, freedom of religion and worship.
5
Analysis of the current state of US politics must begin with the profound disappointment and frustration of the 2016 electorate with the entrenched two party system. It was not Locke and Burke but Nader and Perot who foresaw this. It was also Eisenhower and his warning of the influence of the military-industrial (perhaps better now industrial-military) complex, which sponsors the present affair.
It's interesting that this gentleman's discussion of conservatism almost immediately turns into an attack on two women, although there are many other politicians he could have chosen to comment on. It's also interesting that he claims for conservatism people such as Thomas Jefferson who emphatically didn't think of themselves as conservatives. Does this mean, for example, that Mr. Scruton agrees with Jefferson's belief that the people always retain the right of revolution?
1
The way I see it, there are two types of people in America. One, mostly but not fully white, whose culture clashes strongly with that of other immigrant cultures.They have never really mixed with or understood people from other cultures; they have remained largely within their cultures and its traditions and way of life. They increasingly see other cultures as a threat to their way of life, their privileges and their standard of living. These folks are in a panic now, as the country turns increasingly off-white.
The second type of people, again mostly but not fully white, are more worldly in their approach to life and living; more curious and open to other cultures. They see the wonderful melding of various people in a rich, diverse country benefiting from the variety of skills and insights new people bring. They have no particular privilege or tradition to cling to, no need for cloistering themselves. They love the idea of an off-white country, see the strength in diversity.
Mr. Scruton and the Times' Mr. Brookes have idealized visions of conservatives. In practice in our country, they have done little but have been used by the 1 % to justify their objection to anything that would result in a transfer of wealth from that class to the common good. Their thought dominated our country until the 1929 depression. It took FDR to reject those ideas and create a middle class. The result was the world achieved a record of prosperity.
The 1% again achieved ascendency with another show biz President in R. Reagan. The Republican party since has been able, with the help of the SCOTUS to reinstall the 1% in charge,
7
What passes for conservatism today is no more than a rationale to revert to the jungle.
3
Reagan pioneered perfect fakeness.
5
"Institutions, traditions and allegiances survive by adapting, not by remaining forever in the condition in which a political leader might inherit them."
And yet you disparage liberal Supreme Court justices for doing just that...
Institutions do not think at all. The people who comprise them are responsible for what institutions "think".
These folks deny the reality of evolution.
This is a brilliant encapsulation of conservatism and Scruton almost makes Conservatism seem benign. It is not. Trump is not conservative or Liberal but an amalgam of conflict created by his lack of abstract intellect and interest in American welfare. Trump’s presidency is an an exercise in power created by a fascistic desire for power through autocracy.
1
Mr. Scruton hits a fly with a sledgehammer.
Trump does not understand anything other than how to get attention. Nor does he care to understand anything. To discuss what he does or "thinks" in the usual terms is to miss the point of him completely.
I am a board-certified psychiatrist but this does not mean that I know anything.
Think for yourself?
2
"Those first words of the United States Constitution do not refer to all people everywhere. They refer to the people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law, and who are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance. Grasping that point is the first principle of conservatism."
Wait, what?!? Are you suggesting that progressives believe the U.S. Constitution applies to everyone in the world? And are you also suggesting that conservatives are the guardians of equal protection among Americans?
Both of these beliefs are contemptible nonsense!
5
Dear Conservative Author: you seem to be an accomplished and well meaning person. I still don’t understand what exactly conservatives try to conserve. The current state of the world is in shambles. In this country we have a stupid and vain man ruining most of what rational human beings built over decades. We are going backwards and that doesn’t seem to be producing anything worthwhile except for the ultra rich and powerful. Science, on which the world has depended for progress has no place for conservatism for the right reason. Probably the same reason accounts why scientists, mathematicians and logicians are predominantly progressive people. There were few conservative professors and students af Columbia and Harvard when I attended. The few who were had a hard time answering questions in a logically satisfactory way. I recall asking Sidney Morgenbesser why that was the case and him throwing up his arms in his inimitable way.
3
Well put, Blunt. This administration will be remembered as toxic and ignorant. What ever happened to evolving intellectually and philosophically? It is completely being dismissed.
1
Trump is not a conservative. He also is neither a Democrat nor a Republican.
Trump is an opportunistic, narcissistic sociopath grifter who, through a perfect storm of political miscalculation and a gross minority of votes, a
Has assumed the office of chief executive (lower case deliberate).
Attributing any political philosophy to a man who has no moral values, total lack of critical reasoning, complete absence of empathy and cares only about his "brand", his ego and his money is a huge mistake.
I think he is an idiot - an uneducated (certainly not "Ivy League" caliber), social mutant whose "notoriety" from a lowbrow TV show gained him decerebrate followers (note "Arnold" and "Ronald" and that now-nameless "wrestler") through name recognition. Add to the mix a bunch of salivating Republican politicians who saw a huge power and financial reward and you have a swamp worse than any third-world country and a clear and present threat to American Democracy.
Trump is not great; America now is not great, and we are rudderless. Like the Market, which does what it does and afterwards the "pundits" construct a reason for it, Trump is a compass without a needle. His past is unquestionably prescient about his present and future. He will never be what his acolytes say he is. I would feel much more secure for the future of my children with this Dotard where he belongs - in Guantanamo.
8
Trump is a nihilist so bitter about his own inevitable death that he wants the whole planet to be his tomb.
Eventually it will be, preferably sooner rather than later.
John Kenneth Galbraith, however, did get it when he said that modern conservatism was the search for a morally superior reason for selfishness.
6
What op-ed conservatives don't understand about the GOP. The modern Republican Party wasn't built on their Movement Conservative platform, but on white, male backlash at their lost of privilege and status based on their gender & skin color.
3
Their stance on inheritance tax shows their determination to maintain the status quo.
I believe this is one of those pieces the NYT publishes that is so vulnerable to criticism and devoid of rational thought that it serves primarily as a piñata for its readers. Don't think he'll sell many books to NYT readers. Not with this tortured mumbo-jumbo.
3
I dont know in what world of "rarified air" or "diletante" poltical theories Mr Roger Scruton lives in..........but its surely not in the REAL world of Don the Cons regime as POTUS and its destructive effects on the country and its citizens .
To even raise the question of,"What Trump Doesnt Get About Conservatism" as a ,theoretical, defense for Trumps pathological incompetence and corruption......and as a self serving excuse for Republican support of Trump based on greed for power and money......is transparently false and frite .... think tank " political propoganda !
Mr Scruton,further, says that" the primary concerns of conservatives are not markets , money,or power....but education,culture,religion,marriage and the family"..."conservatives are mostly concerned about the social endeavors of cherishing what cant be bought and sold......love ,loyalty,art,and knowledge"..!
Again in a ,backhanded support of Trump,Mr Scruton...."our political instinct ( meaning DEMOCRACY)is not the property of humanity but of our country in particular.....and this the president has grasped " (yes hes xenophobic)...."moreover.....he(Trump)has understood that the legal order of the United States is rooted in custom"!
(what about the constitutional evolved law and bill of rights?)
The veracity of this article in the NYT full of conservative platitudes ....is not unlike the smoke ....from the Oracle at Delphi !!!
Not only Trump but the entire Republican party has abandoned your basic principles of conservatism here in the USA. Edmund Burke and Adam Smith mean nothing to them. Rapacious usury is now the order of the day with the GOP and their acknowledged "leader," who in the sober eyes of the rest of the world is a liar, con artist, a cheat, traitor and self-professed sexual assaulter. Of course, these bedrock conservative principles mentioned have been abandoned also by the British conservative party, led by their Brexiteers. But unlike us, the Brits still have some rational thinkers within their conservative tribe.
1
History means nothing to extreme present hedonists who live within a ten minute time horizon.
Yes. Today’s “Republican conservatives” cannot rightfully claim the term “Republican”. They have become a mob of power-seeking, amoral, financially irresponsible Trump sycophants. Perhaps they should rebrand themselves as “Trumplicans” and wear uniforms so we can easily identify those that hide in the shadows. If their positions were tenable, I would think they should be proud of being a part of a valid sociopolitical movement. They are not.
1
This is nonsense. If conservative's primary concerns are " education, culture, religion, marriage and the family" then why are they so adamantly opposed to funding for education, cultural expression, freedom of conscience, marriage choice and intact families? They are about to eliminate the department of education, and on state levels they are always in the lead lowering taxes to lower support for public schools and public universities. They hate it when people express any culture other than their own. It's only been relatively recently, since the 50s or so, that Catholicism has been acceptable for conservatives. Before that, popishness was considered a moral failure. In the early days of the United States Unitarians were not allowed to testify in court or serve as public officials because they did not meet the standards of conservative religious Christian beliefs.
Conservatism has always been about the loss of power and it's restoration. Burke is often partially quoted, but a thorough reading of "Reflections" would make it clear that no overarching principles were involved in his philosophy. He just wanted his stuff back.
1
Defining what it means to be a "conservative" or a "liberal" is less useful than deciding what one wants from one's municipal, state, and federal governments. "Liberal" in the 1800's was more like libertarianism today, while today "liberals" are considered the friends of asking governments to provide more services, to do more to protect ourselves from each other. At least both of those camps have coherent principles. Libertarians want less from governments, liberals want more. But "conservatives" express an incoherent mix. Many people who call themselves conservatives are happy to use government to get deals for their businesses, happy to assert that the federal defense budget must grow, happy to impose their religious beliefs on others and use governments to do so. Was Alexander Hamilton a "conservative" because he believed in commerce and business, or a liberal because he believed in a strong federal government as a key underpinning of a growing economy? Was Jefferson a "liberal" because he believed in agrarian independence and a weaker federal government? The debate about the role of governments should ask everyone, "What do you want governments to do and what are you willing to pay in taxes and fees for that?" Most people, regardless of how they label themselves (except for hard core libertarians) want lots from their municipal, state, and federal governments. But when they believe in "no new taxes" or "more tax cuts," they rarely can agree on what to give up.
We have a great and wealthy country. What the typical Republicans and the Democrats and media elites have seem to forgotten is that the working class was hurting and parents were having trouble feeding their children.
Until Trump the media elites used to control the news that we could see. Now Trump with his 53 million twitter followers he can circumvent the censorship of the elite media and communicate directly with the American people. This is democracy in action!
While people like Trump (and previously Bannon) were lightening rods for the media and elite Democrats and elite Republicans, the true power of Trump winning the campaign were 2 mothers: KellyAnne Conway, mother of 2, and Rebekah Mercer mother of 4.
These mothers understood mothers everywhere about the importance of feeding and clothing their children, something lost on the Democratic, Republican, and media elites.
Through twitter, Trump (and Sanders) complained about Carrier sending 2000 Indiana jobs to Mexico. Clinton was silent.
The irony is that Clinton, the first Presidential candidate who was a mother thought less of other mothers and more of accepting $675,000 for 3 talks from Goldman, the icon of the financial crisis that hurt so many families.
If Clinton had only thought more like a mother and had empathy for these other mothers struggling along with their husbands to get jobs and keep them to feed their children, then she would probably be President today.
Mr. Scruton gave his game away when he said, "Those first words of the United States Constitution do not refer to all people everywhere. They refer to the people who reside here". Those words mention the goals of justice, peace, general welfare and liberty. Why should these ideals apply *only* to people who live within a geographic boundary? The conservative idea is one of exclusionary nationalism, thinking that Americans are somehow special (American exceptionalism) and that humanitarian ideals apply only to us, almost as if we were some other species. The rest are somehow "them" or "others". A short step from there to racism and xenophobia. See the "Nationalism and Racism" chapter in my book, http://www.whycantwe.org/. The scientific fact is there aren't any "peoples" -- just one kind of person, homo sapiens.
3
It is the Constitution of the United States but surely, that rousing sentence
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
in the Declaration of Independence is about all peoples in this world.
2
The difficulty is that the Democrats are not providing any real competition to Mr. Trump in the realm of ideas. The Democrats eschew ideas in favor of slogans. Thus the complex issue of abortion is summed up in two words, "abortion rights."
Nothing about when (early in pregnancy, or up to 24 weeks?), and why (because you have a medical emergency, or simply because that is what you want?).
When Democrats refuse to discuss, Trump, who also relies on slogans, only different ones, has a chance to win.
1
There is one aspect of conservatism and also to a certain point of liberalism, that President Trump gets very well: the role of the State is to protect and make policies which profit Big Business. In other words FOLLOW THE MONEY. Mr. Roger Scruton can wrote anything he wants, the bottom line is MONEY and GREED. Just look at the last judgements of the Supreme court in favor of American Express, against workers forced to go in arbitration (Arbitrator nominated by the corporations), against the public servant union, this is conservatism at work. As Ralph Nader said so well: "Sure, money talks freely, doesn't it?"
3
I take issue with Mr. Scruton's statement in the penultimate paragraph concerning the values conservatives hold dear. He seems to imply, by omission, that only conservatives value these things. This is just the sort of snobbery that those on the far right exhibit and then are puzzled when challenged by the left.
2
Scruton asserts: "Those first words of the United States Constitution do not refer to all people everywhere. They refer to the people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law, and who are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance. Grasping that point is the first principle of conservatism." But that is not the case. We hold these principles to apply to everyone, regardless of country. That we do not have sovereignty over the rest of the world is a practical limitation, but does not confine the concept to this nation alone.
2
"...[PT] has understood that the legal order of the United States is rooted in customs that the Constitution was designed to protect...seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it..."
With complete respect to the author, what is there to support this conclusion?
Every action, statement, tic and pattern of behavior of PT suggests to this observer, that if the Court ruled in a way he took issue with - for any reason or no reason at all - he would resort to any and all means to undo it, such that FDR's court-packing attempt would be correctly judged Lilliputian.
But would it be successful? In the world PT has had a good deal of success in unfashioning thus far, this observer wouldn't bet against it.
Yes, the tension is between human rights and legal order. But there is scant evidence Donald Trump believes in either concept.
Rather, his politics serve not the constitution, but his own fantasy rule -- that of an autocrat who operates outside the legal order. Donald doesn't seek legislative remedies -- perhaps because Congress is dysfunctional. He prefers executive orders, often spontaneous and ill-considered.
But there is another order that Donald lacks: the civil and social order that we require of our head of state.
For Donald, being presidential is something you do. For us, it is something you are. He isn't.
3
:....cherishing what cannot be bought and sold: things like love, loyalty, art and knowledge, which are not means to an end but ends in themselves."
I am weary, weary, weary of conservatives who claim that valuing these things is somehow the special province of conservatism. That valuing community is somehow the province of conservatism, or even that valuing religion is the province of conservatism. It simply is not. If you define religion as Evangelical Christianity, then maybe it IS the province of conservatism. But let's not forget that religion includes Islam, other Christian traditions, Buddhism and more, plus the various shades and subgroups of each of these faiths. Religion, love, community etc is not "conservative" or "liberal". It is HUMAN.
4
"I have devoted a substantial part of my intellectual life to defining and defending conservatism, as a social philosophy and a political program. Each time I think I have hit the nail on the head, the nail slips to one side and the hammer blow falls on my fingers."
How can you call yourself a philosopher, and then dedicate your life to defending a philosophy you cannot even define ... ?
Plato has invented philosophy precisely in order to replace vague opinions and strong beliefs with explicit definition and proven evidence.
Since then, defending a theory without any definition nor proof means being a "doxophile" rather than a "philosophos" ("doxa" = "opinion", in Ancient Greek, whereas "sophos" means "wisdom", and "philein" "to love").
You cannot both love opinions and wisdom. And being a philosopher has less to do with having this or that diploma, then with dedicating your life to loving wisdom - EVEN when that means having to reject your own opinions and beliefs. That's because a philosopher, Plato told us, is someone having "terrible love of the truth".
Where are the conservative philosophers of our day?
I don't see any.
Most of those who write op-eds actively try to deny science.
Let's take climate science for instance. If you take it seriously, you cannot but observe that "to reform to conserve" here means staying in the Paris agreement, for instance, and ending oil subsidies.
Yet, where is Scruton's outrage at the GOP's rejection of that agreement ... ?
1
"Institutions, traditions and allegiances survive by adapting, not by remaining forever in the condition in which a political leader might inherit them."
I was sure (SURE) that I was about to hear a conservative finally discuss how conservatism expects to realistically deal with societal changes; how it seeks to reflect the concerns and priorities of different generations and changing demographics.
It was very disappointing to see that the only changes he contemplated were with regard to economic strategy. In this, I feel Mr. Scruton adds little to the national conversation. We are at a peculiar point in modern U.S. history where the "abstract" concepts with which liberals are preoccupied have become deadly serious, but Scruton punts on all of it.
And in my opinion, this illustrates what Trump TRULY understands about conservatism, or at least modern conservatives themselves. They are no longer the party of Lincoln and lack the will to concern themselves with issues of justice or equality. They have stronger feelings about rates of interest than about erosion of principle; far more concerned with a dip in the markets than a spike in hate crimes. Trump understands the transactional conservative mindset, if nothing else, and used it to seize control of the GOP. He once tried the same thing with liberals, wearing a Democratic name tag and was rightly rebuffed. So he took his con across the aisle.
1
Dear Mr. Scruton,
I appreciate the tone and tenor of your column and your observations of Trump's so-called Conservativism. But on the issue of a "Supreme Court that applies the Constitution" vs. "one that constantly revises it" ---- there's a lot of room for disagreement between reasonable people. Conservatives have long complained that so-called "Liberal Judges" legislate from the bench. Please engage in some self-reflection here. Not only have these 5-4 decisions of the past several weeks been made by highly activist judges, they have used the First Amendment as a tool for carrying out political ends. And finally, when the so-called "Conservative" Mitch McConnell refused to give "advice and consent" to Obama appointee Merritt Garland with almost a year left in Obama's term, was that "applying the Constitution"? Sorry, but the so-called Conservative Supreme Court is nothing more than an arm of the Republican Party--the same party that has consolidated power through McConnell-like "slight of hand", political gerrymandering and the rural bias of the electoral college. Democracy requires some degree of good faith, which I truly believe that true conservatives have plenty of. Unfortunately, they do not reside in the institutions of American government at this time in our history. --Richard Winkler
2
I find it comical how “conservatives” like Mr. Scruton question president Trump’s conservative bona fides. Is he really a moderate? Is he a liberal? It appears he can be any of them. Perhaps he views labels like different colored socks that one pulls out of the drawer to match the evenings attire. Or in political terms, depending on the issue. That works for me.
One thing that cannot be questioned is his ability to implement policies that conservatives always told us they embrace. One would think they'd be thrilled. Instead they impugn president Trump every chance they get. Perhaps their conservatism is the one to be questioned.
1
Do not question Trump’s bonafides. There are none. His presidency is his personal expression of running a corrupt business without mitigating beliefs. In other words, Trump only cares about Trump.
First of all you say that a conservative seeks a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution literally rather than one that constantly revises it. Then you say that a conservative must "reform in order to conserve". Which is it?
The body of respectable conservative thought realizes that not only Trump but the Republican party are no longer true conservatives. They have become much too political and self aggrandizing to be effective governors.
I greatly miss the days when both parties were civil to each other and principled in their actions. I hope I will see such an era again in my lifetime. I would like my kids to experience it also.
3
I see no inherent conflict between conserving and liberating at the same time.
This column, or at least the timing of it, is absurd. It might have worked pre-election. But now, the house is actually burning, and it is hugely irrelevant whether Trump can claim the label of conservative. What he is is a scourge upon humanity, and the first, and right now the only, thing we need to know is how to rid ourselves of him.
8
Some of those by the millions who would have voted for conservatives in the past have instead chosen racism, xenophobia and homophobia instead of conservative principles. Trump goes with what he perceives wins, he doesn't really seem to have any other motive than to win and glorify himself in the process.
5
Dear Conservative Author: you seem to be an accomplished and well meaning person. I still don’t understand what exactly conservatives try to conserve. The current state of the world is in shambles. In this country we have stupid and vain man ruining most of what rational human beings built over decades. We are going backwards and that doesn’t seem to be producing anything worthwhile except for the ultra rich and powerful. Science, on which the world has depended for progress has no place for conservatism for the right reason. Probably the same reason accounts why scientists, mathematicians and logicians are predominantly progressive people. There were few professors and students af Columbia and Harvard when I attended. The few who were conservatives had a hard time answering questions in a logically satisfactory way. I recall asking Sidney Morgenbesser why that was the case and him throwing up his arms in his inimitable way.
6
I don't think it is correct to say that Trump is a creation of social media. He is in his 70's so grew up and was formed long before "social media" existed. He is an extremely ignorant and self-centered person who is not interested in any ideas or positions which are not going to directly enhance his importance.
5
In one paragraph, Mr. Scruton extols a conservative Supreme Court that "applies the Constitution" while in the next, he extols "...Institutions, traditions and allegiances survive by adapting..."
The first paragraph ignores conservative activism on the Supreme Court. The second supports a typically liberal - not conservative - view that the Constitution's compromises (the 3/5th rule) must be looked at in the context of the times.
When one looks at what the GOP has become, one must conclude that the conservative party is the Democratic Party - the one that values individual responsibility, families and community engagement.
4
A better title for this article would have been, "What Trump, Republican elected officials, and People Who Call Themselves Conservatives Don't Get About Conservatism". The subtitle should have been: everything that they say it will improve has the opposite effect and is an empty vessel.
3
Scruton lost me in paragraph 5 with “the country has no more precious asset than the mutual loyalty that enables the words ‘we, the people’ to resonate with every American.”
Ask any American who isn’t white how much “we the people” resonates with them.
Ask the average worker, crushed by America’s income inequality, about “mutual loyalty,” or, ask the LBGT community whether they feel part of the “we” club.
Conservatism in America is now the exclusive property of the Heritage Foundation and its four pillars of free enterprise, limited government, traditional values, and strong national security. It carries on American conservatism’s traditional definition of “we”: white, male, Christian, heterosexual, with special perks for those in that group who can game the system and accumulate wealth and power, control the government to their advantage, and devise ways (lies, propaganda, demagoguery, tribe appeal) to prevent the lower classes from revolting.
Scruton wants to place conservatism in a lofty philosophic tradition. But conservatism has always been more earth bound and Darwinian - the law of the jungle. And while Scruton claims that Trump and his brand of conservatism are the result of “cultural decline,” it’s much more accurate to observe that Trump is really the logical conclusion of historical conservatism i.e. aristocratic, solipsistic, and Calvinistic, all justifying inequality in one way or another.
Conservatism has never been about “we,” but always about “me.”
6
What does conservatism have to do with the Trump family profiting from their temporary occupation of the Oval Office of our White House?
What does conservatism have to do with hacking and meddling interference with the 2016 Presidential campaignand election by Julian Assange, James Comey, Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin?
3
Lovely to hear from the "other" conservatives, those whose
"primary concern is with the aspects of society in which
markets have little or no part to play." Of course Mr Scruton,
who has thought deeply about music, wants to clear the stench
of the Trump presidency from his garden of conservative ideas.
The conservatives with whom Mr Scruton identifies must be from
some other planet, alas. American conservatives enable the
wholesale destruction of the working and middle classes by
furnishing a theoretical basis, however flimsy it be, for a
massive transfer of wealth to the top 1% (or 0.1%). Concerned
about education, when their policies would deny access to
quality learning to all but the privileged few? Do you actually
believe education is the US isn't ruled by a market? Markets
are great where they work, but they're not going to buy us a
liveable planet, or health care for all who need it. I haven't
noticed much concern for these issues on the part of terrestrial
conservatives.
Would Jefferson liberty applaud world rule by a
handful of rich individuals and corporations? It's
a situation conservatives seem just fine with.
Mr Scruton bewails Trump's emergence from the sewer that is
social media. And what paved the way from this loss of empathy
and the capacity for rational thought? Could it be decades of
market-ruled television?
Yes there's a lot that needs conserving, and it's a job that can't
be left to conservatives.
It'a not that Trump doesn't get it about Conservatism. He doesn't get it about any values, coherent ideals or narrative. The most apt depiction of him appears in one of the comments below - at best he's like Incitatus, Caligula's favourite horse, except he would never rate enough to be voted Consul - Trump is all show but no pony.
Trump is like he is because no one has ever said 'no' to him. His money has been his bully pulpit and no one has challenged his tantrums. tall tales or twisting of reality. For all intents and purposes, Trump is American exceptionalism incarnate; an amazing phenomenon to behold; his money rules and makes him untouchable.
It seems that just like that other mobster, Al Capone, the only way to bring him down will be by proving his substantial and sustained defrauding of the American taxation system. Nothing else will stick, unless its about the money - trashing of moral standards and societal values just doesn't seem to count. But if tax evasion is what it takes, please go for it ASAP. We all need to see the better angels of America's nature dancing once again.
I repeat here the crucial remark: "Unlike liberalism, with its philosophy of abstract human rights, conservatism is based not in a universal doctrine but in a particular tradition, and this point at least the president has grasped."
It is not our rule of law that purports to offer blind justice. That is the sham. It is instead our _tradition_ that supports supremacist white interests over all others.
Then this author has the sheer audacity to suggest that conservatives vest themselves in things like "love, loyalty, art and knowledge." Even the most cursory reading of the evidence tell us that conservatism has done nothing more than protect wealth at any cost to others---which is why it is nothing more than tax giveaways to the rich, regulatory indifference that hurts workers, the environment and anything but profit, war that supports corporate interests, and religion used to justify its preferences for wealth and racism. So who is this guy? Either he's just another phony or he's what you would suspect: another white guy looking out for the interests of other rich white guys. End of story.
5
The problem when discussing "conservatism" or "liberalism" is that there are at least three separate spheres of thought within each one, which are usually conflated under the same name. There are liberal or conservative values held by the majority of the base. There are liberal or conservative propaganda memes that the parties use to generate electoral support. And lastly there are the actual party agendas that are typically concealed from plain sight and acted upon during the remaining 1459 days of a four year electoral cycle which do not feature elections. Both parties typically serve the interests of wealth and power while messaging along the appropriate side of the current social wedge issues.
Both parties treat the voting public as a large, witless mass that is to be manipulated and kept from actual political involvement, and they don't even care that millions among the bases have figured this out, as they have not been a high enough percentage of the voting population to affect outcomes until recently. The last presidential cycle saw revolts against both parties along these lines.
The Republican's specific problem is that they have long relied upon whipping up the more hateful and extreme sub-currents within their base in order to rouse support. Trump is the inevitable conclusion of this tactic, and 2016 marked the year when that tactic blew up beyond party insider control. Nice job.
So what's the point? That Trump is a lukewarm conservative? By saying that you get to have your cake and eat it too. You are able to enjoy the conservative output like tax redistribution favoring the wealthy and judges that long for an America before the 13th Amendment. While in the same breath you get to ridicule the clown you put in office. His protectionist policies are exactly in line with his campaign promises. There is no way he would get re-elected without carrying through on those commitments. In order to get the conservative stuff you want, you have to allow him to play to his instincts. And you know it. He's yours, through and through. Have the intestinal fortitude to own him.
4
For someone who has devoted one's life to defining conservatism, you have not done a very good job. If nationalism and wealth accumulation are the defining characteristics, this seems like a lot of time to waste on defining.
3
This is the conservatism I have known in the last 40 years: promotion of corporate "citizenship" and suppression of actual citizens; manipulation of religious beliefs (i.e., cherry-picking of the Old Testament); vilification of anyone not like themselves; and worst of all, the relentless howling of the noxious doctrine that the problem with America is the American government. We the People, my foot.
I am tired of article after article assuring us that Donald Trump is an aberration. If conservatives are going to spew bile, they should own the rot that grows from it.
11
Mr. Scruton,
One question you need to ask yourself, which you seem to be avoiding, is why Trump happened to the GOP and not to the Democrats. Trump has no real fixed beliefs or goals other than his own aggrandizement, so why did he pick the the conservative party as his vehicle? What made the GOP such fertile ground for his white identity politics and rejuvenated bigotry fused with malignant, ignorant incompetence?
I suspect you will not like the answers.
7
Re: "Moreover he has understood that the legal order of the United States is rooted in customs that the Constitution was designed to protect. "
This is genuinely hilarious.
8
By the sound of it, looks like this article should be titled 'What Republicans Don't Get About Conservatism'! Mr. Scruton, Republicans voted him to power and are doing everything to keep him there! Don't embrace him if you don't want to, but please don't pretend that everything will go away if you just deny his existence.
3
"education, culture, religion, marriage and the family"
You mean destroying culture, insisting on christian flat-earth anti science education, and only a "nuclear family?" Also the head of the constitutional convention was the largest slave holder in Charleston, so take that with a grain of salt. Smith also said we need strong regulations for banks. As for property rights, where are the conservative s protesting the taking of land for pipelines, walls, and private developments. You say it is just for this country, yet you cite Englishmen. Hypocrisy at its finest. And as far as I can tell conservatives are not conserving anything except the idea that white men are superior to everyone. Trashing land, education, water and regulations designed to protect our health is more like Destructivisim
3
One hardly knows where to start with this kind of nonsense. Let's try this: "Conservatism" is a word. Confusingly in the United States it defined itself against a "liberalism" that was in fact a variant of social democracy, but relatively friendly, after 1937, to market mechanisms. Ok so far? Thus much of "conservativism" is in fact liberal and often even libertarian. Then in Reagan's coalition was added the "Christian right," which is neither Christian nor right. It is in fact a modernist, technocratic, and deeply Pharisaical household cult. But definitely not "conservative" in any very meaningful sense of the word. Add to that a post-Vietnam national security hawkishness that absorbed a lot of genuinely atavistic nationalism. Those are the three elements of "conservative." Burke has nothing to do with it. What you keep bumping up against are your own grandiose intellectual delusions.
4
The writer is inconsistent. At one point, he says "Mr. Trump has shown himself to belong to the wider conservative tradition, seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it..."
