The Young Conservative

I realize that, in my last post, I spoke of a single future article explaining how my conservative principles on a list of issues are based in my belief in individual rights and respect for the Forgotten Man. Since then, I've come to doubt the usefulness of such long articles, so in the future, I plan to stick to brief posts more narrowly focused on specific conservative ideas.

What follows is my first such post. I originally wrote it in response to a question on another website asking why a young person would buck the trend and choose to be a conservative. Here's my answer:

As a conservative, I base my politics around basic human rights: life, liberty, and property. The purpose of government is to protect these rights, and America owes her greatness in large part to the fact that government has, throughout most of her history, been restrained to this purpose.

Liberals, in general, do not share conservatives' respect for inalienable rights. Rights are brought up frequently in liberal discourse, but easily discarded when they don't fit the narrative. The liberal will respond to one person’s sympathy-inducing problem with a solution that runs roughshod over the rights of others. Applied repeatedly, this leads to rampant "legal plunder" where nobody's rights are secure.

Children and young people, being out of power and easily ignored, generally get the raw end of liberal policies, especially on entitlements and deficit spending. I see conservatism as the natural choice for someone my age - conservatives are more concerned about the future generation, and don't see policies that harm them as being appropriate solutions for the current generation's problems.

All liberal policies hinge on what Yale professor William Graham Sumner called "the Forgotten Man" - he who, while totally absent from the liberal rhetoric surrounding a policy, nevertheless pays the cost of that policy. Liberals win by making the issue look like it’s about everyone but the Forgotten Man.

Consider the debacle of the Affordable Care Act. The law's benefits are clearly visible, in the form of millions of people who credit it for their health insurance. It's easy to accuse anyone who's against the law of hating these people. But look for the Forgotten Man, and you will find him. People who lost their insurance or saw their premiums rise, but more especially those who can't find work because the law makes hiring more difficult. Is the Forgotten Man easy to see? Hardly. Nobody gets a call saying that he would have been hired except for the new regulations on anyone with more than 50 employees. All of which goes to show that this law is a classic example of the concentration of benefits and obfuscation of costs, a classical tactic for progressives.

Similarly, one can identify (with varying degrees of difficulty) the Forgotten Man in liberal policies on deficit spending, entitlements, corporate taxes and regulation, education policy, environmentalism, and, most tragically, abortion. The victims are often poor (consider who hurts the most when the price of energy goes up) but even more often they are young; perhaps they haven't been born yet. All of which plays well into the hands of liberal policy-makers, whose goal is to make the general public forget about them.

I refuse to forget, and that's why I'm a conservative.

Why I am a Conservative

            Conservatism, like liberalism, has meant a lot of different things throughout the years. Liberals often point that, during the American Revolution, the Tories - that era's version of conservatives - were against independence.  But whatever baggage may be attached to the word , I identify as a conservative because I believe that the modern American conservative is devoted to upholding the basic principles that made America a great nation – protection of the individual rights of life, liberty, and property within a republican system of government – while the modern liberal often sees these as mere obstacles to social progress.

            It is my intention in this article to make an exposition on the principles I have just mentioned, endeavoring to show, first, why the protection of individual rights must be the central purpose of government, second, why governments that do more or less than this become instruments for oppression of the many by the few, and third, who the Forgotten Man is and why conservatives must be mindful of him.

The Centrality of Individual Rights

            The centrality of individual rights in the conservative ideology cannot be overstressed. As written into our nation’s founding law, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

            Some intellectuals have made quite a pastime of deriding the concept of individual rights as the foundation of political ethics. Many thinkers, operating on the basis that the whole is more important than the part, reject individual rights in favor of collectivism.

Consider, for instance, the mid-20^th-century psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, who developed a theory of six stages of moral reasoning, each more enlightened than the last. Beginning at blind egoism, Kohlberg’s hierarchy advances to a moral philosophy based on respect for the rights of one’s fellow men. However, this is only stage five; specific legal rights are discarded in stage six in favor of universal, abstract ethical values and principles.

