After intense Republican friction over Donald Trump’s candidacy, the vast majority of conservatives eventually voted for their party’s nominee for the sake of defeating Hillary Clinton and preserving the Supreme Court.
In the process, the conservatives also find themselves in a new coalition that a longtime conservative activist says is a major upgrade to the way the GOP has operated for the past century.
While much has been made of the million of new voters Trump attracted to the GOP, he also had to work harder than most nominees to rally his own party.
For much of the campaign, Trump lagged behind Clinton in getting conservative and Republican voters to line up behind him in the general election. But by election night, exit polls showed 90 percent of Republicans did just that.
Longtime conservative activist and ConservativeHQ.com Chairman Richard Viguerie says there’s two big reasons Republicans came home.
“The top two things that united conservatives and brought them home to support Trump and the Republican ticket was Hillary Clinton and the Supreme Court vacancy,” said Viguerie.
“They really understood the Supreme Court and not just one appointment. She would set the Supreme Court on a direction to be controlled by the left wing for 30 or more years. It just terrified conservatives,” said Viguerie.
He says conservatives wanted nothing to do with the rest of Clinton’s vision for the U.S. either.
“They knew she was a leftist and the Democratic Party is growing more left wing every day. We could expect a country that we wouldn’t recognize in four years. It really terrified conservatives at the grass roots level,” he said.
According to Viguerie, Trump has successfully created a new base for the Republican Party, a major departure from what has existed since the early part of the 20th century.
“The old coalition on the Republican side was the establishment Republicans and the constitutional, grassroots conservatives. Conservatives were the junior partner in that relationship,” said Viguerie.
“We have a new coalition now, and that’s the Trump populist and the constitutional grassroots conservatives. That’s going to be a governing coalition for many years to come. I think it’s going to be exciting to watch this new coalition without being interfered with by the Bushes of the world and the Mitt Romney wing of the party,” said Viguerie.
He says the Trump campaign itself was actually more conservative than those run on behalf of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Ronald Reagan in 1980.
“The conservatives were involved in the (1964) campaign but it was basically run by the Republican establishment. 1980 was Reagan’s first election victory. He won that. It was a conservative victory, but the Republican establishment basically ran the campaign,” said Viguerie.
To the contrary, he points out that the final three months of the Trump campaign were run by longtime conservative fixtures KellyAnne Conway, Steve Bannon and David Bossie.
“No presidential campaign in my lifetime has looked like this. Personnel is policy. The people around him, the people who brought him over the finish line is us. It’s the conservative movement,” said Viguerie.
Viguerie would not publicly mention conservative cabinet possibilities he would like to see Trump nominate, but he expects strong conservatives to “dominate” the key positions. He says conservatives would be smart to spend their time trying to stop Trump from making bad choices.
“The focus for conservatives publicly should be who we don’t want. We recognize that people like Chris Christie are going to have some role in the administration but you do not want someone like him in the attorney general’s office,” said Viguerie. “We need to make sure Donald Trump understands there’s certain people just beyond the pale.”
As for the top early legislative priorities, Viguerie says the first job is to make sure the lame duck session of Congress has little impact.
“We don’t want any serious legislation done in the lame duck, just a clean continuing resolution and to defer spending decisions to the new administration,” he said.
When Trump does get a chance to put his stamp on federal spending, Viguerie wants to see an end to federal funding of liberal activism. He says conservative groups don’t get taxpayer money and they don’t want it. He says liberals should not get it either.
On the policy front, Viguerie says the repeal and replacement of Obamacare must be at the top of the list.
“That’s a promise that the Republicans have been making for six years. Now they need to deliver and repeal Obamacare and replace it with something much better. I’d be surprised, shocked, and disappointed if Republicans don’t do that early on in the new administration,” said Viguerie.