Shortly thereafter, he quotes Edmund Burke that "we must “'reform in order to conserve.'” The writer also says that
"(i)nstitutions ... survive by adapting, not by remaining forever in the condition in which a political leader might inherit them" and "the principle of adaptability applies not only to law but also to the economy..." The writer does not answer the question of whether liberal constructionists of the Constitution are "adapting" its precepts to current conditions.
I have always thought that those who say the Constitution should be construed and limited to what was in the drafters' minds to be historically blind. The drafters of the 13th and 14th Amendments were strict segregationists. Does that mean that Brown vs. Board of Education and similar cases were wrongly decided? By its terms, the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states. Does that mean that Cantwell vs. Connecticut and all other cases which applied the Bill of Rights to the states were wrongly decided? The Constitution says nothing about NASA, the FCC, an Air Force or national parks. Does that mean that their creation is contrary to the Constitution? The so-called conservatives have never answered these questions.
4
Mr. Scruton writes that the human rights embodied in the Constitution apply only to "we the people" of this particular United States, and according to conservative philosophy these rights are based merely on "tradition". So I guess that is how conservative judges can argue that non citizens can be denied these rights. Perhaps that is how they argued that by "tradition" Blacks were not equal to whites, and slavery was justified.
I believe that our highest and best goal as human beings is to reflect the Divine. Are we not all the same, living under the same sun? Human rights apply to all, not just those living under a particular political tradition.
1
We know what conservative philosophy stands for: it believes that man is an "atom", where good genes are responsible for an adult with "character", and many people are born with bad genes.
The only way to obtain social peace is to punish/threaten those with bad genes long enough, so that they stay quite.
Liberal philosophies on the contrary presuppose that who you are as a human being is the result of on the one hand genes, and on the other hand lifelong interaction with other people. Those interactions determine at least as much who you become and how you behave, than genes.
As a consequence, social peace is only possible if you create social conditions that allow people to grow, intellectually, morally and emotionally (and of course, the values guiding the creation of these conditions are everything but "abstract").
For a long time, an interesting debate between both philosophies has been possible.
Today, however, 2 decades of neuroscience have shown that liberals were right and conservatives wrong.
Epigenetics is much more important in determining brain development and behavior than genes, and how a brain is trained determines which neuronal networks will be created. Thanks to neuronal plasticity, new networks are possible until the day we die.
Moreover, compassion and turning towards emotions without judging is much more efficient to reduce violence than "punishment".
Conservatism as a philosophy doesn't make any sense anymore - unless ... you ignore science.
5
Compassionate conservatism believed in education and social programs aimed at getting people out of poverty. As George W. Bush said, "It is compassionate to actively help our citizens in need. It is conservative to insist on accountability and results."
In other words, there was a focus on finding cost effective social programs rather than what they called 'entitlement' programs that would be continued whether they worked or not. A good philosophy, but it requires politicians to work with experts and accept that no program will work perfectly out of the gate -- they'll need to be revised as new data comes in. It requires courage, nuance and rigorous integrity. It obviously didn't last long, because the American people want instant fixes.
1
@ Lauren
If you read the writings of Irving Kristol, one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism (founded just before the Reagan years, and it took them until G.W. Bush before they managed to take over the GOP entirely), you'll see that conservative intellectuals tend to believe that most ordinary citizens aren't clever enough to grasp the necessity of conservative politics. So they have to lie.
I agree that when you listened to Bush's WORDS, something like a "compassionate conservatism" seemed to exist.
But what did he do in practice and that corresponds to "compassion"?
He tried to cut and privatize social security even though all studies analyzing his plans had shown that that would REDUCE the quality and accessibility of social programs, rather than extend compassion or just keep the same level but in a more "efficient" way.
The only ones combining compassion and evidence-based policies have been the Democrats under Obama.
Obamacare for instance concretely insures 20 million more Americans, all while curbing federal and individual cost increases. It also saves an additional 40,000 lives a year.
Studies also show that single payer would do even more, at even lower costs. The only reason why Democrats can't sign it into law is because Fox News and Republicans have spread so many lies about it that it becomes political suicide to do so.
"Compassion" isn't just feeling pity for those in need.
Compassion means cultivating the ability to help them efficiently.
This piece is premised on the assumption that Donald Trump has given some thought to his governing philosophy, and has chosen to be a conservative. That is truly absurd. The man doesn’t think, reason, read or have any guiding principles. He wants to be famous and important, and he wants loyalty. Like all bullies, he relishes fights and denigrating he has chosen not to like. And money. Money is success.
13
"... defining and defending conservatism...Each time I think I have hit the nail on the head, the nail slips to one side and the hammer blow falls on my fingers."
Maybe you should leave it to professionals--look it up! MW--
1 capitalized a : the principles and policies of a Conservative party b : the Conservative party
2 a : disposition in politics to preserve what is established b : a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change
3 : the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change
Comments--
First, it was/is a brand name. Brand marketing aims at blind brand loyalty--the marketers can change the product at will. Thus Chevy, Ford and Marlboro men--also Catholics, Evangelicals and Muslims.
Marketers also incite hatred toward competing brands--to Conservatives, "Liberal" implies evil. To Liberals, it implies freedom from past dogma and phobia--thus it is progressive. To Protestants, "Catholic" implies evil; Catholics reciprocate.
But "Progressive" has also turned into a brand--since it needn't specify--progress at what?
Second, 'conservativism' is about conserving something--"traditional values". But which ones? So it too is a brand.
But conserving the past and progressing are opposites. Certainly we can do better than slavery, gynophobia and feudalism--landlords or moneylords.
Third--even common nouns (vs brands) evolve.
3
Most philosophers get carried away with a sense of self importance. They grab the elephant by the tail, or by a leg, and blithley describe the whole elephant. RS reduces millennia of struggle, definition, and redefinition to "assets," and writes: "And they have fought for them [these assets] as a nation, facing the future together." Firstly, when I hear some crooked politician praise those who fought for my rights and freedoms in Iraq, I say: "I never lived in Iraq. By my rights and freedoms there do you mean the profits of Exxon and Halliburton?" Secondly. when did this nation last fight as a nation? In the 1940s! Such generalizing is unacceptable. And thirdly, "conservative thinkers" is an oxymoron from the dustbins of history. Conservatism was and is motivated by greed. Any thinking that follows is "mission-oriented," i.e., to justify greed. Finally, concern for "education, culture etc." was never related to society, which, according to the wicked witch of the east, Thatcher, does not exist. To see Trump for the reality TV con-artist that he is, it is not necessary to resort to Burke or Locke.
7
Agreed. "assets" clumsy use of Roget. dt "rooted in customs"? Please. trump is only interested in his own self interest. For the benefit of those who missed it, Philip Roth was interviewed in NYT this past January. Roth was precise: "Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac." To examine dt in the context of the constitution only sullies the document.
Today’s conservatives act as fundamentalist busy bodies that seek to control how others live where they define freedom as being able to impose their wishes on others. To treat anyone as they wish. They respond to expectations of allowing others the same rights and freedoms they enjoy as an attack on their freedom and an attempt to control them.
7
Unfortunately, we live in a binary world: white or black, left or right, conservative or liberal. The world is more complex, and not seeing it is the reason why both conservatives and liberals do not comprehend Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump is neither conservative or liberal - he is a crony capitalist. Like many crony capitalists, what is good or bad, right or wrong, depends on profit. In this regard, these crony capitalists are "corporatizing" the very things you said are not up for the market: Education (charter schools, Betsy DeVos), religion (prosperity gospels), family (no maternity leave; no universal support for childcare), etc. Since Reagan, the Crony Capitalists have infiltrated both parties, but none more so than the Republican party. Many voters who call themselves "Conservative", only take on that mantel because the word exudes virtues like tradition, religion, family values and fiscal probity. However, where is the Tea Party now? - I guess those voters only care about deficits because they think Democrats are giving money to black people (racists). Why did they vote for a man who had three wives and sleeps with porn stars? - I guess they are not conservative, but take on that mantel to cover up their inner racism. Trump knows all this, and do does the elites. That's why he throws them red meat like caging children, while secretly the house guts Affirmative Action rules and passes legislation to cut SS and Medicare. All in the service to the Crony Capitalists.
6
Roger Scruton says he has "devoted a substantial part of my intellectual life to defining and defending conservatism, as a social philosophy and a political program."
Either Mr. Scruton knows nothing about conservatism or he knows nothing about Donald Trump and the current GOP leadership, because none of these people would recognize true conservative policy if it smacked them in the face.
6
Even if someone thinks of him or herself as conservative, it's not too late to stand up against Trump and his awful enablers who are willing to destroy everything Americans stand for, and everything we hold dear, to "win." While their ignorant supporters cheer them on in order to stick it to those they fear, Trump and his minions use the cover of supposedly conservative ideas like low taxes and deregulation to push their true values like racism, isolationism, white privilege and unbridled consumption.
For the love of our country, please, no matter your political inclinations, stop supporting this guy. Deep down you know he is a genuinely bad man and he's doing really bad things to us.
2
Trump and Republicans are the same in policy:when out of power, its "deficit deficit deficit, we have no money".When in power its:"Lets give to the richest of the rich, the ones sitting on trillions in cash, so they can sit on trillions more". Done that, the rest is window dressing and backroom deals with private military, private schools, private prisons and detention centers, and private deals so they can pollute without paying for it. Trump. republicans. Trumpublicans.
3
I'm very sorry, but Donald Trump IS contemporary conservatism. Whatever the dubious merits of the philosophy Dr. Scrunton describes, it is only an intellectual jeremiad. The C-PAC feted Mr. Trump and his closest acolytes. It is they, not a single antiquarian, who defines what 'conservatism' means.
Seems to me that the liberal movement died sometime in the early 90s, and conservative movement sometime during the Bush administration. What's left is knee jerk reaction: whether a host of moronic conspiracies on the right, or an equally moronic relentless obsession with race on the left.
William F. Buckley must be scratching his head with a sharpened pencil, thinking "when did fiscal conservatism embrace vast giveaways to the undeserving while building an Everest of debt."
3
Sir, Trump doesn't get it because he doesn't care about it. He's not a conservative, unless conservatism is a movement that wants to make us more unequal - economically and racially, among others - and destroy the things that make America great.
At this point, the way conservatives have flocked to Trump, that may well be the case. But if Trump isn't conservative enough for you, and the GOP enabling him horrifies you, you have one realistic option - get them out.
Otherwise, spare us. We can see very clearly what modern conservatism has to offer, and for the vast majority of us, it's nothing good.
6
When I read this, "Mr. Trump has shown himself to belong to the wider conservative tradition, seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it", all I hear are dog whistles to religious zealots that want to roll back Roe, ban the teaching of the "theory" of evolution in public schools, and allow private individuals and employers to discriminate against gay men and women all based on their closely held "religious beliefs and traditions". Conservatism should be banned to the dusty bin of history and the good news is Trump is doing just that, the bad news is that it is Trump that is doing it.
3
I also quibble with the notion that conservative justices interpret the constitution faithfully as it was written while liberal justices make things up as they go along. All you need to do is read Citizens United and D.C. v. Heller to see conservative justices legislating from the bench.
5
There is no doubt that conservatism has become distorted. It has been distorted for a long time. But that is not the only problem with conservatism. It is also outdated and rusty. Nostalgia for a better time and wishing that the towns and industries of the past can rise up and become powerful and modern again is misguided. Coal will never be a realistically preferred form of energy. It causes a lot of damage. Conservatism does not get this. In order to survive we must improve and become a more educated United States not less. Conservatism may have been a thought leader at one time but now it is merely more interested in winning at all costs. These behaviors are on the loosing side of history. We can see evidence of this throughout history but many are either not educated enough to know this or are under the spell of a movement that is miseducating people and preying on their lesser selves.
2
Its seems conservatism is in the eye of the beholder and self avowed conservatives seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to define it for the rest of us. For decades we’ve heard the likes of George Will, Bill Kristol and now Roger Scruton define it in narrow terms and reserve for themselves the right to determine who is worthy of admittance into their club. For decades we heard them extol its virtues while ignoring that liberalism has slowly and surely infiltrated the very societal aspects they supposedly cherish, i.e. education, culture, religion... In short, while Mr. Scruton’s conservatism was confined to ideals, liberalism was being expressed in deeds.
Mr. Scruton confesses to not foreseeing the political rise of Donald Trump. Perhaps that is because he has not yet realized that the dogmatic “conservatism” he preaches has become an anachronism. Unlike those who preach it, conservatism has adapted and created a much larger club than they ever imagined. Much to the chagrin of conservative purists, those practicing its new form elected Donald Trump president of the United States. In doing so it has moved on from a philosophy limited to emoting ideas to one capable of effectuating deeds.
2
"In Mr. Trump we encounter a politician who uses social media to bypass the realm of ideas entirely, addressing the sentiments of his followers without a filter of educated argument and with only a marginal interest in what anyone with a mind might have said."
Well put !
1
How does the author claim that Locke was a "liberal" and in the same paragraph claim the Locke's best known American acolyte, Thomas Jefferson, was a "conservative? (Look at Jefferson's self-directed epitaph regarding freedom from religion)
Further, if Edmund Burke is used as a basis for modern conservatism, to conserve and reform existing traditions and institutions, then in no way can Adam Smith be viewed in the same light, as Smith proposed "liberating" the economy and trashing mercantile traditions and institutions and following the revolutionary developments of the early industrial revolutions. Capitalism as a revolution over the conservative traditions of mercantilism.
Just a thought.
5
"Mr. Trump has shown himself to belong to the wider conservative tradition, seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it, regardless of the elected legislature."
Wait, you mean the conservative tradition which redefines corporations as people and excises portions of the Constitution like 'A well regulated militia' just to placate specific constituencies? I can only conclude that you meant this statement to be humorous, but it's not a laughing matter.
5
What an odd phrase, "without a filter of educated argument". One might even say elitist. As though the media didn't mediate, but rather provided an educated buffer between two uneducated parties.
The author claims Trump's Supreme Court nominees interpret the constitution rather than revise it whimsically. That is pure cant. Roberts somehow determined that congress, which created Medicaid and could abolish it, could not modify it. Gorsuch determined that states cannot fund public sector unions with mandatory dues. They could fund them directly, of course. They could impose a dedicated tax on their employees' wages. But this particular equivalent was a bridge too far.
Money is speech, this court tells us. Where is that in the constitution? Corporations have the right to free expression, including expression of religion, we're told. That entered constitutional law in the 21st century, not the 18th.
Limited liability corporations are a legal fiction, convenient for transacting business. They should have NO role in politics. Else what prevents Google from being President, once it's 35 years old?
The author's entire claim of some strain of conservative thought dating back to Jefferson is specious. He may claim Jefferson as conservative, but Jefferson advocated not just revolution, but revolution every 20 years. Wouldn't conservatives then, as now, have advocated incremental change but reasoned argument, working within the system?
6
Google for president, oh that is brilliant! How long has Amazon been around?
-But I think Jefferson wanted a new revolution after 75 years, safely after he wouldn't be around anymore. And the only link I see between Jefferson and modern conservatism is preserving the institution of... slavery, which by extension the hallowed Edmund Burke must have also supported with his often cited support of the Am. Rev.
-So name the great conservative thinkers/leaders after Edmund Burke? Metternich? Bismarck (probably not as he invented and implemented social security), Hoover? Some Pope? What am I missing?
-And why is Hillary Clinton, soon to be a footnote, even mentioned in the same paragraph with Locke, Burke, and Thomas Jefferson... and Thatcher?
1
As in religion so in politics. As with Christians, the loud ones who tattoo the word across their angry faces and screech their close, personal connection to God, Conservatives name Great Conservative Philosophers of the Recent Past in a grab for legitimacy and philosophical power.
Like Cafeteria Catholics they despise, Conservatives pick and choose their philosophical applause lines in a way that leaves their philosophical underpinnings looking strangely like "A Rich Guy's Guide To Intimidating Public Statements Justifying Continuing to Rob the Poor and the Nation in the name of Some Noble Principal".
Take Adam Smith. Big free market guy; big on capitalism. On board with the idea that rich people should be the boss of everything.
Conservatives ignore, and struggle to hide, Smith's unending insistence that Capitalism will always be a train wreck unless it is closely watched and effectively regulated; made subservient to the welfare of the people and needs of the state.
They don't share that part if they can help it.
Or Conservatives' ultra-faux devotion to the Constitution, most recently masquerading as a parade float: "Originalism".
You boys wouldn't need to go to such Constitutional extremes if you didn't have a habit of genuflecting before every dotted 'i' and crossed 't' on Monday, then warping it beyond recognition on Tuesday.
Whatever its noble origins or lofty intent, US Conservatism is only a synonym for "give me control, make others obey, keep me rich".
7
One of the things that concerns me about the current state of affairs is that the entire notion that actions have consequences, which themselves have consequences that go far beyond the sound bite. Yet Trump's base seems blind to the very real long-term harm that in being wrought and that ultimately will harm them. It is hard to tell if they cannot apprehend the threat, or will not.
3
Emotional thinking ignores consequences. That's why foolish people like it.
One of the big problems with this article is assuming the term 'conservative' has some cohesive meaning, it doesn't. British conservatism the author appears to be steeped in is very different than what American conservatism was, while US conservatism has preached laissez faire capitalism, UK conservatives often recognized the ills of the marketplace or that people needed help, whereas the US conservatism (and that of the Iron Lady, who was more US than UK) turned into the government is evil, businesses know best/laissez faire capitalism.
Burke might have been conservative, but he also was steeped in the enlightenment and would have been appalled at the alliance between US conservatives and Christian evangelicals, and also would have been outraged at the idea that the answer to things was to go backwards. Burke supported the US revolution, which was not conservative (it was radical, folks), and Jefferson's ideas of an agrarian society were as radical as the Hamilton/Adams branch was.
More importantly, the conservative thought that put checks and balances against mob rule in the US consitutition would be appalled at what conservatives have done appealing to mob rule; the whole MAGA, appealing to religious right types, the racists, is what the consititution tried to avoid. This is not just Trump, this is what the GOP as the de facto conservative party has been promoting for many decades.
5
Okay trump doesn't get conservatism. Neither, apparently do the 90% of the republican party that still supports him. What do you call people who are to the right of even the most conservatists and when can we legitimately rename the republican party the name they pretend to revile?
2
How, in one paragraph, can Mr. Scruton argue for an originalist view of the constitution, and then in the VERY NEXT PARAGRAPH say that one of the tenets of conservatism its adaptability - specifically in regards to the law, institutions and traditions?
5
It's because there are no conservative intellectuals anymore.
2
The evidence strongly suggests that Trump doesn’t get much of anything. He’s a supreme dolt. Too stupid to comprehend his own stupidity and yet inexplicably confident in his own (in)abilities.
4
This column reminds me of how teenagers sit around debating what defines true <<fill in your music genre here>>. "True hip-hop is __." "True country is ___." It is part wishful thinking, part projection, and part kernel of fact. It could be said, for example, that if "institutions, traditions and allegiances survive by adapting," perhaps originalism is not the way to go. Nor especially the brand of when-it-suits-me originalism we see from the court. Because we're all originalists when it suits us. What I mean is: the author's opening metaphor is apt. He can want conservatism to be whatever he puts on paper. Its reality in recent decades is a different thing altogether. And a shameful thing today.
2
However you may decide to define "conservatism" and whatever it may have meant in the past, conservatism is now a toxic, cult like group of obstructionists of which 90% support a complete moron intent on the destruction of democracy. The corruption of conservatives is almost complete and their loss of a moral compass, embrace of a mentally imbalanced imbecile who adores Putin and the flouting the rule of law for personal gain brings the conservative movement to the threshold of tyranny. The conservative party of my father is dead and should probably stay dead if the nation wants to survive. The Republicans willing to twist themselves into pretzels to explain Trump policies, or the absence of coherent policy are responsible for hijacking what was once a decent group of people that actually stood for something similar in nature to the greater good. They sold America out for an agenda that is backwards and will bring the nation into the gutter where their dear leader now resides.
3
"Americans are conscious of their constitutional rights and freedoms. These assets are not guaranteed by human nature and exist only because Americans have fought for them. And they have fought for them as a nation, facing the future together. National identity is the origin of the trust on which political order depends. Such trust does not exist in Libya or Syria. But it exists in America, and the country has no more precious asset than the mutual loyalty that enables the words “we, the people” to resonate with every American, regardless of whether it is a liberal or a conservative who utters them.
Those first words of the United States Constitution do not refer to all people everywhere. They refer to the people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law, and who are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance. Grasping that point is the first principle of conservatism."
~ Article
FOR CONSERVATIVES THIS AN IMPORTANT ARTICLE; FOR LIBERALS THIS AN IMPORTANT ARTICLE!
3
"Mr. Trump has shown himself to belong to the wider conservative tradition, seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it, regardless of the elected legislature." This is the standard conservative formulation of "originalism," expressed with a concision that betrays its logical fallacy, even dishonesty. It is the job of the federal courts to "apply" the Constitution, whether the judges (or justices, in the case of the Supreme Court) are conservative or liberal. The Supreme Court does not have the power to "revise" the Constitution. And to the extent that the Supreme Court INTERPRETS the Constitution (and it is interpreting in every case, whether the analysis is ostensibly originalist or something else) "regardless of the elected legislature," that is, at least when it is interpreting the Bill of Rights, exactly what the Supreme Court is supposed to do. Ever since Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court has been the ultimate arbiter of what the Constitution means, and the purpose of our enduring Constitution is to place limits on what the majority (the elected legislature) is able to to inflict on those who do not wield the power of the majority. And it is pure sophistry to say that because you believe in following the original intent of the framers you are somehow endowed with a magical power to determine what the framers thought about things they could not possibly have imagined.
1
To comment intellectually about
trump makes one's fine language stupid.
2
“In Mr. Trump we encounter a politician who uses social media to bypass the realm of ideas entirely, addressing the sentiments of his followers without a filter of educated argument and with only a marginal interest in what anyone with a mind might have said.“
Precisely. So why all the gas about what Trump doesn’t get about conservatism? He is the acting president, a buffoon in waiting who doesn’t get anything about anything.
He gets nothing about economics, he gets nothing about foreign policy, he gets nothing about about global trade and he surely gets nothing about how to choose or wear a necktie.
This man is a moronic (quoting some of his closest associates) cipher who sucks in attention and reasoned argument like a black hole. Stop wasting good words on this bad rubbish.
1
Such self righteous nonsense, when it's Hutu and Tootsie time in America, totally tribal, and we all know how that turned out. Trump is pure con, no conservative, whatever your definition and he's playing his con on the hatred, anxiety and delusions of a relatively small but vociferous minority, as if the rest of us don't exist or are the enemy; although it's true we don’t exist politically unless we vote. Also remember that this vile cretin the GOP has unleashed to bring home the tax break and destroy the EPA doesn't give a damn about his base. He just uses them. Maybe it'll dawn on them one day, but then what? He won using illicit personal data profiling conducted by Bannon, Mercer and Cambridge Analytica with the help of his Russian hackbot army, a new paradigm of propaganda that stirred up enough misogyny, racism and anti-Hillary hysteria to game the Electoral College and make him president. In this way the GOP defeated democracy in 2016. You can't measure his behaviour by the usual standards because he is illegitimate from inception. The discord and instability that Trump embodies is a purposeful attempt to game democracy. Every day that goes by without facing the fact that America lost when Trump won makes matters worse, because it is still going on. Our pride may blind us to this, but we can also make it work for us by holding fast to standards of decency, equality and learning most of us share. It is time to defend ourselves. Get the vote out and end this thing!
1
the author is too kind. he spends far too many words the lead to this conclusion: 45 is an indolent thug. intellectually lazy and without a moral compass.
2
Re "Adam Smith argued that trade barriers and protections offered to dying industries will not, in the long run, serve the interests of the people. ... President Trump seems not to have grasped this point."
I beg to differ. In my view, President Trump doesn't give a tinker's dam about this point, let alone in grasping it. He's interested only in truth-optional, incendiary material he can use to energize the base. Because the base isn't much interested in grasping points, either, it works.
2
To look to donnie demolition and expect to see traits such as love, loyalty, art and knowledge is as delusional as donnie himself. The only reason he calls himself a conservative is because that`s the train that was in the station when he decided, or Putin decided, to turn this train into the Hell Bound Train. Everything donnie does is text book Putin, destroy the world economy, break up or destabilize security alliances,pit brother again`st brother through lies and nativism. If your looking for a conservative who respects love, loyalty,art and knowledge your going to have to go back aways, those kind of conservatives got off the train a long time ago. The only people on this conservative train only respect self interest, greed and power.
1
The problem isn’t that Trump is/isn’t conservative. The problem is that the political party that represents “conservative values” warped them into mean-spirited populism full of racist code words and promises to working-class whites that they ignored when they got into office. It’s a party devoted to one thing: tax cuts for those who don’t need them, with an occasional trip into Christian fundamentalism. And now that it’s Trump’s party, all your nasty chickens have come home to roost. Authoritarianism, militarism, scapegoats both internal and external, basics such as health care, transport, education at once expensive and crappy. So please spare me the paean to “conservatism.” Your party needs to own this fact: your political activities built Trump and then you unleashed him on the nation.
6
I am a Canadian. Our Minister of Foreign Affairs the Honourable Chrystia Freeland is our Chief Nafta Negotiator a Rhodes Scholar and attended Harvard and Oxford. She speaks Russian, Ukrainian, English and Italian and is relatively new to politics having spent most of her life as an economic journalist with Russia being her area of expertise.
Her Sale of the Century (2000) is a study of how Russia went from "Communism to "Capitalism". Her Plutocrats: The Rise of the Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else was a NYT best seller.
Donald Trump gets it. The story of Russia is the consolidation of wealth and the creation of a kleptocracy and that is the story of what America calls conservatism.
It is the purloined letter hidden in plain sight for all the world to see.
Donald Trump is not a Russian pawn , he sings from the same hymnal as Vladimir Putin, who by the way honoured Chrystia Freeland by making her one of fourteen Canadians barred from travelling in Russia.
Russia's state church is Russian Orthodox while American Orthodox seems central to power in Washington. Trumps Cabinet is the American version of Russia's supreme council of oligarchs. The Dumas is a rubber stamp and the Russian Courts are the model for the USA judiciary.
Architects say form follows function and Donald Trump seems to get it. Canadian philosopher, freedom of the press champion and historian John Ralston Saul understood back in 1992 where the USA was headed when he wrote Voltaire's Bastards.
5
Are conservatives ("proper" ones, not the modern ersatz variety) really so tunnelled in their vision as this commentator suggests?
<<Their primary concern is with the aspects of society in which markets have little or no part to play: education, culture, religion, marriage and the family. >>
Surely this misses out two things: those listed aspects where markets DO play a part -- a damaging one; and those numerous and significant places *not* listed where free market capitalism damages society (at best) and/or screws with the future prospects of the species (at worst).
In the early phase of capitalist free markets it seems that the good effects greatly outweigh the bad, but if genuine conservatives remain fixated on that phase, I need to gently remind them that it ended some time last century, in the Western developed world.
1
Sir, explaining any topic, using any polysyllabic words, to HIM is truly the very definition of useless. Willful ignorance is never a good thing, but in a so-called Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, we're in alien territory. Irregardless of the Nannies and Minders, a catastrophe is inevitable. Now is just the regular, day to day, rolling dumpster fire of the Trump Regime. Inevitably, the day, or night WILL come when a sudden, unexpected situation or disaster occurs. And all the thrown paper towels and visits from the current Mrs. Trump won't cut it. We are, in a word, screwed.
Seriously.
3
Although I may disagree with your conservative values, one thing we share is that the current brutus ignoramus in-chief is an aberration, a perversion of what we consider cultural values (literature, music, philosophy, art, etc)...of which he is utterly ignorant of. Trump is a charlatan who bought his 'base' emotionally (by sowing fear, hate and division), but with zero intellectual content. Trump is a disgrace for your conservative movement, which even the republican party is betraying by it's blind complicity in this governmental violence against the rule of law.
1
Where it says "He is a product of the cultural decline that is rapidly consigning our artistic and philosophical inheritance to oblivion" I would change "oblivion" to a 'New Dark Ages', which will be bad in itself but something from which I think some day philosophy and the arts will emerge stronger than ever, as their disappearance will make their value more apparent and more sought in the future.
1
Um, let me guess...everything?
2
No " Conservatism " with Trump. It's Neo-Fascism, for Dummies. Why is that so hard to admit ????
1
I, personally, don't think anything much should be in this newspaper about this compulsive liar. Why would anyone believe anything about him? We all know what he is. Ignore him.
4
Imagine the the figure who wanted to restore German its historical greatness. He hated communism until he formed a nonaggression pact with Stalin. The 1 percent financed his political career. He crushed the unions a workers were part of the idea of National Socialism to make the Fatherland great again. He built up its military to pander to those who saw military spending as a way to put people to work again. He put the politically and socially undesirables into prisons. Special courts with evil judges carried out his demands. They used the guillotine. The military was compliant and not involved in politics. Women’s bodies were controlled by the state to produce little Germans in great numbers. A group received special attention and was put into concentration camps. The Nazis formed a special relationship with christians who by law would not interfere or challenge his immoral decisions. Oh they got upset when he started killing retarded children. Those christians operated the concentration camps. When he invaded Poland in a pact with Russia, is an invasion of Mexico far from the realm of imagination? Imagine a 100 mile wide zone along the northern border of Mexico as a kill zone or a great electrified fence like that of East Germany
2
A farrago of cliches, typical for a conservative.
2
"Conservative thinkers"?! Recent history informs me it is an oxymoron: "fear" has only 4 letters.
