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The End Game for NeverTrumpers: A Response
This is a response to @polyphemus’s post entitled “What is the End Game for NeverTrumpers.” It started out as a comment, but I decided to make it its own post because despite several servers full of Trump commentary on this site, I honestly don’t feel like my perspective has been well represented all that often. So here we go.
What I want, first and foremost, is a commander in chief who I trust to do everything humanly possible to ensure the security of the country. That requires a certain amount of knowledge and a certain amount of judgment. I find Trump terrifyingly lacking in those departments and genuinely fear that something terrible will happen because of the combination of his ignorance and his impulsiveness. I’d just feel much better with a steadier finger on the trigger. (Mike Pence would do nicely.)
That’s always, ultimately, been my problem with Trump. He’s like a naked short on an overvalued growth stock. Yeah, there might be a lot of upside to the trade, but the downside risk is uncapped and unlimited. It’s a risk I’d just rather not take.
Ideally that meant — back in the day — a better nominee. Didn’t happen. Obviously. Despite a wealth of better options.
As of election day, honestly, hard as it is to say, I trusted Hillary more. Didn’t like her. Didn’t trust her. God knows I didn’t want to live through four years of her disastrous presidency. But given a choice between four years of guaranteed Hillary deterioration in the state of the country and Trump who, whatever the upside potential, comes with a small but not insignificant risk of absolute, sudden, complete (like, nuclear war or World War III complete) catastrophe, I would have limited my downside risk and sucked it up and taken Hillary.
Today the choice is Trump or Pence, and that’s a no-brainer. I pick Pence. Period.
And if you want to talk about 2018, or 2020, I think we’ve got a problem, regardless of what happens to Trump. We put a guy who’s demonstrably unsuited in the White House. We tied our wagon to him. And a lot of the electorate (polling suggests it’s a sizeable majority) has noticed. We’re very likely going to get punished, no matter what happens to the Trump administration. But it’s never too late to at least make things better by doing the right thing and correcting a mistake. It’s about the country, not the politics.
So end game? From where we are now? I’d like to see the President resign and ride off into the sunset, leaving government to people with the knowledge and temperament to handle it. Hopefully that will continue to include a good cadre of Republicans and conservatives even after the next couple election cycles. But from where we sit now, I suspect that there’s going to be some not insubstantial losses on our side no matter what happens to Trump, and I’m prepared to live with that.
All in the service of limiting the downside risk and living to fight another day.
Published in Politics
Obama’s bad choices and actions were not covered to the fullest extent – yes. Does this mean I’d prefer the press ignore Trump’s innumerable mistake and lies – no. The press for Trump is bad not purely because of “media bias”.
I say I’m okay with this if you point out evidence that there is a Trump/Russia election effect.
I am currently working on software that eliminates all statements from the Executive unless they are being directly said by either General Mattis or General McMaster.
I highly recommend the current Administration buy it from me.
I never wished Trump a heart attack. I make a point of not wishing ill health on people. Even people I don’t care for. I said I’d like to see him resign. I do not think it is entirely inconceivable that he will come to realize how out of his depth he is. Not likely, I grant you, but not impossible.
I fear something like that, yes.
I still find myself unable to decide what I think of Trump.
I know the Democrats and the MSM would be talking impeachment virtually no matter what Trump did or didn’t do. They hate Trump with special fervor since he is pretty much the walking, talking, bloviating repudiation of everything they believe themselves to be, but does that mean Trump actually deserves it? Or could, in any meaningful way, transform himself into someone that the MSM would allow to succeed?
I vaguely remember conversations with my liberal friends, back in the Clinton era, where we agreed that the idiocy of the Monica Lewinsky episode was that Bill knew, beyond doubt, that the Republicans were gunning for him…and he basically handed them the bullet.
If Trump were to resign for his own reasons—because he’s tired of what is actually a comparatively hard and unglamorous job, and he is tired of living in the White House without Melania and little Barron or whatever—-and we did have Pence…then what? Would the MSM calm down?
Possibly?
Calm down, probably not. I’m sympathetic to the complaints that the press would do this to anyone with an R after their name — heck, look at the smear job they did on Romney for proof of that! That being said, I think that just as Bill handed Republicans a bullet with Monica, Trump seems compelled to generate for fuel for the MSM crown fire. Yes, the MSM would slime Pence with everything they could find, but they’d have to dig deep into the closet or flat-out manufacture scandals to acquire the fodder that Trump gives them effortlessly. And while much of the religious right despises Trump and isn’t defending him now, standing by moral man like Pence would be a much more comfortable fit.
Who’s bigger — the Reagan Democrats Trump flipped, or the religious right who offered at best the most grudging support possible?
Elected Republicans never get a fair shake from the press. If Trump were to resign and Pence were to ascend to the presidency, the press would go after Pence just as enthusiastically as they have targeted Trump.
But. . . . .
Pence would not be providing the media ammunition. Same for Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or Scott Walker.
I think we are probably stuck with Trump for the next 3 and one half years. I don’t think Trump will resign. So, we conservatives will have to hope that the conservative agenda isn’t derailed by Trump’s incompetence and carelessness.
They say we get the government we deserve. Trump seems to confirm that argument.
I’m trying to imagine how horrible a society would have to be to deserve Hillary.
The same as the society that deserves Obama.
To those of us who correctly observed that the two major party candidates for the 2016 election were equally unfit for the office, society would be as deserving as it is now.
But, besides that objective truth, the fact remains that she isn’t president. The one we have is not immune from criticism, critical examination, or, yes, even investigation. Doing any of these things is not “disloyal” and does not make one a “turncoat”. Those are the words of authoritarianism.