I believe that there is a serious problem with this line of thought. Naturally, people disagree on what is best for the community of which they are a part, and they rarely come to a consensus on which ethical values are of the most importance, or how an abstract guiding principle should be made into concrete policy. So if a commonwealth lacks any constitution more rigid than ‘Take care of people,’ ‘Respect human dignity,’ ‘Do what is reasonable,’ ‘‘find a moderate solution’, or ‘Be on the right side of history,’ then inevitably there will arise a ruling class which, proclaiming their own interpretation of these ideals to be the only legitimate one, will crush all others beneath their iron heels.

The only alternative is government based on individual rights – the bold notion that whatever my own ideas are about what is the best way to live or how an individual can best serve his community, I must respect the life, liberty, property, economic and religious freedom, political franchise, and other rights of my fellow men. I must respect these rights even if I disagree with the way they are using them, because that is the only way I can justly expect them to respect my rights

That is not to say that abstract values such as caring, respect, dignity, reason, and progress are unimportant, only that they are not politically enforceable and must remain in the realm of personal morality, not public law or regulation.

My own personal values will inform my own decisions. But when it comes to my dealings with my neighbor, I have got to respect his or her rights: let everyone exercise them in the way they think best, so long as they respect the rights of others. And those who desire that more people live their lives in accordance with universal values of caring, respect, moderation, progress, loyalty, purity, or whatever moral principle is most dear to their hearts, should reject the temptation of trying to get the government on their side, and instead rely on the gentler methods of persuasion to bring about their worthy ends.

We should by all means avoid rash appeals to the coercive power of the state, which destroys the equality of men and the peace of society and all too often places the resources of the entire community in the hands of its cruelest and most power-hungry inhabitants.

Proper Role of Government

            The conservative ideal with regard to the role of government, especially the large, distant federal government, is that governmental force should be used only when necessary to defend our God-given rights and freedoms from those who desire to destroy them.

Whatever notions a particular class of people might entertain, of using state power to advance its own social or economic standing at the expense of others, should be abandoned. These notions must give way to a quiet faith that the common man, working alone or in voluntary associations, can in nearly all cases govern his economic, moral, spiritual and intellectual life in a better way than the state can.

            The antithesis to this idea, the premise of modern liberalism, is to routinely call upon government as the only remedy to a grab-bag of highly-visible social and economic ills. There is no respect for individual rights, no cautious deference to the independence of those who are out of step with the agenda. As the introductory video from the 2012 Democratic National Convention put it, “Government is the only thing we all belong to.”

            It is indeed an ugly thing when a party thinks lightly of the use of force and violence – which is what all government power is – to achieve unity and progress, and it belies the extreme illiberalism of the modern liberal movement.

Equally ugly is the way in which Democrats often argue for their policies: claiming to feel compassion for the victims of some high-profile injustice (be it real or imaginary), they present, as the only reasonable solution, some new curtailment of individual rights. Anyone who questions the effectiveness of the proposal, or doubts the morality of imposing it through government fiat, or dares to call attention to the forgotten man who, though he never figures into the official calculations, would nevertheless bear the brunt of the new policy’s costs, is branded as heartless and mean.

The Forgotten Man

At this point it is worth setting the record straight concerning the Forgotten Man, who he is, and what kind of relationship he has with the government. Those who are politically savvy might be familiar with the term from New Deal rhetoric, but it really goes back much further, to an 1876 essay by Yale professor William Graham Sumner, who described him as follows, using pithy algebraic notation:

“As soon as A observes something which seems to him wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X, or, in better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X... What I want to do is to look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of.... I call him the Forgotten Man... He works, he votes, generally he prays—but he always pays...”

Thus Professor Sumner endeavors to show how compassion for a few highly visible cases of suffering, combined with indifference toward the many unseen people on the other side of the issue, is the cause for great evil in our political system. It is rather unfortunate that Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal liberals turned this concept on its head, and made X, rather than C, the Forgotten Man, thereby making the analogy into a mere tool for promoting the kinds of policies which Sumner found abhorrent.

