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Contra Jonah
An excerpt from “Character Is Destiny” by Jonah Goldberg at National Review:
Trump’s character will be his downfall.
For a very long time now, I have been predicting that the Trump presidency will end poorly because character is destiny. I’ve said it so often, I occasionally need to be reminded that I didn’t coin the phrase. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus did when he observed “ethos anthropoi daimon,” most often translated as “man’s character is his fate.”
Character is one of those topics, like culture or morality, that everyone strongly supports yet also argues about. When James Q. Wilson, one of the greatest social scientists of the last half-century, turned his scholarly attention to character, many of his colleagues in academia were repulsed. Even though every one of them surely believed in some notion of good character, it was assumed that to talk of it, let alone seek a definition of it or a plan for how to cultivate it, would be an exercise in lending aid and comfort to the moralizers of the Right.
But Wilson, a man of both good and conservative character, had a more humble and universal definition than his colleagues might have expected: decency, politeness, self-restraint, commitment, honesty, cooperativeness, and the ability to think of others’ well-being.
Weirdly, it’s gotten to the point that when I say President Trump is not a man of good character, I feel like I should preface it with a trigger warning for many of my fellow conservatives.
I have been very tolerant too long. Mr. Goldberg is an affable highly intelligent man and a gifted writer. However, there is a certain shallowness in his outlook that bothers me. No, it isn’t his humor and predilection for talking about old Star Trek episodes or his family and dogs. This is fun and I hope he keeps on doing it. However, there is a certain intellectual level that he does not cross and seems to feel it not necessary. We will now cross it.
The difference between fate and destiny is not trivial. Sure, you can go to Roget’s Thesaurus and find them both in the same section heading. However, the difference in meaning is critical to the development of Western Civilization’s thought. The Greeks, immanental polytheists, believed in fate. If your character was flawed at birth so did the rest of your life follow the preordained pattern. However, there is a new competitor on the block to Greek Wisdom and that is Monotheistic Morality. Transcendental Monotheism, Western Civilization’s religious tradition believes in destiny, not fate. Your destiny is the highest achievement that you have the capacity for in life. Rather than this being a done deal at birth, Transcendental Monotheism believes in Moral Free Choice. If you can make the right choices or even the wrong choices and go through a redemption process then you can achieve your destiny.
There are examples of people losing their Free Choice in the Bible. The classic one is Pharaoh in the book of Exodus (book of Shemos for the Jews reading along). For the first five plagues that Gd brings to Egypt Pharoh has his Free Will and can redeem himself by allowing the Israelites to go. Instead, Pharaoh doubles down on his choice not to let them go. After the first five plagues, Gd intervenes and removes Pharaoh’s Free Will. Now, Gd intends to use Pharaoh to make it clear that it is Gd’s will that runs the world and not Pharaoh’s. Some find this troubling in terms of the whole doctrine of Free Will. I do not for two reasons. First, as Gd created Man with Free Will it is obvious that Gd could then take it away. Second, five plagues are already a lot of plagues. We can surmise from this that there is a point of no return after which someone should be judged as irredeemable but it takes a lot to get to this point. This is very very different from the Greek notion of fate. If Pharaoh, after all that had happened up to the fifth plague, had decided, even for the wrong reason, to relent and let the Israelites go he still could have been redeemed.
Now let’s get back to the center of focus of many articles written by political pundits currently, that of President Trump’s character. What exactly has President Trump done that allows Jonah Goldberg to be far more brutally judgmental than the Gd of the Old Testament (The Torah, for the Jews reading along)? Has he enslaved anybody? Has he corrupted the Government? Has he perverted Justice? Of course, the answer, for anyone but the truly deranged, is simply no. Trump’s horrible crimes for which he can never be redeemed involve a crass TV show, a one time tryst with a porn actress, and the propensity to change his cabinet members more often than the incredibly wise Jonah would think proper. Odd how I can’t see anything here which would permanently condemn him.
He has a stable marriage to Melania. He appears to act very responsibly and even lovingly to his children. He has so far never had sex with a 21-year-old intern in the Oval Office while President. The President who did this wasn’t considered irredeemable but rather that it was none of anyone’s business who he was shtupping, however abusive. Even the naive to the point of childish Monica Lewinsky has finally realized just how badly she was used. Yet, there was a demand not that Clinton should be forgiven for a sin but that he shouldn’t have been blamed at all.
However, Jonah has a special insight into the terribleness of Trump’s crimes and knows that they are irredeemable. Jonah also has a special explanation for my bringing up the Lewinsky thing. I am guilty of the special intellectual sin of “whataboutism.” Apparently, Jonah’s view of the moral universe is that events have some sort of expiration date. If it hasn’t happened recently then you must be bringing this up gratuitously. Apparently, one is to judge without any context whatsoever. Again, this sounds like something that the Gd of the Old Testament would be really good at but might be a little above a mortal’s pay grade. Also, Jonah gets to decide what is “whataboutism” and what is legitimate context. Luckily, Jonah is omniscient so this is no difficulty.
