To start with, conservatism offers a coherent ideological framework that can be used as the basis to form policy proposals that address challenges that change with time. Though Ronald Reagan was known as a popular personality, the ideas he championed were passed on to others without his natural charisma. Now, a number of conservative intellectuals and lawmakers have been working on ways to take the underlying beliefs and apply them to 21st century problems.
Trumpism, however, does not offer a consistent ideological framework. He has been both for and against socialized medicine; for and against gun control; for and against raising the minimum wage; pro- legalized partial birth abortion and pro-punishing women who have abortions, and so on. Though there are aspects of his message that can be described as fitting, broadly speaking, in with traditional nationalism or populism, ultimately his success is more about his unique status as a celebrity businessman with a gift for manipulating mass media…
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has for a number of years been pushing a populist message on the threat of mass immigration and trade deals to Americans’ wages and jobs. He’d probably be the first to admit that were he to have run for president, he wouldn’t have been able to preform nearly as well as Trump.
Trump’s celebrity status allowed him to send out one tweet to his millions of followers and have it amplified by news outlets around the world; he was able to get away with making controversial statements that would end the career of an ordinary politicians; and because he convinced Republican voters that he was looking out for them, they weren’t as focused on some of the contradictions.
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