Harvard Conservative Professor Harvey Mansfield discussing Donald Trump

Internet

Elder Lister
Would you say that Trump sort of mastered tapping into voters’ temperaments?

He appealed to people whom he identified, I think correctly, as forgotten or overlooked. People who were standing in line, waiting for good things to happen, waiting to share in the American dream, and they kept watching one group after another step ahead of them.

What does Trump’s rise mean for conservatism?

Trump’s election was, I think, among other things, a rebellion of the lower half of the IQ against the higher half. The uneducated against the educated. It makes things very difficult for conservative policymakers and for conservatives. Conservatives take pride in being the party of ideas. They’ve exchanged places with liberals, who are now pretty much the party of the status quo. And it’s Republicans and conservatives who want reform and change. And here comes [Trump], this guy who cares nothing about principles, and his policies seem to be improvised and impulsive. And he hijacks the Republican Party. So it’s a terrible defeat for them.

Did you expect Trump to win?

No. I didn’t see him coming. I kept thinking he would lose. I was always wrong, as my wife likes to remind me.

What do you make of Trump calling everything he doesn’t like “fake news” and taking to Twitter constantly?

He wants a direct connection to the people, so he has big rallies and tweets, and makes sensational remarks and does things that attract attention. And that impresses people, so they think that because he’s saying bold things nobody else says that he’s telling it how it is. His attack on the press is part of his disdain for the Constitution and established forms of American democracy. And the question of his presidency is what will win: his impulsiveness or the steadiness and principles of the establishment?
 
Top