Although the United States was born of a revolution, one common view maintains that the Constitution tamed our rebellious impulse and launched a distinctly nonrevolutionary political experiment. But throughout American history, an important strand of conservatism has repeatedly championed rebellions—or what are better understood as counterrevolutions.
They emerge like clockwork: Each time political minorities advocate for and achieve greater equality, conservatives rebel, trying to force a reinstatement of the status quo.
The term counterrevolution is significant not only because conservatives have regularly employed it, but also because it highlights their own agency, something they often seek to conceal. In order to portray their actions as defensive rather than aggressive, conservatives tend to depict themselves as acted upon and besieged. As William F. Buckley wrote in the National Review’s mission statement in 1955, conservatism “stands athwart history, yelling Stop.” Here the agent is history; conservatives are merely making a reply. But such rhetorical gestures discount what any close look at these movements makes clear: Conservatives have done much more than yell. They have fought against equality vigorously, often violently.
Three historical moments—the revolt against post–Civil War Reconstruction, the mid-century fight against civil rights, and the modern Tea Party and Trump movements—stand out as perfect examples of the counterrevolutionary dynamic. They share certain broad themes: a hostility to racial equality, the invocation of apocalyptic rhetoric—that America is “under siege,” as President Donald Trump told the crowd on January 6 prior to the Capitol insurrection—and a deep distrust of democracy.
During Reconstruction, conservatives denounced its proponents as dangerous revolutionaries, often comparing them to notorious figures from the French Revolution. “We do not know of two men who have come up prominently before the world in revolutionary times more alike than Marat and Thaddeus Stevens,” The New York Herald said in 1866. One Nashville newspaper contended in 1868 that the Radical Republicans in Congress “aim to abolish the constitution, to destroy public liberty, and to concentrate the power of the country in the hands of usurpers … embodying the very essence of despotism … that shocked the world and subjected France to the ‘reign of terror’ under Jacobin rule.”
The “reign of terror” that the Nashville newspaper decried was in fact the emergence of multiracial democracy. Many conservatives were entirely frank about this, such as the one featured in Mississippi’s The Meriden Daily Republican who wrote, “The two races cannot and will not rule jointly and coequally … One or the other must become subordinate. This is the history of all such experiments everywhere.”
Outlawing racial discrimination, in this view, was grounds for regime change, even violence. Take, for example, an editorial statement of Missouri’s aptly named The Lexington Weekly Caucasian from 1872. It began with two demands, “State Sovereignty! White Supremacy!” and threatened “ANOTHER REBELLION” if they were not acceded to. “Revolution must be met by CounterRevolution—Force by Force—Violence by Violence—and Usurpation should be Overthrown, if needs be, by the Bayonet!” Calling white supremacy a counterrevolution could justify nearly anything, bloodshed included.
The counterrevolutionary politics of this era proved to be extremely effective, as much of the racial progress achieved during Reconstruction was wiped out or even reversed in subsequent decades. By the mid-20th century, the conservative backlash had reinforced white supremacy through Jim Crow laws and intense voter suppression. W. E. B. Du Bois famously called this the “counter-revolution of property.” Black citizens in Indianola, Mississippi, for example, constituted a majority of the local county’s population but only 0.03 percent of its registered voters. Du Bois reflected on this state of affairs, writing, “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.”
When the civil-rights movement mobilized against this oppression and inequality, conservatives began to fear that what some were calling the “Second Reconstruction” might be as dangerous for them as the first. Barry Goldwater, in many ways the prototypical modern conservative, was among them. In a letter he wrote while running for president in 1963, Goldwater called the civil-rights movement a “revolution” and said that he was “very apprehensive about how far it will go.”
So conservatives responded with yet another counterrevolution, one intended to maintain carefully constructed racial, economic, and social hierarchies. As the Black historian Lerone Bennett Jr. wrote in Ebony magazine in 1966, the “counter-revolutionary campaign of terror” against Reconstruction was merely “the first white backlash”; the United States was living through the second.
