Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Smiling Populism

In tonight's address to a joint session of Congress, President Trump hit many of his familiar populist themes on immigration, trade, infrastructure, and other topics.  However, he presented them in a more conciliatory tone.  While speaking frankly about some of the very real challenges facing the United States, he emphasized the importance of Americans coming together to address those challenges.

For all the moderation of tone, this speech was big in policy ambition.  On immigration, he called for a shift to a more skills-based immigration system (a major change from the current dynastic immigration system).  On trade, he proposes upending the orthodoxy that has ruled in the Beltway for the past quarter of a century (if not longer).  A big-budget infrastructure program could have huge fiscal and economic implications.

If he is successful in this agenda, there could be a realignment of American politics.  But, in part because it could be so transformative, the agenda faces many obstacles in Congress.  Tonight's address aimed beyond the president's base and sent the message to members of Congress that the president could articulate a positive, unifying vision.  Both of those moves may be a sign from the Trump White House that it acknowledges how tough the road ahead could be--and that it is willing to use a variety of tactics to confront those difficulties.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Conservatism and the Nation

Rich Lowry’s and Ramesh Ponnuru’s defense of nationalism has many thoughtful points and offers a helpful corrective to certain myths about nationalism. While Lowry and Ponnuru do sketch some of the connections between nationalism and conservatism, I think it’s worth developing a few more points about the alliance between conservatism and the idea of a nation-state.

Support for the nation-state would seem a natural extension of the conservative belief in nurturing the bonds of society. At least in the West, postnationalism has fostered two seemingly contradictory impulses: radical atomism, in which the individual is free to pursue his interests (commercial and otherwise) with little to no concern for others, and radical tribalism, in which the individual’s independent self is dissolved in the mass of an identity group (such as race, gender, or sexual identity).

Neither of these impulses seems congenial for conservatism. From a conservative perspective, they offer bastardized versions of individualism and social belonging. Radical atomization misses the fact that social commitments, rather than limiting the self, often enrich it. Identity-group tribalism, meanwhile, lacks the richness of a more multifaceted social belonging. National fellowship may not be the only way of avoiding these two traps, but it is a compelling one. It affords a way of organizing our immediate social commitments into a broader narrative. Because the nation-state makes no pretensions to universality (it is explicitly not global), it recognizes the diversity of human circumstances. The existence of diverse nation-states can serve as a way of reconciling the belief in certain universal moral principles with a recognition of the limits of human knowledge and action.

In addition to this conservative tradition, the Republican party has since its founding been the party of the nation. As Lowry and Ponnuru note, post-World War II Republicans often championed the defense of American sovereignty, and, more broadly, appeals to national sovereignty serve as a thread connecting Abraham Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. In fact, one of the strongest connections of Donald Trump to the broader Republican tradition is his unapologetic celebration of American sovereignty. (As the examples of Roosevelt and Reagan demonstrate, though, the defense of sovereignty need not mean radical isolationism. Especially as international commitments may serve U.S. interests, an involvement in international affairs can be an ally to the defense of American interests.)

Moreover, intense anti-nationalism (by which I mean an overwhelming hostility to the idea of the nation-state) seems, in many respects, a dead-end for conservatism as a political force. Conservatives who prioritize a hawkish or assertive foreign policy should recognize the fact that such a foreign policy demands a sense of national cohesion; efforts to dilute the meaning of citizenship will also deplete the ranks of citizen-soldiers and the public appetite for projecting power abroad. Politicians running under the banner of “economic efficiency” will have far less success at the ballot box than will those who specifically advance the claim that their economic policies are good for the nation’s electorate. On many issues (especially free speech), the United States has an expansive view of civil liberties, and efforts to weaken national sovereignty will likely put our enjoyment of those liberties at risk. A conservatism that attempts to eschew national affections will likely fail in the enterprise of winning votes and advancing its policy aims.

