Is it time for conservatives to embrace Trump's populism?

The case for and against MAGA

Written by Bo Winegard.

PHILO: My contention is that populism is a necessary and laudable response to years of elite failure. It evinces a fighting spirit that conservative voters and intellectuals, so often betrayed by feckless politicians, should embrace. For the simple reality is that conservatives have not conserved. On issues from gay marriage to mass immigration, they have capitulated. As a result, voters have rejected them in favor of a movement that is more energetic, more vital, and, yes, more flamboyant: populism. Donald Trump’s victory in 2024 was the result of his promise of radical change, coupled with his ability to harness the righteous anger of ordinary citizens.

Now, is populism—like Trump himself—crude, rude, and boorish? Certainly, it can be. I understand that such boorishness will continue to offend the sensibilities of social conservatives. At times, even I find the vulgarity and transgressiveness of populism—particularly MAGA populism—unbecoming. And yet, it is not nearly so appalling as the sanctimonious defense of a failed status quo. And it’s certainly not so appalling as decaying cities, drug overdoses, or corpses from unnecessary wars.

Populism is the language of an angry people whose patience has been worn thin by broken promises and lies. Sometimes that language is coarse, uncouth, and impolite. But what is the appropriate response to economic devastation? To shuttered factories, failed wars, and pernicious ideologies? Is it polite dissent and quiet resignation? Or is it brash, open defiance? My view is the latter. And if that means abandoning politeness and decorum, then so be it.

Thus, populism is not merely desirable—it is necessary. Protecting the old verities, the eternal truths, demands radical disruption and a decisive break from the mainstream elite consensus. This is what Donald Trump offers. He is the sledgehammer that will shatter layers of corruption and error to reveal the timeless truths buried beneath: Men and women are biologically different. God created humans for a purpose. Government serves the people. Individuals are endowed with certain inalienable rights.

Yes, he may have myriad character defects, but he has one crucial virtue that makes him indispensable: An unbending spirit of rebellion. He is unbowed—a quality that sets him apart from the so-called conservatives who came before him, who were crushed with little resistance beneath the relentless march of progressivism.

MEANDER: Before disagreeing, let’s begin with a point of consensus. I agree that conservatives have not conserved. Their capitulation to progressive preferences and rapid cultural change has understandably alienated many voters.

These voters, viewing the old Republican Party as little more than a witless accomplice to the left, are deeply dissatisfied. They have, in response, flipped the proverbial bird to traditional conservatives—the Paul Ryans and Mitt Romneys of the party. They want, as you say, a fighter. Someone unafraid to get bloodied and dirtied in the arena. And they do not care if he says please and thank you while deferring to current political pieties.

After all, if scrupulous fidelity to norms and decorum leads to the destruction of the working class, to failed foreign adventurism, and to the radical cultural upheavals of the 2000s, then such fidelity is not merely misguided—it is contemptible. Conformity, in such a moment, is complicity. No. Norms must be violated. Radical change is necessary. The status quo is unsalvageable. And Donald Trump is necessary.

So yes, the dysfunction and failures of our politics have given rise to populism, much as a disease produces a predictable suite of symptoms. Sometimes, these symptoms are a necessary part of recovery—the lymph nodes swell as they destroy harmful pathogens. But other times, they are nothing more than gratuitous irritants, maladaptive, unpleasant, and counterproductive. If they are necessary, we must endure them. But we should not celebrate them. And if they are gratuitous, we should work to eliminate them.

The same principle applies to populism. At best, it deserves our toleration. At worst, it warrants our implacable opposition. In neither case, however, should we confuse it with conservatism. For there is nothing conservative about a Manichaean ideology that belittles elites and institutions while championing a narrow, monolithic vision of the people. Populism is not merely orthogonal to conservatism—it is antithetical to it.

So contrary to your defense of Trump’s populism, I contend that Donald Trump is not necessary. He’s a loathsome American anomaly and a ugly bundle of all the traits—selfishness, laziness, boorishness, unseriousness, pettiness—serious conservatives should reject. MAGA is as severe a threat to conservatism as wokism. Both should be repudiated. And we should work to create a movement that better promotes the principles of conservatism.

