Two Kinds of Principled Punditry

 

Jonah Goldberg of the Los Angeles Times.spade and skull Banner2For someone who has long since assumed Trump was an inevitable disaster, a silver lining of this awful year has been the ability to watch a presidential election without a dog in the fight. Doing so has made plain that there is substantial rot on our side that needs to be repaired, a fact noted by a great many people who have had a great many good ideas. This is my first post on Ricochet as a new member, which I decided to become because Ricochet seems like the ideal place to have and contribute to those arguments.

One argument that has been incredibly frustrating to witness between NeverTrump and Trump-supporting conservatives has been the fighting over the ethics of highlighting Trump’s awfulness as a commentator, or really anyone writing or speaking in public fora. What has made it frustrating is that the two sides seem to also have different assumptions about the nature of commentating, which has made the dispute a multidimensional one that few have acknowledged as such.

The two people who have been clearest about this second-axis dispute have been Jonah Goldberg and Ace of Spades, so I have chosen to name the two views of punditry after them. (Note: I commit in advance to apologizing to either or both if they object to my characterization of their views and renaming the schools of thought accordingly). Here they are, in their own words:

Jonah Goldberg, July 2nd:

In 2012, I wrote a column, “The Case for Mitt Romney.” In it, I tried to reassure conservatives who worried — understandably — that Romney wasn’t an authentic conservative. It is absolutely true that if you replace “Romney” with “Trump” it reads like a perfectly serviceable — even entertaining — argument for supporting the 2016 presumptive nominee. Some guy named Edmund Kozak at Laura Ingraham’s website read it and now shouts “Hypocrite!” in my direction. I get it. What Kozak doesn’t get is that I don’t see Trump the same way he does, or the way I saw Mitt Romney.

If John Kasich or any — and I mean any — of the other 16 candidates had won the nomination, I’d probably have written “The Case for John Kasich” by now. If I refused to do that, I would indeed be a hypocrite — or at least inconsistent (hypocrisy is a much misused word). Note: I can’t stand Kasich. But he meets my own minimal requirements for support. Trump, simply, doesn’t. [Lengthy list of reasons]

Kozak and many others either disagree with me on these points or they simply don’t care. If it’s the former, we have some substantial disagreements about what I think are obvious facts. If it’s the latter, then I take our disagreement as a badge of honor. If Roger Simon wants to describe that as “moral narcissism,” so be it. But, there’s a practical point here too. I plan on being in this line of work for a while longer. In the future, I want to be able to continue to say character and ideas matter without someone shouting, “Oh yeah, then why did you support Donald Trump?” […]

And that brings me back to Victor’s dilemma. He asks, “What is the rationale of trashing both [Clinton and Trump], other than a sort of detached depression that does not wear well in daily doses?” […] But the answer is staring him in the face: Because we’re supposed to tell the truth. I will say Hillary is corrupt, deceitful, and unqualified and I will say likewise about Trump — because that’s my job.

Ace, July 21st:

Sorry, I was on Twitter. I felt it was necessary to dispel the widely-held myth, adored by #NeverTrumpers, that somehow attacking Trump relentlessly does not aid Hillary Clinton, and that they are not choosing Hillary Clinton by choosing to be NeverTrump.

All choices have consequences. By supporting Trump, I am responsible for the consequences of a Trump victory — and those consequences could indeed be dire.

But a childish morally-unserious fantasy has infected the #NeverTrump not-so-intellgentsia, that they can agitate for Hillary Clinton — by relentlessly disparaging Trump — and somehow, they are not responsible for the consequences of the Hillary presidency they are bucking for. […]

I ask people: When you knocked Obama in 2012, and wrote posts and comments noting his flaws, did you think you were doing nothing to improve Mitt Romney’s chances of winning the presidency?

If so– why the [expletive] did you bother?

Of course, this is silly; everyone knows that when one buys ads attacking a candidate, one is helping that candidate’s opponent win.

