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How Happy Do We Have to Be about Trump?
Michael Walsh of PJ Media asks “What, Exactly, Is the #NeverTrumpumpkins’ Problem?“
It’s a serious problem, it seems, because he doesn’t just call people “NeverTrumpumpkins” (is that hashtag a thing?), but “Vichycons — the collaborationist #NeverTrump crew whose views are increasingly indistinguishable from the hard Left.”
I’m not sure who he’s talking about, because I listen to some #NeverTrumpers — mostly National Review columnists and Ricochet podcasters — who remain Trump skeptics, but “Vichycons” and “undistinguishable from the hard Left”? Well, as I said, I don’t know who he’s talking about.
It’s interesting that Walsh is so concerned about the state of #neverTrumpers’ emotions. In the beginning, he asks why they’re so miserable. Then he asks what more do the “dead-enders” want?
Walsh seems to be the one with the unhealthy emotional investment in other people’s outlook.
Exactly how happy are #nevertrumpers supposed to be? Is it enough to smile several times a day, or do we need to grin like drunks on their first evening in Los Vegas?
Can we say we like some of Trump’s appointments or must we be ecstatic over every one of them?
Can we say we are glad Hilary is not president, or must we commit suicide because we chose not to support Trump before the election?
May we disagree with specific policies, or must we cast away every principle we formerly called conservative and wait for the Trump administration to hand down our ideas? I’ve been surprised at how well the Trump administration has done so far, but even Trump booster Sarah Palin knows crony capitalism when she sees it.
For Walsh, it’s not enough for Trump to become our pope (“The misguided flap over Carrier is emblematic of their total lack of political savvy and, frankly, Christian morality”). He also tells us that Trump threatens our lives (“The Tower, the hangman and the axeman tend to concentrate the mind wonderfully. Something for the #NeverTrumpumpkins to ponder”).
For this voter who couldn’t raise the pen to vote for Trump, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the transition. I’ve decided to wait for him to do something before I evaluate. I apparently think more highly of Trump than Walsh does, because however prickly and thin-skinned Trump has been at times, I don’t believe he threatens the lives of those who chose not to support him.
The late great jazz pianist and lyricist Mose Allison summed up 2016 very well with his song, “I don’t worry about a thing, ’cause nothin’s gonna be all right.”
Donald Trump is the president-elect of the United States. As far as I know, Michael Walsh has not been chosen as his enforcer. Maybe Walsh should relax and let him build his administration and grant the rest of his fellow citizens the right to evaluate it as we see fit.
Published in General
It’s simple:
They are small, but like McCain in the late 90’s running toward cameras denouncing mocking and dismissing anything conservative R’s were pushing, allowing himself to represent the “rational, non-racist, xenophobic wing of the GOP”, they get outsized importance through the MSM. Mitt Romney was quoted extensively in HRC attack ads.
This is not, and was never an attack on the rank and file dupes in the GOP. They can’t help it, and there’s no reason to blame people retail on how they voted.
So please feel free to consider these attacks are not directed at you personally. You are not that important.
I fail to see how, if they are so small and therefore undeserving of epithets, they deserve a defense either.
What needs to be addressed is the myopia of a large faction of GOP leaning people who fail to see what the stakes are and are operating out of an outdated (and failed) playbook.
We know Trump will be criticized relentlessly by his massive opposition, the media, the Democrats, those with a globalist agenda including many foreign governments and their operatives, and the nevertrumpers who are small in number but are effective saboteurs due to there outside elevation by the media and due to their ability to thwart Trump in subversive ways. One spy in your platoon can get everyone killed.
You didn’t read[the part where I said you are entitled to your opinion, and I am free to have the opinion that you have little credibility as a political analyst when you keep getting so many things wrong, and to presume you are in a position to criticize Trump as though it will have some effect on him. I suspect it is more the continuation of virtue-signalling to your fellow compatriots.
Sore losers and sore winners are annoying and should be ignored. Trump has mostly been a gracious winner. I wish some of his passionate supporters would take their cues from him.
Which must be why he’s still in the running for the Secretary of State position.
That’s right. Not everyone can be as smart as we are.
Of course they’re not. I can’t even vote.
None of us is, individually, as we’re often reminded.
Dodging.
I think @janbear has previously deconstructed the football analogy as irrelevant. Can we have another one, please?
I never said anything about principles and ideology as impediments to progress. The focus on these things without understanding the fight we are actually in, is unproductive and futile. Our situation, the zeitgeist, how the enemy attacks, what weaknesses they exploit must be addressed first in order to accomplish our shared goals.
The nevertrumpers and many of the reluctant Trumpers miss the bigger picture.
Ideology aside for the moment – if you honestly don’t see the difference between Trump and Obama, then you don’t have a very good grasp of what’s actually going on.
