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The Electoral Forest Just Got Greener
Like many others here, I have been resigned to a Trump candidacy from the moment Senator Ted Cruz dropped out of the race. I saw nothing particularly positive in that prospect, but I found it unquestionably preferable to any of the remaining alternatives. So, I chose to support Trump. Under the circumstances, it was the only defensible choice.
Subsequently, House Speaker Paul Ryan stepped up and confirmed his role as spokesman for conservative Republicans. Furthermore, he convinced me that he would use the influence of his office, as well as his formidable personal influence, to lead Congress and work with a President Trump to move the country in a positive direction. Ryan would collaborate with Trump as an ally on issues in which their goals align. Equally importantly, he would negotiate workable differences, as well as reign in Trump’s most extreme impulses.
But now that Trump has named Governor Mike Pence as his running mate, I’m beginning to see this candidacy in a genuinely positive light. One year ago, who among us would have objected to putting, at the top of the ticket, a conservative governor with proven leadership ability in Congress? The Trump phenomenon disallowed that (as we are all painfully aware), but now Trump has given us just such a man, albeit at the bottom of the ticket. At this point, I’ll take it. We’d be foolish to turn-up our noses at this development. Governor Pence possesses the political experience, conservative nature, and personal attributes that Trump lacks. To some degree, Pence can potentially neutralize much of what is objectionable about Trump the man.
A Trump/Pence White House combined with a Ryan-led Congress has real potential for moving the country in a positive direction. Perhaps it’s time for thoughtful #NeverTrumpers to re-assess the situation given these latest developments. Can’t we agree that the Trump candidacy is, at the very least, marginally less intolerable now? Can’t we agree that a Trump/Pence ticket is colossally superior to the Democrat alternative, and that a protest vote for a fringe candidate would be counterproductive? If you think not, then just how superior to the Democrat alternative would you require the Trump option to be? At what point does a protest vote become merely an exercise in moral preening?
I recognize that Trump the person is still Trump the person, but we’re not electing an emperor. An administration staffed with solid Republicans simply must be preferable to the Clinton cabal. It’s time for NeverTrumpers to rally around the true conservative on the ticket, and raise his stature within the Trump campaign and within the party.
Published in Politics
If Pence was any good, he would have refused to be part of this circus. Maybe he was good before becoming Trump’s veep.
Wasn’t Pence on a Ricochet podcast at some point? If so, y’all should repost it.
Your reference to Jonah Goldberg bothers me. Do only professional political writers have an obligation to maintain their integrity as it is demonstrated in their vote? I have been an AT from the beginning and I remain so. I have had moments when Trump said or did something that I thought demonstrated a degree of budding statesmanship, but he rapidly changed his position or sent another inane tweet. Thus far Trump has done no fund raising, has taken on no financial responsibility for the campaign or convention. He is totally unserious and his lies about “self-funding” are becoming more and more blatant. How can anyone take seriously a person who treats the entire process as a stupid game, using tweets to make policy statements. Pence adds nothing to the ticket from my viewpoint. As already pointed out, he folds far too easily on important issues. Trump’s apparent last minute discomfort with him certainly doesn’t provide much confidence. It is just more of the same.
If Trump was looking for a chump that would fold at the first sign of pressure from left-wing identity politics (Trump’s favorite brand of “motivation”) then he picked the right guy in Pence.
More and more, Rico, this is the way I see things myself. Add to Pence our own Larry Kudlow, one of Trump’s senior advisors. Larry is a brilliant economist, a steady hand, and a thorough conservative–for that matter, Larry has dedicated his whole professional life to the cause of free markets.
I have not left the GOP yet either. Mostly it is because there is really no advantage to being independent. Since NY has closed primaries, I can still have a say in future decisions, and cling to the hope that after Trump passes that the party will right itself. If not, I can abandon ship at a later date.
What small doubt I have about Trump is that those who know him seem to support him. They obviously see something I do not. But is that because there is more to him than I see, or because he acts differently towards his friends. Regardless, he is the one who has to make the sale, and he chased me away, and continues to do so.
