This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Many people in this country think of Donald Trump as a “conservative” in terms of his rise to power with the label Republican in his name.

But, to me, Trump is not conservative in the traditional meaning of that term.  Nor is he a traditional Republican.  And, not a liberal.

Frankly, he is nothing but immersed in himself, changing every moment to fit his own description of himself as the top dog.

Tom Nichols, a writer for Atlantic Magazine, made this point for me in a current column.  Here is an excerpt.

“Slightly more than a year ago, I tried to think through what being a conservative means in the current era of American politics. I have not been a Republican for several years, but I still describe myself as a conservative:  I believe in public order as a prerequisite for politics; I respect tradition, and I am reluctant to acquiesce to change too precipitously; I think human nature is fixed rather than malleable; I am suspicious of centralized government power; I distrust mass movements.

“To contrast these with progressivism, I think most folks on the left, for example, would weigh social justice over abstract commitments to order, be more inclined to see traditions as obstacles to progress, and regard mass protests as generally positive forces.”

I agree with Nichols. 

Traditional political conservatives “believe in public order as a prerequisite for politics, respect tradition, are reluctant to acquiesce to change too precipitously, think human nature is fixed rather than malleable, are suspicious of centralized government power, and distrust mass movements.”

And liberals?

I have never been one in the traditional meaning of the term, except when, back in college, I voted for a classic liberal for president, George McGovern.

But the Atlantic writer Nichols captures a solid description of today’s liberal:  “I think most folks on the left, for example, would weigh social justice over abstract commitments to order, be more inclined to see traditions as obstacles to progress, and regard mass protests as generally positive forces.”

Note the last phrase – liberals think positively about mass protests.

I don’t.

For years, in and around the State Capitol in Salem, Oregon, where I worked as government manager and a lobbyist, I saw hundreds of folks engage in protests.  They apparently thought protesting was a means to get their way on various issues.

Participants might have gained media coverage, but not the final result they sought.  That required dealing with both sides – perhaps all sides – of an important public policy issue.

Here are elements of what being conservative means to me, though I also like the term “centrist” far more because the solution to most pressing issues lies somewhere in the middle:

• Be skeptical of government as the all-the-time, any-time solution to any problem.  Read skepticism, NOY cynicism.

• Because skepticism can breed cogent analysis of proposed government solutions.

• Expect government programs to produce results, or, if they don’t, discard those programs.

• Expect candidates running for office to talk about WHY they want to be elected and WHAT they would propose to do if they got there.

• Expect candidates to talk about whether or not they would be open to compromise – call it “middle ground” – in selected situations, or whether compromise always would slam their principles.

Not a complete list, but, for me at least, a decent start on being a real conservative, not a pretend one.

Nichols adds:

“In any case, the immediate problem America faces is that it no longer has a center-right party that represents traditional conservatism, or even respects basic constitutional principles such as the rule of law. The pressing question for American democracy, then, is not so much the future of conservatism but the future of the Republican Party.

“The United States, like any other nation, needs political parties that can represent views on the left and the right.  The role of the state, the reach of the law, the allocation of social and economic resources — these are all inevitable areas of disagreement, and every functioning democracy needs parties that can contest these issues within the circumscribed limits of a democratic and rights-respecting constitution.

“Today’s Republican Party rarely exhibits such commitments to the rule of law, constitutionalism, or democracy itself.

“The current GOP is not so much conservative as it is reactionary:  Today’s right-wing voters are a loose movement of various groups, but especially of white men, obsessed with a supposedly better past in which they were not the aggrieved minority they see themselves as today. These reactionary voters are reflexively countercultural:  They reject almost everything in the current social and political order because everything around them is the product of the hated now that has displaced the sacred then.”

Enough.

**********

But a moment for me to applaud good news on the political front and bad news for Trump:

“A New York judge on Tuesday found that Donald Trump and his family business committed fraud by making false and misleading valuations on much of his real-estate empire and ordered the cancellation of legal certificates that have allowed the Trumps to do business in the state.”

Trump and family are guilty, so, voters who may want to choose him in the next presidential election, should ponder their choice.