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NRO Standing Athwart Trumpism
National Review, the venerable conservative institution founded by William F. Buckley, has just released an unprecedented special issue titled “Against Trump.”
Editor Rich Lowry reached out to a wide variety of conservative writers to register their disagreement with the GOP frontrunner. Authors include Thomas Sowell, William Kristol, Glenn Beck, Erick Erickson, and of course NR’s editors who prefaced the issue with a blistering editorial:
Donald Trump leads the polls nationally and in most states in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. There are understandable reasons for his eminence, and he has shown impressive gut-level skill as a campaigner. But he is not deserving of conservative support in the caucuses and primaries. Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.
Trump’s political opinions have wobbled all over the lot. The real-estate mogul and reality-TV star has supported abortion, gun control, single-payer health care à la Canada, and punitive taxes on the wealthy. (He and Bernie Sanders have shared more than funky outer-borough accents.) Since declaring his candidacy he has taken a more conservative line, yet there are great gaping holes in it…
Donald Trump is a menace to American conservatism. Trump nevertheless offers a valuable warning for the Republican party. If responsible men irresponsibly ignore an issue as important as immigration, it will be taken up by the reckless. If they cannot explain their Beltway maneuvers — worse, if their maneuvering is indefensible — they will be rejected by their own voters. If they cannot advance a compelling working-class agenda, the legitimate anxieties and discontents of blue-collar voters will be exploited by demagogues. We sympathize with many of the complaints of Trump supporters about the GOP, but that doesn’t make the mogul any less flawed a vessel for them.
What do you think, Ricochetti? Will this issue make self-described conservatives think twice about supporting Trump, or will it only fuel their contempt for inside-the-Beltway thinking?
Published in General
Mark Steyn nails it, as usual:
Gotta love this bon mot from Steyn’s column:
Thanks for the link. Man that was good. You like/listen to Ace of Spades?
Every GOP presidential nominee since 1988 (that’s nearly 30 years ago, by the way) has been largely ignorant of conservatism, and, in fact, openly disdainful of it at times. And the list of conservative policy achievements at the national level in this same period seems short indeed.
A conservative, especially one who has been working hard against the left locally, should not be blamed at this point for feeling very angry and resentful.
How many such conservatives are in the ranks of Trump supporters, I do not know. But they won’t be weaned away by ignoring what brought them to this point.
Any candidate looking for their votes should have cogent arguments for why he will be different from previous nominees/presidents – and have a strong record to prove he is serious.
I don’t blame conservatives for being angry or resentful. But if you’re saying that in order to get your vote, a candidate must have cogent arguments and a strong record, one wonders how on Earth a voter with those standards ever started supporting Donald Trump.
“Small government” is a meaningless nonsense phrase. There is probably A LOT of support for smaller government. You can convince people of an awful lot, if you try.
I think the bigger problem is that people have met conservatives, and they are genuinely terrible people. This thread is a great exemplar of this problem.
I think Trump is basically a pro crony capitalism, big government moderate democrat, without strong ideology and likely the worst long term thing that would happen is a switch of the Supreme Court from mildly conservative, based on Kennedy or Roberts vote, to rabidly liberal and then conservative approach for anything is done. Trump likely would sign a conservative bill from congress, but unlikely Republicans could maintain control of Senate, since I think his “coattails” would be very short, or trend to the wrong side.
On immigration, his signature issue, I fear he would “grow” in office and soon sound like the rest of the beltway crowd as soon as he needed a switch to do a “deal”.
Overall for the country, better than Mrs. Orange Pantsuit, or Bernie, but for conservatives, an unmitigated disaster.
Rebark –
Those conservatives who support Trump are sick of being fooled, they’re fed up with the old bait-and-switch by GOP candidates who promise conservatism but don’t deliver on it.
Trump hasn’t needed cogent reasons and a solid record to attract them because they’re already repulsed by GOP politicians; thumbing his nose at the press and political correctness has been enough. But GOP politicians will need to offer cogent reasons and a solid record in order to earn their trust back after losing it over the last 30 years.
More than one GOP candidate could make this case – Paul, for instance, might be able to do so, as well as Cruz – but the conservatives who support Trump won’t be won over by the typical lip service offered by past GOP candidates.
How must NR define “GOP” to make its claim of a “broad ideological consensus” true? Clearly–to me–NR denigrates as NOT “GOP” all those who, according to the polls that have NR and its “cover collective” so frightened, are drawn to Trump and his NR accurately characterized “free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.” What is GOP? Why are the “rubes” polled in Iowa and NH and elsewhere not GOP?
Fuel their contempt.
Hard to see how Trump can do any more harm to conservatism than the current crop of GOP congress critters who talk like William F Buckley at home and vote like Nancy Pelosi in DC.
Having already addressed this at greater length in another comment, I’ll only add that there now does appear to be an actual possibility that Trump might win. The commentators of conservatism have so thoroughly painted themselves into a corner they’re not leaving themselves anywhere to go if that happens.
We should not be angry at the Republican Party or the establishment or whatever. The American people chose Obama and his filibuster proof majority. The American people re-elected him despite governing as the most progressive president since FDR and the most imperial. Blame our fellow citizens who are comfortable with fundamentally changing our nation. The “republican establishment” may have had poor tactics but the American people voted for this.
