Many conservatives have rejected Trump on the ground that he is not a conservative. But what is conservatism? Is it merely a doctrine, or even a dogma, to be upheld intellectually, as the antidote to liberalism? Or is it the political defense of a certain way of life that derives much of its authority from the past? If conservatism means anything, it must require a defense of the good as established by a tradition that has preserved the best of the past. At its political peak, it came to be understood in terms of the traditional defense of civil and religious liberty. That is what the American Founders and Lincoln understood constitutionalism to be. Yet modern Progressivism is established upon a rejection of the good of the past. And it has established the intellectual and political ground of both liberalism and conservativism.
It is not surprising that many now wonder if they can conserve anything meaningful from the past, including constitutional government itself. They have experienced the wholesale destruction of the regime of civil and religious liberty; one that was built upon a moral tradition that was established in the course of a two-thousand-year-old civilization. It may still be possible to preserve a conservative doctrine, but it is not unreasonable to ask whether it is possible to live a traditional or conservative life. In reality, it is the traditional moral and political defense of civil and religious liberty that has been undermined by liberalism. American citizens, who want to live by the virtues established by that tradition, have no real public means of defending their way of life. The Washington elites have succeeded in transforming the moral foundations of contemporary political and social life behind the backs of the American people, and without their consent.
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