For  the true Forgotten Man is not the one whose concerns a liberal politician (or any politician) is championing – he is the man who is too obscure, unpopular, or just plain ordinary for any politician to care about. The only way to protect the Forgotten Man is to hold fast to the very conservative principle that the universal rights to life, liberty, and property must take priority over the demands of loud and well-connected interest groups that seek special rights and privileges for themselves at the expense of others.

To the New Deal liberals, the Forgotten Man might be a farmer who needs help to get a decent price for his crops. But to a conservative, the real Forgotten Man is the one who doesn’t enter into the calculation at all – the ordinary working man, struggling to make ends meet, who suddenly sees the cost of food increase when the government begins paying farmers to burn their crops in an effort to manipulate prices.

In modern times, the Forgotten Man might be a youth who can’t find work because of minimum wage laws which force him to compete in the same market with men twice his age, or a single mother who ekes out a living with multiple part-time jobs, unable to advance to full-time work because doing so would bring down a mountain of regulations on the small business employs her.

Concern for the Forgotten Man – not some specific person or group of people for whom the liberals are whipping up an emotional frenzy, but the actual Forgotten Man who doesn’t figure into the political calculations at all – should be the prime concern of conservatives. And the truly Forgotten Man can be defended only by defending the rights, freedoms, and autonomy of all citizens – anything else creates winners and losers.

Liberals, in their process of political reasoning, may follow a cycle of See-Feel-Solve, seeing an injustice (real or imaginary), feeling compassion for some, (seldom most, never all) of the people involved, and solving the problem through an expansion of the government.

But principled conservatives must approach things differently, considering both what is seen and what is not seen, what is felt and what is not felt. Finally, being of a meek and cautious nature, they must be very wary of proposing a solution that would impose their own vision of social progress in place of someone else’s inalienable rights.

Only in a certain type of country, a country where the fierce protection of individual rights is the guiding principle of politics, will the Forgotten Man be remembered.

The Practical Trump Agenda

    One of the frequent criticisms leveled against Donald Trump by much of the thinking class is that his agenda is too outlandish, and he will never be able to accomplish all or even most of his policy goals. This is true, in a way, but no more so of Mr. Trump than of any other presidential candidate.

    Mr. Trump has floated a lot of ideas over the course of his campaign, but has produced relatively few  concrete policy plans, most of which are explained in detail at his website. A lot of the reason for this is his unusual communication style: sales. Honed over his decades as a salesman, Trump’s style consists of making lots of creative proposals (often with considerable hyperbole), seeing what excites his audience, and refining his many proposals into a few solid points of action that he’ll stand by. Trump is making deals with the American people, not expounding an immutable ideological creed, so it shouldn’t be surprising when he shifts his positions to win popular support.

    Nevertheless, Mr. Trump’s most central and enduring priorities remain clear. He will build a wall to secure the southern border and stop the illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and sex slavery that currently prevail in that region. (With the wall in place, the United States will continue to admit more legal immigrants than any other country). Trump also is keenly aware of America’s decline within the global economy, and intends to make America more competitive through tax cuts (our current corporate tax rate, 35%, is the highest in the world) and trade reform, bringing back millions of jobs otherwise lost to foreign countries.

    For those with an ear for music, a song expressing Trump’s basic platform can be found here.

    Among Trump’s other concrete positions are reforming the department of Veterans Affairs, promoting Second Amendment rights, repealing Obamacare, and pursuing a less interventionist foreign policy, albeit with harsh and decisive action against entities like ISIS which openly make war on the United States. He also has promised to appoint strong conservatives to the Supreme Court and other federal courts. This last point deserves special attention: although Trump is not a conservative ideologue, his populist principles and hatred of oligarchy have led him to support principled originalists who respect the separation of powers. His recent list of eleven potential nominees has been described as a “Federalist Society All-Star Team.”

    All of this theorizing begs the question: will it work out in practice? For the answer, conservatives should look to the presidency of Ronald Reagan who, like Trump, ran on a promise to make America great again. Reagan championed a host of conservative issues, and the agenda he brought to Washington was impressive: recover the hostages in Iran, end the recession, reign in federal spending, balance the budget, eliminate the Departments of Education and Energy, EPA, and other newfangled regulatory agencies, ban abortion, curtail the entitlement state, roll back the Iron Curtain… you get the idea.

