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This Is the Problem Right Here, Cont.
Rich Lowry is, again, out to lecture on just how different Trump is, with the implication it is a bad thing.
It’s not normal for politicians to be greeted rapturously by sports fans unless they just adroitly handled some crisis or won a major war
This is in response to how Trump was received in SC at the Football game.
He goes on to say
He continues to be less a politician than a political and cultural phenomenon
This is both right and wrong. Trump is most certainly a politician. He is not a career politician, but a citizen-politician as envisioned by the Founders. Trump is clearly a cultural phenomenon, as much, or even more so, than Obama, or Kennedy or FDR. Or dare I say it, Ronald Reagan.
As to why Trump is a cultural phenomenon, this is old news. This is what has happened because Conservatism, Inc. and the GOP are losers. They have not one transformational idea even in the pipeline. Indeed, Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature ended Disney’s special status, and much of Conservatism, Inc. could not even cheer it. And most other GOP-controlled states would have just never done it.
Here we are because Conservatism, Inc. and the GOPe don’t offer any real change to the trajectory of the nation. Trump, on the other hand, calls the state of the nation as it is and promises to do something about it. Conservatism, Inc. and the GOPe are more concerned with decorum and the status quo.
Published in General
Yes, IIRC. He said today that she “doesn’t belong anywhere near the White House” even in an advisory capacity. Unless one is looking to start WWIII.
Vivek and Nikki can take a road trip then, because he shouldn’t be any closer.
Or a TV show. I’m sure John Podhoretz would enjoy a new “Odd Couple.”
Uh Huh
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/and-thats-crazy/
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/crazy-sure-but/
It will be interesting to see if they are right.
What is crazy to me, is that these men have no outrage at how Trump is being treated. It is all just a tactical exercise to them. No big deal. Banana Republic stuff, but let’s focus on Trump.
Where are the articles decrying this? Where is the National Review titled “Against Corrupt Justice”?
What would be the world be like if National Review spent as much energy against the politicization of the FBI and DOJ as they did against Trump?
Isn’t Fani Willis admitting that nothing really serious can happen until after election day? Or is that just a “head fake?”
It’s been said before (and better), but I think it bears repeating: Trump could have been an actual centrist working with bith sides and making everyone, including the country, wimners. Instead bith sides chise to eject him in the most corrupt and desteuctive ways available to them.
There is nothing wrong with “working with Democrats” if it’s sincere, competent, and actually delivers some kind of gain conservatives want. The problem has been GOPe timidity, incompetence, and fakery.
Today and for the last few years there had been a lot wrong with “working with Democrats”, but only because these aren’t my dad’s or even my granddad’s Democrats. Sam Nunn is no more.
To McCarthy the injustices meted out against Trump are merely an electoral strategy to ensure that he gets the nomination. Because he’s going to coast to the nomination easily, McCarthy thinks he’s correct. But correlation does not equal causation. It’s also too clever by half. If they wanted Trump to coast to the nomination, all they had to do was do what they did in 2016: give him plenty of air-time and treat him well until he secured the nomination. And then turn on him. But no, they’re going to destroy the rule of law to take him out. To destroy him, not to get him on the ticket. (If getting him on the ticket was the goal, why are Democrats across the country working to remove him from their printed ballots?) No, what they’re doing is not a strategy to ensure Trump gets nominated. It’s an attempt to lock him away forever.
Republicans, of course, think that’s fine. But once he’s locked away, who will return the rule of law to its factory settings? Republicans? Don’t make me laugh.
It’s crazy to me, too. I can believe the “conspiracy theory” that in 2016 the MSM and ALL the pundits and so-called influencers on both sides gave Trump an ambiguous advantage over his Republican opponents before the nomination, but only to give Hilary and easier and more “landslide” win. But I believe they did not give him any deliberate advantage after he became the Republican nominee. They didn’t have to do anything one way or the other; Hillary was a shoo-in.
But I can’t believe the “conspiracy theory” of 57 indictments (or whatever) are for the purpose of boosting Trump, trying this again, in order to obviate Biden running against a more “electable” middle of the road Republican opponent.
