Civil War on the Right

The conservative movement is starting to look a lot like Syria.

Baited, taunted, mocked by Fox News, Donald Trump told Roger Ailes what he could do with his Iowa debate, and marched off to host a Thursday night rally for veterans at the same time in Des Moines.

Message: I speak for the silent majority, Roger, not you, not Megyn Kelly, not Fox News. Diss me, and I will do fine without Fox.

And so the civil-sectarian war on the right widens and deepens.

And two questions arise: Will the conservative movement and Republican Party unite behind Trump if he is the nominee? And will the movement and party come together if Trump is not the nominee?

A breakdown of the balance of forces in this civil-sectarian war finds most of the media elite of the right recoiling from Trump, while Trump leads by a huge margin in Middle America.

Perhaps. One recalls that, after the Revolution of 1789, the march on Versailles, the guillotining of Louis XVI, the rise of Robespierre, and the Era of Napoleon, the French got the Bourbon Restoration — Louis XVIII, brother of the beheaded king, sitting on the old throne.

Still, if the populist-conservative struggle of the last five years, to put behind them the days of Bush 41 and Bush 43, produces Bush 45, or his moral equivalent, how many would shoulder arms and march for him?

And, again, the argument over the acceptability of Trump aside, there is a deeper conflict within the GOP and conservative movement that may be irreconcilable. Millions of conservatives and independents believe it was the Republican policies of the recent past that also failed America.

The Bush-Clinton-Obama trade policies produced the $12 trillion in trade deficits, which measures the net export of U.S. factories and manufacturing jobs, which explain the wage stagnation.

The Republican-neocon foreign policy of intervention and nation building is a primary cause of the present disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.

The immigration policies championed by Bush Republicans as well Clinton and Obama Democrats produced the immigration crisis that propels the Trump campaign.

In short, it will be difficult for populists to unite with Beltway conservatives in 2016, when the former see the latter as part of the problem, not the solution.

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