Think Local. Act Locally.
The Senate impeachment trial ended in acquittal, and no challenger has emerged as a serious threat for the GOP nomination. It would seem the only way Trump is leaving the White House is through the general election ballot box.
Whether that happens in November or 2024, the question of what comes after Trump is very much in the air. Will his successor be someone like Nikki Haley, or will it be one of his own children? Will pro-capitalism and pro-populism wonks hammer out what “conservatism should mean?”
Those questions are all very D.C. centric, which is odd for a movement that purportedly believes in small government and local control, whose politicians claim to represent “Real America.” We are supposed to love local diversity, regional cultures, and specific identities. Sadly, conservative thinking and media is too obsessed with what happens in the nation’s capital.
For the entire strata of people paid to write and think about what conservatism means and should mean, it almost always flows through Washington—whether it’s industrial policy or more free trade, some form of “nationalism,” or a more open society. Somehow, the movement launched to “get Washington out of our lives” seems incapable of imagining a world where people get anything done outside of it.