Every now and then I get an email from New Republic with a list of articles. Nearly every article has an anti Trump bombast. It would go over well here at Ricochet. Some of us would be comforted by spending time at that website. Good for you Rico and Peter and several others for attempting to establish a balance. It actually is humorous when I read some posters against Trump claiming they feel harassed . By whom, for goodness sake? At this point there is no #neverTrump movement left. If you can’t vote for the man, then don’t, but constantly haranguing every one of his words or actions is very much a promotion of Hillary Clinton by way of “death by a thousand cuts”. You must acknowledge that truth, yes? Perfect is the enemy of good. Is it possible that’s what we have here?
Scott Walker has done wonderfully in Wisconsin…love the man. He didn’t make it to the first vote. Neither did almost half of the original 17. Lots of them had excellent records, some not so much. They could not succeed nationally. What about Rubio? He couldn’t even win his own State in the primary. Fiorina…3%, Bush spent more money blasting Rubio than promoting himself. His manager, our favorite Mike Murphy, blew 100 million dollars in that losing effort. Ted Cruz, a solid conservative, couldn’t win the Republican primary. Do we really think he could win the national election?
I agree that picking Pence is a positive. I won’t make a final decision on how to vote probably until I walk into the booth.
Up until around January of last year, I figured I would vote for any Republican nominee including Trump over Hillary, but the more I watched him and the more I learned, the more I concluded I would not vote for him. I don’t think I’m alone in that. Is he going to reverse that trend among anti-Trump conservatives? We’ll have to watch and see.
The polls indicated that Trump was the Republican most likely to win the primary, but the least likely to win the general. The polls were right about the primary. Will they be wrong about the general? Maybe, but I expect not.
All of the anti-Trump rhetoric in the comments is spot on. And yet one cannot simply vote for Hillary or fail to negate a vote cast for her. The level of lawlessness in the federal government is taking on epic proportions. Hillary will protect that, not correct that.
Trump may be as bad as Hillary, but Hillary will be as bad as Hillary. Pence is irrelevant, Ryan is irrelevant. Only Hillary and Donald are relevant.
I’m generally a fan of Ryan and I think he’s quite good this way. Again, though, I’d wager that he’s going to be at an extreme disadvantage when his colleagues have to choose between him and President Trump.
Why should Pence moderate anything about Trump? If anything given Pence’s past statements and his current praise of Trump I would say it is more likely to see Pence adopt Trump’s attitudes. For the Trump ticket to be sufficiently better than the Hillary ticket, it would need to not include Donald Trump. Does arsenic get less poisonous if you cover it in chocolate?
No, the Republican party is moving further and further away from anything I can in good faith support. They will follow Trump down his protectionist and nationalist rabbit hole because its leadership is made up of political hacks, who are now fighting for the thing they care most about, their jobs. Nuts to them.
I will leave it to others to decide our collective doom (Hillary or Trump) but I don’t see much of a reason to rally around anything. This isn’t like supporting a sports team. If you believe in Donald Trump’s policies, and ideology then support him. If you are voting for him because somehow you think he won’t be what he has shown himself to be, then I think you are deluding yourself.
Right cause Trump in his life has been the model of lawfulness, a paragon of of unimpeachable character. He is a sleazy car dealer, and she is a sleazy lawyer. I guess whichever side can swallow their dignity and ignore their conscience the best will win. I don’t care to do either.
If all one wants to do is negate a Hillary Vote then you can just have a write in. It increases the denominator, thereby diluting the power of her supporters.
Indeed. One of the main objections to Trump is that he acts and talks like (and therefore presumably thinks that) we’re electing an emperor.
The original post said it best: having Pence on the ticket makes Trump “marginally less intolerable.”
Pouring ketchup on a crap sandwich does pretty much the same thing.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been pretty close to willing to vote “for” Trump since we lost the FBI primary. So in trying to choke down the aforementioned sandwich, I won’t be turning down the few condiments that might get thrown in my direction.
