Confessions of a Conservative Apostate
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
For weeks I’ve been watching a parade of Republican officials describe how they worked inside a Republican administration under Donald Trump as the GOP fell to a bunch of kooks, opportunists, racists, and aspiring fascists. I do not know how many of them still think of themselves as Republicans, and I don’t care. I’m sure, however, that many of them—like the mendacious and oily William Barr—would still describe themselves as conservatives.
Such “ I would still vote for the conservative ” paternosters are required among the right wing in Washington. For the rest of us, who do not think of ourselves as “liberals” and who are not members of the Democratic Party, we have to try a little harder to think through our own political identity as voters and citizens. What does it even mean to be a conservative in the Trump era?
I’m not alone, of course, in wondering about this. I have a bookshelf in my home office where I have gathered the second thoughts of a lot of conservative authors who have broken with the GOP, including Charlie Sykes , Max Boot , Stuart Stevens , Jack Pitney , and Rick Wilson , among others. I’ve been thinking about it again while plowing through new books by people like Tim Miller and my Atlantic colleague Mark Leibovich .
Conservatives, or what used to be called “conservatives” before the GOP implosion, are the only people who can answer this question for ourselves. Our friends and coalition partners to our left are no help. If you ask them, I am a “conservative” by virtue of not being a liberal (or not being liberal enough ). Many of them are invested in narratives about how “the right wing was always like this,” or how Ronald Reagan (alternate version: Richard Nixon) “destroyed America,” or “conservatism was always inherently evil,” and on and on. This is not only tedious and silly, it’s pointless: In almost every democracy, the “right” and the “left” are part of a legitimate dialogue about government. Differences between the right and the left are meaningful and important.
But what are they? And are they worth arguing over at this point in American history?
I don’t speak for all conservatives. (Or any of them, if you listen to my critics from the GOP or among the anti-anti-Trump gripers.) And I am not going to launch into a long discourse here on Burkean conservatism or John Mill or John Locke or any of that. I have written, in bits and pieces , about what I think—at least for me—constitutes a conservative temperament, including ideas about human nature, the role of government, civic virtue, and the balance between freedom and responsibility.
The fact remains, however, that many of us are now in a coalition with an array of groups to our left. Among our former comrades on the right, this makes us apostates, defectors, heretics.
Still, we cannot make a permanent home with our temporary liberal roommates: We don’t like the panties on the curtain rod , and they don’t like the notes we leave on the pillow . And yet, here we are, because none of the issues that would normally matter between right and left matter as much as the future of democracy. A conservative who cares about the future of the constitutional order must face the reality that the Republican Party has become a menace to the Constitution and our system of government.
What I am “conserving,” by being a conservative, is our political order and the future freedom to argue and advocate within that order. This is why, for the duration of this national emergency (one that began in 2017 and is not over yet), I approach policies and politicians with two questions that—again, for now—override my policy preferences:
- Does this issue strengthen or weaken the Republicans as they continue to advocate for sedition and authoritarianism?
- Does this political figure caucus with the Republicans? Will he or she vote to make Kevin McCarthy the speaker of the House and Mitch McConnell the majority leader of the Senate?
Everything else runs in third place.
The practical effect here is that I will root for GOP defeats on policy even where I might otherwise agree with them . The institutional Republican Party must be weakened enough so that it can’t carry out the larger project of undermining our elections and curtailing our rights as citizens.
Put another way, it does no good to support small Republican wins on policy if the cumulative effect is to strengthen the party so that it is larger and more cohesive when it makes another run at destroying the Constitution. Politics is an ugly business; strategy requires some painful decisions. I believe we are in an existential political crisis, and I intend to act accordingly. (I wish some of my liberal friends would do the same, as I have argued here .)
But if I am being honest, I have also changed my mind on some of the issues that once kept me on the GOP ranch. I am not as conservative as I once was.
I was a young Reaganite conservative in the early 1980s. I was a big fan of the death penalty, because I thought I was immortal. I cheered the building of nuclear weapons, because that felt like bravery. I was in favor of super-low taxation, because I was broke and I didn’t want to pay any taxes—not that I was paying any to speak of in the first place. I was agnostic about abortion because I was a young man, and it was convenient for me not to think about it. I was a relentless immigration hawk, because I am the grandson of immigrants whose family was all safely in the United States. I had almost no empathy for diversity and inclusion arguments, because I came from the white working class.
As I got older, I took many things more seriously, including reckoning with my Christian faith. I understand the necessity of killing in wartime—every summer I teach a course on war that includes the “just war” tradition—but I can no longer accept the state executing people in my name. I have already written about how I have come to my position that abortion, while a tragedy, must remain legal and a decision women have to make for themselves. I have studied nuclear weapons long enough now to become— like Ronald Reagan , no less—a nuclear abolitionist.
I make more money now than I did when I was young. I still don’t like paying taxes, but as I get older I have decided that punitively making life hard for other people doesn’t solve anything. No one in a country as rich as ours should be sweating the cost of routine medical care and life-saving drugs. I once opposed the Affordable Care Act, and I’m still not a fan of creating gigundous entitlement programs administered by a clunky and wasteful bureaucracy. But writing checks to my church or giving to pet shelters isn’t a substitute for government action when people are dying preventable deaths. So let’s fight about taxes—but let’s make sure people get their insulin, too.
On other issues, I have not changed my views. I still find arguments about affirmative action to be too much about race and sex and not enough about class. But when faced with the quiet-part-out-loud racism of people on the right, from Trump to Tucker Carlson , the rest of us should be talking about racial equality in ways that are not despicable.
Likewise, I still cannot abide the term “undocumented immigrant,” which I think is Orwellian, and I cringe at the “Dreamer” appellation as emotionalist branding. But the Trump administration and many of its supporters not only objected to illegal immigration, but denied that people in the United States illegally—and their children— are even human beings . We can reform immigration without losing our humanity.
Perhaps I have been changed by fatherhood, or age, but as a general approach to politics I no longer think that every dilemma in which human lives are at risk should end with Keanu Reeves shooting the hostage .
I once wrote that after Trump’s election I could never be as partisan as I once was. I was sometimes radicalized by some of the positions of the left, adopting the mirror image of their extremism as a way of staking out my own turf. In so doing I probably pushed others to the left, in the stupid synergy of tribalism that is now out of control. There was an unseriousness to this kind of dueling-with-hand-grenades, and I was part of it.
Back then, this kind of partisanship didn’t seem like a problem: In the Before Times, we still argued over politics instead of whether communist Muslims had taken over our Venezuelan voting machines with help from the Italian space program. I felt like it was safe to throw elbows and do some partisan high-sticking; I believed that we were all in a giant bouncy house called the Constitution, a place where we might bump skulls or sprain an ankle now and then but where there were no sharp edges and there were only soft landings.
I don’t believe that anymore.
I’ve also been thinking about something Charlie Sykes said in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Charlie asked how he, a pro-life stalwart, could now be so concerned about finally getting what pro-lifers have wanted for 50 years with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The answer, as he wrote in June, is that he simply does not trust today’s Republicans to act in a humane or responsible manner. Neither do I.
In fact, I do not trust the GOP to enact conservative policies in any but the most repressive and cruel fashion. I do not trust that their goal is limited government ; I believe their goal is limited democracy , and specifically, limited only to themselves and people who think as they do.
Are the Democrats any better? Of course they are. I have never been shy about noting the totalitarian streak on the American left , but the Democrats have not been captured by their fringe. More to the point, they are not institutionally capable of implementing the plans of their young-Stalinist wing. (Let's face it: On most days, the Democrats couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery.) And they are led by Joe Biden, a fundamentally decent man. I disagree with many leading Democrats, but I do not think they are delusional authoritarians, and for now, that’s a lot.
The conservatives, in any case, have become completely un -conservative. The traditional conservative emphasis on law and order and on limited government has not held the GOP’s theocratic-nutball wing in check. The same people who decried the growth of executive power now worship a sociopathic real-estate con man as a demigod. The party that prided itself on its national-security cred is now voting against admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO like some early–20th century isolationist know-nothings. Even Republicans who should know better cheer the Supreme Court siding with a high-school football coach pulling his players into prayer sessions. And as my Atlantic colleague Jerusalem Demsas recently pointed out , Republicans went from “giving abortion back to the states” to trying to figure out how to allow those same states to interfere with the rights of Americans to move freely in their own country.
