Reading Max Boot’s column (The GOP is Now the Party of Neo-Confederates) this morning in the Washington Post gave me occasion to revisit a piece I wrote on May 7, 2016 called The Resurrection of the Paleoconservatives. Donald Trump had effectively captured the Republican Party’s nomination on May 3rd when he won the primary in Indiana and Ted Cruz dropped out of the race. My paleoconservative piece was a first effort to understand what it would mean for Trump to be the GOP standard bearer.
On the whole, you could say my analysis was too optimistic, as I was explaining why significant party factions would never reconcile themselves to Trump’s leadership, with the strong implication that this lack of unity would be fatal to Trump’s chances of winning the presidency. But I’m actually quite pleased with the paleoconservative piece because I think it presciently predicted that the neoconservative faction would revolt and join the opposition.
Also, in fairness to me, I wasn’t attempting to explain a possible path to victory for Trump in that article. I had already done that with pieces on July 2, 2013 (The GOP is moving in the Wrong Direction), May 5, 2014, (A Deal With the Devil), and December 9, 2015 (Trump and the Missing White Voters), which all examined a possible attempt to overcome structural deficits by reordering the presidential electorate based on appeals to white identity.
Whatever their other faults, neoconservatives were pro civil rights from the inception of their movement in the Vietnam Era. They were always unlikely to align themselves with a party based on Neo-confederatism.
Here is how I sketched out the divisions in the party as I contemplated Donald Trump’s general election campaign:
There are elements of paleoconservativism that overlap with the progressive left, most prominently a skepticism about military adventurism and opposition to free trade. This is why some progressives will nod their heads in agreement when Trump makes certain critiques of the Democratic Party and the Washington Establishment. But the core of paleoconservatism is white and cultural supremacy with an accompanying panic about nonwhite immigration and a reactionary opposition to modern sexual mores. This not only limits the appeal of a paleoconservative candidate to a subset of the cultural right, it means that the philandering sexual objectifier Donald Trump is an imperfect representative of paleoconservatism.
From a historical perspective, you can consider Dwight D. Eisenhower to have marginalized paleoconservatives when he defeated the isolationist Ohio Senator Robert Taft at the 1952 Republican convention. As for more mainstream conservatives, they sidelined the paleos when William F. Buckley and the National Review ostracized members of the John Birch Society from the movement.
The elimination of the Jim Crow south further eroded their respectability, and the rise of neoconservatism in the 1970’s and their strong influence over the Reagan administration provided the paleos with a more powerful rival.
The presidential runs of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot were a kind of last gasp, but skepticism about sexual liberation and free trade, as well as an isolationist foreign policy inclination, and white supremacist views have always had a wider appeal than just on the right.
For paleoconservatives who have been marginalized for over sixty years, Trump seems like a vindication and a revival of their worldview and their power.
This is also how the other factions of the Republican Party see things. The Eisenhower Republicans are nearly extinct, but they’re completely repelled by Trumpism. The neoconservatives consider the paleos to be anti-Semitic, which is usually true, and they’re utterly opposed to their isolationism. The business community has always hated their opposition to expanding markets along with the exercise of military and diplomatic muscle that makes those markets accessible. That the paleo politicians can sometimes adopt a smidgen of economic populism, for example (in Trump’s case), opposing cuts to entitlements that benefit Wall Street, is another reason they aren’t welcomed by the business community or Paul Ryan.
Donald Trump has personality quirks that turn off a lot of conservatives. His business model offends a lot of conservatives. Others just think he’s unelectable and bad for their brand. But these are all just added reasons why he cannot unite the Republican Party.
In my opinion, Trump has never understood all this history or the factions in the GOP, but he identified a weakness within the party that was ripe for exploitation. And it turned out that he was inadvertently taking up the banner of the paleoconservatives.
He might not have realized just how marginalized this faction has been or how long they’ve been marginalized. But even if Trump was an upstanding, polite, well-informed and prepared citizen, his policies would badly divide the Republicans. While the paleos have always been a part of the Conservative Movement, the ascendant and well-financed elements of the Movement have, in important ways, defined themselves in opposition to them. Trump represents a massive reversal and defeat.
It’s true that the Movement’s massive failures have brought this defeat on themselves, but that doesn’t mean they will reconcile themselves to it. When combined with Trump’s personality defects and transparent lack of preparedness for the job of the presidency, this party will not unite.
