Picking up where he left off: Trump continues destruction of conservatism
In the aftermath of the 2024 elections, two things remain clear: Republicans are still cowards and liars willing to sell their political souls to Democrats and Donald Trump — but I repeat myself — and together, Republicans and Donald Trump have picked up where they left off in 2020 in the destruction of conservatism.
For years, conservatives such as myself have been warning that the leftist ideology now being adopted by Trump and the Republican Party would destroy the Christian constitutional conservative values we hold dear and replace them with Trumpism and nationalism as the new measure of conservatism.
I recently read a piece by former Republican candidate for legislative district 22 of the New Jersey state assembly, David Sypher, Jr., that shares similar thoughts about the destruction of conservatism. Specifically, Sypher points out how this destruction isn’t only coming from the far left, it’s also coming from a “woke right” that now dominates the Republican Party:
The American right has been hijacked. It has been taken over by self-serving grifters, conspiracy theorists, and opportunists who have turned a movement of ideas into a carnival of outrage. Once, conservatives stood for principles—limited government, personal responsibility, law and order. Now, too many on the right have traded that legacy for performance politics, grievance peddling, and blind loyalty to a single man instead of a philosophy.
Conservatism, which should stand for enduring values and principles, is being suffocated by those who have no interest in governance, only in stoking resentment. The movement is at a crossroads. Either we reclaim it, or we watch it descend into nothing more than another hollow, reactionary grievance machine.
Conservatives have long opposed identity politics. We have argued, rightly, that a movement built on grievance is not a movement that can govern. And yet, in the last few years, the right has embraced its own version of the very thing it claims to despise. The “Woke Right” thrives on the same victimhood mentality it ridicules in the left. (Emphasis mine)
Sypher goes on to show how the Republican Party’s embrace of a “cult of personality” has further destroyed conservatism:
Conservatism has always been about ideas, not individuals. But today, the right has been consumed by a movement that demands absolute loyalty to one man, no matter how often he betrays conservative principles.
Donald Trump did not strengthen the conservative movement—he hollowed it out. He turned it from a movement of ideas into a movement of loyalty tests. Instead of limiting government, he exploded the national debt. Instead of personal responsibility, he excused corruption and failure. Instead of law and order, he encouraged political violence when it suited him.
His version of conservatism is not about policy. It is about spectacle. The new MAGA right has no interest in governing. They do not talk about lowering taxes, cutting regulations, strengthening foreign policy, or balancing budgets. They talk only about who is the most loyal, who is the biggest enemy, who must be purged.
I wrote an article in 2018, Walking the Lonely Conservative Road in the Age of Trump, where I shared how taking a stand for conservative values faced overwhelming opposition from not only far left Democrats, but also from Republicans and Donald Trump’s army of MAGA loyalists. And as I look back at the piece now that Trump has returned to the White House, every concern I raised has not only been validated, but they have become much worse.
Since that 2018 article, conservative groups once dedicated to fighting big-government tyranny and oppression have been consumed by Trumpism. One-by-one, groups such as the House Freedom Caucus, the Senate Conservatives Fund, and the Convention of States Project have sacrificed conservatism on the altar of Trump.
Outside of Washington, the sellout to Trumpism has become standard operating procedure for the faux conservative media euphemistically referred to a Conservative (Con) Inc. A classic example of this sellout was evident when so-called conservatives Mark Levin and Glenn Beck joined forces to create the pro-Trump echo chamber and home of faux conservatives now known as BlazeTV. Not to be outdone, Salem Radio Network has turned into a pro-Trump propaganda arm, becoming what I’ve come to refer to as the Trump Radio Network — a talk radio network comprised of faux conservatives who used to stand for conservative values. This is where you’ll find Charlie Kirk hanging out these days.
And what would the explosion of Trumpism and the death of conservatism be without the eternal worship and adoration being heaped on “God’s Man” by Evangelicals and the Fellowship if the Pharisees?
The current version of conservatism is now referred to as Nationalist Conservativism — a big-government, pro-socialist, anti-liberty ideology being touted as a patriotic “America First” alternative to the far left. Unfortunately, there’s nothing patriotic or conservative about it.
In the Age of Trump, the death of true conservatism and the rise of Nationalism is no longer in doubt. The only question remaining is how will we respond?
For years, I have committed myself to remain on the path of my principals, and I’m just as determined to continue doing so today. It’s still a lonely journey, but as have said many times, I would rather walk the right road alone than walk the wrong road with the crowd.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative and the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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