And the rapidity with which Republicans have embraced Trump's less-than-honorable MO goes far to demonstrate that Republican bedrock lies far closer to the gutter than to high purpose.
As for the author's devotion to defining and defending conservatism, I find little to sanction in codifying and re-codifying the lipstick spread over the elemental mantra "I, me, mine".
2
The author sounds like warmed-over George Will. His schtick is is pretending that there is an ideal "conservatism" out there somewhere, more pure than the driven snow, when "conservatism" is just a tawdry, sophistic, reactionary cover story for billionaire, bigoted plutocrats and their Gilded Age.
3
It is remarkable how, with a straight face, “Conservatism” claims ownership of the flag and the constitution, and gets away with such transparent nonsense.
As for Trump: he “seems not to have grasped” the problem with trade barriers -- no bleep, Sherlock! He doesn't grasp a lot of things, but he does grasp very well how to use cheap showmanship, how to abuse and smear anyone who doesn't bow down before him, how to inflame and exploit division, how to lie and get away with it, and how to use the presidency for personal gain.
2
Trump is an aberration, an uncouth racist who puts little children in cages in old Walmart buildings. Assigning him to any reasoned political philosophy is an exercise in futility.
2
The critical comments on this article are so much better thought out than the article itself.
2
It is now blasé to hear hit pieces about Trump. One or two is fine, but everyday there are two or more. Liberals have lost their mind, and they are acting like mentally disturbed patients. Everywhere there is a news about Trump is a criminal, crooked, or a Russian agent, yet his support among Republicans have increased steadily to the extent of being the most popular President among Republicans. Why can't NYT do normal journalism? May be Trump will end NYT's chicanery and sleight of hand in lying to the liberals? Probably, this is why the NYT fear Trump more than anything.
1
If Trump's irrational, destructive policies make him popular with Republicans, who exactly has lost their mind?
We seemed at the brink of nuclear war with North Korea, thanks the Trump's rhetoric. Now he's cancelled our military exercises, calling them "war games", and claims the problem is solved. Yet evidence of renewed weapons building has already emerged.
Trump was elected promising jobs (while at the same time claiming Americans were overpaid). The trade was he's promulgating may cost 600,000 jobs and -0.3% GDP growth. Why is that ... popular?
Reporting the ill effects of the president's policies isn't a "hit piece". It's reporting. You can read it as an attack it you want to. But it's only the news. Unfortunately.
3
You have nothing to say about Trump's blatant lying, shameless distorting, disgusting name-calling, offensive insulting, outrageous interference in judicial processes, craven inability to admit being wrong about anything, immoral philandering, ignorance about public policy issues, disinterest in reading, boorish behavior toward woman, extreme narcissism, and outlandish self-dealing?
3
Today's conservatives are either rich people protecting their money, or stupid people protecting their ignorance and racism. Period.
3
These days the vocal religionists do not, I’m afraid, seem to support ideals of love (outside of their small group) or knowledge.
1
Mr Scruton: I have one question for you. Thomas Jefferson whom you mention as one of the paragons of Conservatism (as opposed to minor figures like Maggie Thatcher) was a hypocrite who owned slaves and slept with the females whom he fancied for lengthty periods of time. I mention duration to preclude peccadillos that you may want to ignore. Given one’s emotional life is very much part of his total life, wouldn’t such hypocrisy with respect to both slavery while preaching democracy and petty feudalism (droit du seigneur) figure I’m your assignment of spots on the conservative pantheon? Just wondering.
1
"...we must 'reform in order to conserve.'".
Therein lies the rub, for this "conserv(ing)' is what maintains barriers among the, to use current popular parlance, the "tribes". Hence racism. Racism is the life blood of conservatism and Trump has tapped into that racism with gusto! He is a conservative.
Of all the people you could have used an example of someone who has not given liberalism its "best expression" you chose Hillary Clinton. Then, as an example fo someone who has not given conservatism its "best expression", you offer Margaret Thatcher. Did you and your editors all fail to notice that all your examples of those who provided such "best expressions" were men, and all those you used as singled at as contrasting examples were women? The reek of sexism coming off of this piece is so strong that I can't take any of the rest of it so seriously. The main implication of your opening argument is that the best thinkers are men and women are inferior hacks. I find this so offensive that I can't even read the rest of it. THIS is what I don't get about conservatism.
2
Trump has a grasp of the Constitution about as much as my dog does. Like my dog, Mr. Trump wags his tail for anyone willing to rub his belly. Trump has no understanding of conservatism or liberalism. For Trump, there are no historic references, no lessons learned. This is clearly demonstrated by his ability to be on three sides of any issue. Mr. Scruton has given Trump far too much credit. The new Republican Party is a sham and a front corruption, racism and hate, led by an empty vessel.
4
Conservatives do not scream "lock her up."
5
I think the author missed an entire area of influence on what conservatism has evolved to include and that is the injection of religion, in particular the Christian New Testament, smack dab in the middle of conservative policy strategy and decision-making.
What nonsense.
Trump respects the concept of faithful adherence to the constitution and so he is appointing conservative justices? Nope. He is just throwing red meat to his base. You might recall 10 years ago his comment to the effect that Republican voters were so incredibly stupid, he could easily win their vote. His words, not mine.
He gets nothing about conservatism. He is using you, to the great harm of all involved. What is alarming is just how enthusiastically conservatives and so called value voters are willing to be used.
5
Trying to draw lessons by comparing Trump to conservative thinkers like Adam Smith and Edmund Burke is a ludicrous waste of time.
The appropriate comparison is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long
http://www.thechristianidentityforum.net/downloads/First-House.pdf
4
Quite honestly, to tell us Trump has little regard for intellectual political traditions, ideas or voters who think hardly amounts to an evisceration of Trump. Trump has, principally, only two real concerns: the ongoing maintenance of his voter base and the consolidation of his political financial base. Put bluntly, dumb voters, dark money. America has plenty of both. All talk of conservatism amounts to rhetorical window dressing, trotted out for the occasional interview or speech. It's not that Donald Trump is a failed conservative, rather, it's that the rise of Donald Trump amounts to the failure of conservatism itself.
1
Nice dance through history but what about the current reality? The present Republican party pre-Trump made promises to pacify its conservative base, but failed consistently to achieve those, intentionally I believe. A nation has a right to control its borders and set the parameters for immigration. Twice in my lifetime, political agreements were reached that promised to establish those controls, but the unholy alliance of Dems seeking future voters and big business looking for cheap labor set up a structure that fulfilled neither promise. In international relations, past presidents have asked our "allies" in NATO to achieve the support levels they agreed to. Horror!!!! The wealthiest of the lot does not even come close. So much for the pretty dancing. Presidents fiddled for decades to get some action on the part of North Korea. Result was nuclear weapons and missile technology almost ready to reach the continental US. At home anarchists and racial juntas are running college campuses. Scruton has probably been called a Nazi or soon will be as he is removed by the scruff of his neck if he strays onto a college. And if Scruton did not make a living by tapping a word processor he probably would be aware and concerned that China is stealing US intellectual property of the future and controlling access to its markets while it is the second largest economy in the world. I believe Trump is rude, crude and not particularly informed, but his aggressive policies are warranted.
Abstract human rights? Which human rights are abstract dear philosopher? Like all people created equal, or the rule of law applies to everyone? I used to lean conservative because I truly believe people should have to work, that the state should not pay people to stay home. I was naive, I was angry that lazy people took advantage of the largess the rules. Than zealots, especially religious zealots took over. Pigs at the trough, racist and bigoted. Putin played your zealots like a fiddle.
6
Trump was not elected as a conservative, plenty of his voters were disgruntled former democrats and even Bernie supporters. This is not about ideology, it is about playing to the nativist instinct, wether it is racism. xenophobia, nostalgia for the past... you name it. Unfortunately, the current occupant of the white house is destroying the country and hurting everyone in the process, given the profile of his voters (undedicated living in the poorest states), they are likely to suffer the most from the consequences of the ongoing folly.
5
Dear GOD this is pathetic. I followed along nicely until Mr. Scruton begins to tell us about the ideals that Mr. Trump "grasps." Mr. Scruton, do you expect anybody with a brain to take seriously your claim that Mr. Trump "understands" ANY conservative tradition? How can you, with a straight face, write that "Moreover he has understood that the legal order of the United States is rooted in customs that the Constitution was designed to protect," when EVERYBODY not watching Fox News understands how desperately Mr. Trump is seeking to flout Constitutional law on several fronts? I won't bother giving examples; those who read already know. Those who don't, or who willfully look the other way, will never get it or accept it. This piece is an embarrassment.
5
Trump only cares about filling his coffer.
1
Mr. Conservative Republican, Mr. Trump is ALL yours.
3
The author is either delusional or amazingly honest. The values and traits he assigns to "conservatives" have not even been on the GOP radar screen since 1980. As anyone who has been paying attention, it is abundantly clear that the GOP is not composed of "conservatives" who promote culture, the arts, education, the environment, nor the well-being of "We, the people..."
Therefore, the author should come and simply and clearly state the GOP is not a conservative political group; but rather a reactionary one, which is currently led by an incompetent narcissistic facist.
5
Funny, I thought I had understood liberals but have been beating myself on the head lately until I realized... Liberals think southern people, or maybe just a lot of people who live in the country are like the guy who shot Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, or the guy who did the love scene with Ned Beatty in Deliverance. They think Alabama is filled with these types of people and they are terrified! Maybe? Maybe they are too afraid to stop in the little podunk towns of the Carolinas so they remain totally oblivious to the reality and always resort to the superstitions of the less traveled.
What Scruton doesn’t get about conservatism, or anything else: starting a disastrous invasion of the Middle East is far worse than filth and trade wars.
Disagree? I invite you to count me the ways, friends!
2
Why is it that conservative apologists in the NYT editorial pages wax poetically about the historic ideals of conservatism but can’t produce a single modern example of a conservative politician or a high-functioning conservative society?
I, for one, don’t give a flying .... about what conservatism “is supposed to be” or whether or not Trump gets it because it doesn’t exist outside of the heads of these intellectuals. You might as well be debating Superman vs. Mighty Mouse.
1
These columns have veered into self-parody.
What the civil, centrist punditocracy and MSM editors don’t get about conservatism is that this is it! This is what the last quarter century of racist dog whistles, far-right economics and indulgence of crooks and cranks gets you. This is it! Trumpism is conservatism.
Your willful blindness to this fact is the reason history continues to slap the mainstream media in the face.
What liberals don't get is that they don't get to define any of the other parties and what they can stand for. The self righteous, know it all bigotry of the liberals has infested this nation for way too long. We don't need liberals to tell us what we can think, what we can write and what we can talk about.
You lost me with your opening snide dig at Hillary Clinton. A woman, not a saint, with more compassion and intelligence in one eyelash than the political opponent who slandered and defamed her with the assistance of the Russians. She served her country as a Senator, a Secretary of State and a First Lady. How have you served our country, sir?
Your party nearly killed themselves trying to find anything to crucify her. You were forced to resort to half-truths, outright lies and laughable conspiracy theories.
Your article demonstrates what Conservatism looks like very accurately. Self-righteous name-calling, arrogance, disrespect for the ideas of others, misogyny, ...
7
This is moderate and reasonable criticism of Trump. It is a far more modest than the biased, emotional anti-Trump ravings regularly published by the Times. It is a giant step above a progressive minefield.
3
Adam Smith was a liberal.
3
What a bafflingly naive piece of writing. Trump doesn’t give a hoot about conservatism any more than he cares about the history of Venetian blinds. He is about himself and asserting personal power. I’m flabbergasted that the Times would publish this on a day other than April 1st.
5
What this article gets about conservatism: The self-centered tone, the fact it's an advertisement for a book currently on sale.
Sorry but conservatives own Trump lock stock and barrel, you made a deal with the devil to get your tax cuts for the one percent the rest of us be dammed.
The man is an incompetent fool but I guess in the world of conservatives incompetence is actually an asset.
3
What you don't get about Trump is that conservatism and liberalism are irrelevant. He is essentially an apolitical con artist.
1
Author Jared Diamond posited that, in a context of checks and balances, the liberal impulse is to change as the world changes. The Conservative impulse is to hang onto that which needs conserving. At its worst, the liberal impulse reduces to being a wind sock, changing position with every new gust from whatever quarter. At its worst the conservative impulse leaves us holding onto the past as the changing world leaves us behind -- fossils.
The best that can be reaped from this field is a dynamic tension that allows for continuous small adaptations enabled by both impulses -- the art of compromise, if you will -- and which will prevent huge tectonic movements and their resultant painful disruptions.
William F. Buckley famously rued that conservatives are left defending liberal positions of a hundred years past. Conservatives fought back on *every single one* of the changes to America's "certain traditions: full citizenship for Blacks, Asians, Hispanics; voting for non-propertied citizens, women; universal health care; union collective bargaining; and on and on.
Making America Great *Again*as a slogan reveals just this problem. For African-Americans, Native Americans, and to Latinos *who were living in the USA when Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California were annexed,* there is no time when America was greater than it is now. Thus, the dog-whistle embedded there. To what period would we go back where for these minorities America was "great?"
Mr. Scruton states that Mr. Trump seeks "a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution." A Court that that gives short shrift to the 14th Amendment does not apply the Constitution.
1
What does conservatism say about health care - is it an aspect of society in which free markets should play a large, a little, or no role? What does conservatism say about income inequality? is conservatism designed to preserve the wealth of the elite or is it for everyone? what does conservatism say about tyranny, rulers asking for loyalty, manipulating a mob, denigrating educated expertise, and spreading falsehoods in the middle of the night? Seems like conservatism has been awfully quiet, perhaps enabling a great undoing.
6
trump's only ideology is: can i make money from this?
3
I need to distill this down a bit. According Mr. Scruton, conservatives support everything Trump is doing except his economic policy. Caging children is only part of a national tradition apparently. Banning people on religious grounds and denying women access to medical care are an end in themselves. An complete authoritarian disregard for the rule of law is encouraged so long as the judiciary is stacked in favor of partisan philosophical thought.
I'm neither strictly liberal nor conservative in any definitive sense but wow. I never, ever, ever want Roger Scruton to represent my ideological belief system. If this is what conservatives really think, I'm ashamed to number them among my political inheritance. We should be deporting conservatives instead of Muslims.
There is nothing abstract about human rights. A human is a human is a human. A national border on the other hand is by definition a legal abstraction. A human is still a human regardless of which side of an imaginary line they happen to stand on. Moreover, we've repeatedly witnessed those lines change throughout the American legal legacy. Ask Mexico.
You're not special because you happen to be born in the United States. You're ungratefully privileged. Apparently conservatives care more about tariffs than sharing their privilege with anyone else. The best solution is to take away their privilege and see if they still feel the same way. I highly doubt it.
3
The only things that matters to trump is his ego and his bank account.
2
Riiighhht. He's the perfect embodiment of 240 years of American conservatism and millennia of conservatives generally. He would be right at home in any conservative society.
Scruton seeks to reanimate Conservatism by trying to convince us that Donald Trump champions it. Every decent person should gasp when reading Scruton assert that "conservatism is based not in a universal doctrine but in a particular tradition, and this point at least the president has grasped." What is the "particular tradition" which Scruton, and hence Conservatism, lauds Trump for grasping? Trump's great understating of "National identity". Scrump pretends that Trump's concept of National Identity is defined by "people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law, and who are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance." I'm a US citizen and a federal appellate attorney, but my parents were immigrants; do I have any part in this "shared political inheritance"? More to the point, Trump considers those from "places like Norway" (Aryans), to be more American than people from "...hole countries". Trump has made it clear that since my family came to America from one of those holes, the most "precious asset" of "mutual loyalty that enables the words 'we, the people' to resonate with every American", does not apply to us or anyone like us. Trump has destroyed the fabric of "mutual loyalty" which Scrump says holds America together. Scrump is defending only a very "particular tradition," one limited to Americans who conform to Trump's Nativist and White Supremacist ideals. Any Conservatism which agrees with that is indistinguishable from fascism.
2
Conservatism was immensely damaged when it clasped the viper of Southern racism to its bosom. It can only hope to recover by casting out this evil creature. The road to recovery will, however, be long and hard. The first thing Conservatives need to do is leave the Republican Trumpist Party and establish a new Conservative Party. This, of course, means a massive decline in electoral power for a time but there is no other way back from the abyss.
Trump gets nothing about conservatism, because he is not a conservative. He is also not a liberal. Trump is a narcissist. He will say and do whatever he believes will forward his Me agenda, which means he will say and do anything that those 35%, who will support him to whatever end is in store, will approve. Trump has no ideology, because ideas are foreign to him. History will not treat him with any sympathy and will treat the people around him, like Kelly, McMaster, Conway, Sanders etc. even more brutally because they supposedly know better.
2
I wouldn't put Trump and Reagan in the same sentence. ..ever.
1
But you just did. No?
1
I appreciate the general discomfiture at having to deal with an oaf like 45, but trying to jam his tendencies into a framework about conservatism is ludicrous! The man is a thug, who doesn't give a fig about conservatism or any other ism, norm, law, person, or cultural touchstone. He's a complete barbarian. Trying to squeeze him into any framework normalizes him, which we must NOT do. He's not normal in any way, and should not be treated as if he were by anyone, and most especially not by people who have access to media to promulgate their views.
DJT is the most noxious anti-democratic force ever to infect the American Presidency. And if there is a lack of cultural or philosophical greatness around to satisfy Mr. Scruton, maybe he needs to open his own mind. Liberals are doing an excellent job animating the arts and American intellectual life. Maybe it's being a "conservative" that's at the heart of many of his issues. And it's liberals who are working to conserve and preserve our democracy, along with some principled GOP (or former GOP).
Try some real thinking - outside of these artificial labels and boxes. Nicely written, but what does this piece actually say? Mish, mash, and nothing.
1
Trump doesn't need to get conservatism because he "gets" the American people who want jobs a good economy and strong immigration control. What the NYTs doesn't get is that the Democratic party is in a shambles with no moderates in charge or any moderates to be seen, everyone has gone extreme left. Moderate Democrats voted for Trump.
Q: What REALLY steams up the Never-Trump conservatives, other than the fact that he beat all THEIR favorites?
A: Trump is finally getting DONE things that they could only dream of seeing a Bush accomplish.
He is shrinking government -
- and EVEN had the progressive socialists calling for government to shrink vis-a-vis ICE -
- he is erasing the last president's name quite approlriately after eight years of attack on the middle class -
- and he is working on the North Korean nuclear threat and the innigration mess that haven't been touched by either party in thirty years.
So their script runs, ''Yeah, he's doing that, but WE were supposed to do it.''
Outsiders are never loved in D.C.
In real life, he already doubled the deficit.
And that he is "working on the North Korean nuclear threat" is part of his job description, and isn't any different from what all other presidents did. We'll see if he can actually achieve something or not.
Immigration mess: no wall, no comprehensive immigration reform, nothing. Only 2,000 innocent toddlers jailed.
How come that you guys are so extremely indulgent when it comes to Trump, and don't ask for any real achievements at all ... ?
2
Trump is an opportunist, who has no convictions or purpose other than to make money and gain publicity for himself. He has done a great job of that, walking over the heads of the other prospective candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, and then knowing exactly how and where to con the rubes to win the electoral votes that he wanted. He tells them what they want to hear and is a master at keeping their attention. The Republican Congress members are focused mainly on raising money for their own campaigns by catering to the special needs of the lobbyists who fund them. Conservatism as a philosophy is something that exists only in books and articles. Not part of real political life.
1
Look....it is just this simple. Trump did not unite us. He has no intention to unite us. He CANNOT unite us.
These United States of America cannot remain divided as we are and compete successfully in the world.
We cannot win trade wars under Trump.
We cannot disarm North Korea under Trump.
We cannot present a united EU/USA front under Trump.
We will lose the Pacific and the Middle East under Trump.
Please, for the love of God, the LOVE of GOD, impeach Trump and return these United States of America to sanity and world leadership.
Vote Democrat.
4
With all due respect Mr Scruton, Donald Trump is Donald Trump. Period. He picks whatever ideas suit him and can be communicated to his base in 240 characters or less. The idea of him reading, much less understanding Burke or Rousseau, beggars the imagination. He acts on behalf of himself and for his own greater glory as magnified by his base at his frequent rallies. He shows a pathological hatred for any whom he perceives may have slighted him. He worships only one god, the almighty dollar. To attach any belief system to this man apart from terminal narcissism is a waste of time.
1
Conservatives are a bit like magicians: They disguise the selfish parts of dogma until they achieve an illusion they can peddle (caring for the welfare of the poor and middle class being case of smoke and mirrors).
There is a reason that the GOP was so easily subsumed by Trump: his message of racism and paranoia appealed to the party's insistence on victimhood.
The notion that today's conservatives are paragons of responsibility is belied by the craven people they elect, the same people who deny any responsibility for any catastrophe — and there are many — they cause. Their servile and cowardly support of Trump has become their hallmark.
A simple redefinition of conservatism is not going to mask the fact its adherents are the mothers and fathers of Trump's incompetent, corrupt and dangerous primacy.
4
Liberals-“abstract human rights”
As a 70 y/o MD and proud Democrat who has always worked in underserved areas let me give MY version of these “rights.”
Every child in our country and comes here to escape violence has the right to the same basic health care as a Trump child.
All children are NEVER ripped from their parents’ arms EVEN if Fox and Friends say they aren’t the same as children from Idaho or Texas! A child is a child is a child!
Each child has the right to full education...not some evil notion where Betsy Devos steals from public schools to give to her “charter schools.”
If this author doesn’t believe in equality for children he is lost as is every other person who DARES to call themselves Christians and Conservatives!
Trump belongs to the Conservatives.
Conservatives have completely lost their way. But I KNOW I’ve led a GOOD life with a SOLID grasp of human rights!
4
A better column would be:
'What Conservatives Don't Get About Repubicans'
1
Alas, I could not make myself finishing finish reading this article. This is another convoluted defense of a takedown of American democracy that began with Ronald Reagan. The GOP I remember is the one that was in place when Dwight Eisenhower was president. It seems like it has been all downhill from there. The fact that so many GOP followers voted for this horrible man says it all.
4
Anti-liberal, Trump is. "Conservative," neither here nor there to him--same with freedom.
2
on the nations celebrated day of independence. i feel ashamed to be an american. trump has put the ideals that america stands for. freedom, liberty and justice to shame. he is an embarrassment to everything we as americans hold dear to our hearts. if he is the best america has to offer. then we should mourn for our country. america. my country tis of thee.
1
Maybe the best slogan for those who oppose Trump is "Make America America Again".
2
Trump and conservatism do not belong in the same sentence.
1
Thomas Jefferson a conservative? The man who advised throwing out the Constitution and writing a new one every generation? The man who said "a little revolution is a good thing"?
3
Trump is a "Trumpist":
Trumpism - Yesterday
Trumpism - Today
Trumpism - Tommorow
Trump above all else -
Trump.
Conservatives are getting a bad rap, Roger.
The irony is that the Liberals/Progressives gave
us Trump because they would not listen to the
Middle and Lower Classes and their sufferings.
Maybe Jimmy Carter can run in 2020 and bring
morality and charity back into the White House.
1
A defining trait of modern conservatives is that they never take responsibility for their mistakes: e.g. Trump.
1
If this is true, then why does Trump have a 90% approval rating among Republican voters?
You are seeing what is actually beneath the Republican veneer. The horror.
2
I think the hammer blow may have fallen once again on your fingers, sir. Where to begin... First, because society is dynamic so should politics also be fluid, changing, and relevant to the times. That goes for the Constitution. Like the Bible, it is a living document meant to apply to the paradigms of the time. I am sure our forefathers had that intention as did God, if One exists. The conservative party of which you write is not the one of today. Quite the opposite, in fact. It is no longer concerned with the values of art, culture, family, spiritualism, and education. Greed, Guns, and God is their trinity. It is particularly in religion that we find the height of hypocrisy through the impugning of and bigotry toward the "other"...meaning all people who are not white or Christian or "straight." Oh, they are compassionate all right, but for the unborn at the expense of the living's human rights and welfare. Or for a most unethical and immoral president who delivers to them their self-serving agendas.
And then there is our environment which we rely on to remain healthy. We must take care of the air we breathe, the water we drink, in order for it to take care of us. But you conservatives are slowly killing our natural surroundings and thereby us, too. Ironically, it was a Republican who was the first Conservationist president. You may have heard of him. His name was Theodore Roosevelt.
4
What nonsense. I have to doubt your sincerity here. Trump is the result of Reagan and Scalia who trumpeted a free market of ideas and original intent. But we discovered soon enough that the GOP is bereft of ideas and it is impossible to fathom original intent without understanding the 9th amendment and the elastic clause for starters. Two things Scalia conveniently avoided when messing with constitutional law. With those “underpinnings” gone, the GOP has been making it up for decades. Trump is the logical result, an amoral nitwit who makes things up without bothering with precedent.
3
"Is this simply an aberration, or are there some deep links that tie the president to the great tradition of thought that I describe in my recent book, “Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition”?"
No.
You and countless others continue to overthink Trump and his corrupt fellow travelers. In so doing, you divert energy from those points that cry out for action. Nothing will ever tie this president to a "great tradition of thought".
All Trump wants is money. To get that, he must attend to his masters' wishes (the Koch brothers, Mr. Adelson, V. Putin, etc), which lends an illusory political gloss to what is at bottom a pure greed play by the Orange One.
Trump doesn't care about conservatism. Trump doesn't care about socialism. He hasn't the capacity to understand those points of view. Trump only ever cares about money coming into his bank accounts.
Analysis of Trump is an ineffectual academic exercise. To our cost, we had that in overabundance with President Obama, who never was able to engage his inner junkyard dog in the face of a racist, hostile Congress.
It's not complicated. We're in a fight that will determine what becomes of America. Trump and Republicans have to go if we're to return America to an asset to Humanity. Fine distinctions as to what's conservatism vis a vis those currently in power don't win a street fight.
4
"He is a product of the cultural decline that is rapidly consigning our artistic and philosophical inheritance to oblivion. And perhaps the principal reason for doubting Mr. Trump’s conservative credentials is that being a creation of social media...."
Social media is an integral element to the Trump catastrophe. It is a substitute for Trump and his followers for the foundations of society such as the University, the Church, and the rule of law as laid out by the Constitution. Social media allows people to make up puerile, specious doctrine out of whole cloth, and broadcast it.
Roger Scuton, why don't you come right out and say it: Trump is a lout, a philistine, a quisling, and the biggest threat to humanity ever to come out of America.
Mrs. Clinton made many grievous errors in her day. She was a maladroit politician and out of touch with hoi polloi. But Hillary Clinton had a sense of history and heritage, and is not nuts.
9
Applying any political philosophy or guiding principle to Trump other than naked self-interest is a complete waste of time. He is not a conservative, never has been. As for the GOP, it tossed all its conservative principles out the window in its headlong rush to pay homage to a false idol.
2
I don’t know what he’s talking about. First, trump isn’t a conservative. He’s nothing. Second, conservatism is about tax cuts, bashing teachers and dumping mercury into the river. Finding a tiny crack in the American fabric and driving a huge wedge into it........FOR MONEY.
4
"Each time I think I have hit the nail on the head, the nail slips to one side and the hammer blow falls on my fingers." No, it's because "conservatives" have elected the ball peen hammer of hammers. No matter what he strikes, he's designed to miss it or mess it up if it's a nail. Trump is a useless (and I lime the analogy) tool.
It's hard to know what to say in response to someone who is clearly educated and intelligent but who fails to acknowledge certain obvious moral wrongs. In so many ways and for so many years, conservatives primarily fought to keep the promise of our democracy and our Constitution away from the majority of people living in this country. They were on the wrong side of the fight on slavery, suffrage, World War II, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement. And when the vast majority of Americans regularly use birth control, have sex before marriage and get divorced, I think you can say with some certainty that they are on the wrong side of the culture wars. How do you think conservatives have been winning elections since 1968? Is it free market economics and limited government? It's racism, my friend. It's fear and hatred and an irrational belief that you would be rich if they would simply stop giving your money to poor, dark people who are nothing like you. You have been lying and playing on people's racial and economic fears for over 50 years, while you steal their hard-earned money. Trump is your creation and your problem. Take your medicine.
Mr. Scruton, whatever validity you may find in conservatism somehow misses the point in Trump. For starters, conservatism is not the same as destructionism which is what Trump is practicing.
His destructionism is being aided and abetted by the Republican Congress that has turned its back on the bulk of America's citizens.
I think your column has attempted to glamorize a pig.
4
Thanks so much for elucidating why I can never be a conservative nor do I want to be. There is a rigid quality to the thinking in the piece always clinging to the old ideas and never giving room to the new. The idea that the Constitution is irrefutable in its original form is pure idiocy and intellectual laziness demands that we move to new ideas as life so rapidly changes. What the current creature in the White House does is dwell in the land of comic books and fantasy. We must correct the most egregious error of the 2lst Century.
Trump isn't a conservative. He's a populist 80's democrat, abandoned by the party. Look back at what the DNC was saying 30 years ago and it sounds a lot like trump.
Unfortunately, the DNC has abandoned the working class, and so has allowed such a toxic blowhard to become president
Trump is not an abberation, he is a culmination - so perhaps it is time to rethink those principles...
DJT is a New York liberal and has always been. He has always been a racist too, but that is a separate matter.
He shape shifted his way on the republican ticket like some one who cuts in line/queue and acts as he was always there.
DJT has duped you and the vast majority of his voters and the conservative establishment. He is a conman (maybe the best in our life time) and the American people are his mark.
4
This article, like so much emanating from the NYTimes opinion section, misses, and probably deliberately misses, the point of where America stands today. America is now a nation in which population is greater than ever before, is a nation in which education is more costly than ever before, and yet America is a nation apparently of a quite cowardly people, a people who consistently undermine the most important and yet undefended minority group in the nation: The men and women of gifted intellect.