Just one reason for this is that some anti-Trump activities actually have currently involved removing him from the ballot so that he can’t legally win. This goes with indicting him so that, in their future argument, he will not be legally able to be sworn in, and is thus in some way currently unelectable.
And they are not trying to sway would-be Trump supporters and hesitant MAGA-prone independents from voting for him; from what I have read, they are officially naming MAGA voters (or already have officially named them) domestic terrorists, and the FBI and DOJ are treating them this way. This is not to get voters to vote for Trump in the primary, but against him. This is practical political terrorism.
And they don’t want a situation in which 40 million (or however many) armed and angry Trump supporters flood into city centers after the election and protest against a diminished police force and national guard because of the appearance of another “rigged” election. If the election has to be rigged it will be a pacifistic few thousands (maybe) of DeSantis or more likely Haley supporters who were screwed and will get loud. But they will not protest. And that will be nothing for the movers and shakers (and the NROs of the county) to sidestep.
No, they want to make it illegal for Trump to even run, or to be on the ballot, let alone be seen as having won the election but for more perceived chicanery.
They don’t want him in, they want him OUT.
Dang. Same sentiment. Almost the same words.
Watching the Reagan – Bush debate. At around 40 min into it, Reagan proposed blockading Cuba as a possible idea against USSR invading Afghanistan. Go after the “Soviet Satellite”
Bush was against it.
Now, let’s be honest. Today in 2023, the only Person as President I can even imagine proposing such a thing would be Trump. And the Conservative Intelligencia would go ape! We all know they would.
The days of National Review backing a revolutionary candidate or president died with its founder.
I regret to report National Review is at it again.
So that’s a quote froom a magazine co-founded by Buchanan. No wonder they find the consensus that they do.
I have little use for Buchanan precisely because his “foolish consistency,” by which I mean an unwavering commitment to carrying out principles in the face of facts which may necessitate some tweaks (I am trying not to be inflammatory) leaves him open to charges which whether founded on black and white are nonetheless difficult to refute. From the article:
To me the squaring of this circle lies in a reasonable assessment that he does not necessarily desire the destruction of Israel, but may be willing to accept it if others feel strongly about it. Which makes refutation a matter of opinion.
Of Buchanan’s questionable stance toward Israel I have nothing to add, but of neocon interventionism, we have blundered into way too many conflicts without any clarity toward U.S. interests, we’ve paid dearly in blood and treasure, and too often with nothing to show in the end. I’m not sure if there’s ever been an intervention that National Review hasn’t endorsed, and in this case it appears they’re promoting intervention by calling up the bogeyman of Buchanan. If you oppose intervention — anywhere, I guess — you’re a terrible Buchananite, and therefore probably an anti-Semite as well. It seems dishonest.
I’m sympathetic to Buchanan’s anti-neocon stance. I read in one of Kissinger’s obituaries about his role helping Nixon “end” the Vietnam war. Not “win” it, just “end” it. And I thought “that right there is the problem with American interventionism.”
As for Israel, how about if we start with our leadership taking the handcuffs off and encouraging Israelis to destroy those bastards!
Could it be difficult to refute precisely because there’s no substance? Just association, insinuation. I’m not a Buchanan expert, but I never got the sense that he was a pacifist either, reflexively opposed to any necessary tweaks. Also, there’s a lot of baggage being carried by both of those words “necessary” and “tweak”.
So much comes down to matters of opinion, differences in assumption. What is “just” or “righteous”? Contrary to people like Christopher Hitchens, the underlying moral assumptions aren’t objective and reason can be monstrous.
I don’t desire anyone be destroyed, but it’s just reality that we need to assess whether we can accept it, indeed whether we could or should do anything about it independent of our acceptance of it.
I was a supporter of W’s ostensible strategy, and I was a holdout longer than most. Heck, I still think it made sense. The problems were many, though, and making sense IF prosecuted properly could not withstand the reality of a radical domestic opposition, general incompetence, the wearying effects of decades, and rapidly deteriorating national health (caused to some degree by prosecuting this long term among other errors).