Am I defector? From the GOP, yes. My ultimate loyalty, however, is to the Constitution. Especially in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, I now regard every elected and appointed seat held by a Republican as a possible vote for autocracy , and every Republican victory, no matter how small, as one more advantage for a party whose litmus test for membership is accepting Donald Trump’s lies and whose platform seems to be that the next free and fair American election will be the last free and fair American election.
I’ll never be at home in my current coalition. That’s the nature of politics. But if joining with Democrats to stop an authoritarian takeover of the United States means that I have to grit my teeth and endure silly arguments about student loans and preferred politically correct terms , so be it. One of the things conservatives believe in—or this one does, anyway—is that human nature, immutable and indomitable, can fix most of our problems, and that after doing enough dumb things we’ll come to good solutions.
But to find those solutions, we need to maintain a system of constitutional freedoms under the rule of law. If we lose that, the rest is meaningless.
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The apostates are coming, the apostates are coming! Alas they may be too late.
a life long republican and a patriot too. she's doomed to the boneyard of party history...
"I have never been shy about noting the totalitarian streak on the American left , but the Democrats have not been captured by their fringe."
Wanna bet?
Somehow I get the feeling that Nichols with his resume would win that bet easily.
Nichols can have the most impressive resume imaginable, but that does not mean he is always correct about anything or everything.
This is true, however, his resume carries far more weight than some NT manufactured title.
I could have wrote this article - it sums up well my thinking since the rise of conservative populism. I supported discussion then that the Tea Party was raising. I didn't agree with all their arguments only that they raised good questions that should be discussed. Then the despicable alt+right took control. I was done. Cast into no man's land where I wasn't "conservative enough" nor "liberal".
Great article. Great article. Great article.
It is an irony that conservative populism has placed some of you in the mindset and at political intersection with, get this, "Dreamers." I have often likened the Dreamers as being caught between borders, stuck in time between two 'doors, in limbo. The expressed goal of the regular republican party to send them away into an oblivion or leave them in a question zone indefinitely. Now, proper conservatives are feeling the 'wilderness' encroaching upon them. Neither wanting to be in the other party, but not at home in their own party/country. Displaced by their own. Lost to explain the alienation.
Mind you, I don't write this to be mean or to laugh at anyone.
But there is a similarity to what democrats have been trying to tell republicans: Send out love, decency, truth, and above all humility and it will return to you as such. Fix what is broken in politicis, because political repairs are needed. And, political healing will find its own path to healing and preservation. Instead, we have these gaping holes that conservative populism is digging in deeper and setting up political infection—hoping for gangrene to set in.
Evilgenius, I wish you well in healing the breaches to your political home.
This article is an amazing admission. It is long and I mildly struggled to get through it, partly because I admit I couldn't believe the writer would make the point and summation he landed on firmly at the end.
BOOM !
from the posted article:
”And yet, here we are, because none of the issues that would normally matter between right and left matter as much as the future of democracy.”
It may get worse before it gets better, but it is an ideal certainly worth fighting for…lest we piss away (in our largesse) the greatest gift that a society has ever been granted…sad how too many take it for granted.
A clarion call to get involved, get informed and get out the vote.
Is it any wonder that the once Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln is now known merely as the gop?
Wow ! One who actually puts Country, before Party. Congratulations sir, WTF is taken the rest so damn long...?
There's nothing wrong with being a conservative who can't support Trump. The problem for a conservative pundit, especially when they are a non entity like Tom Nichols, is there's not a huge market for that, as the left wing pundits have flooded the zone with their hysterical hatred. So what's a man to do?
Disregard every principle you have in search of money is the choice Nichols and many others have chosen. I've only heard of him because he's become something of a punching bag for side by side tweets he made before he took the 13 pieces of silver. Granted, he hasn't quite reached the level of Jennifer Rubin hypocrisy, but he appears well on his way. His twitter feed is indistinguishable from a blue check mark progressive at this point, excepting his prefatory claims to being a real conservative before mouthing the usual progressive bromides on every issue.