Certainly, I am not asking that Jonah be a Trump cheerleader and wear (gasp!) a MAGA hat. I have never worn a MAGA hat and I don’t think that anything I’ve written or said qualifies me to be a cheerleader. I was very unhappy to see both Nikki Haley and Jim Mattis go. They both seemed extremely valuable and effective players on the team. However, Trump does not telegraph what his intentions are so I really don’t have a way of judging this.
I know that HRC would never have hired either Mattis or Haley and given them their head for two years. That was the real choice of 2016. The next time it may be worse. Sanders, Harris, or Beto may be considerably more left-wing psychotic than even HRC on her second bottle of white wine. That’s not Jonah’s problem. He, not unlike the Gd of the Old Testament, lives beyond this world and is not directly affected by anything that happens in it. Well, apparently, a bad Star Trek movie or one of his dogs tearing up his slippers can affect him. Oddly, there is a theory that the Gd of the Old Testament is deeply concerned and affected by all human behavior. In fact, this Gd is concerned about every human being that has ever lived or will live.
Of course, if fate ruled human beings so that their trajectory in life was as well known as a stone’s trajectory then why would Gd’s concern matter? That would end all of that, wouldn’t it? Hopefully, Jonah will never be in need of Gd’s concern as such a situation wouldn’t be pretty. Not that Gd would think him as unredeemable as Pharaoh. However, Jonah might attain the level of moral intransigence of say Ebenezer Scrooge. If so, Jonah should expect a very rough night on one of the upcoming Christmas Eves.
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Published in General
I think he once said that Jonah didn’t know how to buy pants. When you’ve been personally attacked like that, it can cloud your judgment.
Jonah and his fellow travelers want something – anything – to be Trump’s downfall so much that they grasp at anything they can think of. Oh well, he’ll always just be Lucianne Goldberg’s son to me.
Bishop,
You have a point. However, have you ever seen Jonah’s pants?
Regards,
Jim
Well said! Thanks.
RA,
Could somebody please tell me why Lucianne doesn’t have a bi-weekly column shot on NR herself? I mean Jonah is fun but I’d really like to know what’s happening. I think the woman could tell us a lot.
Regards,
Jim
I’ve only met Jonah once and I don’t remember what his pants looked like. Fortunately, he was wearing a pair.
It appears that Jonah is getting impatient for his prognostication of Trump failure to come true.
The NR cruise wasn’t the pleasure variety?
I don’t think that such a warning is “weird” at all in that it warns the listener “here we go again.” I do not consider the President a man of “good character,” but am nonetheless tired of hearing about it ad nauseam from segments of the punditocracy.
This outlook also begs the question of the elements of “good character,” the extent to which those elements are malleable depending on the person and the times, and what other national leaders are/were not of “good character.” Is it a sign of “good character,” for example, to foist a health plan upon a nation and assure that nation that it will not affect one of the most personal decisions of all, their choice of physician.
I think there is another word from my youth for what Mr. Goldberg is getting at–karma. In this I’m a believer to an extent. Whether it applies to governing a nation, with all of the variables involved, remains to be seen.
He did a victory lap, premature or not, on the latest Remnant episode.
Excellent. Thank you. I stopped reading him when it became obvious to me that he couldn’t write a single article about anything at all without putting in an unsightly and unpalatable dig at Trump; not even writing nicely about his wife: his comment was that she had an equanimitable character, which no doubt benefitted her greatly in dealing with her husband. Great backhanded compliment to Mrs. Trump.
Great thinker. Highly morally-bigoted.
Ah, I long for the good old “character” days of Bill Clinton. I wonder how his victims are feeling now that Trump is in office and there’s a truly bad character behind the desk.
It was at the live Ricochet podcast event in January 2014 and not a cruise.
Why does this picture keep coming to mind?
Bishop,
Well, given our present culture wearing pants is a positive sign. Perhaps civilization is not collapsing. Then again maybe civilization although not collapsing is severely impaired. Were Jonah’s pants pressed?
Regards,
Jim
They had an almost presidential-like crease to them.
They had a nice crease horizontally mid-thigh?
Bishop,
I heard that podcast too. I thought he was positively gleeful, especially with the stock market down as far as it was. The market came back 1,000 points yesterday and is right now more than 250 points up. Jonah should have waited before he broke out the champaign.
Even a wounded Trump is not to be trifled with.
Regards,
Jim
::Gasp:: We’re doomed!!
Bishop,
Well, that’s a relief. Still, I really wish NR would give his mother a shot.
Regards,
Jim
Actually, I agreed with everything Jonah wrote (I read the whole article at NRO). And many of the comments here don’t rise above ad hominem digs – you want to bring up his Mom? Really?