The guiding principles of this backlash had been laid out 10 years earlier in the Southern Manifesto of 1956. Signed by more than 100 congressmen, the manifesto responded to the Brown v. Board decision mandating school desegregation by issuing a bold defense of the Jim Crow status quo and pledging to fight the “revolutionary changes in our public school systems.” As schools became battlegrounds, conservatives, especially those in the South, dug in their heels.
For many right-wingers, the historical memory of Reconstruction-era radicalism combined with Cold War anxieties. To them, civil-rights activism was the work not only of revolutionaries but of communists. As the Oklahoma minister Billy James Hargis warned in one newspaper column, “The communists have been urging their followers to bring pressure upon the federal government, to force Reconstruction days upon the Southern states again.” In a 1965 essay titled “Two Revolutions at Once,” Robert Welch, the leader of the far-right John Birch Society, derided the push for civil rights as a “Negro Revolutionary Movement” driven by communist saboteurs rather than oppressed Black citizens.
As was the case during Reconstruction, this counterrevolutionary rhetoric enabled violence—violence against leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., violence against activists like the Freedom Riders, violence on college campuses, violence at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, violence at the hands of the police. But conservatives frequently accused activists of inciting it. Following the Selma march, a piece in American Opinion, the Birch Society’s flagship magazine, claimed, “The violence in Selma doesn’t have to do with voting rights at all … it has to do with Communist Revolution, with Communists intentionally setting the stage for race war.” A menacing enemy within justified a violent illiberalism.
As politicians debated the proposed Civil Rights Act, the fury of white southerners increased. “If dictatorial planners insist upon ignoring and trampling majority rights in efforts to favor minority groups, they may in time provoke a White Revolution,” Tom Ethridge wrote in The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. This so-called white revolution was, in fact, a counterrevolution designed to shore up the racial caste system.
When that caste system showed signs of decay some four decades later, a similar backlash came about. Shortly after the election of America’s first Black president, the Tea Party exploded into the public consciousness. Its members adopted the iconography and language of the American Revolution, styling themselves “patriots” and attending rallies clad in knee breeches and tricornered hats. Despite this getup, the Tea Party was not a revolution but a counterrevolution—a defense of privilege and hierarchy rather than a call for egalitarianism.
Racial resentment played a crucial role in Tea Party ideology. “Birther” conspiracies flourished within the movement, whose adherents viewed President Barack Obama more as a fifth-column threat than a legitimate political opponent. Tea Partiers claimed that some people were getting too many handouts or weren’t working hard enough to earn their keep; typically those people were “illegal immigrants” or other minority groups that were referred to using coded language. As recounted by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson in The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, one Virginia Tea Partier asserted that a “plantation mentality” prevented “some people” from getting off the dole, a racist argument that reflected the counterrevolution’s Reconstruction-era origins. The solution, according to the movement, was to dramatically reduce the government—at least the parts of it that benefited the wrong people. This had the added advantage of divesting power from leaders who couldn’t be trusted. As one Tea Partier put it to Skocpol and Williamson, “The people I was looking for back when I was a cop are now running the government.”
Despite the fact that the Tea Party received heavy funding from right-wing plutocrats, the movement had a populist panache. The counterrevolution had gone mainstream, and all of the aggrievement, mistrust, and racial resentments that had festered within conservatism for generations laid the foundation for the rise of Donald Trump.
Although Trump is often described as “unprecedented” or “norm-breaking,” his rhetoric has deep roots in the conservative movement’s counterrevolutionary tradition. He warned us that America was beset by enemies, an often-racialized group of “others” who were amassing power too quickly and using it to threaten the American way of life. Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim imposing radical views on the United States. Immigrants were “invading” and taking our jobs. The media were the “enemy of the people,” and Democrats were “treasonous” and “un-American.” Washington, the home of illegitimate majorities, was a swamp that needed draining.
Beyond adopting the rhetoric of counterrevolution, Trump also embraced its most dangerous element: a call for political violence. On January 6, he stood before thousands of supporters and proclaimed, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Just a few beats later, Trump declared, “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue … And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try and give—.” He stopped short of issuing a direct instruction, but his assembled supporters understood the assignment, storming the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the election. That the Capitol siege failed—as did subsequent efforts to overturn the election through courts and audits—does not diminish the dangers presented by the counterrevolutionary impulse in today’s conservatism.
