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From Whence Came Trumpism? Two Takes.
Over the last few months, there have been many attempts to explain why the deepest bench in Republican Party history fizzled when faced down by a man with no political experience, no ideological consistency, and no ties to the party he chose to run in for the presidency. Often hinted at (but never said forthrightly) were the ideas that Trump’s support came from racists or hillbillies. Now these accusations have been addressed by Avik Roy and J.D. Vance.
Roy, who’s worked for Romney, Perry, and Rubio, is considered the go-to healthcare wonk on the Right. He is described in this Vox article/interview as a Republican’s Republican, though they might just as easily have said that he’s an avatar of much of what those who support Trump hate. The editorial style of Vox is probably responsible, but Roy comes off as having a right-back-at-you disdain for those who rejected all the non-Trump candidates this season. He calls out the Republican Party (and even conservatism in general) for suffering from latent racism and white nationalism.
When I first read the Vox piece, I wondered if Roy had lost his mind. He says:
Conservative intellectuals, and conservative politicians, have been in kind of a bubble. We’ve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism — philosophical, economic conservatism. In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.
And:
It’s a common observation on the left, but it’s an observation that a lot of us on the right genuinely believed wasn’t true — which is that conservatism has become, and has been for some time, much more about white identity politics than it has been about conservative political philosophy.
In Roy’s view, Trump proves the Left’s caricature of the right as the party of aggrieved whites pining for the days of racial supremacy.
J.D. Vance is a rather different sort. Though educated at Yale Law School, Vance began life Appalachia and the rust belt of central Ohio. It took one tough Mamaw and the US Marine Corps to aim him toward heights far above his raising. Discussing his book Hillbilly Elegy with with Rod Dreher he sees a different cause for the Trump phenomenon found in the people and problems of Appalachia and flyover country.
Vance offers an alternative view that paints a bleak, but a little less-disheartening picture.
The simple answer is that these people – my people – are really struggling, and there hasn’t been a single political candidate who speaks to those struggles in a long time. Donald Trump at least tries.
[…]
The two political parties have offered essentially nothing to these people for a few decades. From the Left, they get some smug condescension, an exasperation that the white working class votes against their economic interests because of social issues, a la Thomas Frank (more on that below). Maybe they get a few handouts, but many don’t want handouts to begin with.
From the Right, they’ve gotten the basic Republican policy platform of tax cuts, free trade, deregulation, and paeans to the noble businessman and economic growth. Whatever the merits of better tax policy and growth (and I believe there are many), the simple fact is that these policies have done little to address a very real social crisis. More importantly, these policies are culturally tone deaf: nobody from southern Ohio wants to hear about the nobility of the factory owner who just fired their brother.
Trump’s candidacy is music to their ears.
While I think Roy paints the entire Republican party and Trump’s supporters with the colors of the fringest of elements, I don’t think Vance accurately portrays the whole of this year’s electorate either. There is no one-size-fits-all explanation for why Donald Trump is our nominee instead of Walker, or Perry, or Rubio, or Cruz. I do, however, there is some truth in what both men said. The party of Trump often times sounds like a South Park episode with a bunch of men hollering “They took our jerbs!” When I talk to Trump supporters in my workplace, I hear people who don’t want speeches about tax cuts and policy details; rather, they simply want what feels like a meaningful say in the outcome of their own lives. I hear in their voices the same despair with broken promises and jellied spines from Republican politicians that I get from the smart people here who have placed their faith in Trump.
After reading these (and other) theories I still have no full or settled explanation of why Trump. As usual, I find myself with unanswered questions and the “start a conversation” button begging me to search here for answers.
Published in General
Robert Zubrin.
But, this is precisely the problem. Trump has made clear he does not support classical liberalism, and that he wants to remake the Republican Party in his image (basically a party of Blue Dog Democrats). If Trumpism becomes the new normal, what leads you believe there will be any room left for the old order? This is akin to sacrificing the Republic to Caesar and then wondering why it became a dictatorship.
