Conventional wisdom dictates that today I should be writing the conservative movement’s obituary.
On November 7th, it was well-understood by the chattering classes that (1) the intellectual conservative movement was scattered and moribund; (2) the Republican party was on its death-bed; and (3) the Democratic party and its progressive allies were fulfilling their destiny and the preordained triumph of liberalism was a historical truism. But on November 8th, we were reminded that history is not composed of inexorable laws that obviate free will and human choice. Our history is what we make of it. On election day, Americans “stood athwart history yelling stop.”
When Donald Trump captured the GOP nomination, panic gripped the political world. “Never Trumpers” openly cast a shadow of disdain upon the Republican nominee, while progressives hailed him as the anti-Christ. Establishment media outlets decried his ascendency as the end of the Republican Party and predicted the destruction of the conservative movement.
And while many of us (me included) were skeptical and believed a Trump presidency unlikely – and possibly harmful to the conservative cause – for liberals and Never-Trumpers (Michael Moore excluded), the laws of history utterly precluded a Trump Administration. But even casual observers know that history is fluid, eschews preordained absolutes, and defies conventional wisdom. Mr. Trump did not have to prove “history” wrong, but only those who believed the books were already written. History was not “on his side,” or on anyone else’s; rather, he helped shape it in a significant way.
T.S. Eliot captures this idea succinctly in his poem “Gerontion”, where he observes that “History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors / And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, / Guides us by vanities.” Contrived corridors, whispering ambitions, and unbridled vanity capture the underlying currents that perpetuated the narrative repeated ad nausea by intellectuals and the media for the last year that conservatism and the Republican party were irredeemably destroyed.
In fact, many could not even conceive of the possibility of a Trump presidency, while others used the prospect of Mr. Trump’s “inevitable failure” to cheer the end of American conservatism. Mr. Trump became the caricature of a simple-minded, unsophisticated, poorly educated, and inarticulate conservative movement. Under his command, the conservatives were supposed to steer toward Scylla and Charybdis, leaving progressives forever at the helm of history.
This is not to say that when Mr. Trump became the GOP standard-bearer, conservatives had big reason for concern. His conservative bona fides were less than stellar and he did not fit the profile of a typical Republican politician. But such skepticism did not warrant opponents labeling his supporters as a “basket of deplorables,” nor did it require a coronation of Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump struck a chord with the American people, and while no one is without flaws, he understood the dynamics of the electorate more than any other presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan. Mr. Trump needed to prove himself to skeptical conservatives, unconvinced Republicans, and fed-up independents. He seems to be making a substantial effort to do so, and on election night, the historical narrative once again changed; the paradigms of conventional political wisdom were once again shattered.
In a movement perpetually haunted by the ghost of Mr. Reagan, conservatives are quick to forget that his views were not always conventionally “conservative.” For instance, Mr. Reagan began adulthood as an enthusiastic New Dealer, and his pro-life stance came to him after he left the California governor’s mansion. With respect to Mr. Trump, he is steadily proving that he is animated by conservative principles, and while we cannot predict how he will govern, he has earned the right to be given a chance. He may very well disappoint, but he may also prove to be a great leader. That chapter of history is yet to be written, for as G.K. Chesterton tells us, “wise men [fortune tellers] know what wicked things are written on the sky,” but we do not.
In the coming years, political and intellectual factions will continue to fight over issues of policy and principle. But we are well-served to remember that political fortunes change quickly, and when it appears that one idea or party will perpetually triumph, another always stands ready to take its place. In politics, there is one historical certitude: no ideological system lasts forever and the end of history is not immanentized through the advancement of a political program or party apparatus. The collapse of the Soviet Union is merely one example.
This leads me to one final observation about the nature of politics and the hysterical reaction by many to Mrs. Clinton’s loss. For the first time in over a decade, progressives were sternly rebuked at the polls and the reality of the strength of America’s conservative culture stunned a generation raised on the Obama Administration’s spiritualized left-wing ideology. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters were crying in the streets not only because history “betrayed” them, but because for the first time, these young people were chastised by the reality that progressive liberalism is a god that failed.
It is a lesson to us all.
Glen A. Sproviero is a commercial litigator in New York. Read his previous columnshere.
(AP Photo/ Brennan Linsley) 