It was not long before the GOP followed Trump’s lead. Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, promoted the white supremacist “great replacement” theory on Laura Ingraham’s show. “The revolution has begun,” Patrick said, arguing that, by allowing more migrants into the U.S., the Democrats were “trying to take over our country without firing a shot.” And now, at Trump’s behest, the state of Texas is auditing the 2020 votes in the state’s four largest counties, all of which are Democratic strongholds. The audit ploy may have failed in Arizona, but the counterrevolution continues.
“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism,” David Frum, a Never Trump conservative, wrote in The Atlantic. “They will reject democracy.” But Frum’s warning about the “dead end” of Trumpism ignored the illiberalism and minoritarian inclinations baked into the conservative pie. The reality is that the counterrevolutionary mindset is a feature, not a glitch, of modern conservatism, one that offers authoritarian solutions to democracy’s right-wing discontents.
Ingawa Marekani ilizaliwa kutokana na mapinduzi, maoni moja ya kawaida husema kwamba Katiba ilidhibiti mwelekeo wetu wa uasi na kuanzisha jaribio la kisiasa lisilo la mapinduzi. Lakini katika historia ya Marekani, mstari muhimu wa kihafidhina umekuwa ukishikilia mara kwa mara uasi - au kile kinachoeleweka vizuri kama mapinduzi ya kinyume. "Wanajitokeza kama saa: Kila mara wanasiasa wachache wanapopigania na kufikia usawa mkubwa, wanadiplomasia huasi, wakijaribu kulazimisha kurudishwa kwa hali iliyopo.""" "Jina ""counter-revolution"" ni muhimu si tu kwa sababu waangalizi wamekuwa wakitumia mara kwa mara, lakini pia kwa sababu inaonyesha shirika lao wenyewe, kitu ambacho mara nyingi wanatafuta kuficha." Ili kuelezea vitendo vyao kama vya kujilinda badala ya kushambulia, wasimamizi wa kihafidhina huwa na mwelekeo wa kujielezea kama wanaotendewa na kuzingirwa. "Kama William F. Buckley alivyoandika katika taarifa ya ujumbe wa National Review mnamo 1955, ""Utamaduni wa kihafidhina unasimama mbele ya historia, ukipiga kelele ""Acha!"" Hapa wakala ni historia; waangalizi wanajibu tu." Lakini ishara kama hizo za usemi hupuuza kile ambacho uchunguzi wowote wa karibu wa harakati hizi unafanya iwe wazi: Wahafidhina wamefanya mengi zaidi ya kupiga kelele. Wamepigana dhidi ya usawa kwa nguvu, mara nyingi kwa jeuri. Hatua tatu za kihistoria - uasi dhidi ya Ujenzi wa baada ya Vita vya wenyewe kwa wenyewe, mapambano ya katikati ya karne dhidi ya haki za kiraia, na harakati za kisasa za Chapo na Trump - zinatoka kama mifano kamili ya nguvu za mapinduzi. "Wanafanana katika mada kadhaa: uhasama dhidi ya usawa wa rangi, kuombwa kwa hotuba ya apocalyptic - kwamba Amerika iko ""chini ya kuzingirwa,"" kama Rais Donald Trump aliiambia umati Januari 6 kabla ya uasi wa Capitol - na kutokuamini sana demokrasia." Wakati wa Ujenzi, wanadiplomasia waliwashutumu watetezi wake kuwa waasi hatari, mara nyingi wakiwalinganisha na watu mashuhuri wa Mapinduzi ya Ufaransa. "Hatuna watu wawili ambao wamekuwa maarufu mbele ya ulimwengu katika nyakati za mapinduzi