Certainly not in what I said. I oppose most intervention. As this Ukraine thing was heating up (this time), I clarified my stance somewhere around here that there are three things for which I support our overseas use of force — Nato’s east side, Taiwan’s west side, and all around Israel, the obvious but not exclusive threats there being Russia, China, and Islamic Jihadism.
I’m for boots on ground in NATO and I’m against them in Ukraine. Israel and Taiwan are difficult to turn into boots-on-ground issues, although that remains a great discriminant.
I’m sickened, disgusted, and furious at our waste of men and materiel in various crap-hole corners of the world. Our foreign policy ought to be to mind our business on one hand, and threaten prompt hellfire for those who go out of their way to harm our interests. Yet this is a principle against which at times the circumstance necessitates some tweaking. I think it’s responsible to admit that Israel and Ukraine are only tangentially related to American interests per se, but that we choose to except these into our realm of influence, if not control. Taiwan more directly represents a bright-lline American interest. This at any rate is more honest that retreating into weasel words about how all of these are in fact American interests in the same way that defending our borders, securing our shipping, enforcing our navigation and trade rights, and so forth are clearly American interests.
Foreign policy ought not be a religion — rules, policies, principles may be bent at times with justification. Ghandi’s non-violence included not violently resisting genocide. That’s just stupid, and is exactly the “foolish consistency” to be avoided.
I’m no Buchanan expert either — I had enough of him back in the 1990s or so as he made his really unpleasant case that the US should never have gotten involved in WWII. Just reading the article, the magazine he co-founded doesn’t seem interested in uh nuancing his position, so I’m responding on that basis.
Finally, one good way to not be accused of anti-semitism is to not be close enough to get hit with the brush.
MY POINT: Maybe it’s not fair, but if you accept watching Israel be destroyed, without ignoring all the attendant facts that do and which will accompany that, it seems to me that there’s a problem. That event would not occur in an academic or diplomatic sense, and that matters.
I agree wiith everything you’ve written here. Some assessments are quicker than others. And (per more of your quote not included here), I’m basically aligned with Hitch, although there may be some particular thing you have in mind on which I would part with him.
I do miss Hitchens.
I agree with everything you wrote here as well — I left off your colorful commentary in the last sentence :-)
That was a general ‘you’ sorry. Basically, the thrust of the piece seems an attempt to connect opposition to foreign interventionism to anti-Semitism by way of Buchanan. And neocons big mad that we don’t see Israel and Ukraine the exact same way.
Not a problem, I understood the generic use. Agree about Big Neo being Big Mad.
Okay, I’m just going to put this here.
I oppose interventions other than US core national interests abroad except to cover NATO’s east side, Taiwan’s west side, and Israel’s backside.
I’ll keep working on it, but this could be campaign plank material.
I oppose interventions where we don’t intend to win. As @skyler said, the only moral war is total war.
/and, yes, I suppose I’m a terrible Christian for holding this position, but I despise the loss of life and resources for lost causes.
IIRC, one of the criteria for a “just war” is that it is winnable. So, you are not “a terrible Christian”.
Standard Disclaimer: It’s been a long time since I slogged my way through Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.
Yes, I believe it’s phrased as a “reasonable expectation/chance of success.” Which is another reason I want us to pressure Ukraine to come to terms. I just don’t see how it can succeed in throwing off Russia with its vast resources in men and materiel to throw at the conflict.
But, saying you prefer “total war” elides the other criteria for a just war, which could get one (me) into trouble without clarification.
I don’t think you can apply the same expectations to self-defense. Unless you’re going to tell all women that it’s wrong for them to resist a larger, stronger man. Because they have no reasonable chance of success.
Negotiate what? That Russia keep the territory they have seized? In exchange for what? Russia’s promise not to do it again when they’ve refitted and rearmed? What exactly do you think Ukraine gets from that? The war will only end until Russia decides to take another bite.
I think that everybody who wants to pressure Ukraine to “negotiate” should sit down and write out what they think Ukraine should settle for.