This is essential John Locke: Those who pursue power will sacrifice liberty in the name of security, and those who legitimize power will be seduced by this trap. Once in power, it corrupts, and liberty is rarely returned. It’s up to the defenders of liberty to fight this temptation. The GOP has instead clearly fallen right in. That ship has sailed, but I’m going to keep fighting for liberty nonetheless. That means I’m now fighting against both of the old parties.
That is exactly this conservative’s answer. Stop band-aiding all of the problems, they are exacerbated, if not caused, by the elite who have power and money (but I repeat myself), and use it to try to fix all that ails us (which is just a code word for putting money in their pockets). Some who call themselves conservative are not so. For me, Conservatism has always been about de-centralizing power, and limiting government.
That’s just it, we don’t know how big the number is, but this small fringe gets all the attention from the media, the progressives and #nevertrump.
I just want to get through this election and the next 4 years. Both choices are bad. I am #neverhillary. Other Conservatives implying that the reason I would vote for Trump is latent racism and that I have a problem because racists will vote for the same candidate, actually hardens my resolve to vote for Trump. If both Democrats and Republicans want to call me a racist because I don’t want a Hillary Presidency then screw them both.
I wouldn’t say that he lost his mind. I’d say the mask slipped.
When Roy says “We’ve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism,” I hear an echo from conservatives saying “We had this view that Republicans were with us on conservatism . . . and we learned that wasn’t actually the case.”
The words that come to mind when he says “the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism” are not words fit for Ricochet. (Although perhaps I should say “Yeah, and the gravitational center is somewhere around Washington DC. So . . . sure.”)
Another pundit I can write off. This election year has been very clarifying for me.
The old order is dead anyway. And good riddance. They failed. To the extent they had any kind of actual conservative plans, they still failed. They showed that they would continue to fail this cycle.
What makes you think Trumpism will become the “new normal”?
If you don’t have faith in the American people, or our Constitution since you think Trump will become some dictator and that his supporters like myself will go along (thanks a lot!) then you should just give up now. You are fighting a war in the abstract. It has absolutely no bearing on reality. This is one reason why ‘we’ have been losing.
What’s your plan kemosabe?
Neither side of elites , conservative as well as progressive , being writers, thinkers and lawyers themselves, valued the country they inherited that dominated the world in the ashes of WW2.
Not being grounded in producing and making things , they followed a globalist path of assuming America’s productive power would always be there for them to squander for their pet theories, such as one way free trade and unrestricted globalism.
They did nothing to protect and maintain manufacturing capacity, allowing it to be sent elsewhere. We now have a base economy which cannot provide well paying jobs for large chunks of the population.
For those who were protected and inhabited the top ten percent, that was not viewed as a problem. For everyone else, it was condemnation to slow decline of living standards.
We now accept a model of America where only a ten percent minority will live well. Our country as it was founded will not survive such a condition.
Conservatives and Progressives elites accepted this, promoted this and have shown themselves to be bad stewards of the country and asset base they inherited.
You wonder why Trump is successful? He is playing to the 90% who see that the ten percent are out for themselves. He tapped into a classic underserved market.
Label it racist, stupid, uninformed or what have you. I am sure the folks at Versailles spoke similar utterances.
If that guy were running, he’d win. He’s basically saying the same thing, just not in a bombastic and insulting way.
added: I still don’t think he’s the answer to our problems, I still think he’s reflexively big-government. But this Trump won’t ‘scare’ people like the current version does – and therefore the ‘undecideds’ will be more comfortable making Trump their choice of the two.
“Nationalism” does not equate to “white nationalism.”
I do believe that much of the “conservative” movement has been more nationalist than philosophically conservative. That nationalism is not inconsistent with conservatism — indeed, when combined with sound principle it’s a healthy thing. But Trump left the conservatism behind and doubled down on the nationalism, and we found that for many of these conservatives the nationalism came before their conservatism.
Nationalism unmoored from principle becomes a dangerous thing, especially when the movement is so bound up in one man’s personality.
This does create a friendlier environment for those who would base their nationalism on race. It does not help that the Left has cried “wolf” so many times that Republicans who would tolerate no such thing in their personal life are automatically defensive.