kama Marat na Thaddeus Stevens, ""The New York Herald ilisema mwaka wa 1866. "Kama gazeti moja la Nashville lilivyosema mwaka 1868 kwamba ""Radical Republicans in Congress aim to abolish the constitution, to destroy public liberty, and to concentrate the power of the country in the hands of usurpers, embodying the very essence of despotism, which shocked the world and subjected France to the reign of terror under Jacobin rule,"" ""Radical Republicans in Congress aim to abolish the constitution, to destroy public liberty, and to concentrate the power of the country in the hands of usurpers.""" "Wanasayansi wengi wa kihafidhina walikuwa wazi kabisa kuhusu hili, kama vile yule aliyeonyeshwa katika Mississippi's Meriden Daily Republican ambaye aliandika, ""Mabonde mawili hayawezi na hayatatawala kwa pamoja na kwa usawa... Moja au nyingine lazima iwe chini.""" Hii ni historia ya majaribio yote kama hayo kila mahali. <unk> Kukataza ubaguzi wa rangi, katika mtazamo huu, ilikuwa msingi wa mabadiliko ya utawala, hata vurugu. "Kwa mfano, tazama taarifa ya mhariri wa gazeti la Missouri lenye jina sahihi la ""The Lexington Weekly Caucasian"" la mwaka wa 1872." Ilianza kwa madai mawili, <unk>Utawala wa Jimbo! White Supremacy! <unk> na kutisha <unk>ANOTHER Uasi<unk> kama wao hawakuwa acceded kwa. <unk> Mapinduzi lazima yakabiliwe na CounterRevolution <unk> Nguvu kwa Nguvu <unk> Jeuri kwa Jeuri <unk> na Usurpation inapaswa kuangushwa, ikiwa inahitajika, na Bayonet! <unk> Kuita utawala wa wazungu mapinduzi ya kupinga inaweza kusababisha karibu chochote, pamoja na umwagaji damu. Siasa za kupinga mapinduzi ya enzi hii zilithibitika kuwa na ufanisi mkubwa, kwani maendeleo mengi ya rangi yaliyopatikana wakati wa Ujenzi ulifutwa au hata kugeuzwa katika miongo iliyofuata. Kuanzia katikati ya karne ya 20, upinzani wa kihafidhina ulikuwa umeimarisha utawala wa wazungu kupitia sheria za Jim Crow na ukandamizaji mkali wa wapiga kura. W. E. B. "Kama ilivyoelezwa na Du Bois, ""mabadiliko ya mali"" ni ""mabadiliko ya mali"" ambayo ni ""mabadiliko ya mali"" ambayo ni ""mabadiliko ya mali"" ambayo ni ""mabadiliko ya mali"" ambayo ni ""mabadiliko ya mali"" ambayo ni ""mabadiliko ya mali.""" "Dubois aliandika hivi: ""Mtumwa huyo aliachiliwa huru; alisimama kwa muda mfupi kwenye jua; kisha akarudi tena kwenye utumwa."" 11 Wakati harakati za haki za kiraia zilipojikusanya dhidi ya ukandamizaji na ukosefu wa usawa, wanasheria walianza kuhofu kwamba kile ambacho wengine walikiita ""Ujenzi wa Pili"" kingeweza kuwa hatari kwao kama ile ya kwanza." Barry Goldwater, kwa njia nyingi mtetezi wa kisasa wa kisasa, alikuwa miongoni mwao. Katika barua aliyoiandika wakati akishindania urais mwaka 1963, Goldwater aliita harakati ya haki za kiraia "mapinduzi" na akasema alikuwa na wasiwasi sana kuhusu jinsi itakavyoenda. "Kama mwanahistoria mweusi Lerone Bennett Jr. alivyoandika katika jarida la Ebony mnamo 1966, ""kampeni ya kigaidi ya kupinga mapinduzi"" dhidi ya Ujenzi ilikuwa tu ""mshtuko wa kwanza wa wazungu""; Marekani ilikuwa ikiishi kupitia ya pili." "Mafungu ya kuongoza ya mapinduzi hayo yalikuwa yamewekwa miaka kumi