"... Trump is not a politician but a grievance avatar ..."

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The Coming Conservative Collapse
The rise of Trump signals a conservative crackup.
By Nicole Hammer, December 29, 2015

The big political story of 2015 was the rise of Donald Trump. In addition to generating endless cycles of entertainment and outrage, the Trump juggernaut crystallized a decade-long development: the fracturing of American conservatism.

The first hints of the crackup appeared in 2005, when the base rose up in opposition to President George W. Bush's proposed immigration reforms. It reappeared in 2009 with the tea party, but that movement was so quickly co-opted by the GOP that its significance was muddied. (Remember that in 2010 Sens. Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were all tea party candidates.)

When the tea party fizzled, something far more populist – and far less conservative – took its place: the Trump faction. Trump supporters – and we should focus on his supporters, as Trump is not a politician but a grievance avatar – are at war with both the conservative movement and the Republican Party, trying to displace the first and overtake the second. The war they have launched against these political establishments is causing both to splinter, a disintegration that mirrors the breakup of the liberal establishment in the late 1960s.

From the 1930s through the 1960s, liberalism was the center of gravity in American politics, commanding so much institutional and electoral strength that both parties bent to its will. What ended that era of liberal consensus was not an assault from the right but from the left. Support for black civil rights fractured the Democratic coalition; the rise of student radicalism and Black Power shattered the liberal consensus.

Presidential elections punctuated this unraveling, providing a series of quadrennial set-pieces charting liberalism's collapse. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson won in a historic landslide against conservative challenger Barry Goldwater, leaving the Republicans only the Deep South and Goldwater's home state of Arizona. Four years later, Johnson faced such serious opposition from peace candidates in his own party that he declined to run for re-election. And four years after that George McGovern, hero of the New Left, was routed by President Richard Nixon, picking up just 17 of 538 electoral votes.

Conservatives may not have caused the disintegration of liberalism, but they certainly benefited from it. Refashioning themselves as the voice of the silent majority, conservatives condemned '60s radicals for a long list of offenses. The New Left was crass and vulgar, lawless and antidemocratic. They were children of privilege who were committed to the idea that America was essentially bad.

Sound familiar? It should. Though they hold a very different set of beliefs about the world, Trump supporters (and the man they back) exhibit these same characteristics. Trump presents America as a washed-up also-ran. His closing statement at the most recent Republican debate included the lines: "Our country doesn't win anymore" and "Nothing works in our country." He swears a blue streak on the campaign trail and social media, and seems a bit cool on due process and constitutionalism. His supporters, privileged yet failing, are in search of a man on horseback.

Where conservatives in the late 1960s and 1970s appealed to a silent majority, Trump supporters sense they are in the minority, so their politics are edged with nihilism. (Hence their support for a candidate without any sort of coherent agenda.) Where construction workers in the 1970s hoisted signs reading "We support Nixon and Agnew" and "God Bless the Establishment," Trump supporters treat "the establishment" as the filthiest phrase in the English language. No longer believing the establishment is on their side, no longer believing victory is in reach, Trump supporters have committed themselves to '60s-style political radicalism.

In 1968, a group known as the Yippies (members of the Youth International Party) nominated a dark-horse candidate at the Democratic National Convention: Pigasus, a 150-pound Hampshire pig. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "The stated purpose of the Yippies is to make the Democratic convention looked ridiculous." It was a goal the Democrats were doing a fairly good job of achieving on their own, but the Yippies helped drive the point home. Perhaps this is the best way to understand the link between '60s radicalism, conservatism, and Trump. Donald Trump is the populist right's Pigasus, only one with a better shot at the nomination – and a better shot of hastening the coming conservative collapse.
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