    Did Reagan succeed? Only on a few things. He recovered the hostages, ended gasoline rationing, and got the country out of the recession, leaving the economy, if not in ideal conditions, then at least in much better shape than he found it. And he won the Cold War, leaving as his greatest legacy the downfall of European Communism.

    Reagan failed on nearly everything else. But because he delivered real and effective change on a few out of many issues, he is considered a great president. His accomplishments are unparalleled in modern American history.  (To be fair, I don’t have much regard for what passes for reform among Democrats – picking up an issue like health care and churning out tens of thousands of pages of regulation that nobody really understands but everybody has to live with won’t solve much of anything).

    I expect that Trump will be a great president in the sense that Reagan was a great president. Will he enact his agenda in its entirety? No. But then again, what can we expect from someone who isn’t a king, who, while powerful, must work within a system where most of the government’s power is vested outside of himself? The American government isn’t a democracy, where the passions of the mob carry sweeping reforms, and it isn’t a monarchy, where a solitary ruler writes policies according to his personal agenda. As much as I’d like to say we’re a Republic, nowadays our country is looking more and more like an oligarchy. Either way, the president is only the first among many powerful officials.

    But even if Mr. Trump delivers on only a few of his proposals, he’ll be a great president. If we as a country want all the problems fixed, it won’t be enough to elect a great president, we’ll need to elect great Senators, Representatives, Governors, state legislators, and local officials.

    This November, I’ll be casting my presidential vote for Donald Trump. But I am no less concerned about the Arizona primary in August, where I’ll be voting for Kelli Ward for Senate. I will also be running for precinct committeeman within my local Republican party. Conservatives must project power from all of these offices if we are to set policy in the future.

    While Trump may have started the ball rolling, the practical Trump agenda – like any president’s agenda – will require many hands to carry it out.

Why I Support Donald Trump

While the season lasted, I was a staunch supporter of Ted Cruz. I’m sorry to see him defeated (though I’m sure most have been through this already, in a 17-candidate Hunger-Games style primary.) But I’m also glad to be done with the animosity and ‘mine-is-the-one-and-only’ attitude that prevails during the primaries, and I am now ready to throw my whole support behind the presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.

I admire and respect Trump. On multiple occasions, I have drawn attention to things that I disagree with him about, or to blemishes in his record that made him seem less than conservative. But as Ronald Reagan once said, “He who agrees with me 80% of the time is not my enemy.” I believe that it is my duty as a citizen of a Republic to be willing to look outside my own faction-within-a-faction for leadership.

America is a diverse nation, and one shouldn’t expect to always have the option of supporting a candidate who matches own unique image of the ideal candidate. (No – the Libertarian party doesn’t count; breaking all the records for third-party turnout won’t keep Hillary from appointing the next Supreme Court Justice).

I am a classical conservative with libertarian leanings; Trump is a populist conservative who leans toward the center. But we are on the same side of most of the big issues. On some of these – especially Second Amendment rights, veterans affairs, and the need for a non-interventionist foreign policy – Trump has held steady for decades; on others, his conservative positions are more recent. All in all, I believe that Trump is a patriotic American who shares most of my values, and who strongly believes that the current elitist, left-leaning leadership must be driven out if we as a nation are to regain our former greatness.

And even for those who can’t accept Trump on his own merits, it should still be plain to all concerned that he is lightyears better than Hillary Clinton. Consider the issue of the Supreme Court: Trump has stated his intention of appointing conservative Justices, and even if he is imperfect in following through with this promise, he will doubtless do much better than Hillary packing the Court with liberal ideologues who will utterly abolish the freedom of speech, the press, religion, and the right to keep and bear arms.