It turned out that the party did not have to unite since it could instead be reordered to appeal more to white identity. I had foreseen that the conservative movement might go in this direction as early as 2013, but I never envisioned that it would or could be done by someone like Trump.
The administration of George W. Bush had countless flaws, but chief among them was the influence of neoconservatives in foreign policy which led directly to the War on Terror and the catastrophic invasion of Iraq. When combined with the collapse of the housing market in 2007-8 and the ensuing Great Recession, the neoconservatives’ massive failures provided a massive opening for a revival of isolationism, trade protectionism, and (ultimately) Trump’s version of American First white nationalism. As a prominent and influential neoconservative in the Bush Era, Max Boot bears a lot of responsibility for the rise of Trumpism.
That is why I find the opening to his piece so objectionable:
The far left and far right have long been warning about neocons taking over the Republican Party. Turns out they are right. Only the “neocons” in question aren’t the neoconservatives — a small group of intellectuals, in whose ranks I have often been included, who have espoused a values-based foreign policy and a centrist domestic policy. Many of us have left the GOP in disgust over the rise of Trumpism. The neocons who are now in the ascendancy are the neo-Confederates who have been encouraged to come into the open by President Trump’s unabashed appeals to racist and xenophobic prejudices.
It’s impossible not to see in this an effort by Boot to vindicate himself and triumph over his critics who saw neoconservative influence as massively problematic. The far left and the far right warned about people like Max Boot because they are military adventurers and economic imperialists who, as William F. Buckley put it, “simply overrate the reach of U.S. power and influence.”
For Boot, the more significant problem is the influence of Neo-confederates in the Republican Party, but they were considered nothing worse than a necessary evil for the neoconservatives when they were helping Bush defeat Al Gore and John Kerry. Those of us who said this was a deal with the devil were dismissed or ignored, and it’s really not that clear that the Neo-confederates are the more dangerous faction. So far, at least, the neoconservatives have left more blood and treasure in foreign lands, and the current state of the Middle East is a direct result of their reckless ideology.
In truth, President Trump is not fully free of neoconservative influence. This can be seen most clearly by his choice of John Bolton to serve as his national security advisor and by Trump’s persistent alarmism and bellicosity towards Iran. Trump’s decision to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, to give a free hand to Israeli settlers, and to align himself totally with an Israeli-Saudi alliance against Shi’a influence in the Middle East are all consistent with neoconservative practice and ideology.
Trump is actually giving us the worst of both the paleo- and neoconservative worlds.
Near the end of his column, Mr. Boot remarks, “It is hard to remember that Republicans were once the Party of Lincoln. But in the 1960s they sold out their birthright to court Southern voters smarting over desegregation.” Ironically, that is the precise period of time when a bunch of Democrats became disgusted by the countercultural excesses of the New Left and began flirting with the Republicans.
Perhaps some of the first neoconservatives were seeing clearly that the New Left was inspiring the kind of backlash that would soon result in the Reagan Revolution, and they were motivated primarily to protect the things about the Democratic Party that they valued by working to avert its electoral destruction. But the ones that departed to join the Reagan Revolution really have no business now complaining that the GOP used to be the Party of Lincoln. It’s really quite odd that they would use overt racism as a rationale for wandering on back to the party of the left.
Maybe they’re also a bit more reconciled to the values of the counterculture these days, too, with gay marriage accepted, marijuana increasingly legal, and a black empowerment movement more associated with Barack Obama than Elijah Muhammad.
Still, there is no obvious home for Max Boot or Bill Kristol, David Frum, Jennifer Rubin, John Podhoretz or other neoconservative critics of the Trump administration. They’re now flirting with the Democratic Party, but at a time when the Democratic Party is more McGovernite than ever.
If they want to join the fight against the modern Republican Party, they’re quite welcome to do so, but their foreign policy ideas are as objectionable and possibly lethal as the ideas espoused by Trump’s America Firsters. And I don’t think anyone should forget that the neoconservatives were for civil rights until they become inconvenient for their foreign policy preferences. They can cry about racism today, but they aren’t reliable allies on that issue or any other.
Well, my friend, as far as your being too optimistic, I like to quote a famous comedian – no matter how cynical you get, you can never keep up. You are forgiven!
