re: There are a lot of "conservatives" who want to end the MAGA/America First Populism.

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Why does populism get singled out?

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Ask the OP?

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Yet again, you guys arguing for populiusm do not understand conservatism. You think the average Republican is an example of conservative thought, when in fact the average Republican has—to some greater or lesser degree—abandoned conservative principles.

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No, I think conservative thought has never been widely held by your rank and file Republican voter. I’m arguing that has never been the case and only been a delusion by people who thought they were in control.

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This is completely incorrect. An actual conservative doesn't want anywhere near the degree of government regulation of healthcare that we currently have.

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We need to draw a line between what conservative writers have been arguing for in a vacuum, and what conservative policy makers actually push. None of them want to get rid of our current health care system or fundamentally change it. They want to make it so health insurance companies don’t have to cover pre-existing conditions and less money is spent on medicare. They are tinkerers with the status quo. They don’t want to fundamentally dismantle it.

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Again, incorrect. An actual conservative believes in free trade. "Trade agreements" are by definition not free trade (unless the agreement is to trade freely, which doesn't require an agreement...you just do it.)

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This is a distinction without a difference. There’s no world where I can trade goods with someone from Pakistan unless our governments allow it to happen with a trade agreement. Saying that ideally there would be no governments is fine, but it’s not conservative. It’s libertarian bordering on anarchists. The conservative movement as it has existed since Reagan has mostly been fine with our trade agreements. That’s a fact. Meanwhile, the Republican base has hated them and rightly considered them selling out our industrial might.

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Yet again, THAT'S THE WHOLE PROBLEM WITH POPULISM. There are no guiding principles to dictate how situations should be handled.

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This is the philosophy bro problem where you think governments should have guiding principles and that politics should be about choosing what principles to follow. The problem is that the rest of us aren’t autistic and realize that life is not a math problem and that there are always messy inputs that can’t be accounted for and constantly changing conditions. You want a guiding principle for MAGA populism? How about a Republican government works for the people who elect them and not for elite conservative thinkers mentally masturbating over what Strauss would say

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That is literally picking and choosing

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Picking US manufacturing over Chinese manufacturing is ok in my book

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Picking US manufacturing over Chinese manufacturing is ok in my book

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It's picking certain types of US manufacturing over other US industries

“Conservatives” on the board: caring about the American family is communist!

The very same “conservatives”: why does the Republican Party keep voting for all these populists?

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“Conservatives” on the board: caring about the American family is communist!

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The question is which families you're caring about and which families you're taking from to care for them

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. I take issue with you pretending that has always been the conservative position or like Pat Buchanan wasn’t prominent in that same period, or that millions of Republican voters didn’t largely agree with Buchanan that whole time as you all ignored them

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Ok. How do you define your concept of Leftist/DEM economic policies?

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Bringing back manufacturing jobs is a matter of national security and stability.

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Might as well call it infrastructure

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making that be priced competitively with goods made by your fellow Americans isn’t taking anything from you.

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Except the literal extra costs taken out of my pocket.

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And none of that is worker ownership or the means of production or wealth redistribution

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It's taking money from one person to subsidized another. That's wealth redistribution

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Except the literal extra costs taken out of my pocket.

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If you can’t afford goods made in the United States, I suggest you work harder and invest better, not demand the ability to fund China

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If you can’t afford goods made in the United States, I suggest you work harder and invest better,

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If you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage, then you shouldn't be in business.