Like any passion, national affection can at times be unbalanced or used for unworthy ends. Ethical reasoning and administrative prudence are crucial for conducting politics. Nevertheless, affection for one’s country plays a role, too, and conservatism has long recognized the importance of affections, national and otherwise.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Varieties of Conservative Experience

Matthew Continetti has a revealing piece on the many challenges facing the Trump administration.  One of them is an entrenched bureaucratic class intent on using the tools of the bureaucracy to sabotage and undermine the democratically elected head of the executive branch.  Continetti has some worthwhile thoughts about the political dynamics of this collision.

However, there's one point from his piece that warrants some elaboration (emphasis added):
At issue is the philosophy of nation-state populism that drove his insurgent campaign. It is so at variance with the ideologies of conservatism and liberalism predominant in the capital that Washington is experiencing something like an allergic reaction. Nation-state populism diverges from Beltway conservatism on trade, immigration, entitlements, and infrastructure, and from liberalism on sovereignty, nationalism, identity politics, and political correctness.
 Continetti doesn't explicitly say this, but I think it's worth mentioning that "Beltway conservatism" is not, of course, the only kind of conservatism.  If "Beltway conservatism" means a kind of neo-Kempism, then there certainly would be conflicts between "nation-state populism" and "Beltway conservatism."  The Kempist vision supports expansive trade deals, an increase in immigration flows (and a skepticism about rigorous immigration enforcement), entitlement "reform" (that usually means reducing and/or privatizing federal entitlements), and nurtures a wariness about large infrastructure plans.  Clearly, many of Trump's positions and those of "nation-state populism" more broadly would conflict with a Kempian vision.

However, there are plenty of conservative governing records that the vision of a "nation-state populism" would be in some accord with.  Ronald Reagan didn't privatize entitlements--he increased taxes to pay for them.  While Reagan talked about "free trade," he also imposed import quotas on Japanese automobiles.  And Reagan has been the Republican president most clearly associated with movement conservatism.  Looking back to other Republicans who also implemented conservative policies (even if they weren't ideologues) makes this lineage even richer.  Eisenhower, a man of conservative moderation, built a federal highway system and launched a massive deportation effort.  Many movement conservatives revere Calvin Coolidge, but Coolidge celebrated tariffs and defended a limited, pro-assimiliationist immigration policy.

All these things suggest that there are elements within the broader conservative tradition that could very much be in accord with the aims of "nation-state populism."  However, in order to realize that political harmony, some in the Beltway will have to surrender the belief that a certain narrow brand of conservatism has a monopoly on conservatism or good governance.

Friday, February 3, 2017

Filibuster Follies

At NRO today, I argue why it is not in the Democrats' best interest to sustain a filibuster against Trump Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
From a strategic viewpoint, Senate Democrats have every incentive to let the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees live another day. Mitch McConnell knows that there will be a political cost for going nuclear on the Supreme Court filibuster, and he does not seem very eager to pay it. Nor does there seem to be that great of an appetite for working around the Senate filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Nearly every signal that Republican Senate leadership has sent indicates that the party would very much like to approve Gorsuch — and any other Trump Supreme Court nominee — through the regular order of the Senate. This situation gives Senate Democrats some small measure of power: As long as the filibuster persists, their expectations become a variable that has to be factored into the calculus of any Supreme Court nomination. That variable may or may not have that much weight — but it will have some weight.
You can read the rest here.

Bill Kristol has a piece up in the latest issue of The Weekly Standard that underlines the way that a Democratic refusal to accept any Trump Supreme Court nominee could end up backfiring on the party.  While the Senate GOP may be willing to compromise on some nominees, they will not stand by and allow Democrats to block every Republican nominee to the highest court in the land.

This might be dismissed as concern trolling, but it shouldn’t be: Americans of all stripes have an interest in preserving the minority’s voice in the affairs of the Senate, and the filibuster is one of the key mechanisms for the minority. (And, for what little it’s worth, I have argued for the benefits of the filibuster when both Republicans and Democrats held the majority.) The filibustering of Supreme Court nominees is a relatively new innovation, so removing this filibuster might not be as radical a departure from Senate tradition as ending the legislative filibuster. But this removal could contribute to a long-term erosion of norms for protecting the power of the minority. Ironically, the time when partisan tensions are so high is also the time when compromise-encouraging institutions are so important.