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What Is the End-Game for NeverTrumpers?
This question has been growing in my mind as the cacophony of from the hysterical Left (sorry for the redundancy) rises to a crescendo. As I follow people like Jonah Goldberg, David French, and Mona Charen — to name the few who seem to be tenaciously critical of Trump but whom I respect tremendously — I really want to ask them a few questions. I won’t get their replies here so maybe others of a like mind can answer for this perspective.
What is it that you are trying to accomplish at this point? I get, first of all, why you didn’t want Trump to be the nominee. I did not want that either. I supported almost anyone else in the field over him except for, maybe, Jeb! and, later, Kasich. I really did not want him. But once it happened, the choice became overwhelmingly obvious. Everyone gets that. What I don’t understand is why, at this point in time, do you seem to take an active anti-Trump stance? Do you think that we will somehow come out in good shape if the Left brings down this administration? So you think that the distraction will be out of the way and we can go back to being respected by the Media? Do you see Pence taking over and then the Leftist mob will have their bloodthirst slaked?
Furthermore, didn’t Trump represent an unexpected opportunity? Wasn’t it possible that, blemishes and all, Trump was a blunt instrument that represented an opening for moving the ball downfield in a way that a more traditional politician never could? I hate that I am speaking in the past tense but I am starting to feel that we have let an opportunity slip through our fingers. By not closing ranks behind him, I fear that we are letting him get surrounded by the barbarian horde while we watch “safely” from the ramparts. After he is vanquished, the siege will commence and what will we do then?
Published in General
I’ve heard a lot of people mention Trumps mistakes or mis-steps. Could we list these and see if we can even agree on whether they are mistakes? Here’s a partial list:
I’m sure there are more. Feel free to add more.
2. firing FBI Dir. Comey: Most agree that this was not a mistake but how he did it was. That seems to be the crux of a lot of what he has done wrong. Not “what” but “how”.
“It’s called the Republican Party, not the Conservative Party”–Donald Trump.
Trump is a very old fashioned Republican–not a modern movement conservative. Pence is. What is the wished for end? Seems obvious in that light.
As Jonathan Rauch shows in the free e-book “Political Realism” the reforms of the past 60 years have weakened old fashioned transactional politics. We are all ideologues now and further apart than ever–and government approval is in the crapper. It’s drama all the way down.
And given the behavior of the press, most of the conservative purity ends up blaming the victim. Sure he is clumsy. But this???
You mean things that are worth discussing, not silly things like ice cream portions?
I don’t think all of these are missteps, but here are a few things that I can at least see the point of discussing:
–the wisdom of having Paul Manafort and Roger Stone involved in the campaign
–including green card holders in the first immigration executive order
–talking on the phone with the president of Taiwan
I think we, as consumers of punditry, should recognize the pundits we read are in a business where personal credibility is the currency of their livelihoods. They are betting their personal credibility with everything they write, in the hope that what they write pays off to earn them even more credibility.
We should also keep in mind the hazard, well known in Texas Hold ‘Em poker , of becoming “pot committed” too early in a hand. It means, having bet all but your last few chips into a huge pot, you need to keep betting, since folding won’t leave you enough for a Big Mac.
And if you were to fold your cards, in front of all the other players, after having put $997 of your $1000 dollar stake into the pot, it would be an admission you miscalculated the hand horribly, and it would damage your credibility as a serious player.
So here is one way to look at it: Pre-election, some Never Trump pundits bet their credibility against Trump so early, and so completely, they are now “pot committed” against him. With all but their last few credibility chips bet against Trump, they have cornered themselves into continuing to bet against him, left only with the hope that a Trump implosion card will come up on the “river,” so they can win their credibility back, and bust the deplorables from the table.
Maybe Trump could have spoken to Comey beforehand. Many people have said so, but given Comey’s subsequent pushback, how much more trouble could Comey have made if given advance warning?
-Manafort and Stone: guilty as charged
-the greencard thing was a mistake
-talking on the phone with the Taiwanese president may have been amateurish, but subsequent dealings with China have been pretty impressive
There seems to be a fundamental illogic in all of these complaints about “NeverTrumpers.” I’ll try to characterize the arguments fairly:
On #1 most of us can agree. I tend not to feel quite that melodramatic about it, so the levels of passion on this topic cover a considerable spectrum.
Now, #2 and #3 are not necessarily in harmony. If Trump is so noxious to enough natural opponents of Progressivism that they cannot support him with any enthusiasm, then it’s very likely that he is not the only/best option, after all, but may, in fact, be the worst option, because it turned out that, through his own faults, he got farther away from the goal than closer to it.
