A Pyrrhic defeat: The future of conservatism
The Trump Era may be at the curtain call, but Conservative Populism is far from dead.
The article is the first in a three-part series by S. D. Wickett, and features in our January print issue, available purchase here. Subscribe here to have every issue delivered to your door for a discounted price.
Since the birth of a new monolithic elite sometime between the New Deal and the end of the Second World War, we have been taught that all of our problems, yearnings and moral quandaries fall into left and right. It is a polite, simple and convenient model for political analysis, but it is nonetheless a narrative that has been constructed to keep at bay the mobilisation of any real threat to the western monolith.
The great financial crash of 2008 delivered a hefty blow to the economic system that was supposed to give us agency and liberation. Attempts to censor, 'contextualise', and ultimately control online speech has shown us that our 'inherent' Western liberties are not as inherent as we might have hoped.
Our virtuous leaders aren't so virtuous, and the institutions designed to safeguard our way of life aren't up for the task. Every subsequent observation I have made and opinion I have formed is a derivative of this realisation.
We live not in a dichotomy of ideas, but a trichotomy of values. David Goodhart touches on this in his 'Somewhere' versus 'Anywhere' thesis. The theory of three was given life in the wake the electoral insurgency against the established order, launching the populist wave of the 2010s. Encouraged by financial crises and Liberal entrenchment, the platforms of Trump, Sanders, Corbyn, Farage, Balsonaro, and Syriza, among others, emerged. This pitted the two emergent streams, Conservative Populism and Utopian Populism, against one another, fighting for the scraps of the Post War Progressive Order.
Of all the blades to penetrate the armour of Brussels, D.C., and Davos, that of Donald Trump was a sword, swung for the neck. The enthusiasm around his initial presidential run had not been seen in the Republican Party since the days of Ronald Reagan. Everything that the establishment threw at the man bounced off. By 2020, his vote had increased by ten million.
It should be clearly stated that Trumpism is something far bigger than the man himself, and that Trumpism itself is a mere manifestation of the frustrations held my ordinary men and women the world over.
Normal people are frustrated, and rightly so. They are frustrated with leaders who don’t listen to them; a media which sneers at them; an education system that leaves their children maladjusted, debt-ridden and infantile; a reckless immigration policy; a popular culture which excludes them, and; an intelligentsia which despises them.
They don't want foreign wars, out-sourced manufacturing or declining families, a recidivist crime policy, automation, deindustrialisation or the stigmatisation of patriotism. Matthew Kirtley of the Young Social Democrats put it perfectly on my podcast: what we are seeing is the beneficiaries and the losers of globalisation.
Truth be told, anyone with the gravitas and ability to withstand the weaponised scandal of Trump could have been the face of it. Thus, it seems redundant to refer to this phenomenon as 'Trumpism'. While the Trump Era may be at the curtain call, Conservative Populism is far from dead.
If the modus operandi of Conservative Populism is to undermine the Post War Progressive Order, the work has been successfully under way for several years. Every arm of the Progressive apparatus is rejected in the eyes of the conservative, and a clearly defined counter culture exists online as a big tent, housing many differing factions. Even the Utopian Populists see a monolithic information apparatus as unfit. Both they and the Conservative Populists have declared war on the Progressives simultaneously, and in this zero-sum game, a populist gain is an elitist loss.
In the past, the Progressive Order could cover itself well. Its scandals could be contained, its wars could be spun into approval and its excesses could be kept hidden away. These luxuries no longer bless our elites. The world given to us by Assange, Snowdon, and Manning stripped them proverbially naked for the masses to see. When the Democratic National Convention leant on the scales, tipping the presidential primary from Bernie Sanders to Joe Biden, the Utopians declared war. And although the two may appear to be symbiotic, this is not the case; the Progressives have simply made a misplaced bet.
The conservative camp were no strangers to alienation within the establishment press. The latter's tepid response to the various scandals of the Obama administration made an island of many a blue-collar American.
Add to this a massive proliferation of content on social networking platforms throughout the 2010s. Ordinary people felt that something was wrong, that some intangible part of America's soul was missing; something transcendent of markets, military might and the specifics of taxation. The doctrines of Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism weren't working for the American people, and a flood of alternative media lit the fuse. One way or another, this edifice was doomed to collapse within a generation, its gatekeepers of truth with it.
As the collapse of news media monopolies accelerated, the intelligentsia panicked, lashing out at any threat, with no accusation considered foul play. Bored of the constant attempts to scandalise conservative figures, coupled with an open favouritism by the media for Progressive causes in coverage and tone, increasing numbers of Americans sought to find different sources of news. Many of these new outlets became the targets of slander in the mainstream press and of censorship from Silicon Valley. This merely emboldened its adherents, who were inspired by the romanticised vision of dissent that fuels any counter-cultural mobilisation.
Though seemingly existential in its threat, a Biden presidency could be a blessing in disguise for conservatives. A Biden presidency will be a weak, insipid affair, bogged down by a resurgent G.O.P. presence in the senate and a conservative-leaning Supreme Court. Biden's administration will rapidly degenerate into a white noise of special interests. Short-term accomplishments which will, in time, be akin to famous last words.
Meanwhile, the true competitor of the conservative, the Utopian, will also spend a great deal of the next four years under-mining and shrinking its spoils of war. They will be empowered, but not in power; alienating further swathes of the public, driving many more towards a conservative reaction. The anti-Trump coalition that carried Biden across the line will crumble; an alliance of iconoclastic youths hell-bent on revolution, corporatist centrists and G.O.P. turncoats is doomed.
While conflict with Utopian Populists is inevitable, Conservative Populism will win hearts and minds as it appeals more to wholesome communal instincts. The Utopian tradition of purity-testing and collective thinking makes it shrink consistently, and by 2024 I predict it will have reached critical mass and contracted sharply.
There is optimism to be found here. Over seventy million energised, enthusiastic, and patriotic American people from all walks of life voted for Donald Trump. On our side of the pond, 'Boris' Johnson stormed into power on the back of a populist message (however deceitful it is now, as then, obvious to have been).
This is an energy which, if harnessed and cultivated, can achieve anything within the democratic system. The demographics of Trump's base shatter popular narratives, most notably the numbers of L.G.B.T. and Hispanic voters who voted Republican, many for the first time. Likewise with Johnson flipping eternal red seats blue.
A monumental realignment is happening in the west, one which spells promise for conservatives in the future. This movement will grow as the Biden presidency and Utopian street activism delegitimise themselves when exposed via a false sense of hegemony. It is due to this, not in spite of it, that conservatism has a fighting chance.
The next four years represents a chance for conservatism to truly re-establish itself and to beat back the spiritual haemorrhaging of neoliberalism and market absolutism. To reintroduce wholesome, pro-family, pro-nation, pro-worker conservatism as an antidote to the atomisation and desperation of modernity. This craving, for gentler times, tight-knit communities and safe streets, proud patriotism and a strong social fabric is so deeply embedded in the public consciousness that its success or failure is down to a decision in policy.