I’ve been feeling more and more sad that Walker didn’t get any traction in the primary, because if ever there was a politician who could take everything the media and the deep state could throw at him and come out on top, it’s him.
Yes! And sure, Governor Scott Walker made mistakes. All politicians make mistakes.
But Walker was much less focused on his own ego and his own insecurities and much more focused on pushing the conservative agenda in Wisconsin.
Trump has no impulse control. He needs to pass the baton to Mike Pence ASAP.
I think that Mike Pence would make a better president, but honestly, I’m not sure Trump resigning is the best policy. If he doesn’t stay in power until Jan 20, 2025, his base will punish the Republican party for its “betrayal.” Resigning in scandal? “The Establishment is in collusion with the MSM to overturn the people’s will!” 2020 primary challengers? “It’s the Establishment trying to get back to business as usual in selling us out!” Even if he dies of natural causes, it will be the fault of “the gutless Republicans who didn’t defend him from the media’s and Democrats’ lies and accusations that overtaxed poor Donald’s body.”
No, we’re well and truly on the back of the tiger, and there’s no getting off until the tiger can’t run any more.
Well, @asquared, that is an interesting paraphrase of my post. I must be a worse writer than I thought if you got that out of it. Let me take a whack at summarizing my own post: “NeverTrump was understandable (despite the unwise phrasing) in it’s time but now we are watching the threatened toppling of a presidency. This won’t end well if they succeed. Maybe the priorities should change.”
That’s a good analogy. I’ve used the analogy of having war elephants before: risky, perhaps ill-advised, can often trample your own troops but if they can disrupt the enemy, you may as well exploit the opening. In your analogy we maybe shouldn’t have hopped on the tiger’s back but now that we are there, we will have to ride it out. I still think that Trump offers many opportunities for a conservative agenda if we (mainly congress) had the killer instinct to push through and keep the democrats off balance. But, alas, they are better at that than we are. Our side’s timidity and squabbling are squandering many opportunities. And, yes, Trump himself is a big part of the problem. However, I don’t see him vetoing any legislation, do you?
My summary remains accurate and has the added benefit of being more concise.
2/3 of congress (where both branches have a GOP majority)has to go along with it. If you think 2/3’s of congress after hearing the evidence are willing to convict on less than convincing evidence then we have worse problems than an incompetent President on our hands.
Hard to believe that Trump has so little self control so to act in a irrational way that may well be against the interests of the country?
Probably ways to do that without putting an ally’s intelligence operation in danger.
You see what you want to see.
Yes. I do not think he shared any information either the Russians that wasn’t already common knowledge. NYTines had reported the plot to use laptops two weeks before.
I endorsed Cato’s OP, only reservation being the idea there is a choice right now between Pence and Trump. Nevertheless, the NY Times article you quoted stated as fact something attributed to “an American official”. That could be anybody, or a nobody wannabe. If Trump is to be tarred, I don’t want to descend to the level of the Marxists to do it. Facts, not hearsay.
The confidence of an ally was the source – the basic story was reported months ago ( the laptop bombs). General MacMaster , who was in the room, said it didn’t happen. If the choice is believing MacMaster or the Washington Post – well there is no contest.
Did you think we should impeach Obama when he shared intelligence with the Russians?
Sorry, Amy, you don’t get to make up your own facts. Trump’s religious support was pretty close to recent Republican nominees. I saw plenty of pro-Trump fervor from the religious right, Reagan Democrats shattered the Big Blue Wall. There are very persuasive criticisms of Donald Trump, but his electoral performance among key demographics is not one of them, so let’s not try to revise history.
I think we are debating on different levels here. Points of departure:
Perhaps it would be helpful to name these areas of dispute and then before opining say “as pertaining to…” This would prevent someone dragging in other areas of dispute and the focus getting lost. For example: Commentator 1 “Do you think Trump has done anything to bring this on himself?” Commentator 2 “There isn’t a shred of evidence of collusion with the Russians during the campaign.” C1 “He’s not acting for his own best interest and it often appears lazy, impulsive or not thought out.” C2 “The media has never been this nasty to any president. They are creating and supporting a narrative that makes it appear like things are way worse than they are.”
I chose those examples because I think all the statements are true. The truth of the one doesn’t detract from the truth of the other, it only distracts from coming to conclusions so we know where to go from here.
An interesting point to me is that in all this activity since the election about Russia, I have not understood that anyone has claimed a specific criminal act as victim. Have I missed this? Now, of course, impeachment may be a different matter, but all I’ve seen so far with Trump are what some think are missteps or misspeaks, hardly material for impeachment. Sooner or later, we will need specific acts, specific complaints, specific criminal charges, and specific players. I have not seen this.
I am looking for my source, but these advance people were Obama holdovers : “The Trump administration official who said the Western Wall is not part of Israel was David Berns, the political counselor at the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, according to an Israeli television news report.
A second U.S. official, the consulate’s economic counselor Jonathan Shrier, also was involved in the incident, Channel 2 reported Tuesday evening. It said Berns could lose his job over the incident.”
Are you saying that Trump is not supportive of Israel?
I’m just baffled by this irrational fear. Obama ceded the Middle East almost completely to one of the two other nuclear super powers. Trump is trying to advance American interests in the Middle East while not getting into a shooting war with that nuclear power. And for his trouble he is portrayed as simultaneously more likely to start a nuclear war and also inconveniently friendly with the Russians. I’m sorry, but isn’t that contradictory?