It’s 'debatable' if conservatism is 'even an intellectual movement': Charlie Sykes

The far-right think tank, the Heritage Foundation, is facing collapse, and conservative commentator Charlie Sykes sees it as part of something larger.

Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, Sykes called the Heritage Foundation’s decline “a long time coming.” During the 1980s, it served as the “beating heart” or the “intellectual center of the Ronald Reagan revolution.”

"This is a mass exodus from the Heritage Foundation," Sykes said of the recent reports that many staff members are leaving to work for a new think tank founded by Mike Pence.

"It's a humiliating loss for Kevin Roberts," Sykes said of the group's president. "It is a coup for Mike Pence who I think a lot of people have written off and assumed would be irrelevant. And now he has a conservative think tank in exile."

Sykes went on to say that the real question is whether conservatism has any sustained intellectual movement at all. President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement “is not about principles. It’s not about ideas. It’s about a cult of personality. It’s about the personal impulses.”

He admitted it would have been nice to see this reckoning unfold over the past several years, rather than only now.

"But when you see this many prominent conservatives leaving the Heritage Foundation, it does feel like it is an indication we are going to have splits on the right," said Sykes. Up until now, he said, such a debate has essentially shut down during the Trump years.

"One of my biggest mistakes, Joe, was to think that there was this intellectual base to the conservative movement — that the Heritage Foundation and think tanks actually did matter. And I think that what we found is a lot of the conservative intellectuals turned out to be completely irrelevant in Republican electoral politics. So, that's still yet to be determined," Sykes continued.

Co-host Joe Scarborough agreed they're "irrelevant and then some scam artists."

Sykes called it "debatable" if conservatism is "even an intellectual movement at all" at this point.

- YouTube youtu.be