This article originally appeared in First Things. An excerpt of the article appears below.
By Eric Kaufmann, June 23, 2026
How should conservatism evolve in a post-Trump era?
Donald Trump could well lose the House of Representatives and come to be viewed as a lame duck, even if he keeps the world engrossed. Beyond 2028, the Democrats could win the presidency while in other western countries (U.K., Germany, France) a more populist right takes power. Imagine a Munich Security Conference in which President Newsom berates “intolerant” Europeans for their immigration restrictionism, hostility to Muslims, and retrograde views on trans rights.
Even if the Republicans retain the White House, the question of the meaning of Trump will loom large. The road ahead for conservatives across the West is not to reject populism outright, nor to imitate its excesses, but to refine it—to develop an ethical populism that fuses populist disruption with a reformed social, normative, and institutional order. It is not enough to criticize or tear down; one must preserve and rebuild. It is insufficient to exercise hard power without creating a more durable soft power through moral legitimation.
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Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham, author of Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Led to a Cultural Revolution (Forum Press, 4 July,) and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