After all, l eft wing media isn't going to pay Nichols to disparage Trump but support conservative principles. Not a chance of that. They need someone to attack not just Trump, but attack the very values Nichols professed to have as a lifelong conservative to give return on investment. These sort of articles are what the Atlantic and other organizations live for. They get the same generic left wing nonsense but get to put in the mouth of a "conservative" to give it more impact.
Nichols appears to be one of those grifters who can look ahead. Realizing being anti-Trump might have a very short shelf life at this point, he's positioned himself to be anti-Republican which means he can keep on the gravy train for perpetuity. Thus no matter who the Republicans nominate or what positions they adopt, he'll be safe on the left as the house conservative who attacks the Republicans.
Bingo on all counts!
Of course, Nichols wants to work and eat and survive. Don't hate him for wanting to do so. That would be just cruel on your part. Now, why are MAGA conservatives like you not feeling alienation pains? If you don't support Trump, why are you so at ease in denigrating others in your (supposed) predicament?
Is it possible that you are more comfortable in Donald Trump's MAGA party than you know?
Because I'm not a hypocritical whore who uses my supposed conservatism as a shield to justify acting as a left wing troll.
The fact that bemoans how he was engaged in " stupid synergy of tribalism" that he supposedly grew out of and immediately pivots to engaging in the sort of left wing hysterics that would be at home in a daily kos blog sums his schtick up perfectly.
?
Yea, ok, after just reading the guys "meager" accomplishments, you tell him Sean !
Sounds pretty impressive. You are stabbing in the dark.
See post #2.1.1.
Judas sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
And way to prove him right.
Even though he's simply standing up for his principles and expressing his opinions, quite competently I may add, to the right he's a traitor who is stabbing their right wing religious conservatism cult in the back. How can anyone believe Republicans can reach over the aisle, work together with Democrats, make compromises and get things done for the betterment of America if they are willing to tar, feather and light on fire any moderates who dare try to stand in the middle ground of their desired civil war where they believe their God will give them victory over the godless secular liberal heretics who dared to not worship them and immediately anoint them rulers of their new white right wing conservative Christian 'promised land'.
Those who claim that Nichols is merely "anti-Trump" either do not understand his article or are intentionally, dishonestly, misconstruing what he said. His position is far more than "anti-Trump", although that is an important element.
The most significant points he makes:
It is a very well-written article.
Yes, it is.
Of course the usual suspects are doing those deep-dives into the dumpster looking for a "well see here now!" to diminish others and avoid taking their blinders off. As if, Donald Trump is the sun and everything must orbit around him!
No shit.
Being the "Conservative" who hates conservatism is what ensures a job attacking Republicans when Trump fades away.
Grifting liberals is easy. He's no dummy. .
Trump has played the reactionary base like a violin. They are so besotted with Trump that they have renounced decades long conservative principles, as Nichols clearly pointed out.
Reactionaries are preternaturally desperate to gain autocratic power to the extent that they gleefully abandon any semblance of rational thought.
Manipulating reactionaries is easy. Just look at their slavish, unthinking devotion to their Dear Leader.
The internecine warfare among the right wing is symptomatic of their dysfunction. For example, some denounce Nichols, claiming he "hates conservatism", when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
Their favorite bread crumb
Being a movie buff, and having watched The Hunt for Red October a few times I was interested to see the image used for this article, being of Sam Neill playing the part of Captain Borodin, senior crew member of the Russian sub Red October, who wanted to defect to America and own a ranch in Montana. I wondered about the significance of using that particular image.
I think it was meant just as a attention getter, nothing else.
It is required to be from the seeded article for copyright requirements that NT has to adhere to, so I assumed it had a purpose relevant to the article. Maybe Hallux can explain.
That would have been a choice of The Atlantic's editors.
So it was the choice of the Atlantic's editors? I could not open the seed in order to see for myself.
It really is a great read and more NT should be taking in it!
Not going to happen, half the gang is busy chasing AOC squirrels.
It's time to break out the nuts and scatter them near and far on this trail! Hey Guys! Look here—nuts!