January 25, 2016

Is Donald Trump Conservative? Here’s the Rundown

This week, Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)  has bashed Trump for insufficient conservatism. He explained, “Donald’s record does not match what he says as a candidate.” Cruz isn’t the only one. Last month, Rush Limbaugh said that Trump’s attacks on Cruz reflected the fact that he was not a “genuine conservative.” Mark Levin said in 2011, “Trump is NOT the real deal… He is not a conservative. He was happy to donate to Schumer, Weiner & Emanuel campaigns last year. He was pro-choice recently and now claims to be pro-life. He sounds more and more like Ross Perot.” Andrew Breitbart said at the time, “Of course he’s not a conservative. He was for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) before he was against Nancy Pelosi.”

I don’t believe Trump is a conservative either; I’ve said that repeatedly. Full disclosure: I’ve also said that I would vote for Ted Cruz if the primaries took place today. I’ve also said that Trump channels conservative anger against the establishment brilliantly, and that he has become a vessel for much-needed conversations on immigration.

With all that said, it’s worthwhile exploring Trump’s worldview. To do that, we must separate two elements of that worldview: his current positions, and his historic positions. The first goes to supposed conservatism, and the second goes to credibility – even if he says he’s conservative today, should you believe him?

We’ll go through the issues here (thanks to Conservative Review for a handy guide to Trump’s positions as well). We report, you decide:

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