The Case Against “Principled Conservatism”

Frank Meyer’s fusionism combined free-market libertarianism and religion-friendly traditionalism to create the modern conservative movement. As a political alliance against the threat of Communism, the movement served its purpose. But the principles that undergirded Meyer’s synthesis were not an adequate basis for attaining and sustaining national power.

The difference between the defeated Goldwater faction and the victorious Reagan coalition was the vote of white Catholic Democrats alienated from their former party by its anti-anti-Communism and embrace of the three A’s: amnesty (for draft evaders), acid, and abortion. Those former Democrats did not want smaller government, so Reagan preserved, for them and the country, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with generating ever-larger deficits.

Meyer’s synthesis, however, was not as new as is often claimed: in important respects, it represented 19th-century Bourbon Democracy spruced up for the post-World War II era, a 1905 Cadillac Model D with tail fins. What distinguished the Bourbons from the Republicans (and from the populist Democrats) was their commitment to smaller government, free trade, and cheap labor. That meant unfree labor in the 1850s, and more or less free labor once the South was successfully “redeemed” from Republican rule and black civil rights enforcement after the Civil War.

What America needs instead is fissionism. We need a clearer, more uncompromising articulation of a pure MAGA doctrine that distinguishes our agenda from the libertarians and the so-called “principled conservatives.”

MAGA in foreign and security matters means using American power to secure American interests. Foreign policy is not the application of abstract principles—which are worse than useless in international relations. What were FDR’s principles, or Jackson’s, or TR’s? Their guiding star in foreign policy was not principle but the ruthless pursuit of results. 

As for draining the swamp, the trench warfare over DOGE and U.S. attorney appointments proves that deconstructing the administrative state requires a pro-Trump Senate. But the current Senate remains beholden to the uniparty. If you are happy with your “principled conservative” senator obstructing the president, then you are on the other side.

Against those screaming for lower taxes and less government at all costs, protective tariffs are core to MAGA—and, for that matter, core to the Republican Party before it was taken over by the former Democrat and fusionist, Ronald Reagan. MAGA demands an economic policy geared toward national greatness. It means an end to regulations engineered to cripple the U.S. economy in the name of DEI, apocalyptic climate alarmism, or the latest elite neurosis. Targeted regulations and tariffs to onshore our supply chains and rebuild the American industrial base? Absolutely. That has been Donald Trump’s consistent agenda since he first started commenting on public affairs in the 1980s. If the “principled conservatives” fail to recognize this, that exposes their own ideological blindness, not a flaw in the MAGA platform.

Fundamentally, “principled conservatives” don’t want America to be stronger and freer if it means traditional Republican governance. They prefer Bourbon Democracy: small government, cheap goods, cheap labor (citizens and non-citizens alike), and dependence on others—once Britain or the North, now China—for industry, including vital defense-related manufacturing. As for the world, China can do what she wants. Anything else would require the old guard conservatives to compromise their precious “principles.”

People who don’t want the United States to be reliant on China, as Mississippi was on Manchester in 1850, or Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1890, should see “principled conservatives” as political opponents—allies of the Democrats. They are helping to destroy Trump and everything the president stands for.

Does drawing clearer partisan lines mean shedding potential support required for electoral victory? That is a very real risk. The compensating benefit is that once we know what we want, we can accurately identify our actual allies and band together to address the crises of our time.

A “principled conservative” administration would have preferred Big Pharma to RFK Jr. and MAHA. A “principled conservative” administration would make no room for a Tulsi Gabbard, an Elon Musk, or any other heterodox defector who wants to restore American foreign and security policy and advance American power, national honor, and national freedom.

Fissionism means drawing clear, clean battle lines, dividing what was once the “conservative movement.” The “principled conservatives” can keep their pristine—and presently useless—“principles.” I am on the side of America, which means the side of Trump.

The American Mind presents a range of perspectives. Views are writers’ own and do not necessarily represent those of The Claremont Institute.

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