Rather than opting for the patient, careful, slow and unsatisfyingly partial rollback of some progressivism through a traditional candidate, Trump voters threw a wild “Hail, Mary” pass. To everyone’s surprise, their receiver caught it; but, it turns out, he doesn’t like football, doesn’t know its rules, isn’t sure where he is on the field or what to do with the ball. He spends a lot of time yelling at his teammates and the ref. All of the fans who never wanted him on the team in the first place watch with contempt when he doesn’t run for a touchdown, and then they get yelled at for not cheering him on as he fumbles and gets tackled again and again. (I know that’s not exactly how football works; but it matches the absurdity of the current predicament.)
Is there a point at which Trump supporters will acknowledge that maybe this was a miscalculation on their part? Or will it always be the fault of the many people who were screaming “Don’t do it!” during the entire campaign because they suspected that a leader who divides his own party is not really a leader capable of leading anywhere but down?
Dorrk (View Comment):
There seems to be a fundamental illogic in all of these complaints about “NeverTrumpers.” I’ll try to characterize the arguments fairly:
Agreed.
C’mon, this is dishonest and beneath you. A lot of us Trumpers here (probably most) voted for other candidates in the primaries, which means we thought he wasn’t the best option. Trump won, which makes him the president and only option now.
Why do I have to type this self-evident point again? If one side is relentlessly pursuing statism and the other side is standing in their way, it makes sense to pick the side that doesn’t want statism.
It’s not dishonest if you confirm that he’s the only option two sentences later.
While I don’t favor impeachment, I also don’t consider the situation dire enough to pretend that Trump is a savior (and can’t imagine a scenario dire enough for me to do so, because I don’t consider him a competent leader in any event).
Hasn’t been “allowed”??? The man is President of the United Sates, fer cryin’ out loud. If he would just treat the position with the consistent seriousness it deserves, we’d all be better off. He hasn’t set a course because he appears to be making it up as he goes along. Now, I think that some of his reversals are praiseworthy, but it seems clear to me that he doesn’t have any particular set of principles by which he can set a course. If he is in over his head — and I think he is — then he ought to shut up and let the grownups do the heavy lifting. He has put good people, for the most part, on his Cabinet, and frankly I wish he’d go off and play golf while they get things done.
He would be much better served if he wouldn’t undercut his own defenders. He would be much better off if he didn’t pour gasoline on this stupid Russia thing, but no — he has to make it all worse because he’s either clueless or unable to control his impulses .
With the exception of his desire to deregulate and give tax relief to businesses (and those are great things, make no doubt, if they can be accomplished), I don’t see Trump as any kind of anti-statist. He has said that he won’t touch entitlements, for example, and isn’t he now proposing Ivanka’s idea of mandatory maternity leave or some such thing? And for all of his talk about repealing Obamacare, he hasn’t pushed for it now that he’s in office.
This seems to deny the reality that he is, in fact, the only option we have because he is the president.
This is a continuation of the above-mentioned denial of reality. The fact is that many of us voted against Trump in the primaries (I did), but then voted for the Republican Party’s nominee, just like we have in past years. It’s unfair to portray Trump general election voters as a uniform block of voters, all of whom were with him the whole way. That is, as I said, dishonest and beneath you.
Okay, so while some (@dorrk) are pining for the “patient, careful, slow and unsatisfyingly partial rollback of some progressivism through a traditional candidate”, you seem to expect a rollback of 80 years of progressivism when it is universally recognized that fully repealing even the most recent huge entitlement is a pipe dream. I’m not sure any president can satisfy you both. A bill that limits the damage of Obamacare has passed the House. I’d like people on our side to get back to discussing how to improve it and eventually pass it. But we can’t do that, because we are fighting over the made up controversies of the delusional Left.
Are we? Or are we fighting over whether or not we should speak our minds? Even Trump’s detractors here seem only mildly perturbed, at worst, by impeachable allegations. We’re more concerned with Trump’s handling of those allegations. We’re actually making largely the same argument as you are, w/r/t Comey, Russia, etc., but we include Trump as complicit in fanning the flames of the hysteria aimed in his direction.
Yes I was. I hated that move. And I thought it would cost us politically and I think it did. I hated the mistakes of the first Bush too and of Reagan.
At the time I thought Bush did a good job with the bill over all and I was happy to some reform being done in education. Now in hindsight I think I should have been against it, but I don’t think it was a complete disaster in any case.
Did not support either. In fact National Review and many Conservative stalwarts were all very strongly against signing McCain-Feingold and said so at the time. I think most Conservatives thought he made a mistake there.
As a NeverTrumper, before he was elected, I would defend his right to the office to the death, I would take up arms to defend him, if people tried to illegally remove him from office. As long as it is a legal process meeting all standards for impeachment then I have no beef with the process. If Democrats managed to get articles of impeachment through the Republican controlled House I would assume there is real truth to the charges and would expect all the a evidence to come out. If the evidence was not convincing I would certainly push my Senators to vote against impeachment. That being said I think I help Trump and especially the conservative movement by pointing out Trump’s missteps and asking others that follow after him not to make his mistakes.