The Ace School

“An Ambassador is as an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country,” is the famous quip by the otherwise obscure Sir Henry Wotton. The Ace conception of punditry is analogous, which we might define as a clever debater, sent to spin on TV for the good of his party. This view has the pundit as essentially engaged in a get-out-the-vote operation. There are a substantial number of voters who will stay home if they feel the situation is hopeless — *cough* Florida panhandle, 2000, *cough* — another group of voters who have misgivings about the character of “their” candidate, and yet another who will, for inexplicable reasons, vote for the candidate they feel is a winner. It is to these groups of voters that the Ace pundit is not so much speaking but, rather, marketing his message: “Our guy is a stand-up, straight-shooter! He’s winning, but still needs your vote! Come join the winning team!” The influence such a pundit does or does not have is a function of how well they make that sales pitch.

This view of punditry implies a highly cynical view of politics (but one with an uncomfortable amount of accuracy). According to it, voters need to be tricked into acting in their own interests, all politicians are scumbags varying only in which circle of hell they will spend eternity, and the silly twits who want it to be otherwise need to be lied to so they can go vote with a clean conscience. As distasteful as this view is, it is important to note that it is not amoral. On the contrary, it assumes that there are meaningful differences in the degree of rottenness among politicians and that choosing the less-worse is a positive good. It is akin to the Kissinger view of foreign relations. Nonetheless, in this conception the actual job of a pundit remains an inherently shady and disreputable one; at best sophistry and at worst outright dishonesty.

The Goldberg School

The other view of punditry — espoused most clearly by Jonah Goldberg — is that the primary audience to which a pundit speaks is the Deep State of donors, consultants, staffers, local bigwigs, and activists that surrounds each party and makes most of the important decisions. The functional purpose of speaking to this group is coordination. Each party’s Deep State is informal, dispersed, and comprises many people for whom politics is not their day job. Yet in order to function properly, they need to coalesce around specific candidates, specific pieces of policy, and prioritize their goals. This function used to be accomplished within the formal party structure, but for reasons best left to Jay Cost to explain, that no longer happens. It is an especially difficult function when the party is out of power. A party out of power is an organization with a thousand consiglieres and no don, but that doesn’t mean the job of consigliere isn’t an important one.

To the extent such punditry speaks to the general public, or the small slice that pays close attention to national affairs, it is entertainment akin to sports analysis; i.e., by speaking to them as if they are party insiders, the audience gets the vicarious illusion of actually being so. The color announcer on a sports broadcast may provide all manner of analysis and advice ostensibly for the teams involved. Not a single word of it will affect anything that subsequently transpires on the field.

The Ugly Choice and its Consequences

Count this distinction as yet another split the candidacy of Donald Trump has wedged from a crack to a crevasse. In an ordinary candidacy the same person can engage in both sorts of punditry without psyche-rending cognitive dissonance. Making the “Good Guy / We’re Winning” pitch for Bush, McCain, or Romney wasn’t gaslighting, even if the “we’re winning” part wasn’t always quite true. The problem Trump has created is that the standard pitch of an Ace pundit is so transparently false that anyone who can make it with a straight face is either so deluded or such a good liar that it would be foolhardy to take their advice seriously in the future if one is invested in the success of either the Republican party or the conservative movement. This year, a pundit has to choose: Be a good soldier for the party to the detriment of his respectability, or risk eviction from the party while hoping that sometime in the future the party’s Deep State will come to its senses and listen to his counsel. Being a distinction newly forced into the open, almost no one seems to have openly dealt with all the logical consequences of this choice.

First, neither view of punditry is exclusive. Both versions exist, and both need to exist. Ace’s exasperation at NeverTrump pundits involves the assumption that all punditry is Ace punditry, and those refusing to make the pitch are in some way not doing their jobs — Know your place, corporal! It doesn’t matter if the LT gave you a stupid order that will get half the platoon killed; salute him and get on with it — without any obvious recognition that anyone who fancies himself a Goldberg pundit will take it as a deep personal insult. It’s an accusation of hackery. If one feels the insult is deserved, then fine (that is exactly why Twitter exists), but don’t go making it unintentionally.

On the flip side, a Goldberg pundit who assumes all punditry ought to be the high-minded type is displaying a naiveté incompatible with analyzing real-world politics. Parties need good-soldier, Ace-style pundits for the same reason companies need marketing departments. There’s too much TV airtime and too much Facebooking deadtime for all of it to be filled with cogency and subordinate clauses. Hillary knows what the score is. She employs a brigade-sized force of online hacks to fill people’s feeds with talking points. As long as some people respond to the hackishly inane, you can’t cede the space to the competition. It is entirely true that such people are not to be entrusted with officers’ commissions, but neither should they star in the post-Trump show trials. Those should be reserved only for those with private cabins on the Trump Train.

A second consequence is one which Ace repeatedly (and correctly) hammers and many Goldberg pundits are uncomfortable admitting openly: Any professional commentator who laid down the NeverTrump gauntlet and stuck to it has, until November 9th, an alignment of professional interest with Hillary Clinton and diametrically opposed professional interest to the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States. This is plain fact. Even if one’s opposition to Trump was purely tactical in the sense of being predicated on the prediction he would lose disastrously, then it is in one’s interest that said disastrous loss actually come to pass now that the die is cast. It is always in the interest of a pundit to be proven right. That’s how one acquires credibility, the coin of the pundit realm. What hurts one’s credibility is denying this reality.

A Goldberg pundit should furthermore realize that continuously rehashing the “Trump is a loser” prediction is saying the exact same thing their Ace pundit counterparts on the other side would say, and that one is, in finance-lingo, “talking your book.” If one is surprised at receiving hostile reactions to saying the exact same thing as the hack segment of Democratic punditry or of facing accusations of being “on her side,” then one has not digested the reality that, as far as interests are aligned, it’s true.

The most common rejoinder from Goldberg pundits to this situation is that the alignment of interests is of no practical consequence. For those on the Ace side of the dispute, it is important to note that this is entirely consistent with the Goldberg theory of punditry. When the silent primary is long since past and the scrum of a general election is in full swing, the Goldberg pundit’s job is mostly over and done. All that remains for such a pundit is the evergreen meta-work of policing the honesty of news coverage. If one is calling out such a pundit for “betrayal,” then one is not granting them the assumption of good faith on an issue as central as what they think their job is. To assume bad faith in someone’s description of their own job is, again, a major personal insult. Don’t make those lightly, and don’t make them to people whom you consider friends.

Furthermore, it is wrong to insist that NeverTrumpers all “support Hillary” or are being mendacious by not “admitting” so. Some indeed do, and some might, in a gun-to-your-head-Trump-or-Clinton situation, vote Trump. However the election is not actually a gun-to-your-head binary choice. As a matter of good public choice theory, sitting out or voting third party (or advocating either) is entirely defensible as part of a long-term strategy. The great irony of voting coalitions is that the least reliable members have the most influence. This is part of the story of what has happened with evangelical voters and the GOP. Several million stayed home rather than vote for the DWI candidate in 2000. They were rewarded with major influence on Bush’s first term, in order to motivate them four years hence. As soon as the GOP pegged them as reliable voters, it immediately began treating them the way the Democratic Party treats African-Americans: as a hostage constituency that will settle for signals instead of substance. Influence can only be re-established with credibility, and credibility can only be re-established by action. An election where “your” candidate is openly contemptuous of you and is most likely a loser anyway is the ideal time to protest vote.

A third consequence of splitting punditry into Ace and Goldberg divisions is acknowledging that everyone in the Goldberg division is indeed a part of the GOP’s Deep State. No one wants to be “establishment” or “elite” in The Year of Populist Rage, and such terms have been warped and contorted to all manner of bizarre and silly meanings, but let’s not kid ourselves about the reality that there is such a thing and it needs a name. “Deep State” is better than “establishment” because “establishment” implies vastly more organization, structure, and formality than actually exists. It’s preferable to “elite” because it does not imply incomes, lifestyles, attitudes, or powers many Deep State members don’t actually have. Let’s propose an obnoxiously recursive definition of a party’s Deep State: If your words routinely reach the eyes or ears of multiple people you would deem members of the Deep State, then you yourself are a member as well. It doesn’t matter if you don’t ride the Acela. It doesn’t matter if your kids will have to take loans for college. If you have a literary agent and a speaking event agent, then you’re part of it, hands down. Self-effacing modesty is a virtue, insincere modesty is good manners, but in one way or another everyone who is part of the Deep State should be honest with themselves about that fact. “I’m not the Establishment!” has been the first, tenth, and last refuge of the irresponsible for the past twelve months, and responsibility is something of which the GOP’s Deep State will need much in the upcoming twelve.

For those on the Ace side grinning at the thought of NeverTrump pundits raising their hands to accept the dreaded establishment label, have some empathy for the truly awful situation they have within the Deep State. They have influence but not power, and they are currently stuck with responsibility for a course of action they advocated strongly against (not just Trump, but much of the situation that led to Trump as well). It is analogous to someone in corporate accounting who blows the whistle on shenanigans through the proper channels, is completely ignored, and whose reward for trying to do the right thing is getting his 401k stock match wiped out along with everyone else’s and then having to make the “No really! I blew the whistle!” claim when future employers give the stink eye to that line on his resume.

“Virtue signaling” is a much abused and misused term these days, but it is the absolutely correct response of a NeverTrump pundit this year. Those on the Ace side of the dispute (and Ace himself) love to use this phrase pejoratively, under the assumption that such behavior is inherently vain and useless. It is neither. Virtue signaling is indeed vain when the audience for the signal is oneself, or when the signal is made in lieu of tangible action that would actually be virtuous, but that does not apply to the situation here. The virtue signaling of a NeverTrump pundit has two distinct and important audiences: 1) The rest of the GOP Deep State that, come November 9th, will have to take account of how it is they lost the most winnable presidential race in a generation; and 2) independent and Latino voters with conservative instincts whom Donald Trump is currently alienating from the Republican party, yet whom the Republican party needs if is to have a governing coalition and thus to whom it will need credible messengers in the future.  Having only influence rather than power, there’s nothing much for a NeverTrump pundit to do except to signal this is not my fault in Vegas-bright, flashing signage to those audiences.

If you’re on the Ace side of this dispute, do not hate them for this. Come November 9th, you’ll realize you need them.

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  1. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Well done and welcome. Nice to see my thoughts put into much better words than my own.

    • #31
  2. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    Kevin Creighton:Jeb Bush.
    John Kasich.
    Ted Cruz.

    If the standard that we hold Trump to is that he “lies” every time he changes a position, how is this not lying?

    They definitely reneged on their pledge.

    • #32
  3. HVTs Inactive
    HVTs
    @HVTs

    Joseph Stanko: If the pundit writes negative things about Trump that are true, he is merely doing his job as an objective journalists and/or commentator.

    That’s nice . . . good for him or her, that objective journo-commentator you think you’ve found.  Who  cares?  (BTW – since when do commentators need to be objective?  That’s surely an oxymoron.)  What’s this “truth” you think is known so well?  Is Trump going to build that wall?  There’s a “truth” I’d like to know . . . where’s the journo-pundit with that “truth”?

    If the question is for whom to vote on Nov 8th—who to help get elected and who to help get defeated—what the heck difference does it make which journo-pundit belongs under some column labelled “objective”?  Maybe it matters to that journo-pundit.  Why the H-E-double toothpicks do you care?

    This is politics, nothing more and nothing less.  Power matters.  Either ‘they’ will have it or ‘we’ will.  The rest is … at best interesting, often pure sophistry.

    • #33
  4. Jamie Lockett Member
    Jamie Lockett
    @JamieLockett

    Kevin Creighton:

    Jamie Lockett:

    Kevin Creighton: Trump is now the Republican nominee. Were the candidates who now don’t support the nominee lying back then (using the same words that Lileks used this week to describe Trump’s actions) when they raised their hands?

    Can you name one of those candidates that is not supporting Trump?

    Just one? No. There are three.

    Jeb Bush.
    John Kasich.
    Ted Cruz.

    If the standard that we hold Trump to is that he “lies” every time he changes a position, how is this not lying?

    Cruz is voting for Trump: http://hotair.com/archives/2016/08/01/report-ted-cruz-will-vote-his-conscience-by-voting-for-trump/

    I guess Bush and Kasich were lying – then again I was never huge fans of theirs anyway so it doesn’t really matter to me.