I think we would get better results form our presidential election if we did think we were electing an emperor. After all we might then choose to have higher standards.
If an election could not be decided by a plurality, I would agree. But it can. Therefore you either vote for an electable alternative to Hillary or you indirectly support her victory.
I don’t know that Trump will be a better president than Hillary. All I do know is that Hillary will not be a better president than Hillary.
Basically I am of a mind with Z of Mt in comment 30. See also: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/campaigns-elections/mike-pence-trumps-cheap-gop-dates/
I was never Trump and I am still never Trump. The only way Pence improves the ticket is if Trump dies/resigns/is impeached. If you think voting for Trump is better than not voting, that means that we have a difference of opinion on tactics. It doesn’t mean we are no longer on the same team.
While I respect your choice to vote your conscience, I disagree with your application of “protest vote.” What you’re really protesting is “voting” — ditching an opportunity to influence the outcome of this election in any meaningful way. Isn’t that what one is really doing when one can’t bring himself to vote for either candidate? As for minimizing a mandate, that strikes me as fairly meaningless unless one assumes the winner can potentially win a mandate. Unless one of the candidate breaks out in the next couple months, neither will be seen as earning a mandate anyway.
Thanks for commenting. It would be truly enlightening to learn more about the interpersonal dynamics within an administration and their effects on policymaking. Perhaps a glimpse of your own experience can provide a perspective for those of us still struggling with the idea of supporting the Republican nominee in 2016.
I’m not so sure why that would be the case. For most issues, Ryan’s colleagues are likely to be closer to Ryan’s positions than Trump’s positions. Furthermore Trump doesn’t have that large a following in either Congress or among the public.
Trump is to be feared as an electoral opponent but he simply lacks the institutional or public backing to overpower Congress. The more he acts up, the more people will look to Congress to stymie him.
Most regular readers of the comments know my position on Trump, so I won’t regurgitate it. I understand those that want to save the Court and are willing to vote for him despite their best impulses.
I did want to comment on the idea that somehow Paul Ryan will be able to reign Trump in. I think Ryan is in for the scare of his life in a few weeks with his primary challenge. I don’t think another Eric Cantor situation is out of the range of possibility. Ryan, like Cantor before him, is currently flooding his district with mailers touting his anti-immigration bona fides. Every sentient primary voter in his district knows he is a staunch libertarian on open borders and is proffering this lie in desperation.
Until three months ago I would have said Paul Ryan was the man I admired most holding public office. Now not so much, thanks to the forces Trump has unleashed. Ryan’s challenger is channeling Bernie Sanders rhetoric appealing to crossover votes in their open primary, anti-NAFTA and anti-immigration. When his obituary is written I think Ryan’s decision to abandon his integrity when the country and party needed him to lead the opposition to Trump will be in the first paragraph.
Ryan will be a bellwether. Last I checked he still has a sizable lead over his challenger. If he gets dumped there may be reason to believe in Donald’s great blue masses turning out in unforeseen numbers. If not, then it is going to be harder for Trumpeters to confidently predict an increased turnout in November.
I’m sure if Paul Ryan had never held office, he would like a lot more conservative than he looks now.
You may as well say that between Trump and Ryan, you expect Ryan to be a better businessman because he hasn’t had any bankruptcies.
And Larry is fantasizing about what Trump will do. He doesn’t seem to understand that the future repeats the past; what Trump was–a crony capitalist–is what he will be, magnified.
Smart people have emotions too. And emotions can get played like a violin.
Proof? Larry described Trump’s rise as “nothing short of breathtaking.” Those are the words of a man who’s turned into a fan yelling in the stands.
What puzzles me is the conviction among many Trump supporters that if we don’t get a kinda-sorta-maybe-on-Tuesdays conservativy guy in the office, the country will break apart.
Really, if the country’s that broken, Trump isn’t the man to fix it.
Tom, this is one of the clearest arguments for #NeverTrump. Bravo!
The choice of Pence only confirms Trump’s character flaws. Pence is the worst kind of politician–just conservative enough to discredit our side when he caves. What an awful choice.