Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
NM – I may have to quote those last two lines (without attribution, naturally).
FYI – Klavan has a daily podcast now, Mon-Thur, diggin it except he has a blind spot for Cruz
Perhaps, but as with all candidates, the public image is what I am voting for. I can’t decide which is worse, for it to be the contrived or naturally grown persona.
Will this issue make self-described conservatives think twice about supporting Trump, or will it only fuel their contempt for inside-the-Beltway thinking?
The latter.
And since the National Review is located a block from the intersection of “toydy toyd ‘n toyd” the inside-the-beltway mentality here can be said to include “the New York media elites.”
What the conservative editorial establishment fears is voters tampering with what they see as their intellectual property, conservatism itself. Yesterday Rush Limbaugh, who has been farsighted and reasoned throughout the Trump ascendance, suggested that a new populism with roots in the trans-partisan Tea Party movement may be more important than conservatism in this political cycle.
Really though, this NR schism/publicity ploy ain’t such a big deal. Hasn’t this outfit already gone separate ways, over the years, with everyone from Ayn Rand to Mark Steyn? Our comrades at NR hit deviationists hard, but to little effect. One thing for sure, being “read out of the conservative movement” won’t hurt Trump’s book sales.
This minor storm could land a direct hit on one beachhead: conservative cruise options. With The Weekly Standard and National Review both trashing our potential 2016 nominee, how joyful will their post-election Caribbean excursions be if, for the first time in 12 years, there’s reason to celebrate?
Agreed that this needs to be called out. I think there are many who view Trump as being easy to manipulate (and rightly so). Though he isn’t a conservative, they can probably get him to go along with their agenda. This plan is beyond foolish.
But see, therein lies my confusion. Thumbing your nose at the press or having no truck with political correctness are not conservative positions in and of themselves, and Trump’s approach to issues like healthcare and the 2nd amendment or his general treatment of the constitution as an afterthought make me believe that he would be worse for a conservative voter than any of the abuse they have received from the established GOP.
Conservatives have many valid grievances with the way that the captains of the USS Republican Party have treated them. Yet supporting Trump is not the mutiny that we need. It is jumping overboard into the churning, furious sea, and then demanding that the rest of us convince you to come back aboard rather than drown.
Yes. This election is going to be one of the most consequential in the nation’s history. The way it is shaping up, our country is going to be vastly different no matter which party wins the White House.
My personal opinion is that Donald Trump was, and still is, a lefty. He “came to conservatism” last year when he decided to run for the Republican nomination — egged on by his good friend Bill Clinton. He doesn’t believe in conservatism. The only thing The Donald believes in is himself. Mark my words, if he gets the nomination, he will move very far to the left leaving us a choice between bad (Trump) and horrible (Clinton, Sanders, Warren, Biden, etc.).
And don’t tell me about Ronald Reagan being a Democrat. He changed parties 18 years before winning the White House and had a long conservative record at that point.
Sadly, I think Scott Adams is right again.
I’m not sure I understand his argument, though. It’s not that NR is saying “UGH. We suppose Trump will be the nominee, but here are some reasons not to support him anyway because we’re bitter and don’t like him.”
NR is saying “Here are some things that you all may not have considered. Here are reasons why we don’t care for Trump.” I’m not entirely sure what Adams means by “argument by definition”. Is that just pointing at someone you don’t like and saying that person is a bad person? Well, that’s not what NR is doing. They are offering reasoned explanation for their opposition.
Adams also says in the above blog post that it is silly to make an intellectual argument because “thoughts never mattered” to Trumpism. Is that not, in and of itself, concerning? I can’t expect people to be perfectly rational reasoning machines, but neither can I excuse action based purely on emotion.
That’s why I said “sadly.” This is not about reason generally, or specifically logical reasons to stand against Trump. This editorial is not going to persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree that Trump is a bad candidate, and a cover story like this just makes it 100% unlikely that National Review will have any effect on the election (see: disinvited from co-moderating the February debate).
anyone else having problems with this thread loading properly when going to it from the “Alerts” link?
@#100: True. I agree that this is tactically foolish, as I would have preferred that they be at the debate, and saying that they had no idea this might get them dis-invited strains credulity.
But then again, if reasoned arguments can’t sway Trump supporters, I kind of doubt that NR moderators would be able to make Trump say something that would repel his acolytes.
I’m increasingly fearful that we will have to wait until Hillary Clinton’s election or (less likely) Donald Trump’s inauguration before a lot of our fellow Republicans wake up to what they’ve been backing.
The Democrats have gone so aggressively anti-nationalist as a party that there is now space for the creation of a nationalist opposition party. But that is a totally different axis of the ideological spectrum, and actual policy positions matter not a whit to those on Donald Trump’s side of it. I could very easily see them saying, under a Trump administration, that they are supporting single payer healthcare because they love America and its people have been screwed by government for too long.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Trump’s supporters have the best of intentions, but no sense of direction.
