Populism Vs. Conservatism. Post-Trump, Which Way will the GOP Go?

There are actually two Republican parties.

The populist Trump wing and the conservatives. And by that I mean fiscal conservatives.

They share little but the party name on common
One thing they have in common is that neither one has done a damn thing about out of control government spending.

Now that the Republicans in the house are united, I hope that will change. But I'm not holding my breath ...
 
One thing they have in common is that neither one has done a damn thing about out of control government spending.

Now that the Republicans in the house are united, I hope that will change. But I'm not holding my breath ...
They're not going to change until we stop voting for them.
 
One thing they have in common is that neither one has done a damn thing about out of control government spending.

Now that the Republicans in the house are united, I hope that will change. But I'm not holding my breath ...
United?

BWAHAHAHA
 
Trump is not a populist. He’s a demagogue. He’ll say whatever he thinks is on his best interest .

If he thinks catering to the xenophobic racist populists will do good things for him he’ll cater to them.

As far as governing he does what he’s told.

They tell him to spend and he spends.

They tell him to cut taxes for the rich and that’s what he does.

Judge appointments come up and they hand him a pre-approved list. He’s probably never heard of most of the judges he appointed

Demagogue,

A political leader who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.

"a gifted demagogue with particular skill in manipulating the press"
 
Pence is pushing hard for the Party to go back to its conservative roots.

Pence is also currently polling in the mid single-digits for the GOP primary.


At an event in New Hampshire, former Vice President Mike Pence took aim at his former boss, calling for the Republican Party to abandon populism in favor of good, old-fashioned conservatism.

At the New Hampshire Institute of Politics on the campus of St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., and billed as a "major speech" by the Pence campaign, Pence said that Donald Trump had promised to run as a conservative in 2016.

"It's important for Republicans to know that he and his imitators in this Republican primary make no such promise today," Pence said.

Noting New Hampshire's status as an early-primary state, Pence said Republican voters "face a choice ... will we be the party of conservatism, or will we follow the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles?"


So, what do Republican voters want? I don't see that they want the "most conservative," because too many times the most conservative has also been the quickest to sell out their conservative ideas to appease the Democrats and the media. If a GOP voter is concerned about conservative values, he or she is most likely to support populist Trump over more ideological conservatives:

In the Quinnipiac poll, 46 percent of the Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters who said they support Trump in the primary identified as “very conservative.” Among the voters who chose other candidates, only 22 percent were “very conservative.” That means Trump’s voters are more than twice as likely as other candidates’ supporters to self-describe as “very conservative.”

Why do conservatives support a populist? The populist got results. He gave us more border security, less inflation, lower taxes, and reduced regulation. That is in sharp contrast to the usual MO of the conservative Republican, which is to try to slow down progressive advances, while carefully avoiding being labeled "an extremist" for standing too firm.

Populism would be the way to go, from the standpoint of winning and keeping voters. But the two populists who were successful in taking on the GOP establishment were both independent billionaires, able to finance their own campaigns without the tradition donor base of the Twoparties. The only person able to step into that role is Vivek Ramaswamy. 2028 may be Ramaswamy's year.
Fifty bucks if you can name a president in the past 90 years who governed more conservatively than Donald Trump. The fact that you can't do it flushes your entire OP.
 

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