    • #34
  5. WI Con Member
    WI Con
    @WICon

    Fine post Matt! It’s interesting that you selected two of my favorite writers. I read each religiously-they both shape my thinking on issues. There are some characterizations of each that I’d disagree with, others I do (evidence of a well balanced/argued post?). That old saying about ‘hard cases make bad law’ – I’d argue that in this battle of pundits or #NeverTrumps vs. #Reluctant or #Avid Trumpers, there are many other easier figures (on both sides) that are easier to purge/discount/exile (again, don’t know if that was part of your intention in post – to make that choice difficult).

    I’d argue in Ace’s defense, that he’s been pretty tough on Trump throughout the Primary & General. A good share of his fire has been reserved for those Deep State/GOPe members, virtue signaling, yet insisting they have no influence. There is a mendacious aspect there (Exhibit A – McCain, Exhibit B – not simply not voting for Trump, but actively recruiting that McMullen (Sp?) to actively scuttle Trumps chances, slim they may be).

    If you wanted to make the choice between the to factions a tough one – you succeeded.

    • #35
  6. Man With the Axe Inactive
    Man With the Axe
    @ManWiththeAxe

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    In contrast, someone who (plausibly, if not truthfully) indicates that they are persuadable-but-not-committed has a much better chance of moving a candidate in his direction. This thought has been percolating through my mind for a while, but Paul Ryan likely played his hand here better than most during his “I’m just not ready” days, in which he forced Trump (even if just a little) to move toward him.

    I have made this point several times. I’ve defended being nevertrump by arguing that the more people who withhold their support from him the more incentive he would have to change, to become more presidential in affect, to learn more, to moderate some of his more extreme positions, to stop insulting ethnic groups, to stop trading barbs on twitter with every single person in the world who criticizes him, and so on.

    As the polls turned against him, he has indeed started to moderate. Perhaps he is more interested than he has let on in winning over some of the National Review nevertrump contingent and the Republicans who see things the same way, as well as moderate Democrats who can’t stand Hillary and independents who don’t yet know what they will do.

    All these people staying off the Trump train is forcing him to be a much better candidate. Almost good enough to vote for. And there is still time for him to improve some more.

    • #36
  7. Man With the Axe Inactive
    Man With the Axe
    @ManWiththeAxe

    Kevin Creighton:

    Jamie Lockett:

    Kevin Creighton: Trump is now the Republican nominee. Were the candidates who now don’t support the nominee lying back then (using the same words that Lileks used this week to describe Trump’s actions) when they raised their hands?

    Can you name one of those candidates that is not supporting Trump?

    Just one? No. There are three.

    Jeb Bush.
    John Kasich.
    Ted Cruz.

    If the standard that we hold Trump to is that he “lies” every time he changes a position, how is this not lying?

    It’s not lying because Trump reneged on the pledge first. That absolves the others who made the mutual pledge from supporting him. That’s how promises work. If you and I make mutual promises and I repudiate my promise to you, you are discharged from your promise.

    • #37
  8. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    Kevin Creighton:Jeb Bush.
    John Kasich.
    Ted Cruz.

    If the standard that we hold Trump to is that he “lies” every time he changes a position, how is this not lying?

    They definitely reneged on their pledge.

    Agreed. But Never Trump pundits are not applying the same rhetorical standards to their actions that they are to Trump’s actions. It’s one thing to be Never Trump, and it’s another thing to be Trump Is The Worst.

    • #38
  9. HVTs Inactive
    HVTs
    @HVTs

    Richard Fulmer: Granted, a couple of months of self-discipline hardly outweighs 70 years of self-indulgence and doesn’t prove that he can retain his self-control for a full four-year term,

    Accepting for arguments sake that Trump’s 70 years can be characterized so narrowly, would you then agree its relevant how you’d contrast him with Clinton?  If Trump can be summarized as self-indulgent, what’s the one-word summary for Hillary Clinton (who is nearly the same age as Trump, BTW)?

    • #39
  10. BD Member
    BD
    @

    “…. I want to be able to continue to say character and ideas matter without someone shouting ‘Oh yeah, then why did you support Donald Trump….”

    This is ridiculous.  Jonah Goldberg supported John McCain in the 2000 primary.  The magazine he works for wrote an editorial endorsing McCain in his 2010 Senate primary.

