Saturday, April 20, 2024

Is Trump a True Conservative?

American Principles in Action president, and frequent contributor to The Pulse 2016, Frank Cannon appeared on EWTN News Nightly last week.  The discussion quickly turned to Donald Trump and his appeal as well as his conservative credentials.  You can see the video of the appearance below:

Cannon: I think that Donald Trump has broken out of the pack because he is speaking to a concern that average voters have that the system doesn’t work any more.  And I think that, rather than focusing on resume, people talking about how they are going to change the system to work on behalf of average Americans and to not be business as usual is the key to someone doing well in the Republican primaries.

Host: Some question Trump whether he is a true conservative.  How would you define true conservative, and is he?

Cannon: Well, I think if you look at his past positions, he’s been all over the lot and certainly not a conservative on many positions.  But I think he has for the sake of this campaign taken on conservative positions.  But I think that that’s the wrong prism to look at this through.  I think the prism is: does the government work for average citizens?  And when the government doesn’t work for average citizens, people are looking not so much for the kind of consistency that Jeb Bush pointed to but to somebody who will shake the system up and make it work again on behalf of average Americans.

Jon Schweppe is Deputy Director of Communications for American Principles in Action.

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