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The Trump Spectrum
Inspired by this comment from @jameslileks.
- Never Trump: They truly believe he is so awful that even the chaos that would ensue after removing him from office does not outweigh the benefits of said removal. Examples: Bill Kristol.
- Anti-Trump: They too believe he is awful, but recognize that we are stuck with him. They may occasionally admit that he has done some good things, but usually only grudgingly. Examples: Mona Charen, John Podhoretz.
- Trump Skeptics: They don’t like him, they don’t trust him, but they are trying to keep an open mind. They criticize him frequently but try to keep it constructive. They probably didn’t vote for him but are trying to be gracious losers. Some of them may even concede that the good outweighs the bad but insist that the bad still needs to be addressed. Examples: Ben Shapiro, Most of NRO, I place myself here as well.
- Reluctant Trump: They don’t particularly like him, but they think we should give him the benefit of a doubt. They will generally cite Hillary Clinton as their primary (if not their only) motivation for voting for him. Examples: Andrew Klavan, Peter Robinson(?).
- Trump Defenders: They admit he’s made mistakes but either think the good outweighs the bad to such a degree as to make the mistakes not worth discussing, or they believe the forces aligned against him are so great that spending too much time on the mistakes is “piling on.” Examples: Victor Davis Hanson, Dennis Prager.
- Trump Apologists: The only thing he’s done wrong is not play by The Rules. Everything wrong with the administration is entirely the fault of his enemies. All critics are either pearl-clutching elitists and/or open borders globalists. Example: Sean Hannity.
Resolved: Groups 4-6 have a vested interest in believing that Group 1 is far larger than it really is and that Group 6 is a strawman. Groups 1-3 have a vested interest in the reverse, and I myself am far from innocent in this. As with many questions of this nature, reality is far closer to a bell curve. For both sides to accept this is the first step towards reconciliation.
Published in General
A disgrace to our state, if that’s possible. As I sit in my office here in Newark, where he launched his promising career, it’s been sad to watch a man who started as a fairly smart and reasonable guy devolve into another babbling leftist idiot.
I be 3.
That’s kind of what I was shooting for by posting this. I think 3 and 4 are closer to each other than either is to 1 or 6, but we’ve collectively drawn the line in such a way that we tend to act as if there are only two factions. I think @robertmcreynolds and @bossmongo‘s recent posts made some baby steps in the right direction, and I was hoping to build on that. :)
I am 3, praise him when he does something good and complain when he doesn’t. All presidents should have this rule.
Sometimes it feels like it should be 1-3, then 4 right in the middle, then 5-7. There is no one exactly as 4, balanced between pro- and anti-Trump, but it’s more of theoretical thing than a real position because there is too much pull to one side or the other.
2, 3, and 4 for me. It depends on the latest tweet. All human beings have their faults, including me, yeah I know that’s hard to believe, my wife keeps a list of them.
I will praise the good things he’s done, but the only time I bend my knee is before I take my place in the pew before Mass and during Mass.
I’m sometimes 4 and sometimes 5. I was for Cruz in the primaries, but really except for a couple of things like not getting rid of DACA (he has made other great immigration decisions), I haven’t really disliked all that much he has done.
Put me in Group 7: Trump …. good, bad, or indifferent …. will sign most any Conservative Legislation put in front of him, so the Republican controlled Congress better effing pass it before the mid terms or it will go down as the greatest choke job in the history of blown opportunities.
Some of my best friends are “1’s” and “6’s.”
I guess I’m a 3 but don’t criticize him as frequently as the description suggests (or at least since the election). Hey, maybe I should.
I didn’t vote for any presidential candidate in the election. I live in California. Californians aren’t allowed to vote for a Republican candidate by law…or something like that…at least for the Senate.
I am not a member of a secret society. I have no tattoos or know any secret signs or handshakes or wear an apron. I do not offer sacrifices of slain animals or organic fruits or vegetables from Whole Foods to any Republican idols. Of course, if I did, I wouldn’t admit it here on Ricochet. I mean, be real.
I do buy from Amazon, occasionally watch Frontline, and am a big fan of Jonah Goldberg. So, I should be monitored from time to time.
I was a solid 4 and remain so. Hillary was definitely reason to vote for the guy for me. At times I drift towards 5, but only time and lasting evidence will get me there. And to my mind his foibles, as with the foibles of any public figure, are always fair game for lampooning. No public figure should be above criticism.
That being said, I’ve met few people on the left, even among my leftist friends who are not a solid 1, or maybe a 0, or even a -1.
A 0 or a -1 – Trump is the 2nd coming of Hitler. His is the herald of the end times, slaughterer of millions.
BTW- I’d peg Prager as a 6.
Amazing, among people on the left who are a -1, it is almost invariably true when the subject comes up that Pence is even worse.
