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An Open Letter to the Conservative Media Explaining Why I Have Left the Movement
Let me say up front that I am a life-long Republican and conservative. I have never voted for a Democrat in my life and have voted in every presidential and midterm election since 1988. I have never in my life considered myself anything but a conservative. I am pained to admit that the conservative media and many conservatives’ reaction to Donald Trump has caused me to no longer consider myself part of the movement. I would suggest to you that if you have lost people like me, and I am not alone, you might want to reconsider your reaction to Donald Trump. Let me explain why.
First, I spent the last 20 years watching the conservative media in Washington endorse and urge me to vote for one candidate after another who made a mockery of conservative principles and values. Everyone talks about how thankful we are for the Citizens’ United decision but seems to have forgotten how we were urged to vote for the coauthor of the law that the decision overturned. In 2012, we were told to vote for Mitt Romney, a Massachusetts liberal who proudly signed an individual insurance mandate into law and refused to repudiate the decision. Before that, there was George W. Bush, the man who decided it was America’s duty to bring democracy to the Middle East (more about him later). And before that, there was Bob Dole, the man who gave us the Americans with Disabilities Act. I, of course, voted for those candidates and do not regret doing so. I, however, am self-aware enough to realize I voted for them because I will vote for virtually anyone to keep the Left out of power and not because I thought them to be the best or even really a conservative choice. Given this history, the conservative media’s claims that the Republican party must reject Donald Trump because he is not a “conservative” are pathetic and ridiculous to those of us who are old enough to remember the last 25 years.
Second, it doesn’t appear to me that conservatives calling on people to reject Trump have any idea what it actually means to be a “conservative.” The word seems to have become a brand that some people attach to a set of partisan policy preferences, rather than the set of underlying principles about government and society it once was. Conservatism has become a dog’s breakfast of Wilsonian internationalism brought over from the Democratic Party after the New Left took it over, coupled with fanatical libertarian economics and religiously-driven positions on various culture war issues. No one seems to have any idea or concern for how these positions are consistent or reflect anything other than a general hatred for Democrats and the Left.
Lost in all of this is the older strain of conservatism. The one I grew up with and thought was reflective of the movement. This strain of conservatism believed in the free market and capitalism but did not fetishize them the way so many libertarians do. This strain understood that a situation where every country in the world but the US acts in its own interests on matters of international trade and engages in all kinds of skulduggery in support of their interests is not free trade by any rational definition. This strain understood that a government’s first loyalty was to its citizens and the national interest. And also understood that the preservation of our culture and our civil institutions was a necessity.
All of this seems to have been lost. Conservatives have become some sort of schizophrenic sect of libertarians who love freedom (but hate potheads and abortion) and feel the US should be the policeman of the world. The same people who daily fret over the effects of leaving our society to the mercy of Hollywood and the mass culture have somehow decided leaving it to the mercies of the international markets is required.
Third, there is the issue of the war on Islamic extremism. Let me say upfront that, as a veteran of two foreign deployments in this war, I speak with some moral authority on it. So please do not lecture me on the need to sacrifice for one’s country or the nature of the threat that we face. I have gotten on that plane twice and have the medals and t-shirt to prove it. And, as a member of the one percent who have actually put my life on the line in these wars movement conservatives consider so vital, my question for you and every other conservatives is just when the hell did being conservative mean thinking the US has some kind of a duty to save foreign nations from themselves or bring our form of democratic republicanism to them by force? I fully understand the sad necessity to fight wars and I do not believe in “blow back” or any of the other nonsense that says the world will leave us alone if only we will do that same. At the same time, I cannot for the life of me understand how conservatives of all people convinced themselves that the solution to the 9-11 attacks was to forcibly create democracy in the Islamic world. I have even less explanations for how — 15 years and 10,000 plus lives later — conservatives refuse to examine their actions and expect the country to send more of its young to bleed and die over there to save the Iraqis who are clearly too slovenly and corrupt to save themselves.
The lowest moment of the election was when Trump said what everyone in the country knows: that invading Iraq was a mistake. Rather than engaging the question with honest self-reflection, all of the so called “conservatives” responded with the usual “How dare he?” Worse, they let Jeb Bush claim that Bush “kept us safe.” I can assure you that President Bush didn’t keep me safe. Do I and the other people in the military not count? Sure, we signed up to give our lives for our country and I will never regret doing so. But doesn’t our commitment require a corresponding responsibility on the part of the president to only expect us to do so when it is both necessary and in the national interest?
