Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
The Democrats would have done the same to Cruz and they’d have had some help from some in the Republican establishment. After being reminded on Uncommon Knowledge a few days ago about how good Carly is, she’d have run into the buzz saw as well. Maybe they’d have done better, but that is totally irrelevant. It’s President Trump and our job is to help him succeed whenever he heads in the right direction. So far he is headed correctly from a conservative standpoint, just not as skillfully as we’d like. That’s hardly new to our Presidents. He’s not conservative but neither is he colluding with the Russians to bring down America or with the Democrats to foster the administrative state. Those who just can’t stand President Trump should just focus on the Democrats and their media supporters. They are the same dishonest corrupt, greedy miserable folks they have been for several decades and they’re getting worse as they fear Trump or any of our people might break their many rice bowls. Trump is not the enemy. Wait. Did I mention who is?
Absolutely (link goes to shameless self-promotion).
Also true. However, it’s equally true that some pro-Trump pundits — enthusiastic or otherwise — over-committed themselves to Trump and are, thereby, willing to let all sorts of things slide that they might not otherwise.
Geese, ganders, and all that.
Jamie said what I’d have said. I do not want Trump impeached. I do not want him “brought down”. What I want are some conservative wins out of his Administration.
You are right, @polyphemus: we seem to have missed an opportunity (though it is early, yet, so who knows). But that isn’t all on the media, nor is it all on the so-called NeverTrumpers. Some of it is on Congress (nay, a lot of it, they are responsible, in my opinion, for driving legislation). But some of it is on Trump, too. You recognize this when you say “warts and all”. You recognize that he has some significant flaws that make it more difficult for him to govern.
We are all flinging poo at each other. Maybe it is time to stop. But that doesn’t mean refraining from leveling rational criticism where it is deserved. And lest you say that we are always critical of Trump and never say a positive word, I recommend my recent post on Net Neutrality.
Peace out bro!
I agree with the arguments saying that Jonah et al don’t want to become partisan shills, and David French himself actually makes this argument quite effectively on NR today.
I’ll also add, why would a public personality trying to portray an image of intellectual honesty put themselves out there to defend Trump when he himself is likely to undermine their defense of him with an ill-advised tweet within two hours? He’s done this several times to his own White House press office and advisers, contradicting the party line and making any defensive PR strategy impossible.
Trump is his own worst enemy. Any discussion of what to do to best help him be successful really begins and ends with the President himself.
I can’t speak for Mr. Lockett, but for me, yes. I have criticized the Medicare expansion as there are many problems with Medicare. Expanding it invited more big government into our lives and more into a program that will face serious problems soon. There was a lot of criticism for “No Child Left Behind”. Not only did it further entrench big government into what should remain locally run schools, but we could predict right away that Bush would get no credit for this compromise. There’s reasons many of us today cheer on DeVos. The Farm Bill, yes. We’ve been complaining about Farm subsidies for ages. McCain-Feingold? Don’t get me started on that stinker of a law!
As much as I like the person of Pres. Bush, he was by no means a Conservative and many of us were ready to criticize him on these things then. Pretending we were gung ho behind all these things does nothing to further this argument.
I’m not a NeverTrumper, I was reluctantly a supporter in the end and mostly because eight years of Pres. Obama demonstrated that the Presidency is not a job that one can learn on the way. Trump showed little self-control in the campaign and has had no experience in governing — at least not on the side of one in public office.
It’s entirely fair to criticize the president. It’s fair to criticize him even if our opponents bring up the subject. For years we had complaints about Pres. Obama that were dismissed as partisanship. Sometimes we were wrong but often we were right. As the highest office we have, we should feel obligated to criticize as much as possible when we believe it warranted.
They don’t have to defend him. Just don’t pile on. No doubt about it, he is his own worst enemy, right after the Democrats, and guys on our side who despise him. Our guys who can’t say anything supportive of Trump should focus on what’s wrong with the economy, the regulatory regime, the tax code, the welfare state, centralization, the crony capitalism, the education system the deteriorating world order and what has to be done and why decades of Democrat policies have caused the things that have to be fixed. These are more interesting than Trump tweets or Democrats’ hysteria. Maybe incisive analysis and blue prints would get an audience. Joining the Democrats in their hysteria won’t.
I disagree. It’s their job to comment on the news of the day, and it’s what I go to them for specifically. I like having pundits I can trust like them to get an idea as to what extent the latest hullabaloo is something to actually be concerned over vs. artificial left-wing media nonsense. If their analysis comes out as being critical of Trump, I trust that that is well-founded and I don’t shoot the messenger.
