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A Petulant Kevin Williamson: Trump Deserves No Credit for the Dobbs Decision
Hoo-Boy. Roe v. Wade was overturned last week in no small part due to Trump-appointed Justices Comey-Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch. If Hillary had prevailed in 2016 (as Never Trumpers would have preferred*), all three of those justices would have been replaced with ideological clones of Ruth Bader “Populations We Don’t Want to Have Too Many Of” Ginsberg. (Which, incidentally, means the gun rights and religious schools cases would have gone the other way as well). The Babylon Bee brilliantly as usual captured the spirit of the thing.
“As Nominee, Donald Trump Would Do Incalculable Damage to the Pro-Life Cause,” wrote French in 2016. “Get ready for a slow-motion pro-life train wreck if Trump’s the nominee.”
Never Trumpers have been a bit stung by the criticism they’ve gotten. “Well, we did like his supreme court picks but any other Republicans would have chosen the same type.” This ignores the salient point that there wasn’t another Republican on the presidential ballot to vote for in 2016, and they were really pulling for Trump’s defeat.
Anyway, Kevin D. Williamson isn’t going to take this lying down. He has produced one of his trademark screeds saying that Trump deserves no credit, and Never Trump deserves no blame, for the outcome of the Dobbs decision.
“A lucky or unlikely outcome, no matter how pleasing it is when it happens, does not retroactively redeem stupid and irresponsible decisions. The fact that something dumb worked out in a fortunate way does not mean that the thinking that went into it wasn’t stupid and irresponsible.” – Kevin D. Williamson (It’s behind the Wall of Shame, so Twitchy provides an excerpt.)
So, no, the Dobbs decision does not make me regret opposing Donald Trump in 2016. If anything, it highlights exactly how shallow and dishonest Trumpist criticism of the conservative movement often has been.
Donald Trump was, until he decided he wanted the Republican presidential nomination, an across-the-board social progressive: not only pro-abortion but “very pro-choice” in his own words, a supporter of gay marriage, a supporter of left-wing gun-control proposals, etc.
…
Donald Trump is still a ridiculous buffoon, and those who supported him in 2016 were still fools to do so.
To be honest, this is a big reason I prefer Trumpism to Bush-Republicanism. The Bushies viewed elective office as a mandate to pursue their personal policy preferences even when they were at odds with what their voters wanted. George W. Bush’s focus on passing an amnesty for illegal immigrants is no doubt the premier example. Whereas Trump evidently pushed policies on gun rights, anti-abortion, and religious freedom that were at odds with his personal beliefs, because, unlike Bush, understood that he was obliged to represent the will of his voters in office and not his personal beliefs.
*Never mind their silly, desperate schemes to throw the election to the House of Representatives. Four years later, they declared that disputing the results of a presidential election was tantamount to sedition.
Published in General
French is a hack. The pro lifers who he despises have carried the flame for 50 years.
I subscribe to the Web Hubbell theory.
This ruling will give something for Trump to brag about besides the Covid vaccines.
This is one of the times I wish we had a laugh option to respond to comments rather than just a like option.
Somebody get that dog off of his car roof. Isn’t there a law or something?
The sanctimony of David French is limitless
It’s pretense signaling.
“Bend over and take it.”
That Dispatch article is 100 proof David French navel gazing: Starts by rehearsing his own virtuous history, then spends the rest of it agonizing that the pro-life movement has yet to live up to his own moral purity.
It is Pride Month, after all. Has anyone pointed out to him yet that Pride is a sin?
Thanks. Not much point in having word privilege, if one can’t, occasionally, deploy it in a good cause.
Few of us understood Trump, I’m not sure even Trump did, but he was sorting out what was important. That is why he was tossed from office. In addition to leaving us with sound constitutionalists on the bench, he showed many what needs to be done. He didn’t get to a fundamental requirement, downsizing the Federal government but I think he was was setting that up as well. Unfortunately, the Chinese fostered disease and mistaken reaction to it helped undo, not just Trump, but probably the Republic. If we can win the next two elections, and it will require us to confront massive fraud, we’ll have to complete the job, whether Trump is the candidate or not.
And any other Republican may very well not have chosen the same type. Part of the frustration with Bush-style Republicans is the history of David Souters and John Roberts they put on the court. GWB was all set to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court, for Pete’s sake.
I have made pretty clear over the last years that I am no fan-boy of Trump’s. I have known him for more that 60 years, didn’t like him as a kid, and never really warmed up to him as an adult. Having said that, I need to say that there is absolutely no question that he deserves the lion’s share of credit for the really remarkable things that have been accomplished through his SCOTUS nominees.