I want future Republican candidates to not follow in Trump’s foot steps but be more Conservative and consistent in their beliefs and be better prepared for the job. Pointing out the high cost for Trump’s inconsistent beliefs, lack of preparation for the job and the lack of a guiding ideology is helpful to that goal. Future Republican candidates avoid these mistakes!
I don’t think the people you mentioned do that. I certainly don’t. I look at Trump’s actions and lack of impulse control on twitter and critize that and lavish praise on him when he does conservative things like repealing regulations or nominating Gorsuch. I have seen Goldberg, Charen and French do that same. Frum and Kristol are a different in that regard and seem far more reflexively anti-trump.
No! Exactly why it is important to for Trump to understand that he hands his enemies ammunition all the time. Stop that Trump! Don’t had the enemy ammunition. Deny them ammunition.
Trump is probably more respected by the media than Reagan was. Reagan simply refused to hand his enemies ammunition all the time. I think Trump is no more hated than Nixon was. We will never be respected by our current media who are overwhelming leftist.
Pence will be hated with a white hot fury by the media but he won’t hand them so much easy ammunition. I loved what happened when the media went after Pence’s marriage. It made them look like they supported bosses being in compromising positions with female subordinates, they seemed against marriage, they unintentionally painted Pence in a sympathetic light to millions of married women, it was great. I much rather have fights like that. Trump could learn from Pence. But still I don’t dream of Pence taking over from Trump unless some real crimes are revealed. Right now Trump is our President and I expect him, with all his flaws, to serve out his full term. Unless some kind of real crime that Trump committed is revealed.
Sure but his lack of preparation for the office and what he needed to do to lead the Republican party has so far crippled him. He might recover but right now he is fumbling the ball on his own.
If this bad result happens we need to learn from it and not make the same mistakes again. That is all we can do. Republicans elected Trump and have to deal with the consequences whether good or bad. But perhaps we can learn from this experience and do better in the future?
Correct….and this is of his own doing.
I think trying to make the argument that those who have criticized President Trump at times support impeachment is incorrect. The surest way to prevent impeachment is to prevent the Democrats from taking over control of the House in 2018. I think the best way to do is get legislation passed supporting Trump’s policies and getting economic growth started. Shooting himself in the foot daily hampers getting that legislation passed. In my opinion, he is his own worst enemy.
Got to survive the MSM election gauntlet first. Who has a thick enough skin for that?
I think the root of the problem is that the Democrats and the Media have not accepted the results of the 2016 Presidential election. That in itself is a more severe attack on our republic and its institutions that anything the Russians were trying to do. We should be trying to make this point rather than trying to defend Trump on unsubstantiated charges. Anyone who has observed the current reporting on Trump knows that it is not fair.
Well, the last Republican Presidential Primary contest had 16 people not named Trump in it, so there doesn’t seem to be a short supply of people with thick enough skin to put up with the media.
Conservatives have cut the GOP way too much slack in the past. However, since around the beginning of the Tea Party conservatives have finally grown weary of playing the role of apologists and enablers to Republicans. That is a good thing in general and long overdue, although not entirely fair to Trump. He ends up catching the flak of a less tolerant political base.
Yes. Trump apologists forget or ignore how much of NeverTrump consisted of people who were excited about the Tea Party and were dismayed at the movement being hijacked by those who seemed to be more interested in attacking The Establishment ™ for its own sake rather than the limited government ideals that the Tea Party originally stood for.
Seconding this.
When I was NeverTrump (note the past tense), the “never” meant that I would not support him in the election, even if he won the primaries. As in “My opposition to him is not a feign or a stance; I’m wholly sincere that I will not support him in this election or ‘fall in line.'”
As Jamie said, that position expired once Trump won the election.
Also seconding this, but I want to add something important: I want Trump to succeed.
Trump is our president and our country’s fortune is (to some extent) enmeshed with his. As such, my ideal scenario is that Trump overcomes his shortcoming, governs competently and conservatively, and that I vote for him in 2020 saying “You know, I misjudged the guy four years ago; my bad.”
I don’t always follow-through on this desire perfectly — I’m hardly immune from the residual bitterness going around — but that’s really what I want. Also, I don’t think I’m alone among former NeverTrumpers in wanting Trump to succeed.
Addendum:
For obvious reasons, those who decided they couldn’t support Trump in the general are likely to be more skeptical of the president and/or critical of his actions than those who decided they could support him.
That doesn’t necessarily mean we want (very) different things.
Final point:
There absolutely are people on my side who have lost perspective are determined to see no good in Trump. I am no more (and, indeed, no less) responsible for their actions than former ReluctantTrumpers are for the kind of Trump fans who are determined to see no wrong.
Second. My (anecdotal) impression is that the TrumpWars played out pretty strongly among Tea Party members. I know Tea Party folks who were on both sides.