That’s just the Constitution if one acknowledges what to me is clear, that the States’ creation of the United States was intended to grant limited powers to the central government (federal not national). It was never meant to be unlimited and central. Following the Constitution in a way that recognizes its restrictive nature yields a conservative outcome.
Very few of our federally elected Republicans fit this picture, hence are not conservative.
This is the difficulty of being generically anti-PC. A sizeable coalition of Trump supporters are “People who are tired of being called racist.” Most all of them are non-racist people who can’t point out Islamic terrorism without being labeled a privileged, xenophobic jingoist. The other very small vocal faction are actual racists.
It’s a field of campaign signs reading “I’m not a racist” with a couple swastikas thrown in. I understand the unending facepalm from the #NeverTrump camp.
I get this Spin and would like to take a crack at an answer.
I am #NeverHillary or #NothingLeftToLoseTrump (hat tip to @ejhill). I don’t listen to Trump and don’t think he’s soft, squishy or will be what I (or conservatives) want him to be. He is who he is. Arrogant. Uninformed (on too much). Unrestrained. Juvenile. Boorish. But we have a binary decision and he is infinitely better than SheWhoWearsPantsuits.
My expectations for him are small. He won’t veto an 0bamacare replacement bill. He will nominate better SCOTUS appointees (the Senate has a check&balance on this). He will fight Islamic extremism. He will support our local Police forces. He will enforce existing immigration law and protect our borders.
That’s more than enough. His blustering and posturing is his ‘art of the deal’ shtick. He’s not some ideologue set on blowing up the world. He’s a capitalist. His interests will coincide with America on a few things.
Agreed. But unlike at the ice cream parlor, we are not allowed to avoid both.
Almost every single American today enjoys a standard of living almost unheard of in the 1950s.
Bush won a second term, that did not mean that people supported everything he did. He tried “immigration reform” and it failed because he did not have the support of enough of his own voting base. He bailed out Wall Street and the Tea Party was formed.
Choosing the least bad option (in my opinion) does not mean that I would support anything Trump wants, nor that I would sit idly while he creates a dictatorship.
Curious that America produces more today in real and nominal dollar terms than it ever has.
I would like to point out that in the mind of white nationalists, there is no difference between American nationalism and white nationalism, because one of the pillars of their ideology is that America is white. To them blacks, Hispanics (with brown skin), and Asians can never be Americans because they will never be white. So when a non-racist says something like the Government needs to look out for Americans it is not the same thing as when David Duke says it. Even though they use the same words.
So [CoC] what.We all know about white racism. The Democrats appeal to black racism while simultaneously denying that it exists.
Some white nationalists probably voted for Reagan. Given white nationalism’s antisemitism and dislike of corporations and big business, some of them probably voted (D) over the years. Some of them are nihilists and would vote whichever way they think would make things worse and bring the revolution.
You seem to know these people well. You read their websites? You go to the meetins’? How do you have such knowledge?
Are you as informed about the black nationalist movement? Do they have a preferred candidate? I’d guess many of them voted for Barack, others dislike BOTH Hillary and Trump.
Like you.
Hmmm.
This is presented as if you think you are addressing a class in elementary school. Think a few thousand ‘white nationalists’ and tens of millions of ‘American nationalists’.
Two wrongs make a right!
This all feels like trying to figure out which person to blame for giving you the germ that gave you this cold.
Well, I watched all 27 minutes. Not sure I got the point? He actually didn’t seem as annoying when he was younger.
Programming note: Avik will be the guest on this week’s Ricochet Podcast, and JD Vance will be on this week’s Need To Know with Jay and Mona.
However, if the choices are between a scoop of Chunky Monkey Urine and Pooberry, then I think “I’ll let you decide for me.” is a perfectly acceptable response.
This is just too much of a coincidence! What’s the Prawn hiding!?
GET HIM!!!
Ah good, I thought the amount of kvetching from the Rabble Alliance was reaching a nadir.
Careful there mate, you’re kvetching ….