PHILO: Let’s focus on your disease analogy because I think you misrepresent the consequences of taking it seriously. Populism, you said, is like the symptoms arising from an underlying disease. Well, as you noted, symptoms sometimes aid in or are integral to the healing process. That is, symptoms are not superfluous annoyances. They are disagreeable but necessary. If they are necessary, then why should we not celebrate them? Why, for example, should a person suffering from a fever not be thankful that her body is attempting to kill whatever pathogens are causing her infection?

Populism is the body politic’s immune response to the disease of elite arrogance and institutional failure. It is not merely a blind backlash or destructive spasm, but rather a needed and often effective correction to floundering systems and disconnected elites.

MEANDER: Even if populism highlights legitimate grievances and pressing problems, it is not worth the cost. Blowing up a densely populated bank might draw attention to inequality, predatory lending, or financial malfeasance—serious issues that deserve scrutiny—but we would still condemn the bomber. The loss of human life cannot be justified by the attention gained.

Populism is an angry and necessarily simplistic orientation to the political world. It peddles false hopes and impossible promises, only to end—inevitably—in failure and disillusionment. It thrives on a distorted, paranoid vision of reality: a world filled with nefarious actors, treacherous conspiracies, and imagined betrayals. In doing so, it ignores a more subtle and unpopular truth: politics is rarely a contest of good versus evil. Politics is about tradeoffs. About two or more interest groups sincerely fighting for what they think is right.

Trump’s populism gives us “they are eating the cats and dogs,” which degrades discourse and dumbs down important conversations about crucial topics. It is puerile. It is unworthy. And it should be discarded by serious conservatives.

PHILO: We’ve been speaking abstractly, so let’s make this concrete. Costs and benefits, after all, can only be judged on a situation-by-situation basis. Revolution might, in general, be undesirable—but you, like many conservatives, celebrate the American Revolution, don’t you? And for good reason. The status quo, the subordinate status to Britain, was untenable. Radical change was needed. The considerable cost of revolution was justified.

Well, in the United States today, the status quo has again failed. Elites from both parties are culpable. They embraced neoliberal economics, foreign adventurism, and mass immigration. Meanwhile, conservatives, despite their often lofty rhetoric, failed to halt radical cultural shifts, such as the legalization of gay marriage, the rise of gender ideology, and the destruction of free speech at the universities.

The reality of 2024 is bleak for conservatives: the country is dramatically more diverse and culturally leftist than it was even thirty years ago.

In my view, these failures do not just justify populism—they necessitate it. Someone must speak for the people, channel their discontent, and smash the system. We must return to fundamentals: traditional marriage, limited immigration, patriotism, unashamed support for Christianity, and an enthusiastic rejection of wokism.

Conservatism is not about clinging to whatever status quo happens to exist. It is about promoting eternal truths. When the political class, the pundits, and the rest of the elites deviate from these truths, they must be removed—even if doing so requires revolution. Donald Trump promises exactly that. He has surrounded himself with people who will serve as indefatigable scourges of the old liberal elite. I welcome and applaud their efforts.

MEANDER: I will not speculate on whether I would have supported the American Revolution—certainly many Americans did not—but I take your point. Even a good conservative might, under the right conditions, endorse radical change. Thus, conservatives should not reject Trump’s populism outright merely because it disrupts the status quo and refuses obeisance to current political norms and standards.

But conservatism is concerned with both the means and the ends. Conservatives value the eternal verities: the sanctity of human life, individual rights, traditional marriage, and so on. Yet they also prize slow, deliberate change. This is not because they cling blindly to the status quo, but because they have learned from history a simple lesson: radical change leads almost inevitably to human disaster. The ends may be noble, but if the means are evil, the outcome is evil. If the path to paradise is paved with corpses, then paradise must be rejected. And we know that history is indeed littered with illusory paradises built on ruins, from Stalin’s Soviet Union to Mao’s China.

Conservatism’s deeper objection to populism, especially the transgressive populism espoused by Trump and his coterie of disgruntled misfits, is its inherent skepticism of the masses. Conservatism rejects simplistic solutions and rhetoric; it fears demagogues and ridicules the very notion of an unfiltered “voice of the people.” Conservatism, at its core, is elitist.

Consider Robespierre: arguably the first successful modern populist, a talented yet inflexible politician who believed himself a conduit for the people. In his zeal, he rejected the notion of divided sovereignty in favor of total deference to the general will—a mystical concept drawn from Rousseau. Conservatives rightly despise Robespierre’s politics and remain terrified of mobocracy.