Talk about having made their bed. Except it would be more accurate to say the neocons crapped their bed (and, unfortunately, ours). They are indeed dangerous. More dangerous than the white supremacist faction? Perhaps, but then that’s like saying it’s better to be in a cage with a leopard than an alligator. Fortunately, I’m not noticing enthusiasm on the left to cut deals with the neocons, and it would be idiotic to go in that direction when the electorate seems starved for authenticity. The last thing Democrats need is another deal with a devil. Lord knows we’ve had too many of those and have not extricated ourselves.
You write:
“…the electorate seems starved for authenticity.”
Precisely!!!
Thank you.
AG
The neocons are not players, because they can’t grasp that all politics is domestic. The U. S. has no foreign policy and cannot have any, because every mention of any overseas actor (state or non-state) is an allegory for some domestic faction.
“giving us the worst of both the paleo- and neoconservative worlds”
Well, this is the punch line, although I’d say that it describes the entire American experience in the 21st century. We have been saddled with first a neo- and now a paleoconservative prez, both through operation of the anti-democratic electoral college. Of course (for an authoritarian party) Congressional Repubs happily play along, first neo, now paleocon.
And when Der Trumper decides (inevitably) to rattle the sword, they will be quick to talk of foreign “madmen”, when the first place to look for Madmen is right down Pennsylvania Ave. Hopefully the Dem House will have the backbone to oppose the democratically illegitimate Trumper and his minority senate “majority”, should they decide more war is the answer.
The bitter public neocons really shouldn’t have a place in American discourse anymore, having lost two wars and caused a dozen more ongoing. They (incredibly) are completely oblivious to these catastrophic failures (“espoused a values-based foreign policy”[!!]). But since they have no real marketable skills and have never earned a legitimate wage, they keep hanging on, writing their unread books and tweeting away–they must Thank God for the tweeter!
As militarists and (mostly) Israel-Firsters, they prize an unsupportable brutal foreign policy above all else, relegating domestic policy to back-benching status. Bushco of course, gave us nothing but tax cuts, deregulation and deficits, which was quite fine with Bootist neocons, and which Boot now comically describes as “centrist”. Now that the “conservative” action plan includes militant white supremacy, these guys have gotten a little queasy, claiming even to have “left the GOP”. The hope must be that they can graft neo-conservatism and its (certain) failure onto the hapless Dems, since both parties must genuflect towards America’s appalling militarism and soldier-adoration.
But political progress and a $1 trillion (and climbing) “defense” budget cannot coexist.
Sure, the electoral college is a problem, but so are disenfranchisement and gerrymandering. And they are something we have a better chance of changing.
The Bushites lost control over their party. They wanted John McCain “Bomb, bomb, bomb! Bomb, bomb Iran!” and and Mitt, and Jeb! Not Trump. Open bigotry is bad for business.
The Chamber of Commerce loves tax cuts, and deregulation, but having accomplished that, there is nothing further that Trump can give them. And he’s mobilizing intense energy on the Left.
If things don’t change, from their point of view, someone like Elizabeth Warren is going to win the next Presidency. There are already a lot of Elizabeth Warrens in the new House class. It’s already slipping out of control.
So, they want to join the opposition to Trump in order to LEAD the opposition to Trump. But, they have almost no voters.
Turns out the right wing only cared about anti-communism, or any foreign policy in general, because their enemies “the LIbtards” were perceived to be on the other side: environmentalism? Against! Health benefits for the middle class? Against! Global Warming? For it!
Because it’s all about owning the Libs! That’s the death cry of the paleo-conservatives who KNOW in their hearts they are losing. They might elect Trump, and build a wall and kill some immigrant families, and shoot down some black people who get too uppity, but they know the future does not belong to them.
They are only bitter and want to destroy as much and burn down a civilization they can no longer control.
The Paleos have no such concept of inevitable defeat. There’s really no reason in their minds that a nation of 350,000,000 in which black and brown people have an equal say and Global Warming is being effectively combated, can’t also have a giant standing military and bases all over the rest of the world.
There might be some adjustment problems, but remember that Neo-cons abandoned their “small government” = small military spending under Eisenhower, and embraced the vast military build up that began in the 1960s and hasn’t stopped yet. That involved completely abandoning isolationism, which had been their defining philosophy for over 100 years.
