The Republican mental establishment is united against Trump – but his message of cultural and racial resentment has deep roots in the American rightThe Republican party,its leaders like to say, is a party of ideas. Debates over budgets and government programmes are important, and but they must be conducted with an eye on the bigger questions – questions approximately the character of the state,the future of freedom and the meaning of virtue. These beliefs provide the foundation for a conservative mental establishment – thinktanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, magazines such as National Review, and pundits such as George Will and Bill Kristol – committed to advancing the suitable’s agenda.
Over the last year,that establishment has been united by one thing: opposition to Donald Trump. Republican voters may have succumbed to a temporary bout of collective insanity – or so Trump’s critics on the suitable believe – but the party’s intelligentsia remain certain that entrusting the Republican nomination to a reality television star turned populist demagogue has been a catastrophe for their cause and their country. Whatever Trump might be, he is not a conservative. Related: The past, or present and future of Trumpism | Letters A dissenting minority has been waging a guerrilla war against the conservative establishment for three decadesPaleoconservatives depicted themselves as spokesmen for the forgotten residents of flyover countryThe authors of JAG looked at the problems facing the US and concluded that Donald Trump might be the answerContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com