Conservative Populism: Doing the Same Thing Over and Over, and Expecting Different Results

At this point, the conservative populist political strategy amounts to little more than doing the same thing over and over, and when that fails, trying the exact same thing yet again. Specifically, the “thing” that is done over and over again is throwing support behind whatever Republican candidate is nominated, and assuring everyone that “this is the most important election ever.” The conservative rank and file is then told that this time the new Republican president will slash budgets, bring peace, shrink the federal government, decentralize political power, and somehow even impose a golden age of moral and cultural traditionalism. Then, when none of this actually happens, it’s on to the next presidential hopeful who “this time” will do all those things that none of his predecessors ever did. Then it’s on to yet another “most important election ever,” and anyone who fails to become enthusiastic about the latest con job is denounced as “hating America” or for allegedly preferring that the other wing of the permanent ruling oligarchy—i.e., the Democrats—take over.

In this way of thinking, it is not permitted to doubt the efficacy of voting or to suggest that the electoral system is rigged to ensure the preservation of the governing elites. (Yes, it is rigged.) Rather, we’re told that we should just “vote harder” next time, and then things will start to get better.

It’s a “rinse and repeat” cycle that cannot be taken seriously by anyone who isn’t a perennial sucker just waiting to be fooled again every four or eight years.

Even worse, this devotion to doing the same thing over and over—and expecting different results—is accompanied by a dogmatic and unwavering defense of the federal government. After all, no matter how much the latest “pro-freedom” candidate in the latest “most important election ever” fails to deliver what was promised, we are told it is never acceptable to question the legitimacy or fundamental benevolence of the central regime. It’s never acceptable to state what should be obvious to all. Namely, that the US Constitution of the good old days is defunct and irrelevant, and that a strategy of “vote harder” will never be allowed to result in anything that might truly undermine the ruling elite’s grip on power in Washington.

We are told we must always affirm both the legitimacy and the necessity of the US’s federal government, and it is never acceptable to back any radical change that might actually endanger the power of Washington’s ruling elites and the institutional status quo. Rather, we frequently hear members of the “vote harder” party—conservative or otherwise—falling all over themselves to announce how much they “love America” and how America is “the greatest country in the world.” Yet, when they say “America,” what they really mean is America’s government and political system. This is made clear by the fact that such slogans are primarily invoked precisely when someone expresses doubt that the American government is moral or necessary or legitimate. To express doubts about the goodness of the American political system is to be hit with the usual conservative propaganda phrases about how wonderful it all is. Consider, for example, the current debate over the US-Israel war on Iran. To express any doubts about the morality or necessity of the US’s elective bombing of Iranian schools and neighborhoods is to invite the usual cascade of accusations that are variations of “why do you hate America?” Anyone who remembers the Iraq war years under George W. Bush—who enjoyed overwhelming support from conservatives—remembers how this is standard fare from conservatives who will not brook any real criticism of their beloved US government.

But note we keep seeing the most enthusiastic support from these pro-regime conservatives in the context of foreign policy. These populists never miss a chance to stir up fears over foreign powers to buttress the federal government’s power. Indeed, stoking fears over foreign states is the great pro-regime trump card for the regime’s conservative defenders. In this view, no matter how tyrannical the central state might become, we can never allow ourselves to question its essential goodness because the Washington foreign policy elites, we are told, “keep us safe” from the Soviets, the Chinese, the Cubans, the Iranians, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevich, Nicolás Maduro, or whatever and whoever else is the current flavor of the month in foreign bogeymen. It was this reflexive pro-regime ideology what impelled conservative “hero” William F. Buckley to call for conservatives to adopt totalitarianism is that’s what it took to defeat foreign enemies of the state. This is the logical progression of every demand that the central state be made ever more powerful to “keep us safe.” Sure, today’s populists express some limited doubts over the necessity of the war in Ukraine, but these “doubts” are only specific to that particular conflict. Overall, your average conservative populist is overwhelmingly in favor of a new arms race in the new Cold War—this time with China. Many of these conservatives are also fanatically pro-Israel and will support nearly any war that is in the name of preserving the Epstein Class in Tel Aviv.

This makes sense, however. Since conservatives fundamentally have no real problem with the central government, they don’t want us undermining public opinion about how absolutely indispensable the federal government is. To actually oppose the power of Washington, DC involves pointing out its fundamental immorality, its lack of legitimacy, and its false claims of working for “the common good.” But sort of trenchant criticism is exactly where most conservatives—and other regime apologists—refuse to go.

This is why conservative populism always fails to actually increase freedom. Since the advent of the American national-security state and the Cold War, conservatism has been hard wired to support a strong central government, and therefore to be focused on seizing and wielding power. That is, conservatives are simply the latest iteration of the French revolutionaries. They claim to want more freedom. Yet, they do nothing to actually lessen the power of the central state. Like the French opponents of the ancien régime, today’s “small government” conservatives merely seek to preserve the power of the central state and to implement their own centrally planned vision for the regime’s subjects. In their own minds—as with the Trotskyists of old—the problem is never the size or scope of state itself. It’s just that the wrong people are in charge. Not surprisingly, with these people as the “opposition,” the state never becomes any smaller or less powerful.

Given this, all that “voting harder” by conservative populists produces exactly what we’d expect: a larger, more powerful state, that ultimately gives the true governing elites exactly what they want: more power to regulate, surveil, and control the people.

Meanwhile, as every new election cycle does absolutely nothing to threaten the ruling elites’ power, these same conservatives will denounce any real opposition to the central state—opposition through, say, advocacy for secession or even more mild versions of radical decentralization. This is opposed as “impractical” or as something “we tried already.” Lacking the self-awareness to see that it’s the conservative populists who are the ones trying the same failed tactics over and over again, the populists will oppose the dismemberment of the state as a “failed” tactic because it was once tried in the mid nineteenth century in the days of the horse and buggy. It’s much better, we’re told, to just keep “voting harder” as was done four, eight, sixteen, twenty, twenty-four, twenty-eight, and thirty-two years ago. Any day now, this “much more practical” and “realistic” strategy will surely work.

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