Today by simple math, ratio, increase of population plus incredible amounts of money for education, we should have ten Lincolns, ten Hemingways, ten Walter Lippmanns, and outpouring of increased genius in almost every field and these minds before the public. Instead we have a democratic party which is ruthlessly egalitarian unless of course elevating some racial/ethnic minority member or female over white males whenever it can while the Republicans are a mishmash of pure, vulgar business interest thickly larded over with religion.
Quite simply the American people are not a free and brave people but a bunch of cowards. The American people deliberately ruin and undermine the best minds from birth or at best constrain them to a narrow field. It's a pathetic and cruel irony: Each day the political parties vie as to best course for nation but neither party aims toward a civilization of high and increasing genius. Instead we have managed "flatland" and this is "best hope for the world".
Conservatism is a legitimate political philosophy whether one adheres to it or not.
Donald Trump is not a Conservative nor is he a Liberal. He has no core values or principles that guide his way of thinking. Politico has a piece out explaining that one of his criterions for choosing the next SCOTUS justice is his and his family's looks. Now, whatever that is, it's not Conservative nor is it Liberal. But it's pretty much in line with what we have come to expect of DJT. He is all about himself. Period.
Sad.
3
These conservative commentators do a good job of explaining why conservatives would be crazy to support Trump - because anybody would be.
They don't do anything to persuade me to think better of their traditional conservatism, which still sounds just as regressive and awful as ever.
Conservatism is a character fault, the same along the lines of Fascism and Communism. In order for it to exist, it needs to forestall the inevitably of change. "Tradition" is nothing other than a poor excuse to justify its vile tentacles.
Your observation that the historically oblivious, inherently corrupt, and personally amoral Trump "...has understood that the legal order of the United States is rooted in customs that the Constitution was designed to protect" is one of the most nonsensical statements that I have read for some time. Like the necessity for a free press, the crucial role of checks and balances in our governance, the obligation to avoid of conflicts of interest, the requirement for truthfulness and candor between governors and the governed, etc., etc.?
If you wish to actually believe that Trump "...has shown himself to belong to the wider conservative tradition.." that is a radical position that you shall most likely be forced to personally defend against the deafening uproar of other insulted, professed "conservatives". How many times has our Fake President changed his party affiliation between the Democratic and Republican Parties in New York? Six times, seven, eight?
1
"Mr. Trump has shown himself to belong to the wider conservative tradition, seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution."
I take it that you are an intellectual conservative, supposedly above the fray of day-to-day politics, taking the long, informed view.
But when you write the above, I think--you're living in a bunker somewhere, not reading the news, not in touch with reality. Trump couldn't tell the Constitution from the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass if his life depended on it. The idea that Trump has a judicial philosophy other than "what serves my immediate interests in ego gratification" is a bitter, nihilistic joke.
I can't say how contemptible you are, sitting in your posh and well-funded think tanks positions, opining that Trump has departed from the conservative tradition. He's an arsonist, and your house is in the path of the flames. Wake up, and pay attention, Mr. Scruton.
4
Funnily enough, I thought the title was 'What Trump doesn't get about Conversation" - it resonated with me. He holds court. No back and forth. Maybe there is another article in that?
2
Abstract human rights? Like the notion that all men are created equal? Or habeas corpus? Or a whole bunch of stuff Jesus tried to teach us?
You should know as well as anyone that the principles of liberalism and conservatism are abstract. But you dismiss HUMAN RIGHTS as an abstract concept?
Maybe Trump gets it (“conservatism”).
3
I must not own the copy of The Wealth of Nations that states on the cover - This is a Conservative Doctrine. Does anybody own that copy?
4
‘Conservative’ intellectual dishonesty at its most ludicrous. Gaining and keeping power—and reaping the material rewards therefrom for the ‘right’ people—is the only thing Republicans really believe in.
1
Mr Scruton: I have one question for you. Thomas Jefferson whom you mention as one of the paragons of Conservatism (as opposed to minor figures like Maggie Thatcher) was a hypocrite who owned slaves and slept with with females whom he fancied for lengthty periods of time. I mention duration to preclude peccadillos that you may want to ignore. Given one’s emotional life is very much part of his total life, wouldn’t such hypocrisy with respect to both slavery while preaching democracy and petty feudalism (droit du seigneur) figure In your assignment of spots on the conservative pantheon? Just wondering.
I really don't think conservatives exist. Just people who like the sound of saying "I'm a conservative" . If I'm to believe the politicians and people that love to call themselves "conservative" then based on their positions conservatism stands for the following : Conservatives don't believe in conserving natural resources, they believe we can destroy our air and water and that is just fine as long as a small handful of people get really rich doing it. Conservatives don't believe in transparency or truth. It's why they are sheltering a criminal and pathological liar instead of insisting their leader disclose how he makes his money and who he is in debt to. Conservatives don't believe in the rule of law, it's why they are joining efforts to block the criminal investigations of their leader. Conservatives are racists. It's why they support the sick and cruel policies of their leaders to punish innocent brown children, it's why they mock black people taking a knee. Conservatives are really bad with math. It's why they are sinking our country in debt to benefit just a small percentage of the elite. Whatever fantasy this author claims that conservatives stand for this country can plainly see what the actual real consequences of "conservatism".
Conservatives want to leave their kids a country that will be in debt up to it's eyeballs, with polluted air & water, a gross disparity in wealth, grossly expensive health care and no worker protections.
2
"I have devoted a substantial part of my intellectual life to defining and defending conservatism, as a social philosophy and a political program. Each time I think I have hit the nail on the head, the nail slips to one side and the hammer blow falls on my fingers."
Until recently, I strongly believed that conservatism and liberalism were equally valid political philosophies, and that in order for a democracy to thrive, you need at least 1 serious liberal and 1 serious conservative political party, and constant, real, respectful debate between both.
"Philosophy" in that case means 2 things:
1. The cultivation of a desire ("eros") that Plato already saw as an essential characteristic of any philosopher: a "terrible love of truth". Today that means a constant questioning of your OWN evidences, opinions and beliefs, and a constant fact-checking of "the news", especially news that automatically seems to confirm your own worldview. It also means correctly describing the thoughts of those who disagree with you, before you start formulating arguments explaining why you disagree.
2. The attempt to develop a coherent network of concepts that define problems and their solutions for all the aspects touching upon public life and that proven science didn't decide yet, all while constantly checking whether that network is compatible with available, proven science, and if not, adapt it to proven science.
Liberalism and conservatism, I thought, ARE two such philosophies (part 2 below).
The idea that Trump "gets" anything is naive. He is a narcissist and prevaricator who only cares about himself. He has shown, time and time again, that he is incapable of reasonable thought. He has no understanding of and no use for political philosophy. Everything he does is for the gratification of his own ego. Trump can see no farther than Trump - to expect anymore from him is to be hopelessly optimistic.
1
"I have devoted a substantial part of my intellectual life to defining and defending conservatism . . . . [a] history of liberalism will have a lot to say about John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, somewhat less to say about Hillary Clinton."
Sorry, you lost me. You may have spent most of your intellectual life defining conservative, but you apparently never bothered to examine or define liberalism, because most who study the history of political thought would consider Rousseau a republican, not a liberal. Indeed, Locke and Rousseau are often taught side-by-side precisely *because* they disagree about so much. When you get something so basic so wrong, I'm not sure why I should trust what you have to say about Burke, Smith, and others.
(For Republicanism's tensions with liberalism, check out the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy entry on this point:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/republicanism/?PHPSESSID=112a66dd7067...
1
Conservatism is, and have always been, egoism and greed!
1
I can sum up this opinion piece in one sentence, "Trump understands nothing about Conservatism." The idea that Trump has thought through anything Mr.Scruton speaks of is pretty silly. Trump knows nothing, and has no point of view or ideology. There is no "Trump Doctrine." He is neither Conservative nor Liberal. His policies are based on his own reactivity to other people's ideas, i.e. "He's nice to me," or, "She's a nasty woman and not nice to me." If Trump reads this piece, he's not going to understand one word of it and I guarantee you, Mr. Scruton, Trump is not going to read your book. Because he doesn't read!
1
the author asks himself, i.a., "are there some deep links that tie the president to the great tradition of thought that I describe in my recent book?" i ask myself [as another commenter has done before me]: does mr. scruton need to tie the sitting president's name to his recent publication? and to put djt in one sentence with "great tradition of thought" is rather daring, isn't it? the author admits that he never imagined s|o like djt would occu_pie [my spelling] the WH one day. during djt's campaign, there was no public outcry when he vilified an impaired journalist. when he denigrated women. when he assured us that he could shoot someone and get away with it ... i knew then, that djt would make it. some wake-up call! what went wrong? where have we who don't share far-right ideologies failed to convince those who now flock rightward, in the US, in europe, elsewhere, that the far right won't make things right for those who feel left behind or excluded? can we even conserve the achievements truly democratic change brings wherever it occurs - in the face of the ruthlessly reckless few who care only about CON_serving mechanisms for their own enrichment?
This is the hokiest opinion piece from the Times in a while. Liberals like you think you are so much smarter than everyone else, including in your opinion and you can define conservatism using your academic expertise rather than defined by how it exactly exists today. One need not look any further than a typical Trump rally audience to see what today's conservatives believe; they respect the Flag and its meaning, they honor all who protect us in any uniform, they work for what they get paid, and they don't want this country to continue to be flooded by immigrants, most of whom have no knowledge of, or intent to assimilate into the American way. You distort the definition to reinforce your despise of President Trump- conservatives get that too. But he is delivering to us on the promises he made while campaigning, a value embraced by neither party lately.
Trump is the most dangerous threat that the US has ever faced. There is little that remains United in our country. It is a mystery to me that people support a person with zero redeeming qualities.
2
Mr Scruton: I have one question for you. Thomas Jefferson whom you mention as one of the paragons of Conservatism (as opposed to minor figures like Maggie Thatcher) was a hypocrite who owned slaves and slept with with females whom he fancied for lengthty periods of time. I mention duration to preclude peccadillos that you may want to ignore. Given one’s emotional life is very much part of his total life, wouldn’t such hypocrisy with respect to both slavery while preaching democracy and petty feudalism (droit du seigneur) figure I’m your assignment of spots on the conservative pantheon? Just wondering.
Yet another example of denying reality, what could be seen if only the observer connected their mind to their eyes and ears. What do Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, or say William F. Buckley have to do with Trump, or for that matter, the current GOP?
Trump is the most ignorant, megalomaniacal, immoral, nasty, sadistic rich man ever to hold such power in the US. Any policies he enacts are primarily for pleasing voters and far right donors rather than any concern he has for the welfare of anyone but himself, much less the welfare of the nation.
He is a deeply ugly man inside and his gift is in being flamboyant in a philistine manner to get publicity, which convinces bankers and contractors to help him make money, then he reveals just how dishonest he is by bilking them all.
As a politician his gift is in inflaming those who are as ugly as him inside, and getting establishment haters to be deluded into thinking it's a smart move to elect Trump to give a surrogate finger to the "elite". Trump is the acme of elite corruption. Let's get a serial killer to catch serial killers why don't we? Trump has a high SIQ-sub-intelligence quotient.
He has no idea about history of any kind, including conservatism.
Notice Mr. Scruton thinks American ideals are only for us, and says Trump gets that right. Reading this, sounds like Scruton wants Mike Pence to be POTUS. Polite, religious, "family" values. Scruton likes "decency". There we have a problem. sir, with Pence and 99% of the GOP, methinks.
One need only peruse the " #secondcivilwar" 'letters' that coursed through social media this week ( in mockery of conspiracy theorist A. Jones and by extension, D.J. Trump), to see that the author is correct.
1
don't know why people complain about trump/putin summit. trump is merely meeting with his campaign manager.
2
Not conservative. He has borderline personality syndrome. A hallmark of this disease is turmoil in the afflicted persons environment which in Trump's case is the world.
3
Conservatism, liberalism, are but words to most people who could not well describe what they mean. To most Americans, politics is akin to religion; you are either on their side, the 'right' side, or you are not. And if you are not, you are basically the enemy; all conveniently rationalized by dogma brought about by repetition. The same blind dogma that allows people to spout about American values, but then fail to stand up when those values are not met, or worse, trodden into the dirt, as they have been recently.
Here's a snippet from Steve Daines, Republican Senator from Montana, in his July 4th self-serving diatribe to the Missoulian:
America's experiment in self-governance.
...
On this Independence Day, let us be grateful for the incredible freedoms that we enjoy in this great country. Let us remember that America is a beacon of hope to the oppressed across the world who long to experience the peace and freedom that we often take for granted...
Just curious on what planet this dude has been living for the past year and a half. His "beacon of hope" is etched in the minds of everyone having seen kids in cages. Just the latest in his supreme leader's agenda to tear this country apart, lie by lie.
1
That person in the White House only considers what's in it for him. He is self-absorbed and he apparently has ADD, the way he jumps from one issue to the next....never any continuity.
Picture his legacy and just imagine what the "t" Library will look like....of course the name will be sky high on the building. Then inside will be wall-to-wall, ceiling to floor copies of his tweets. His legacy will be one of lying, bigotry, bullying, heartlessness, sexism; a wanna-be dictator as proven by his admiration of other dictators and at the same time alienating our long time allies. Conservative, republican, it doesn't matter what he calls himself, he's doing a dreadful job and creating a great deal of damage to our country. He is totally clueless about the greatest job the world.
1
"Conservative thinker." Trump is neither.
1
From Mr. Scruton,
“Their [conservatives’] primary concern is with the aspects of society in which markets have little or no part to play: education, culture, religion, marriage and the family.“
And what is the American conservative approach to education, culture, religion, marriage, and family?
1) Education: Teach teenagers to abstain from sex, do not inform the young women about contraception. Abstinence only.
2) Culture: True American culture is rooted in the powers of white Christian men.
3) Marriage: Gay men and women are creepy and should not be married. Obviously.
4) Family: The Man heads his family. And if, like Thomas Jefferson, one our founding fathers and an author of the Constitution that Mr. Scruton allegedly reveres, this honorable man has lots of families, including the offspring of Sally Hemings, his slave ... well, he’s a rich white man. He deserves it.
5) Religion: Patriarchal religions reflect the mighty will of God the Father and teach gays to stay away from each other, women to submit to sex and impregnation (see: The Humble Virgin Mary), and churchgoers to denounce anyone who refuses to follow their advice.
Darn darn those liberals, and all those darned Constitutional Amendments and laws that freed black men and women from slavery, granted women the right to vote, and recognized LGBT citizens as full citizens.
Where does Trump, the bully, come from?
Straight from the heart of conservative American racism, sexism, and intolerance.
1
Another conservative apologist telling us "No, no, this isn't what we meant" as he looks over the destruction of democracy and decency.
2
Neil Postman's 1985 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' anticipated Trump by 30 years.
1
"Americans are conscious of their constitutional rights and freedoms."
They are NOT if they tolerate increasingly authoritarian police state actions.
“Those first words of the United States Constitution do not refer to all people everywhere. They refer to the people who reside here, in this place…”
No, those words refer only to white men – and in those days, land-owning men.
Your arguments for conservatism – or whatever that might be today – are flawed when you use examples that are untrue. Face it: conservatism is fascism with a pretty bow.
As I read this article I became confused and then angry. One can point out Trump's flaws but underpinning these observations is a Conservatives vs (are better than) Liberals. In one paragraph Mr. Scruton says, "...seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it, regardless of the elected legislature." while in the next he quotes Burke, "we must “reform in order to conserve.” So what's the point? I am getting so sick of Conservative, Progressive, Liberal, Republican, Democrat. Where are the Statesmen? Where are the Americans for Americans without nepotistic or self serving agendas?
5
Find it interesting as conservatives try to distance themselves from trump and explain what they believe in.
Liberals on the other hand never want to impose their beliefs on others unlike trumpians or conservatives.
Conservatives really do and trumpians even more so hence the great divide.
But since I'm a progressive libertarian I'll wait
2
I don't know what a liberal is, but the opposite of a conservative is a progressive. The writer seems to ignore that by human nature conservative behavior tends to repress, retrench and act risk-averse.
The writer seems to also ignore that progressivism is in the DNA of America. Progressives start revolutions, not conservatives. Conservatives in the time of our nation's founding were Tories.
Our founders understood both history and human nature. To be true to America's aspirations we have to remain progressive.
2
Like so many self-described conservatives which the Times publishes, Scruton claims to be appalled by Trump. But Trump represents nothing new for the Republican Party. It has long been the party which (most) looks after the interests of the rich and powerful, and which appeals to racism and bigotry to get the votes of lower-income (white) people. Scruton says Trump "is a product of the cultural decline". No, he is a product of Republican politics and strategy, backed by those who claim cultural conservatism.
6
What I don't get about conservatives, is why they unequivocally support Trump? At 90% approval rating, it seems that Trump and conservatism are very much one and the same philosophy. Both lack a respect for tradition or the rule of law (see Mitch McConnell's usurping of the constitution to steal a SCOTUS nomination), both are rooted in white supremacy, and both show a total lack of respect for women. Seems a match made in heaven.
6
Conservatism is nothing but reactionism. And Trump is a reactionary.
Mr. Scruton has spent his life trying to decide what conservatism is but by his own admission can't ever get it right. Sounds like Potter Stewart on pornography. I think the root of Mr. Scruton's problem in defining conservatism is his fellow conservatives have, by and large, never heard of Edmund Burke, much less read any of his works. And while people have heard of Adam Smith, he is not read anymore.
American conservatives are no more informed by the writings of Burke and Smith than they are by the entirety of the Bible. They might pick and choose here and there of all three but that's it.
4
Ah, grasping that the rights of the constitution are solely for those who legally reside here us the "first principle of Conservatism." What a timely expression of his timeless Conservative Tradition! And noting that Trump grasps this first orinciple! What a nuanced approach to instructing us to " What Trump Doesn't
Get about Conservatism."
1
A nice thoughtful screed, but it overlooks something important. American conservatism as pragmatically applied has devolved to a tribal label. Having Trump as an ideological bannerman is pretty... vapid, really.
I have read a lot of soul searching and head scratching from intellectual "conservatives" since we've morphed into Crazyland, and have come to realize that the phrase means very different things amongst the people who claim it as a nom de guerre.
There is no way - no way at all - that an honest "conservative", as defined by the intellectual wing, would support Trump. No way. The man has no principles. He's a walking advertisement for the seven deadly sins. He manipulates, lies, steals, distorts, hurts for fun. He's proud of his ignorance. He stokes anger to feel it burn. The guy knows absolutely nothing about our system of governance, why it works, or how it was built.
All of which leads to the realization that most American conservatives don't care at all how their label is defined. And thus, these think pieces are pointless, until they take the step of condemning their own labelmates. This is the only way to preserve conservatism as anything remotely noble: Rebrand Trump and his tens of millions of supporters as something else entirely.
7
With all respect, but that's too little too late.
Trump didn't become the nominee of the GOP by chance. He didn't become president by chance. He doesn't get a 90% approval rating by conservatives in this country by chance - and that's AFTER 15 months in office.
He did so by first following a ten-year acting course (all while being paid for it - that's what they call "reality tv" these days), and then systematically started copy-pasting Fox News lines. His deal with the GOP was that he would keep their polling numbers up and let them govern as they want, whereas he would take care of the propaganda machine (something conservatives became less and less good at, under Obama, as more and more GOP voters started to see their lies).
The CORE problem here is clearly the massive GOP and FN lies - long before Trump even became a candidate.
If you cannot denounce this problem as being the very essence of the moral and intellectual decay of the GOP, you're merely attacking the messenger (Trump), not the message. In other words, you don't get it.
Of course, liberalism and conservatism as philosophies are respectable subjects of debate, and should be intensely debated in any democracy before it can truly thrive.
But that's only possible if:
1. you summarize the ideas of your opponent correctly.
2. you defend real philosophical concepts, not superficial platitudes.
Unfortunately, GOP "intellectuals" today are incapable of doing so, as this op-ed again shows (see part 2).
2
(Part 2)
Scruton for instance characterizes liberalism as a "philosophy of abstract human rights".
He doesn't explain at all how covering 20 million more Americans, thereby saving an additional 40,000 American lives a year, all while curbing cost increases (in other words: Obamacare), should somehow nevertheless be seen as too "abstract". And yet, he doesn't reject the GOP and Trump's attempts to destroy people's HC (= the right to be healthy), nor the GOP's latest round of tax cuts for the wealthy, which also destroys the healthcare of 13 million Americans - and as such is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths a year.
How "abstract" to you have to start to think in order to call these deaths too abstract to care about them ... ?
How can you call this "thinking" in the first place ... ?
The second part of the same sentence then goes on to suggest what Scruton means here by "abstract":
"conservatism is based not in a universal doctrine but in a particular tradition".
I suppose that in that case he defines abstract as "abstracted from any particular tradition".
But then WHERE is the typically American tradition that would rather prefer to make CEOs of insurance companies wealthier than to save American lives by making HC minimally affordable .. ?
And remember that he's not referring to a conservative habit here, but to the US itself.
It all doesn't make any sense.
, and this point at least the president has grasped. Moreover he has understo
"
Conservatism? Liberalism? No. Donald Trump's "ism" is egotism. His policies are not based on a consistent ideology. They are driven by Trump's reptilian cunning, an instinctual perception that he needs only the fanatical support of his base to retain a stranglehold on the Republican party -- which currently dominates all three branches of our federal government. As a result, we now have a White House impulsively creating far-reaching policies shaped by the applause lines at Trump's ego-feeding rallies.
We no longer have a president of the United States. We have the leader of a radical populist faction who has seized power through an electoral college fluke.
The most immediate remedy is to reverse Republican control of the House and Senate. We, the people, still control our destiny. But we must vote in record numbers in November.
2
The hearts and minds of conservatives have been shown for what they are - empty of all but self interest and the distortions needed to defend it, cloaked in piety. It's a weak and ugly self-interest at that, feeding on the harm of those it deems other. If conservatives where what they claim to be, they would defend our institutions, and the wall of most importance to them would be that between church and state. They would not attack journalists while emulating and defending Mr. Putin and the tyrants of the world. The Emperor indeed has no clothes, and his party is indecent for pretending otherwise. I'm exhausted with seeing them defended. Anyone else notice that all of this particular conservative's samples of 'good' leaders, of either tradition where male, and samples of 'bad' leaders where female, even if he had to reach to England and lost elections to find them? Telling.
2
Trump gets everything about conservatism.
Russia is the consummate conservative European state. It has a small impotent middle-class. It has an all powerful aristocracy called a kleptocracy. It has a state religion, Russian Orthodoxy. Its citizens are defined by race , creed and colour and national origin. It is xenophobic and racist. Its justice system serves its law makers. Its super-rich pay few if any taxes. Its government is top down and repressive. Its voting system affirms its hierarchy.
Russia is the model for American conservatives.
I started reading National Review 53 years ago and it seems to me that Russia is William F. Buckley Jr's vision of an ideal conservative state.
In 2014 Chrystia Freeland Canada's Foreign Minister, chief Nafta negotiator and an economics journalist who focused on Russia published Plutocrats The Rise of the Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. Her book was a NYT bestseller and it seems that rather than trying to turn America into Russia Putin has created an American Conservative dream country in Russia.
Trump and Putin sing from the same hymnal and it is very conservative.
2
Why in the world would a "thoughtful" conservative or liberal, for that matter, waste time and Time's space attempting to explicate Trump's political philosophy? He has none. More important, why doesn't Mr Scruton assist his serious conservative brethren (few though they may be) in the US to rid us of this historic menace to our constitution, our social peace and the global order?
1
Not being a conservative, I would be hard put to know what actually defines being one, as there are so many variations on the same theme.
But that said, I had no doubt whatsoever that Donald Trump would wind up being elected president once he threw his hat in the ring. Because as just about everyone here in New York City knows, this is someone who plays loose with the rules and must win at all costs.
However what I didn't know, is just how gullible and ill informed a vast amount of the American electorate is, in not seeing through the smoke and mirrors and faux-patriotism of someone who clearly didn't have their interests, or that of the country at heart -- And one didn't have to be liberal or progressive to know that.
Too late now.
1
What Professor Scruton may not realize is that the Trump version of Conservatism is the 'Solid South' 'Lost Cause' variety.
The Civil War, initiated by the Confederacy to protect their precious slavery (remember, they protested that slavery was legal and good, and they had a a right to buy and sell people - and separate children) is still with us - now we call them evangelicals.
1
The author demonstrates the hypocrisy associated with conservatism: acknowledging the obvious conclusion survival of (democratic) institutions (to include the law and economics) is based on adaptability, and then stating particular conservative-defined “traditions” should not be adaptable. The author points to the notion the Supreme Court, a Branch of Government which is an institution of law, should “apply” the Constitution and not “constantly” revise it suggests narrow-minded conservative inflexibility contradicting a broader human truth - The only constant in the world is change and humans have survived because of their adaptability to it. Since this nation was founded on radical change for its time, ignoring any universal impact such a change may have had on the world we know today is irresponsible at best and denying a universal embrace of “We The People” is purposeful.
Trump isn’t a conservative, or a liberal, or anything associated with thoughtful philosophy. Other than selfishness and celebrity, he has no real principles. He has latched on to conservative republicanism only because that’s where one finds support for while supremely/nationalism these days.
2
Predictable.
Someone who claims Adam Smith was a conservative is also someone who will deny the voters who make up conservatives are conservative.
Water finds its own level.
2
Scrutin professes to care for institutions, like church, community associations, and family, that are important carriers of culture. Unfortunately, like almost all contemporary conservatives, he seems blind to the ways in which labor laws, global corporations, and unjust tax policies threaten these institutions. In my opinion, the biggest assault on the family comes from low and stagnant wages. If conservatives wanted to conserve our culture, they would oppose policies that are destroying it.
2
Progressive/liberal achievements:
National Parks
Unemployment Insurance
Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
Public education
Clean Air and Clean Water Acts
Conservative achievements:
The rich are much richer than ever
Every recession / depression in the modern era
Sorry, not interested in conservatives, their philosophy or their embrace of racism, mysogony or hate. Despite this author’s attempt to push Donald out of their tent, sorry, he’s yours, forever.
6
Trump is neither conservative or liberal. He is not an ideologue and fits no one's definition of a traditionalist.
That's the point.
Trump was elected to upend all belief systems that have led to stagnation; the quagmire of elites failing miserably in their duty to act in the best interests of the people who they are elected to represent.
As Michael Moore so aptly observed, "He is the human Molotov cocktail they have been waiting for".
Scruton, like so many others who regard themselves as rarified thinkers, that tens of millions of working Americans don't care a wit about Locke or Rousseau or Burke or even Jefferson right now. They want good opportunities, jobs that pay the bills, decent healthcare and a growing future. Not more finger wagging from the ivory tower.
They’d have those things. They want to be told they can have 1950 and they can’t. Meanwhile, he enriches the rich.
I think that everyone should be moderate.
1
Liberal amorphous human rights? Here’s a recap of the UDHR. Conservatives don’t like Social Security, Work and Adequate Living Standards. The rest is conservative.
1 Right to Equality
2 Freedom from Discrimination
3 Right to Life, Liberty, Personal Security
4 Freedom from Slavery
5 Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment
6 Right to Recognition as a Person before the Law
7 Right to Equality before the Law
8 Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal
9 Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile
10 Right to Fair Public Hearing
11 Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven Guilty
12 Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
13 Right to Free Movement in and out of the Country
14 Right to Asylum in other Countries from Persecution
15 Right to a Nationality and the Freedom to Change It
16 Right to Marriage and Family
17 Right to Own Property
18 Freedom of Belief and Religion
19 Freedom of Opinion and Information
20 Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association
21 Right to Participate in Government and in Free Elections
22 Right to Social Security
23 Right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions
24 Right to Rest and Leisure
25 Right to Adequate Living Standard
26 Right to Education
27 Right to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community
28 Right to a Social Order that Articulates this Document
29 Community Duties Essential to Free and Full Development
30 Freedom from State or Personal Interference in the above Rights
1
Why does Trump need to get anything about conservatism? He tapped into an ethos that both liberals and conservatives have ignored and underestimated for longer than was safe to their relevance in this tumultuous time. He could care less about them and for the moment, he doesn't have to. Things are going swimmingly as far as he and his tribal nation are concerned.
The terrible and wonderful truth about this is that we humans needed a rude wake up call and the Trumps of the world with their crude methods are providing us with that clarion call. But the point of the call is to wake up! Not just lie there outraged at the noise and clamor.
How do we want to live on this planet - deal with the real present and future challenges we must all face together if we are to survive here? There is no left, no right, no ideology that will unite us like they will.
Exactly how we are to accomplish that herculean task is what we need to be talking about, not wailing about what Trump doesn't get. He's a tool of the times, nothing more.
Question is, why aren't we developing the tools that will be needed after the destructive ones have done their job? We are wasting precious time arguing over irrelevancies in the grand scheme of things - the scheme we have ignored and underestimated for longer than was safe to our relevance on this beautiful earth.
1
The general run of conservatives I know have one thing in common with Mr. Trump: a preoccupation with money. They spend their lives mainly thinking about how to make it, invest it, save it, spend it, and flaunt it. It is the number one way they measure value, of things, people, and places. They think out of fear, and since money is one of the best hedges against disaster, they worship it. It’s their talisman against the apocalypse which they secretly and gleefully imagine is just around the corner coming in the form of economic collapse (witness their hoarding of silver and gold), social disintegration (the just desserts for liberal culture’s hedonism and sexual promiscuity), and political chaos (all because we have forgotten our tradition values of God, country, and corp).The last thing they have in common is some abstruse principle of 18th century social and political theory.
