{"id":92119,"date":"2016-03-31T15:58:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T23:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=92119"},"modified":"2016-03-31T15:58:34","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T23:58:34","slug":"political-scientist-trump-is-a-wrecking-ball-against-the-conservative-establishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=92119","title":{"rendered":"Political Scientist: Trump Is A \u2018Wrecking Ball\u2019 Against The Conservative Establishment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2016\/03\/31\/political-scientist-trump-is-a-wrecking-ball-demolishing-the-conservative-establishment\/\">Daily Caller<\/a>: George Hawley, a professor of political science at the University of Alabama and author of the new book \u201cRight-Wing Critics of American Conservatism,\u201d talked with The Daily Caller this week about the Trump phenomenon and how it is affecting the conservative movement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe conservative movement would be in serious decline even if Trump had stayed out of this race,\u201d Hawley told TheDC. \u201cThe movement simply does not know what to do in a world where big business is allied with the cultural left, secularism is on the rise, changing demographics are weakening the GOP\u2019s base of support, there is no evidence that regime change and democracy are panaceas for terrorism, and we have economic problems that won\u2019t be solved with another tax cut.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his opinion, Trump\u2019s candidacy has merely exposed the already-present weaknesses of the conservative establishment, particularly GOP voters\u2019 lack of concern for its continued health.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the major figures of the conservative intelligentsia denounced Trump and the public responded to their critiques with indifference. This demonstrated that huge numbers of voters, even those who regularly vote Republican, simply do not care about the conservative movement. Trump showed the world that the conservative movement is a Potemkin village. Or to switch metaphors, it is an army with many well-compensated officers, but very few grunts,\u201d Hawley said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;That ideological vacuum could be filled by a number options, according to Hawley\u2019s estimation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome will try to reassert the old conservatism, or a more progressive variation of the old conservatism. Others will push for a libertarian approach. Some will openly embrace some kind of white identity politics,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daily Caller: George Hawley, a professor of political science at the University of Alabama and author of the new book \u201cRight-Wing Critics of American Conservatism,\u201d talked with The Daily Caller this week about the Trump phenomenon and how it is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=92119\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,29752],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-donald-trump"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92120,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92119\/revisions\/92120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}