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To Save Conservatism
If one believes conservatism is the only cure for what ails the nation, then 2016 is a bleak year. We have before us a choice of a dedicated leftist whose entire public life has been dedicated to the destruction of our republic (and replacing it with yet another European-styel socialist welfare state), or a guy who can be charitably described as “not a conservative.” Because Hillary Clinton is such a well known statist and a threat to our way of life, it would seem obvious that the only viable option for conservatives would be to oppose her with everything they have. Under any normal set of circumstances that would be exactly the right course of action. Indeed, many have claimed that it’s so obviously correct that there can be no other argument. Ben Shapiro, however, takes a different view:
That brings us to the real reason to oppose Trump’s candidacy: the attempt to turn the conservative movement into a nationalist populist one, complete with shilling for Trump’s incomprehensible decisions and statements. If you believe that the only solution to America’s problems is true conservatism, your greatest fear is not a Hillary presidency: It’s the perversion of the conservative movement itself, the corruption of conservatism in favor of power. Hillary Clinton’s presidency does not snuff out conservatism, even though it provides a serious danger to the republic. Trump’s presidency does.
I share this view. Conservatism is the solution to our problems. Not voting for Trump increases the likelihood of for four more years of an anti-conservative president who will do everything she can to obstruct conservative ideas and policies. However, a vote for Trump is a vote against conservatism itself. If conservatism has outlived its usefulness and must pass then so be it, but I cannot take an active part in bludgeoning it to death while it still draws breath. Hillary is just another external threat against which we have established defenses. Trump represents an internal rot eating away the very foundation of what America is and what we fight to conserve.
Published in General
Shoulda been here in 2011. The same thing was said about nonsupport for Romney, by many of the same people complaining about it now. This amuses me greatly.
Yabbut, during Eisenhower’s administration direct federal spending dropped from about 20% of GDP to about 17% of GDP. It continued on a shallow descent towards 14% of GDP until 1975, at which point it started going up again.
It’s not as good as the Clinton era when federal spending went from about 19% to 14% in only a decade, but it’s still pretty good.
Conservative victories? Not many, but there are some.
Highest marginal rate of income tax no longer in range of 70%
De-regulation of airline travel
Slow death of private sector unionism
Revival of Originalism on Supreme Court (maybe not lasting… but it was good for a while)
Defeat of Communism
Squelching 1970’s stagflation
A massive part of the fight for conservatism that is not discussed as much as the political theater on Capitol Hill is the cultural fight beyond the beltway. Given that those more conservatively inclined Americans, even if they don’t self-identify as conservatives, but still adhere to and try to protect the rights of gun ownership, freedom of speech, association, religion are quite engaged and sometimes they are victorious beating back against onerous legislation, school mandates or fiats from city councils or county boards of supervisors. It helps, of course, that those fights can be highlighted and occasionally supported from the wells of Congress and the bully-pulpit of the Presidency. To the extent that we have a Republican (in name only) president who is more inclined to deal with Democrat socialists to shove down our throats more big government solutions and central control of the economy (not to mention his other numerous deficiencies) those more local and regional fighters for conservative values will be on their own. This is why a Trump presidency can have a deleterious effect on more than just what happens in Congress but more broadly some of the smaller but very important fights beyond the beltway.
Well, thanks for ignoring the gist of that whole post and making it all about a Trump thing.
Taxes. Crime. Welfare. Foreign Policy.
May I note that Donald Trump is an Ivy League graduate?
Gun rights. Rollback of unfettered abortion. Right to work and the decline of union control.
UPENN is ivy league?
Also, deregulation of craft beer and interstate trucking! Woot woot!
Actually the comment is in keeping with the last paragraph of the OP.
This is the kind of mentality that Trumpsters are wallowing in and has led to this nightmare. Utter defeatism, leading to craving conservative destruction.
Yes.
Define “real victory”.
holy hell.
By the numbers:
The rate was never really that high thanks to loopholes. I admit taxes are better, but we now have the highest corp one in the world. Tax rates are always going up and down, and the real issue is that there is income tax at all.
Air-travel is pretty well regulated to be de-regulated. Most everything people dislike about air travel is government caused. I will give it as a conservative “win” though.
Private Sector Unions dying have more to do with changing economy than any policies. Federal DOL laws continue to force Union like effects onto even “at will” states. I am in an “at will” state, and I don’t feel like that at all.
Supreme Court – none of that will last. It will die in the next two years, as cases are brought before a 5/4 split that will wipe out everything
Communism is still alive and well in China. We beat the USSR, which is now resurgent
We have had a decade of less than 3% growth. Not a lasting win.
I dunno. I have a good friend who went to UPenn. He doesn’t seem like his soul is damned.