4
Modern conservatives sold their souls long ago when they passed tax cuts in order to "starve the beast." What a brilliant strategy. They know that we will not let our children and families suffer. They can count on us to liquidate the American commonwealth, instead. Parks, libraries, schools, and everything else that sets us apart from places like Haiti, and Nigeria -- going, going, gone!
Expect the value of gated communities to skyrocket.
2
The issue here is not "What Trump doesn't get about conservativism". It is rather what Scruton doesn't get about Trump -- namely that Trump has no poliitical philosophy whatsoever. Trump says and does whatever benefits himself, whatever gets him adulation, money or power.
4
Trump is a natural and inevitable product of the practical, action and results oriented culture of American peoples getting tired of being ruled by a professional class who is foremost in the business of choosing the right words and winning polemics but without being able to deliver results. (Gettysburg address is the Gettysburg address because the war was won.) Stop loosing wars hot and cold, trade and cyber, drug and border, and wasting money and whining all the time about everything and you will get different politicians elected.
Edmund Burke has nothing to do with American conservatism. American conservatism is not an intellectual movement, it's a political marketing and media campaign led by people like Lee Atwater, Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Frank Luntz, Newt Gingrich, and Mitch McConnell. It's goal is to make enough poor white people feel that their existence is so threatened by liberals, brown-people, and foreigners that they'll unfailingly vote for a party that exists purely to give tax and regulatory breaks to rich white people.
7
Donald Trump is not a conservative or a liberal. His political philosophy can be summed up in one word: Me
Trump is not an aberration. He is firmly part of the conservative tradition that includes Newt Gingrich and goes back further than Herbert Hoover and his kleptocrats such as Andrew Mellon. Even their deity, Ronald Reagan, was principally focused on increasing returns to capital at the expense of labor. No wonder so many conservatives thought Trump was the second coming of Reagan./
2
I agree for the most part but can't help but wonder on this 4th of July how the Declaration of Independence influences our understanding of the constitution.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
It seems to point to a more generically human understanding of the purposes of government. Perhaps Mr. Scruton can expand on this is another op=ed.
Trump is neither a conservative or a liberal...he is a property developer whose political persuasion is defined by money.
1
The modern brand of conservatism has become identified with white nationalism. Where Trump has become the embodiment of white nationalism in this country. He played the fiddle of white grievances and white victim hood with a dash of false patriotism to make it palatable to the folks who voted for him. The conservationism that the author has mentioned died with Lincoln.
1
Unable to adjust ideology to facts seems to typify U.S. conservatism. So another recession, another war, another ecological disaster, another company too big to fail, and increasing corruption blamed on others rather than corrected. Rigid text-based politicians, essentially a cult, contribute nothing to a democracy.
Conservative politicians have protected dying industries at great expense for decades. Seems more of them need to read this. 45 will not: he can’t read
Or the writer might have mentioned that Mr. Trump has declared bankruptcy several times or that Mr. Trump pays women hush money or that Mr. Trump has had extra marital affairs on all three of his wives or that Mr. Trump has engaged in sharp business practices or that Mr. Trump has a pattern of abusing the courts, women and suppliers or that in all likely hood Mr. Trump has evaded paying his fair share of taxes and avoided serving his country or that Mr. Trump has abused his phony charity for his own benefit or that Mr. Trump has had dealings with known gangsters, etc, etc.
There are also strong indications that Mr. Trump has broken campaign and financial disclosure laws, laundered money, etc., etc. Then maybe the writer might mention that Mr. Trump appears to lack a true conservative philosophy. But duh!
1
Apparently Scruton believes that true conservatives are intellectuals. Therefore Trump, being an anti-intellectual, does not qualify as a conservative. What a relief! Conservatism needn't take responsibility for Donald Trump.
Unfortunately for Scruton, Trump's path to power was paved by conservatives: conservatives in the media who ranted and raved at the Obama administration, feeding many of the same conspiracy theories beloved by Trump; religious conservatives, especially the evangelical Christian right, which even now clings to Trump despite his unchristian conduct; the conservative Republican party, which built an entire electoral strategy on racial "dog whistles," preparing the electorate for Trump's out and out racism. Trump did not emerge out of nowhere --he merely took advantage of the world American conservatives had made, pulling the rug out from under the ideologues and politicos who made it.
Even now conservatives defend him. Isn't he delivering a conservative Supreme Court? Isn't he getting tough on crime by tightening the nation's borders? Isn't he spitting in the eye of all those liberal elites who run the "lamestream" media, the universities, and the "deep state"?
Maybe even Mr. Scruton would think better of Trump, if only our empty-headed president included a few references to Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek in his Tweets. Scruton is too much of a snob to admit that Trump is an avatar of what modern conservatism has become.
2
So, on July the 4th the Times finds a Tory to instruct us about a conservative reading of the U.S. Constitution. Oy!
Listen, buddy, the U.S. was born of what was, for the time, a radical liberal revolution. Had the conservatives of the time prevailed, we'd be Canada. The U.S. tradition consists of not having one, open as we have always been to pragmatic, progressive change. Alas, it's a tradition that's been taking it on the chin a bit lately.
2
The rise of the Conservative Movement, starting with Barry Goldwater, has been a disaster for the United States; turned us into a banana republic. All of your rhetoric about grand traditions and vital institutions just can't hide one simple fact. Democracy demands a generous heart and real sympathy for one's fellow citizens, including those that one finds abhorrent. These values are completely lacking in the Movement.
Mr. Trump has nothing to do with it. He's just an aberration.
1
The biggest problem American conservatives have is slavery and its consequences. They have never been able to free themselves from the evil it caused nor have they had the willingness to condemn all racism, all discrimination, all double standards.
The second largest, related, problem for American conservatives is their willingness to value property over people. This may be a result of their inability to understand how profoundly evil slavery and its aftermath really is.
2
What he does get is more important than what he doesn't. Appeals to bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia is the coin of the realm. Say it loud enough and often enough and cruelly enough most will fall in line. In the case of Roger none of that is even worth mentioning here.
2
conservatism is the undying refusal to help anyone in need, and to make up theories about why that is moral and just and christian while being paid to do so. also, misogyny and racism.
conservatism is intellectually bankrupt -- it is a system of thought that absolves itself from ever offering assistance to anyone.
shorter: "I've got mine."
5
Trump is not a conservative in that he understands the philosophy. Trump is an autocrat and he is conservative insofar as it aligns more with his dictatorial approach than liberals or progressives who are much more democratic. The consternation that Trump doesn't get it means the author doesn't get Trump.
The notion that Jefferson, the epitome of late 18th Century liberalism, should be counted as a conservative is, shall we say, idiosyncratic.
1
Weak, Mr. Scruton. Very weak. Scrutinize this: Burke and Smith, fine. Is that all you got? Not even a side mention of George Will and William Fbuckley? Because if it is, then we hold these truths to be self-evident: conservatism's dynamism died a long time ago. The Southern Strategy was adopted from fear. Gingrich's Contract with America had several nasty sub clauses. You should do better, sir; not because you can, but because you must.
Scruton writes:
"But [national identity] exists in America, and the country has no more precious asset than the mutual loyalty that enables the words “we, the people” to resonate with every American, regardless of whether it is a liberal or a conservative who utters them. Those first words of the United States Constitution... refer to the people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law, and who are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance. Grasping that point is the first principle of conservatism."
It appears that Scruton hasn't spent much time around American Conservatives, who repeatedly decry that Liberals aren't "true Americans," and thus don't count as "We, the People."
For example: Earlier today, Fox News commentator Brit Hume posted a tweet titled "Why Do Democrats Hate America?" Blatantly divisive screed like that has been a constant trope of American Conservatives for the past 20 years.
Anyone who has listened to or read Fox, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Coulter, Breitbart, National Review, the Federalist, et al, knows that they don't consider us elitist Libruls on the coasts to be "as American" as, well, the Deplorables who live in the Rust Belt, the Bible Belt, and Flyover Country.
I wouldn't mind America's Conservatives if they were remotely as intelligent and articulate as Scruton seems to be. But if they're going to let people like Brit Hume speak for them, Scruton shouldn't waste his time defending the hateful mob.
1
Amazing that you could get the first principal of conservatism so wrong - that the Constitution refers only to those who reside here. I thought conservatives only thought it applied to legally appropriate citizens. You know, not those who practice a loyalty to the principals of our Constitution, but to those who won the birth lottery.
You may want to apply a little more intellectualism to your conservatism.
"...education, culture, religion, marriage and the family"
Well, if those are of the sort that conservatives approve of.
Adrian Mole was right about ol' pop eye Scruton.
Who ever thought Trump was a conservative? Trump is a narcissist and has no particular political viewpoint, except that he will say and do whatever he thinks will make the most people adore him.
The dictionary definition of conservative is "holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion."
Does anything in that definition sound like Donald J. Trump?
2
Does Mr. Scruton actually believe that conservatives “primary concern is with the aspects of society in which markets have little or no part to play: education, culture, religion, marriage and the family.”? Today’s conservatives seem to believe in only one thing: money. Education, culture, family policy, all these are things conservatives are eager to starve of funds and attention. As for such virtues as love, art, and knowledge - well, today’s conservatives have cheerfully dumped those qualities in favor of machismo preening, ignorance, dishonesty, and aggressive xenophobia. All that seems to matter are profits, tax cuts, and making sure “undesirables” don’t get any crumbs from GOP tables. Today’s conservatism is all about me first and me alone; win at any cost and berate and bury the “losers”; DJT gets that perfectly.
2
He gets it all right. And he will be re-elected in 2020.
Scruton: "... a [Republican] party that specifically makes appeal to conservative voters."
The 2016 Republican Platform belies that claim.*
The word "conservative" is used only twice. In the first use, "conservative" describes an approach to constitutional interpretation. In the second use, "conservative" identifies victims of government "harassment".
* "In tandem with a Republican Senate, a new Republican president will restore to the Court a strong conservative majority that will follow the text and original meaning of the Constitution and our laws." (p. 10)
* "It [the IRS] systematically targets conservative, pro-life, and libertarian organizations, harassing them with repeated audits and denying their tax exempt status." (p. 27)
* Google "2016 gop platform PDF site:gop.com".
Though it may appear that way, in his trade disputes with other nations, Trump's true objective is not putting barriers and protecting dying industries. Rather, it is driving a harder bargain than his predecessors have been able to get. One small example: When we factor in China's chronic abuses of American intellectual property rights, costing the U.S. billions, those so-called fair trade agreements may not seem that fair, after all. Trump may be a lot of things, but he's not so stupid as to think that he could revive the coal industry or any other dying industry.
How does one traditional send out a tweet? Since Thomas Jefferson never had the chance to, I guess we’ll never know then.
What a thoroughly empty article. After first agreeing that Trump subscribes to the particularism of the nation he leads, the writer throws a weak dart by claiming Trump's protectionism is inconsistent with Conservative belief in free trade. Yet surely the writer understands that Trump is not advocating tariffs, merely using them as a means of fighting fie with fire. Turning free trade int o a one-way street is a sucker's game that America has been playing for too long. Trump wants free trade and has, indeed, offered it to our trading partners. He threw down the gauntlet, they have yet to pick it up. But they will.
And the final point - that Trump is a cultural product of his time; who isn't? Does the writer expect the POTUS to be playing Bing Crosby and Duke Ellington? Indeed how long did Times have to scrounge before it could dredge up this really weak argument for a conservative case against the president?
3
Would like to know where in the Wealth of Nations Smith addresses the issue of "dying industries."
Conservatism is a subset of trumpism - cruel, selfish and entitled. I want nothing to do with it. The conservatism I knew decades ago was lame. The current extreme version of it is truly quite hateful. Granted, extreme liberalism wouldn't be good either.
For conservatives “We, the people” leaves out more than 6/10 of Americans. They really mean “we, the trumplicans” without regard or consideration for anyone else.
"Unlike liberalism, with its philosophy of abstract human rights" - well, if we're not ALL entitled to human rights, why should a conservative?
Fossilized conservative ideas of old and present are not what keeps America's advantage over other countries.
As I understand conservatism:
- What's mine is mine even if stolen or conned from someone or many.
- Only my rights count.
- Conservation of wealth even if illicit.
- Tax cuts balance budgets.
- The poor are responsible for their poverty and the sub-livable wages they get from conservatives.
- Conservative capitalists hate competition that reduces profits.
- The right to inflict religious dogma on everyone.
- The destruction of "other's" families, kidnapping and caging of babies and toddlers.
- Conserve clumps of human cells while killing off humans on death row - guilty or not.
- Preserve traditions and customs - like slavery, white supremacy, Christian supremacy, wealth supremacy, royal supremacy - trump supremacy.
Note: conservatism doesn't mean conservation of the environment, or the only planet we have.
1
What Trump doesn't get about Conservatism is what most Republicans (in particular) don't get about Conservatism:
Did Reagan not trigger the massive Wealth Gap through Supply Side Economics? Did he not encourage Saddam Hussein to invade Iran? Did he not oversee the horrific Israeli massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps?
Did Bush Sr. not use his 'thousand points of light' to pursue a divisive economic agenda, also using his Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, to 'encourage' Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait?
Did his son, Dubya, not invade Iraq and trigger 5 simultaneous civil wars, legalize and outsource torture in the ugly form of Extraordinary Rendition?
Didn't Conservatives (including Hillary Clinton, the poorly disguised Democratic warmonger) push for the bombing of Libya and Syria?
Trump is just a natural, but even more extreme expression, of what Conservatism truly means in America and for the rest of the world.
Roger Scruton's flowery words and phrases cannot conceal the true and ugly nature of Conservatism.
Bring on the Liberals. At least they have some human principles that the Robber Barons clearly lack.
4
The intellectualization of Trump's raison d'etre pushes a square peg into a round hole. A simplistic and low-brow analysis yields a more accurate result. Conservatism, the word itself, starts out with "con". That's what appeals to him and removes any need to read the rest of the word.
Now that we know for a fact that our election system is rigged we will not be s surprised if there is no blue wave.
This piece furthers nothing in resolving the fundamental American political morass that gave Trump a place to stand — most unfortunately in the Oval Office.
Whether conservative, or liberal, or progressive really makes not much difference when the elected chief executive of the nation is essentially unthinking, uninformed, and unprincipled. No nuance of philosophical argument has much relevance.
Trump is in effect a grand diversion from the real issue of our dysfunctional political culture, one awash in rank political careerism, heeled to special interests, and polluted by obscene sums of money as a primary lubricant of political interests and actions. To this add the impossible impasse of our obdurate and almost perfectly diametric partisan red blue division.
"Each time I think I have hit the nail on the head, the nail slips to one side and the hammer blow falls on my fingers."
"And to some extent " (your words), spending a good part of your intellectual life studying and defending conservatives may not be your calling. Trump's coming was not an anomaly, quite the opposite, he was baked into the Republicans recipe for years. It just popped out of the oven in 2016.
You can't get around it, separating Republican from Conservative, their intertwine within the Republican Party, just as Democrats are intertwined with Lerberalism.
Trump is the Republican Party and embodies all of the parties platform it has fostered over the years. So, "you made it, you own it."
Pretty funny that this guy thinks that “conservativism” means anything but tax cuts, crushing civil rights, and empowering capital.
7
Utter twaddle of course except that Mr. Scruton has developed a respectable and lucrative career of such.
"Their primary concern is with the aspects of society in which markets have little or no part to play: education, culture, religion, marriage and the family."
Current "conservative" drive over past 50-60 yrs - toward a government devoted solely to protection of sacred "property"- has been and remains to privatize and paternalize all of above.
"Such spheres of social endeavor arise not through buying and selling but through cherishing what cannot be bought and sold: things like love, loyalty, art and knowledge, which are not means to an end but ends in themselves."
How and why would Mr. Sutton claim such eminently liberal values - since maybe the time of Socrates - to his "conservatism?"
Mr. Sutton here is dealing the old game of three-card monte, shifting his definition of "conservatism" to mean perhaps A in paragraph one, then maybe B in the next, until it means anything or nothing at all, whatever serves best to lure the rubes into the tent.
All subject to change of course with any next shift of political winds…
Conservative intellectusls made a deal with less educated racist and lower income whites to gain and maintain political power. For decades that deal was kept with dog whistles and the intellectuals werr able to promote policies that helped the wealthy and businesses in general alongside moral underpinnings that rested on Burke, Smith et al.
But the deal with the devil of racism sold the soul of Lincoln's part and the result was the election of Trump.
Now conservatives have only one moral choice. They must destroy their party in order to save their values.
Trump is not a conservative. He's a crony capitalist, much like Elon Musk and most of the Democrats on Wall Street. He was also a Democrat before he hijacked the Republican Party. (He couldn't hijack the Democratic Party because the Clintons already had a lock on the 2016 nomination.) His trade policies are supported by Ohio's liberal Democratic Senator, Sherrod Brown.
So we shouldn't be surprised that much of what Trump does has nothing to do with conservatism.
As if 99% of our political foundation didn’t come directly from our English origins! We inherited our system of government— the author acts like we invented it.
Also, the whole point of our Supreme Court is to interpret laws (that are ever changing) vis-a-vis the Constitution. Yes, the Constitution (like everything else) is open to interpretation. This isn’t some left-wing notion. It’s the operating principle of our legal system.
What else have you got for us?
1
The question should be what Republicans do not get about conservatism
The conservatism that you describe has not existed anywhere for a very long time as far as I know. Trump is merely the end result of the dumbing down of the republican party. He is neither conservative nor liberal, just a greedy little huckster brought to power by the disinterested ignorance of the American people. If he had believed that the democratic base was as easily lead astray by an Authoritarian figure as the republican base, he could have easily gone the other way.
3
What Mr. Scruton fails to see is that President Trump is not a conservatives. In order to devote to a school of thought, one must agree to the truth of its foundational tenets. However, Mr. Trump cares nothing for truth. Without any regard for truth, Mr. Trump has no adherence to any school of thought. Instead, Mr. Trump is pure id. Mr. Trump manipulates the fears of conservatives to gain power. What is the goal of his action? It is no higher than feeding his ego.
"And perhaps the principal reason for doubting Mr. Trump’s conservative credentials is that being a creation of social media, he has lost the sense that there is a civilization out there that stands above his deals and his tweets in a posture of disinterested judgment."
Typically high-minded conservative claptrap, not to mention irrelevant. Trump is quite simply a criminal who must be treated as such and dismissed.
The thrust of this article — the definition of conservatism in the US — clarified for me why I have always objected to that philosophy on socially practical grounds. To exclude other peoples from 'we the people' is of course precisely what the founders did TO PEOPLE IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY, namely whoever wasn't a pink aka 'white' landowner. The obvious implication is that the constitution, for all its wisdom, is a deeply flawed, contradictory document (and as such, very much like the Bible). Revising the constitution is therefore absolutely required, and has always been so (see amendments). It is therefore literally insane to claim that it should stand inviolate: insane because such a claim ignores both the document specifically (both its flaws and its hopeful spirit) and history in general. Conservatives like the author do nothing more than what priests of all sects have done with the Bible: enshrined it as some immutable word written by god(s). And look where that has gotten us: justifications for slavery, misogyny, bigotry, endless wars between religions, and now abject denial of environmental realities: pollution and global warming.
Human beings at their best are adapters. Conservatives would shackle that powerful and hopeful capability with an illusory recounting of history. In fact, that's what they've been working towards for decades—forging their chains Marley-like towards the logical extreme: a paragon of selfish, cowardly, greedy mendacity aka DJ Trump. Ghosts?
1
"Their primary concern... is with the aspects of society in which markets have little or no part to play: education, culture, religion, marriage and the family."
Whose "education," Mr. Scruton? I'll tell you: the children of the white, the wealthy and the well-connected. "Conservatives," hiding under the cloak of hate, racism and segregation, have long sought an imbalance in the quality of education as applies to whites and non-whites.
Whose "culture," Mr. Scruton? Do you mean the unending, limitless acquisition and possession of firearms that serve one purpose: the killing of others?
Whose "religion," Mr. Scruton? Do you speak of Sunday, what Dr. Martin Luther King described as "the most segregated hour of the week?" Do you honor the evangelical "Christians" as disciples of Christ when their of-this-world is an amalgam of greed, hate, misanthropy and misogyny? Do you mean that the state and "religion" are, a priori, an organism best controlled by "the state?"
Whose "marriage and family," Mr. Scruton. Where in the Constitution is the word "marriage" or "family" printed? These are jumped-up arguments used by "conservatives" to promote a society in which they are the sole and only arbiters of what constitutes "normalcy."
Donald Trump is the president not because of any ridiculous assertions of "conservatism." He is the product of the hate within us; the moral rot at the core of the ideas upon which America was founded.
And you know this. So do Trump's 63-millions.
8
Short answer: 30-year propaganda campaign against liberals and Clinton dating to the end of the Fairness Doctrine.
You cannot have abject lies and fearmongering for profit and expect a stable society.
1
American conservatism is dead. It died when it gave up on ideas and analysis and logic, substituting winning through any means. There is the Southern Strategy. There is the culture war. There is "Starve the Beast".
The conservative movement tied itself to the disenchanted white voters starting with Goldwater's rejection of Civil Rights legislation in 1964. It was formalized with Nixon four years later. Whatever the philosophical and/or Constitutional justifications, the result was GOP conservatives took unto themselves the racism inherent for the votes and power.
Similarly, they took up religion when opposing legal abortion proved a great vote-getter. It tied them to reactionary religious leaders and their specific brand of Christianity. It morphed into the declarations that America is a Christian nation and such idiocy as the "War on Christmas".
And when they couldn't win at the polls with their ideas concerning smaller government, they developed a plan to win through bankrupting the government - Starve the Beast. They would force cuts in social programs by crippling the government with debt. It went hand-in-hand with high-end tax cuts.
When conservatism built a movement with racism, religion and debt, it did more than lose its way. It became a vehicle for the worst radicals to take power. A Trump became inevitable.
Conservatism now stands for the end justifying the means. No matter how mean the means might be.
2
Professor Scruton,
Do you really think the boulders and scalawags who are running this show have even a soupçon of philosophical knowledge? They are committed plutocrats, with the intention of destroying democracy, enriching themselves, their families and cronies, and establishing authoritarianism.
It would be a miracle if you could find one of them who knows that Thomas Jefferson said: “The whole art of government consists of being honest.” Papers of Jefferson I, 134.
You are grossly in error to equate this bunch with conservatism.
Trump has the one thing that matters to American "conservatism": an evil genius ability to pull off the "con" part.
2
I have tried to understand what conservatism is and come up with the following: it is a philosophy that is not against change/progress just want it to be done slowly and carefully assessing it benefits along the way; they are not opposed to government intervention just that it be done with awareness of its limitations. Republicanism, masquerading as conservatism, has always been well represented by reactionaries. The Republican Party has been slouching towards this moment in time since at least Reagan and certainly since Gingrich with McConnell, Ryan and the Koch's greasing the slippery slope. It is not just Trump that does not understand true conservatism. The entire Republican Party is now firmly in the hands of reactionaries. Up until 1980, Republican presidential platforms included belief in some form of gun control. Although, I am very tired of my party's rah-rah reaction to the need for acceptance of and legal support of diversity and of its own slouch to neo-liberalism, at least it recognizes the needs for change. As to the intellectual tradition of conservatism, I would offer Buckley's first response to ensuring that African-Americans were free to vote. He did not believe that they were "ready". He later realized and admitted that he was wrong but by then many years of voter suppression had gone by.
RE: "seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it, regardless of the elected legislature."
Political parties are not mentioned in the constitution. Not once. Parties are not mentioned in terms of majority or who has control of the House or Senate. Or primaries. George Washington himself warned of “the baneful effects of the spirit of party” as he left office.
Until an "originalist", or the supporter of the same, comes out and stands for the elimination of the political parties or at least their functioning in the US government, I will think of them as frauds and opportunists.
I also can not see how a court that "applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it" is blind to the words "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," or finds that a "person" is crafted from incorporation papers and that speech emanates from the wallet.
For most of my adult life, I have proudly worn the label "conservative ideologue." I would agree that Trump does not qualify as a conservative in the ideological sense. But so what?
Once a conservative becomes a politician, conservative principles are the first to be sacrificed to cause of continued employment in politics. With our society in economic decline, people of all stripes want free stuff, special treatment, etc., and will vote for politicians who will provide them.
In Trump we have a President who would actually repeal Obamacare, lower the corporate tax rate, tear up the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, cancel the net neutrality regulation, fight against political correctness and identity politics, call out the virulently anti-conservative media, and most importantly, appoint originalists to the Supreme Court. Virtually any other politician claiming to be a conservative would buckle at the knees at the thought of angering that many liberal beneficiaries and special interests.
In a world in which the left has adopted this revolutionary chic "by and means necessary" mentality, I would rather have progress on a conservative agenda than a RINO constantly backpedaling on his conservative beliefs simply to save his job. As a conservative ideologue who has served in three Republican administrations, I can clearly say that politics and true ideological conservatism don't mix very well.
GO DONALD, GO!
yeah, Donald, Go ! go start trade wars; go break peace treaties with enemies and allies, go turn the Internet over to AT&T and Comcast; go desecrate America's middle class by preventing their access to health care ... Why stop now?
2
Welcome to the Fox News Universe where up is down and lies are truth. Trump has told more than 3300 proven lies since in office. Who cares?
4
Insult anyone who hates what Trump is doing to our once proud nation as a "liberal chic", or elitist..its another form of bigotry. Trump is not a true conservative - doesn't even know the meaning of the word. His appeal to low education voters is racism, bigotry, sexual predatory behavior, lying and the deconstruction of everything this country has fought and died for including human rights. Go Trump, but where to? We all know ....
1
Every American can find pain in Trump's stupidity.
3
"Those first words of the United States Constitution do not refer to all people everywhere. They refer to the people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law, and who are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance. Grasping that point is the first principle of conservatism."
With all due respect to "We the People" (those first words of the United States Constitution) I recall other words in the American canon which refute Mr. Scruton's conservatism: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." There is a conservatism (which vanishes when the motive and opportunity arises to invade some weaker country in order to protect humanity from godless communism or "evil everywhere") which seeks to limit considerations of a greater good to the invisible lines in the sand that set the United States off from the rest of the world.
Not only is this idea dangerously foolish in regards to ecological realities (a real-world limitation that conservative pragmatists seem to forget), but the idea of limiting the principles that justify and motivate our political system were NOT part of the mindset of either those identified with the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. The vast majority of the Framers were serious advocates of the European Enlightenment (which went on to become an international movement), while the idea of limiting "the people" has been itself limited by the 14th Amendment.
5
"Adam Smith argued that trade barriers...will not serve the interests of the people. On the contrary, they will lead to an ossified economy. President Trump seems not to have grasped this point." I think he (and the people his tarriffs are designed to protect) grasps this point quite well. He knows that the great push to "gloabalization" over the past 25 years has shown immense benefits for the budding working and middle classes around the world in developing countries. Literally billions of people have benefitted from open trade with the U.S. This has come at a very real cost to working and middle class Americans, however. Trump stands for them.
1
How? By raising tariffs and as such destroying US companies here at home? Because that is what his trade war is already doing.
While billions of people have benefitted from not open but low tariff trade with the US (and we from low tariff trade when it comes to US expert - strange that you left that part out, no?), it's undeniable that hundreds of millions of Americans benefitted as well.
Things only started to get wrong when the GOP began to systematically pass laws that increase deficits in order to shift money from the middle class to the top 1%, for purely ideological (and personal career) reasons.
THAT is when income inequality became more severe, here at home, and when the middle class started to suffer.
In the meanwhile, the US continues to be the wealthiest nation on earth. How could that be the case if Trump's hypothesis of an entire world "ripping us off" when it comes to trade, would actually be true ... ?
Trump and the GOP are making you believe that not they and their pro-wealthiest Americans policies are what caused working Americans to struggle at the end of the month, but somehow "non Americans" are to blame.
There are NO studies to back up those claims.
So why would you believe them in the first place ... ?
Income inequality has been REDUCED dramatically IN AGGREGATE around the world over the past 25 years. This as billions of people in developing nations have risen out of poverty into the working and middle classes. They have generally done so by providing labor for manufacturing of goods sold worldwide - a phenomenon which undoubtedly benefitted U.S. citizens as CONSUMERS. Many U.S. citizens forced to compete in global labor markets have suffered, however. Trump is trying to renegotiate the terms of trade to greater benefit of domestic labor. He is already seeing some success; yesterday the heads of 3 major European auto manufacturers asked for negotiations with the U.S. in order to REDUCE existing tarriffs on both sides.
While it might be intellectually valuable to try to place a definition on American conservative thought and action, it is otherwise useless, an exercise in sustained futility.
We hate the government, tenet #1. But, we want the government to aggressively intervene when it benefits our group. Death penalty? Yes. Stopping abortions? Yes. Paying billions of dollars to industrial scale farmers? Yes. Grabbing children away from immigrants? No problem.
They want a strong, active government for themselves and a weakened, small government for anyone else. In the end, it is just a matter of how the pie is sliced, who gets what. No ideology.
At one time, a core belief of conservatives protection of all fundamental rights of citizens. Now, they are in league with the NRA in criticizing any public dissent and agree that the police must "come down hard" with the fist to stop it.
A starting point for true conservative thought should be modesty, a belief that things can't be changed too quickly and that efforts at improving the lives of citizens should be moderated by the knowledge that doing too much can result in disasters. Instead, Republican conservatives are against everything and basically for nothing at all except tax cuts, which in turn would weaken the government into incapacity.
Diogenes went searching for an honest man. When I find a true conservative, I will shake his hand and offer friendship because I would know that fairness and reason would have an honest chance.
