To my fellow travelers promoting a multi-ethnic, multiracial working-class GOP (the Populist Scenario), it’s time for an applied history lesson.
Let’s start by taking a note from Movement Conservatism, the prevailing pre-Trump ideology of the Republican Party.
National Review - the pioneers of the fusionism and chief boosters of Movement Conservatism - was founded in 1955. (This was the middle of the first Eisenhower Administration, which was definitively NOT MovCon.)
Barry Goldwater - the first Movement Conservative presidential nominee - won the Republican nomination in 1964. (He lost in an absolute blow-out to LBJ.)
Ronald Reagan - the first Movement Conservative president - won the general election in 1980. (He completely wiped the floor with incumbent Jimmy Carter electorally, but this was only after Reagan mounted an unsuccessful primary campaign to oust Gerald Ford in 1976.)
Now do the math. That’s a 25-year gap between the founding of the flagship Movement Conservatism political journal and the triumph of Movement Conservatism on the national stage.
This one is less clear-cut, but look now at the trajectory of Neoconservatism, the junior partner ideology in the pre-Trump GOP.
Commentary - the pioneers of Neoconservatism - shifted toward the ideology around 1967.
George W. Bush - the first president to run a deeply neoconservative foreign policy - was elected president by a hair’s breadth in 2000.
Doing the math on this one, we have a 33-year gap between magazine ideology and the presidency of the United States.
Let’s (somewhat generously) say that The American Conservative plays a similar role to the above two magazines in forming the next ideological hegemon of the Republican Party.
The American Conservative - pioneers of a Populist Working-Class GOP - was founded in 2002. (This was during peak Neoconservatism.)
Donald Trump - the first president who’s policy platform suggests a Populist Working-Class agenda - was elected president in 2016. (For a variety of reasons, he subsequently presided over a policy agenda not too different from Movement Conservatism.)
Person Unknown - whoever will be the first consistently Populist GOP president - would be on track to be elected president by 2028, ‘32, or ‘36.
That takes into account a 25-33-year gap between the founding of the ideology’s flagship publication and its triumph on the national stage.
Moreover, that is assuming it is indeed The American Conservative that successfully incubates the ideology rather than American Affairs Journal (2017): if it were the latter, we would instead be looking at the years 2040, ‘44, ‘48, or even 2052. Personally, I think it very well could be the latter.
What Is The Takeaway?
Supplanting one hegemonic ideology in the GOP with another is long-term work. It is a matter of decades, not years. It is a road marked by fits and starts, half-measures, attempts at cooptation, and outright failures. That is the norm.
In short, “it’s a long way to the top, if you want to rock ‘n’ roll.”
AN AFTERNOTE
The ideology still doesn’t have a name.
We could stick with Paleoconservatism, but that is not an appealing name and the brand is tarnished by proxy connections to outright racists and anti-semites.
Alternatively, we could go with National Conservatism, but that brand is at present borderline-coopted by shallow culture warring devoid of either economic vision or robust popular appeal.
Historically, movements are often named first by their adversaries, only later owning that name for themselves. (“Christian”, “Tory”, “Democrat”, and “Neoconservative” all started out as insults.) Maybe it’s time to run with the grain of history and call the thing Populist Conservatism.