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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
Don’t think so. The vast majority of Americans don’t listen to or read the conservative punditocracy. The vast majority of Americans aren’t even that well informed and couldn’t even tell you who the Speaker of the House, Attorney General, FBI Director, Vice President or Secretary of State is…but they can sing the songs from Frozen, or know the latest news about Kanye and Kim. They are quite content to not be bothered about the details and daily issues dealt with here on Ricochet or on the WSJ, NRO, The Federalist, or any number of other conservative/right leaning sites. Conservative pundits will have very little to do with a Trump loss. Besides…Trump is doing fine right now sabotaging his own campaign by continuing to explain his previous attacks or claims about Megyn Kelly, Muslims on New Jersey rooftops, his mimicking of a physically disabled reporter, attacking other Republicans, ad nauseum rather than attack the Hildabeast.
SOME of the loss will be because the conservative pundits are not supporting him.
There will be some depression of votes because people listen to pundits to help make up their minds. You cannot believe they have zero effect. They sure don’t. Otherwise, why would they write anything at all.
Even you hope to have some effect on others by posting here.
Did I say “zero effect”….hmmm….let me check. Nope. Didn’t say that. Said “very little”.
I only hope to enlighten and speak logically. Trump, unless he withdraws from the race, is a fait accompli. All I can hope for is his withdrawal at the soonest possible moment or that he will actually seek the counsel of wise men and women and then actually listen to them and acts less like the loose cannon that he is and stops shooting at fellow Republicans and then if elected behaves conservatively and rationally and doesn’t say or do stupid or dangerous things. The latter is a very, tall order. I would say that there’s a zero chance that he behaves more coherently, focused or conservatively but I wouldn’t want to be accused of not being reasonable.
BRYAN: Some of the loss will be because the conservative pundits tried to make him lose
BRIAN: Don’t think so.
You did not say “zero effect” but it is clearly implied when you deny that “some” of the loss will be a cause.
How else if one supposed to read “Don’t think so.” in response to a sentence?
Either you agree that there is some effect, or you think there is no effect.
No = zero.
Oh, I don’t know…maybe try reading the entire comment.
I did. The rest of your post seemed to support the idea that pundits have no effect. It seems to back up the “I don’t think so”.
So, I am sorry, I guess that you agree that pundits do have some effect on voters, and that some of Trump’s loss will be because of pundits on the right coming out against him.
Glad we could agree on it.
Consider just for a moment the fantastical but true fact that there are a lot of very conservative people on Ricochet, and a lot of very conservative commentators and politicians whom we normally respect as conservative opinion leaders, who are so put off by Trump that they cannot bring themselves to support him even against a Democratic candidate as horrific as Hillary Clinton.
If any other Republican won the nomination every person on Ricochet and every one of those commentators and politicians would be lined up in lockstep for him and against Hillary.
This is not a phenomenon that can be turned back by argument at this point. Only Trump can change enough, learn enough, grow enough, to make a dent in the conservative opposition.
Here at Ricochet we spend so much time arguing the minutiae of various policies and candidate’s positions. When most Americans vote for either Hillary or Donald it will in the end not have much to do with taxation, foreign policy, defense, the economy, jobs or the myriad issues we debate here. It will come down to which candidate the American electorate is willing to place more trust in because, despite their dishonesty or shiftiness, the candidate they choose seems more level-headed, sane and less erratic. Trump has an opportunity to become more level-headed, more focused, and less erratic…and appear more presidential (which he’s promised he would become once he locked up the nomination). Trump could get lucky if Clinton implodes or has a serious health issue. At the moment, Donald’s campaign appears to be the one that is struggling and primarily because Trump can’t stay on message and keeps spending time on petty squabbles. Yes, the mainstream media will do all it can to elect Hillary. That should have been a given. All the more reason that Trump better get his act together and appear more presidential.
Shapiro’s argument about Trump causing further damage to conservative efforts has a lot of merit given Trump’s Liberal inclinations and anti-conservative positions. Will it destroy the conservative movement? Probably not. But it will be a major setback both politically and culturally.
Self-redacted for brusqueness of tone.
I’ve only seen a few of the comments, and already this is getting foul.
When Shapiro says this: ” It’s the perversion of the conservative movement itself, the corruption of conservatism in favor of power,” he could very well be plagiarizing the conservative criticism from elections past of the business-as-usual, Chamber of Commerce, country club sorts whom we used to call RINOs.
I suppose I could try my hand at the name-calling otherwise popular in this thread, but I’ll just point out that the fickle and feckless folks who led the party to this point fit Shapiro’s quote to a T.
Still the elite and their wannabe footmen complain that the Trumpenproletariat do not understand how things work in Washington? I submit that having failed, the GOP is about to learn how things work when you fail. Two terms of Obama’s depredations have not been enough to motivate them out of their comfy “let’s just win an unbroken string of overwhelming elections and then we won’t have to fight!” bright ideas think-tank profitable consultant approved opinions and utterly ineffective-by-design opposition theater to fool the masses. Now by God they are on the run.
We couldn’t get them to defund a single abortion or NEA welfare check for unpopular artists suckling for a living at the government teat. Run, GOP, run. Don’t come back. We’ll build a better party without you when you are gone. ~250
Valid criticism of one person or group does not invalidate that same criticism when leveled at another, especially when the core of the charge remains the same. Conservatives weren’t happy with RINOs either.
Because forward fire failed to inflict enough casualties the rifles are turned round just so there’s some blood spilled?
Sans conservatism that new party won’t be better, and neither will the country.
The elite suck, but conservatism was just using them for a ride anyway.
I find that to be much more likely. The fact that many of his early supporters openly boasted they wanted to destroy the party it always seemed odd to me that we should listen to them on who should represent the party they wanted to destroy.
I just wrote a piece with a similar sentiment which a couple days ago. While Trump voters tell us it’s a binary choice, they haven’t proven, or really attempted to prove, what effect Trump will have on the conservative movement and the Republican Party’s receptiveness to it.
So the Trump debate continues to rage, as if Trump actually had a chance to win. Some Trump supporters continue to hope for a “pivot,” after which Trump would behave like something resembling a decent human being who could be trusted with the Presidency. Others continue to tell themselves that Trump’s antics won him 14 million votes during the primaries, so they will just naturally bring in another 50 million votes needed to win the general, despite polls that say he will never get that kind of support. And Trump keeps losing even the people who did reluctantly support him.
Either way, the Trump candidacy has become a Rorschach test for one’s capacity for self-delusion. Trump is going to lose in a spectacular landslide, and the best thing that Republicans can do is to make it clear that Trump does not represent the Republican Party or the Republican brand. And no, I don’t want to hear “but, but, but, but… Hillary!” Sorry, but you are going to get four years of Hillary. So when events overtake your capacity for self-delusion, you had best start thinking about 2020 and beyond, because that is the next time you are going to have any say about who sits in the Oval Office.
This is a laughable rationale. The Republican Party is hostile to conservatism It’s leaders trash the tea party and suppress actual conservatism, or anything resembling Constitutional governance in favor of incumbency. It’s like trying to win a basketball game with a one point lead with a quarter left by stalling. Case in point is the Corker Cardin bill, that was a collusion with Leftists to assure that the Iran deal could be done without even a vote in the Senate, while providing for Boeing to sell jets to Iran, and give Republicans a pretext for claiming they were against the deal without having to vote on it. Many bridges too far, to cute by 90%. The only Conservatism going on in America is the G.K. Chesterton sort, which he characterized as follows: The aim of Progressives is to make sure mistakes continue to be made; the aim of Conservatives is to make sure those mistakes are never corrected.
You are merely describing a tactical retreat. BG Stephens is describing an advance. Conservatism has been conceding the field since FDR. The only injuries we’ve inflicted on the Dems has been by bruising their knuckles with our faces.
Carrying water for Hillary is not conservative.
Note:
Guru, figure out how to address your fellow members with a modicum of civility.After the tempertantrums are over and you stomp off to start your own party (without even blackjack and hookers),
Keep in mind, that even when you create your own crank gadfly party, at some point you will be made to choke on it.
One thousand times this.
And couple it with the demonstrable fact that Trump routinely ignores, and sneers at, good advice, and seems to have his hand at his throat (no worries about his finger on “The Button,” though), and I think all bets are off when it comes to predicting exactly what will happen in a Trump presidency.
And, in a weird reversal of conventional wisdom, that’s exactly why many people are voting for him.
The devil they don’t know.
Agreed. Though I’d also say that not voting for Trump is not tantamount to carrying water for her.
Something a little odd here. The very same people who keep telling me that Hillary must be defeated at all costs, because even the least conservative Republican ever nominated is so much better than Hillary that the fate of the Republic turns on him beating her; these same people are also telling me that the Republican Party does nothing for conservatism, does nothing but surrender to the left, and is no different than the Democrats.
Are you guys planning on making up your minds, or do you not even see the contradiction?
In some ways, I guess I am. But when you are outnumbered and outgunned, as Conservatives often are, you need to fight not to lose rather than fighting to win. The fundamental reality, as described be me and others in this thread, is that the majority of the U.S. electorate are not conservative. Find a way to double our ranks, or penetrate mass media, or reclaim higher education, or begin to erode many of the massive baked in advantages liberals have built for themselves, and then we can start talking about creating more long-term gains.
You and I probably share equal frustration of many of the issues on which progressives have advanced, but we seem to differ on what we consider a reasonable amount of success in opposition. I am certainly happy to debate tactics, but the essence of conservatism must be preserved. That is why so many of us cannot fall-in behind the current GOP nominee. Our support is a tacit endorsement of a kind of conservatism unrecognizable to the one we are trying to protect.
The last time I listened to the Jay and Mona podcast, Jay was defending himself against the charge of elitism related to NR’s entry level hiring favoring those from elite schools. His answer was something along the lines of it being unfair not to hire people from the Ivies because they were the best candidates and he didn’t want to discriminate against them.
NR has become an institution largely catering to the conservative ‘elites.’ Fine, that’s their prerogative. If they’ve chosen to go that direction, they shouldn’t complain when non-elites increasingly turn to other sources.
You don’t need to wait until November to do something for conservatism. Tell people on whatever social media outlets you use to vote against John McCain in the Arizona primary (August 30). Or if you’re a Republican in Arizona, vote against him yourself.
If nothing else, this election has verified that conservatives have been living in a bubble. We’ve understood that the left is out to destroy us , but assumed we still had our half of the country. We accepted the political leadership of squishy moderates due to ideologies of pragmatism and incrementalism, and out of desperation against the left. Trump has exposed what we should have known: many of the people on our side are not really with us in any substantive way. We assumed people were listening to us. Our attempts at education have clearly failed.
If in our desperation we give in to Trump’s vision, we’re abandoning the last vestiges of classical liberalism in favor of fighting on the left’s terms. Several people above have made clear that is what they’ve come to accept. I prefer to keep fighting for classical liberalism.
At this point, we need to embrace being a counter culture. Stand up and oppose both parties, and work from the ground up to build a movement that has real, substantive support.
Breitbart was right, as is Bob here. We need to find a way to infiltrate the institutions that define the culture. This is what the New Left did. They now control the culture, and through it, gave us Obama. It’ll be a long slog, but it’s the only way for classical liberalism to survive.
I disagree with the conclusion of this post for one simple reason. If Hillary is elected the Supreme Court will become Liberal for decades and even if an “ideologically pure” Conservative party exists, it will be almost powerless against the likes of Kagan and Sotomayor.
A better strategy is to elect Trump, have a Republican Senate ratify Conservative Supreme Court Justices and worry about the “purity” of the Conservatism in the Republican party after Trump’s presidency. Even if you hate Trump, 4 or 8 years of Trump is way better than decades of Kagan and Sotomayor, et al.
Any Trump Haters that want to disagree with me are wasting their time at this point. I don’t see any scenario where I can support Hillary Clinton.
I think it is clear what effect he is having and Republican Party’s reception thereof.
Trump’s supporters reject conservatism and its many definitions. They embrace and support a strong centralized government with their strong man in charge. The Republican Party has always embraced this vision of extra Constitutional governance. The only issue for the party regulars is that an uncouth strongman is going to be in charge rather than a corporate rubber stamp for Congressional Republican leadership largess and federal government expansion.
Perhaps, but today is core muscle day at the gym and I find 3 sets of 25 reps with a stick on dead horse particularly effective.
Ben Shapiro: “In sum, I’m happy to welcome establishment Republicans who want to revivify conservative litmus tests to the party. But let’s be consistent: if we’re going to oust Trump based on his ideology, those requirements can’t be waived for others.”
I don’t know of any prominent #NeverTrump member who is also talking about the need to oppose John McCain. In fact, some of them have been vocal in their support of McCain. Not buying the “we’re doing this for conservatism” argument.
I think this is a very valid criticism. VDH I believe is a classics scholar but also a rancher and farmer. I’d like nothing better than to see NR post some of Ole Summers’ wonderful writing…and there are other writers and commentators here on Ricochet and elsewhere that NR might want to think about bringing on from time and time.