My fear with Trump going into 2016 — based on his predications of the previous 39 years in the public spotlight — was that he was someone who would gauge where the sentiment of the majority of the public was going and use his access to the public spotlight to say he was angrier than they were about whatever they were angry about at the moment. And since the swing voters tend to flittler from the Democrats to the Republicans and back again, so did Trump over the years. He really didn’t need pollsters in 2016 because he became expert since 1977 in knowing where the passion of the public was going, with only a few mistakes (I think he was actually surprised the Romney didn’t win in 2012 based on his position on immigration, and scrambled post-election to get back at least for the moment to where he though the public was).
Trump’s been treated so badly since 2015 by the media and the Democrats in general, that pattern may not hold up in 2019. Pre-president Trump would be adjusting his message at least a little towards the Democrats in 2019, because that’s the direction the swing voters went in on Nov. 6, when they gave the Dems control of the House, and that’s been part of Jonah’s message over the past three years, that Trump’s not a real conservative and because of his lack of character when it came to core beliefs, won’t stand by conservative ideals when push comes to shove.
But going into the 2020 election cycle, nothing Trump does is going to get the Dems to warm to him, let alone the media. So he’s sort of stuck having to work with his legacy of the past two years, and attempting to woo back the swing voters without angering his based on the right (where people like Ann Coulter already are shunning Trump, albeit for a totally different reason than why Jonah would shun Trump, let alone maniacal #NeverTrumpers like Kristol, Boot or Rubin).
What’s beginning to bother me about Trump is his casual attitude concerning facts — and his reluctance to correct himself about his “misstatements” (fabrications, lies, fibs, inaccuracies, statements contrary to fact —take your pick.)
Interesting take, thanks for the food for thought. A couple months ago I thought Trump was bulletproof for 2020, but now since Mattis retired I’m not too sure. I still think if he keeps his trade team together (Mnuchin, Lighthizer, etc.), then he’ll be winning, though it’s less of a shoe-in now. We’ll see what the next 2 years hold!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/
This is an insight into his character. Dealing with varying styles of contractors and their business ethics, I recognize the type. This comes from the top. I stipulate that Pres. Trump is convinced that he is a good man.
My brother-in-law knew a woman who did consulting work with Trump. He agreed to her fee, and paid her some upfront per the arrangement. After the work was done, he refused to pay her the remaining amount and told her to sue him if she wanted it. Apparently that was a common practice of his, because he knew that it wouldn’t pay for most people to hire a lawyer.
Painter,
I didn’t bring up his Mom but actually, I am quite sincere about it. She is quite brilliant and might very well try her hand at writing a column for NR. As far as you agreeing with everything Jonah wrote, well now, you will force me to be serious. Do you believe that Trump has some horrible primordial crime hanging over him like Oedipus Rex? A crime so unsavory that his life must end in destruction? This is the message of Jonah’s column. He wants credit for seeing “Trump’s fatal flaw” before the rest of us did. I tried to suggest that Jonah’s argument is the fatal flaw. Apparently, my credentials are lacking.
For the past 2.5 years, Trump has been relentlessly attacked as a traitor to the U.S.A by a cabal of Dems who have manufactured a false report to the FISA court to create a false special prosecutor position and give it to a completely biased predatory prosecutor. This predatory prosecutor has gone way past the scope of any purpose for his existence and abused his power to extort a false confession to a non-crime from one of Trump’s people. All of these actions by the cabal are criminal. It is Trump who is innocent. Perhaps you will accept the opinion of someone who has better credentials than I.
The Mueller Investigation Is Stirring Up More Trouble Than It’s Finding – Victor Davis Hanson
VDH is trying to tell you that it is Trump who is the victim of a conspiracy to destroy his presidency. Mueller started his investigation on false premises, continued it without ever showing any evidence of the reason for his existence, and now extorted a man into confessing to a crime that never existed. Meanwhile, Jonah wails like a Greek Chorus that Trump is doomed! You bet Trump is doomed with friends like Jonah. As my father used to say, “With a friend like that you don’t need an enemy.”
Regards,
Jim
My assumption is that this story will be written off as fake and all these people are lying in order perpetuated the myth of the Great Man.
No, no, and no it’s not, are my answers to those last three questions.
Where does Jonah say that he “wants credit”, and where does he say he wants credit for what you claim he does? You must have read a different article than I did. It has nothing to do with your credentials – what I read and what you read appear to be different things. My explanation for that is that you are reading into Jonah’s article what you want to see in it.
I like Victor Davis Hanson’s writing a great deal. Nevertheless, everything he says about the subject of these investigations could be 100% true and still have no bearing on the subject of Jonah’s article, which is character.
Since when is it Jonah’s job to be a “friend” of Trump?!
And respectful regards to you, Jim.
Jean
I support the President. But I also need people who’s opinions I admire to remind me when he’s being a dumbass. Jonah is one of those people. Trump is often so charismatic that his flaws seem cute or inconsequential.
I’m sorry to say that you are probably spot-on.