Don't Ignore the Roots of Populism

The "deplorables" and the "bitter clingers" are our fellow Americans whose anxieties are rooted in legitimate concerns.

Saeful Muslim, Wikipedia.

I will never again vote for Donald J. Trump. I believe that Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election and that his lies regarding that election incited a group of his most loyal followers to ransack the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. These are the facts that drove me out of the camp of Trump voters.

There are some lines that become fuzzy in democratic politics. Lesser of two evils arguments will always be the case between two fallen candidates (everybody is fallen). But the events following the November 2020 election are unforgivable in my view. They are certainly unforgivable without an acknowledgment of wrongdoing from Donald Trump. 

But even outside of the broader concerns for the maintenance of our Constitutional Democratic-Republic, I have serious policy differences with former President Trump. I think that his protectionist economic policies are shortsighted and foolish, his isolationist impulses are dangerous, and the character he brings to the office discredits conservative priorities on social issues. I could go on and on with my disagreements and issues with the former President. 

But there is a class of professional Trump critics and haters who wind up making me defend the Donald, or, more accurately, his supporters. What this class of critic does is project their often justified anger or disagreement with Trump and his policies and rhetoric onto a certain type of American voter. The type of voters Hillary Clinton dismissively called “a basket of deplorables” or of whom Barack Obama remarked that “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion…”

These voters are typically white, rural, and working class. They are not college-educated. And a majority of these people not only voted for Donald Trump, they love him. Because of this, the professional Trump critic class, right and left, has doubled and tripled down on the Hillary and Obama tactic of belittling, mocking, and villainizing them. But these are my people. I may not agree with them on Trump, but I know what they are trying to say in voting for him. That’s why, while I don’t agree with the wayward excesses of MAGA populism, I nevertheless empathize with the roots of their distress. 

What Are Trump Voters Trying to Say

While populism tends to quickly become unmoored from bedrock principles, the people of any political order need to believe that their leaders care about and take seriously their interests and the common good of the entire country. When a certain class of people sees the towns that they’ve called home for generations boarded up, their friends and family struggling and dying as drug and alcohol addicts, and their economic prospects going up in smoke, all while their elected leaders are seemingly unconcerned, their faith and trust in their system of government understandably falters. 

Donald Trump, in 2016, spoke to these disenfranchised Americans in a way politicians from either party had not done before. It is true that what he offered them, instead of solutions, was a politics of resentment, revenge, and populist demagoguery. But he did speak to them. And, in a vacuum, they appreciated him for it. 

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A Conservative Vision for the “Deplorables”

I believe principled conservative Republicans can once again win over these voters that Trump appeals to. The way we do it is to recommit to our shared institutions. As the political philosopher Yuval Levin argues in his book A Time to Build, from churches to families to political parties, there is a crisis of relevance with our institutions. Levin suggests that the path to political sanity is to recommit to building up our shared institutions. 

On the political parties side, organizations like the Reagan Caucus are working to restore the institutional Republican Party to an effective vessel for conservative and bipartisan policy solutions that can address the issues facing 21st-century America. Such efforts reject the typical Never Trump™ method of abandoning the GOP in favor of Democrats. Efforts such as the Reagan Caucus can, without hypocrisy, say to Reagan sympathetic Trump voters that they are legitimately aligned with their interests, even if they disagree on the Donald. 

On the media side, there is a lot going on in terms of building in the conservative space. Those of us who write here at Freemen News-Letter are doing our part to get Reaganist conservative principles back in the public vernacular. But we are not alone here. Organizations like the Dispatch are doing good work as well. 

But the most important point I want to get across today is that the American experiment requires its citizens in their personal lives to commit to the project. You have to support our institutions and join them to make them better!

If you are a Christian, find a local church and commit to it, volunteer for outreach, and commit to local discipleship. Ditto to any Jewish, Muslim, or other readers of faith. (I am a Christian and obviously believe Jesus is the only true way. But I acknowledge that the country is better when all religious citizens live out their personal faith convictions). If you are not religious, as is your right, then find one of our other civic institutions and commit to it. Volunteer as an election worker, run for your local school board or library association, lead out in the Scouts organization, and donate to a food pantry. 

We will truly Make America Great Again, not by electing an unmoored populist, but by becoming the self-governing people our constitutional system requires to function. We will restore faith in our institutions by orienting toward the care of our fellow citizens.

I believe the 21st century can be the greatest American century yet by taking up the age-old challenge articulated by Ronald Reagan: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Joey Carrion is a political science student at Andrews University, studying pre-law as well as psychology. He co-hosts the Gio and Joey podcast and operates the Michigan Reagan Caucus Twitter/X account. @adventistcowboy