Josh R

Software Executive, Reader, Composer, Traveler, History Buff, anti-communist, anti-fascist, former GOP, principled conservative, supporter of Ukraine.🇺🇸🇺🇦

[Josh R @jjroach3]

Donald Trump Is Not a Conservative. He’s a Warning.

By a lifelong Republican who still believes in conservative principles.

It’s time to say out loud what many on the right whisper privately, and what is going to be increasingly made public: Donald Trump is not a conservative. Not in philosophy, not in temperament, not in governing style, and certainly not in respect for the institutions that conservatives have spent generations trying to preserve.

Trumpism isn’t the future of conservatism—it’s its undoing.

Conservatism Once Meant Something. Trump Burned It Down.

Real conservatism champions limited government, personal responsibility, fiscal discipline, and reverence for the constitutional structure that restrains human ambition. It values rule of law over rule of man. It elevates character and humility, not chaos and ego.

Trump embodies none of that.

Instead, he has offered a politics of resentment, centralization of power, and a cult of personality so intense that many Republicans now treat the presidency as a throne rather than a constitutional office. This isn’t the legacy of Goldwater or Reagan. It’s the legacy of leaders conservatives once warned the nation about.

A Man Who Worships Power Cannot Be a Conservative

The first principle of conservatism is that power must be restrained, because human nature is flawed. Trump’s first principle is that power should be accumulated, because he believes he alone is virtuous.

Conservatives fought for decades to limit presidential overreach. Trump smashed those boundaries with the zeal of someone who had never read a page of The Federalist Papers but is certain he understood them better than the authors. He threatened to use the DOJ against political enemies, demanded personal loyalty from public servants, attacked judges whose rulings he disliked, and treated independent institutions as his personal subsidiaries.

That is not conservatism.
That is authoritarian instinct—plain and simple.
A Fiscal Conservative? Don’t Make Me Laugh.

Trump exploded the deficit in times of economic expansion—something no conservative president had ever done. He signed every bloated spending bill that crossed his desk, raised tariffs (a hidden tax on consumers), and showed zero interest in entitlement reform or long-term financial stewardship.

Conservatives used to talk about debt as a moral issue. Trump treated it like Monopoly money.

Trade Protectionism Is Not Conservative Economics

For decades, conservatives fought for free markets, open competition, and lower barriers to global commerce. Trump shattered that consensus with old-school economic nationalism dressed up as populist bravado. His tariffs punished American consumers and businesses more than foreign adversaries.

Reagan said, “Protectionism is destructionism.”
Trump called tariffs “beautiful.”

One of them was a conservative. The other was Donald Trump.
Character Still Counts—No Matter What Excuses His Followers Make

Conservatism is a worldview rooted in virtue. Burke wrote about the necessity of ordered liberty supported by personal restraint. Buckley demanded decency and seriousness from the conservative movement. Reagan modeled optimism, humility, humor, and faith in America.

Trump modeled none of these.
He brought pettiness, cruelty, and narcissism into the center of the Republican identity. For too many, character no longer mattered as long as the leader punched the right enemies. That shift alone disqualifies Trump from being called a conservative—because it erases the moral foundation of the movement.

He Has Contempt for the Constitution He Swore to Defend

Conservatives revere the Constitution because it restrains the passions of the moment. Trump sees the Constitution as an inconvenient rulebook that keeps him from doing whatever he wants.
He floated ideas like “terminating” parts of it after the 2020 election—a statement that should have permanently disqualified him from conservative life. He showed open disdain for federalism, attacked state leaders who disagreed with him, and repeatedly praised strongmen abroad whose power he envied.

No one who speaks like that should ever again be called a conservative.

Trump Isn’t a Philosophy—He’s an Erosion

At its core, conservatism is about preserving the things that keep a nation strong:
its institutions, its norms, its fiscal health, its civic virtue, and its constitutional order.

Trump undermined every one of them.

The real danger isn’t just Trump himself. It’s the precedent he sets: that a president can ignore norms, pressure institutions, centralize power, and shred the guardrails of democracy—all while claiming to be the guardian of “real America.”

If conservatives allow that to stand, the movement won’t survive. The authoritarian left won’t destroy conservatism—Trumpism will.
Conservatives Must Choose: Trump or Conservatism

Those of us who still believe in conservative principles face a choice, and it’s not complicated:

We can defend the Constitution, or we can defend Trump.

We can stand for limited government, or we can stand for unlimited executive ego.

We can preserve the conservative movement, or we can watch it mutate into a populist personality cult.

But we cannot pretend that both visions are conservative.

One is rooted in centuries of wisdom about human nature and the fragility of self-government.
The other is rooted in the impulses of a single man.
Trump is not a conservative. He never was.
He is the loudest alarm bell the right has heard in generations—and if conservatives ignore it, we may never again recognize the movement we once believed in.

[Larry Sabato @LarrySabato]

If you're not concerned by this, GET concerned.
"MAGA activists are pushing for President Trump to resort to extraordinary measures — including martial law — if they believe the midterm elections are "rigged." https://t.co/DjMIhiTOKx

[Josh R @jjroach3]

Dear GOP: you’re going to get slaughtered in the midterms, and you deserve it. If you’d only had the backbone to stand up to Trump as he treasonously spouts the Kremlin propaganda line and sides with our enemies over allies, you may have had a little more support. But no, you decided to just go along with the cult party line of Trump for your own selfish interests vs. those of America’s. Therefore you’re not real conservatives anymore and you deserve to go down. You’re all pathetic. You’re the reason I left the GOP in 2016. You’re enablers of the most evil and woefully incompetent person ever to occupy the White House. He’s not a conservative, and never was. He’s a fraud. Shame.