The Republican Party is a big-tent party. Trump has virtues and vices just like any other candidate, and I think that his shortcomings tend to get attention, not because they’re objectively worse than those of other politicians, but because they’re different. Now is the time for Republicans to move beyond these differences and unite behind our nominee. This is why, as of tonight, I am fully and unapologetically supporting Donald Trump for President. Together, we will make America great again.

Graphical History of the Presidential Contest

This week, I'll be sharing a graphical representation I have created of the lead-up to the 2016 Presidential primaries. The thirteen slides below represent the status of the contest at different points in time from March to December. The notes in the slideshow itself explain most of what it going on; I'll leave it to the reader to judge which candidates are strong and which are weak.

Ben Carson - The Ultimate Outsider

While the surprising rise and persistence of Donald Trump has been the story of the year in Republican politics, Trump’s candidacy was not completely unforeseen. Trump has been involved in national politics for decades, taking positions on a variety of issues and working with officeholders from both parties. Though often considered as a candidate in past presidential elections, he has declined to seek a major party’s nomination until this year.

If he wins in the primaries, Trump will not be the first businessman with no experience in government to be nominated for president – Republican Wendell Willkie was nominated under similar circumstances in 1940, and though he lost to Franklin Roosevelt, the election was decided by a smaller margin than any of the previous five presidential contests.

Although Trump’s campaign is fueled by anti-establishment anger, his long history of political involvement, especially with Hillary Clinton, preclude him from ever running as a true outsider. That distinction instead belongs to a much more bizarre candidacy – that of Dr. Ben Carson.

Ben Carson is the ultimate outsider. Like Trump, Carson appeals to those who are frustrated with the current political system and who entertain dreams of sending an outsider to Washington to clean it up. Like Trump, Carson has never held public office. Neither candidate is taken seriously by the Republican Establishment. But Carson differs from Trump in many significant ways.

In order to evaluate Carson’s potential as the leader of the next generation of conservatives, it is necessary to look at three questions. First, how is he different from all other candidates? Second, why is he popular? And third, how can he be expected to handle future political pressures?

We can learn a lot about a candidate by looking at his or her endorsements. While writing this article, I studied the endorsement profiles of the eight candidates who made the most recent prime-time debate – Trump, Carson, Rubio, Cruz, Bush, Fiorina, Kasich, and Paul – counting the number of current and former United States Senators, Representatives, Governors, and State Legislators who have declared their endorsement for each candidate.

Jeb Bush was in the lead among endorsements by Senators (14), Representatives (38), and Governors (11), which is rather unsurprising due to his family background and long history of connections with the party Establishment. Fellow Establishment champion John Kasich came in second, with Rubio in third place and Cruz in fourth.

However, among state legislators, Cruz is in the lead with 151 endorsements to Bush’s 131 and Kasich’s 137. As a fierce critic of the party’s establishment and the big-government Republicans who control both houses of Congress, it’s little wonder that Cruz is feared and disliked by many who walk the corridors of power in Washington. Nevertheless, state legislators, who are far closer to the people they represent, are generally supportive of Cruz.

In the endorsement primary, Rand Paul comes in fifth place, Carly Fiorina in sixth, and Donald Trump in seventh. While the majority of experienced office-holders in both political parties are either terrified of or disgusted by Trump, he has nevertheless earned the endorsement of former Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia and 22 state legislators.

And in last place there is Ben Carson, who has been endorsed by four state legislators, and not a single Senator, Representative, or Governor. While a certain amount separation from the Establishment may be desirable in a candidate, it is downright bizarre that one of the most popular candidates for a nation’s highest office is not supported by any prominent members of its government.

It seems, therefore, that Carson’s major difference from the other candidates is his total lack of political credentials or a political history. Carson had no significant involvement in national politics until his famous speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in early 2013, less than three years ago! In that brief time, Carson has made a name for himself by criticizing the current administration, mainly on Obamacare, which he has called “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.”

Ben Carson’s complete lack of political experience, and his fierce and unapologetic criticism of the current regime, qualify him as the ultimate outsider. In a year when most voters seem to prefer outsiders, this has served him well thus far. According to the latest results from Public Policy Polling, Carson is currently at 19%, behind only Trump, while Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have 14% and 13%, respectively, and no one else exceeds 5%.

