Conservativism, 2017: An act in three plays. Act I, “The Caudillo.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/918267396493922304

Act II, “The Classical Liberal.”

Mr. President:
Are you recanting of the Oath you took on Jan. 20 to preserve, protect, and defend the 1st Amendment? pic.twitter.com/XLB7QXM3bQ

— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) October 12, 2017

Act III, “All Is Lost.”

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/918304491027525632

Says Jonah Goldberg, “If you call yourself a conservative and deny that you’d freak out if a Democratic POTUS said anything like [Trump said], pick a new label, please.” That’s a nice impulse but I don’t see why the majority on the right should need to cede that label to the minority. Go look again at this poll. Is there any doubt most Republicans would agree with Trump’s position and not Sasse’s, especially with POTUS flogging the issue like he did with the NFL protests? A reminder from last month:

New rules:

1. Trump’s will is the proper conservative position

2. When that’s unclear, whatever makes liberals cry is the proper position

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) September 7, 2017

It’d be welcome if the right-wing majority willingly adopted the term “reactionary” to distinguish themselves from conservatives but I don’t think that’s in the cards.

Speaking of Hannity and making liberals — and conservatives — cry, watch this short but bizarre response Trump gave him during their interview last night to a question about the market. You need to weigh the booming stock market against the growth in national debt, he says. Investors have made trillions this year, so even though America’s debt continues to grow, we’re reducing it “in a sense” by enriching the people themselves. What? How does growing private wealth reduce the federal government’s debt burden when we’re still running deficits and further tax cuts are on the table? Are we going to confiscate the trillions in capital gains and pay down the debt with that? Or does he mean that more private wealth means the *rate* of growth in the national debt has slowed down?

At least this soundbite won’t come back to haunt him, so long as the bull market continues for the entirety of his term.

.@POTUS: We're really increasing values & maybe, in a sense, we're reducing debt…We're very, very happy w/ what's happening on Wall Street pic.twitter.com/DfsCBQkAQX

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 12, 2017