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On Conservative Navel Gazing and Upending the Game
Dr. Charles Krauthammer is an intelligent man and I’ve enjoyed his analysis over the years. Nonetheless, the Trump Phenomenon has opened my eyes to the ways conservative intellectualism has blinded conservatives from understanding our world. Conservative intellectualism has become a straitjacket. The latest piece in the National Review by Krauthammer exemplifies this limitation.
[Republicans feel not] just let down or disappointed. Betrayed. By RINOs who, corrupted by donors and lobbyists, sold out. Did they repeal Obamacare? No. Did they defund Planned Parenthood? No. Did they stop President Obama’s tax-and-spend hyperliberalism? No. Whether from incompetence or venality, they let Obama walk all over them. But then comes the paradox. If insufficient resistance to Obama’s liberalism created this sense of betrayal, why in a field of 17 did Republican voters choose the least conservative candidate? A man who until yesterday was himself a liberal. Who donated money to those very same Democrats to whom the GOP establishment is said to have caved, including Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Hillary Clinton. But then comes the paradox. If insufficient resistance to Obama’s liberalism created this sense of betrayal, why in a field of 17 did Republican voters choose the least conservative candidate? A man who until yesterday was himself a liberal. Who donated money to those very same Democrats to whom the GOP establishment is said to have caved, including Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Hillary Clinton.
Conservatives like Krauthammer analyze Trump by applying conservative preferences, regardless of the suitability of their application. Krauthammer seems puzzled as to why an electorate that — as he sees it — is angered by the Republican Party’s “insufficient resistance to Obama’s liberalism” has, strangely, chosen Donald Trump. His tone leads the reader to conclude that the voters are ignorant in some manner, incapable of understanding that the solutions they sought were to be found in, say, Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
But Krauthammer is confused because he is misreading the public.
Conservatives have been arguing that the solution to Obamacare is to repeal it; the solution to Planned Parenthood is to defund it; the solution to the increase in the size and scope of government is to shrink it, or starve it, or whatever; and the solution that matters most is growth. So why — if you object to all of the liberal policies during the Obama years — would you possibly vote for the man who appears to be supporting the opposite of the conservative solutions?
Because the public, in its wisdom, has concluded that there will never be any solution — conservative or otherwise — to the Left’s failing policies until the foundation on which politics is conducted is completely upended. They have correctly concluded that conservatives will fail, as they have always failed, until it’s possible to implement changes that do more than shift pieces of the pie to those with the ability to direct policy in their direction.
The public is smarter than conservative intellectuals at the current moment and they correctly concluded that the only candidate who offered a chance to change the terms of debate is Donald Trump.
To be sure, many supporters reject free trade, and Trump has been inconsistent, at best, in his policy positions. But, again, this matters less to voters than fundamentally altering the conditions of our politics. That is how Trump wins both Greenwich, Connecticut and the rust-belt working class communities. They are not unifying on an antipathy to trade; they are unifying on antipathy to structures that perpetuate ineffective policy.
That is why Trump is a conservative candidate. That is why he can run as a Republican and not as a Democrat. Whether we are talking about the role of corporations in building preferential policies (e.g., free trade that gives them access to cheap labor), the restrictions placed on speech by enforced progressive morality (e.g., the inability to even discuss immigration), or the role elites play in undermining public choices (e.g., everything), he is running against the structures that are required to maintain failing liberal policies. Trump delegitimizes the very institutions and people required to maintain liberalism.
In order to enact and sustain successful policies, the stranglehold made by those who keep screwing-up — who happen to be the same people who direct solutions toward their own personal gain — needs to be broken. Once that is done, conservatives will have a chance to implement policies that may work.
Conservative intellectuals are coming to the conclusion that the public is judging their solutions, or is misunderstanding them, or is just plain ignorant. This is completely false. The public isn’t affirming them or rejecting conservatism, but is using this election to reset the terms so that, going forward, we can have that debate on policy. The public understands — and Krauthammer and so many conservative intellectuals fail to grasp — that effective policy, including conservative policy, is not possible so long as the terms of the game remain as they are. They are voting to flip the chessboard over.
And the public is completely correct on this.
Published in General
“Preventing terrorists from using the internet” is not what people generally refer to when they state that Trump wants to shut down free speech.
He also wants to weaken libel laws to make it easier for him to sue journalists who say mean things about him, prohibit military officers from speaking publicly, and overturn Citizens United. That is shutting down free speech.
Ok, but suing news organizations when they lie is also not the same thing as trying to outlaw “hate speech”.
This is very insightful. I am beginning to think that this ends in less than 10 years with a second US Civil War.
What makes you think the issue is lies?
Look at the issues that Krauthammer brings up to prove the fecklessness of the GOP: Obamacare, Planned Parenthood and “tax-and-spend hyper liberalism.” Doesn’t anybody see that all those issues do is prove what an ideological bubble Krauthammer is trapped inside, along with the rest of the DC-based conservative establishment?
The vast majority of Americans either like Obamacare or want it reformed. That’s what “repeal and replace” means, doesn’t it? It isn’t going to go away and everybody who reads these words knows it. Defunding Planned Parenthood is a niche issue, a minor annoyance, an appropriations adjustment. And if Trump supporters or conservatives are up in arms over “tax-and-spend hyper liberalism,” I haven’t seen the demonstrations.
What conservatives and traditionalists want and what they haven’t gotten from the GOP are “goodies,” conservative “goodies.” We want our political leaders to help make our lives less encumbered by rules and BS; to conserve our communities and our ways of living; and to make sure that we are respected, at home and abroad.
That is precisely where the Republican Party has failed and why its voters are so angry with it. We hear their vows of principle every even-numbered year and their declarations of impotence every odd-numbered year. We see flyover country and its people decline and construction cranes and high incomes everywhere in the capital’s “collar counties.”
We see Republicans holding governorships and control of state legislatures, and yet the state-financed universities in those states are leftist seminaries, where punks and profs lecture working class Americans about “white privilege.” Fifty years ago our fathers and grandfathers threw pinkos out of our schools and kept them safe for honest academic disagreements; but our present-day principled conservatives are too scared and impotent to reestablish a proper respect.
If the House and Senate had merely BUILT A WALL, the signature Trump issue would not have arisen. It would not have been particularly challenging..
You mean like individual congressmen and senators with bricks and mortar?
They could easily have passed a bill to get ‘er done. Not a very expensive proposition, compared to everything else.
This bill would have gotten 60 votes in Senate and presidential signature?
At least the GOPe would have TRIED. This is what we wanted on a great many fronts.
The way I recall it, it was the anti-comprehensive immigration reform members of the House who did not want any immigration related bills (including border security) brought up for fear the Senate would use it as an excuse to bring the Gang of 8 bill to conference and the Dems in the House would find enough Republican votes to pass the conference bill.