[1]It would be a stretch — a fantastical one — to bring Donald Trump into the orbit of George Wallace.
…yet sometimes, the voices of one’s supporters don’t always mimic the aspirations of the campaign. To wit [2]:
“Donald Trump is telling the truth and people don’t always like that,” said Donald Kidd, a 73-year-old retired pipe welder from Mobile. “He is like George Wallace, he told the truth. It is the same thing.”
Alabama Governor George Wallace was the embodiment of Southern resistance against desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s. The infamous stand in the school house door in September 1963. His throwing down the gauntlet in the face of tyranny by declaring “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever” in 1963 inaugural speech as governor, standing in the very spot Confederate President Jefferson Davis did when the Confederacy separated from the Union.
By 1972, even Wallace had softened… and by the late 1970s, Wallace had converted to Christianity, while loyal Alabamians re-elected him for five terms as governor in Alabama until as recently as 1987, where he pledged not to run again. Wallace died in 1998.
The presidential race of 1972 was marked by a rising tide of populism, one that Wallace embraced and was even leading in polls until his near assassination at the hands of a man who sought fame rather than the eradication of a political radical. The tide abated, and it was Nixon who adopted the “silent majority” Wallace bragged about in the 1960s, though without the undercurrent of segregationist rhetoric that marked Wallace’s career. Nixon’s election marked the final death knell of segregation, and by 1976 every state in the Union was desegregated, Virginia only having achieved this by 1975.
Folks might bristle at the comparison between Donald Trump and George Wallace [3], but Americans have seen this sentiment before. In the 1950s, it was the John Birch Society. During the 1930s, it was Charles Lindbergh and the America First crowd. Before that, it was Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party (sic progressives). Before that, it was the likes of William Jennings Bryan railing against the gold standard in his “Cross of Gold” speech that so electrified Democrats at the turn of the century.
So the record is pretty clear that Trump’s campaign for president is nothing new to American politics. Before Trump, it was Ross Perot and the Reform Party during the 1992 elections, where a rough alliance was formed within the Republican Party after the 1994 Republican Revolution. For over 20 years, the alliance has served the GOP well: the election of George W. Bush, the reaction after 9/11, the 2004 elections, the 2010 elections, the 2014 sweep. Civil libertarians cringed, and forged their own opposition that was encapsulated in a very different sort of Republican modeled after Barry Goldwater — that being Ron Paul.
Yet in the wake of the Obama presidency, the fabric is undoubtedly frayed. Libertarians and populists found joint cause in the errors of “the establishment” yet could never contrive joint solutions, if for no other reason than the populist security state that forged the Patriot Act, builds walls, and hires federal police is antithetical to the idea of civil liberty.
American populism has a tattered history, one that finds a great deal in common with the progressive era and with populists themselves. True, progressives seek revolution; populists seek counter-revolution. Both have a rather erroneous view of the concept of America, as both strands indeed view the American experiment as something definitively revolutionary rather than reactionary, a cause that preserves the tradition of natural law and rejects the ability of government to create a better world. Americans of the liberal and conservative tradition share the same Jeffersonian taproot of classical liberalism, one that views human liberty as a thing to be unleashed rather than corralled.
In this, the progressives and populists share a common thread [4]. Both want their government to do something, whether that is raise taxes on the 1%, build a $166 billion wall, cancel out student loan debt, or encourage the building of a police state for maximum security against foreign invaders.
[5]
Sound familiar?
What is far more interesting is where the populists and progressives overlap: anti-immigration (labor), pro-manufacturing, anti-free trade, ambivalent (or hostile) to social conservatism, anti-banking, anti-business, and generally Alinskyite in their approach to politics. Don’t like it? They will freeze you, polarize you, personalize you, then destroy you.
…the rest of us don’t take too kindly to that.
If one were to look at the Republican Party writ large, about 65% of them are in the conservative camp, of varying flavors, but generally in the circle where travelers such as Bush, Walker, and Rubio are quite comfortable. Trump, Cruz, and Carson fill in that 25% that is older, more populist, and more retrenched — the white dwarf that the old Tea Party left behind. Another 10% is the liberty wing of the GOP: younger, more libertarian, supremely concerned about civil liberties, and surprisingly pro-life in their outlook (mileage may vary).
Demographically, things are a mess. Bush 43 won in 2004 with 44% of the Hispanic vote. In 2008, that number dwindled to 28% in the wake of the failed attempt to reform immigration in 2007, a move that convinced many Hispanics watching from the sidelines that the GOP simply did not care for their existence (legal or illegal). In 2012, Romney was only able to capture 23% of the Hispanic vote.
Let’s bring these numbers into more stark contrast. Most folks do not know that Ed Gillespie lost the African American vote in his Virginia 2014 campaign to unseat Mark Warner by a margin of 90% to 10%, and in a campaign where the numbers were incredibly close. Gillespie was masterful at reaching out to communities Republicans would never dream of entering… and even then, just 10%.