In logic, if not in current political reality, a forward looking policy that plans for some kind of future, can be carried forward by Neo-Cons. So, of course, they will desert the S.S. Trump whenever it REALLY starts to sink.
Just like they deserted Bush II when he became unpopular. They just haven’t seen Trump lose yet, so it’s all premature to jump ship. But, you can bet they will want to take over the Democratic party if they can’t control the GOP.
Until Max Boot & Co are willing to acknowledge their own roles in opening the door to Trump I see no reason to allow them to carpetbag their way into any kind of acceptance or even relevancy.
Tbf, Boot is actually doing this and is looking back on stuff in a new light he didn’t see before. I’ve got no use for them — militarists that they are — but of all the people who are switching he seems most interested in introspection.
And people do change. Some of them anyway. I have no illusions that all these neocons have had an epiphany (e.g., Bill Kristol, who hasn’t), but if there’s any side benefit to Trump, it’s that driving folk like Boot and Rubin to appearing now on MSNBC and CNN, where they are rubbing elbows with former ideological foes, may change some minds and views.
I am not as familiar with Boot as others here. But I cannot say that I think he is arguing in bad faith. And I wonder if the more he chums around with liberals and Democrats, the more he appreciates their beliefs. He’s not about to rush into the arms of the Democratic Party. But now he has friends there, friends whom he respects more now.
One can hope, anyway.
Yes. I’d differentiate between Boot and Kristol for sure. I think Kristol might be changing his mind on some issues, but he’s not doing a Boot where he looks back at stuff and thinks “maybe Trump wasn’t such an anamoly…”
Chait (lol, who has his own problems) documents this in a review of Boot’s book:
Haven’t seen Chait’s article and his discussion of Boot’s critique of “conservatism” seems a bit shallower compared to Booman’s. I think a distinction between paleo-conservatism and neo-conservatism is a good one, mainly regarding foreign policy. On domestic policy the Venn diagram overlap between the two historical factions, while certainly not 100% is certainly much greater than 50%.
Max and friends have lost their access to power. Their EU friends don’t even call any more as they have no influence in DC. They are loosers that no one has any use for.
The problem Boot et al have is more one of style. They don’t like Trump’s crassness and stupidity. They don’t like that he obliviously uses a bullhorn without embarrassment. They don’t like his dumb tweets and eighth grade insults, or his self-serving meanness expressed in policy. And they don’t like his eagerness to openly be Putin’s bitch. They’re fine with the racism too, just don’t like that its out in the open as it is. They want Trump’s policy but without Trump.
The day Trump leaves the scene and the GOP continues on down its current path, these guys will come back to the fold.
This is about way more than style. Setting aside domestic issues, neocons might be fans of the Iranian bellicosity, but they most assuredly are not fans of shitting all over NATO and assorted other allies, or playing footsie with Putin.
As I recall, the Democrats that moved to a closer alliance with the Neoconservatives before and during Reagan’s period included people like “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA) and Sam Nunn (D-GA). These (and others) were “National Security” Democrats, basically Centrist on domestic policy and hawkish on foreign policy, especially about the Soviet Union.
That group doesn’t really exist anymore, even in the Senate, still less in the HOR. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t Center-Right Democrats, of course (e.g. Seth Moulton or Tim Ryan). N.B. I went to the same high school as Conor Lamb (though decades earlier) and it is a pretty liberal place so I suspect he was being electorally tactical and it worked.
Anyway, I hesitate to call the new Democratic majority (in the HOR) as “McGovernite”. The New Left of the late 1960s-early 1970s was so strongly defined by what they were against, i.e. the Vietnam War and Nixon and a deep distrust of the Establishment in both parties. The “left” that has been newly elected is much more about what they are for, especially health care, redressing economic inequality, addressing climate change, dealing with the gun carnage crisis, etc. That’s a very different agenda from the “old” New Left agenda.
This is just all of them frantically building the lifeboats to get off the USS GOP while it “sinks”, so they can clamber aboard the new USS Tea Party, (Ships motto: “Bush WHO??? Never heard of him!” which loses it’s name in the next rainstorm as the cheaply applied paint runs off to reveal: it’s the same old USS GOP…
Even Frank Luntz is in on the act now.