In my view, Trump is Robespierre without the considerable learning and reasoning abilities. He is a bitter, grievance collector who uses the valid anger of many hard-working Americans to satisfy his own avarice and lust for power. He may be right about a few things—but he is so manifestly demagogic and depraved that any reasonable conservative should reject him.

PHILO: A better comparison for Trump is Andrew Jackson, a fiery man born in a cabin, rough, vulgar, and contemptuous of elites. They of course despised and feared him. But the people loved him. And he was a great president, despite the terror he caused in the supercilious men and women of the original “deep state” who could not fathom that some nobody from the frontier might rise to political greatness.

MEANDER: Allow me to interrupt just for a moment. I often hear this comparison, but in my view, it is quite wrong. Andrew Jackson, whatever his flaws, was a courageous war hero who defiantly defended the Union against threats of secession. Trump, far from displaying Jacksonian heroism, refused to defend the very Union he claims to cherish.

PHILO: That’s cutting! I’m willing to concede, of course, that Donald Trump is a deeply flawed man. But his movement remains our best hope to sweep away the malignant mainstream that has dominated our politics and culture for far too long. The end, I would argue, is more important than the means. Or to put it another way: if the means serve noble ends, then they are justified.

Dropping bombs on an innocent country is wrong. Dropping bombs on a guilty Germany during the Second World War is right. The means are the same, but the ends are different and determine the moral value of the act.

What’s more, America is uniquely suited to populism because it is uniquely democratic. The elite conservatism you defend belongs in Europe, where it aligns with their aristocratic ethos. But here, in the United States, we do not demean the masses—we celebrate and embrace them. When elite opinion diverges too far from the will of the people, it is not the people who should change, but the elites. And if they refuse to change, to defer to the people, they should be replaced. Government works for us. We don’t work for the government.

MEANDER: I partially concede your point about means and ends. Sometimes, noble ends do indeed justify horrific means. But one should always approach this principle that ends justify the means with caution, for it is dangerously easy to wield it as a rationalization for atrocities. Surely, some paradises are simply too costly to pursue.

Your claim that America is uniquely populist is sensible but difficult to reconcile with our history. The Founders were not populists—far from it. With the possible exception of Jefferson, the most democratic of the major Founders after Franklin, they were deeply skeptical of popular passions. Madison and Hamilton, in particular, were horrified by the idea of pure democracy. The Federalist Papers teems with warnings about the dangers of demagogues who exploit the basest instincts of the people.

Conservatives, of course, revere the Founders, and if they wish to honor their intellectual legacy, they should reject Trump. For it is impossible to imagine that the Founders would have had anything other than disdain for him and for the crude populism he espouses.

PHILO: I suspect you are correct about the Founders, but they were not infallible. Many were slave owners, after all. The character of America is not determined solely by the views of its Founders. Instead, its character is shaped by its organic history—its slow and often tumultuous unfolding across time. And in that history, populism has played a dominant role. Even the most genteel politicians, from Roosevelt to Reagan, have embraced the fiery rhetoric of populism.

We are not a nation that genuflects before an elite aristocracy. We are a nation that ridicules those who would ask us to do so. We are adventurous, boisterous, and sometimes even a little crude. Why should our leaders not reflect that spirit?

MEANDER: I do not disagree about the Founders—they were, like all of us, fallible men. But their political acumen was unparalleled. They created a nation that rose, slowly and steadily, from a subordinate colony to the most powerful hegemon the world has ever known. For that alone, they deserve our deference.

And we would be wise to heed their warnings about the dangers of demagogues. They deliberately designed a political system that pits ambition against ambition and channels the confused passions of the people through careful checks and balances.

Populism is antithetical to this design, treating checks and balances as intolerable, anti-majoritarian obstacles that thwart the will of the people. Trump, in particular, has made this clear. He has expressed contempt for such constraints, promising his followers that he will be their vengeance while assailing all impediments to executive control

PHILO: Well, we certainly will not agree on the abstract or philosophical merits of populism, so let’s conclude with a more practical consideration.

What should conservatives do now that MAGA has supplanted the more traditional conservatism of the Republican Party? You have expressed unequivocal hostility to Trump. Did you vote for Kamala Harris? And do you think conservatives should exit the GOP?