[medoyid_ua @LetsArmUKR]

British reporters cornered Hegseth on camera outside the Pentagon and asked him straight: "Are you Vladimir Putin's puppet on Ukraine?" Sky News carried it live. The honor guard was there too.

The question facing him now is what comes next now that Starshield access for Ukraine has been cut off. Drone crews lost their link mid-flight. Russian missiles kept coming down on Ukrainian cities.

A journalist asks it in public because Washington has offered no answer for who pulled the plug.

[Josh R @jjroach3]

@Vierd1 I just want to know how I send your sorry traitorous ass to Moscow bitch. Real conservatives oppose Russia. Fake conservatives like you don’t. Now run along back to your Russian propaganda sites traitor.

[Josh R @jjroach3]

Trump blatantly siding with the most evil man in the world, Putin, is only going to further tank the GOP in the midterms. Maybe if all you guys had a goddamn backbone to oppose Trump and his pro Russia, anti-US security, anti-NATO, anti-west agenda you wouldn’t be in this mess would you? This is why I left the GOP in 2016 and I will not return until it is a party that clearly opposes our real enemies - Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Trump is nothing more than a Kremlin propaganda mouthpiece these days. It might as well be Putin at the podium at the White House. It’s an absolute disaster for the GOP and you all had it coming. And once the Democrats take back both houses which now looks likely, the investigations are clearly going to show that Trump is a Kremlin asset and therefore a traitor.

[Josh R @jjroach3]

Trump blatantly siding with the most evil man in the world, Putin, is only going to further tank the GOP in the midterms. Maybe if all you guys had a goddamn backbone to oppose Trump and his pro Russia, anti-US security, anti-NATO, anti-west agenda you wouldn’t be in this mess would you? This is why I left the GOP in 2016 and I will not return until it is a party that clearly opposes our real enemies - Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Trump is nothing more than a Kremlin propaganda mouthpiece these days. It might as well be Putin at the podium at the White House. It’s an absolute disaster for the GOP and you all had it coming. And once the Democrats take back both houses which now looks likely, the investigations are clearly going to show that Trump is a Kremlin asset and therefore a traitor.

[Senator John Cornyn @JohnCornyn]

Senators Demand Investigation Into Ukraine Satellite Disruption https://t.co/z3EJh5WMDz

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

So, MAGA, let me make sure I understand the strategy.

Canada is the enemy. Europe is the enemy. Japan is the enemy. South Korea is the enemy. Australia and New Zealand are the enemy.

Russia is the friend.

You want to trade the richest, most technologically advanced alliance network on Earth, representing tens of trillions of dollars in economic power, for Russia.

You are trading a fleet of aircraft carriers for a rowboat.

You are trading North America, Europe and the advanced democracies of Asia-Pacific for Russia.

You are trading an economic and military network spanning three continents for one country with an economy comparable to a single small European state.

And this is supposed to make America stronger?
That is a big downgrade. But it is who you are.

[Josh R @jjroach3]

@Adam_Bydand The definition of treason is that you aid and abett the enemy, jackass. Russia is our enemy. Trump is aiding and abetting the enemy. Go back to your Kremlin propaganda sites and get off my fucking channel bitch.

[Jukka Isorinne @jukkaisorinne]

@jjroach3 @McFaul _____

This is how America took care of traitors in 1953 cooperating with #Russia.
Seriously dangerous leap forward under President #Trump and his administration ..

https://t.co/PR7Sh5mG4W
American spies for Russia ✝️ executed in electric chair June 19th 1953
————

[Josh R @jjroach3]

@jax_pep7827 @thehill Run along back to your little MAGA disinformation sites and your Russian propaganda sites, bitch. You’re a traitor obviously, not a real conservative.

[Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien]

The lies are getting hysterically bad now. So bad maybe some Republicans might reject them….

[Joni Askola @joni_askola]

Weidel is a pro-Russian traitor

[Jay in Kyiv @JayinKyiv]

Richard Branson explains that Trump is Putin's dog.

[Josh R @jjroach3]

And the Russia under Putin is just as bad. Do your homework, dude. Russia has committed mass rape, mass torture, massive genocide, and war crimes in Ukraine. Putin is the most evil man on the planet, and wants to wipe away the entire Ukrainian culture. That’s called genocide. And Ukraine has every right to defend themselves, including blowing up Russian oil, processing sites and data centers. What part of that don’t you understand?

[Joe Scarborough @ScarboroughNow]

There is no Russia Hoax.
There is only a US president who serves the interests of Vladimir Putin. Useful idiots parrot Trump’s pro-Putin propaganda.
There is no hidden conspiracy. Trump’s betrayal of Western democracy is out there for all the world to see.

[Josh R @jjroach3]

@jurgen_nauditt Why the hell would Ukraine agree to stop the destruction of Russians oil processing sites, when that is the number one leverage point and key to cutting off Russia’s ability to fund this war?

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

If it continues, Trump's pivot to support Putin without limits will go down in history as one of America's worst foreign policy decisions ever.

I would think people like Rubio might not want to go down in the history books as a supporter of this decision and might try to reverse it. But no sign of that yet.

[Josh R @jjroach3]

@P0rtmanMichael @thehill You support Russia, you’re a traitor bitch.

[Josh R @jjroach3]

This needs to be investigated now. I hope Congress is fed up enough with the traitor Trump and his daily spouting of the Kremlin propaganda line that they finally grow a spine and start the investigations into Trump‘s treason. He’s a Russian asset and a traitor and doesn’t even hide it anymore.