Even looking at the two from a neutral ideological standpoint as best as I can conjure for myself. Obama is a vandal and someone who doesn’t think America is worthy of being exceptional or placed “first” and the other guy does. This is a no-brainer. Whether or not DJT can recite the Constitution verbatim or whether he has some non-conservative ‘solutions’ isn’t especially relevant if he’s appointing conservative SCOTUS Justices and Sessions and Carson and Mattis and even Romney (I hope not!). The alternative, which these people want to pretend they didn’t try to bring about, would have been dramatically different. Yet they quibble.
You didn’t answer my question. Who is allowed to criticize him?
I did read that part. Please tell me what I’ve gotten wrong in this thread. Perhaps you’d also like to tell me what my opinion is.
I believe it’s still a free country, and therefore, I, and anyone else, is correct in ‘presuming’ that we may be critical of Trump. Those who are reasonable and respectful about it, I believe, deserve no less in return.
It would be better, I think, for all concerned to make their arguments without lazy recourse to either sports analogies or overused tropes like ‘virtue-signaling,’ but I’d be interested to hear how you’re using it here, and what you mean by it.
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I remember your many comments about Trump before. You were very close to being a nevertrumper or actually one. In any case, you got Trump’s personality wrong, his abilities and his chances of winning wrong.Probably misunderstood his supporters as well. You didn’t? And if so why? How? Maybe I missed that post.
The endless assertions that Trump variously didn’t really want to win, was really a closet Democrat, would lose spectacularly, and was generally scamming people. You folks were the ones who were scammed and you won’t admit it.
Now I read this tripe about what Trump should or shouldn’t do from you geniuses who got so many things wrong I don’t have enough comment space to make, and you shamelessly spout out your current opinions from the peanut gallery, when the alternative would have been utter ruin and disaster. Maybe you still don’t see that. Then you misinterpret anyone pointing out your recent misdiagnoses of reality as someone telling you you aren’t ‘allowed’ to criticize.
Criticize away! Just allow me to point out that you have severely diminished standing and credibility, and you might better focus your efforts elsewhere.
I know virtue-signalling has been overused, but it still applies and remains relevant. What is another reason for this criticism? It is moot. As well you should be thankful for Trump. No, no ones going to give him carte blanche but these criticisms are petty and, what, no honeymoon? It looks bad that the naysayers, after their asses have been saved are griping about such petty matters. It looks REALLY bad. Then to claim that we must be magnanimous in victory towards y’all is asking a bit much in this context.
You are allowed your opinion, I am allowed my sports analogies, and my war analogies and my over-used tropes.
I can use the term playbook. It’s not even a sports analogy really, it’s a borrowed word. English has millions of them.
Indeed, we were told this, but, from my experience, and as evidenced by comments in this thread, that is complete hogwash….the level of intolerance for opposing views regarding the President-elect approaches parodical levels from many quarters.
At this point, yes. Otherwise you look like a petty micro-partisan. This election was big. Every other GOP President made appointments I didn’t fully agree with, initiated policies that were by no means conservative and made bad deals with Democrats. But the naysaying and sniping at this early juncture is unprecedented and evidence of soreloserism and justification for the never/reluctant Trump positions.
Any other GOP primary candidate would have (had they won which is a fantasy) made worse choices already. Who would Rubio have appointed? Would Jeb or Carson or Cruz have been impeccable to everyone on the right? Doubtful. But personally I would be so thankful for a win that I would restrain petty criticism and focus on the fight. Not some petty micro-partisan battle serving to vindicate my skepticism of a given candidate.
So this looks like a continuation on the part of the nevers to wag their collective fingers. It’s not making you guys look good.
Sports analogies, hmmm.
Everyone loved Lance Armstrong when he was winning “The right way”.
In a very real way we are fighting the same battles as before. I’m learning that these things never end, and it’s pure illusion to even hope they will.
The level of sniping from our own ‘side’ is unprecedented for a newly elected man who has already far eclipsed these dire/paranoid expectations. Any conservative should be dancing in the streets for the next six months at least. Do y’all really think you have the clout to affect appointments and steer the DJT administration to your conservative principles?
What is wrong with originalist judges, the second amendment, repeal of Obamacare, Sessions as AG Mattis in Defense, etc.
What is wrong with you people!?
No one is “intolerant” of your views. I share many of them myself. I’m intolerant of your focus at this point and the shamelessness revealed by petty naysaying. What are you trying to prove, and to whom?
…I reiterate my previous comment….
The Reticulator reiterates…
Tolerance of others opinions is all there. Respect for these opinions? Slight regard.
They come from people who are gaslighted, propagandized and desperately trying to justify their previous positions. People who have apparently internalized all the leftist memes and weirdly converted them into their own psyche whilst holding onto the conceit they are righteous conservatives.
Do you need a safe space? Awwww…
Can we please just retire this phrase and accusation? Especially here on Ricochet?
Yes, if we also stop accusing people who disagree with us “intolerant” of others opinions.
This was a stronger argument when the choice was Hillary or Trump. It no longer is and you can’t go on making this argument for the next 4 (or 8) years. Donald Trump is the President-elect and soon to be President. He will be judged on his actions. I very reluctantly voted for him, but will criticize him when I disagree and don’t see any problem with NeverTrumpers doing the same. You shouldn’t be either since you think their opinions “are nearly worthless” and “have little influence”.
