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Retire NeverTrump
I was one of the more persistent and vocal NeverTrump people on Ricochet leading up to the election so I think I have the street cred to write this.
It’s time to retire the NeverTrump label. It was a useful label during the election cycle because it was a clear way on the center-right to identity as people who had made the still reasonable decision not to vote for Trump. However, I see a variety of problems with its continued use, including:
- It signals that you are inflexible and closed-minded. By persisting in using the label, you’re telling others that no matter what Trump does in his first administration, you won’t vote for him if he runs again in 2020.
- It’s already being used for virtual signaling and moral preening here on Ricochet. No one likes that sort of behavior. I continue to reject the argument that not voting for Trump was de facto morally preening self-righteousness, but now I’m actually seeing it being specifically used for that purpose . I was clearly wrong about that at least in certain cases.
- It’s an unproductive and unnecessary tribal division for the center-right and Ricochet. I also don’t like the idea of staking out a position where I’m telling people who voted for Trump that I stand waiting to judge them when Trump does something silly or awful and we know that will happen. I also don’t like the behavior that I’m seeing on the Trump voting side essentially reading me out of the center-right because I didn’t vote for Trump. It should be self-evident that this is bad behavior not just from an interpersonal standpoint, but as a political one as well.
I’m back to using the term classical liberal as my primary self-label. NeverTrump served a useful and honorable purpose during the election cycle, but I can’t see any usefulness for it now. I still think he’ll, shall we say, underperform as president, but I could be wrong and end up voting for him in 2020 if he decides to run again. That alone makes the NeverTrump label a poor fit for me and it should for you also.
(She’s gone, right? Gone gone? We’re done with her? Right? Right!?!)
Published in General
To the extent that a NeverTrumper continues to tell us that they know exactly who Trump is and what he will do as President (and that it will not be conservative and will be destructive of the republic), this view of NeverTrump is entirely justified.
The NeverTrumper who decides that it’s time to both live in hope and to pressure Trump to behave as a statesman and a conservative has my best wishes, and earns the right to have NeverTrump given a rest.
Wow, very prescient. What have you correctly predicted about the last 18 months? Do tell.
Undoubtedly, and I’m sure many small government classical liberals were run off because of over the top pro-Trump rhetoric.
To which contributor are you referring? I would be very interested to hear your opinion on which contributor (as opposed to the the various members) you found over-the-top pro-Trump? Victor Davis Hanson, maybe? Hmmm….
Yes. Anti-Trump stuff got a bit out of hand at times. We can keep him accountable without resorting to being stupid about it. The casual use of terms like racist and misogynist was just embarrassing and that part of NeverTrump should die.
The bottom line is that Republicans destroyed the Dems by well over 3 MILLION votes in the HR races and there were possibly as many folks that stayed home altogether. Trump LOST the popular vote. Sure, he could win again if the Dems are stupid enough to run someone who is as bad as her, without the Nevers but are you willing to take that chance? He only got a bit over 59 million votes. That is actually pretty putrid. We are vulnerable in this divided state.
We need to ALL put our pride and bitterness away or at the very least direct it at the right people.
Agreed in that it is hard to move on when the NeverTrumpers are determined not to move on. Trump is President-elect, and its time to hold his feet to the fire. Folks who seem to refuse to accept that reality are to be ignored. If all the contributors persist in that, Ricochet is dead. For @peterrobinson and @roblong (who are both infinitely more civil than the bulk of the contributors) it will be time to rely on a sugar daddy.
To label or claim #NeverTrump now is kind of nuts isn’t it? Delusional.
I mean…President-elect Trump is a fact. Not a prospect.
CNN keeps telling me that words matter.
So there you go. Label retired.
Ditto all that for me.
I was referring to the membership relentless attacks on anyone that dared criticize the great one.
People were called anti-American if they didn’t vote for Trump.
The war is over, it is done.
At this point how about we see if we can make this damn marriage work? How about that?
Seriously, I can’t think of any NeverTrumper who has doubled down since Tuesday night; not here, not in the press, and I’ll bet even Bill Kristol is at least saying cordial things about future opportunities for a Trump Administration. What are you talking about?
Just because I didn’t vote for him doesn’t mean I don’t want him to succeed. I felt the same way about Obama (but with a lot less optimism about the results).
Trump is now our president. It’s time to pray for his success.
Almost every post I have read today is themed: Nevertrumpers/Reluctant Trumpers let’s help Trump become the best and most conservative GOP president since Ronald Fricking Reagan.
I decided to leave ricochet because of Trump over a year ago.( actually I just didnt update my membership). I even removed ricochet members from Facebook friends, even though they didnt like Trump either. I thought right-wing atmosphere just causes group-thinking madness and someone like Trump can just jump in as their hero.
When Trump actually won, it was a shock, first, but when I saw good people whining I felt schadenfreude. It was same thing with brexit, same people were misled by mean press and campaign was full of lies, but now press was on “the right”side, so people are just mad and dumb and full of misogyny and racism, the world is going to hell. I realized, again, that they are not as smart as they thing they are, their whine is just repetition every time election goes wrong.