Add to this our third demographic: Asian-Pacific Islanders, where Republicans are beginning to lose steady ground. In fact, as the argument regarding illegal immigration moves from reform, to anti-reform, to targeting “border jumpers” and finally to an anti-immigrant fever pitch, given the way the Hispanic community has already reacted towards the loudest voices in the Republican Party thus far regarding immigration, it is not a stretch to see the embarrassment the GOP is heading for, should the populist wing of the GOP continue down the path of white identity politics, imitating the very worst of the far-right parties in Europe.
Here’s another item to consider.
Quentin Kidd over at the Christopher Newport Judy Ford Wason Center For Public Policy [6] had an excellent breakdown of Virginia’s electorate. It might not be along the lines that I would prefer them to be, but two observations were crystal clear in the report:
* The populists are dying off.
* The liberty movement is the future.
Here are some numbers. As of today, about 23% of self-identified Republicans are “staunch conservatives” while 19% remain “libertarian.” Break this down into age demographics. Over 45? Populists outnumber the libertarians 2:1 (28%-14%). Under 45? Libertarians enjoy almost a 3:1 ratio (30%-13%).
The future is not with the likes of Donald Trump. The future is with the likes of Rand Paul.
What is more interesting beyond the superficial is that most commentators have whittled the GOP nomination contest for president to two contenders: Trump and Bush [7]. Cruz has effectively been out-Cruzed by Trump. The remaining conservative contenders — Rubio and Walker — are showing varying degrees of spark, but nothing to overcome Bush’s immense frontrunner status.
The wedding, then, consists of a conservative bride with two suitors: Trump the Populist, or Rand the Libertarian Realist.
Who’s better by the numbers? Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out [8].
[9]The problem is, such questions can’t even be addressed until we attack another: whether or not the ghost of George Wallace deserves to be exorcised. The answer ought to be a resounding yes, but as Trump is illustrating, a good portion of the current Republican Party embraces the contrarian nature of the populist movement. Perhaps more important than this, what sort of party best embodies the spirit of Ronald Reagan remains: a populist-led revanchism against the left, or the libertarian-leaning fusionism that served Ronald Reagan so very well?
Meanwhile, populists can attempt to play the apologist for the nativism and racism within their ranks, but it rings hollow in conservative ears.
Too often, we can confuse contrarianism for conservatism; we have certainly made this mistake in Virginia. Trump’s appeal is his contrarian stance, his “stick it to ’em” appeal that Bryan, Roosevelt, Lindbergh, the Birchers, and yes even George Wallace inspired among those who know something is wrong with America, but don’t know how to fix it. Blaming the national sins of a country on a class of individuals who deserve it — in this instance, undocumented workers and primarily those Hispanics who have crossed the border illegally — is a cheap way to power and influence, but it works marvelously in a nation with minds as malleable as ours.
The question becomes whether or not American conservatism is morally and intellectually robust enough to turn back the tide. One would not be held in contempt for believing otherwise under the shade of populist-driven rhetoric plus results over the last 20 years.
I’ll leave you with two quotes, one from one of my three favorite economists (the other two being Hayek and Pesch):
“Classical liberalism regarded those laws best that afforded the least discretionary power to executive authorities, thus avoiding arbitrariness and abuse. The modern state seeks to expand its discretionary power. Everything is to be left to the discretion of officials.”
— Ludwig von Mises, A Critique of Interventionism (1929)
Ask yourself whether a $166 billion expansion of federal power is the right answer to America’s immigration woes — an answer that doesn’t effectively reform the system, but requires a “step two” that is terrible to contemplate. Is that expansion of discretionary power truly in the best interest of a free society?
…and the last one, from a current Republican presidential candidate who may not see the finish line, but has directly challenged the moral threat populism is posing towards the liberty movement’s idea and beliefs:
“A Republican Party that becomes more constitutionally conservative, libertarian-leaning and promotes a less aggressive foreign policy — this is a GOP that could be a majority party again.”
— Senator Rand Paul (2013)
Declaring a trade war with our #3 trading partner is not a solution. Building a $166 billion wall plus enforcement while leaving the drug cartels untouched is not a solution. Ambivalence towards abortion culture is not a defensible position, nor is an advocacy for a single-payer health care system. Trump’s solutions are all saccharine, but no substance… and populist solutions have been this way since William Jennings Bryan attacked the gold standard. Populism is not a form of good governance, plain and simple.
The deeper realization here is that cultural shifts take a generation to have their effect. We have lost a generation pandering to the populists. The path to freedom will be a 20 year road, but the alliance conservatives ought to be brokering is with the bold solutions of a libertarian-leaning future, not the destructive and boring results of our populist past.
Whether the message from the populist wing of the party is “Send Them A Message” or “Make America Great Again” the consequences remain the same. Populist revanchism is not the future of freedom in America. To paraphrase the man himself: not now, not tomorrow, not ever.