And since when is bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan so much in the national interest that it is worth killing or maiming 50,000 Americans to try and achieve? I don’t see that, but I am not a Wilsonian and used to, at least, be a conservative. I have these strange ideas that my government ought to act in America’s interests instead of the rest of the world’s interests. I wish conservatives could understand how galling it was to have a fat, rich, career politician who has never once risked his life for this country lecture those of us who have about how George Bush kept us safe.
Donald Trump is the only Republican candidate who seems to have any inclination to act strictly in America’s interest. More importantly, he is the only Republican candidate who is willing to even address the problem. Trump was right to say that we need to stop letting more Muslims into the country or, at least, examine the issue. And like when he said the obvious about Iraq, the first people to condemn him and deny the obvious were conservatives. Somehow, being conservative now means denying the obvious and saying idiotic fantasies like “Islam is the religion of peace,” or “Our war is not with Islam.” Uh, sorry but no it is not, and yes it is. And if getting a president who at least understands that means voting for Trump, then I guess I am not a conservative.
Fourth, I really do not care that Donald Trump is vulgar, combative, and uncivil and I would encourage you not to care as well. I would love to have our political discourse be what it was even thirty years ago and something better than what it is today. But the fact is the Democratic Party is never going to return to that and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. Over the last 15 years, I have watched the then-chairman of the DNC say the idea that President Bush knew about 9-11 and let it happen was a “serious position held by many people,” watched the vice president tell a black audience that Republicans would return them to slavery if they could, watched Harry Reid say Mitt Romney was a tax cheat without any reason to believe it was true, and seen an endless amount of appalling behavior on the part of the Democrats which is too long to list here and which I am sure you are aware. And now you tell me that I should reject Trump because he is uncivil and mean to his opponents? Is that some kind of a joke? This is not the time for civility or to worry about it in our candidates.
Fifth, I do not care that Donald Trump is in favor of big government. That is certainly not a virtue but it is not a meaningful vice since the same can be said of every single Republican in the race. I am sorry but the “we are just one more Republican victory from small government” card is maxed out. We are not getting small government no matter who wins. So Trump being big government is a wash.
Sixth, Trump offers at least the chance that he might act in the American interest instead of the world’s interest or in the blind pursuit of some fantasy ideological goals. There is more to economic policy than cutting taxes, sham free trade agreements, and hollow appeals to “cutting government” and the free market. Trump may not be good, but he at least understands that. In contrast, the rest of the GOP and everyone in Washington or the media who calls themselves a conservative has no understanding of this.
Rubio would be — as Laura Ingram pointed out this week — nothing but a repeat of the Bush 43 administration with more blood and treasure spent on the fantasy that acting in other people’s interests indirectly helps ours. Cruz might be somewhat better, but it is unclear whether he could resist the temptations of nation building and wouldn’t get bullied into trying it again. And as much as I like Cruz on many areas he, like all of them except Trump, seems totally unwilling to admit that the government has a responsibility to act in the nation’s interests on trade policy and do something besides let every country in the world take advantage of us in the name of “free trade.”
Consider the following. Our country is going broke, half its working-age population isn’t even looking for work, faces the real threat of massive Islamic terrorist attack, and has a government incapable of doing even basic functions. Meanwhile, conservatives act like cutting Planned Parenthood off the government or stopping gays from getting marriage licenses are the great issues of the day and then have the gumption to call Donald Trump a clown. It would be downright funny if it wasn’t so sad and the situation so serious.
It is not that I think Donald Trump is some savior or an ideal candidate. I don’t. It is that I cannot for the life of me — given the sorry nature of our current political class — understand why conservatives are losing their minds over him and are willing to destroy the Republican Party and put Hillary into office to stop him. All of your objections to him either apply to many other candidates you have backed or are absurd.
I don’t expect you to agree with me or start backing Trump. I would, however, encourage you to at least think about what I and others have said and to understand that the people backing Trump are not nihilists or uneducated hillbillies looking for a job. Some of us are pretty serious people and once considered ourselves conservatives. Even if you still hate Trump, you owe it to conservatism to ask yourself how exactly conservatism managed to alienate so many of its supporters such that they are now willing to vote for someone you loath as much as Trump.
I would also encourage you to stop insulting Trump voters. Multiple conservative journalists — Kevin Williamson to name one — have said, in so many words, that Trump supporters are welfare queens, losers, uneducated, and bums. I am a Trump supporter. My father is a Trump supporter. We both went to war for this country. My father spent 40 years in the private sector maintaining this thing we like to call the phone system. I have spent the last 20 years in the Army and toiling away doing national security and law enforcement issues for the federal government. Just what exactly have any of the people saying these things ever done for the country? Where do they feel entitled to say these things? And more importantly, why on earth do they think it is helping their cause?