What self described conservative could possibly support Trump? Need I go through the litany of positions he’s taken on the issues? Conservatives are correct in identifying the disease in Washington but Trump is certainly not the cure.
57.5% voted in 2012 elections, lower than 2004 and 2008 elections. It appears some Americans wanted Obama and that many didn’t bother to vote once again. The dead , the blacks, ultra liberal whites and those that didn’t bother to vote kept Obama in office in 2012. It may be different this time.
Next, I’d like to see an NRO symposium on the emerging cadre of GOP types (Dole, Trent Lott, etc.) who are expressing a preference for Trump over Cruz. I agree that Trump is “philosophically unmoored,” but is Cruz even more so? On the other hand, if they want to make the case that Dole and Lott are also untethered to conservative thought, I’m certainly open to the possibility.
Reading it now and never been more pleased and grateful to be an NR subscriber and an establishment conservative AKA “GOPe lackey” or whatevs.
Like the editors said, count me out of the Trump deal. I want to be on record now, loud and proud, opposing the insanity. Come what may.
Good for NR speaking out against the destructive people currently throwing Temper Trumptans. Every rationale for supporting that jerk that I have seen thus far has been a childish desire to tear down the system, reminiscent of Occupy Whatever (Wall Street) combined with the respect for facts of BLM and BDS.
Dave Carter – Exactly, exactly. Amen. I like what NR is doing here, but I will have much more respect for the editors if they next turn their guns on the GOP standpatters who brought us to this point.
There is no such a thing as a “true conservative” politician . Everyone folds to get elected and stay elected. Entitlements and tax breaks for favored businesses, prop ups for research & development that goes no where and so it goes. The difference now is a criminal mob in power that hates tradition, Christianity, wants open borders and plans to disarm and silence the general public. People are waking up and Trump is saying the right stuff to gather their support.
Aye, and there’s the rub…
Okay, but what I don’t get is the blind faith that somehow, based on no evidence, no record, and the inconsistency in his own promises, Trump voters think Donald is looking out for them. Unless all they want is to watch the whole system crumble, which is too nihilistic a goal for me to respect or support.
By the way, thank you JPod, and great discussion in the latest GLoP podcast. “politicized American id” – yes.
In any integrated personality, the id is supposed to be balanced by an ego and a superego—by a sense of self that gravitates toward behaving in a mature and responsible way when it comes to serious matters, and, failing that, has a sense of shame about transgressing norms and common decencies. Trump is an unbalanced force. He is the politicized American id. Should his election results match his polls, he would be, unquestionably, the worst thing to happen to the American common culture in my lifetime. — John Podhoretz is the editor of Commentary.
It seems “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is the only basis for much of Trump’s support.
Disclaimer: I support Cruz, but I find myself occasionally amused by Trump.
While waiting for the NRO piece to drop, I could not help but think of a line from the musical “1776” said by cantankerous Rhode Island representative Stephen Hopkins, “Well, in all my years I ain’t never heard, seen nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn’t be talked about. Hell yeah! I’m for debating anything.”
I for one am glad that NRO took a stand, even if I may or may not agree with that stand. Even if that stand itself does not provide information which sways or bolsters my opinion, it still provides information as to where they stand – and that’s an important data point. I wish other media outlets were as forthcoming.
As for the content NRO presented, I found much of it to be a rehash. I found some of it to be surprisingly emotional. However, I did find a few points which resonated:
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Trump and his supporters are outraged at the coronation and dynasty of DC. As such, they should welcome this necessary vetting of their candidate, and then respond appropriately.
National Review can pound sand.
Mike, you never pull punches! Thanks!
They’ve finally completely sullied WFB’s creation. Same thing happened to Scientific American. I subscribed for years, then the enviro-weenies subverted it for political BS. Too bad.
Donated money to NR after seeing this
So wait…GLEN BECK IS NOW THE ESTABLISHMENT?!?!
I think some people need to get there head checked.
Well, It was effective enough to get me to break my budget and pay for a year subscription for the first time in years.
I love how Trump supporters think they’re the only conservatives disappointed and angry about so many of the past failures of the GOP. Surely their wounds and disappointments are so much deeper than the rest of us. They were personally stabbed in the back; because a hundred years of deeply ingrained bureaucratic progressivism, that has relentlessly permeated the majority of the public’s psyche, hasn’t been completely overturned in 20 year time.
Hey guess what, the rest of us haven’t had our guys make it to the general election since St.Reagan either (and he let us down a lot too.) The rest of us are angry, frustrated, and disappointed as well.
But none of that is an excuse to sell out to a loudmouth, vulgar charleton, who tickles your ears while dulling your mind.
As Andrew Klavan is fond of saying “Anger is the devils cocain.”
And populism is its pusher.
One thing that assuages my worries about Trump is that people who have interacted with Trump personally (Rush to a degree, Conrad Black, etc) mostly speak relatively positively. If Trump were really the unprincipled, loudmouth, {expletive} that he comes across his largest detractors would be people who have dealt with him personally not the opposite.