The Bulwark: “Conservatism is in crisis. But we knew that. With the exception of 2004 — a squeaker that came down to the wire in Ohio, almost necessitating a replay of Florida’s dramatic 2000 recount — the conservative movement has not unambiguously won a presidential election by popular vote since 1988.”

“And that was before Trump came along. Since that time, of course, the conservative movement has been tarred by association not only with Trump’s corruption, incompetence, and brutality, but also with the dangerous fanatics of the alt-right and similar white supremacist groups whom he has tolerated, even tacitly allied with. If the conservative movement had troubles already, a key guardrail had broken: the very people whom William F. Buckley and others had desperately tried to keep out of the movement, and who had been seen off again and again, in the persona of George Wallace, David Duke, Pat Buchanan, and others, had now taken control of the movement. Amid the current culture war, and especially its latest and hardest-contested battleground, the understanding and commemoration of American history itself, traditional conservatives have a vital role to play. But only if they go back to first principles: reverence for the Constitution and its freedoms, and a commitment to implement them for all Americans, not just some. These core values, not a thoughtless and unqualified deification of the past, nor a Manichaean opposition to the ideas of others, will ensure that conservative values will endure.”