Conservatism as Apprenticeship
The importance of models when you learn by watching and following
We are not taught how to be conservatives. We learn. There’s a difference.
And that’s why healthy models of conservatism are essential.
Apprenticing to the Skilled Leader
It is often said that conservatism is not an ideology but a sensibility or disposition. At root, it is an appreciation for those things that have enabled a society to flourish. The conservative identifies and aims to preserve these.
For the American conservative, this has long meant preserving items of substance and items of process. For example, American conservatives aim to conserve certain ends, like strong families, purposeful voluntary associations, robust communities, virtue, ordered liberty, self-government, and human flourishing. We also aim to conserve the practices associated with those ends—things like federalism, localism, republicanism, civil society, capitalism, and originalism.
It is not intuitive how these things fit together. Yes, there are books, essays, articles, and speeches that can guide the young conservative. But (as I’ve written several times), we typically have to discover those on our own. They are seldom taught in college or graduate school. Indeed, Hess and Fletcher recently found (in a paper I commissioned) that there are vanishingly few conservatives teaching in public policy schools, so good luck if you hope to be assigned a conservative-governing canon.
So how in the world do conservatives who care about governing learn how to govern conservatively???
By example.
Models of Conservative Governing
Wide-scale, modern American-conservative governing began on January 20, 1981.1
Though Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford had characteristics or views that would be recognizable as conservative today, in other ways they could be placed on today’s left. Ronald Reagan is a different story. His conservatism was consistent with conservative principles that predated his election. As importantly, it was coherent and largely comprehensive: It had positions on social, economic, legal, and governing issues, and those positions fit together. For instance, his emphasis on limited government, the 10th Amendment, textualism, low taxes, free trade, and a powerful military made sense as a whole.
Not only was his approach good for America (the nation thrived) and the Republican Party (he won big and his coattails were long); it was also good for the conservative-governing movement. He showed by example how to lead from the right when entrusted with public authority. Reagan-ist governing became largely synonymous with American-conservative governing. But it didn’t defy and replace a previous version. Instead, it was faithful to preexisting tenets while translating them into the practice of governing in a way that was responsive to the times. It’s no mystery why he has cast such a long shadow over American conservatism.
But, importantly, it wasn’t only Reagan who served as a model for conservative governing. Others were cut from the same cloth. His cabinet had experienced, respected, conservative exemplars including William Bennett, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ed Meese, and George Shultz. His successor, George H.W. Bush, was an experienced, judicious, conservative leader who also surrounded himself with models, including Baker, Cheney, and Kemp. George W. Bush was also a conservative model and had in his cabinet figures like Daniels, Gates, and Rice.
Conservatives had also been able to look up to and learn from governors of the era, like Alexander, Engler, Voinovich, and Thompson; House members like Ryan and Hyde; Senators like Danforth, Goldwater, Hatch, and Lugar.
Of course, the figures listed above disagreed with one another at the margins on various issues. They were, after all, independent-minded leaders not carbon copies. But they shared a core philosophy and they were experienced at the practice of public leadership.
They modeled for two generations of budding conservatives what effective, responsible, right-of-center leadership looked like.
A Classroom Full of Students But Empty of Books and Teachers
As I’ve written many times since the start of the Trump transition, the once and future president has repeatedly selected for top positions individuals with little to no experience in the areas they are slated to lead. Moreover, these individuals often have little to no cognizable ideology. It is mostly unclear what they really believe when it comes to the core functions of their upcoming work.
I explained how this is not an accident; it is a strategy for ensuring loyalty and guaranteeing that all governing energy comes from the White House (namely, the president himself). This, I argued, is bad for governing.
But here I’m making a different point—that this is very, very bad for American conservatism.
Conservative governing is largely an apprenticeship. Since you’re not given a canon—or even a guidebook—you learn by watching and following others.
Mr. Trump has no discernible governing philosophy. His positions also shift. He at times appears to support a smaller government, other times a bigger, stronger one. He appears to be a full-fledged capitalist but then fights for tariffs. He was pro-choice, then pro-life, then I’m not sure. I don’t know what he thinks of civil society or localism.
How is a budding conservative to know what to follow?
In other administrations, I would feel safe saying something like, “Even if you’ve never heard the president speak, you can know what he believes based on the people he hires for top positions.”
But Trump has hired Duffy, Gabbard, Hegseth, RFK, McMahon, Oz, Patel, Chavez-DeRemer, etc. As far as I can tell, the Venn diagram of their beliefs has one overlap: loyalty to Mr. Trump.
This is a disservice to the next generation of conservatives. They can’t look to Mr. Trump for a coherent vision of conservatism. And they can’t look to his team either.
What will conservative governing look like in the post-Trump era if those shaped in this era are unaware of the conservative canon and don’t have a consistent model of conservatism to learn from?
The apprenticeship model only works when the mentor is an expert in the trade and is dedicated to unselfishly forming the next generation of craftsmen.
Many have argued that modern American conservatism began in the post-WWII era. Continetti starts it a generation earlier. Other say it came into its own as a reaction to the Great Society and 1960s radicalism. I don’t disagree with any of this. I’m talking about a movement of conservatives in government who had a cohesive vision and sufficient popular and institutional power to drive policy change,