My comments today at Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation very kindly invited me to address newspaper editors in town for a meeting. Many thanks to Jim Weidman for the invitation and to Lee Edwards, our gracious moderator. I was joined by Michael Franc of the Hoover Institution and Matthew Spalding of the Kirby Center. Here are my prepared remarks: Can Conservatism Survive Trump? Remarks to Editors Heritage Foundation May 6, 2018 To answer the question as to whether conservatism can survive Trump, we have to begin by defining our terms. What is conservatism in 2018? A comprehensive answer would require a whole semester of study, so for the sake of brevity, I’d like to divide conservative principles into two baskets. In the first basket, I’ll place the conservative preferences, principles, and goals that the Trump presidency is advancing. In the second, I’ll address the conservative principles I think he and his defenders are undermining. Broadly speaking, conservatives in America trust markets more than the state to provide goods and services. Left and right battle perennially over regulation, with the left raising the specter of dirty air and unsafe drinking water if any paragraph of the 1.5 million pages of the Federal Register is touched, and the right claiming that regulation is strangling productivity. Barack Obama, for example, mocked Mitt Romney’s views by saying “Their solution to everything is ‘Cut two regulations and call me in the morning.’” Donald Trump endorses the conservative view on regulation wholeheartedly and his appointees have worked to reverse some of the Obama-era regulations, particularly in reference to the...