2
“Love, loyalty, art and humanity” are as liberal values as they come sir, as are many other of the things you list here in your case for the higher mind of conservatism, including love of country and national pride. What’s missing in this Dystopian Trump Era IS the “higher mind” part. William F. Buckley succeeded in restraining the John Birch wing of the Republican Party for a long time. Once the Koch Brothers founded and bankrolled the Tea Party the genie was let out of the bottle. Now Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have subsumed your intellectual and thoughtful Conservatives, the pure intransigence of the Freedom Caucus has paralyzed the congress by killing consensus governing and Donald Trump has driven a stake through your heart by profiting on it all.
1
“The Supreme Court that follows the Constitution” is also a court that brought Dred Scott and jailed Japanese. The idea that conservatives want jurists who see the Constitution as it was meant originally is patently ridiculous. If true, Justice Thomas would get 2/3 of a vote in all cases and the women on the bench none at all.
2
Mr. Scruton, really? Not only is this a weak defense of conservatism, it doesn’t even read like a decent book blurb. You not only stereotype liberalism, but you proceed to stereotype conservatism. Burke would emphasize that we need independent institutional spheres, like family, church, work, and government because it allows an individual to play one off against the other, better allowing individual freedom. Nor is liberalism’s argument for individual freedom “abstract.” A liberal argues that the historical decline of family and the church has led to the greater power of corporate entities, whose continued efforts, intended or not, to undermine faith and family mean that government and public institutions are one of the few bulwarks left to shore up individual freedom.
Both are concerned with our “political inheritance” and both are equally concerned—and, in today’s world, worried—about our constitutional order. If your portrayal of conservatism is correct, then conservatives are primarily overwhelmed with nostalgia. I give more credit to philosophical conservatives than that.
Dear Mr. Scruton,
Trump currently enjoys close to 90% approval among Republicans, many of whom describe themselves as conservatives.
What else does one need to “get” about conservatism?
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
5
The only thing being consigned to oblivion is conservatism itself. The are about 5 people total in the country who even consider the true meaning of conservatism or even know who Edmund Burke is. The other 63 million Trump voters believe that being a conservative means only one thing: poking liberals in the eye.
1
Since Republicans have no stance that is actually true (being gay is not a choice, women ought to have control of their own health care, more guns don't make us safer, a bigger military doesn't make us safer, taxes for the rich make them richer, etc. etc. etc.), exactly what about the entire party can be construed as 'Conservative'?
Certainly they don't seem very concerned about the environment, so their claim of "Conservation" is dubious.
If smaller government is the goal, I say Nay.
We need big government, to save WE THE PEOPLE from Conservatives, Republicans and Libertarians.
1
"What Trump Doesn't Get About Conservatism"??????? This column could as well be titled "What Scruton Doesn't Get About America."
Odd that on our Independence Day that the author would be according primacy among our founding documents to the Constitution whose opening words, he states, "refer to the people who reside here, in this place and under this rule of law, and who are the guardians and beneficiaries of a shared political inheritance" that is "not the property of humanity in general but of our country in particular." What Scruton fails to get, as does Trump, is that that shared inheritance is embodied in the Declaration that almost certainly does reflect a "universal doctrine" of "abstract human rights" that the signers held to be the property of "humanity in general" and "all people everywhere."
The fundamental and ever present flaw in conservative "thinking" is that you can never take the "Con" out of Conservative.
Reagan was a con artist, same with the Bush family, their administration's employees and followers. The same for Trump and the Republicans throughout this congress, SCOTUS, et al.
After finishing this article we are left with nothing of value or meaning upon which to manage and govern this society. There is no vision. There is no philosophy or principle that doesn't divide people and then pit them against each other. Following a self described conservative is to follow a con artist.
Conservatism is the pathway to oblivion. Escaping the chains of conservatism is the struggle of any civilized society.
The real problem seems to be What Mr. Scruton Doesn’t Get About Conservatism: conservativism is what gave us Trump.
Mister Scruton's abstract theoretical textbook version of conservatism is no more real then Stalin's notion of communism has to do with Karl Marx, In both cases taken out of the theoretical and applied to the real world they unavoidably turn into monsterous evil Twisted versions of themselves. What sounds good on paper inescapably becomes a self consuming self-destructive version of itself in practice.
Trump is simply the Monstrous evil Twisted natural self-destructive version of conservatism that should be expected when you try to take simplistic idealized thought and apply it to the human frailties of the real word just as Stalin was the inevitable result of Marx when brought to life by Lenin.
Conservative or Liberal, 90% of Americans want this:
A political system with public servants who don't rely on outrageous sums of money to run campaigns. Who serve "We The People" instead of money masters.
Imagine millions of us using a simple app to make a mass viral demand politicians could not ignore.
Money out of politics now!
"We The People 250."
A constitutional amendment
1) max contribution to any candidate for public office - $250. Any level - city council to president.
2) same $250 limit for "political speech" (if a person or group wants to air a commercial taking a political view, the funds for that commercial, that political speech, can only be garnered in maximum $250 chunks. No billionaire or organization can command the airwaves with massive buys of political speech.)
3) all congressional districts drawn by non-partisan panels. California does this now.
4) no lobbying after leaving Congress. No employment by any company on which the politician voted.
5) complete disclosure of all financial holdings and tax records from any candidate and all sitting politicians.
6) automatic registration to vote at birth for citizens.
7) mailed ballots - done successfully in Oregon now. Paper can't be hacked.
8) extra provisions, drafted by experts in campaign finance for all other issues.
Our government is not for sale.
Our brave soldiers did not die for that.
We turn 250 in eight years.
$250 limit ammendment.
Our early birthday present to America.
5
Brilliant. Couldn't agree more.
I am starting to see the political arena in terms of interests. Our founders had lots of interests, property, economic wealth, slavery, but they put these in perspective to build a nation to which they could pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.
Our era sees a president who is little more than a lobbyist who got elected. His interests are solely the gratification and wealth of him and his close family; any other feigned interest relates to maintaining a winning voting bloc, the segments of which he deals with in an entirely transactional manner. (That's why he'll pick a SC justice who will overturn abortion rights; that's the deal with evangelical Christians.)
I look hard, often in vain, for candidates for office who are running because of their vision and passion for this country, conservative or liberal. I fear such motivation, the only valid one in my mind, is increasingly lacking in the political class, especially as modeled at the top.
We have a president/real estate tycoon who met with the world's premier murderer and dictator and came away jazzed about the development prospects on the beaches.
Trump, in contradistinction to the founders, has pledged to enrich his life, increase his fortune, and suffocate any protests from his sacred honor.
RE: "Unlike liberalism, with its philosophy of abstract human rights"
You mean "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."?
or "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Concepts of abstract ideas, including human rights, id what sets us apart from creatures operating on little more than instinct. They are the essence of humanity. Since these foundation words hold forth ideas of values that extend beyond basic survival and procreation instincts they are all a "philosophy of abstract human rights".
Where is the conservative dismissal of money as an abstract idea?
How can you be a conservative in a country whose motto is "Novus ordem Secloram" A new age now begins?
Our political discoussions are handicapped by politcal nomenclature that differs from the rest of the worlds. What we call liberals the rest of the world calls Social Democrats, what we call conservatives the rest of the world calls Liberals or Radicals (followers of 19th century Manchester liberals.) Actual conservatives in this country are an elite minority with no political base. The Republican Party starting witn Nixon shifted from Manchester Liberalism to ethno-Nationalism with Trump being the apotheosis of the change.
‘...he has lost the sense that there is a civilization out there that stands above his deals and his tweets in a posture of disinterested judgment.’
Judgement by the civilization next door is not born of disinterest. We are both transfixed and abhorred.
This article may well have been titled "What Scruton Does Not Get about Trump." At the core of Trumpism is a rebellious nihilism no more sophisticated than that of a 7 year old. Having despaired of ever truly being recognized or heard by their government (and having been taught by the GOP that government is incapable doing anything productive but intervene in Mid-East conflicts) Trump's base has taken up Steve Bannon’s goal of setting fire to the “Administrative
State.” And destruction seems to be the sole aim of this Administration and its base.
Trump could care less about any consistent political or moral philosophy. He doesn't "get" conservatism because he could care less about any thoughtful approach to governing either the nation or himself. The pretense of declaring that somehow Trump is just misguided in his philosophical approach is a weak stage upon which Scruton pontificates to no avail. It's like handing a 4 year old one of Einstein's theories so he can make paper airplanes out of the pages.
Bannon uses the evocative term
“deconstruction,” borrowing from
literary critical theory, which suggests
that his intent is to destroy
the very ability of government to
comprehend and express the will
and intent of any political party.
Fed on the steady diet of hate,
conspiracy and fear over the last
5
So if I am understanding Mr. Scruton correctly, Trump is no true Scotsman. When we think of conservatives we should not think of the flailing of Trump or the obstructionism of Mitch McConnell or perhaps the close defeat of Roy Moore. Instead we should look back to the heart of old conservationism as shown in it's true form by Tomas Jefferson. I apologize but to me this rings as hollow hand wringing. It is a statement that the author agrees in principal with the goals of modern conservatives but is hesitant to align himself publicly with a group that is increasingly cast out from educated society as their once shrouded values of racism and classism become more obvious. I personally view this as a re-writing of history to pretend that Trump and his actions are some sort of random disaster caused by his lack of knowledge or philosophy, as opposed to a continuation of polices that have driven the republican party since the time of Ronald Reagan. Mr. Scruton if you want to talk about "true conservatism" I suggest you start teaching at university with the course listed under history, if you want to comment on modern politics then you must view the current Republican party as how it is, not how you wish it was.
2
I started reading National Review 53 years ago. Russia is William F. Buckley jr's dream conservative state. I do not understand this op-ed Mr. Trump certainly seems to understand what American conservatism is all about. I can't think of anything as conservative as Putin's Russia.
One hundred and one years ago Mexico nationalized its oil industry and William F. Buckley Sr. called for a war on Mexico but Buckley Oil moved to Venezuela.
Russia has a state religion and Gorsuch would easily sit on Russia's Highest Court. Nunez and Jim Jordan would be comfortable in the Dumas, Russia is the most conservative nation in Europe. What is it that Trump fails to grasp? What pray tell is the difference between Trump's Cabinet and Putin's closest oligarchs? Trump may well leave office as rich as Putin.
"Unlike liberalism, with its philosophy of abstract human rights, conservatism is based not in a universal doctrine but in a particular tradition." Human rights are not an abstraction. The lack of them were the bedrock causes which gave rise to and inspired Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. We were not just divorcing ourselves administratively from England; we were declaring ourselves free of its tyranny. That is not some squishy, feel-good "abstract" idea, but a rather concrete one. which was followed by rather concrete battles and bloodshed to secure our freedom. It wasn't until *after* that idea became a reality that we got about the business of forming a government and ratified a charter to secure it. Human rights are abstractions. How absurd.
"Each time I think I have hit the nail on the head, the nail slips to one side and the hammer blow falls on my fingers."
That sounds exactly like what Trump is doing, except in his case, the hammer is pounding US while his fingers remain safe so he can use them to create even more ill advised tweets.
Among political theorists, it is an abecedarian truth that classical social conservatism (Burke, Oakshotte, etc.) and libertarian conservatism (Hayek) share little in the way of principles. Scruton is tilting at windmills if he thinks American conservatives (anymore) are Burkeans. Perhaps the point is that they have no principles at all. Nasty things, those, get in the way and all that...
Typical of a conservative to lay the ills of tariffs on "socialist" Europe, once again showing selective amnesia about the history of tariffs here, including Smoot-Hawley, which helped usher in the Great Depression. Hard as they might scrub, conservative can't rid their hands of the stains they got when helping bring in the era of Trump. It is conservative thought that has opposed such things as voting rights for women, equal rights for all, minimum wage standards and strong unions. Donald Trump ran as a Republican because conservative hands built the road he came in on.
2
"Those first words of the United States Constitution do not refer to all people everywhere. They refer to the people who reside here."
If, in the true Conservative view, the rights of "We the People," defended by the Constitution's architecture and fenced round by prohibitions in the Bill of Rights limiting what government, even "our" government, can do, pertain fully only to U.S. citizens and legal residents, then Trump has grasped the essence of Conservatism. Trump is no deviation, then, but Conservatism's quintessence. Such a Conservatism embodies a fundamentally ugly, illiberal impulse which has periodically grasped the reins of power, riding bigotry, fear, anxiety, resentment, xenophobia and every other division among the People it can stoke and exploit for the gain, in history, as today, of its wealthy masters.
"Our political inheritance is not the property of humanity in general but of our country in particular."
Excuse me, Mr. Scruton, I quote another founding American document you seem to have forgotten:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
If you believe as you do, there is nothing more un-American and uninspiring than your Conservatism. This country's value to its citizens and to peoples around the world depends on so much more than your crabbed exclusionary notion of our inheritance.
I am quite surprised to hear that conservatives inherently value education since for the past 30 or so years they have constantly cut budgets of our once-great colleges and universities. Trump has stated that he really likes the uneducated, as most con artists do.
4
It is a serious mistake to describe what is happening in the United States as a battle between liberals and conservatives,
Discussion of Edmund Burke and John Locke in the context of Trump is not relevant to Trump's behavior. Trump is a classic extreme narcissist with no true philosophy to guide him. He is driven by endless greed and deep-seated racism. Trump is always the winner. and the best of everything is owed to him. He has no knowledge or experience and cannot separate his presidential role from his personal business life. We just learned that he wanted to invade Venezuela putting countless lives at risk just because he felt like it.
Trump has no understanding or respect for the Constitution, no respect for American traditions and cannot distinguish the Apprentice Reality TV show from truly governing our nation. Trump could not even define the word "Conservative". That millions of American's could be conned into believing that Trump and the powerful billionaires behind him would look after their welfare is also testament to the strength of the entrenched Fox/Breibart propaganda machine, which is the voice of the super-wealthy ultra-right wing extremists that have taken over our country.
True Conservatives who still have respect for America. need to join forces with those of any political party who see Trump for the disaster he represents and who see the Republican Party for what they have become.
3
I should think the first paragraph of this article should be enough to give the author pause as to any real "worth" of conservatism.
It's an outdated philosophy.
Not only is the official unofficial motto of the Republican Party—"no one deserves anything they can't pay for themselves"—out of date, it's also antithetical to the future of this country. That being the necessity of sharing the resources of our planet so all have the human right of survival.
Trump is the poster child for these old and unsuccessful ways.
It will take something like the collapse of the world economy for people to come to their senses.
The author's ideas about "conservative" may have some value. But his ability to brush off the idea of human equality as liberal exposes his "conservative worth" only for white males, as guaranteed by the Constitution. The Magna Carta was a step in the right direction for the equality of humanity and our Constitution another step. But, as written, it was badly flawed. When Republicans and Supreme Court justices cite adhesion to the original document, they ignore the real value of the document- our ability to amend (CHANGE) it.
Do we really want to put black people back into the chains of slavery and deny women the right to vote, hold office or sit on a jury?
Conservatives need to be careful what they wish for, right now it comes in the form of Donald Trump.
5
In the New World context, the ostensibly fundamental connection between conservatism and national identity that this man asserts makes no sense.
2
Mr. Scruton's objections to Donald J. Trump conservative pretensions are valid, but entirely beside the point. Trump's politics are protean and completely idiosyncratic. If Trump's political views and attitudes could be summarized in a single word, it would be revenge; payback is Trump's calling card and lies at the bitter heartof his program. That's what Trump's base wants; and to retain power, that's what Trump will give them. Disregard the consequences that inevitably follow, because the rest of the world will return the favor by repaying Trump with the same coin. Trump is the real world embodiment of the Geni the bottle, or killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Mr Scruton isn't saying anything that British philosopher and economist John Maynard Keynes hadn't written before, and stylistically much better. British conservatism, beholden to Great Britain's history and political traditions, would not and did not transfer well overseas; and in America particularly, where conservatism is the window dressing for a rapacious plutocracy. Today's conservatives appear to have jettisoned every human value except ownership of property and love of money. Self-reflection, self-respect, self-discipline, concern for honor or reputation, patriotism, all are gone. And that is conservatism's unique legacy today.
1
Am I the only one weary of these labels? After all, one person's liberal mind is a dangerous thing to others. Another person's conservative thinking is frightening to yet another group.
I would like to hear more about things that work. Social and financial systems that are guided by sensible long term planning. Budgets that evoke a modicum of realistic responsibility and invest in infrastructure and the health, welfare and education of EVERY citizen. You can't really label that, but people will try.
Pidgeon holing, condemning without carefully evaluating, demonizing instead of understanding - this is what is popular and a Bully at the top whips up tribal warfare in what was supposed to be the best country ever.
These labels don't mean anything anymore. I would like us to talk about:
1. Financial responsibility
2. Humility
3. Tolerance
4. Compassion
5. Practical planning
6. Infrastructure "space race"
7. "Cheaper, better" health care
8. Less expensive internet
9. International cooperation and unity
10. Saving our oceans
11. Food and water quality - safety!!!
So much more .... enough of this philosphical posturing .... lets get to work and fix some stuff, no?
No president has ever been more popular with Conservatives than Donald Trump, so there must be something Mr. Scruton doesn't get about Conservatives. Mr. Trump's themes of greed, exclusion and gleeful cruelty resonate deeply with the beliefs of American Conservatives.
I wouldn't include Thomas Jefferson as a conservative. He would be my definition of a liberal, at least by the standards of his time.
Mr. Scruton's closing remark is the most trenchant in his essay. A sense of the Western tradition, and of its ideals of statesmanship, as exemplified by leaders as divergent as George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama, dovetails with conservatism's respect for the past, its desire to conserve the best elements of that past and its sense of the individual as beholden and responsible to those who came before--principles of which President Trump is either ignorant or disdainful. Russell Kirk said conservatism was less an ideology than a set of personality traits: a preference for measured, gradual change, a regard for the practices and tradiitions communities develop over time as these preserve their values and way of life , a distrust of large institutions and of the "big ideas" that often inform them, a sense of human nature as deeply flawed and broken, requiring strong constraints, ideally by virtue of culture and collective values, to check our worser tendencies, a consequent humility, especially with respect to the perfectability of society, leading to distrust of utopian projects, and a commitment to reason, dignity, and restraint, in private and public life. President Trump's impetuosity, rashness, presumption, and recklessness, his love of disruption and his penchant for sowing discord and chaos, as well as his clear dislike of anything that constrains him, make the very antithesis of a conservative.
1
Trump may know little about conservatism.
But he is completely a product of movement conservatism.
Buckley may have banished the John Birchers from the movement, but he and his ilk welcomed the Dixiecrats with open arms, and Ronald Reagan nurtured their grievances over civil rights by adopting their states’ rights mantra.
Today, they have fully taken over the conservative movement. Conservatism in America nurtured the fleas. Now it has to live with them as long as it remains tied to the Republican Party.
3
By mentioning "we the people" in the Constitution Mr Scruton argues that our social order exists only for our own citizens, not for everyone. But he ignores an older foundational document, the Declaration of Independence, which states that "all men [people] are created equal . . . endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights." From this, the Liberal tradition argues that our social order is hope and goal of all persons everywhere, and that, as such, it must serve the poor, the marginalized, the outsider, the refugee.
3
So, Mr. Trump is looking a bit shaky on "The Great Tradition." But what is that tradition? Mr. Scruton is probably correct in observing that now the GOP represents traditional social values - education (which they want to destroy), culture (which they're hostile to), religion (political tool and a vehicle for social control), marriage (political wedge issue that imposes neo-Puritan values on all citizens) - more than it represents conservative economic principles.
And we've seen those conservative economic principles in action. The "efficient market" has given us major market meltdowns every ten years: Black Monday, Dot-Com crash, Lehman Brothers - Mortgage Meltdown. What those markets are efficient in doing is destroying trillions in household wealth, wrecking decades of retirement savings, permanently dislocating workers who never recovered their pre-crash jobs and income, and creating robust opportunities for vulture capital to come in an clean up financially on the scrap-salvage operation.
Yes, The Great Tradition has a long and illustrious track record of hypocrisy, perfidy, self-interest over the common good, imposing reactionary values, intolerance, racism, corruption, and counterproductive legislation: Prohibition was an overwhelming victory for naïve moralism and traditional conservative values.
Where does Trump fit into this glorious tradition? Right in there with Big Jim Fisk, Jay Gould, William Randolph Hearst, and Bernie Madoff.
1
Under Donald Trump, “We, the people” has become “I, the people.”
The far right wing political movement that began in the 1970's has been working ever since to effect this transformation, and, too late, traditional conservatives are beginning to understand just how badly it has damaged conservatism as well as liberalism in America.
What traditional conservatives appalled at Trump's actions dance around, and can't quite bring themselves to admit, is that American conservative philosophy has more in common with American liberalism than the far right wing populism that has taken over the Republican Party and anointed Donald Trump as its leader; that many of the shared political ideals and traditions that all Americans used to be devoted to, including conservatives, before the demagogues and profit-seekers of the right wing began attacking and undermining them, are *liberal* ones.
Our “shared political inheritance” includes the American system of government in which “individual rights and freedoms are officially recognized and protected, and the exercise of political power is limited by the rule of law” - the very definition of *liberal* democracy. (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/liberal_democracy).
The movement that spawned Donald Trump’s presidency has stripped conservative America of its liberalism, and in so doing, has removed conservatives from the ranks of the guardians and beneficiaries of that inheritance, and has made them its destroyers.
2
Like the recent Brooks article, this one defines Conservatism in ways that have almost nothing to do with what Conservatism actually is. Only this one is weirder, because it starts off by talking about how important it is to Conservatism that “US rights are only for US citizens” - in other words, nativism. That’s remarkably shallow.
Also, Jefferson as a Conservative? What? That’s some astounding historical revisionism. The man who cut out large sections of the Bible to eliminate the mysticism and leave the philosophy? The man who was the architect of a radical new form of government designed to defend the citizenry against the abuses of authoritarianism? Scruton seems to think anyone who lived a few centuries in the past was automatically a Conservative, just because they’re well regarded now by Conservatives.
5
Indeed Jefferson a conservative! Finally the NYTimes actually contributes some fake news.
For me Trump is a pragmatist. Perhaps what he does have of Conservatism is that he parctices Realpolitik. Perhaps this is what Henry Kissinger taught him or showed him.Unlike a very Liberal and Utopian Socialist such as Obama and B. Clinton or an original utopian like Pres Wilson. President Trump is paving his way for more Americana like policies, isolationist yes, but well grounded on the real factors of power: We, the People!
Humble observation from a South American conservative that likes President Trump very much. I continue seeing an 8 year tenure.
Pragmatism is actually one of the very few truly American philosophical traditions (see "School of Chicago").
But I suppose that you're not referring to any philosophy here, and rather to a pragmatist as someone who looks at real problems and then comes up with real, evidence-based solutions rather than ideological theories?
If yes: time and again, as soon as you start fact-checking Trump's claims and "solutions", you cannot but observe that ALL scientific studies proving what is true on this or that issue, completely contradict his "solutions" - and often even his idea of the problem itself.
It's not enough to like what he says to call him a pragmatist.
Just one example: healthcare.
The independent CBO had shown that Obamacare would curb cost increases (for the federal government as well as for ordinary citizens) all while covering 20 million more people and saving an additional 40,000 American lives a year. That was BEFORE Congress voted on it. Today, all studies indeed show that that's what it has accomplished.
Candidate Trump promised to do even better, and to replace it with his own plan, that would cover even more Americans, and at even lower costs.
Today, we know that that plan never existed. Instead, he signed a tax reform bill into law that is 100% based on the typical globalist GOP ideology, doubles the deficit, AND destroys the healthcare of 13 million Americans all while increasing premiums by another 30% for the others.
How do you call that "pragmatic"?
What is perplexing to me is how if trust, as Scruton maintains, exists in America, and we have no more precious asset than mutual loyalty, so many conservatives neglect to acknowledge what has fostered such loyalty.
Scruton still praises Adam Smith, but in the age of Trump Smith's idea that economic self-interest can lead to desirable social ends seem almost laughable to me. Scruton himself points out that the assets that lead to mutual loyalty are not guaranteed by human nature and "exist only because Americans have fought for them." Does he forget that the things we have fought for include labor unions, a progressive tax system, and market regulations?
I like nothing about Donald Trump, but one thing he does seem to understand is that there is very little mutual loyalty in this country anymore. He knows that by seeming to appeal to the self-interest of his base, he can win in the short run. But in the long run the idea that economic self-interest leads to socially desirable ends is suspect. Isn't it just the opposite? When we level the playing field, expand opportunity, and prevent the consolidation of money and power by regulating the market, the system works better for more people, fostering mutual loyalty. It is then that the love, art, and knowledge Scruton speaks of can flourish.
4
The present state of conservatism is not about Trump. It’s about his self-described conservative followers. Given their support for Trump’s every absurd move, what does this say about these crowds of conservatives? Mostly it says they hate non-conservatives and find all problems have been due to them –Democrats in general and most minorities, gays, many women, etc. So act in opposition to those people’s wishes. That is what most “conservatives” are today.
Roger Scruton has a different take on this. He focuses on the abstract notion of “conservatism,” in spite of his desire to be rooted in history and not abstraction. Then he makes the claim that “National identity [not abstract values] is the origin of the trust on which political order depends.” He admits that original intention is impossible and use of the constitution requires reform [of this identity?]. Of course, it is difficult to agree on how much and what sort of reform is best. He denigrates liberals for favoring abstract rights, but then himself “cherishes what cannot be bought and sold,” –clearly things abstract. And finally Scruton bemoans the loss of “the sense that there is a civilization out there,” something obviously beyond and above the nation that he so values.
Like other conservatives, he is trying to distance himself from responsibility for Trump and his followers, but has difficulty finding the words and ideas.
Originalism - reform?
Concrete - abstract?
Nation - civilization?
Whew!
13
You define the philosophical core of conservatism. However, I think conservatism today is a brand name like Coke. The erudite discussions were about European Nations ages ago. Burke and Locke were Brits, Rousseau was French etc. The term nation is not fully accurate for The US which broke the mold by establishing not a culturally pure "nation" but a multicultural "state". Nationalism almost destroyed Europe. When we examine conservatism in our country the spasms set off by emancipation and immigration of, gasp! Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans and, Chinese lead to John Birch, Jim Crow and racism before William Buckley tried to refine it.
I found a report citing 17 types of conservatism. But mostly there are a few of you philosophers, many more fiscal conservatives who represent businesses, wealth and privileged, who admire Adam Smith and the majority, social conservatives who are religious and/or cultural purists who oppose the cultural change and diversity that we are experiencing.
I propose another definition of conservative. I think many "good guy" men and women like farmers, military men, nurses, police, firemen, small town residents etc, think of conservatism as honor, discipline, prudence, service and respect. This is not Burkian, but uses the same brand name and may explain the contradiction between erudite and common conservatism. This conservatism does not contradict liberalism and should be welcomed. We lose good people to the money due to a brand name.
1
Mr. Scruton insists that "conservative thinker's primary concern is with the aspects of society in which markets have little or no play:
education, culture, religion, marriage and family".
And that is the crux of the matter, especially when it comes to the Supreme Court.
As for education, it is being eroded by this very government's Secretary lack-of-Education, Betsy DeVos.
As for culture, it is white culture,
As for religion, despite the separation of church and state, it is based on majority white Evangelicalism, picking and choosing from their Old and New book and the Constitution whatever fits into their antiquated world view.
As for marriage and family, that only applies to heterosexual couples.
Despite Mr. Scruton not agreeing with the president on some matters, it is no wonder that he applauds his appointments to Scotus.
3
Good opinions and I applaud the other wing when it is thoughtful and patriotic. But this is what trump is not and never has been. To anyone who has been watching, he is totally out for himself, like an evil King. Thus, anyone on the right that wants this guy as president is not a patriot - plain and simple.
Therein lies the paradox... if ones politics create the conditions for trump the King then those politics are faulty and unAmerican. The conditions must be changed, which is why concerned conservatives ask voters to vote for Democrats this fall.
No one wants a King. Conservatives know exactly how and why it came about. They played Gingrich and McConnell hardball for years and so this King and an unfunny Tea Party is what they got.
Conservatism is a ‘let them eat cake’ philosophy that proposes to tell ‘them’ how, where, with whom, and when they can eat the cake. Providing a way to get the cake- not the conservative’s problem.
5
A major flaw in this piece is the absence of addressing the fact that Trump grew like mold from the Republican Party.
Republicans have long claimed they are conservatives, but the claims are nothing but lies. Which explains Trump, who does nothing but lie.
"Institutions, traditions and allegiances survive by adapting, not by remaining forever in the condition in which a political leader might inherit them. Conservative thinkers have in general understood this." Really? That doesn't apply to Republicans who insist that our Constitution is not a living document, but must be understood precisely as it was understood in 1787. (Except when it comes to the 2nd Amendment; then Republicans insist the authors of the Constitution didn't mean "a well regulated militia." They insist everyone has a right to own military guns.)
The only thing conservative about Republicans is their unwillingness to accept people who don't look like them, their unwillingness to spend a dime to help someone in need and of course their need to have government legislate and police everyone's sex lives while complaining that government is too intrusive in regulating banks, corporations and risky money making ventures.
Republican conservatism is pure farce. And that is the best way to understand Trump. He is a farce of a president, farce of a man, farce of a conservative. And yet Republicans cheer him on.
So Mr. Scruton focus on Republicans if you want to know what Trump is and how the mold spread.
5
Exactly. I think Scalia would laughed at this essay and then called it "balderdash." By its definition, conservatives don't adapt, for the notion itself is liberalism.
It's fine to define Conservatism based on literary history. But that definition has very little to do with how it is practiced in the United States today.