I have watched with growing disgust the nominees of previous Republican presidents who have taken distinct turns to the left once they were confirmed. Trump set out to select only the cream from the selection committee of the Federalist Society. How he made that determination is unimportant to me. He may well have had very good advisors in this regard. What was important was that he never backed down once he made a nomination. The support of McConnell, et al., certainly helped. However, it was Trump who actually made the real difference, and he deserves the credit. The unwillingness of the Never-Trumpers and other assorted Trump haters to give him his due destroys what little respect I have for them and their real concern about the issues that were resolved last week in the court.
Now, having said that, I need to say that I do not support Trump’s desire to run again. I think it could lead to our losing all that has been gained. I would much rather see DeSantis carry the ball over the goal line, or, at least, advance it. My feeling is that Trump’s negatives, as far as the total electorate goes, far outweigh his positives. He has soiled the waters around him by his egotism and unwillingess to let the past be the past. This behavior is far too close to what his arch-enemy, Hillary Clinton, did after the 2016 election, and it diminished her even further in the eyes of the electorate.
I would certainly vote for him, if he became the nominee, and I would support his presidency without question. I just have serious doubts about his ability to win an election against anyone of any substance on the left, and who that opponent would be is still a moveable feast. We have seen relative unknowns rise from nowhere supported by Soros and others and become powerful candidates. I don’t think that Biden or Harris will be contenders in 2024.
He gets a ton of credit for stopping Garland from getting on the court.
He cannot take a win, or give Trump credit for anything. The TDS is STRONG in this one…it’s Rubinesque.
Only because they make the bank on the write…
He is angry because they didn’t do it HIS way. I really think that is what upsets him the most. He is the guy who thinks that his way is the only way to accomplish something, and when his way wasn’t selected, he is going to predict gloom and doom, and when it works, he will still say that it didn’t work well enough because it wasn’t HIS way.
I think that Salena Zito said it best about Trump. His supporters take him seriously but not literally, and his detractors take him literally but not seriously.
He is akin to the Pharasises
My interest in Mr. Williamson’s opinions dropped off pretty fast, along with my respect for the fellow, when I heard him talk, on one of his podcasts, about his plans to leave America, which he considered a lost cause, and move to a better country.
It is more than a little ironic that we can probably credit Trump’s ignorance* for his decision to outsource the selection of all of his judicial nominees to the Federalist Society. Had Trump been a man more conversant with politics and political philosophy, he might have had his own thoughts and opinions about individual nominees — and so ended up no better at selecting judges than most presidents have been.
* Note: I voted for him twice and think he was a good President, despite his ignorance — and perhaps, in large part, because of it.
Or did he simply trust certain advisors. Obama always declared himself smarter than anyone else who worked for him. But the sign of a good leader is the willingness to surround yourself with good advisors who have strengths where you do not.
I tend to agree with Henry that it’s likely more due to Trump not caring about it and willing to outsource it. Which is fine by me. My votes for Trump, like many Trump voters, are transactional in nature. I was willing to put up with the nonsense for the chances of getting some good outcomes that would otherwise not happen. This is number one on the list. Whether it happened because Trump was wise enough to trust advisors or bored enough to toss it to the Federalist Society, I don’t care, and I give Trump full marks either way.
I recognize, too, that there were some around Trump who he should not have listened to.
Fauci being a prime example.
It’s a win/lose proposition, with both alternatives at the end of a straight line in-between. My respect for him might have diminished if I’d heard him say he was planning to leave America (and move to where–exactly–things are better?) because things here haven’t gone entirely his way.
But it would have increased exponentially, had he actually done it.
I do believe he’s still here. Isn’t he? Which puts him at the “lose” end on both counts.
Yep.
All talk.
And he doesn’t vote.
You probably mean 100 percent, since “proof” is double the alcohol %.
100 proof would be only 50% navel gazing.
When I was listening to Mad Dogs and Englishmen, he was talking about Switzerland. It sounded to be in the final stages. That must have been around the time National Review podcast feeds stopped working through Ricochet and I didn’t search out that podcast from National Review directly. I haven’t paid attention to him in years so I don’t know if he ended up moving.
I don’t recall it ever seeming imminent, nor even probably very serious. I think he was just venting his contempt for the state of the country, for flyover America, for average people with average minds — you know, all the filth who shop at Wal*Mart and voted for Trump. I don’t think he was serious about leaving, just making it clear that he considers us a bunch of losers.
But that’s enough for me.
Henry Drew and Bryan all agreeing with the same sentiment.