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The Immortal Election: Steelmanning the Never-Trump Position
At the first International Chess Tournament, in London in 1851, during a pause between official tournament matches, renowned Prussian chess player Adolf Anderssen sat down to play a friendly game with Lionel Kieseritzky, a Baltic German (today he would be Estonian or Latvian) chess master.
After a brief exchange of pawns and two dozen moves of what can only be described as perplexing play, Anderssen had managed to lose two of his pawns, a bishop, both rooks, and his queen — while capturing only three of his opponent’s pawns in exchange.
Kieseritzky appeared positioned to win with a mate in two, but never got the chance: In a stunning reversal, Anderssen advanced his bishop for a surprise mate using only the bishop and two knights, his sole remaining major pieces.
The game, dubbed “The Immortal Game” by Austrian chess master Ernst Falkbeer, stands today as a brilliant, if stylistically dated, example of sacrificial play. I was fortunate to see it first demonstrated without knowing its conclusion, and so enjoyed the full effect of the unexpected victory: The sacrifices pile up as if a drunkard were playing — I was almost embarrassed for the player and his relentlessly mounting losses.
It’s a peculiar and risky thing, the gambit, the faux-sacrifice that leads to advantage. There are so many ways it might go wrong and leave the gambler in an impossibly weakened position. In such an extreme example as this, it’s tempting to credit luck, but Anderssen was a master of this style of play, one of the greatest, and it seems likely that the game unfolded much as he intended.
I have less confidence in the strategy of those self-described conservatives who make one of what I believe are the two strongest arguments for not supporting Trump in the upcoming election: That the GOP must reform and that Trump being defeated is how we achieve that reform; or that Americans as a whole need to learn how dire is our situation, and four years of Democratic governance at this seemingly precarious point in our history will drive that message home more effectively than anything else possibly could, effectively enough to prompt real change.
Again, I think these are the strongest practical arguments a conservative can make against supporting Trump. I discount personal objections along the lines of “I simply can’t cast a vote for that man,” because I don’t think those are practical, nor even sensible: Barring some extraordinary event, we are going to get President Trump or President Harris, and making no effort to secure the less bad outcome simply because one is personally offended doesn’t make sense in any objective way, and seems both self-indulgent and ultimately destructive.
But there are those two arguments: That it really is in America’s best interest to let Trump lose, because then we’ll learn one of two important things. We’ll either learn that men like Trump should never be nominated, and so the GOP will do better and the nation will prosper as a result. Or Americans will learn just how bad it can get under Democratic rule, and will insist that we change course, and — again — the nation will prosper as a result.
Either strikes me as an enormous gamble, a sacrifice — of a candidate with a known history of relatively conservative governance and a professed desire to pursue the essential dismantling of the overweening state — in exchange for the hope that a lesson, the right lesson, might be learned through that sacrifice. It’s a dangerous gamble for two reasons. First, the damage that might be done by a Harris presidency is, I think, potentially lasting and significant. Second, I see no strong reason to believe that the desired lesson will in fact be learned, either by the GOP or by the American people.
Indeed, it’s easy to imagine that the GOP might learn a very different lesson: That we need candidates who are not combative, who don’t buck the conventional wisdom or challenge the press, who want to compromise with the Democrats in order to get work done. Or that millions of GOP voters will conclude that it doesn’t matter whom they support, because the establishment isn’t going to let them elect their preferred candidate anyway. Those outcomes seem as plausible to me as the more beneficial outcomes imagined by the never-Trumpers.
Similarly, it’s easy to imagine that the American people would, after four years of economic and social upheaval, be even more dependent on government for relief, even more encouraging of an expansion of government handouts we simply can’t afford, but which a Harris administration will drive us deeper into debt to provide.
The world has never witnessed the financial collapse of the American government, nor anything like it. It strikes me as an extraordinarily risky strategy to knowingly hasten that in hopes that we will come to our senses, that in that moment (as Dean Acheson said in a different context), “Cooler heads will prevail.”
Better not to get to that point at all and, while there’s no sure way to avoid it, common sense suggests we should do our best to avoid it for as long as possible.
