What Are We Conserving?

No policy preferences are worth risking the Constitution.

(Photos via Bettmann, Wally McNamee/Corbis, Tim Sloan/AFP, Robert Perry, all via Getty Images)

WHEN MY FRIEND DAVID FRENCH—New York Times columnist, pro-life evangelical, and lifelong conservative—announced that he would be voting for Kamala Harris, it was like dropping a Porterhouse steak amid a pride of lions. The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg wrote a rebuttal, asserting, among other things, that “endorsements trigger an instinctual desire to defend them after the fact.”

Nick Catoggio, also of the Dispatch, noted with his usual percipience that “neutrality between Trump and Harris implies that conserving the constitutional order isn’t an important priority of conservatism. Or at least no more important than, say, fiscal responsibility or restricting abortion is.” There was much sparring on social media.

This debate illuminated an interesting question: What is conservatism conserving? As someone who spent decades as a conservative advocate, I am no longer as certain as I once was that conservatives have all the right answers.

None of us has the time or ability to become an expert in everything, so we use shortcuts. If person X agrees with me about anti-communism or phonics, I will be more likely to trust their views on Federal Reserve policy or some other topic that I know less about. We all outsource our judgment to some degree. But in the past nine years, too many people I formerly believed were honest and reliable have proven themselves capable of staggering dishonesty and bad faith. Someone said it’s like finding out that your spouse has been unfaithful or a friend has betrayed you. Suddenly you look back at the entire relationship with a jaundiced eye, interpreting everything differently.

It’s been wrenching in some ways, but in the end, I’m grateful for the jolt. It has forced me to reconsider ideas that may have become calcified and opened me to people and perspectives I would previously have dismissed.

I remain opposed to affirmative action, for example, because it mandates the very unfairness it was designed to overcome. But I’ve also come to believe that the conservatism of my youth underestimated how much active racism remains out there.

I supported the Reagan and Bush tax cuts, but thought the Trump tax cut was a bridge too far at a time of steep deficits and without corresponding spending cuts.

I remain concerned about widespread abortion, but resent the bullying of pro-life zealots who have abandoned every other moral precept in the name of saving babies and presume to tell me that I’m a hypocrite if I don’t support a moronic demagogue. Is voting for a person who mouths the right words about abortion really the most effective way to live out your beliefs? (Especially if he then throws you overboard?) I helped found and continue to support a crisis pregnancy group that has stepped in to help women and their unborn children hundreds of times. Trump supporters who preen about their righteousness because of Dobbs should reflect that the number of abortions in America rose under Trump after declining for three decades. Having the right political opinions doesn’t equate with doing good in the world. Besides, the argument against abortion is moral. As such, it can’t be severed from other moral issues. Supporting protections for the unborn doesn’t absolve you of supporting cruelty against the born.

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THE PAST FEW YEARS have not only called into question some conservative dogmas; they have also caused me to reflect on what conservatives should be conserving. It’s not tax policy or small government or a vigorous defense posture. Those are important matters, but they pale in comparison to the overriding task of conserving the Founding. That means ensuring that the rule of law and the constitutional system we were bequeathed is preserved and handed down to our descendants.

That goal, which conservatives should share with all Americans, is simply incompatible with voting for Donald Trump.

Four years ago, I contemplated the truly terrible prospect of having to choose between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. I might have had to squeeze my eyes closed as I voted, but I would have chosen Sanders, because as misguided and destructive as I find his policies, I would have had confidence that he would abide by the law and not attempt to rule as a dictator.

In 1800, Alexander Hamilton faced a similar dilemma. The Electoral College had tied between Thomas Jefferson (Hamilton’s political opposite) and Aaron Burr, a man of no principles. The House of Representatives had to choose. Hamilton lobbied his Federalist friends to vote for Jefferson, explaining that:

Mr. Jefferson, though too revolutionary in his notions, is yet a lover of liberty and will be desirous of something like orderly Government—Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself—thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement—and will be content with nothing short of permanent power . . . in his own hands.

Compared with pulling the lever for Sanders, a vote for Kamala Harris is a treat—and she’s making it easier with every flip-flop. End fracking? No longer. Medicare for All? Nah. The tough prosecutor is back. Her acceptance speech was practically a bouquet for centrists and Never Trumpers. She invoked an “opportunity economy,” not redistribution. She pledged that as commander-in-chief, she would maintain the U.S. military as the “most lethal fighting force” in the world” and vowed to stand by Ukraine and NATO. She heaped scorn on Trump for “cozying up to tyrants and dictators” and promised to uphold the “rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power.”

Carved into the mantel in the East Room of the White House is this benediction from John Adams, the first president to reside there: “I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof.”

I think he would have had little difficulty making the choice between Trump and Harris.