What Conservatives Believe
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
Pence's "What Conservatives Believe" raises an important question Republicans — and perhaps all Americans — cannot avoid: Should a political movement be anchored in enduring constitutional principles or in the personality of a single leader? Whether one agrees with Pence or Trump is beside the point. Political movements come and go, but institutions, checks and balances, and the rule of law are meant to endure. Whatever the GOP's future, Pence's warning deserves to be taken seriously as Trump's influence inevitably fades.
Anti-Trump narrative
"What Conservatives Believe" proves Mike Pence still cannot bring himself to confront the man and movement that turned on him on Jan. 6. After escaping a mob chanting for his execution, he minimizes the rupture to "things did not end well between us" while continuing to praise Trump's record. By refusing to square his principles with Trump's erratic leadership and its consequences, Pence comes across less as a principled conservative, than a coward unwilling to tell his own supporters the truth.
Pro-Trump narrative
In "What Conservatives Believe," Pence vastly overstates the Republican Party's supposed "leftward" drift. Clinging to a Reagan-Goldwater vision that drove Trump's rise in the first place, Pence mistakes a working-class realignment for an abandonment of conservatism. The GOP remains committed to lower taxes, deregulation and limited government, while Trump's movement has rejected outdated orthodoxies on free trade and globalization and made the party more responsive to voters failed by the old establishment.
Democratic narrative
"What Conservatives Believe" is Mike Pence's attempt to restore a Republican Party that no longer exists. He hopes to revive Goldwater and Reagan's conservatism, but Trump's personality-driven movement has already reshaped the GOP around loyalty, grievance and populism. Pence may offer a defense of old conservative principles, but his effort to reclaim the party ignores political reality: Trump remains its dominant force, and Pence has little ability to drive the movement he wants to change.