That’s the point: There’s no sure thing here. We don’t know if a Trump defeat will strengthen the Republican Party or render it fragmented and irrelevant. We don’t know if four more years of Democratic Party governance will leave us with a broken Supreme Court, a wrecked economy, a weakened military facing strong adversaries, a compromised electoral system, restricted speech, and ravaged institutions — in short, in a situation from which normal Americans simply can not achieve, through the ballot box, a return to political sanity.
That seems to me to be what’s at stake. We aren’t playing a chess game, and we can’t afford to make a huge strategic sacrifice and then lose. Those who argue that a Trump defeat will strengthen us have no evidence to support that, whereas the evidence that a Trump presidency will be objectively superior, from a conservative perspective, to a Harris presidency is ample and compelling.
To those who think these arguments — again the best arguments I’ve heard for opposing Trump despite them still not being very good — are convincing, I suggest you acknowledge the gamble you’re taking, and not pretend to have an insight into the future that none of us possess. You’re making the immediately poorer choice based on a theory, a hypothesis, an unsubstantiated hope of a happy outcome.
And to those who hide behind seemingly serious arguments to justify their personal detestation of Trump, I say be an adult. Put the nation ahead of your own indignation, and do what’s best for America.
Published in Politics
Yes, but not because of the argument at hand. He isn’t voting for Harris because he thinks that a Harris administration will be so disastrous that voters will come to their senses; he’s voting for her largely because of the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Ukraine and NATO, which he expects Harris will continue.
I would love that too!
Has anyone on Ricochet presented the argument that a Harris win would be “no big deal”? I’m not asserting that they haven’t – I just don’t recall seeing this argument advanced. But as I mentioned, I am not as engaged with the election as others likely are.
I try to distinguish between not voting for Trump and favoring/supporting a Harris win. I’m sure there are many who are not voting for Trump who nonetheless agree that a Harris win would be a worse outcome — worse for the nation — than a Trump win.
I’d like to suggest that, even in a pure-blue or pure-red state, voting for Trump still makes sense. The electoral college is under assault and, while the popular vote totals don’t technically mean anything, they do help fuel the argument of those who want to eliminate or bypass the electoral college.
There’s also the issue of a perceived “mandate”: The greater the support for Trump as reflected in the popular vote, the easier it will be for him to focus on his efforts to reduce the reach and scope of government — and the easier it will be for Congress to support him in those efforts.
I’ve seen it. Country will be just fine. Its just an election. Yawn.
I fully agree.
That is a sound argument, so far as it goes. But it’s not powerful enough – for me, at least – to counter the reasons why I don’t want to vote for Trump. It would be different if I lived in a swing state, but I don’t, and so those second-tier arguments don’t trump my reasons. I don’t claim that for everyone who is in my position – I’m saying it’s the case for me. Your mileage may vary.
That would be exactly the sort of thing I am talking about with feelings over reason. Please note, I am not being critical here, nor trying to castigate you in any way. Just a good example and perfectly fair one.
Jean, I assumed as much. I confess that I don’t think I really know your reasons, or why you value them more than the utility (small as it is) of casting a vote for Trump in a deep-blue/deep-red state (and if you’ve told me I apologize for forgetting, and blame the bourbon).
But it doesn’t matter: In America, we get to vote any way we like, and we need not explain, defend, justify, nor even share our decisions. I respect that, even if I occasionally forget that in the heat of the moment.
The mirror side to that is that, having had at least 4 years – possibly 12 if you add in Obama too – to mess things up, and considering that making things bad is always easier than fixing them, it wouldn’t be surprising if a lot of people blame a second Trump term for not fixing everything quickly. And then they elect Harris or someone like her in 2028.
I like the comparison, not sure how it goes, something like, something was the Republican base asking nicely, the Tea Party was the Republican base asking not-so-nicely, and electing Trump was the Republican base using a clue-by-four upside the establishment.
AND through what comes after THAT.