1
Quote of the week: "I did not foresee the political career of Donald Trump, nor did I imagine that such a man could occupy the highest office of state, in the name of a party that specifically makes appeal to conservative voters. " For decades the party has been replacing appeals to reason with dog whistles and less subtle messages to drive increase anger and reduce trust in other Americans who aren't Republicans.
Using a heartland kind of metaphor, when Trump showed up, the soil had already been tilled and seeded. He merely threw on some more "fertilizer" and it was harvest time.
Please stop saying this wasn't predictable. You are a Republican, AKA the smart people's party, right?
1
That Trump is incapable of understanding any political principles is the least of his flaws. And we shouldn't look to thinkers like Edmund Burke or Adam Smith to understand his approach to government. We should look to his actual mentors, Roy Cohn and Tony Salerno. In fact, Trump's fairly recent conversion to conservatism followed from the opportunity he sensed after the moral disasters of previous Republican administrations. Like Trump, they too disguised their low, venal ambitions behind high ideological principle. And Trump basks in the admiration of Republicans for doing so. The sooner we wake up to the essentially criminality of the GOP, the better.
7
Trump, like his supporters, could care less about political philosophy. He cares about money and he doesn’t care how he gets it, though he prefers illegally since it makes him feel like a member of a very special club.
1
The special club he really wants is the group that reads the New York Times.
Mr. Trump currently defines himself as both a conservative and a Republican. That is all it takes to qualify! Neither category is the type of island that others can kick somebody off of. (The office of president is the sort of island we could eventually vote him off of.) It is up to other self-identified conservatives and Republicans to choose whether Mr. Trump's definitions continue to carry the day.
Trump appears completely disinterested in policy, much less conservatism. His sole goal seems to be building his demagoguery, ideas he can reduce to one- to three-word chants to stir fear, anger and adoration at his rallies. Build-the wall; drain-the-swamp, lock-her-up. Get the rhythm?
2
Interesting philosophical view of conservatism.
I must have missed the part with the total obsession about women's reproductive organs - that seems to be the defining aspect of American conservatism today. And where was the part again about the "Southern Strategy", States' Rights and blatant racism? Another nice aspect of modern American conservatism.
The constitution specifically states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Hmmm... how does that fit in with the marriage of the Republican Party with the religious right?
And knowledge? Who needs science?
The author does mention "family", but I assume this is family à la "Leave it to Beaver" - nice, white, Dad at "the office", Mom finding complete fulfillment in baking cupcakes and ironing shirts. No sex outside of marriage, no gay couples, if big sister got knocked up, she would conveniently disappear for a while. Blatant discrimination against other races, but hey, it was a great society, let's go back to it!
Conservatives recently had a lot of problems with a nice family that shared similar values in all aspects except for skin color. It was OK for slaves to build the White House, but for their descendants to live in it, that was just too much for most conservatives to swallow.
Trump only picked up the subliminal messages the Republicans were sending for the past 50 years and broadcast them loud and clear to his followers.
14
All these "conservatives" write as if the Constitution specifies anything about the rights and powers of the people reserved from government. The document enumerates only the specific powers delegated to the federal government, specific limitations to the uses of those powers, and the organization of the government. All this business about it recording any rights of the people, other than its utterly warped scheme of representation, is fantasy. This is how we have no freedom from religion and constant insults like being beholden to the God Loves Guns Cult that has this nation terrorized by an unregulated militia.
5
The US Bill of Rights begin with"We hold that all men are created equal." This is not conservatism,liberalis or whatever ism. It is a universal truth and is the foundation of the United States. Trump, thru the Supreme Court has "reinterpreted" this mean to say "We hold some men are created equal_ namely white men".
5
The passage you cite comes not from the Bill of Rights but the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution and its Bill of Rights does not as I recall discuss how humans were created but seeks to establish a system whereby citizens would be treated as equals. In the subsequent two and a half centuries, our nation has struggled with those who seek to inhibit the citizenship rights of those they wish to see as “less equal.”
2
The greatest "conservative" figure was of course the king who ended all the arguments with his whim or will. That ideal is being trotted around again by guess who.
6
And yet, isn't it true that this Republican president has let loose a tide of "cultural pessimism that surely goes entirely against the American grain?" Hasn't he turned the GOP from a conservative party into the angry voice of white nationalism -- proclaiming that this country is under siege by Muslims and Mexicans and Asians and Atheists? And hasn't he proclaimed that he and only he stands between that self-selected "us" and the "carnage" all those "thems" are plotting to inflict on the US?
Isn't his whole appeal based on protecting a narrowing sliver of Americans from imaginary threats? There is no appeal to truly conservative principals. There is no respect for the rule of law, or for the institutions handed to us by earlier generations, for the thought and labor of those who built the society we inherited. Only this President's momentary pique drives his policies.
By their silence, true, principled conservatives -- the few who still exist in modern American politics -- have sold out their inheritance, all to ride a blustering, bullying narcissistic tiger. And this can't end well: Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind.
3
Donald Trump alone of all the candidates from both parties understood perfectly the existential threat to this country's nationhood: open borders policies desired by the greedy and dishonest leaders of the DNC and the GOP.
Trump alone acted on this threat. Mr. Scrunton is either being disingenuous or naive when he chooses to hector this president on the subject of preserving America.
He, like many of his allegedly conservative peers, should take a hard look at their actions -- and the cash they take from the open borders advocating Koch brothers to run their publications -- and consider how they have failed to honor the consefvatism they laim to espouse.
Trump conservatism (very popular among Republicans!) is merely reactionary Know-Nothingism.
If a "liberal" likes it, they react by detesting it..then prioritize passionate anti-immigrant, anti-"elite", pro-white nativism.
All of this has to be delivered in a way that makes "elites" cringe and others feel profoundly embarrassed. THAT'S strong leadership.
Voila'!
1
Traditional Republicans conservatism as a working philosophy is dead. It has no advocates in the halls of government.
The Koch brothers manufactured the fake grass-roots Tea Party which in turn was taken over by Trump who in turn trashed the standard bearers of conservatism. They created a Frankenstein monster, and the monster has now overtaken them.
Trump and his followers have no interest or patience to consider the finer philosophic points of so-called Conservatism. Trump voters are not the fringe of the Republican party, but the center and massive bulk of it all.
Now that self-defined conservatives like Misters Scruton, Brooks, and Douthat are no longer welcome by the Republican party, where will they go?
5
This is an interesting piece in that it, at least for me, raises a couple of interesting points. First, I doubt that he often sits down and reads anything this long. And given that material like this is not often, if ever, aired on popular TV or radio one should expect Trump not to know anything about it.
However I don't believe his lack of reading to be the primary reason he is not a true conservative. Trump has only one guiding light - himself. Narcissists will adopt any mode that provides them the most easily gained and the greatest amount of attention. And by feeding on xenophobia, racism and misogyny he has exactly what he needs.
So, I suppose for those who are under the impression there is a thinking person somewhere in the frontal cortex of Donald Trump, Mr Scruton's op ed piece is an important reminder of what the GOP has wrought. But....
Any article, newscast, radio broadcast, podcast, editorial or what have you that has as a premise of Donald Trump as a rational, thinking being has it dead wrong in my opinion. Of course Donald Trump doesn't understand conservatism, nor economics, nor science, or philosophy, etc. etc. He doesn't even understand himself, but like any good parasite his instincts have made him viable and one can say he's good at what he does, which is really bad for the rest of us - even when the outcome seems good or benign from one view or the other.
I can play the "let me tell you how it is" game too...
...
Conservatives break things.
Liberals fix and improve them.
You can't have one without the other. Mild conservatives don't break things enough to necessitate a fix. They just feed their wealthy friends with sweetheart deals and corporate welfare. Liberals without a huge mess to clean up just nibble at the edges, feathering their nests and feeding their wealthy friends with sweetheart deals and corporate welfare.
In long periods of stability, the powers become entrenched, corrupt, slothful, and petty. Then along comes a Buchanan, a Hoover, or a Trump and the rot is exposed. The reaction is a Lincoln, a Roosevelt, and hopefully a democratic socialist. The most progress is made after we hit the bottom. Trump's policies will crash and burn. He's already doing what all modern conservatives do: overspend and under-provide. Add to that his total lack of economic understanding and his crash will be much more profound than any recession that a Bush or a Reagan could provide.
4
Nowadays every political argument should define its main premise.
a- The leader is insane and so on as well as his or her main supporters.
b- The leader is insane and so on but not his or her main supporters.
c- The leader is sane and so on as well as his or her main supporters.
d- The leader is sane and so o, but not his or her main supporters.
For those of us who are of the opinion that the premise a- is the correct one, the discussion of an insane and so on's person is interesting, but totally irrelevant.
1
Conservative or right-wing? Most of the political stuff from Fox is right-wing, although they rattle conservative over and over. Burn-baby-burn (Palin) is explicitly not conservative, merely destructive (and stupid).
We liberals can always respect a conservative and note that George Will (an actual conservative) will vote against what is now a right-wing Republican party.
Let's make a list. It is not conservative to force a woman to obey a federal law regarding her own body (violates 4th amendment). It is not conservative to claim that right-wing militias constitute a "well regulated militia" (inconsistent with the 2nd amendment). It is not conservative for a president to initiate and prosecute a war (violates the Constitution's war powers invested in Senate). It is not conservative for our current president to violate the emoluments clause. It is not conservative to position family members in the executive branch. It is not conservative to label the press an enemy of the people. There are many more, but the point is that most of what is labeled conservative today is really right-wing stuff.
3
You speak of a “cultural decline that is rapidly consigning our artistic and philosophical inheritance to oblivion.” As a U.S. youth in the 1950s, I had the luck both to attend a good public secondary school and to have a family willing and able to pay my way through a top private university. But that apprenticeship in our cultural “inheritance” was labor-intensive: my fine and highly educated teachers worked hard to guide us personally in small classes! How do you propose to keep a mass society at any such level of critical awareness if not with taxes? Will your well-born and well-heeled “conservative” colleagues foot the bill? Trump is just proof that they don’t care.
1
I’ll put it simply: if you want to pretend like things haven’t changed in 200 years and expect Americans to only live by the letter of a document over 200 years old with no flexibility, then don’t be surprised when you are treated as if your ideas are largely dated, stale and dead. Time and age are savage and unforgiving, and now thanks to the internet all those younger people know that all the ghost stories about all those awful city people and those glory tales about mining coal are lies.
1
Many in these comments balk at the word conservative, taking it to mean stagnation and ossification of the old and tired in opposition to the inevitable progress and perfection of the human condition. Taking it to mean what they perceive the Republican Party to be in their partisan nightmares.
Jonathan Haidt observed in his research that conservative Americans understand liberal views, but the opposite is not true. Many comment here in such rank ignorance as to be almost parody. They straw man, hurl invective and scorn with wanton abandon knowing that they are on home territory.
Scruton has come here not as a fellow traveler, but as the stern voice of the conservative tradition. To help spread the ideas of a principled Anglo-American conservatism to those who are ignorant of its roots. He has little room available here, but he outlines here some foundations of the tradition. That conservatism is not opposed to change, but encourages it gradually and with consideration. That the locality is important, and that which once lost is not easily regained. That ideas may not actually be universal, but may be particular, that nuance cannot be relinquished.
He must do so here because of the utter lack of understanding by many of what conservatism means.
I encourage all here to read Burke, Smith, and others in full since it is likely not to be taught anymore, discarded in favor of the new and novel. Man is fallen, but I implore you all to your better angles of your nature.
The President most certainly understands the importance of the Burkean "little platoons" that bind the living, the dead, and the yet unborn. That's why the President has been in the forefront of the Culture Wars, defending the American flag as well as the various statues and monuments of Southern heritage.
President Trump knows that in order to be able to enjoy the fruits of civil society and the finer things in life, we first must have an intact nation and a secure people. It's akin to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. That's why the President has been working to secure the borders and build the wall.
As for trade question, the question becomes "who is the economy for?" President Trump knows that the economy is meant for the prosperity and safety of the American people. Industries like steel and dairy are not "dysfunctional," but essential. That's why the President understands the insight that the economist Friedrich List contributed to the "American System" in the 19th century: the tree is more important than the fruit.
Ultimately, all of these issues tie together for the President, as evidenced during the 2016 campaign when he stated: "I view the word conservative as a derivative of the word conserve...we want to conserve our country. We want to save our country." Many traditional Americans seek such salvation. That's why the President won the Electoral College 306-232.
1
The Electoral College was perverted by states for their own purposes not long after it was invented, but, like many of the failed ideas of our Constitution, it is nearly impossible to get rid of it.
Trump has made it clear that he only cares about himself and his self-aggrandizement. He does not care that his capricious decisions are hurting businesses and workers.
The difference between the political and philosophical definitions of "conservative" are so extreme that different words need to be used.
3
“Their [conservatives’] primary concern is with the aspects of society in which markets have little or no part to play: education, culture, religion, marriage and the family. ”
It’s important to note the absence of medicine/medical care from the above list of “aspects of society in which markets have little or no part to play”. I think this omission speaks volumes about the true nature of modern “conservatives “ and those who support it by polishing its ugliness with cynical sophistry. We The People will not, in the end, be fooled.
6
Mr. Scruton argues that Trump embraces conservatism by “seeking a Supreme Court that applies the Constitution, rather than one that constantly revises it, regardless of the elected legislature.” Yet, in the next paragraph argues “we must reform in order to conserve” and that “[i]nstitutions, traditions and allegiances survive by adapting, not by remaining forever in the condition in which a political leader might inherit them.” Well, if the Constitution is the basis upon which our institutions, traditions and allegiances are rooted, then how can they adapt to life’s changing conditions in order to conserve if those tasked with applying the Constitution are forced to apply its precepts within the confines of the country’s conditions in 1787 when the Constitution was drafted?
Further, Mr. Scruton and his fellow conservatives’ trope about demanding Justices who will enforce the Constitution as written is belied by the fact those same Justices are more than happy to stray from such requirements when doing so is convenient to the conservative agenda. Want proof? Corporations are people with First Amendment rights and entitled to protection of their religious freedoms. Something tells me the Constitution framers collectively turned on their graves when the conservative Justices handed those decisions.
7
Unfortunately, we are way beyond a government embodying either a traditional liberal philosophy or a traditional conservative philosophy. Rather, the politicians feign allegiance to one of these philosophies but pursue their parochial interests. Thus, it is easy to list numerous policies, court decisions, and advocated actions that belie true conservatism. The real beneficiaries are the oligarchic elites.
4
Could you please explain how Obamacare, insuring 20 million more Americans, is nothing but "politicians pursuing their parochial interests" ... ?
Or the Paris Climate Agreement?
Or the Iran nuclear deal?
When will people understand this? Trump is not a conservative, populist, nationalist, or any other ideology. He has no plan, policy, or strategy. Trump is seriously mentally ill, afflicted with a severe form of narcissistic personality disorder. Everything he says and does is intended to promote his own self-interest and bolster his self-esteem. There is no other point or purpose for him. He is the most powerful narcissist in the history of the world. God help us.
7
Conservatism no longer means that. It now means, total, unquestioning loyalty to Trump. Welcome to Trumpistan.
5
Roger Scruton is a philosopher’s philosopher but to imagine Donald Trump “grasping” anything but avarice is pure folly. “What Trump Doesn’t Get About Conservatism” is the same as “What Trump Doesn’t Get About Being Human.”
10
This piece is not up to the standard set by the other contributors to the The Stone.
I am tired of conservatives who lie to themselves as an excuse to lie to the world. Since Nixon, a foundational principle of the conservative movement has been white racism. Regan talked about Welfare Queens. Bush talked about Willie Horton. Trump has taken over America's conservative movement because he shouted openly what the genteel conservatives before his time broadcast with a dog whistle. "We the people"??? Never has a more offensive lie been told about white American conservative tradition the last 70 years. The conservative movement, at its soul, since Martin Luther King, have been his silent enemies. Rich leaders tricking not rich whites who are obsessed with keeping non whites out of white places. We the People is Hillary Clinton, who asked people like Mr. Scruton to join hands with those who are different. The conservative response has been Donald Trump. He is no aberration, he is the natural result of 70 years of subtle white racist race baiting.
7
Oh no. Mr. Trump fit well into the modern Conservative movement. He wouldn't have stood a chance as a Democrat - and he knew it. It had become and is a rotten apple, and the worm knew it before he entered.
3
Just for the record. Donald Trump wouldn't have had a chance as a Democrat because he is an unabashedly greedy and narcissistic individual who has no interest in furthering any agenda other than his own...Or, haven't you noticed that?
1
Donald Trump was elected because he made 'progressive' promises while blowing the fox news 'dog whistle' advocating hatred for everything 'liberal'.
Trump is not a conservative, he is a con-man; in the same way that Fox News is not a conservative news organization, it is a propaganda outlet for anarchist-capitalism; in the same way that the Republican Party is no longer conservative... rather it is a Macy's Day parade-balloon, 'hot-airing' conservative bumper sticker phrases, while actually implementing 'Rockefeller/ Railroad' Monopoly tactics and corrupting lawmakers and judges.
Stop pretending these people are various shades of 'Conservative'. They are gangsters.
13
Please spare us the political philosophy. Donald Trump's conceptions go no deeper than the latest thing he heard on Fox News.
5
Trump's Conservatism: Conserve the Wealth and Power of White America and fan the flames of reaction against the unstoppable demographics that will make White America a minority in our lifetime. No matter how many helpless, huddled immigrant masses Trump turns away.
MAGA = MAWA.
6
You mention art,culture and education, none of which #45 is interested in. He is the barbarian in chief, trying to tear down civilization.
7
Don‘t act like every “Conservative” in America doesn’t own FULL RESPONSIBILITY for Donald John Trump.
YOUR choices.
Own it.
8
Before we talk about liberal and conservative ideals, we need to look at the people who profess them.
America’s working men and women -- the people who voted for Roosevelt and Truman and Eisenhower and Johnson -- would never have voted for a crude, ignorant slob like Trump.
We had brief respites in the years of Clinton and Obama, but seventy five years of dumbing-down in our schools and general culture has now brought us to the edge of disaster.
Liberal and conservative ideals are only as good as the people who profess them.
Donald Trump's supporters
1
"America’s working men and women -- the people who voted for Roosevelt and Truman and Eisenhower and Johnson -- would never have voted for a crude, ignorant slob like Trump."
McCain and Romney did not get elected. And, it wasn't because they were too conservative. Jeb(why) didn't get the nomination, he had the cash, but, the family name did him in. The last thing Trump voters wanted was another faux con, "Don't make waves, let's all get along, don't scare people." I bet GW Bush looks pretty good to liberals now.
And who would have thought, on "jobs day", the numbers of new jobs created, was lower than estimates. Because there are not people to fill them. And, still not tired of winning.
What a bunch of pointless blathering. You're not wrong, just irrelevant.
You may not get it since you're old and foreign, but this is a war for the soul of democratic, accountable and good-faith government. Ultimately, it will be a fight for liberty itself. "Conservatism" has been supplanted an insidious form of post-modern American fascism. Like Nazism before Trump, it was hard to foresee that something so crude could also be so slick. This is 1934, my dude.
Sure, we'll go on "reasoning" and "debating" with these perfidious cretins for some years to come, but unless we're saved by a timely and catastrophic economic collapse that somehow establishes itself in the public mind as a direct result of oligarchic "conservative" policies (extremely unlikely in my view), then disaster is on our doorstep.
As with every empire in history on the eve of it's collapse, we'll just go on deluding ourselves to the refrain that "everything's gonna be all right -- surely *they* won't let that happen!"
1
The NYT should devote a column to explain how the MSM doesn't get the Trump supporter. The Republican party is adapting to Trump while he hasn't changed his approach, they have. Their has been no reflection on how the MSM got the election so wrong, despite the NYT promise to do so.
1
And yet ... Trump's cabinet is full of the usual GOP elites (literally, as there have never been so many millionaires in one single US cabinet), doing all the things the GOP wanted to do long before Trump even existed - and most of it is the exact opposite of what candidate Trump ran on.
Example: candidate Trump promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something much better, which would, he told us, cover even more Americans, and curb cost increases even more.
As president, however, he didn't replace it with something better at all, whereas the GOP's tax reform bill, which he eagerly signed into law, DESTROYS the healthcare of a whopping THIRTEEN MILLION Americans, all while adding an additional 30% increase to premiums.
The same goes for the deficit. He would eliminate it faster than Obama did, he told us (Obama cut Bush's record, structural $1.4 trillion deficit by two thirds over 8 years, all while ending the Great Recession and creating a steadily, decade-long growing economy). Less than 2 years in office, however, he eagerly signed the usual "deficits don't matter" (as Dick Cheney famously said) GOP mentality into law, and already DOUBLED the deficit Obama left us with.
The wall? The GOP rejects it, so there won't be any wall.
Comprehensive immigration reform? Trump rejected it, rather than working with Congress in order to strengthen our borders.
All that he's doing is tweeting FN lines, and that's it.
And he lost by 3M votes, so MSM were basically right.
Oh please Roger. There is nothing conservative about Donald Trump. He is a destructive, paranoid, blockhead whose main technique of persuasion is telling outright lies, while giving every indication of sincerely believe them. . The world could use a few good, intelligent conservatives. Trump is nothing like that.
2
C'mon. All you "Conservatives" got on the bus ("because you couldn't vote for her") and signed up for the ride. Please don't tell us you didn't know what you were gonna get.
4
Before we talk about liberal and conservative ideals, we need to look at the people who profess them.
America’s working men and women -- the people who voted for Roosevelt and Truman and Eisenhower and Johnson -- would never have voted for a crude, ignorant slob like Trump.
We had brief respites in the years of Clinton and Obama, but seventy five years of dumbing-down in our schools and general culture has now brought us to the edge of disaster.
7
Sorry, but Margaret Thatcher IS conservatism now, like it or not.
And where do you get off high-jacking Jefferson from our side?
Not so fast!
4
Thanks for the column. I heard you are one of the founders of aldaily.com, one of my favorite websites. Thanks _ It is one of the best. At this point , what is interesting is that true conservatives and Liberals are on the same page in regard to Trump. I am a Liberal always, the way that you are a conservative, Trump has put us together. His flouting of all standards, all rules, his fake news ( which is destroying the reality of events in the public sphere that all of us use to make decisions ). Trump is an evil, a virus. He will destroy American values, treaties, protections, standards that we have depended on. We need to find a way to stop,. or contain him.
2
Okay, Mr. Scruton. A great many words (sorry!) to say something we all know.
Does our President care about ideas?
Gimme a break.
Does he care much about PEOPLE?
Ditto.
A lot of learned talk about conservatism (Adam Smith--Edmund Burke) and about liberalism (John Locke--Jean Jacques Rousseau).
Nothing about demagoguery. Or demagogues. Ten skilled and unscrupulous fingers MASSAGING the fears--angers--resentments of millions of people.
STOKING (to change my metaphor) those fears and angers. Riding HIGH upon angry gusts of passion so unscrupulously called up.
Making the United States--making (to some degree) the WORLD. . . .
. ..one's own ongoing reality show.
Mr. Scruton, you discourse movingly on shared traditions--community--civilization. You watch as Mr. Trump "consigns . . .. . our heritage to oblivion." My goodness! I can hear them funeral bells tolling.
Sir--he don't care about those things.
The party that supports him--they don't either.
They care about staying in power.
About their jobs.
About their meal ticket.
Let future generations worry about "postures of disinterested judgment."
They got the November elections to worry about.
Bet they ARE worrying too.
I would.
5
Common to both traditions---liberal and conservative---is along with granted freedoms, comes responsibility. In one tradition the responsibility to family and community, the other responsibility to rational thoughtfulness. Trump has lived his entire life doing his own thing with no sense of responsibility to his family, his business, and now to his country. If there is one word to described his Presidency thus far it would be: '"irresponsible."
4
Mr. Scuton's description of conservatism has little correspondence to the Republican Party that conservatives support, with the exception of the non-universalism of "We the people." Republicans have shown themselves unwilling to reform the original constitution, in fact going so far as to argue and absolutist, "originalist" interpretation of the text which apparently must not be altered, except when they want to alter it at the behest of the NRA. Second, they have quite happily protected, through permitted monopolies (e.g. the FCC rejection of net-neutrality) or support for massive, industry mergers, or maintaining subsidies for well established industries favoring those over newer technologies (e.g. fossil fuel over wind and solar). Third, the GOP seems to believe that the market can run education and other aspects of life that "are an end in themselves."
Conservatives have either abandoned their own principles, or are in the process of trying to rewrite their history so as to be palatable when the full weight of the rejection of Trumpism lands on the GOP and its fellow travelers. Their hypocrisy, self-dealing, cruelty and authoritarianism will not be forgotten by the generations behind us. We will pay a heavy price for their actions for the next couple of decades, but I believe that in the long run, they will pay a greater price.
8
The Constitution says "We the People" referring to those people then living in the thirteen colonies, excluding, of course, Native Americans and those of African descent. But the prior founding document, the Declaration of Independence said "all men are created equal endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness__That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men...." This is a statement of a universal principle not applicable only to those who reside in a certain land area. So, according to Mr. Scruton's argument the Declaration is not a "conservative" document.
8
(I think digital writing misses context, omitting real concepts and details.) Note the total avoidance of in the piece of discussing the sustained attacks on the checks of executive power, in an effort to turn the government into a constitutional kingdom by collapsing its mission with seminal bad appointments (from judges to Indian healthcare to environmental affairs), demanding due process be dropped and refusing due process to families with children seeking asylum legally; lastly, by a narrative of lies that blames allies and enemies for failings of Trump's own making!
Pramila Jayapal, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez; London Breed, Keisha Lance Buttoms, Lovely Warren, Annise Parker are not extreme but mainstream—as were 1000s at more than 800 rallies nationwide. They are the middle! What others ridicule as “free,” they see as shared.
Due Process is an American hallmark. Patriotic as the flag and fighter jets, central to the fight to preserve democracy and protect freedom, Trump denies due process to groups he trashes. Praise for the KKK no longer automatically disqualifies you from government service; a KKK supporter now works for DOJ.
ICE has become Trump's Praetorian Guard. The spear carriers of mass control and caged arrests (they say chain link fencing, floor to ceiling) uses raids, detention, separation, and deportation without due process.
There is no MS-13 border threat. MS-13 is here. What's Trump doing about MS-13 in the cities?
7
I think the most important thing that conservatives/republicans (at the very least this current bunch) don't get about conservatism, is that you do not have to be against something/everything with every waking breath.
Politics doesn't always have to be a zero sum game.
If taxes are raised (or put into line that they are fair with all income brackets paying a progressive fair share), then it is not automatic socialism and you must be against them at all costs. (even at the cost of the country) It is merely a mechanism to evenly distribute throughout society the needs to properly maintain infrastructure of all kinds, so that all can benefit, & not just a select few.
When you give someone basic human rights (that they should have anyways upon taking their first breath into this world), then your rights are not being taken away. On the contrary, they are enhanced, because you are then belonging to a stronger society that values all. (again, not just a select few)
You are living in a country that values your belief system and all that entails to be done privately and without persecution or sanction. When the state says that you can do so, but not have them trump anyone's human rights in the public square, you are not losing anything, but rather gain someone that will defend your right to pray to whatever you wish. (but privately)
Conservative is derived from conservation, which means to protect the earth, air and water. It does not mean to pollute freely.
Lot to learn.
I think the most important thing that conservatives/republicans (at the very least this current bunch) don't get about conservatism, is that you do not have to be against something/everything with every waking breath.
Politics doesn't always have to be a zero sum game. If taxes are raised (or put into line that they are fair with all income brackets paying a progressive fair share), then it is not automatic socialism and you must be against them at all costs. (even at the cost of the country) It is merely a mechanism to evenly distribute throughout society the needs to properly maintain infrastructure of all kinds, so that all can benefit, & not just a select few.
When you give someone basic human rights (that they should have anyways upon taking their first breath into this world), then your rights are not being taken away. On the contrary, they are enhanced, because you are then belonging to a stronger society that values all. (again, not just a select few) You are living in a country that values your belief system and all that entails to be done privately and without persecution or sanction.
When the state says that you can do so, but not have them trump anyone's human rights in the public square, you are not losing anything, but rather gain someone that will defend your right to pray to whatever you wish. (but privately)
Conservative is derived from conservation, which means to protect the earth, air and water. It does not mean to pollute freely.
Lot to learn.
1
I think the most important thing that conservatives/republicans (at the very least this current bunch) don't get about conservatism, is that you do not have to be against something/everything with every waking breath.
Politics doesn't always have to be a zero sum game. If taxes are raised (or put into line that they are fair with all income brackets paying a progressive fair share), then it is not automatic socialism and you must be against them at all costs. (even at the cost of the country) It is merely a mechanism to evenly distribute throughout society the needs to properly maintain infrastructure of all kinds, so that all can benefit, & not just a select few.
When you give someone basic human rights (that they should have anyways upon taking their first breath into this world), then your rights are not being taken away. On the contrary, they are enhanced, because you are then belonging to a stronger society that values all. (again, not just a select few) You are living in a country that values your belief system and all that entails to be done privately and without persecution or sanction.
When the state says that you can do so, but not have them trump anyone's human rights in the public square, you are not losing anything, but rather gain someone that will defend your right to pray to whatever you wish. (but privately)
Conservative is derived from conservation, which means to protect the earth, air and water. It does not mean to pollute freely.
Lot to learn.
2
I think the most important thing that conservatives/republicans (at the very least this current bunch) don't get about conservatism, is that you do not have to be against something/everything with every waking breath.
Politics doesn't always have to be a zero sum game. If taxes are raised (or put into line that they are fair with all income brackets paying a progressive fair share), then it is not automatic socialism and you must be against them at all costs. (even at the cost of the country) It is merely a mechanism to evenly distribute throughout society the needs to properly maintain infrastructure of all kinds, so that all can benefit, & not just a select few.