mapema katika ""Manifesto ya Kusini"" ya 1956."" "Manifesto hiyo, iliyosainiwa na wabunge zaidi ya 100, ilijibu uamuzi wa Brown v. Bodi wa sheria ya kutenganisha shule kwa kutoa utetezi wa ujasiri wa hali ya Jim Crow na kuahidi kupigana na ""mabadiliko ya mapinduzi katika mifumo yetu ya shule ya umma.""" Kwa wengi wa mrengo wa kulia, kumbukumbu ya kihistoria ya ukatili wa enzi ya Ujenzi ilichanganywa na wasiwasi wa Vita Baridi. Kwa wao, harakati za kutetea haki za kiraia hazikuwa kazi ya waasi-upinduzi tu bali pia ya wakomunisti. "Katika makala yake ya kwanza, ""Two Revolutions at Once,"" Robert Welch, kiongozi wa chama cha kulia cha John Birch Society, alishutumu harakati za haki za kiraia kama ""harakati za mapinduzi ya weusi"" zinazoendeshwa na wakomunisti badala ya wananchi weusi waliokandamizwa." "Kama ilivyokuwa wakati wa Ujenzi, maneno haya ya kupinga mapinduzi yaliwezesha vurugu dhidi ya viongozi kama Martin Luther King Jr., vurugu dhidi ya wanaharakati kama ""Wapandaji wa Uhuru,"" vurugu katika vyuo vikuu, vurugu mikononi mwa Ku Klux Klan, vurugu mikononi mwa polisi." Lakini mara nyingi wanaharakati wa siasa za kihafidhina waliwashutumu wanaharakati kuwa ni wachochezi. "Kama ilivyotangazwa na American Opinion, jarida kuu la Birch Society, ""Vurugu katika Selma hazina uhusiano wowote na haki za kupiga kura, zina uhusiano wowote na mapinduzi ya Kikomunisti, na Kikomunisti kimakusudi kuweka hatua kwa ajili ya vita vya jamii.""" Wanasiasa walipokuwa wakijadili Sheria iliyopendekezwa ya Haki za Kiraia, hasira ya wazungu wa kusini iliongezeka. "Ikiwa wapangaji wa kidikteta wanasisitiza kupuuza na kukandamiza haki za wengi katika jitihada za kupendelea vikundi vya wachache, wanaweza kwa wakati kuchochea Mapinduzi meupe", Tom Ethridge aliandika katika The Clarion-Ledger huko Jackson, Mississippi. "Hiyo ""upinduzi mweupe"" ilikuwa ni mapinduzi ya kupinga, ambayo yaliundwa ili kuimarisha mfumo wa jamii." Mfumo huo wa tabaka ulipoanza kuharibika miaka arobaini hivi baadaye, kulikuwa na mlipuko kama huo. Muda mfupi baada ya uchaguzi wa rais mweusi wa kwanza wa Marekani, Chama cha Chai kilipanda sana katika fahamu za umma. Washiriki wake walichukua picha na lugha ya Mapinduzi ya Amerika, wakijitaja kuwa "watu wa nchi" na kuhudhuria mikutano wakiwa wamevaa suruali za magoti na kofia zenye pembe tatu. Licha ya muundo huu, Chama cha Chai hakikuwa mapinduzi bali mapinduzi ya kupinga - ulinzi wa upendeleo na uongozi badala ya wito wa usawa. Chuki ya rangi ilicheza fungu muhimu katika itikadi ya Chama cha Chai. "Birther" njama ilifanikiwa ndani ya harakati, ambao wafuasi wake walimwona Rais Barack Obama zaidi kama tishio la safu ya tano kuliko mpinzani halali wa kisiasa. Tea-Partyers walidai kwamba baadhi ya watu walikuwa kupata handouts nyingi sana au hawakuwa wakifanya kazi kwa bidii ya kutosha kupata kuishi kwao; kwa kawaida watu hao walikuwa "wahamiaji haramu" au vikundi vingine vya wachache ambao walitajwa kutumia lugha ya coded. Kama ilivyoelezwa na Theda Skocpol na Vanessa Williamson katika The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, mmoja wa Virginia Tea Partier alidai