Trump finished with around 41
percent of the vote, only three points better than Sen. Ted Cruz and the remainder split
among many others. While the closeness
of the contest showed the limitations of polling – these inform only about
a snapshot in time, and the electoral environment in the state appeared to
change dramatically in a the few days between data collection and election day
itself – it also showed some erosion of Trump’s support. The next question
becomes whether this replicates and deepens across the primary landscape.
If anyplace, Louisiana is tailor-made
for a candidacy like Trump’s. He is the first populist Republican to campaign seriously
in the state since, well, Trump endorsee (but not “everything”
about him) former state Rep. David Duke. Much mythology and distortion has
come about concerning Duke’s rise to prominence, complicating a rather simple
phenomenon: Duke became the first to turn the populism in the state’s political
culture that always articulated big government as a friend of the people into
their enemy. Populism endorses a Manichean view of the world, ratifying the
notion of irreconcilable divisions existing within society that only can be
solved by levelling the playing field through government intervention (liberalism;
government must promote the alleged structurally disadvantaged groups, made so
by societal conditions, by rigging outcomes to favor them) or by failure of
government intervention (conservatism; government creates the uneven field
through special interests using it to advantage themselves).
This contrasts with principled
conservatism, which argues that minimal government designed to assure
individuals have an equal opportunity to acquire resources and does not interfere
with intercourse beyond this optimizes life prospects for all individuals as
that maximizes voluntary individual contributions that benefit society as a
whole. It recognizes that special interests will try to use government to
transfer power and privilege to group members beyond what they deserve for
their contributions to society, but it does not see as a legitimate solution to
prevent these transfers inducing other transfers to cancel out those. As an
example with Trump, he believes that protectionism
would solve economic ills and recommends redistributionist cures.
Trump attracts the considerable
populist wing of Louisiana Republicans by arguing government preferences on
behalf of certain special interests should end, but accepts using government to
counter these rather than promoting its non-interference. Only a belief that atavistic
traits exist among individuals that irreparably separate and creates zero-sum
outcomes makes this view tenable. Contrast that with the basic assumption
behind principled conservatism, that all human beings have a common aspiration
to improve their lives in ways that also serve society as a whole in the
process, but which can be warped into pursuit of selfish aims at others’
expenses when government moves beyond the minimal.
Because of this populist heritage, Louisiana
never has had state government policy fully committed to principled
conservatism. Former Gov. Bobby
Jindal was the only politician who even seemed to try, and an argument
could be made whether he ever tried to step on the pedal to drive home
full-throated principled conservatism, or whether he tepidly did so guided by
an understanding of the limitations of his political environment, or whether he
gave a solid effort and simply did not have the horsepower to pull it off, but
at best policy only incompletely and inconsistently emulated full-spectrum principled
conservatism during his terms. That was a magnitude more than any of his
predecessors, where just three made any such efforts that happened often in
isolation and seemed more exceptions to their broader programs than anything
else.
So not accidentally would Trump
find Louisiana a fertile environment, one that among Republican-majority states
should have provided him the most support of any, with possible exception of
Alaska with its libertarian streak. Yet that he could not secure an electoral
majority and that principled conservatives and others would coalesce around
Cruz in large numbers may indicate Trump has reached his peak: that enough
information has come out about him and that an opponent (Cruz) has emerged as
compelling to make some of even his most natural supporters question his
suitability (and perhaps electability as well) for the nation’s highest office.
Harkening back to the state’s past experience
with a conservative populist, the bloom wore off Duke when other conservative
candidates emerged with the understanding that the center-right voting public
had not received sufficient policy options from them to address their discontent.
To think that the likes of Duke or Trump tap into or generate anger in the
electorate entirely misunderstands the dynamics present; not anger, but
frustration. Electors will turn to the facile, toy bromides peddled by
conservative populists if they do not see any other choice to the orthodoxy that
has imposed malaise upon the country recently, and upon Louisiana almost its
entire history.
Cruz’s Louisiana showing appears to
demonstrate that the field of options has opened up, and it’s perhaps no accident
that he won
the caucus in the other state seemed made for Trump, Alaska, just prior to
elections in Louisiana. In this sense, Louisiana may end up acting as a
bellwether for the remaining portion of the nomination marathon. Confirmation
of that possibility could occur in primaries scheduled for Mar. 15. If so, Louisiana
Republicans will have exerted outsized influence in the 2016 presidential
selection process.
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