Mike Pence wrote What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience to spell out 16 precepts for readers he believes may know right-wing populism and big government Republicanism better than conservatism. The former vice president uses the book to argue that those principles still apply to today’s fights inside the Republican Party.
He links the project to Barry Goldwater’s 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative, and says many of the same topics return nearly 70 years later. Pence includes federalism, taxes, budget deficits, foreign policy and education in that line of argument, then extends it into a broader case for the post-Trump era.
Barry Goldwater and Pence
Pence says conservative principles have not changed even as the political moment has. That is the framework of the book: old ideas restated for readers who may have come of age in a party shaped by Donald Trump rather than by the older conservative tradition Pence wants to revive.
The book’s title echoes Goldwater’s work directly, and Pence says the earlier book’s themes still fit current debates. He identifies 16 precepts, then uses them to organize his case on domestic policy and foreign policy rather than leaving conservatism as a set of slogans.
America First and Ukraine
One of Pence’s clearest definitions comes in his treatment of “America First.” He writes that it means “America in front, leading the free world with strong allies in defense of our freedom and national interests, inspiring people everywhere with our liberty and prosperity, and advancing the cause of freedom.”
He also says the United States should stand up to China, oppose Russian aggression in Ukraine, and confront North Korea and Iran. Those positions put concrete policy content behind a phrase that has been used in different ways inside the Republican Party.
Jan. 6, 2021
Pence calls for integrity, character and civility in public life, and he says he wants to return those qualities to both the public square and the halls of Congress. He writes with understatement that “things did not end well between us.”
That line sits beside his limited discussion of Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and many chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.” Trump has never denounced that sentiment, and Pence’s book leaves the reader with a plain choice inside the party: accept a politics of grievance, or follow the conservative rules he lays out in 16 precepts.
What Pence does not spell out in full is which of those precepts will most shape the party’s next policy fights. He gives the framework, the examples and the break with Trump-era politics; the remaining test is how much of it Republican readers are willing to adopt.
