WHAT CONSERVATIVES BELIEVE

The former vice president outlines core principles of conservatism for America.

Drawing from Barry Goldwater’s seminal 1960 manifesto The Conscience of a Conservative, widely credited with igniting the American conservative movement and laying the intellectual groundwork for Ronald Reagan’s triumph in 1980, Pence aims to reignite those founding principles, holding both men as his conservative ideals. “We need a new articulation of what conservatives believe,” he writes. “We need a twenty-first-century version of The Conscience of a Conservative.” He enumerates several core principles, each examined in subsequent chapters, from God-given rights and the sanctity of human life to economic freedom, low taxes, and the national debt to standing with America’s allies, most especially Israel, and the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. Throughout, Pence draws a sharp distinction between these beliefs and the populist right, exemplified by President Trump, particularly in his second term, which Pence argues is rooted in opinion polls and popularity rather than conservative doctrine—a tendency he also equates with the progressive left. He nonetheless stands by his first-term record: “Although things did not end well between us, I will always be proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration and believe Goldwater and Reagan would be too.” For all his earnestness, Pence’s prose is remarkably soulless, offering little personal reflection. Most glaring is his subdued treatment of Jan. 6, 2021; while he acknowledges the day as a dark moment, the destructive force of the insurrection and Trump’s subsequent pardoning of participants go largely unexamined. What Pence never confronts is that his ideological touchstones held a far more libertarian conservatism than his own distinctly religious vision. After surviving an assassination attempt, Reagan lobbied Congress to pass both the Brady Bill and the assault-weapons ban. Goldwater, after leaving the Senate, embraced gay rights, abortion rights, and environmental causes and declared that religion had no place in public policy—convictions directly at odds with Pence’s own.

Sincere in conviction but historically selective in the traditions he invokes.