In my view, even if you abominate Trump, you should still vote for him and embrace his brand of populism as the only viable conservative movement in the game today.

MEANDER: This is a vexed issue, one with which I have long struggled. I did not vote for Harris because I was horrified by the positions she took in 2019 and by the Biden administration’s catastrophic failure at the border. But I did not vote for Trump either. I wrote in Ronald Reagan. And until a more urbane, more disciplined, more respectable conservative movement replaces MAGA, I will not vote for Republicans.

I am a conservative first, a Republican second. I will never vote for a party that has capitulated to a man who promoted kooky conspiracy theories while trying to subvert a democratic election. If that makes me “Never Trump,” then that’s fine, though I would not endorse that label. I adhere to the principles of Burke and Madison and Lincoln. And I cannot imagine that they would have supported anything related to Trump.

PHILO: Elections are binary. If you reject MAGA, you increase the likelihood that the alternative will prevail. And remember: the alternative is the same movement that championed the woke narratives still entrenched in our universities—stifling free speech and inquiry while advancing baleful theories of systemic racism and gender fluidity. Left unchecked, these narratives, like the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus, will give rise to legions of new social justice warriors.

Woke is not dead. And if we do not support Trump, it will continue to dominate our culture. Should the Trump administration fail and, say, Gavin Newsom win in 2028, the United States will become a very dark place for conservatives.

MEANDER: The United States is already a dark place for conservatives. Neither major party embraces a vision consistent with true conservatism. Both pander to vulgar popularism. Both offer simplistic solutions and convenient villains. Meanwhile, our fertility declines, our demographics shift, and religious faith ebbs. Crude materialism and jejune superstitions supplant sincere belief. Yeats’s words have seldom been more appropriate: the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

PHILO: Trump extols the virtues of Christianity and will preserve our Judeo-Christian heritage.

MEANDER: Trump is a pagan who worships Mammon. He is a crude adulterer, a habitual liar, and likely indulges in at least three of the seven deadly sins daily. No—Trump will preserve nothing but his own wealth and power. He certainly will not preserve the heritage of the Founders.

PHILO: I suppose you now revere Liz Cheney and listen to the Bulwark every day!

MEANDER: Ha! I have a little time for Cheney, though I never particularly liked her brand of conservatism.

PHILO: Well, let’s summarize, shall we?

I have argued that Trump’s populism is perfectly consistent with the deeper insights of conservatism and should, therefore, be embraced by conservatives. Yes, he is brash, boorish, and deeply flawed, but he is also a vigorous fighter who refuses to bow to the mainstream. Of course, I wish he spoke more eloquently and cared more about the Constitution than his own petty interests. But his MAGA movement is the only conservative game in town. If we do not support Trump, we will end up supporting Newsom or Harris.

The most important thing is to preserve the timeless truths. Trump, for all his flaws, is better than the alternatives. That is how we must decide. We cannot wait for perfection—not in this world, at least.

MEANDER: In contrast, I have argued that Trump’s populism is crass, vulgar, and fundamentally antithetical to the principles of conservatism and to the vision of the Founders. Whereas they feared the mob and cautioned against demagogues, Trump praises the people and indulges in rank demagoguery. Yes, he may be a fighter, but he is also selfish, petty, lazy, and profoundly uninformed. He is not Andrew Jackson. He is not even Huey Long. He is something far more contemptible—and far more dangerous.

Conservatives should never embrace Trump’s populism. At most, they should work with it strategically—while always rejecting its abhorrent disdain for civility and restraint. Society is held together by norms, and once those norms are shattered, they become like the tiny shards of a broken vase: virtually impossible to piece back together. This is one of conservatism’s primary teachings—social entropy. Things fall apart unless we vigilantly hold them together. And once they fall apart, we are seldom able to restore them.

Now, I am enough of a pragmatist to side with Trump if, say, Satan himself invaded the United States. I am not “Never Trump” in that absolute sense. But I must admit that it is difficult to imagine a mortal whose qualities are more antithetical to the office of the presidency.

Hyperbole aside, I appreciated our debate. I wish Trump the best. And I hope I won’t have to say “I told you so” in another few years.

PHILO: Likewise. And don’t worry, if there are proscriptions, I will encourage Trump to spare you.

Bo Winegard is the Executive Editor of Aporia.

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