Why then is Carson so popular? He is, first of all, an outsider – he appeals to voters who feel that they have been betrayed by career politicians in both parties, and see the election of a president with no connection to the political system as the only way to effect positive change. Second, he says the things that his base wants to hear – in this he is similar to Trump, and while the two men differ in style, much of their substance is the same. Third, Ben Carson is nice.

Ben Carson has earned a place in our hearts as the nicest candidate. (His favorability rating, according to Public Policy Polling, is +37, higher than any opponent’s.) Carson is a soft-spoken man, who overcame a background of poverty and racial discrimination to become a world-renowned surgeon, saving hundreds of lives over the course of his illustrious. His remarkable success story has earned him universal respect. And now he seems to have embraced conservative ideology in its entirety.

Ben Carson is universally liked and admired, and accordingly he has benefited from a significant polling boom at this early point in the season. Nevertheless, his lack of political experience or credentials should be a cause for suspicion – can he be and do what he says he will be and do? Can he accomplish the things that true conservatives desire from a president? Thus the third question, how can Ben Carson be expected to handle political pressure?

At this point, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty what kind of a president Carson would be. He has no political history. All politicians begin as outsiders, but sad experience has shown that most of them, upon taking office, abandon the principles on which they were elected and fall in with the bipartisan Establishment, serving the interests of political class rather than the people whom they represent. While there is no reason to question Carson’s character, at a trying time like this, good intentions are hardly enough. The only candidate that can be trusted to fight the establishment is one who has fought the establishment, and Carson, with his total lack of experience, is not that candidate.

Ben Carson is running for president as celebrity, gaining support because he is universally liked and respected for of his many great accomplishments in the medical field. And while neurosurgery may be a more honorable profession than that of a celebrity musician, actor, or athlete, it is not any more relevant to the duties of the President of the United States. Carson has provided conservatives with an inspiring story and strong rhetoric, but so far he has done nothing to show that he is ready for national leadership.

Ben Carson’s political views are, in effect, the views of a child. The brevity of his involvement in politics means that he lacks the essential experience of hearing challenges to his opinions and refining his views as he comes into contact with more people and ideologies. Much that he believes is admirable, but at this point, his understanding of the issues is too shallow to withstand serious criticism.

Consider the comments Carson made last spring, when asked by a reporter whether he believed that sexual orientation is a choice. “Absolutely,” said Carson. “Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay.” Later that day, Carson apologized and rescinded his statement.

Whether Carson’s statement is accurate is of secondary importance – what matters here is that, as soon as he realized that what he had said was very controversial, he changed his mind about the issue. Carson did something similar when pressed over a comment to the effect that Obamacare was worse than slavery, explaining that what he actually meant was that Obamacare was worse than 9/11. Holding unusual political opinions that melt away at the first sign of criticism is something one would expect from a precocious youth, but hardly from a presidential candidate.

If nominated for President, Ben Carson would likely change his views many times in his struggle to win acceptance with wider blocs of voters. If he could overcome his unfamiliarity with the political process and actually become the next president, Americans could look forward to four years of unpredictable rule with their callow commander-in-chief repeatedly reversing his positions in a futile attempt to bring harmony to the disparate interests that govern Washington. In the end, Carson would prove to be an unprecedentedly weak president, as his good intentions and expert knowledge of neurosurgery could do nothing to take actual policy decisions out of the hands of ill-disposed men in both parties whose political acumen far exceeds Carson’s feeble talents.

Ben Carson may be the most likeable of the candidates now vying for the presidency. He may have the most inspiring personal history. And he is certainly the ultimate outsider. But, in the end, these are not the qualities that the conservative movement – or the nation – needs in a leader. The battle lines are drawn, the enemy will broke with no compromise, and our side could do nothing worse than to choose an inexperienced commander. Ben Carson is an honorable man with good intentions, and conservatives are fortunate to have him on their side. Nevertheless, he is not, at this time, ready to take on the unique duties and challenges of the Presidency.

