Former Vice President Mike Pence is back with a familiar complaint: Donald Trump isn’t conservative enough. In recent interviews promoting his new book, Pence argued that the Republican Party has drifted away from traditional conservative principles and toward populism under Trump’s leadership.

The problem for Pence is that most Trump supporters aren’t trying to revive a 1980s conservative think tank seminar. They’re supporting a movement built around border security, energy independence, fair trade, law and order, and putting American interests ahead of globalists.

Pence talks about traditional Republican orthodoxy. Trump talks about whether Americans can afford groceries, buy a home, walk safely through their neighborhoods, and sleep a little easier knowing the country isn’t going to get hit by a nuke from Iran.

Trump really isn’t political. He’s a businessman who looks at the big picture with common sense and makes decisions that he thinks will benefit America the most. His decisions often lean on the conservative side but not always. Conservatism isn’t his driving force. American exceptionalism is. And even when we don’t agree with what he’s doing, at least we know that he’s doing what he thinks is best for the country.

Trump’s appeal was never that he fit neatly inside the conservative movement. His appeal was that he bulldozed through the old ways of thinking and doing things. That’s why he got independents, some sane Democrats and people who had never voted before to pull the lever for him.

Millions of voters who had long stopped listening to Republican talking points suddenly started paying attention to politics because Trump spoke the language of common sense instead of ideological purity. Trump promised to do things and most of the time, he has delivered – in spite of the Democrats, the radical left, the media and his own party working against him.

Pence is welcome to defend conservatism. Conservatism is great. But Trump isn’t selling conservatism. He’s selling America First. And judging by the election results, a whole lot of Americans like the product.