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Decius Has Responded
Decius Responds to Critiques of Flight 93
Published in GeneralWell that was unexpected.
Everything I said in “The Flight 93 Election” was derivative of things I had already said, with (I thought) more vim and vigor, in a now-defunct blog. I assumed the new piece would interest a handful of that blog’s remaining fans and no one else. My predictive powers proved imperfect.
Which should cheer everyone who hated what I said: if I was wrong about the one thing, maybe I’m wrong about the others. But let me take the various objections in ascending order of importance.
A cogent and forceful response indeed.
I especially like this part:
Novecentescriptial Congratulations.
If you believe Trump is mounting a defense of the Constitution, I can see why you support him. I think he is doing the exact opposite, and that is the problem.
Congratulations on the 900th! If memory serves, I believe your 1st post was also the 1st post on the membership page. Am I right?
Good heavens, I can’t remember what I had for breakfast last Friday. Was it?
We used to have access to all the postings dating back to the launch of the Member Feed. I recall seeing you as the first poster and making a note of it in the past. We no longer seem to have such immediate access to verify…but it is a vivid enough recollection to declare unequivocally that its an absolute fact.
Unless someone’s recollection is better than mine!
In lieu of another eyewitness, I accept your recollection.
Your milestone deserves some Sibelius.
He is not playing his assigned role of gentlemanly loser the way McCain and Romney did, and may well have tapped into some previously untapped sentiment that he can ride to victory. This is a problem for both the Right and the Left. The professional Right (correctly) fears that a Trump victory will finally make their irrelevance undeniable. The Left knows that so long as Republicans kept playing by the same rules and appealing to the same dwindling base of voters, there was no danger. Even if one of the old breed had won, nothing much would have changed, since their positions on the most decisive issues were effectively the same as the Democrats and because they posed no serious challenge to the administrative state.
Trump is making a defense of the constitution possible, in the only way possible today. All of the conservatives were just wrong on this. The flow of new leftists through immigration had to stop as a predicate to re-asserting the constitution. Also, we needed a campaign that made it possible to win while being branded a racist in order to de-weaponize the left’s delegitimization techniques. Only once that is done can the right actually accomplish anything to restore constitutional order. The managerial class needs to lose to someone who scares them in order to re-assert control over the march of the administrative state.
Decius is 100% correct.
Otherwise, you could elect Ted Cruz every four years for the rest of his life and we would still get more progressivism.
So, kind of like we had to destroy the village in order to save it.
OK. Trump is your guy then.
One can point to a few enduring successes: Tax rates haven’t approached their former stratosphere highs. On the other hand, the Left is busy undoing welfare and policing reform. Beyond that, we’ve not been able to implement our agenda even when we win elections—which we do less and less. Conservatism had a project for national renewal that it failed to implement, while the Left made—and still makes—gain after gain after gain. Consider conservatism’s aims: “civic renewal,” “federalism,” “originalism,” “morality and family values,” “small government,” “limited government,” “Judeo-Christian values,” “strong national defense,” “respect among nations,” “economic freedom,” “an expanding pie,” “the American dream.” I support all of that. And all of it has been in retreat for 30 years. At least. But conservatism cannot admit as much, not even to itself, in the middle of the night with the door closed, the lights out and no one listening.
I tried to tell it, and it got mad.
Somehow I doubt Mona Charen and all of her ilk are capable of understanding the above facts.
I think Decius is right about at least one thing: Never Trump and Reluctant Trump conservatives largely diverge along the last-chance/we-can-survive-intact belief.
The village was already destroyed. The question is how to rebuild it.
Just your half. Sorry about that.
It was a good response. I found this quote especially meaningful:
I live in a perma-liberal state. Aside from some minor annoyances, life is good here. I can afford to pay the confiscatory tax rates. From a strictly self-interested point of view, leftism has not harmed me significantly nor likely will it anytime soon. I often say the wrong thing but it is not widely advertised and is considered part of my curmudgeonly charm by those around me.
No, what enrages me is the hypocrisy, the mendacity, the denial of reality, and the abuse (verbal and otherwise) of the makers and doers of our country. It makes my blood boil even though everything is fine for me.
There are only two responses:
It falls to those who suffer most from the oppression of leftism to man the barricades and charge the enemy. I’ll cheer them on, those few who remain. Since the new electorate seems to be OK with the direction of the country I’m not optimistic about their chances. We get the government we deserve, good and hard.
One can’t overemphasize the importance of this. Republicans have been cowed by the Left this way for years. The conservative agenda has doomed by this problem.
I imagine it to be dry toast and water following an Ambrosian Morning Hymn.
You got the water part right. Always Gregorian when praying Prime in the Divine Office, though.
I know, just the half that believes in capitalism and freedom.Well, I guess that is substantially less than half the country. Apparently, it’s not even half of the Republican Party.
Trump definitely wants to do things his way. He has been devouring news throughout his adult life, he has formed an opinion and made a snap judgment on every headline, and he has envied people who went into politics rather than business.
But like a lot of people who start out railing against government, when they become part of it, they find out why things happened the way they did, and they wisely leave much the way it was.
This is what I call the Yes, Minister effect.
And having lived through so many changes of the guard in Washington, I think there may be some truth to the plot in that great movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Somewhere in the Oval Office, there’s a book that contains everything the president needs to know about the past and present, and therefore the future. The book is handed down president to president. That’s why nothing significant ever seems to change from one inauguration to the next.
Hah! I skipped breakfast last Friday! Also last Thursday, last Wednesday, last Tuesday…
Yes. The other half practices capitalism and freedom.
Have Republicans in recent decades been putting up much of a “defense” in any way other than using the word “Constitution” a lot during election season? We slow down the Democrats from time to time, but the primacy of the administrative state remains unquestioned and unchallenged, and I don’t see any Constitutional authorization for the IRS going after its political opponents, Obamacare and its non-mythical death panels, or the insane and infinite amounts of regulations that virtually nobody would support if they were even understandable. All of the above has been funded with the authorization of Republicans, and there’s no reason to believe that will ever change unless the face of our party changes. Yes, Trump is a risk, but another mild-mannered Republican mouthing platitudes about the Constitution and tax cuts simply isn’t going to cut it.
All in all, this essay is far more measured than the first one, but I think it’s even more effective. I won’t name names, but I can already tell from some of the comments here that folks are criticizing it that haven’t read it.
Which part of that quote is destroying the constitution?
Apparently all of them since they all adhere to the hidden penumbra emanation in the constitution that includes “In no way shall anyone make true conservatives uncomfortable”
Or more broadly, which of Trump’s policy positions would destroy the constitution. Actual policy proposals please, not rhetoric to the press.
The media is doing everything to portray Trump as the most evil racist meanie in American history.
If Trump loses, such techniques will be seen to have worked. We can rest assured that every future election will feature them as prominently as this one, even if we nominate the likes of Kasich forevermore.
If Trump wins, it will show that such techniques actually have their limits so there’s a chance (no guarantee, obviously) they’ll be curtailed in the future. The media desperately needs a presidential election loss to demonstrate they’re not yet omnipotent. Otherwise, they’ll act as if they’re even less accountable than they do now.