I'd like to turn for a second to a subtext of this debate. One narrative for debates about the future of the right goes something like this: The American right was for a long time the party of laissez-faire and minimal governance--in ideals if not in reality--so arguments for making the GOP more populist are also call to break with this inheritance of movement conservatism and move in a more statist direction.
This argument has certain elements of truth (many elements of the American right have been proponents of more libertarian or "classically liberal" economics). But it might also elide some important points, especially that the American right has long been a proponent of massive state action.
The famous "three-legged stool" of movement conservatism (social conservatism, market-based economics, and Cold War hawkishness) had state power at its core. As I've written before, proponents of an assertive stance against the Soviet Union focused on American state power as a key vehicle--more about government military spending, and much less letters of marque. Moreover, that government spending on the Cold War also often functioned as a form of industrial policy. ARPA/DARPA invested in many key technologies (such as the Internet), the space program spurred on many innovations, and defense contracting provided a major source of industrial production. And there were political implications for these investments, too. South California was both a major aerospace hub and a citadel for the GOP. (Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, cutbacks in aerospace and defense in the aftermath of the Cold War were soon followed by a GOP retreat in the Golden State.)
This suggests that the theoretical divisions between the policies of traditional "movement conservatism" and a more populist politics might not be quite as sharp as they first seem. The belief that government action plays an essential role in securing the conditions of freedom and the recognition of personal dignity might be seen as a throughline. We no longer live in the world of 1979, so the precise policies might have to change, and much could be gained through looking back at the deeper traditions of American politics for fusing civic regulation and personal freedom. A politics of the commonwealth, national integrity, and liberty has a long lineage in American life, from the Federalists onward. Conservatives in the 20th century drew from that tradition, and they still can draw from it in the 21st.