Donald Trump – The Angry Man’s Candidate

            
            In the previous essay, I wrote of the need for a thorough analysis of the field of Republican presidential candidates. Since then, we’ve seen a slight drop in the number of contenders when Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal withdrew from the contest. Indeed, after Rick Perry and Scott Walker, he is the third governor to drop out of the race in a year that has seen traditional, establishment qualifications utterly repudiated by the Republican base.

            In large part this is due to Donald Trump, who has carved out an (appropriately large) niche for himself as the angry man’s candidate. The establishment never anticipated his rise (what place do they see for a candidacy based on the rejection of everything they stand for?) And for many months they have refused to acknowledge his staying power, obstinately pretending that his support has reached its apex, and that his campaign is about to collapse.

Nevertheless, Trump always remained in the lead, and always remained strong. He is a serious candidate, and since this year’s election has, thus far, been defined largely by his presence, it makes sense to consider in greater detail the merits of the Trump candidacy. There are, in my opinion, three essential questions to consider. First, why is he so popular? Second, is he a conservative? And third, what will happen if he wins the presidency?

Donald Trump has been leading in every national poll since August. Public Policy Polling, which has a reputation as the most accurate pollster, found him to be at 26 percent in a poll conducted last Thursday. He leads the pack by a large margin: Ben Carson is at 19%, Ted Cruz at 14%, and Marco Rubio at 13%. No one else is above 5%.

It is quite apparent that this eccentric billionaire has brought something to American public discourse that resonates with tens of millions of Americans. Why has a man so out of place in the world of politics garnered such admiration from the public? Because, at heart, Mr. Trump is a populist. He appeals to the common people and spurns elites. “Our politicians are stupid,” he says, blaming “truly stupid leadership in Washington,” for holding our nation back. “They’re holding back this incredible, pent-up energy, and when we release it, we will be great again.”

That, then, is his message: the politicians are stupid, so elect me and I’ll make America great again. Because conservatives across America are very angry with their current government, and very much want to see their country made great again, they are generally supportive of Trump.

Clearly, Donald Trump is one of the most successful, practical, and plainspoken people in the country. What could be a bigger contrast with our current leaders in Washington, who refuse to listen to the people and are unable to pass even routine budget measures without lengthy and ultimately fruitless partisan squabbles? Indeed, Trump’s unique experiences in climbing to the top have given him the insight and confidence needed to both recognize and ridicule our nation’s most overrated people. Trump’s undeniable accomplishments, harsh attitude toward the establishment, and commitment to decisive action are a combination that voters haven’t seen in a long time.

 “I’m going to make American great again,” Trump says. “I will build a great wall. I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I’ll hit ISIS so hard your head will spin. I’ll bomb the hell out of them, and take their oil.”

Conservatives across the country are very angry about the status quo, and rightfully so. Donald Trump is extremely popular because he is the perfect vessel to channel their anger – he is, or seems to be, the opposite of everything they hate about Washington. Trump has carved out a niche for himself as the angry man’s candidate, and the way things are going right now, that niche is turning out to be larger than any other.

But supporters of Trump should beware, and ask themselves much value they place on anger alone. Finding someone who is loud and outspoken about a few political issues is, in itself, unimpressive. Trump’s success as a real estate developer and reality television star have given him a place on the national stage, but voters should be asking themselves how deep his commitment to conservatism really runs. Hence the second question: is Donald Trump a conservative?

Donald Trump gets most of his attention for his views on immigration and the Middle East. His harshness toward illegal immigrants and his strong opposition toward rapprochement with Iran or a soft policy toward the Islamic State are the issues on which he is the loudest, and he seldom gets any attention for his views on the issues about which he is not loud. But his positions there are clear to see, and he has stated them amply in the recent series of televised debates.

Donald Trump has a moderate attitude toward Vladimir Putin and Russian expansionism, and believes that he can negotiate favorably with Putin. He believes that single-payer health care works in Canada. He is supportive of strong eminent domain powers, and has praised the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which condoned the use of eminent domain to further private interests.

