A Conservative Case for Voting Democratic
Conservatives have come a long way since William F. Buckley Jr. wrote in National Review’s inaugural issue that the magazine “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
At its foundation, conservatism means preserving what should be preserved and changing only slowly and gradually what should not. This was how Roger Scruton, the English political philosopher, described conservatism when he wrote that “conservatism is about conserving things: not everything, of course, but the good things that we admire and cherish.”
Classical liberalism, a philosophy with which I have a great deal of affinity, emphasizes individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and the rule of law. It emerged from the political thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly through Locke, Hume, Smith, and Burke, and was later more fully articulated and developed by John Stuart Mill. At the time, it was the liberal philosophy: a break with rigid social norms shaped by aristocracy, hierarchy, and inherited privilege. Unsurprisingly, it was one of the central intellectual foundations of the American founding, as reflected throughout The Federalist Papers.
Modern liberalism, by contrast, generally supports a larger role for government in securing social welfare, equality, and collective goods.
Conservative philosophy is fundamentally a disposition toward continuity. Its opposite is not necessarily liberalism, whether classical or modern, but radicalism.
The overlap between Burkean classical liberalism and the conservative movement was once significant: free markets, the rule of law, limited government, constitutional restraint, and skepticism toward concentrated state power. But the modern conservative movement has turned into something that an old-school conservative would shudder to see. It now has more to do with religious extremism, often at the expense of individual liberty, and, more terrifyingly, populism. Populism is perhaps the most pernicious component of modern conservatism’s transformation and is, in fact, fundamentally radical.
The modern “conservative” seeks to overturn the entire apple cart. He regards elites, educated professionals, experts, and those perceived to be in control with deep suspicion. The movement is also working to dismantle the international system that has brought considerable stability and prosperity to the world since the 1940s and replace it with a looser order of nationalist and isolationist states, while promoting like-minded parties such as the AfD in Germany, Reform UK, and Fidesz in Hungary.
The movement seeks to impose religious ideas on a secular and pluralistic society, restrict the rights of gay and transgender people, prohibit abortion, adopt policies intended to slow or reverse pluralism by restricting immigration, and, in some cases, move away from democracy altogether in favor of some form of CEO-king. In the name of “traditional values,” it would tear apart the social fabric that has emerged through decades of compromise and consensus.
We do not all agree on every issue, but we share a common civil space that respects the rule of law, supports a free-market economy, and accepts pluralism. It also recognizes that we are part of a global system with which we trade and within which we share common goals and challenges.
A classical conservative’s natural inclination should be to preserve what works and change what does not. Clearly, much is wrong with our society. In America, poverty remains a serious problem, as do poor health outcomes, drug abuse, inadequate education, out-of-control government spending, excessive regulation, the overconcentration of wealth, elite capture of the media, declining civility, the loss of privacy, the excessive power of social-media companies, and continuing racial divisions.
This is far from an exhaustive list. We may disagree about whether some of these are genuine problems or about how they should be addressed, but none of us can plausibly claim that we live in a perfect society. Change is needed, but it should be gradual, mediated, and carefully considered. Policy changes should not be as abrupt and jarring as they are today. Political and institutional change should not proceed through executive action, constitutional improvisation, and ideological disruption that increasingly characterize American government.
Many global institutions also perform poorly and require substantial reform. The United Nations is frequently ineffective. The Security Council is paralyzed. Many international institutions have failed to live up to the optimism that accompanied their creation in the 1940s. But abolishing them all is hardly a solution. Reform makes sense; indiscriminate destruction does not.
Democrats, for all their faults, seek to preserve many of these institutions, both domestic and international. They remain broadly committed to democracy, the rule of law, constitutional government, and the international alliances that have underpinned global stability. Their criticism of capitalism is largely directed at the extreme disparity between the richest and poorest, the concentration of economic power, and the influence that the ultra-wealthy exert over the political process.
One does not have to agree with every Democratic policy. The party contains genuinely radical elements that are hostile to markets, individual liberty, and institutional restraint. But those elements have not captured the Democratic Party in the way that MAGA has captured the Republican Party. Recent polling illustrates the asymmetry. A June 2026 Marquette Law School poll found that 72 percent of Republicans viewed MAGA favorably and 71 percent would support a Trump-endorsed primary candidate over a Republican incumbent opposed by him. A January 2026 Pew Research Center poll found that 73 percent of Republicans approved of Trump’s performance. By contrast, a separate Pew survey found that 32 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents viewed political leaders who identify as democratic socialists favorably. The Democratic Party has a radical faction; the Republican Party has been captured by one.
At its core, and in the irony of ironies, the Democratic Party is now more conservative than the modern Republican Party, which has evolved into a nationalist cult of personality increasingly hostile to constitutional limits, pluralism, free trade, expertise, democratic norms, and America’s traditional role in the world.
The Republican Party is now the heterodox party, disjunct from classical conservative principles and promoting a radicalism fundamentally at odds with the idea of preserving what should be preserved and gradually changing what should not.
An old-school conservative who finds solace in Goldwater-Reagan-era thinking has little in common with what the Republican Party has become. She may dislike some of the more radical elements of today’s Democratic Party, but the mainstream Democratic philosophy now overlaps more closely with the older brand of conservatism that simultaneously promoted individual liberty and distrusted concentrated government power; that spoke of America as “a shining city upon a hill” leading the free world; that supported a free-market system unburdened by harmful tariffs; and that regarded nationalism and isolationism as contrary to American ideals.
The Democratic Party has radicals within it. The Republican Party has itself become radicalized. That is the essential difference.
So, for now, the only logical choice for those who wish to prevent the malignant spread of radicalism is to vote Democratic, while working to oppose and remove the radical elements within the Democratic Party itself.