Seems to fit:
I believe that’s exactly what they’re doing with this issue. Sand, down a bottomless rat hole.
“You’ll see a lot of debate on whether Trump is a true conservative or not. That is argument by definition. It is the linguistic equivalent of throwing your gun at a monster because the clip is empty.”
That is an interesting take.
Today, I made (for me) a significant donation to National Review.
This is about principle or it isn’t. NR isn’t perfect, but it’s stepped into the breach to stand up for important ideals when others are running in the other direction. That makes them not just a 60 year old journal of conservative thought and debate, but a champion of principle when that seems to have become old hat.
Join me if you can. They deserve it.
Duane Oyen #76
Temper Trumptans
“Trumper Tantrums” would’ve been better.
I’ve been a National Review subscriber for 24 years, but when my subscription expires on December 31, I will not be renewing. I’ve had enough.
I just checked out Ace today for the first time in nearly four years. He’s certainly changed his tune.
Dogs … well, not quite as colorful as Kevin Williamson’s ‘circus monkeys’* crack, and it won’t win you any friends, but it will influence people.
*I believe he wrote this just before throwing his cell phone — or rather someone else’s cell phone.
Okay, I’ve had enough of this argument. This is like saying that if an attractive woman wears provocative clothing she’s asking to be raped. Yes, the GOP has taken conservatives for granted; yes they’ve backed out on promises, but Donald Trump is not the answer! Ted Cruz may not have been my first choice, but at least his support makes sense, and he’s somebody I could easily vote for in the general election.
The one thing I’ve learned in the past six months or so is that a large portion of the “conservative base” sees conservative as more of an identity than an ideology. By every objective measure Donald Trump is the least conservative candidate in the race except maybe for Kasich, but The Base ™ has decided he’s “one of us.”
Funny, I thought Dole was the personification of everything that was wrong the the Establishment.
Trump’s cult of personality really has become the sole litmus test, hasn’t it?
And Trump is showing me that the “conservative movement” is not what I thought it was.
This.
If Trump wins the White House, I’m looking forward to all the twists on Kevin’s headline; “Witless Ape rides escalator… to the Oval Office”.
I think those quick to dismiss the NRO issue as ineffective may be underestimating the impact it might have. Many conservative talk radio hosts have been soft on their criticism of Trump up until this point. NRO’s respected conservative contributors have together put a stake in the ground and said, “Enough is enough!”
Mark Levin, is now in full attack mode on Trump for his attacks on Cruz and is outraged that some campaign (more than likely Trump’s) is nosing into his extended family’s connection to the Cruz campaign. Extreme Tramp supporters on Breitbart.com are already attacking Levin as an unprincipled, lackey for the establishment – as insane as that is for anyone who understands who Levin is.
Look in the next few days for Rush and others to become more vocal in their opposition to Trump in response to the NRO issue and closing of ranks. Rush is already perturbed that some of the so-called GOP establishment leadership deathly afraid of a Cruz presidency are beginning to embrace Trump because they think he is softer and more pliable and has been a player in the crony-capitalist game.
So, the big anti-establishment rationale for supporting Trump is now exposed for the fraud it was and those, so incensed with the GOP establishment, may see Trump happy to embrace it. That’s of course what happens when a man of little principle and intellectual depth who craves acceptance passes himself off at first as the outsider bent on upending the status quo to get support, only to betray his supporters in the end and become a useful tool of the establishment to continue the fundamental transformation of the nation more toward a European socialist state.
It’s your Frankenstein monster, Trump supporters. You built it. Now let’s watch what happens.
This smells an awful lot like the time Buckley and the National Review crowd decided who was and was not good for conservatism and defamed the John Birch Society. They said it would help Goldwater.
Goldwater lost, no one today questions where the government gets the power to medicate the water, and NR still thinks they collectively know what they are doing.
So, Trump is now selling himself as the guy who can make deals with the establishment. And the establishment (sitting Republican senators) seem to agree that this is a guy they can work with.
So, how is voting Trump sticking it to the establishment?
Just a friendly warning to the people fed up with the establishment and those wanting immigration laws enforced: Trump will break your heart.
I’ve been a subscriber since 1989, and a reader since childhood (my dad has gotten it for decades.)
But I have not renewed and don’t plan to.
Mussolini. Right. That said, if the trains run on time and carry illegal immigrants back to their homes in Mexico and the other countries of Central America, I’m not sure that we’ll be stringing Trump up anytime soon after.
Oh, DHS doesn’t seem to be taking visa overstaying very seriously. Who cares, right?
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/dhs-investigating-just-0-05-percent-of-6-million-illegal-visa-overstays/