I am sorry, even if you can convince me Trump is the next Hitler, I don’t want to be associated with that. I don’t want to be associated with a movement that calls other Americans bums and welfare queens because they support the wrong candidate. If I wanted to do that, I would be a leftist.
Perhaps none of this means anything to you and the movement has left me behind. If it has, I think conservatives should understand that it is leaving a lot of people like me behind. I can’t see how that is a good thing.
Published in Politics
The Trump supporters were never going to support Cruz.
Donald is culturally the opposite of Cruz. These people are not looking at position papers or analyzing outside vs. insider bona fides. They are backing the guy that they feel understands who they are. Donald’s personality is 180 degrees from Cruz.
This is why I get frustrated with those people who say that they do understand and then talk about how Cruz would have worked for these people because of x, y and z. If you think Cruz is an alternative to what Donald is offering, then you have no clue what is motivating the Trump supporters.
Agreed. Senator Graham showed a spark of sense when he (finally) acknowledged the need for the party to get behind Cruz.
No limits on movement of capital or people. This means no tariffs and no borders, and essentially the end of nations in all but name. The Market is the one-world nation for such people. The very notion of country or people or tradition becomes hateful to them because is stands in the way of unlimited commerce.
Recall the constitutional amendment the Wall Street Journal wanted back in… 1999, was it?
“There shall be open borders”.
Such people don’t care about country.
You are only “blowing up” half the electorate. Don’t forget that the Democrats have a say in this. They never stay home from voting, its their religion. You put forward a candidate that a majority of the party has serious concerns about, and you give them their 2008 majorities again. And they have an open supreme court seat.
Don’t kid yourself that the Democrats can’t beat Trump easily. Look at 2012. Forget about Mitt Romney’s politics, no one doubts he is a nice person, and a person of good character. When the Democrats got done with him, he was evil incarnate. Even Trump supporters don’t defend his character, and in a general election the perception of character means more than actual character to a large number of middle of the road types who decide elections.
Hillary’s lack of character is baked into her numbers already, so don’t count on Republican attack ads to cut into her candidacy.
TLDR
Goodbye. If one thinks that flirting with white supremacists, promoting protectionism, and being the most blatant and unprincipled liar to hit the American political scene in a century, even including Bill and Hillary Clinton, is the answer conservatives need or what the face of conservatism should be, you have forfeited your right to be taken seriously.
[redacted]
We do not need people who will let themselves be conned by a lying, corrupt demagogue who has his whole life backed the things you say you hate lecturing us about how stupid we are and how we are betraying the principle of conservatism and our nation.
[redacted]
[Editors’ Note: It should go without saying that telling any member — let alone a new one — to go away is not in accord with the CoC]
True. But that doesn’t change the fact that the conservative movement has not been able to convince them that the free market would work. The OP talked about how the conservative media talks in terms of theory while these people are getting hammered by reality.
He’s right. We need to look in the mirror. We failed at convincing them because Republicans have been complicit in the growth of the intrusive federal government.
It’s entirely rational that these people have not taken to the barricades on a principle that they have never seen in practice and even the party who nominally supports that theory can’t seem to ever make it work in practice.
Until Fred Cole’s thread he is unelectable, doesn’t smell like fresh baked cookies, and I haven’t seen the required #AlwaysCruz or whatever it takes to win Twitter.
All kidding aside. It appears he may be the best alternative as of this writing.
Many of Trump’s supporters have flat out stated that their goal is to (a) send a message to the establishment, and (b) “burn down” the Republican Party. Nominating Trump will accomplish both of those goals.
My goal is to find the best candidate. I define “best” as the candidate most likely to restore the rule of law and defend the Constitution and who has a hope of winning the general election. Trump has made it clear that he will be the law. Moreover, he has little chance of winning the presidency. Right now, he’s riding high because of all the free face-time the media is giving him. As soon as he wins the nomination, the MSM will go into full attack mode. The most likely result will be a Democrat-controlled White House and Congress.
The GOPe attitude in a nutshell.
“Go away”. You just may get your wish, BT.
Way out of bounds. Insults are not acceptable here.
This is a personal attack. Go at the arguments not the person. Your arguments are foolish is a better way to say the same thing.
Fascinating. Thank you.
This may motivate some, but it does not motivate the 40 plus percent who seem to be voting for this guy. At some point, you transition from niche supporters looking to burn things down to substantive supporters who think you are the solution.
