Conservatives are engaged in a fierce intramural debate over their future in the GOP. Like all such debates, it can seem opaque — even its participants aren’t sure what they’re arguing about — but the implications for both the tenor and content of American politics are profound.
The debate is sprawling, but its contours are defined: One side wants to restore the old fusion between social and economic conservatism. The other wants to abandon it and embrace President Trump’s authoritarian traditionalist vision.
There is no authoritarian traditionalist future for the GOP. Meanwhile, the fusionist bargain has delivered for social conservatives, and may be their hope for future relevance.
First, consider the case for abandonment, articulated by Sohrab Ahmari, the op-ed editor of the New York Post. One of Ahmari’s points is that social conservatives naively bought into a Republican Party that has delivered tax cuts and great wealth to the top 1%, but done nothing to stop the decline of traditional values in life. Consequently they should abandon that deal and use their political power to push for a restoration of traditional American values, such as the promotion of larger families and gender roles.
It is true that tax cuts have been the singular rallying point for the GOP, but the trends that social conservatives bemoan are the result of forces far beyond the power of public policy to shape. Social conservatives may be growing in power within the Republican Party, but America has been moving sharply to the left on social issues since the 1960s.
Ahmari acknowledges this trend, but suggests the way to stop it is to give more power to the federal government to restore some ideal of lost values. This approach was untenable in the 1960s and would be suicidal today. Even if traditionalists could have won on such a platform, they would have found themselves hard-pressed to carry it out: Using the federal government to impose values, never mind implement policy, is harder than it seems.
The president is hardly a traditionalist, but he’s a tireless pugilist against the Democratic Party. That rhetorical stance might get social conservatives like Ahmari excited, but look at the record. The Trump administration has struggled to fill the White House with competent managers. The administration has had little success, for example, with one of its main priorities, restricting immigration.
It’s worse than that: It’s the wrong policy, because it undermines support for traditional values. Most immigrants come from countries that are more traditionalist than the U.S. Admitting fewer of them would accelerate trends social conservatives bemoan. If traditionalists are serious about changing our culture, they should embrace a cosmopolitan vision of America.
In any case, there is no future in which traditionalists are able to impose their vision on America. Buying into that rhetoric will only hasten social conservatives’ decline.
Karl W. Smith is a former assistant professor of economics at the University of North Carolina’s school of government.