I have my reasons, which are not based on “feelings.” I do support NATO and Ukraine, and those are important to me, so the Trump/Vance ticket does nothing for me in that important regard. I am not looking forward to the cost of health insurance going up when Obamacare expands because of the IVF mandate Trump wants to impose on insurance policies. IVF procedures are very expensive – my nephew and his wife spent $45,000 some years ago, and I doubt it’s gotten cheaper since then – so this mandate will be costly (as well as problematic for me as a pro-lifer). Trump has promised to do nothing about entitlement reform. I don’t share his views on tariffs (or some of them, I should say). Those reasons alone trump the reasons Henry proposes. As for “feelings,” well, I suppose you could say that my being tired of being told that I’m a coward, an idiot, self-indulgent, virtue-signalling, etc., because I don’t want to vote for Trump is a feeling, but I would counter that it is entirely rational to desire to not reward people who insult voters. Those people have really cemented my views.
I’ve heard Trump say something like he thinks there is likely to be a recession, and if so, he hopes it comes BEFORE he takes office so the blame might be properly assigned.
If all Trump supporters had your grace and charity, Henry, they wouldn’t be alienating so many potential voters.
Considering that Biden-Harris has been pretty much following the Obama agenda, where he sent beans and blankets to Ukraine, whereas Trump actually sent them weapons, what reason is there to think that Harris would be better for Ukraine/NATO than Trump?
Vance’s comments on Ukraine.
Then maybe don’t vote for President Vance, if that ever comes up.
I won’t.
On the other hand, Trump has a good record regarding Ukraine; much better than Harris, who wins if Trump doesn’t.
A “good record”? I don’t see that. What he has said is that Ukraine would not have been invaded if he were president. I think that’s true – it’s one of the benefits of being erratic and unpredictable. But though I think the Biden-Harris administration is incredibly weak in regards to Ukraine, dribbling out arms to Ukrainians instead of giving them what they need when they need it, I have no reason to think Trump would be any better and there is a good chance he would be worse, given his veep pick.
I’m not interested in going off on a tangent about this, which is not directly relevant to the post.
As you like. It just doesn’t seem particularly rational to think that Trump, who sent weapons to Ukraine in the past while Biden/Harris’s forebear Obama didn’t, wouldn’t do better than the current delayed dribs-and-drabs. If anything, Trump seems more likely to make Putin “an offer he couldn’t refuse.” (Or, to borrow a line from Faith in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, “an offer he couldn’t survive.”)
Bob Dole, John McQueeg and Mitt Romney.
This is the ‘winning’ strategy of the TDS-riven gOpE.
God help us!
Parties are made of sets of constituencies. The Romney era GOP, while good for a few people, was a politically a loser and bad for most people. Based on the popularity at the end of his term, Bush43 was a bigger loser.
Who was the last GOP president that was popular at the end of his time in office? Reagan. What is the Reagan constituency? It looks like Trumps. Religious folks, blue collar folks, business people, patriots. The challenge for Trump is that there are fewer of those people left in America.
And some of his supporters are hell-bent on insulting persuadable voters.
It seems to me the more interesting question is what level of support should be expected? If it’s important that I, as a conservative who dislikes Trump, vote for him, why draw the line there? Should I donate? Should I rally? Should I wear a T-shirt?
Should I pretend not to find him objectionable?
Giving Democrats the power to nationalize cheat-augmenting election rules, gutting SCOTUS, gutting the First Amendment and silencing all critics, gutting the Second Amendment with lots of in terrorem arrests of normals, completing the weaponization and ideological purification of the federal government and the military, crashing the economy and the currency resulting in massive unemployment and widespread welfare dependency and wide open borders will make people so mad that every normal citizen not under arrest and not terrified of being reported as an active dissident, will vote for change and be disappointed and surprised that voting no longer matters and that the outcome is fixed or even if the regime can no longer cheat to the degree needed, what is left to govern will be in ruins. The only consolation will be the relief of not living under a Trump regime.
I think Ukraine is central to the anti-Trump faction within the Republican Party. It would consist of a great many of Nikki Haley’s supporters, for example, a minority who wish to continue helping Ukraine at the Biden administration levels.
