That there are fractures within the conservative movement is not going to come as a shock to those who follow politics closely, particularly over the last few months. The response to Republican activist Charlie Kirk's September murder and a much-condemned October video by the Heritage Foundation's Kevin Roberts both shoved a question to the fore: What, exactly, does it mean to be a conservative?
In isolation, the debate concerns whether to exclude people on the far fringes: Holocaust deniers and conspiracists. That same question, though, has lingered over the conservative movement in a much broader way for the last decade as it tries to decide what it is under President Donald Trump, and what it will be when he is gone.
