Conservatism: time was when that word, in a political sense, meant something. It meant protecting respected national institutions and established norms; being fiscally responsible; preserving and maintaining valuable resources; limiting government intrusion into personal lives; maximizing American influence abroad for promotion of American values and shared international advantage. It was an approach marked by moderation, stability and trusted leadership.

Not any more!

No longer a coherent political philosophy, “conservatism” seems to have degenerated into a vague word for the far right to conjure with. If they shout it loud and often enough (surrounded by a great number of American flags), it’s enough to evoke a knee-jerk response from the hard-right base, enough to drive moderate Republicans from office or push them to extreme positions—or simply silence them.

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And now that the Republican Party has sold its soul to Donald Trump, whose modus operandi, whatever it is, masquerades as “conservatism,” the GOP is mired in a confused identity crisis.

In short, contemporary conservatism is little more than a convenient, shifting label — it all depends on the issue of the moment and the prospects for party advantage.

Here’s a summary of some of its contradictions:

Fiscal responsibility? With control of the legislative and executive branches of government, the Republicans passed a tax reform bill that amounts to a wild, irresponsible gamble.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts the new law will help propel Federal budget deficits to over a trillion dollars annually for the next ten years, resulting in a 15.5 trillion dollar increase in our already scary national debt. This highly probable outcome will result from cutting tax rates too dramatically for already-prospering corporations, from unnecessarily dropping—instead of raising—rates for the excessively wealthy among us —oh, and, uh, giving a token income tax break to the middle class just to distract us. Our deficit-ridden federal budgets exist because neither Republicans nor Democrats know how to live within our means. The prospect of nearly doubling the national debt over the next decade is more than worrisome to those of us who have personal, fiscally-conservative instincts.

Preserving our established institutions, public, private, and international? To the contrary, the Trump administration is vigorously attacking foundational pillars of our democracy. With support from his minions in and out of Congress, Trump is attempting, for the most obvious of self-defensive reasons, to destroy public faith in our judicial system generally, more particularly the non-partisan status of the DOJ, the FBI, and Robert Mueller’s special investigation into Russian meddling. (If Trump and his campaign have broken no laws, why does he, instead of cooperating fully, act as if he has something to hide? It’s bizarre that his lawyers are desperate to keep him from testifying, fearful that he is not capable of telling the truth and would perjure himself. Dishonest at the core, or simply incompetent to testify accurately, this is the man to whom we have entrusted the conduct of our crucial national affairs, foreign and domestic?)

At the same time, our President’s apparent intent, with strong “conservative” Senate support, is to exacerbate the politicization of an already ideologically divided Supreme Court. Given the paramount importance of public confidence in this institution, a truly conservative President (and Senate majority leader) would wish to strengthen perception of the Court as an unbiased arbiter of our laws by avoiding an appointment that smacks of extreme political bias.

Meanwhile, Trump (echoed by his “conservative” toadies) shamelessly attacks almost daily responsible journalists and established institutions of the fourth estate, who historically have been—and now more than ever are— indispensable for the preservation of our democracy.

On the world scene, for seventy years America under both Republican and Democratic leadership has championed the establishment of international institutions and treaties to promote American values and expand our influence and our economic interests. But from his first day in office, our President, with his confrontational manner, has rashly alienated our allies while strangely praising our enemies. Notably he has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear agreement entered into with solid international support, has withdrawn from the Trans Pacific Partnership, designed to outflank China on trade. This is not even to mention his dubious, undiplomatic undercutting of NATO and the UN. In short, America’s standing as acknowledged leader among world nations has declined in the past year and a half. Those who have long looked to us as a reliable bulwark of strength are now wondering whether we can be depended on. Talk about squandering American resources.

As for conserving our natural environment, preserving clean air and water, and combating the catastrophic effects of global warming, Republicans should look for example to past conservation initiatives by their own Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. Instead, under the guise of deregulation, this administration is boastfully dismantling progress made previously, trading it cavalierly for a mess of temporary polluting and earth-warming pottage. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords seems the total antithesis of responsible environmental conservatism. Ditto for his de-emphasis on clean energy, while pandering to an anachronistic coal industry. Conservatives need long term environmental vision; Trump demonstrates a startling lack of it.

And now, in an increasingly global economy which generates overall (if unevenly) more jobs and more wealth for America, Trump has chosen to unleash multi-pronged tariffs. This populist, un-Republican strategy is leading, it seems, to trade wars with enemies and friends alike. The predictable general outcome will be reduced income for producers and higher prices for consumers. If the goal is to improve the lot of those left behind in the current economy, tariff wars are a benighted strategy. The ground has shifted in the 21st century. Old fashioned protectionism will not reverse the impact of pervasive technological advancements.

As for immigration, legal and otherwise? Well, it’s complicated, isn’t it. When asked about illegal immigrants, Ronald Reagan, that idolized conservative, replied that where others see undocumented aliens as lawbreakers, he looks at them and sees “willing workers.” His attitude was typical for many conservatives, business owners, and well-to-do white suburbanites who liked the idea of available cheap labor—farm workers, gardeners, housekeepers, nannies. Then at some point the GOP conservatives saw that the country’s demographic “complexion” was changing, and they figured out that children of those underpaid foreign workers would likely become future Democratic voters. Throw in a big dose of xenophobia from the “whites only” crowd, and conservatives, “so-called,” have adopted another set of optics.

Over the years, conservatives generally have favored maximizing personal freedoms by restricting government intervention in private lives. But the libertarian-leaning Republicans have struck a devil’s bargain with an unlikely ally, evangelical religionists. The latter passionately want government to impose their views on everyone. They want to restrict reproductive rights of women; they want to reverse the law allowing gay marriage; they want their religious observations promoted in schools and public displays. It’s an odd, and scary, contradiction politically speaking.

Has the Trump “conservative” agenda benefitted his base, the left-behind Americans? Not so much as it’s benefitting those at the top.

There’s an old cynical notion from Juvenal, the ancient Roman satirist, that a government can get away with just about anything so long as it gives the commoners “bread and circuses.” Allow the plebians a little money, food and fun, and they’ll ignore even egregious affronts to their true interests. That may describe about where we are at this moment in America.

The recent pittance of a middle-class tax cut fits in this picture, though to be sure the Democrats have done more than their share in handing out “bread” (benefits) to ordinary people. The difference is that welfare from the Republicans tends more often to go to corporations and the wealthy, whose lobbyists and lawyers know how effectively to game the system.

But when it comes to the distracting political “circuses” Juvenal spoke of, the GOP has now Trumped anything we living Americans have ever seen. With our President as ringmaster in chief, we can’t take our eyes off the spectacle. What shocking thing will he do next? His base is enthralled by his outrageous behavior (truly there’s no accounting for taste in entertainment, as his rallies demonstrate). The rest of us stand agape, often outraged, but we too give him our frustrated attention.

If this is the measure of contemporary “conservatism,” we have it in spades.