Because the Republican Party has become opposed to our giving further assistance to Ukraine, Trump has had to walk a fine line here. He represents the Republican Party, and so he has to act with respect to the majority opinion within the party. That’s difficult to do on this issue. He has been supportive of Ukraine’s war for their continued independence from the beginning. His solution to the aid problem has been to say that he would (a) work hard to negotiate a settlement and (b) convert further assistance to some sort of loan program. I don’t know that these initiatives would succeed, but it would be a different tact than Biden has been pursuing. I don’t know why those actions are not enough to placate the pro-Ukraine Republicans, but I think they should be.
On May 30, 2024, Biden whimsically and suddenly decided to allow Ukraine to use U.S. weapons to attack inside Russia. I was shocked when I read this. I am 100 percent behind Ukraine, and I wish to continue helping them. Not only do I sympathize with the Ukrainians, but I also believe it to be a watershed issue in the maintenance of world peace. I think Biden’s action was a completely unnecessary and dangerous escalation. It almost looks like an act of sabotage on his way out the door.
Trump has stated a couple of times that I know of that we are looking at World War III because of Biden’s actions. Of course, he was saying this before Biden released this authorization. Trump, to my knowledge, hasn’t referred to this May 2024 action specifically, but I’m sure it only added to Trump’s concerns.
I have always thought that Zelenskyy was brilliant for refraining from striking inside Russia. As long as he stayed within Ukraine, public opinion throughout the world was clear that Russia had invaded Ukraine and Ukraine was simply fending off a hostile invader. The minute he invaded Russia on Russian soil, it became a “war” in people’s minds, and it fueled the anti-Ukraine sentiment in Russia. A war takes on a life of its own after a while.
I’ve thought all along that the reason Putin hasn’t completely lost it over our aiding Ukraine was that Putin doesn’t want this to escalate into a nuclear war or World War III and that he has known that we don’t either. He must have been acknowledging at least in his private thoughts that our aiding Ukraine gives us some control over this dangerous situation. Biden’s suddenly given Ukraine permission to strike within Russia changes everything. I don’t see where this goes now. All I know for sure is that it’s a huge change.
I know that Trump and Putin worked together in some capacity on the Syrian war, which was ongoing when Trump took office. I was never able to follow it closely because I haven’t got the politics of it straight in my head. But I know Putin and Trump have some sort of working relationship. I am guessing that relationship, thin as it may be, is the reason Trump is confident that he could broker some type of peaceful solution for Ukraine.
At any rate, I don’t think it is a side issue at all for this election among Republicans. I think it is an important issue simply because the race between Harris and Trump appears to be so close right now. It isn’t that it is the primary issue in the election but that it is a big issue within our own party. In its size and impact, it may come close to or equal the pro-Hamas wing for the Democrats. Neither party can afford for a sliver of its base to sit home. Ukraine is one reason I was really happy to see Nikki Haley endorse Trump a few weeks ago. I hope her supporters listen.
(All that said, the Harris-Trump race may not be as close as it seems. Larry Kudlow said yesterday that Trump has pulled ahead significantly now, and he also said that Republicans always poll poorly and also that Trump always does better in actual elections that he polls. He said that could be because people are nervous about saying publicly that they support Trump. We shall see.)
By supporting, do you simply mean voting for?
I’ve voted against Trump in every primary, but for him in every general election. I don’t think he’s particularly good for the country, but what the Dems are serving up is far, far worse, so it’s not a difficult decision. I understand why so many have a problem voting for Trump, but I think those who refuse to do so lack perspective, both in the short and the long term.
Do you think that in WW II, the US should have only “attacked” Japanese forces attacking US and other countries’ property, but not Japan itself? Do you think the US and France and England etc, should only have been fighting those German forces attacking France and England etc, but not attacking/bombing Germany itself? One of the “goals” of war, especially a defensive war, must be to remove the ability of the aggressor to be aggressive. Such as by destroying their weapons-production facilities, not just the weapons themselves as they are being used against you.