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Credo, ut Intelligam
“Tessellations,” MC Escher
I had the true pleasure of meeting a provocative and charming cadre of the Ricochetti in Manchester, New Hampshire recently at the Ricochet/National Review get together. Greetings to all my new friends! It was deeply satisfying to be with such sparkling, philosophically compatible company.
But here is a confession I have to make. When Charles Cooke, in the warmup act to the GLoP podcast, rhapsodized about how smart and noble National Review’s Donald Trump lynching issue was, there was someone in the front row who audibly (as audibly as possible) hissed.
That was me.
I have already written about my disapproval of the National Review issue (The conservative elite chooses irrelevance) and have discussed it many times with my co-host Todd Feinburg on the Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast (for example, here).
But listening to the Goldberg, Long and Podhoretz (i.e., GLoP) podcast (Which, by the way, was completely hysterical!) I was at one point struck with a sense of déjà vu when John Podhoretz, referring to the looming end of the Trump fad and the logically ensuing conundrum the Trump supporters would soon encounter, opined as follows:
I’m wondering if, as I hope, the Trump bubble bursts, or he fizzles or whatever, how some of the people who have gone all in in this way are going to put the genie back in the bottle. Because there’s two sides to it: obviously you can support a candidate who loses and go on to support somebody else, that’s part of what happens in a winnowing process in a primary … but obviously there’s something about the temperature of the Trump supporter, that makes the idea of walking back … or getting back into the regular world [very difficult].
This is a textbook example of projection. I don’t mean that this is projection as a kind of literary metaphor. I mean that Mr. Podhoretz is deeply troubled by the prospect of Donald Trump becoming the Republican nominee. He is confronting the possibility of having to choose between Trump and Hillary Clinton. He has been over-the-top vitriolic toward Trump for months. And so he has a genie of his own to put back into a bottle.
I have enormous respect for Podhoretz and have looked to him as an inspiration and ally in all manner of battles over the past many years. So let me be clear (and eschew my normal, snarky cynicism) that I feel no rancor toward him.
As for my déjà vu regarding Podhoretz’s dilemma, here (forgive the somewhat lengthy quote) is what I said in What Will Capitulation of the GOP Establishment Look Like? back in November:
How do Karl Rove and George Will and Charles Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg and Kevin Williamson (et tu, Kevin?) and Bret Stephens and Daniel Henninger – oh, why not just throw in the whole Wall Street Journal editorial board? – I could go on, but you get the idea. How do these and so many more venerable conservatives reach that final stage (Kubler Ross is trite, I know) of acceptance of the nomination of Donald Trump?
How does Henninger walk back the remark of saying Trump is “beyond the pale” for politicizing 9/11?
How does Goldberg escape his remark that Trump is like a “cat trained to [urinate] in a human toilet?”
During the general election, how does Will equivocate when asked about his remark that “nothing is now more virtuous than scrubbing, as soon as possible, the Trump stain from public life.”
In short, how do these pundits and many more deal with the extreme vituperation they have spewed toward Trump’s candidacy to date?
Because walk back, escape, equivocate and deal with is what they will inevitably be doing if Trump wins the nomination.
Because the alternative is Hillary Clinton. And, assuming you have no power or vested interest that is going to evaporate if Trump is elected (part of the problem, of course, is that many actually do) then it is foolish to think you really have a choice. Here are two words in case you think you do: Supreme Court.
So forget the despicable GOP money men who have illegal alien maids (we all remember Meg Whitman) or business owners who employ Dollar-Store-priced illegal alien workers. Let’s just concentrate on the honorable, intelligent and wise conservative writers who have developed a gestalt from which they cannot escape — a Quinian web where each new piece of evidence is guaranteed to support the existing conclusion because of the escalating rage that has gone into its formation. How do they escape?
First, what might tempt them to want to escape?
Consider Larry Kudlow’s anecdote about the humanity of Trump, who met him walking down 5th Ave. when Kudlow had been fired and he was despondent and Trump offered him some valuable unsolicited encouragement. Consider the integrity of Donald Trump’s children, especially the bright light of Ivanka. More than anything, go to a Trump event (as the venerable Mark Steyn did recently) and soak in the enthusiasm of the Children of Paradise. Yes, they might be vulgar. Yes, they are uneducated. And, oh yes, they are profoundly unsophisticated.
But blend yourself in, listen to their chatter and their concerns and try as hard as you can to sneer at them. Good luck. If you can then I have nothing more to say to you.
Because here’s the deal. Donald Trump is a man, much like other men. He is vain and irascible. He is spoiled and not deeply intellectual. He can be warm and charming. He can be vulgar. But Trump is not Rasputin.
Trump is campaigning on a set of policies. They are not always so consistent with the many comments he has made throughout his career. But even if they’re not, even if they are thinly developed, they are clear enough to have attracted millions of Americans to his side. They have also attracted the very gold standard of the conservative movement, Jeff Sessions to his side. If you, you distinguished conservative writer or you, you conservative housewife, have truly painted yourself into an emotional corner and interpret every new shred of evidence as proving that Trump is Mussolini, then you are in a very bad place indeed. It is not a bad place for Trump. It is a bad place for you.