It is amusing, isn’t it. We can be “effective saboteurs” and “thwart” Trump but at the same time “are nearly worthless” and “have little influence”. What’s the guy’s real name, Sibyll?
When Sibyl meets Cassandra.
I can see this is not going away soon. Given the level of passion , it may never fully subside for years.
Posts like this do not help Ricochet move forward. The article cited went too far. It was not posted by a member here.
If anyone cares about Ricochet getting beyond the election , this will not be productive. If you want to address the grievances, call a professional, like Jerry Stiller. Some of us guessed right, some guessed wrong, some were gracious, some were not and a lot of nonsense was spouted as fact. It’s done.
The battle is over, the war against the left continues.
I think most NeverTrumpers (including myself) are being pretty consistent in opposing Trump when he’s not conservative and supporting him when he is. Mattis and Price good. Bannon and Flynn bad. Protectionism bad. Calling Taiwan good.
If the argument is that we need to support Trump because he’s already getting enough criticism from the press, no. For one thing, the press will not attack him for being progressive. Steering Trump in a conservative direction can only be done by conservatives. Bush got too much of a free pass from conservatives when he did progressive things, and that’s how we got to the point that the GOP needs to be “blown up.”
I was told we had to support Trump because of the election. That begged the question, “So, we’ll be free to criticize Trump after the election?” Are we?
Well said.
The press will attack Trump for anything and everything. The press is very fickle and not moored to any ideology other than their agenda. This is no longer about ideology so much as pure power.
Trump is being steered. He has been steered. See Mike Pence, Sessions, Kushner, Guiliani, Prebuis… Where have you been? But it’s more effective to steer him as a supporter than as a hostile sniper who has a knee-jerk reaction to everything he says or does. Having a history of being a nevertrumper is an anchor since these people seem to have overarching hostility to begin with. Trump supporters like myself will have more credibility with our criticism. I will withhold mine for now.
In general I agree that blind support is dangerous, but premature sniping will invite boy crying wolf when it matters.
This is a battle, and a war, that I think almost all of us will sign up for.
I would simply add that no one is forcing anyone on either side to engage in acrimony or finger-pointing. If we want to get beyond this election, we will, as soon as each of us decides that he or she is over it. We don’t get over it by engaging with the other side and rubbing salt in each others’ wounds.
We need to get over it, each on his or her own behalf, each for herself or himself. Because we can’t get over it on behalf of someone else, and because we can’t force someone else to get over it, and because insulting each other will only prolong the misery, and make it worse. (To use a non-sports metaphor, perhaps we should each put on our own oxygen masks, and breathe deeply, before ‘assisting’ others (or shoving them out the door and down the chute into the water).
That it will takes some of us longer than others to achieve this happy state should come as no surprise to anyone who’s had any experience in interpersonal relations. And some of us will probably never come fully around.
In the meantime, it may sometimes be necessary to moderate our tone and to bite our tongues, and to recognize, on both sides, that disagreement and criticism are natural, and healthy, and that they need not imply personal insult.
Sometimes, it is best to let sleeping dogs lie.
But first, you have to get the wretched creatures to lie down and doze off. I’m not sure we’re there yet.
But I hope.
I take issue with some of the current level of sniping only because this is what should have been done when George W Bush was elected, not that it’s improper at this time. One of the biggest disappointments in American politics in my lifetime is the people who opposed the Clintons’ abuses, then turned around and supported the Bush version of the same stuff as soon as he was elected. That’s not happening now and it’s a good thing, even though I reserve the right to snipe at the snipers for not sniping at the same stuff when past Republicans or Democrats did it. (I’m thinking of the Carrier controversy. I keep wondering, what took people on my side so long to start complaining about that sort of thing?)
But I don’t want these people to shut up now. I think they’re helping Trump to be a better president-elect, and I hope they keep doing their sniping in that spirit.
I’m curious whether you opposed G.W. Bush on anything this early in his election? I didn’t myself. I started criticizing Bush around 2006 with him nominating Harriet Meirs and his refusal to defend himself from attacks.Here I felt he wasn’t pushing back on some toxic narratives and foresaw that it was undermining him, but more importantly the Iraq War and other conservative agendas he had. He did many things that were not-so conservative too, but there was little I or for that matter any influential pundit could do. I don’t remember other ostensibly conservatives, criticizing him much either.
I don’t expect a honeymoon from the left, but maybe we could have a little one from the right?
This is where I’m at. He’s made some good picks, some questionable ones, and a couple bad ones, but overall it’s been pretty decent on the appointment front.
We don’t know what he’s actually going to do once he’s in office, but the first thing he said he wanted to do is some sort of big government spending bill and there’s lots of noise about a tax cut plan of some sort. So I’m curious if, whether by accident or by design, going to be some sort of Keynesian.
My expectations are pretty low for the upcoming Trump administration so I don’t think disappointed is something that I’m capable of feeling in regards to it. It’s all pretty much upside for me, I think, which makes me weirdly calm about the whole thing.