I agree that it’d be great to be able to focus on substantial issues, in both the punditry and among actual policymakers. I think the first step to getting there is for Trump to get out of his own way and stop either generating controversies through his own ill-considered choices or feeding the left-wing media with his tweets and undermining his own PR people.
And where do you live? I live here and if the government fails, I suffer. Are you some ‘foreigner’? @Valiuth
Victor Davis Hanson seems to me the most understanding pundit on this matter. I understand holding the man accountable but calling a game in the 1st quarter hardly seems useful. Seems to me like a means to participate in the news cycle which I completely understand. Most don’t have the luxury of preaching patience.
Valiuth lives in America, and has written movingly on the fact:
More to the point that comment needlessly personalized the argument and it doesn’t matter if he’s some dreaded “foreigner” or not. Some of us dirty unwashed masses from overseas made a choice to be in this country and our love of America is no less than those who were born here.
As a Never Ever Trumper, this is easy to answer. I want him to be better. Would I trade him for Hillary? No. Never.
It’s not a binary question. If the right people stop telling Trump how brilliant he is (he isn’t, never was), and start to talk to him about what his job is (to do the people’s business, not his own), and continue to show him how his actions are harming the country and his base, then perhaps he can improve.
Do I want a Pres. Pence? No. That is a move that will signal the end of the Republican Party.
The leaks are a real problem. But the leaks likely, most likely (I am an optimist) come from people (misguided) in the administration who know their job is to serve the country, and not serve Pres. Trump.
A lot of my Liberal friends say to me (even now), when I criticized Obama “I didn’t hear you criticizing Bush!” And I always say “That’s because you were so busy running your mouth, you couldn’t have a rational conversation.” A lot of us criticized Bush then, and now. For my part, I should have been more critical of Bush.
Or, as I put it so often back then – “Your criticisms of Bush are so unhinged, what with your FEMA camp nonsense, that I can’t even begin to have a discussion.” And anyways they didn’t listen because they thought Bush never went far enough in compromising with the left.
I can easily imagine conditions in which I’d say it’s best for Trump to resign or be forced from office and for Pence to take over, but we’re not there and (God willing) won’t ever be.
As I said before, my preference is for Trump to prove his critics wrong, but I don’t always get what I want.
I think this is what many mistake in those conservatives currently criticizing Trump. We criticize because we want him to succeed, not because we want him to fail.
“Do you think that we will somehow come out in good shape if the Left brings down this administration?”
The administration seems very capable of bringing itself down. No help needed from the left.
What they’d want is for him to either switch parties to Democrat and embrace their policies fully, or for him to fire Cheney, select a new Progressive Democrat as VP, and then resign.
I have no illusions about the Left. They’ve gone full-blown insane since Trump’s election and still consider themselves the only sane ones in the world.
Side note: I confess I still regret the time I tried to defend the PATRIOT act.
And contrary to what some believe, his bizarre tweets (not all his tweets, his bizarre tweets) aren’t helping him succeed. I know they make the EverTrumpers happy, but everyone else is saying “Really?” It’s fuel on the fire. And the middle, the ones who turn elections? I don’t know. We’ll see in 18 months I guess.
Calling the game, no. But if it’s going that badly, the players are sure as hell going to get yelled in the locker room before hitting the field for the second quarter.
It was obvious the second that Trump won (and to anyone who thought he might win, it should’ve been a given) that he was going to face severe opposition from both the media and The Left at large. That is not an excuse, it is (and has been, to varying extents, for some time) the playing field. If you know going in that the ref and the linesmen are biased against you, planting land mines everywhere, your game plan should take that into account and you should only field the players with the level heads, awareness and character to deal with it.
EverTrumpers need to realize that Trump’s mission now is not to keep convincing them, he needs to convince the rest of the country to come with him.
Well, in your defense, those were the days when everyone wanted anyone who might blow up a plane stopped, 100%, but they never wanted to be inconvenienced at the airport. So…we get what we ask for.
Or convince the members of Congress to come with him.
This mess is not my fault or yours. It’s Trump’s fault. I was never a Never Trumper, but so what. It was clear from the start he didn’t have the smarts. I hoped a decent cabinet and support staff could see him through. Didn’t turn out that way. When, of all people, Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russian Probe I felt the jig was up. Trump is not coachable even with the right coaches. In a lousy 3 months this administration is up the creek. I disagree with the notion that rats are leaving a sinking ship. What’s a rat supposed to do? Let Trump drag you down with him? There are a lot of decent people in and around this administration who have careers they don’t want besmirched by association.
To soon to make the call? Maybe. But it’s important to recognize a lost cause. What to do? Step aside, move away if you’re running for reelection, and start planning a primary against Trump – if he lasts that long.