Consider what Augustine said: “Credo, ut intelligam.” I believe, in order that I may understand. Perhaps you will find your way out.
Here is one other shallow piece of schmaltz that perhaps will help you:
No Drugs, No Alcohol, No Cigarettes.
Trump 2016!
Published in General
You are probably right, but that doesn’t mean that Trump’s comment wasn’t mean spirited, and one more bit of evidence of his low character.
Donald Trump has been insulting Republicans and the Republican Party every day in every way imaginable for the last six months.
People are going to push back.
And I don’t blame them.
The dropping to your knees comment was shockingly mean-spirited, I agree. However, it was in response to an all out no holds barred personal attack on Trump from Romney.
I’m sure this has been said elsewhere, but Romney never showed that fighting spirit against Obama. I like Romney but that pains me. If he had won we would not have Trump.
In 2012, Romney made a tactical decision that getting personal against Obama would allow the Democrats to paint him as a racist, and he chose to take the high road. While I find it hard to criticize anyone for taking the high road, I think that was a mistake. Those Democrats who respond to phony claims of racism like Pavlov’s pooches were never going to vote for Romney anyway.
On the other hand, there is no high road left in this election. Trump has dragged the political discourse down into the sewer. His so-called policy positions are so inane (“Make America great again.” “Don’t let people die in the streets.” “Make Mexico pay for a wall.”) that it is meaningless to disagree with him on matters of policy. With Trump, it’s all personal. It’s all schoolyard bully. There is no way to engage Trump without getting personal.
Romney’s attacks on Trump have the virtue of being true.
A salient point. The man’s not Mussolini, but this is a salient point nonetheless.
Maybe Trump’s response was true, too. I don’t know.
Romney had his chance, and he blew it by not fighting for it, and for the country. He could have fought without taking the “low road.” Pulling punches for fear of being called racist is the kind of preemptive surrender that has characterized the Republican party. Donald Trump is a jerk and a blowhard but he understands that and doesn’t play that game. Too bad no one who is not a jerk and a blowhard has managed to pull that off.
I understand you now. It’s good that you see my openness to reason. I do wonder it took me pointing it out first before you were willing to see it. When you claimed I had “gone beyond the reach of argument,” I did the foolish thing and doubled down on my humility just so you could see I was truly in earnest. Yes, I actually want people to know I am willing to listen. In the world where Trump lives I did the unforgivable. I let you win so I could actually learn something.
The last couple days have settled my distrust of your candidate, however. I wonder if his recent Planned Parenthood and “I’ve changed” on immigration statements have altered your views at all.
Do you think it’s true that Romney would have fallen to his knees and begged Trump for his endorsement? That’s what Trump said.
This is the sort of comment that puts Trump outside the society of decent people. I’ve always thought that it would not be possible for there to be a worse person than Harry Reid in American politics. But Trump is worse, much worse.
I doubt Romney would have literally knelt. But I don’t know. And neither do you. Trump probably did not even mean it literally.
The comment was not that outrageous as a response to a vicious attack. If that’s the kind of thing that puts Trump beyond the pale for you, yer a dainty little thang. I really think Trump is repulsive, but this kind of fainting over a somewhat obnoxious turn of phrase reflects worse on the fainter than on Trump.
I didn’t think Trump would last and don’t quite get why he took off. But I have been waiting for someone to pretend halfway convincingly that he is going to enforce existing immigration law. If I had a vote in the primary that person would get my vote.
You are forgetting the many, many other profane, stupid, false, insulting, derogatory, inflammatory, bordering-on-racist, boastful, and irrelevant statements Trump has made.
I can handle such things in their place, at a Friar’s Club Roast, or at a comedy club. Or even in conversation with a rough crowd, where I can hold my own. But I don’t think the country needs to handle them from the president of the United States. And why? Because a lack of decorum is a definite indicator of unfitness to lead.
Vespacon, part of the point of my article was that many people are less open to reason than they think. Everyone has emotional filters of information that tend to reinforce their previously held views. I am no different. Being “beyond the reach of argument” is a relative thing. But I wasn’t specifically accusing only you about it. And I think that making a concession as you did is one is one of the best ways to win arguments.
As for the immigration statement: yes. I worry all the time that Trump will go back on his plan to send all illegal aliens home. I am comforted by the fact that Stephen Miller, former communications director for Jeff Sessions, is one of the inner circle of policy advisors for the campaign. So I think that Trump is still the best bet on immigration and I think that if (a) we don’t send illegal aliens home then we can’t fix our immigration system, (b) if we don’t fix our immigration system then we will cease to exist as the country we know within two generations, and (c) if we cease to exist as a country in two generations neither ISIS nor Planned Parenthood nor any other issue will matter anymore.
So I’m sticking with Trump.
I’m not forgetting very many of the things he’s said because I wasn’t listening to him in the first place. I only hear things secondhand. He seems like a jerk. But decorum alone is not much of an indicator of fitness to lead, either.
All new data is interpreted in light of prior beliefs. There’s no other way to do it.