When you give someone basic human rights (that they should have anyways upon taking their first breath into this world), then your rights are not being taken away. On the contrary, they are enhanced, because you are then belonging to a stronger society that values all. (again, not just a select few) You are living in a country that values your belief system and all that entails to be done privately and without persecution or sanction.
When the state says that you can do so, but not have them trump anyone's human rights in the public square, you are not losing anything, but rather gain someone that will defend your right to pray to whatever you wish. (but privately)
Conservative is derived from conservation, which means to protect the earth, air and water. It does not mean to pollute freely.
Lot to learn.
13
Spare me! I don’t see Trump’s policies splitting randomly across the political divide. No his ideology is conservative through and through: authoritarian, rigid, maintenance of the status quo. Don’t try to wrap it up in niceties...
7
"America" may be the greatest social construct man has put fourth on this earth. It is strong and resilient, although maybe a little disoriented as of late. It's survival, and its status as a beacon of freedom and justice in the world is not guaranteed. We have a leader that disturbs the foundations of our society seemingly out of spite, self-aggrandizement, or both. Prepare yourself to defend our nation, your mission is no less important than that of the minutemen 250 years ago! Happy fourth, and God bless America!
2
Trump is not a Conservative. He is a Republican. The tragedy of modern Conservatism is that true Conservatives, like Mr. Scruton, do not scream out the difference and condemn Republicanism. Republican attacks on civil discourse, freedom of speech and of the press, tolerance of dissent, the rule of law, diplomacy, the electoral process, science, truth, and decency require no less. Yet Mr. Scruton like other Conservatives, can muster only tepid reservations about Trump and the party and movement he now leads and personifies.
4
The mystery, for me, is how conservatives justify their conviction that their morals, their beliefs, and their interpretation of the Constitution are the "correct" ones, and everyone else should be forced to follow them.
And now it is painfully obvious that their morals and beliefs were just a smoke screen, because they have basically done a 180 on them since 2016 and don't even bother defending them.
5
"Unlike liberalism, with its philosophy of abstract human rights, conservatism is based not in a universal doctrine but in a particular tradition, and this point at least the president has grasped".
You've hit the nail on the head alright. And this is exactly what is WRONG with your side and RIGHTS about ours. In fact, this is perhaps reason #1 that I am not a conservative.
But you need to chance one thing here: throw the word "abstract" out, and change it to "basic". Everyone should be granted basic human rights because they are HUMAN. And everyone should care about everyone else's human rights because THEY are human. You don't need to base anything on custom or tradition to believe this.
Indeed, the reason why conservatives are always going on about custom and tradition is because of their low estimation of human character. They tell us--in so many words--that people will always be small, petty, parochial, or else no society is possible at all. And what you don't understand is that by always imagining people as small, petty, and parochial, and always appealing to them in that manner, you help make the world that way. And THEN you turn around and accuse liberals of being naïve and elitist for not wanting to accept a small, petty and parochial world.
19
My gosh, the spirit of Edmund Burke is among us! If this were conservatism, then I would be all for it. Unfortunately, Mr. Scruton's Romantic version of conservatism is, and has always been just that, an ideal. When the Tories established legitimacy, and killed liberty across Europe in 1815, when Margaret Thatcher destroyed the trade unions and created a permanent under-class in the early 1980s, or when the Neoliberals cut taxes again and again while transforming everything, including humans and the culture dear to Scruton, into commodities, they all appealed to Burke and Smith. Civilization is a profoundly humanist ideal, and the only defenders of humanism today are those people that Scruton calls liberals, i.e. people with integrity and moral sympathy.
10
Here's the hard truth, though. Self-professed academic and business conservatives, like Mr. Scruton, will go into the voting booth in 2020 and push the button for Trump. You notice he didn't say he voted for Hillary Clinton.
Despite his high-minded ideals, you can safely assume he's a Trump voter like the other sell-outs. We all knew who Trump was, and these people voted for him anyway.
I will agree with his point that Trump is not a conservative, but as long as conservatives are voting for a label rather than their ideals, an opportunist like Trump will continue to hijack and use the Republican party for his own ends.
If conservatives want the Republican party back, they must argue that real conservatives need to vote for the Democratic party. And, they need to tell their fellow conservatives to do so also.
6
As has been widely noted, Trump is a non-establishment candidate who draws opposition from both the Democratic and Republican establishments. So, no surprise that Republican establishment commentators like Scruton have no use for Trump. Except, that is, unless Trump advocates for Republican Establishment policies like tax cuts, military-industrial complex spending, deregulation, and the promotion of anti-environmental policies. Where Trump creates problems for the Establishment Republicans are his policies that are more in line with Democratic initiatives. These include 1) infrastructure spending, 2) opposition to foreign interventionism (Trump's more like Obama than Hillary, 3) protectionism (yes, Trump is more like the Democrats who opposed NAFTA and TPP), 4) protection for Social Security and Medicare (see Trump's pledge to protect these programs, vs. Paul Ryan), and 5) immigration. Yes, immigration. See any speech by Obama, both Clintons, Schumer, and Feinstein prior to 2015 on the need to control illegal immigration. The Dems changed during the last few years because they lost the working class voting base. Prior to this, the Dems called for strict border controls. According to the NYT, Obama deported 6% more illegals in 2016 than Trump did in 2017. The Corporate establishment Republicans want more immigration to keep wages low. So, the Republican Establishment firmly opposes Trump on his Democratic learning policies.
2
Excellent points.
After one of my Republican friends finally figured out that GW Bush was a poor President, his line became "He wasn't Conservative".
We'll hear the same thing about Trump.
So-called principled conservatism seems to breed right-wing lunacy. A similar argument could be made about liberalism and the left-wing, but, right now, it isn't relevant.
Mr. Scruton thinks nobody saw it coming. I'll offer a counterexample. My father, born in 1919, told me that Rush Limbaugh was "dangerous" when Limbaugh first went on the air.
Dad knew, because he'd seen it all before.
12
The failure of conservatism is that it's like a doctor that always prescribes the same solution. Some examples of just how catastrophic it's been for the United States:
1. Conservative deregulation/failure to regulate the investment banks was the primary cause of the 2008 crisis. If it walks like a bank and talks like a bank, you regulate its risk taking. Further, when the economy tanks you do stimulus, not austerity. Thank goodness for Bernanke (ignored conservative hard money dogma) and Obama (ignored conservative faux deficit concerns) and rescued the economy.
2. Conservative tax cuts under Reagan, Bush 43, and now Trump have increased the deficit by about 3% GDP per year relative to baselines without those cuts, nearly the entire deficit amount. Trump's current policy baseline debt increase is now almost 50% higher than Obama law for the 2018-2027 period. Obama and Clinton cut the annual deficits, not the last 3 Republican Presidents.
3. Conservative policies that favor capital over labor (the actual point of conservatism) have caused record inequality and wage stagnation, tearing at the Country's fabric. It is conservatives who continue to fight for "right to work" laws and support brazen anti-union measures by corporations, despite the much higher wages that unionized workers get relative to the non-unionized. Unions are weak even in industries not subject to international competition.
4. Bump stocks! Really?
Conservatism should have died in 2008.
9
"Conservatism" has been fully exposed for what it really is; fear and greed.
The Republican Congress has made this abundantly clear. When confronted with the defense of bedrock principles of this Country and its institutions, they have expressed themselves as the party of greed and fear; these two failings inextricably connected.
The conservatism of Brooks et all is deader than a doornail and this essay is testament to this. "All men are created equal" has somehow been interpreted as all American men are created equal."
The author's mistaken interpretation of words and their broader conception is lost on the fearful and greedy. "Conservatism" in the way the author narrowly describes it, is dead and defiled. Thank your Congress of Conservatives for this.
Fakirs all. Their inclinations shown to be the selfish and fearful impulses that they are. Don't speak to us of Conservatism the pasteboard mask of smallness.
7
Yes, our natural rights, as our founding parents called them, are human rights, not confined to our country.
3
The purpose of conservatism is to hamstring progressives till they are replaced in the power structure. And once this is accomplished they betray all of their "principles" to remain in power. Trump is a new conservative, but he gets it.
6
This all sounds like gibberish to me. Nothing seems thought out. A few examples:
...The conservatives nominate Supreme Court judges who give power to corporations and take it away from workers/unions. Consequently many worker are not paid living wages. Anger and populism inevitably follow...not to mention an opioid crisis..
...Every other OECD country pays half as much as we do for health care but everyone is insured.
...Three times now we have cut taxes, but the "trickle" has not come down. However, the deficit has gone up.
...Conservatives love to gut environmental regulations. The consequence: a mess...and possibly the end of the world as we know it if we don't get a handle on sea level rise.
…In the 1950's (still under the Roosevelt reforms as well as union power), workers were becoming part of the middle class. Employers were taxed progressively and their compensation was not excessive. True, blacks were excluded, but rather than exclude more whites, which we have we have done in the last forty years, we should have INCLUDED blacks.
I don't know what conservatism or liberalism means. But I do know what we have built: too many mansions, too many yachts, too many business jets, too many private airports and fancy resorts. And now we are stuck with the upkeep of all this bling, not mentioned the coagulated brains of all those who keep this system going. We have built a superstructure for the rich rather than a infrastructure for the rest of us.
5
The author speaks of conservatism as though it is some sort of honorable institution which has boundaries. I beg to differ. Trump has done nothing more than grasp the demonstrably nefarious path of deception the right has chosen over rational processes. He is the perfect tool to further a campaign of fear and hatred intended to divide in order to attain power. The conservative right in its effort to deceive at all costs gave up any right to claim respectability. They are not who decent people are. They are not what our nation set out to be.
6
"Cultural decline" makes a nice blame-free scapegoat. But if cultures decline, it's generally connected to specific policies: the cutting of funding for education over the past thirty years, the funneling of public education monies into private hands (be they those of Pearson or those of charter enthusiasts), the systematic efforts to undo the environmental conservation efforts of the seventies and eighties...in short, yes, the Republican policies that have been in place at least since Reagan. Mr. Scruton is, I think, right in recognizing that Mr. Trump does not exemplify the best of conservatism, but the Republican party as a whole has not done so for decades, either--and they've been the ones to make the majority of our policy for a long, long time. Blaming its policies on "cultural decline" seems a tad disingenuous.
8
As a science student forever, I used to think conservative philosophy meant to preserve what worked for the planet and it's inhabitants. Whereas, progressives/liberals were often a bit too quick to welcome trying new ideas at the expense of losing what had already been gained. This is a bit to simplistic, to say the least. To call the GOP of today with any label other than "corrupt money grubbers" would be a grave error.
6
This piece is grounded in the mistaken assumption that Trump really is, or wants to be, a conservative. Trump will espouse any idea as long as it furthers his bottom line.
4
You have to smile as all these "conservatives" rush to disassociate themselves from Trump when in fact he's the natural outgrowth of conservative ideology as practiced in the US by the Republican party over at least the last 40 years if not much longer. No Mr Scruton he's not the product of cultural decline. He's the product of what you have been peddling all your life.
13
I'm still wondering, given their lack of concern for families and collective society, why conservatives even believe in a "united" states, or in having a country at all. Why not admit it folks? Conservatives believe in the following: it's every man for himself and we basically don't owe anything to anyone.
Trump is the merely the ring leader of this "philosophy."
16
I do not appreciate the fact Conservatism has defined itself as something outside the framework of Liberalism. That is the first flaw in the logic of the national debate. Liberalism is not the antithesis of Conservatism. Liberalism is the basis upon which the very structure of the U.S. Government was built, with separation of powers, checks and balances. On the health-gauge monitoring the health of the American government, the needle should always be within the Liberal parameters of center, center-left, and center-right. Traditional Conservatism, even at the point of Reagan was well within Liberal parameters. Today's Conservatism would not be recognized by Reagan, let alone Eisenhower or Lincoln. It has become unrecognizable.
17
It is hilarious to think that the “Conservative Supreme Court” attempts to preserve or apply the Constitution rather than actively amend it. The Heller gun decision refuted 200 years of precedent that said the 2nd amendment did not apply to individual rights. Citizens United redefined corporation as individuals with all the rights of citizens, something the founders never considered. Both results were paid for by the Special Interests that promoted Scalia and others career. These were political interventions—with the representation of the People. The Robert’s Court makes the Warren year’s look ultra conservative
38
Thoughtful piece.
True conservatives need to speak up more about how Trump has rapidly eroded away many core beliefs of the republican party which you've articulated so well in your article.
However unclear Trump is on his primary goals, and in spite of his crass day-to-day statements and ill-thought out logic, Trump should receive conservative 'kudos' for making a few things happen that advance conservative values, such as:
-Lower taxes and a smaller government is the correct solution for our nation (Trump pushed for the 2017 tax cuts, and he's rapidly reducing federal government staffing for almost all agencies except defense);
-Pushing the conservative mantra that gun control laws do not prevent criminals from obtaining guns, and that more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens mean less crime;
-Drastically cutting environmental regulations (in line with the conservative's limited government value);
-Doing all he can to rapidly increase production of our nation's abundant supplies of oil, gas and coal reserves, which conservatives believe are all good sources of energy; and
-Steady hammering of NATO countries about their limited defense spending (while President Obama raised this topic repeatedly, Trump's constant, loud drumbeat actually may have helped nudge NATO countries towards their recent substantial expansions in defense and cybersecurity forces).
While he may not 'get' conservatism, he's done enough to keep most registered republicans in his camp.
3
"Doing all he can to rapidly increase production of our nation's abundant supplies of oil, gas and coal reserves, which conservatives believe are all good sources of energy." Is this a basic assumption of Conservatives, or is it based on study, observation, and reasoning? Is it a "belief" because they get money from them, or have they studied the use and the environmental consequences?
19
1. It's the GOP that has done all these things, as it always does. Trump merely tweets Fox News lines to keep the base fired up (and to make sure that the lies that justify your different points here continue to look credible to the GOP base). His deal with the GOPe was clearly that he would be busy with the "propaganda" part of the presidency, whereas the GOP elites would run the different cabinets according to normal GOPe ideas.
2. Could you please explain which coherent version of conservatism as a philosophy somehow SUPPORTS all the points that you're summing up here?
In other words, how are these things not just merely benefiting the wealthiest GOP donors, but somehow also the country as a whole?
Thanking you in advance (no irony).
17
Cutting environmental regulations is not conservative. Your right to pollute the environment ends at the tragedy of the commons, and is a gross violation of conservatism when you destroy my health, my livelihood, my property, my ability to reproduce, and my pursuit of happiness. There is nothing conservative about failing to make polluters pay the true cost of their pollution, and compromising the assets of clean air, clean water, and productive soil for life, liberty, and the quality of life for future generations.
4
The founding documents of the United States -- The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution-- are about human rights: "all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights rights that among these are life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And, the idea of We the People has expanded from the few landed white men who were wary of the People to include white men who do not own property, former slaves and women.
The question for conservatives is what do you want to conserve, privilege for a certain class or a system of laws that is intended to provide a structure for human flourishing for all human beings ?
26
It seems laughable that there is still this idea that liberals "govern judicially and creat laws from the bench", while conservatives only use "exact words of the constitution". Where does libertarianism exist in the constitution or anywhere in the real world as a workable governing philosophy, not just a fictional novel? Yet it is revered because it leads to certain conservative judicial outcomes, which conservatives continually accuse only liberals of doing.
Perhaps we should just place a pile of cash in front of the Supreme Court and they could ask their questions to the cash pile. The cash is actually "speech" don't you know, so maybe they could posit all future constitutional answers from it. Just like it says to do in the constitution.
25
If anyone thinks we are safer now with Trump, they have not been listening or watching. The issue is not conservatism. It is a deep moral center and a true concern for freedom and a better life that is missing. Liberal and Conservative are just labels that have deteriorated. Trump is as self centered as they come and he will never work well on a team or in a group regardless of labels. It's his way or the highway, but his way keeps changing. Not only is he not a conservative or liberal, no such label will ever fit Trump. He is everything a society like ours should never want.
24
I don't think Trump ever pretended to be a conservative, unless you mean culturally conservative. He was elected because he appealed to millions of "middle of the road" Americans who might be economically somewhat liberal but are culturally conservative, and who are concerned about their own safety and survival.
5
"He was elected because he appealed to millions of "middle of the road" Americans who might be economically somewhat liberal but are culturally conservative, and who are concerned about their own safety and survival."
I had to laugh when I read this. Up here in Downeast Maine, it's 96% white. The Trump voters who are worried about their safety & survival must be imagining phantom hordes of brown people invading their homes & taking their jobs!
In fact, there are "Help Wanted" signs & ads everywhere - for skilled & unskilled workers. Everywhere! We NEED immigrants.
1
How can one be culturally conservative and support multiple divorces, having children before marriage as he did with Marla Maples, begin dating prospective new wives while still married as he did with all his wives, discuss crude sexual activities on talk radio, swear at political rallies, discuss lewd sexual activities with the boy scouts. Did I miss something? How can a social conservative admire such a man? What values are social conservatives trying to save? Most country and western songs think getting drunk is funny and natural and the Red states have higher divorce rates than the Blue States. It seems Conservatives believe the T.V. lives of Leave it to Beaver were real. They need to rewatch Mad Men.
1
It depends on what one means by "culturally conservative", doesn't it? Context is everything. In context of today's generations, doesn't ever getting married at all, especially to someone of the opposite sex count as being culturally conservative? Maybe the red states have higher divorce rates because they get married in the first place. Probably residents of blue states only "hook up" for a few weeks and then move on, as opposed to actually making a legal commitment.
Scruton sees Adam Smith as one of the corner stones of conservatism. He is wrong. Conservatism is about keeping things as they are ("conserve" them). In terms of economy that means respect for the powers that be. So it will abhor terms like "market regulation" but it won't like terms like "creative destruction" either.
2
Historically, conservatism is a political reaction against liberalism, a philosophy that was invented in 17th century Netherlands, to gain political traction with the French Revolution and then spread all over Europe during 19th century industrializing Europe.
Conservatives wanted to go back to absolute monarchism, where a small aristocracy literally writes and passes laws, and where those laws were designed to keep wealth and political (and religious) power within the governing class (= the aristocracy). They justified those ideas by referring to the fact that the majority of ordinary citizens were too uneducated to be able to take wise decisions concerning issues that touch upon society as a whole.
Liberalism attacked this mentality, remembering that the only reason why "the masses" were uneducated is because the Church and government KEPT them uneducated, not because somehow they would be of inferior intellect. So it wanted a "one man one vote" system, rather than allowing only the wealthiest people to vote.
In the 19th century, industrialization impoverished many aristocrats, and a new class of wealthy CEOs now defended "conservatism" against an army of poor, sick, 12-hours a day working class citizens - whereas liberals defended their right to a normal, decent life.
Liberals managed to make a lot of progress during the 20th, and today, conservatives don't want to "conserve" that, they want to regulate the market in such a way that wealth goes to the top 1% again.
21
Conservatism is based in a particular tradition. Liberalism isn't? Conservatism must "reform in order to conserve." How is this different from liberalism? Doesn't liberalism hold the same values dear as conservatism: "education, culture, religion, marriage and the family...through cherishing what cannot be bought and sold: things like love, loyalty, art and knowledge, which are not means to an end but ends in themselves."? Perhaps liberalism strays from Scruton's definitions of conservatism in that it still believes in the "tradition" of the separation of church and state, it holds marriage to be between two people as opposed to two people and the state. And lastly, upon what canon of conservative thought does Scruton base his conclusion that conservatism doesn't hold the "free market" (capitalism) as the fundamental tenet of its philosophy, i.e. a religion?
And lastly, how is a philosophy of human rights an abastraction? It isn't--it is no more abstract than capitalism which conservatism places above human rights. That is where liberals diverge from conservatives. Liberals hold that human rights is a social obligation for which we are all responsible. Conservatives hold that there is no social obligation and that it is the responsiblity of every individual to "pull him/herself up by his/her own bootstraps regardless of the inequities imposed by conservative and capitalist political system.
52
Great point. As Thatcher said "There is no society". That is what conservatives really believe, no matter how many op-ed pieces rationalizing something else.
Mr. Scruton attempts to paint Mr. Trump as a product of American culture in decline. He is incorrect. Mr. Trump is a product of conservatism in decline. American culture is alive and well. In fact, it would be flourishing were it not for the constant attacks from the failed thirty-five per cent of our society that cannot reconcile the twenty-first century with their nineteenth century world views and religious beliefs. If we can imagine an America without its culture wars imposed on us from the radical right, Mr. Trump would not exist. Conservatism would, under that circumstance, flourish once again.
50
I like to read about conservatism and this was interesting because of its emphasis on nationalism as a core value of the mindset. To me, a liberal, this sounds dangerous.
There are plenty of examples in history to show that nationalism has a dark side. It's hard to create the myths and norms that make a coherent nation state, especially one with positive value.
In a time when economics are global and migration seems destined to increase, if only because of global warming, it's all too easy for the ruthless to exploit fears and prejudice to enhance power. I'm wondering what the conservative answer to this challenge might be.
One answer might be to keep people out of "our" space. That would "conserve" the existing culture, but at a big price. Will the barriers needed to stop desperate people from moving undermine those ideals and values conservatives value so much?
14
Pres. Trump is not a classic conservative, but he’s done many conservative things. Even more than Reagan.
In 2015, he published his list of potential SC candidates. He promised to pick only from that list. Every justice on that list was/is conservative. Clinton had no list. She played it like the cheap pol that she is.
Trump’s list made many people sitting on the fence vote for him. This put him over the top and, IMO, why he won.
2
We keep forgetting that Trump won not because the majority of the people wanted him (he lost the popular vote by 3,000,000, a fairly resounding drubbing) but because of a technicality in our election process. So whatever one might say "put him over the top" in relation to the voters' preference is obviously incorrect.
37
So your narrow definition of a conservative is selecting SCOTUS judges from think so called conservative think tanks? Thanks for another example of the intellectual deficit inherent to the right.
No, Mr Trump won because he understood that the Electoral College is not a "technicality on our election process" but the way that we elect our Presidents. YOu may not like it, but that is a different matter. Calling it a technicality is absurd. Not pnly did he understand that the Electoral vote was the key to his success but he managed to do a very good job (in my opinion) sewing up all the right states so that when all the votes were counted he had 306 and Mrs Clinton a sad 232. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Mr. Scruton writes that institutions must constantly adapt to survive. He also writes that the Supreme Court cannot be revising the Constitution. Got it.
35
You honestly don't see the difference between the elected political leaders 'amending' the constitution as opposed to nine unelected supreme court justices unilaterally changing it
Yet another invocation of “family” as a cornerstone of conservatism. I sense the author’s concept of “family,” here, means a man who works and a woman who stays home to make and raise babies. Despite their reflexive invocation of “family” as a core value, conservatives have done little for families. When is the last time a conservative legislature enacted a law geared toward allowing families to flourish? The statistics speak for themselves — people waiting longer to have children, having less children, splintering/single-parent homes, etc. It is amazing what ideas can be sold to an unquestioning public — e.g., that conservatives care about families. In this sense, Donald Trump has fully embraced this cornerstone of conservatism — in public, say you are for “family,” but do nothing to actually support families.
47
I agree with the sentiment but the reality is that, if one looks at fertility rates (total number of children the average woman is expected to have during her reproductive lifetime), we see very interesting ethnic trends. For whites (nonhispanic) and Asian populations, the rate is 1.8, i.e., below replacement. For hispanics and blacks. the rates are 2.4 and 2.1 respectively. In addition, the nonwhite hispanic population is younger than the others meaning that their potential for growth is higher. The percentage of whites will, thus, continue to decline for the reasons cited by Timothy but other ethnic groups will continue to grow.
Invoke "family values" after cheating on three wives? For some reason, conservative voters have no problem with this. Of course, the bottom line is that Trump is not an ideological conservative, but believes only in Trump.
An astute observation about fertility rates; that set of statistics, I concede, may not demonstrate the hypocrisy of conservatives' devotion to the concept of "family." But folks need not look to statistics to draw inferences. Conservatives' complete abdication of legislative duty in supporting the families they so often (disingenuously) claim to support, is on full display.
What I don’t understand is how hard it is for people to understand that Trump doesn’t care about conservatism. He cares about his popularity and serving, what the media can’t stop talking about, his “base”. This is a reality show personality. I wish there was more talk about the protests and the meaning of those to our democracy. We already know he doesn’t understand or care about conservatism. But he does know he’s not as popular as he needs to be.
27
While Mr. Scruton's article is commendable in its level-headed and erudite approach to American conservatism, I feel it is symptomatic of 'unicorn conservatism'. By this I mean that there is a profound and unique gap between intellectual conservatism (the unicorns) and its political manifestation. I have never observed in my lifetime a conservatism which emulates its self-professed aspirations, to the extent that I couldn't actually articulate what conservatism is as an intellectual movement. Rather, I have witnessed a coalition of theocrats, ethnonationalists, and corporate anti-regulationist who use conservatism as a fig leaf to 'conserve' their own privileged positions in social power structures. Trump to me seems a crass and uniformed, but entirely congruent, extension of this movement. Indeed, he seems like a hyperbolic manifestation of all of the trends which even before his election defined the GOP and conservatives for liberals. If there's something other than Trump, we aren't hearing it.
You see this disconnect somewhat in the comment on devoting more time to Jefferson than Thatcher. Jefferson is a giant, certainly, but Thatcher is the manifestation of modern (albeit British) conservatism. She is much more relevant to how conservatism looks today, and decades after her death half the North calls her Maggie Milk-Snatcher and burns her in effigy every November. Minimising her is like discussing the merits of Marxism whilst downplaying the USSR.
68
What we have here is 889 words of an essay that should have been recast as "How I wasted my time." The fact that the author can claim Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson, two figures of classical liberalism, as conservatives shows the great elasticity of these terms. In reality much of what passes as conservatism is reactionary sentiment. The philosophy behind it seems no greater than rationales for those who were lucky staying that way, and the same to those who were unlucky. "Reform in order to conserve" is an oxymoron. I'm sure "Liberalism" could also stand a vetting, but that's for another time.
79
“Classic liberalism” is basically what libertarianism is. It doesn’t describe liberalism.
Yes!
I quite agree that our artistic and cultural inheritance is being consigned to oblivion, but I regard that as inevitable -- history shows that without exception cultures wax, wane, and then disappear, perhaps leaving an inheritance that future cultures may draw on or adapt.
Was Jefferson truly a "conservative"? That would make Hamilton a "liberal," would it not? Jefferson was considered a radical and a Jacobin by the Federalists. No one would deny that Edmund Burke was a conservative thinker, but he hated the French Revolution whereas Jefferson loved it. True, Jefferson was in favor of limited government -- until he decided to violate the Constitution by using federal money to purchase Louisiana. Jefferson was very much in favor of the institution of slavery. That makes him a conservative?
Adam Smith is another man who should not necessarily be seen as a "conservative." Who in Britain favored free trade in the 19th century? Not the Tory Party, but the Liberals. True, the Tories repealed the Corn Laws, but that split the party and for the rest of the century and into the 20th a major faction of the Conservatives supported protection, whereas the laissez-faire Liberals were for free trade.
Anyway, the fact is that both the Democratic and Republicans parties have become less and less responsive to the needs of average Americans. Money in fact rules. As societal decline proceeds demagogues of both right and left and right will continue to come to the fore.
25
A national identity based on differences..."diversity"... in a nation where both political parties depend on ethnicity rather than ideas for votes is headed for doom, or at least a reassessment of exactly who we are. "Identity" and "diversity" are mutually exclusive terms.
3
It's not because Democrats systematically take America's diversity into account in their policy proposals that somehow they would "depend on ethnicity" ... .
And MANY philosophers show how all human identities are essentially multiple - and changing, over time.
By the way, diversity and difference don't necessarily mean contradiction, remember?
A and non A are mutually exclusive terms. A and B are not. A and B can be perfectly compatible, all you need to do is to actively create a philosophical and political framework where they are.
The US itself is the result of such a creation.
We are our biography, as individuals, and as a nation. We are the sum of all the many different influences that went through us and made us into who we are today.
Each biography inevitably results in a unique identity, precisely because it's a combination of many different events and influences.
Nationalism is based on the myth of not a unique identity, but a monolithic and eternally unchanged and unalterable identity. It's because it's based on a myth that it's so dangerous, as history has shown time and again.
13
The only way in which Jefferson resembled the description of conservatism as presented in this essay is as a slave owner. Otherwise, this essay accurately describes conservatism - nationalistic, race and caste exclusive, constitutionally ossified, and deregulatory obsessive. I'd therefore say Trump is largely on the money, pun intended.
20
Mr. Scruton,
As you describe Conservatism it would appear self-identified Conservatives in America don't get it either since, in practice, all it really seems to be about is sticking it to liberals.
34
While I agree that Donald Trump has no idea what he is doing or that he subscribes to any recognized political or economic philosophy, I must take issue with the author's view of the origin of our rights. The constitution was an attempt to codify rights that all people have. Americans have fought to have these rights recognized not to have them created.
This is what makes conservatism so dangerous. There is no real constitutional privacy guarantee (save for the criminal context) however, Americans clearly expect a civil privacy guarantee. Conservatives do not believe in a privacy guarantee, which is why they are so vehemently against abortion protection....because it is stems from a broad privacy guarantee.
We enjoy our freedoms because they exist for all people by virtue of their humanity. Indeed, the 2nd Amendment (the one conservatives seem to prize above all others) simply refers to a pre-existing, un-codified right. It does not create a right. It merely protects one that already exists.
This is the debate we should be having. Not "fake news" or the "Democrat Party" (it is the Democratic Party by the way...). While I respect the conservative ideology I completely disagree.
25