    If McCain had been elected in 2008, he would have closed Guantanamo, signed a Kyoto-type treaty, and passed a cap-and-trade scheme through Congress with the votes of Democrats and some Republicans.  EVEN THEN, Goldberg and National Review would have kept supporting McCain and calling him a conservative.

    So please, once again, stop your moral preening about “conservative principles”.

    • #40
  11. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    Jamie Lockett: Cruz is voting for Trump: http://hotair.com/archives/2016/08/01/report-ted-cruz-will-vote-his-conscience-by-voting-for-trump/

    Noted.

    Man With the Axe: It’s not because Trump reneged on the pledge first. That absolves the others who made the mutual pledge from supporting him. That’s how promises work. If you and I make mutual promises and I repudiate my promise to you, you are discharged from your promise.

    I considered making that point — and I think it’s valid — but it doesn’t really obviate the others’ responsibility, especially since Trump’s behavior during the primary was consistent with his past actions.

    • #41
  12. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    Man With the Axe: o

    Man With the Axe:

    Kevin Creighton:

    Jamie Lockett:

    Kevin Creighton: Trump is now the Republican nominee. Were the candidates who now don’t support the nominee lying back then (using the same words that Lileks used this week to describe Trump’s actions) when they raised their hands?

    Can you name one of those candidates that is not supporting Trump?

    Just one? No. There are three.

    Jeb Bush.
    John Kasich.
    Ted Cruz.

    If the standard that we hold Trump to is that he “lies” every time he changes a position, how is this not lying?

    It’s not because Trump reneged on the pledge first. That absolves the others who made the mutual pledge from supporting him. That’s how promises work. If you and I make mutual promises and I repudiate my promise to you, you are discharged from your promise.

    Nope, that’s not how promises work, because I first make a promise to myself to act honorably, despite what others may do. They did not pledge to support Trump, they pledged to support the eventual nominee, be he Trump, Jeb!, Rubio or a piece of lawn furniture on my back porch. They backed out. And yet Trump is the one who “lied”.

    • #42
  13. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    HVTs:

    Richard Fulmer: Granted, a couple of months of self-discipline hardly outweighs 70 years of self-indulgence and doesn’t prove that he can retain his self-control for a full four-year term,

    Accepting for arguments sake that Trump’s 70 years can be characterized so narrowly, would you then agree its relevant how you’d contrast him with Clinton? If Trump can be summarized as self-indulgent, what’s the one-word summary for Hillary Clinton (who is nearly the same age as Trump, BTW)?

    Felon.

    • #43
  14. Canadian Cincinnatus Inactive
    Canadian Cincinnatus
    @CanadianCincinnatus

    There is a third kind of principled punditry: those that have values that transcend partisan politics.

    For instance, as a Canadian observer of the American scene, I have actively rooted for the Republican Presidential candidate for my entire life. Party this was because the GOP candidate was the one with the sane foreign policy. Because of America’s important and benevolent role in the world, I believe questions of foreign policy transcend party loyalty.

    I have written a number of posts describing Donald Trump’s infatuation with ugly dictatorship, his troubling Russian ties, and his foreign policy pronouncements (such as they are) which are little more than Kremlin talking points. This is not a sane foreign policy. This is an insane foreign policy.

    For this reason I am openly rooting for that the Republican presidential candidate loses – and loses badly.

    I know this implies a Hillary Clinton victory. But I state my preference with my eyes wide open at all of Hillary Clinton’s many flaws (unlike many Trump supporters who seem to be living in an alternate reality). This election is a choice between the lesser of two evils.

    Because I understand this, I am entirely consistent in the beliefs I hold and the views I propagate.

    • #44
  15. Jamie Lockett Member
    Jamie Lockett
    @JamieLockett

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    Man With the Axe: It’s not because Trump reneged on the pledge first. That absolves the others who made the mutual pledge from supporting him. That’s how promises work. If you and I make mutual promises and I repudiate my promise to you, you are discharged from your promise.

    I considered making that point — and I think it’s valid — but it doesn’t really obviate the others’ responsibility, especially since Trump’s behavior during the primary was consistent with his past actions.

