There are many reasons Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The four most often cited reasons are the frustrations of white working-class Americans, a widespread revulsion against political correctness, disenchantment with the Republican “establishment,” and the unprecedented and unrivaled amount of time the media afforded Trump. They are all valid. But the biggest reason is this: The majority of Republicans are not conservative.
.. The American Revolution, unlike the French Revolution, placed liberty above equality. For the Left, equality is more important than all else. That’s why so many American and European leftists have celebrated left-wing regimes, no matter how much they squelched individual liberty, from Stalin to Mao to Che and Castro to Hugo Chávez. They all preached equality.
The politics of white backlash have powered Republican politics for generations.
Historian Kevin M. Kruse, in his book White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, has documented how, even before suburbanization began in earnest, resistance to desegregation “thoroughly reshaped southern conservatism.” He writes: “Traditional conservative elements, such as hostility to the federal government and faith in free enterprise, underwent fundamental transformations. At the same time, segregationist resistance inspired the creation of new conservative causes, such as tuition vouchers, the tax revolt, and the privatization of public services”—causes that came to be associated with the Sunbelt conservatism of Reagan and Goldwater.
.. White backlash has historically been defined as resistance to civil rights legislation, or any proactive attempt to advance black equality. It is more than that. White backlash was a critical ingredient to the appeal of “law-and-order” politics of Nixon. It accounted for the receptivity of white voters to Reaganite tales of black indolence and “welfare queens.” White backlash is not necessarily, or is not always, the product of personal bigotry. It can be, rather, a species of emotional vertigo.
.. Bill Clinton—whose centrist political profile was shaped in part by the legatees of the old Democrats for Nixon campaign—benefitted mightily from white backlash. Hillary Clinton, in 2008, handily won primary contests in states like West Virginia almost entirely as a result of white backlash. Former Sen. Jim Webb ran this year as the candidate of white backlash—and his dismal showing is proof of how little purchase such a campaign has today among the modern Democratic party.
Paul Ryan is stuck in a Trump trap
Lining up with Trump is a major risk to Ryan’s brand — but not endorsing the presumptive nominee could alienate the grassroots.
“Paul doesn’t want to be an issue; we need to beat Hillary Clinton — that’s the issue here,” said South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a leader in the House Freedom Caucus. “Any high ranking Republican — whether Paul Ryan, Reince Priebus or Jeb Bush — that says they’re not supporting nominee? They have some hard questions to answer about why they’re a Republican.”
.. The difficulty for Ryan is that Trump, by his own admission, is incredibly malleable on policy. So the speaker has to appeal to Trump on a visceral level, and the real estate magnate has used identity politics and unpopular political strategy to fuel his ascent. Banning Muslims from the U.S. and playing footsie with white supremacists need to stop, Ryan has said publicly. But Trump has shown no willingness to temper that talk.
From Ryan, a Reminder to Trump of the Stakes for the G.O.P.
It was also perhaps a vain attempt to control the uncontrollable by letting Mr. Trump know that the campaign was not only about him and to make clear he had some responsibility to come to terms with down-ballot candidates on explosive issues like immigration and trade.
“The bulk of the burden on unifying the party will have to come from our presumptive nominee,” Mr. Ryan, the highest elected Republican official in the nation, said in an interview on CNN
.. “It’s time to set aside bullying, to set aside belittlement and appeal to higher aspirations, appeal to what is good in us and to lead a country and a party to having a vast majority of Americans enthusiastic about choosing a path,” Mr. Ryan said in the CNN interview.
.. “He’s the embodiment of everything Americans hate about a system that’s rigged for the top 1 percent,” Mr. Reid said of Mr. Trump during a conference call with reporters. “He’s the definition of a man who was born on third and thinks he hit a triple. What’s worse, he uses his wealth to rip people off and is now sowing hatred and division every place he steps.”
.. In addition, the seats most in play this year are those of the less conservative House Republicans in more vulnerable districts, meaning the speaker could enter 2017 with a smaller but even more conservative majority, making it even harder to strike compromises.
.. And Mr. Trump has spoken favorably about Mr. Ryan’s top lieutenant, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader.