Conservatives and Democrats Need Each Other

It’s been one week since Donald Trump’s 47% sorted themselves in the right states at the right time to win him 306 electoral votes and the presidency. In the midst of the understandable surprise, conservatives who resisted Trump are pondering their fate. Evan McMullin was rather blunt about it (WaPo).

“The Republican Party can no longer be considered the home for conservatives,” McMullin said. “Conservatism is about protecting the fundamental rights: That we are all equal, regardless of the color of our skin, the faith that we practice or our gender. But tonight there are millions of Americans, I’m sad to say, who are now in fear that perhaps their liberties will be challenged and threatened under a Trump administration that has made a campaign of targeting people based on their race, religion and gender.”

As Trump ascends to the White House and continues turning the GOP into the Party of Big Government for White People, conservatives – especially in the economic and foreign policy realms – will feel increasingly adrift with “nowhere to go.”

Meanwhile, the defeated Democrats are casting about for reasons and for scapegoats, but Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has a reason they need to hear (NYPo).

The prestigious GW/Battleground Poll showed this clearly. In both September and October, this poll — conducted by respected Republican pollster Ed Goaes and respected Democratic pollster Celinda Lake — showed that the election would be decided by the 18 percent of Americans who held a negative view of both candidates. These voters were disproportionally male, college-educated and either Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.

Nearly 60 percent of these voters preferred neither candidate. This was the primary source of votes for Gary Johnson, Evan McMullin, or the undecided bloc.

Clinton’s challenge was clear. If she couldn’t move them into her camp, they were susceptible to last-minute changes of heart to return to the party they preferred.

She could have talked about issues these voters cared about — taxes or national security. The latter might have been a fruitful path of contrast as Trump had called into question over 70 years of American security policy with his loose talk about NATO and our bilateral defense treaties. But she never chose to emphasize these rather obvious lines of attack.

The exit poll showed 18 percent of voters still did not like either candidate, but now those people backed Trump over Clinton by a 49-29 margin. Their votes put The Donald in the White House.

If anything, this understates it. Exit polling in PA, WI, MI, FL, and NC showed that the don’t-like-either demographic provided Trump his margin of victory in all five states.

For Democrats, the message should be clear. The party needs a conservative wing: one that can appeal to economic conservatives who are about to see the the effect of Trump’s raging protectionism and (if he listens to folks like Dave Brat) a clampdown on high-skilled immigration; and one that can appeal to Atlanticists and neoconservatives who are about to see Trump following his instincts to prefer dictators over democrats on the world stage.

That said, conservatives should also consider the possibilities of making common cause with the Democrats. How often have we been told we “have nowhere to go” by Republican leaders? Hasn’t our assertion that millions of Republican voters were with us just been exposed as foolhardy? Have we not created our on political capture by refusing to look outside the GOP?

Conservatives have a choice: continue to be ignored and threatened in turn by “our” party, explore the minor party jungle (which, as 2016 showed us, is far from promising), or take the leap and make it clear to both parties that we can be the voters who put them over the top.

The first impulse will be to return to the status quo ante; I get that. Conservatives will hope Paul Ryan can save them (his vote for TARP notwithstanding), while Democrats will try to comfort themselves into thinking a leftward shift will bring victory. I don’t think either are correct. The “white working-class” Trumpenproletariat who swung the Midwest to Trump are gone and not going blue again. It will be economic conservatives in those states (Johnson voters who could conceivably bring PA, WI, and MI back) and their counterparts (Republicans) in NC and FL that can bring the Democrats out of the wilderness.

I think a conservative wing is what the Democrats need, what conservatives need, and what America needs, and from now on, I’m helping to build it, one feather at a time.

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