
The collapse of the Republican Party is not just about this month’s fecklessness, however, and as The Economist noted in a recent cover article, this is a “global crisis in conservatism”: From Australia to Britain, Italy to Brazil, “the new right is not an evolution of conservatism, but a repudiation of it.” Conservatism historically embraced institutions, honored personal morality and disdained personality cults; now it has latched on to charismatic, dissolute nuts who overthrow institutions, like Boris Johnson of Britain, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, and our own Donald Trump.
