Conservative news outlet Washington Examiner explains the Republican party's "shellacking" in the November elections as fallout from what happens "when a political party is transformed into a personality cult," saying that national conservatism is not the GOP's future.
"Republicans get upset when you point out that the GOP is Trump’s personal party. But let’s face it, MAGA is whatever the president says it is," writes David Harsanyi. "Loyalty to the president is the price of admission. There are few places his ardent fans wouldn’t follow him."
But while Trump's most fanatical will flock to him regardless, there's one caveat: they don't have an interest in or care about the Republican Party.
"Many of those fans are low-propensity, working-class voters, enticed by Trump’s bombastic personality and his promise to fight for their concerns. A significant number of those voters have no philosophical or historic connection to the GOP. Many, indeed, detest it," Harsanyi explains.
When Trump finally exits the political arena, his successors will find a very difficult road ahead, he writes.
"Following Trump will be virtually impossible," he writes. "One of the difficulties in recreating Trump’s success is that there’s no coherent agenda to copy."
Harsanyi says that MAGA is an empty shell and in many ways merely "about attitude. Outside of immigration and trade, Trump doesn’t have much of a tangible policy outlook."
In the void of substance in "MAGA’s non-ideological brand," he writes, "a group of think tankers and media personalities has created 'national conservativism.'"
That movement, he writes, has been hyped by its creators. But it doesn't deliver.
"And listening to them, you’d think they hatched an original and electrifying governing philosophy when they’ve merely reanimated the failed paleo-conservativism of Patrick Buchanan. Insular. Small. Nannyistic. Fatalistic," he writes.
Harsanyi also says that the "odd political movement" of national conservatism is the product of a "so-called 'New Right' that 'comports itself with an unearned arrogance that's dificult to explain.'"
"Buchanan had nowhere near the charisma or political ability to connect with voters as Trump, a man who had been a celebrity long before he became a politician. And Trump isn’t particularly popular, either, despite the adoration of his supporters," he writes.
Paleo-conservatism, a political philosophy and a strain of conservatism in the United States that emphasizes American nationalism, Christian ethics, traditionalist conservatism and non-interventionism, "failed to take hold 30 years ago when the environment was far friendlier toward 19th-century mercantilism and isolationism and there were far more working-class voters to draw on," he explains.
"If voters want class-obsessed statists intervening in the economy and whining about Wall Street 'barons,' they already have a party to quench that thirst. Maybe victimhood sells in the short term. But conservatives can never outpromise progressives," he says.
Trump, however, is his own brand of conservatism, he writes, saying, "Then again, it’s highly debatable that Trump governed as much of a paleo-conservative, anyway."
"Most of Trump’s most fruitful policies over his two noncontinuous terms aligned with boring Reagan-era conservatism that many natcons like to disparage: Deregulation spurred economic growth in the first term," he writes.
In terms of Trump's foreign policy, he "has embraced an active foreign policy that sometimes means exerting deadly force against our enemies," Harsanyi says, adding that "one of Trump’s least popular policies, on the other hand, has been protectionism" in the form of sweeping tariffs.
"Hopefully the Supreme Court will strike down his unconstitutional ability to tax Americans without Congress," he says.
Actual conservatives, he says, aren't interested in many of Trump's policies, in fact.
"The white-collar worker living in the suburbs, like most people today, isn’t preoccupied with bringing back widget factories from Malaysia and banning drag queen library story hour — though social corrosion isn’t unimportant. Without affordability and jobs, you’re not winning elections. If you’re not winning elections, you’re not conserving anything," he says.
He also says that "boring conservatives" lacking Trump's bombast "are just as likely to win" without the president on the ballot, but "that said, many Republicans have learned the lesson of Trump’s rise and become aggressive wagers of political war."
The rise of "New Right" brands, he writes, "has also been a Trojan horse for authoritarian, 'post-liberal' and theocratic ideas that clash with any conception of the founding."
"Those who defend fusionism, the melding of individual freedom and limited government with social order and virtue, have been systemically purged from leadership positions within the conservative movement over the past 10 years," he says.
Harsanyi says the most obvious example of the failure of fusionism "is the deterioration of the Heritage Foundation, which had long brought together all factions of fusionism."
"There are still good people at the think tank, of course, but its leadership has decided that the vile podcaster class is more valued within the right-wing coalition than Reaganites," he notes.
Regardless, without Trump, the future of conservatism still appears rudderless, he writes.
"Trump is a generational talent who had been a celebrity long before he undertook a political career. Indeed, without his celebrity, there would have been no presidency. And without him, there is no MAGA, even if activists pretend his personal victories are an endorsement of their own ideological preferences," he writes.