    If you enter into a contract with someone and they fail to perform their obligation are you still obligated to perform?

    • #45
  16. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    BD: … he would have closed Guantanamo …

    It never ceases to amaze me how maintaining a military prison camp selected for its unique legal status status has become a conservative shibboleth.

    • #46
  17. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    Jamie Lockett:

    If you enter into a contract with someone and they fail to perform their obligation are you still obligated to perform?

    As I recall, the contract was with the RNC, not Trump.

    • #47
  18. Jamie Lockett Member
    Jamie Lockett
    @JamieLockett

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    Jamie Lockett:

    If you enter into a contract with someone and they fail to perform their obligation are you still obligated to perform?

    As I recall, the contract was with the RNC, not Trump.

    Fair enough.

    • #48
  19. Man With the Axe Inactive
    Man With the Axe
    @ManWiththeAxe

    Kevin Creighton:

    Nope, that’s not how promises work, because I first make a promise to myself to act honorably, despite what others may do. They did not pledge to support Trump, they pledged to support the eventual nominee, be he Trump, Jeb!, Rubio or a piece of lawn furniture on my back porch. They backed out. And yet Trump is the one who “lied”.

    But by your own definition (with which I don’t agree) Trump did lie. He made the pledge and then repudiated it. So, even if the others lied, too, so did Trump.

    • #49
  20. HVTs Inactive
    HVTs
    @HVTs

    Kevin Creighton:

    HVTs:

    Richard Fulmer: Granted, a couple of months of self-discipline hardly outweighs 70 years of self-indulgence and doesn’t prove that he can retain his self-control for a full four-year term,

    Accepting for arguments sake that Trump’s 70 years can be characterized so narrowly, would you then agree its relevant how you’d contrast him with Clinton? If Trump can be summarized as self-indulgent, what’s the one-word summary for Hillary Clinton (who is nearly the same age as Trump, BTW)?

    Felon.

    [:-)

    Sadly, however, she manages to avoid so much as an indictment!

    • #50
  21. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    Man With the Axe:

    Kevin Creighton:

    Nope, that’s not how promises work, because I first make a promise to myself to act honorably, despite what others may do. They did not pledge to support Trump, they pledged to support the eventual nominee, be he Trump, Jeb!, Rubio or a piece of lawn furniture on my back porch. They backed out. And yet Trump is the one who “lied”.

    But by your own definition (with which I don’t agree) Trump did lie. He made the pledge and then repudiated it. So, even if the others lied, too, so did Trump.

    I’m not disagreeing. I’m merely pointing out that when Trump does such actions, in the eyes of Never Trumpers, he “lies”. When others do it, they’re adjusting their actions to fit the new realities. Identical actions, yet one person gets a rhetorical pass, the other one doesn’t.

    • #51
  22. Man With the Axe Inactive
    Man With the Axe
    @ManWiththeAxe

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    Jamie Lockett:

    If you enter into a contract with someone and they fail to perform their obligation are you still obligated to perform?

    As I recall, the contract was with the RNC, not Trump.

    If that’s an accurate description, then why is the RNC supportive of Trump when he reneged on his promise to them?

    • #52
  23. Matt White Member
    Matt White
    @

    matt.corbett: The other view of punditry — espoused most clearly by Jonah Goldberg — is that the primary audience to which a pundit speaks is the Deep State of donors, consultants, staffers, local bigwigs, and activists that surrounds each party and makes most of the important decisions.

    This statement is strange. It seems like bad faith and paranoia. Is “deep state” connected to the trilateral commission or the illuminati?

    Jonah has been clear and consistent. He sees his job as being truthful so that’s what he does.

    • #53
  24. Eustace C. Scrubb Member
    Eustace C. Scrubb
    @EustaceCScrubb

    My respect for Jonah Goldberg (and Jay Nordinger and some others) and his position base on integrity rather than party loyalty continues to grow throughout this awful campaign season.

    • #54
  25. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    BD: … he would have closed Guantanamo …

    It never ceases to amaze me how maintaining a military prison camp selected for its unique legal status status has become a conservative shibboleth.