David McIntosh, president of the Club for Economic Growth, has said that “Trump is the most liberal candidate on fiscal policy in the whole field, with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders. His angry style may reflect the deep frustration Americans have with Washington leaders who have failed to keep their promises. But the policies he’d implement would benefit himself and his own interests, not the American people.”

Except for the few issues that he’s loud about, Trump’s views generally range from moderate to liberal. The common misconception that he is the most extreme conservative in the race has gained traction because those who listen to the liberal media mistake his rudeness for conservatism. It is a sad reflection on the current state of our nation that so many people cannot distinguish between the two qualities.

Even more frightening is Trump’s past political history. From about 2001 to 2009, he was a registered Democrat. Within the last two decades, he has described himself as “very pro-choice,” and voiced support for an assault weapons ban, wealth tax, and universal health care. He has a long history of supporting Hillary Clinton, and gave money to her presidential campaign in 2007. These are but a few of the many glaring political flip-flops that dot his career as a public figure.

There is room in the Republican Party for ex-liberals; indeed, Ronald Reagan himself supported Democratic candidates and causes early in his life. But Reagan entered presidential politics only after a long history of supporting conservative principles and conservative policies. Donald Trump has no such history.

Rome was not built in a day, and an opportunist who became a Republican during the current presidential administration, jumping into the race just as it became fashionable to hate the establishment, is wholly unsuited to lead the next generation of conservatives. Love him or hate him, Jeb Bush spoke the truth when he remarked: “El hombre no es conservadore.”

Donald Trump isn’t a conservative. The angry conservatives who support Trump are either ignorant of what he really stands for, or they’re angry first, and conservative only second. Hopefully, they will wake up to the reality of what they’re supporting before it’s too late.

The first two questions, concerning why Trump appeals to voters and where he really stands ideologically, have been answered. This leaves the third; concerning what Trump will likely do if he is nominated and elected to the presidency.

To answer this question, we need to look past politics and rhetoric to Trump’s character, and to two problems in particular: his lying, and his arrogance. To put it simply, Donald Trump is a lying liar who lies. Unlike most politicians, he isn’t even subtle about it. Consider his remark in the third televised GOP debate, where he flatly denied having said that Marco Rubio is Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator. That exact statement was present on his campaign website at the time of the debate, and it’s still there today, in his policy statement on Immigration Reform.

One need only search the internet to find dozens of other completely false statements. As a political opportunist, Trump will say what sounds best at the moment, with no regard for whether or not it’s actually true. While such behavior may be acceptable, or even desirable, in a liberal, conservatives should know better than to support a candidate who plays so loosely with the truth. With such wild variation’s in his policy positions, there’s no way to know what he’ll do about any particular issue if he actually becomes president.

Donald Trump is also extremely arrogant. I think that this was clearly manifest in his response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in King v. Burwell, after which he tweeted: “If I win the presidency, my judicial appointments will do the right things unlike Bush's appointee John Roberts.” Not only does this tweet present a grossly simplistic view of Chief Justice Roberts’ jurisprudence, but it manifests Trump’s belief in his own ability, as someone who has never before held public office, to consistently make conservative judicial appointments – a goal which eluded even experienced statesmen such as Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

Donald Trump’s insistence that he can cut taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars without either running up enormous deficits or diminishing retirement benefits, all because of his acumen for business, only adds to the reasons to doubt his integrity. If elected president, he’ll do something about the deficit, but there’s no way to tell what. Trump is a loose cannon; while he makes many fabulous promises, no one can know which ones he’ll keep and which he’ll renege on.

In summary, Donald Trump is not the right man to lead the conservative movement into the future. While Trump is very successful as a businessman and has many good policy ideas, his questionable political history and utter lack of honesty or humility should disqualify him from the presidency. The American people seem to agree; according to a recent Quinnipiac poll, Trump is the only major Republican candidate who loses in a one-to-one matchup with Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump may be the angry man’s candidate, but if you’re looking for a true conservative to represent the Republican Party next November, he’s not the one. If our nation is to experience a true revival of our founding principles, we will need a very different kind of man as our standard-bearer in next year’s general election.