I still dont how I feel about Trump. I didnt see debates, but now I know Hillary was crap. And I am not going to look just Trumps possible mistakes to feel good. He can try to do job, if he does well, fine.
In my haste I omitted “strategically placed votes.”
Try this:
[Of counties] Obama won once, 194 [went] for Trump; 13 for Clinton
[Of counties] Obama won twice, 209 [went] for Trump; 467 for Clinton
By contrast, of those 2,200 counties that never supported Obama, Clinton was only able to win six. That’s just 0.3 percent crossover to the Democratic side.
I am not a numbers guy, help me out. When we say a county voted for Obama (either once or twice) and then voted for Trump Tuesday, does that mean the SAME people who voted for Obama (once or twice) voted for Trump this year OR that DIFFERENT people showed up to vote for Trump, and the former Obama voters just stayed home. Maybe that is obvious to some. I’m not the sharpest….
I embraced the Never Trump label after the first few debates and primaries, I decided that I had seen enough and nothing could persuade me to vote from Trump in November. I meant it as fair warning to my fellow Republicans: I can unite behind any of these other candidates even if they aren’t my first choice, but if you nominate Trump, you’ll have to win without my vote. Which they did, and which he did, to my great surprise.
Going forward, of course I want him to be a great President. I was willing to give Obama a chance in 2008, I’m certainly willing to give Trump a fair chance. Moreover my concerns about him included:
So yes, the label has outlived its usefulness now that the election is over.
There is no way to know for sure (though some vote totals from the counties would tell you something), but it is probably a combination of all three (some dems switched, some dems stayed home, and more repubs showed up).
Would you mind providing some specifics please? From my pov this is a wild statement. And it is more attributable to left/progressive style arguments than reality.
Have you even read this very thread? Personally I am happy to let all this go. I am actually ecstatic these days.
Yes, I’ve read everything. How far have you gotten?
Are some people still suspicious about Trump? Sure. But overwhelmingly I am seeing comments of former NeverTrumpers (including myself) willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. In this post and everywhere else. At this point I am just sick and tired of the continuous broad brush attacks on the character and alleged motives of a group of dissenting voters (in an election that is over) by the winners who are acting like a bunch of dead-enders manning the last bunker on the beachhead.
During the last months I heard the same mantra: “Oh, I was for someone else in the primaries, I didn’t want Trump because he is terribly flawed (terribly, I tell you), but now that the primaries are over I’m going to hold my nose for Trump and you need to get in line, too (and I will absolutely not tolerate hearing any criticism of the man I just said was terribly flawed).” Right.
This election is over and so is this debate over whether Trump will make a good or bad president. He’s going to be the president, with all his advantages and flaws. I want to see him advance the conservative agenda I was told he would champion. I am more than willing to support this administration but I have no patience for this tedious and brooding hero worship.
OK I am done…like I said before, happiness abounds and a new and positive direction appears just around the corner. We have a Republican government (except for the bureaucracy) that has a chance to make great strides in securing our borders and opening our economy and bringing the courts back to a constitutional focus. From hearing Paul Ryan, it sounds as if he is very much in sync right now with Trump. I can practically guaranty none of us would be feeling comfortable if Hillary Clinton were waiting in the wings instead of Trump. So yea! If that is hero worshipping, I am there.
Here’s to getting on the same team.
I understand that you are fine with having called yourself NeverTrump, spoken NeverTrump and voted NeverTrump. I also understand your articulation of the reasons you no longer find the term useful and don’t want to use it for yourself, but all three reasons existed before the election. It signaled closed mindedness (albeit about the 2016 election), it was used for virtue signaling and moral preening, and it was an unproductive and unnecessary tribal division. If you want to use a different term to describe what you are now, so be it. Someone who is open to voting for Trump in 2020 isn’t NeverTrump anymore.
But the past matters, and the term cannot be banished, especially by people who adopted the name for themselves. More importantly, as the comments here show, some NeverTrumpers are doubling down, and for them the name must stick.
It signaled reaching a decision not to vote for Trump. I don’t think having decided to vote one way or the other prior to Election Day is evidence of being “closed minded.” Otherwise, the only truly open-minded voters were those undecided swing voters who still hadn’t made up their mind days before the election.
Cool. Just listened to the Ricochet Podcast and Jim Lileks, Mona Charen, and Peter Robinson approvingly discuss this post and thread. Congrats @Publius. You’ve made it to the bigtime! (See starting about the 52 minute mark).
It’s the “tribal” part that gets me. Your view is, you own my vote, and I’m hurting the “tribe” if I don’t vote for who you want me to vote for.
FTR, I am not part of your tribe. I am not a Republican, I’m a classical liberal. If you want my vote, don’t nominate an authoritarian central planner. If you think your candidate is not an authoritarian central planner, convince me of that, don’t tell me I am hurting your tribe and expect me to care.
Let’s agree that you can vote for whomever you want to vote for and I can vote for whomever I want to vote for.
That’s. so. cool. I don’t want to go all groupie on @jameslileks , @monacharen , and @peterrobinson, but…