Trump has made the transition to the latter. We may dislike him, but we need to face reality here. If you think Trump is the solution, you won’t think Cruz is the solution.
Unfortunately, we can’t seem to nominate a Republican who (a) believes in the free market, and (b) can defend his belief in a rational and understandable way.
That sounds reasonable, but I’ve never heard that as any kind of Republican policy.
Who has proposed such a thing that a Trump presidency will stop from happening?
This is a serious point that deserves a more of a response than I can offer at the moment, but:
Thanks John. Well thought out and well written.
I had made the move from Walker to whomever, not really thinking about Trump, when I heard him speak about abortion and a friend of his who let his child live and of the beneficial effect that child had on that man. It was compelling. Trump recognized something he had not recognized before because it was not his kids who were in jeopardy, and he was able to pivot and face something vital – the value of a human life.
I found I could vote for Trump.
I had come into the Republican Party over two issues, abortion and Jimmy Carter, and once I was able to extricate myself from the religion of liberalism, I never went back.
I too served our country and have never regretted it.
Then I learned about fiscal issues and appreciated that as well.
The Republican leadership never really spoke to me in their mailings looking for money. They did not care what I thought, only that I pay up. And you are right. Dole. McCain. Romney, a moderate left-leaning technocrat. I thought him better than Barry but… and I did vote for him.
I’ll vote for Trump or Cruz knowing that each of them is preferable to Hillary! Marco is toast and when he loses Florida that will be obvious to all.
However I think, should conservatives get off their barcaloungers and vote, that Trump can win an election and do much good for us.
Attention Rob Long! Your next sitcom pitch has been written for you.
We will be the better for it. Conservatism has been dogged by the impression we are crypto-racists and nazis and it is a considerable factor that prevents the conservative message from getting a fair hearing.
We need to decisively and publicly disavow, reject, and kick out anyone who even hints that they are sympathetic to such views, let alone actively courts such support.
The last thing we need is a candidate who strikes a fascist pose, plays footsie with the KKK and sends barely disguised dog whistles to white supremacists.
If you are too blind to see this or too thick to understand that, you need to go away.
Go far, far, far away.
So you are making attacks based on emotion rather than reading the article?
I thought only Trump’s supporters were emotionally charged heretics.
John:
I have considerable reservations about much of what you wrote and also considerable respect for your passion and candor. To wit:
Thanks again for the discourse. I’m space limited, or would go on at length.
I’m gone. The more I see of the GOP’s reaction to Trump the more I think the party has been a sham and a lie the entire time I was calling myself a Republican. I already suspected that, but now I’m much more certain.
Watching the establishment decide they like Hillary better than Trump is fascinating- but surprisingly unsurprising.
Shrug. I’m done with this. Bye.
While it’s gotten bad here, National Review has become absolutely unhinged in this regard. They’ve openly and eagerly adopted the language and arguments of the left in their blood feud with Trump. The Corner reads more like Daily Kos these days than any right wing blog. “Racist!” “Homophobic!” “Misogynist!”. It’s only a matter of time before we get a lecture on White Privilege, I suppose. I was surprised at how fast our “right wing” organs adopted the arguments of the Left. Maybe I shouldn’t have been.
Douglas is an outstanding contributor and member at Ricochet.
If we need a house cleaning at Ricochet I suggest we start with those who when taking time off from blanket insults turn to attacking other members without reading their input and then trying to run off very good people.
Let me shorten that last thought – I am talking about you.
Huzzah!
What would be a sham would be to abandon core principles in order to assuage a temper-tantrum.
*Sniffle*
I read about half of this ridiculous argument. To lay out everything he says, but then conclude:
Therefore Trump’s the answer!
is the most absurd leap of logic and category error one could make.
Its the equivalent of saying 2 + 3 + 5 + 1 = potato chip.
I have no time for such nonsense, the longer we indulge this stupidity the worse it is for the conservative movement.
^Like.
What core principles?
The principle that family values don’t stop at the Rio grande, so the US border shouldn’t exist? The principle that when Wall Street gets into trouble the taxpayers should bail them out? The principle that when foreigners wreck their countries we must save them? And make sure they aren’t poor? While being contemptuously indifferent to the actual United States and its actual citizens?
Those core principles?
No thanks.
This will happen if you associate with the Klan, yes. Lectures about “white privilege” delivered to random white people because they’re white are absurd. When the person in question aspires to be the most powerful man in America and pretends not to recognize the name of America’s most famous white supremacist, it is not absurd.