‘Conservatives’ and evangelicals are at the core of Trump’s support

Exit polls reveal some disturbing information about those who have held themselves out as the most principled voices on the right. President-elect Donald Trump got 81 percent of the “conservative” vote. He got the same percentage of self-identified evangelicals. If you are aghast that “America” could elect Trump, it’s important to see these voters for what they are.

For decades now, conservative evangelical voters — the “values voters” — have preached to us about their fidelity to conservative ideals and their defense of Christian and American values. That’s a crock, to be blunt. They elected someone who rejects conservatism as the defining ideology, who preaches fiscal recklessness, who would undermine free markets (e.g. free trade) and who repudiates the spirit of Lincoln and the party’s fidelity to constitutional liberties. Evangelical leaders have lined up behind the most un-Christian person to win the White House, someone who embodies behaviors and an outlook they claim to oppose. He’s a world-class narcissist, misogynist, racist and sexual philanderer. He is defined by his greed, cruelty, crudeness, vindictiveness and selfishness.

Either “conservatives” and “values voters” are complete hypocrites, voting overwhelmingly for someone who repudiates their views, or those terms have become content-free. In either case, if conservatism is now Trumpism and “values” are now Trump values, count me and millions of others out. Perhaps the populists have absconded with the label “conservative” and charlatans have snatched the moniker of the “religious right,” but if so, the people who genuinely embrace center-right politics and whose values include civility, empathy, equality before the law, etc., need a new movement and a new way of identifying themselves.

And what do the estranged people, who look upon themselves as the center-right in politics, believe? They are internationalist in foreign policy (i.e. believers in U.S. international leadership). These are the believers in federalism (for expressly this situation — a federal government under the sway of a nut) and constitutional government (the entire Constitution, including the 14th Amendment). These are the people who do not hate government, but think the welfare state needs some serious updating. They do not repudiate science, modernity or globalism. They are defenders of legal immigration (rejecting economic illiteracy that says immigrants hurt America) and of personal freedom. They resist collectivism and believe in the inherent value and dignity of every person.

There is no name for this grouping, and it defies existing partisan labels. Call them Reformers or Lincoln-ites or small “l” liberals (the 19th-century version). (If liberals now want to call themselves “progressives,” perhaps we can reclaim the term “liberal.”) Maybe they are “Arthur Brooks conservatives.”

Brooks, author of the “The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America” and chief of the American Enterprise Institute, has done more to promote the Reform Conservative movement than anyone else. He writes:

For decades, progressives have emphasized the “income gap” separating rich and poor. Their cries have only grown louder since the financial crisis. They contended that income inequality would ignite a new class struggle, causing unprecedented political turmoil.

This was half right. There is indeed a gap in this country, and it has now led to a political revolution, a significant realignment in American politics. But the relevant gap wasn’t income. It was dignity.

Too many Americans have lost pride in themselves. We sense dignity by creating value with our lives, through families, communities, and especially work. That is why American leaders so frequently talk about dignity in the context of labor. As Martin Luther King Jr. taught, “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” Conversely, nothing destroys dignity more than idleness and a sense of superfluousness—the feeling that one is simply not needed.

Restoring dignity means, in part, investing in human capital and applying a holistic approach to fighting poverty. We know a rising tide lifts some boats, but not all. And it is the ones who don’t automatically rise, the ones simply adrift — be they in the inner city of Baltimore or the empty steel towns in coal country — with whom we must concern ourselves.

“Conservatives” and “values voters” have redefined themselves as Trumpkins. The center-right — the Reformers, advocates of an opportunity party, #NeverTrumpers — now has to define itself. The millennials who overwhelmingly rejected Trump, have grown up in a globalized economy, embrace science and praise tolerance are the perfect foot soldiers and leaders for such a movement. Now, when conservatism has mortgaged itself to Trump and the Democratic Party is in disarray, is the perfect time for them to organize.

Source: Jennifer Rubin, washingtonpost.com