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For James Lileks
Excellent point about gradualism. You may be right.
Maybe Paul Ryan has Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe National Review is the perfect news organ to provide grist for those cocktail party chats. Maybe Bernie’s quasi-success is due to his “revolutionary” rhetoric. Maybe Trump is the blunt tool we need, not the pricey and ineffective GOP Methadone. Maybe I’m peeved about the shocking escalation of my property taxes to pay the education, food and housing costs of our local sanctuary population. Maybe Oregon is God’s country, but our bisexual governor hates cake bakers who honor God. Lotta maybes.
That is hilarious!
Might it be that Goldberg, Podhoretz, et al are making a living? They might be espousing something with which they agree but if they could not make a living doing so, at best they’d be dues paying members of Ricochet, contributing conversations and replies to conversations.
No matter what happens in this election cycle, Goldberg, Podhoretz, and others will continue down the path that they have selected, being paid for it, and gaining valuable requests for talks on ocean liners and remunerative presentations to the faithful.
It doesn’t matter if Trump, Cruz, or Hillary! is elected, these people are covered. In that they are kind of like Mike Murphy, that esteemed political analyst and contributor to Republican hopefuls at the campaign level. The money rolls in no matter what.
Gradualism has worked in rolling back gun control. I have yet to hear anyone explain why Trump would be a more effective president than Cruz. Trump has criticized Cruz for not being willing to work with other Republicans and Democrats. I really, really don’t get how Trump is going to overturn the establishment in a way that Cruz would not.
That’s a lame reason to dispute Goldberg and Podhoretz’s sincerity. Everybody gets paid to do their job. If you think they take the wrong position on issues, discuss that.
Speak of the devil!
As “Death to the Establishment” as I am (sorry, just practicing for the inevitable big Jarrett-Iranian putsch), I don’t begrudge NR anything. They have always hosted a variety of viewpoints, and while I remember going off on their butt-headedness back in the day (twice), the fact is that even the crunchiest of conservatism would be poorer without them.
Case in point, I think Sowell was wrong and McCarthy was right about the 2013 ObamaCare/Tea Party shutdown dynamic. Well, both of those points of view were published in NR.
Despite what some here may say, I am not the sort to toss the baby with the bathwater, provided it’s my baby.
Statistically, we would have to win a few now and then. I’m happy about that, but it hardly gainsays my point to allow that over the past thirty years we have managed to get halfway back to the clear meaning of unambiguous text on a single score, while the rest has gone to Hell.
It really is time to split the GOP into two.
The Trump Party can have a reality TV show instead of a nomination process. That is how you find REAL conservatives, unlike those Goldberg/Podhoretz hacks.
They can have the GOP name, it’s been tainted beyond usefulness (I just can’t make a good acronym with gold, class, and yuge work using the letters GOP).
You’ll be back.
I generally enjoy the Commentary podcast, albeit that I get tired of the repetitive Trump antagonism I find too often. At the same time Podhoretz does recommend the Commentary website and asks for us to subscribe to that website. He might be assumed to know how his bread gets buttered.
So, his politics and his living are both displayed on the podcast. If he can do that, why shouldn’t I note it, and why would you avoid that consideration?
He is drumming up an audience of like-minded people. It is like-minded people who will purchase tickets to listen to him opine. It is like-minded people who will purchase issues of Commentary to read what he writes. His sincerity is not in question. Mine neither.
It is fair enough to note that frequently “where one sits determines where one stands”, and it’s not an accusation of bad faith. Yet it’s hardly an accusation of good faith.
Half you guys are dreaming. President Trump is FAR preferable to President Hillary.
His crime syndicate is much less well established than hers
He would bring a Republican congress which could clip his wings; she would bring a Dem congress and it will be worse than 2009
He loves the country, even in his egocentrism; she and her fellow leftists are anti-American at heart
I could go on, but why? It just pains me to see people preferring HRC to the Donald. If he is nominated (and I hope that he is not) we all need to support him.
You may appreciate this:
Such depths of thought, who would have known? The Ricochet podcast assured those of us who listened that there are no trolls here. That is good. I mean who needs the leftist/progressive types to advocate splitting Republicanism when we can get Republicans and conservatives to do that job? And of even greater benefit, the gains of the past can be rolled up and dumped in the wastebasket. I am sure that will bring great waves of satisfaction to the people hankering for the purity and success of their conservative politics, at least until they find out that virtually nobody really cares about their politics, and that they’ve managed to drive away any potential allies who won’t trust their judgment, and that any harbinger of success has fled.
Next we’ll hear about how much the country wants conservative ideas to succeed, about how we’re a center-right country. Real depths of thought. And no trolls involved. Right on!
Do you want to see something really scary…?
Good Lord no, EJ. That’s the sort of thing that would be easy for you but simply impossible for me. Somebody sent this graphic to me–and the moment I opened it I thought, “James!”
We aren’t. We may have been once, but no more. Trump is an indication of that. The electorate doesn’t want a small government any more. They want a muscular authoritarian government and Trump is the guy they want wielding the sword of government.
No, what they want is conservatism in more than just campaign promises, and the GOP is fresh out of that.
Right, because Trump, who changes his mind twice a day, is just the guy to be trusted to live up to his promises.
But even so, every promise is to make government bigger and more powerful. Trump doesn’t say “I will make government smaller” he says “I’m the guy you want wielding the sword of government because I’m a leader. Believe me, I’m a leader. When I tell the miliary to commit war crimes, they will do it because I’m a leader. I will fix the problems because I’m a leader. Whatever problem you have, once I have the full power of government behind me, I can fix because I’m a leader.”
It’s not about Trump. blah blah blah Ginger, blah blah blah
enlighten me.
Really? A recent poll taken among Republicans in ‘conservative’ Florida had over 60% of Republicans opposed to cutting Social Security. So while voters might favor some de-regulation, when it comes to the entitlement spending that is perhaps our worst existential threat, causing our huge, growing debt, there is little appetite for reform.
You weren’t listening then; you aren’t listening now. Consider yourself enlightened without me.
The Brides of Chucky would probably require multiple iterations.
A few meek comments:
—Gun control has been rolled back
—abortion is declining
— both welfare reform and anticrime efforts (signed into law by WJC, but in response to pressure from Republicans) made a measurable difference in people’s lives; in a sensible world, candidates would be running on that success, not renouncing it… but at least it could, in theory, be done again (and there would be evidence of benefits to point to)
— the dog-whistle race-baiting of the right is in the process of being named, condemned and abandoned even as the left ramps up ever more obviously ludicrous and tiresome evidence of how desperately it clings to anachronisms while ignoring real problems
—-if this year is not a perfect opportunity to re-introduce fed up Americans to conservatism, 2020 will be. Don’t bail.
The Supreme Court decision in Heller helped, too.
I found a cat video of what ought to be the mascot of the #NeverTrumpers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxRX6LXDpWs