Trumpism and the Republican Conservative’s

It’s a turbulent time for Trumpism. President Trump’s approval ratings have sunk to new lows, and congressional Republicans have left Washington for their districts showing greater alarm over their chances in the upcoming midterm elections.

Have the strains of Trump 2.0 taken any wind out of the sails of the populist right — and will they prompt a reconsideration of what it means to be a conservative?

Stephanie Slade, the author of “Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue and the Future of the American Right,” explored those questions in a written conversation with John Guida, an editor in Times Opinion. It has been edited for length and clarity.

John Guida: With the political fortunes of Trump and the G.O.P. looking shaky, at least for the moment, are you hearing concerns or doubts about Trumpism itself or the direction of conservatism from conservatives?

Stephanie Slade: Oh, yes. I’ll give you two examples. As I speak with conservative voters, including some who cast votes for Trump in three elections in a row, I’m increasingly hearing them say they feel betrayed — over his war of choice in the Middle East, over his reluctance to release the Epstein files, over his administration’s apparent focus on anything and everything but people’s No. 1 priority of bringing down the cost of living. Trump once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his base would stand by him, but I think that’s finally starting to change, at least on the margin.

The second thing I would point you to is the exodus last winter of scholars, donors and board members from the Heritage Foundation. When the Heritage president, Kevin Roberts, proudly defended Tucker Carlson after Carlson hosted Nick Fuentes for a chummy interview, a number of conservatives suddenly awoke to the ideological extremism and moral rot that had taken root on parts of the right, and many people showed fairly decisively that, however they may feel about Trump, they wanted nothing to do with groyperism.

Guida: Do you see these developments as a sign that conservatives are retreating from some of the commitments of Trumpism — like, say, tariffs — or are they just disappointed with Trump himself?

Slade: There’s a dawning recognition that Trump the man is an unreliable ally. He will say one thing on the campaign trail — no new wars! — but not feel the slightest bit constrained by his promises while in office. Another thing is the self-dealing: the genuine corruption of historic proportions in which the president’s powers are being abused to enrich his allies and family members, sometimes at taxpayer expense. People see that and wonder what happened to draining the swamp?

Guida: This week, some intellectuals of the populist right — the New Right, or as you call it, the Dissident Right — are meeting at the National Conservatism conference in Jerusalem. At the first edition of these gatherings, in Washington in 2019, the Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony declared an “independence day” from many conservative predecessors and principles. Does the decline in Trump’s standing, even at the margins, have any impact on the broader national conservative project?….

More…