kwamba "akili ya kilimo" ilizuia "watu fulani" kutoka kwa dole, hoja ya ubaguzi wa rangi ambayo ilionyesha asili ya enzi ya Ujenzi wa mapinduzi. Suluhisho, kulingana na harakati, ilikuwa kupunguza sana serikali - angalau sehemu zake ambazo zilifaidi watu wasiofaa. Hii ilikuwa na faida ya ziada ya kuondoa nguvu kutoka kwa viongozi ambao hawangeweza kuaminiwa. "Tea Party ilisema: ""Watu ambao nilikuwa nikiwatafuta wakati nilikuwa polisi sasa wanaongoza serikali, licha ya ukweli kwamba Tea Party ilipokea fedha nyingi kutoka kwa plutocrats wa mrengo wa kulia, harakati hiyo ilikuwa na panache ya watu.""" Mapinduzi ya kupinga yalikuwa yamekuwa ya kawaida, na uchungu wote, kutokuaminiana, na chuki za rangi ambazo zilikuwa zimesumbua ndani ya uhifadhi kwa vizazi viliweka msingi wa kuongezeka kwa Donald Trump. Ingawa Trump mara nyingi huelezwa kama "asiyewahi kutokea" au "mvunjaji wa kanuni", hotuba yake ina mizizi ya kina katika utamaduni wa mapinduzi ya harakati ya kihafidhina. "Alikiambia kwamba Marekani ilikuwa imezungukwa na maadui, ""wengine"" ambao walikuwa wakikusanya nguvu haraka sana na kuitumia kutishia njia ya maisha ya Marekani." Obama alikuwa Mwislamu aliyezaliwa Kenya akiweka maoni makali juu ya Marekani. Wahamiaji walikuwa "wakivamia" na kuchukua kazi zetu. Vyombo vya habari vilikuwa "adui wa watu", na Wanademokrasia walikuwa "wenye uhaini" na "wasio wa Marekani". Washington, makao ya wengi wasio halali, ilikuwa mabwawa yaliyohitaji kuondolewa. Zaidi ya kutumia maneno ya kupinga mapinduzi, Trump pia alikubali sehemu yake hatari zaidi: wito wa vurugu za kisiasa. "Mwezi Januari 6, alisimama mbele ya maelfu ya wafuasi wake na kutangaza, ""Tunapigana kama kuzimu.""" "Na kama huwezi kupigana kama shetani, utakuwa hauna nchi tena. "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" Kwamba kuzingirwa kwa Capitol kulishindwa - kama vile juhudi za baadaye za kubadili uchaguzi kupitia mahakama na ukaguzi - haipunguzi hatari zinazotolewa na msukumo wa kupinga mapinduzi katika uhifadhi wa leo. Haikuchukua muda mrefu kabla ya GOP kufuata uongozi wa Trump. Dan Patrick, naibu gavana wa Texas, aliendeleza nadharia ya ukandamizaji wa wazungu "mbadala mkubwa" kwenye onyesho la Laura Ingraham. "Patrick alisema kuwa kwa kuruhusu wahamiaji zaidi kuingia Marekani, wanademokrasia walikuwa ""wakijaribu kuchukua nchi yetu bila kupiga risasi moja."" ""Na sasa, kwa amri ya Trump, jimbo la Texas linafanya ukaguzi wa kura za 2020 katika kaunti nne kubwa za jimbo hilo, ambazo zote ni ngome za kidemokrasia." Huenda mbinu ya ukaguzi ilishindwa huko Arizona, lakini mapinduzi hayo yanaendelea. "Ikiwa wanadiplomasia watasadiki kwamba hawawezi kushinda kidemokrasia, hawataacha uhifadhi", David Frum, mlinzi wa kamwe Trump, aliandika katika The Atlantic. "Wataikataa demokrasia". Lakini onyo la Frum kuhusu "mwisho wa kifo" wa Trumpism lilipuuza ukosefu wa uhuru na mielekeo ya wachache iliyopikwa katika keki ya kihafidhina. Ukweli ni kwamba mtazamo wa kupinga mapinduzi ni kipengele, si kasoro, ya conservatism ya kisasa, moja ambayo inatoa ufumbuzi wa mamlaka kwa kutoridhika kwa mrengo wa kulia wa demokrasia.