Sean Patrick Carlin

Since the 1920s, conservatives have effectively mobilized their base while marginalizing the opposition by emphasizing an "us versus them" narrative: Christians versus Jews, whites versus Blacks, immigrants versus natives, men versus women, straight versus gay, and binary versus nonbinary gender. Beyond policy matters such as spending, taxation, regulation, infrastructure, health care, or welfare, cultural challenges have posed an existential threat to conservatives' vision of right and wrong and the country they hold dear. . . .

As president, Trump continued to represent the American conservative tradition faithfully. He appointed federal judges who upheld the agenda of protecting private enterprise and the Right's version of white Christian values. His singular legislative accomplishment was a tax cut that benefited the rich and corporations. He used his executive powers to crack down on immigration from the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America and to dismantle regulations on the environment, transportation safety, banking safeguards, and civil rights. Nothing that Trump said or did as president would have shocked or surprised a conservative of the 1920s. . . .

Trump's relentless pursuit of power, irrespective of the means or implications for democracy, is rooted in a conservative belief that liberal opponents are not simply wrong on issues, but fundamentally sinful, un-American, and detrimental to the values that have historically made the nation great. This "us versus them" mentality, viewing opponents as alien and illegitimate, is not unique to Trump. As explained by Joanne B. Freeman, a professor of American history and American studies at Yale University, "The [Republican] party's unity is the problem, its shared focus on ends (uncontested rule) over means (democratic practices). Norms and rules be damned, they feel entitled to maintaining power. This isn't democracy. It's the heartbeat of authoritarianism."

Under Trump -- and long before -- conservatives have engaged in a struggle for control over public life in the United States against a liberal tradition they have seen as evil, un-American, and corrosive of the institutions and traditions that made the nation great. The Left, too, has scorned the opposition as a danger to the United States, particularly in the Trump era. However, since the 1930s, conservatives have done so with particular force and conviction. Conservatives have conjured up the phantasma of liberals who threaten the traditions that sustained our civilization with their pluralistic values, their program of social engineering, and their trampling on the moral teachings of religion. Conservatives had to stay disciplined, mobilize their resources, and wage total war against liberals by any means available, with unconditional surrender as the only acceptable result.