I wasn’t a “Never”-Trumper…more like an “I’d-Really-Rather-Not”-Trumper. I never liked him and wasn’t going to vote for him (I’d leave that to the other Texans who’d surely do so). I am ashamed to admit that…it is cowardly to let others do the hard, dirty work. In the end, I did vote for him: to assuage my inner conflict, because Hillary had a loose moment where she reminded me that I’m one of the “deplorables”, and – more than Hillary’s words – due to the crowd’s lusty, heart-felt cheers and laughter when she said it! So: “Man, they really hate us…Screw you, I’m voting for Donald!”.
So, I own this along with 60-ish million others.
We expected certain things after the election: The Left wasn’t going to just sit back and watch or be nice. We knew the Democrats would obstruct, the activists would march (and set fires, assault people, break windows, etc.), the media would echo, talking heads and ‘experts’ would question and prevaricate. It would be just another day at the office.
But the reaction was more intense than we anticipated. It probably caught us off-guard. We have to grit our teeth, roll our eyes, endure all kinds of taunts and ‘blame’ from our lefty friends, and otherwise sigh at the state of things. And Trump really does make it worse when he tweets and says ill-considered things.
But:
I voted for Trump (and Romney, and McCain, and Bush…) because I want our government to do certain things and stop doing other things as a function of what the Constitution spells out. With Trump – even with all the baggage – there was a chance that some of these goals would be met…some have been.
I still want those things done! So: How?
The difference between what “our side” is doing and what the Left is doing is easy to spot: The Left has smartly manipulated and channeled that hate and fear into a serious threat to us. The playbook is straightforward: offer a meme, quote a ‘source’, cite a report of some offense the administration has committed, then trot out ‘analysts’ and ‘experts’ and ‘officials’ to lay out the horrors and disbelief, flood social media with “OMG”, “IMPEACH!!”, “TRAITOR!!”, etc. After a while of ginning up all of this truly hot air, start talking about how nervous and divided we are, how everyone is so mad at Trump, then start talking like ‘everyone agrees’ Trump is done-for.
This is an echo-chamber. It never stops: it is orchestrated, deliberate, and aimed at denying the President his – our! – agenda. To have won the election so completely – federal, state, local – and be on our heels is a sin.
To my Never-Trump friends I say: Nov 8 happened, Trump is President. It’s time now to get over it and help. We need you!
I’m tired of hearing that. It is the inverse of “He’s not Hillary.” The election is over. So now we assess the man and his presidency in it’s own terms.
Got to survive the MSM election gauntlet first. Who has a thick enough skin for that?
Most GOP candidates either don’t defend themselves or they apologize when the MSM heat gets turned up. Invertibrates.
Sure, I understand that. Trump has warts and can be a fool: Bummer but that’s how it will be.
I want to move the agenda forward. I don’t see how ‘assessing’ anything matters right now. Time to work.
I want our side to start some (rhetorical) fights to put the Left on its heels… establish some breathing space so we can take the offensive. I want the administration and our congressional leadership to pick a few achievable goals and get some wins. Establish momentum.
Might have to hide his phone, write his speeches, and otherwise bring him to heel, but this isn’t that hard.
My impression is that both Jonah Goldberg and Mona Charon have been reasonably fair-minded about Trump since the election, though Charon has been coming around more slowly. I think that they have fairly assessed Trump’s successes and errors, thus far. I can’t comment on David French, as I don’t follow him regularly.
I find Andrew Klavan to be the very best commentator on this issue, among those most skeptical of Trump. He seems to have the greatest clarity of vision about the culture war, and can see Trump as a happy warrior fighting on the right side, even if he does occasionally walk into a trap. OK, more than occasionally. And OK, maybe he seems to set up the trap first, then walk into it, like Wile E. Coyote. But as Lincoln said about Grant, he fights.
I was not a NeverTrumper, though I was a serious (if inconsequential) critic of Trump during the primaries, but I do see the logic in a NeverTrumper continuing to point out the problems. The NeverTrumpers thought that a Trump Presidency would be a disaster. They had some very good arguments, and may turn out to be right, once we have the benefit of hindsight. I hope not, and I voted on the basis of that hope and continue to support the President, for whatever it is worth, on the basis of the same hope.
But someone who points out that, in their judgment, a certain choice will lead to disaster, should not be criticized for subsequently pointing out developments tending to show that they were right. The point would be to learn from our mistakes, if the Trump Presidency turns out to be a mistake.
I prefer to be an optimist, so I keep saying soothing words to myself like “Justice Gorsuch” and “Defense Secretary Mattis.”