The frequently readable Ross Douthat writes for The New York Times. Today he tries to dissect what went wrong between conservatism's elite and its populist base, and there is merit in some of his reasoning.
Douthat believes the issue is just the populist base vs. the conservative intelligentsia - a two-sided conflict. He fails to understand it was a three-cornered relationship, not merely two.
Yes, the two groups he mentions are real enough. What he leaves out is the third leg of the stool, the wealthy fat-cat party funders. A relatively small group of 0.1%ers with enormous amounts of money who have paid the party's bills for decades.
On key issues like open borders and free trade, the big donors and the populist base are at loggerheads. The donors favor both while the base opposes both. What benefits one harms the other.
Historically the conservative intelligentsia sided with the bill-paying donors whose money funds the foundations and journals at which they labor: Hoover, Heritage, AEI, National Review, Weekly Standard, etc. So have most Republican candidates who need donor money to afford to run.
Only someone very wealthy could espouse views popular with the base and ignore donors' disapproval and non-support of his or her candidacy. No such wealthy person spoke up for populist values in past election cycles and thus the base was left to support what the party offered them, as better (if not by much) than what the Dems put up. Or stay at home as many rust-belt blue-collar whites did in 2012.
Trump was willing and able to self-fund his primary campaign and actually spoke in favor of populist interests. It is little wonder populists went for him in their millions.
The dilemma faced by the base is that they cannot afford to support impecunious pundits and candidates, as the fat cats can and do. Ironically, the working class now must rely on maverick moguls like Trump to speak for them. Mavericks, like Trump, will often be offbeat personalities with "baggage."
