The question of whether the Trump administration and the wider Trump movement should be considered conservative has received insufficient academic attention. The scholarship on Trump and ideology tends to see his movement and administrations as far-right, New Right, alt-right, or even fascist rather than asking what elements of Trumpism are conservative. I will argue that the Trump administration is conservative on many issues, reflecting greater continuity with the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations than is often acknowledged. The conservative nature of Trumpism has largely been overlooked by scholars, because like most journalists they have tended to overemphasize what is new and different about Trumpism and thus underemphasize the continuities with previous conservative administrations. I do not claim what is new about the Trump administration does not deserve serious concern, attention and analysis, but rather that this attention has led to the continuities often being underplayed. I use the term “Trumpism” in this paper to cover Donald Trump, the Trump administration, and the wider MAGA movement and its ideas; just as the term Reaganism has been used to connote much more than just the beliefs and actions of Ronald Reagan. The term Trumpism helps us acknowledge the importance of the Trump persona in this movement, but at the same time not let analysis of Trump’s idiosyncratic and egomaniacal personality overwhelm recognition that he heads a party and administration made up of millions of other people. This movement is underpinned by traditions, beliefs and policies that are well beyond what one person is capable of generating or putting in place. Lawrence Jacobs and Desmond King rightly complained in “Varieties of Obamaism” (2010) about the overly “personalistic” analysis of the failings of the Obama presidency that undermined sensible assessments of Obama’s administration; with Trump the dominance of personalized analysis seems at a high-point that needs recalibrating by combining analysis of Trump’s persona, his administration, and the wider MAGA movement to properly understand the forces and ideas that drive his presidency.
This paper will address the question of whether Trumpism is conservative by first outlining how conservatism is best defined. Then the article will argue that the abortion, taxation, environmental and foreign policies of the Reagan, George W. Bush and Trump administrations have more in common than is often highlighted and how shared conservative ideas run through the policies of these three presidencies. Moreover, there are significant continuities in the main ideas and goals of the conservative intellectual and activist movements from Reagan to Trump. Discontinuities will not be ignored; however, the paper’s focus is on continuities as it seeks to challenge the notion that Trumpism is sui generis and an aberration.