;-)
When you define victory as “nothing short of perfection” you are guaranteed to be perpetually disappointed.
I did define real victories for the left in #16, but to save you time scrolling here:
I have not done that. I defined the sort of lasting victory I want to see, based upon the lasting victories of the left. I just reposted them. Please review and get back to me.
Critics of the #nevertrump position like saying that not voting for Trump is a vote for Hillary. If that’s the case, not supporting “slowing them down” means that you are implicitly supporting “speeding them up”. Trump is “speeding them up” personified.
Save the snark. No need to dismiss a comment made in good faith. In comment #26 you say,
Some portion of professed “real conservatives” turned to Trump because of their incorrect belief that their conservative representatives hadn’t been fighting the good fight for the better part of the last century despite being outnumbered. In many cases, slowing down progressive advances was the best possible outcome given the circumstances. I think they deserve to be commended. It seems that others think they should be condemned.
People were arguing that Romney would speed up the descent into a progressive dystopia faster than Obama would? Really?
At least 6 of those things would require Constitutional amendments to address – requiring more than just a simple political party to achieve. What would you consider victory on these items? Elimination completely? Because the problem is not conservatives or Republicans but “The American People”. Remember the Republicans tried to reform Social Security in a tiny way during the Bush Administration and the American People revolted against the idea. If you want to punish conservatism for the fact that large majorities of the American People like free stuff then I suggest you review how a Democratic Republic works.
There was so much more to that post than the mention of Trump though. You took the whole thing and boiled it down into a commentary on NeverTrump. It did not feel like you read the whole thing at all. I am sorry to sound snarky, but I felt totally unheard.
I am not calling for anyone to be commended or condemned. All I am saying is, when you don’t win any big battles, you eventually lose your followers. Conservatism has now managed to do that.
I think that the GOP has not fought the good fight, nearly as hard as they might have. The GOP has had the power to restore power in Congress and did not do so. They could have done all sorts of things, from breaking down the budget, to increasing the size of the House of Representatives. They have done none of that. Either that means the conservatives don’t control the GOP, or they are not willing to fight as much.
What I saw, was Cruz fighting, and being attacked from the Right. I saw Rubio try to increase immigration. I saw many conservatives sign on to both of these things. Conservatives with power have been afraid to use it.
I hate that Trump is it. The Republic is going to get a a lot worse, because the people running it no longer care about the people living in it. And that includes conservatives and republicans.
I don’t want to punish conservatism for anything. I am saying that without victories, conservatism cannot maintain followers. I am not making a judgement call about that. Personally, I think there is a lot more they could have done that would have helped, and that I hold against them, but I don’t want to punish them.
On a side note, ending you post with “I suggest you review how a Democratic Republic works.” is uncalled for.
I find this an incredibly weak premise on which to cede the White House, Senate, and House to Leftists. Virtually nobody considers Trump a Conservative anyway. For the few who might, the taint will be there whether he wins or loses.
Conservatism can survive a Trump presidency by loudly opposing any policy misbehavior. The Fourth Estate will certainly cooperate in that regard. Under Clinton, Conservatives will have the choice of either retreating into the shadows or being crushed at every turn.
I think some conservatives need to come to the realization that the majority of the American People just don’t agree with us and that its our job to stand athwart history yelling stop.
The American People are the 300lb guy with a heart condition chowing down on bacon burgers and conservatives are the doctors. To quote the great Dr. Cox: “Sooner or later, you’re going to realize that everything we do around here, everything is a stall. We’re just trying to keep the game going, that’s all. But, ultimately, it always ends up the same way.”
I ask this in all good faith: What kind of lasting victories do you think you can achieve in a Democratic Republic where the majority of the population simply disagrees with you on the vast majority of things you just listed? How would such a victory be achieved?
If you view humanity the way I do (Sowell’s constrained vision), and if you see conservatism as anchor against the tide pulling us inextricably toward destruction rather than sail driving us to where we’d rather go, and if you accept that Trump’s main effect would be cutting through the anchor chain, then he is something to fear greatly. I’m not wholly convinced we can survive Clinton, but I know for certain that we cannot survive conservatism itself being relegated to 5th place in political ideologies behind the Libertarian party and the Greens.
Help me understand the argument that if there is no material difference between Romney and Trump, then why is Romney so objectionable and terrible? If their ideology is roughly similar then it does come down to a difference in temperament, style and intellectual bandwidth. And if that is the remaining criteria, then I can deal with Romney’s purportedly softer version of conservatism.
If Trump ends up losing by a much larger margin than Romney, would it be because Donald was perceived as somehow too conservative? All over-the-board ideologically (read: unprincipled and shallow)? Or that Americans felt he was ill-suited psychologically, temperamentally and intellectually to be president?