I WAS WRONG ABOUT THE REFORMISH CONSERVATIVES.

• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Cooper, Ryan

After Barack Obama's decisive reelection victory in 2012, it looked as though the long process of conservative radicalization might be at a turning point. Democrats had trounced Republicans among all minority groups. The Republican National Committee, aware that the white GOP base constituted a shrinking share of the electorate, released a stunning "autopsy" report, diagnosing what had gone wrong. The document warned that the party was becoming closed-minded, that it needed to move left on LGBTQ issues, and that its stance on immigration would have to change.

By 2013 there appeared to be a burgeoning conservative reform movement--and I decided to write about it. I interviewed many of the reformers, including former Reagan administration official Bruce Bartlett and then conservative commentators Josh Barro and Ramesh Ponnuru. At the time, they were pushing for moderate immigration reform and for tentative moves away from the traditional right-wing insistence on tax and welfare cuts. Their efforts were fairly weak, I argued, and they faced "an extremely steep climb" to achieve influence. But, I concluded, "if in 2016 a Republican presidential contender can break free from the death grip of conservative Know-Nothingism and still succeed electorally," the reformers "may well become very influential."

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