The eminent conservative Edmund Burke was once quoted as saying that society was a partnership of the dead, the living, and the unborn. What he meant by that was that we live on the intellectual and physical capital given to us by our ancestors, and we thus have a moral obligation to pass on that, and perhaps a bit more, to succeeding generations. Risky experiments that threaten the species’ inheritance are not, therefore, a good idea.
The current GOP clearly does not believe that. The Trump tax cut essentially is an invitation to party today at the expense of our children, who will have to deal with the implications of a much larger deficit. The GOP’s stance on climate change is to do nothing in the face of pending disaster because it might reduce our standard of living slightly in the short run. It’s the opposite of conservatism.