    Honestly, the sheer pragmatism of Gitmo amazes me. Is it legal? No, probably not. Does it work to hold people who aren’t really enemy combatants but aren’t really criminals, either, and would turn around and kill more Americans if released? Yep. Absolutely. Terrorism, by it’s nature, lives the crack between war and crime, and Gitmo exists in that same shadow world.

    • #55
  26. Curt North Inactive
    Curt North
    @CurtNorth

    Man With the Axe: Ben Shapiro and Andrew Klavan have said they won’t vote for Trump (at this point in time). But what they do is they criticize Trump when he deserves to be criticized and they praise him when he deserves praise.

    I think Klavan is still on the fence, Shapiro is still #Never, but in listening to Andrew he sounds like he understands in the end, it’s him or it’s her.   Honestly if Andrew has come out as Never Trump, I’m not aware of it.  If he has I’d like to hear his reasoning, since the Never Trump faction has yet to convince me that their “principled” stand is anything but the exact moral narcissism they are accused of.  Listing to Rob Long on the HLC podcast earlier this week, I was slack-jawed amazed at the vitriol hurled against Trump by Rob, it sounded clearly personal, way beyond political.  I suspect that’s the case for most #Nevers.  He sounded a bit irrational even, much like Steve Hays on any given FoxNews show when discussing Trump.

    • #56
  27. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    I’m sorry.  I won’t be brow beaten to support a candidate.

    I haven’t voted FOR a president since 1988 when I was fooled by Bush I.  Since then I have been voting AGAINST every democrat.

    I’m tired.  Very tired of the republicans nominating one extreme socialist after another.  Trump is a monster of their own making.

    That being said, I will vote for the devil before I vote for a second Clinton.  Trump is the devil.  I’ll vote for him, but he is much worse than Romney or McCain or the Bushes.  He has a good chance of being worse than Clinton.  His only saving grace is that if elected, NO ONE will support him and he’ll probably be impeached and convicted.  I don’t know anything about Pence, but I’m sure he’ll be a sane person.  That’s the best we can hope for.

    Don’t tell me to say nice things about Trump.  That’s his job.  There is nothing nice about him.  He would be wise to make the nation more aware of the crimes of Clinton and make that his focus.

    • #57
  28. TKC1101 Member
    TKC1101
    @

    Jamie Lockett: It is not the responsibility of others to make you feel better about your choices by violating their own consciences.

    Gee, were you worried I was giving you  a responsibility? Not to worry .  If a person is in a burning car, I know I can count on the #NeverEvers to debate the need for more effective first responders and the role of big and small government while the corpse crisps.

    The sheer hypocrisy of covering for a McCain by the entire “conservative” pundit class and then being too holy to do anything but trash Trump daily while never mentioning Hillary at all is a sight to behold.

    Do not worry, I was not asking you to take any responsibility at all.

    • #58
  29. Curt North Inactive
    Curt North
    @CurtNorth

    Canadian Cincinnatus: This election is a choice between the lesser of two evils.

    It amazes me how ANYONE can look at Trump and Clinton, and declare her the lesser of the two evils.  I’ve heard this from Nevers before, it simply doesn’t hold water.  He is a narcissist and a showman, she is a criminal and a serial liar, how can he be worse than her.

    • #59
  30. Man With the Axe Inactive
    Man With the Axe
    @ManWiththeAxe

    Curt North: I think Klavan is still on the fence, Shapiro is still #Never, but in listening to Andrew he sounds like he understands in the end, it’s him or it’s her. Honestly if Andrew has come out as Never Trump, I’m not aware of it.

    Klavan has said many times that he won’t vote for Trump. But more recently he has said that he’s not sure what he’ll do. He’s keeping an open mind as Trump gets a little better with each passing week. Shapiro is further away, but who knows where he will be by the Nov. 8. It all depends on where Trump is, I suppose.

    For Steve Hayes, it goes back to Trump making fun of the disabled reporter. That affected Steve deeply. “What sort of man does that?” I heard him ask one night on Special Report. Of course, he has a lot of other reasons to be skeptical of Trump, but I don’t think any amount of improvement in Trump’s policies can overcome this enormous character flaw in Steve’s eyes. Most other Republicans have forgotten it by now. Although I haven’t.

    • #60
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