That’s a sign of complete enmity towards religion, IMO. The irony is that the bigotry is at least as bad as anything they purport to condemn.
I’m a 3, at least most of the time. A particularly stupid tweet or action might bring me to a 2, a particularly good action might have me skirting a 4.
I don’t think it has to do with religion, per se. If Susan Collins were vice president, she’d be the one worse than Hitler.
Any aspect of conservatism in ascendancy is the conservatism most like Nazism to the left. It was not all that long ago that they hated George W. Bush like he was the devil and had Pat Buchanan on MSNBC.
It’s bad faith all the way down on their side.
I applaud this post and your objective. Both posts mentioned above had good intentions for the right direction but seemed to go sideways along the way. Hopefully this will build upon the fence-mending.
I’m a number 2 for now but constantly fear that number 1 will be validated. I have always disliked Trump since long before he got into politics, and I will admit to being strongly biased against him for that reason. Even so, I think I could get past my distaste with enough “wins,” and I wish I could move into number 3 or even number 4 territory. But every time I start becoming more positive, Trump does something stupid that returns me to number 2. My biggest criticisms of Trump are on a policy level — many not nice people have become presidents — but he is just unhinged enough that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he will do something monumentally terrible.
What’s most frustrating to me is that I find the majority of Trump’s “policies” (if he can be said to have any) to be anti-liberty and anti-conservative, and I hate that so many conservatives seem to have abandoned their former stances once Trump joined their side and won the election. Yes, Trump’s administration has done some good things, but I think almost any Republican (the nearly-equally loathsome Kasich excepted (who also may well be to blame for Trump’s winning the nomination) and perhaps also excluding Jeb!) would have done the same. Somebody like Scott Walker, for example, would likely have accomplished far more. I suppose it is this stance that lands me in number 2 territory rather than number 3.
I approve of the effort to reunite conservatives but the pessimist in me fears that it won’t be possible. Still, I don’t think we will be seeing a resurgence of the Left anytime soon. After all, as bad is Trump is, the Democrats are currently even worse. The optimist in me hopes that a new libertarian-conservative consensus will emerge from the wreckage.
By the way I’d switch Klavan from a 4 to a 5 and Victor Davis Hansen from a 5 to a 4. Klavan was originally a 4 (and before that a 2 or even a 1 during the primaries) but he seems to be becoming more pro-Trump all the time and I’d place him solidly in number 5 for now. Hopefully he won’t reach number 6 territory and so far he hasn’t. Klavan is greatly entertaining but I find his podcasts less enjoyable than previously because of this change.
Hansen meanwhile uses strong language to criticize those in category 1, and that rhetoric makes him seem more pro-Trump than he really is.
Which makes me think much of the Left’s hatred of Trump is either: (1) feigned; or (2) a result of incomprehension that Hillary lost; or (3) both. After all, the Left loved Trump right up until the time he won the Republican nomination, when he suddenly turned into Hitler.
We here can disagree and sometimes strongly so, but at least none of us are acting in bad faith.
I agree. He’s gotten so six-ish that I stopped listening to him.
I think it was their love for him during the primaries that was feigned – they only loved him because they figured (as I did) that he was more easily defeated than the rest of the field.
That is probably true too.
A topic that doesn’t seem to come up in these discussions is the completely unhinged vitriol of the Left and deciphering what exactly that means. Only the tip of the iceberg of the deceit and deception of the previous administration is public so far and HRC was a big part of that. Trump is not the messiah though quite the opposite of BHO he never said he was. Therefore, Andrew Klavan, David Limbaugh, and Victor Davis Hanson vibrate my A string at 440.
Maybe because most of those who fall in the 4 spectrum are also in this camp. Whatever you think about Trump, you gotta admit that watching Leftists meltdown like when I was boy watching Old Yeller is quite entertaining.
Look folks, I might be on the verge of being banned, but holy cow maybe I was wrong about the gap being mended, at least on Ricochet. I may not trust McConnell as far as John McCain can throw him, but Umbra can be my wingman anytime.
That’s definitely a thing, but I’m not aware of anyone on the right who holds this position.
Not end times. Dogs and Cats are not living together.
I am a four but I wouldnt have voted for him (well he would have to apologized to Michelle Fields for it to happen), but I am pretty much where Klavan is. I would have voted for Gary.
For those who want to hear Mona and Jay talk all about there love of Trump please listen to the episode after he bombed the crap out of Syria. It was like turning into the Harvard Lunch Club the way they loved Trump that day.
I need one more category:
4.5 Trump Cautious: Less bothered by antics, hopeful that Trump can advance conservative principles. This group may not approve of him currently, but hope things will get better. Their evaluation of Trump rests crucially on what might be, what they perceive to be a future trajectory.
I’d say I started out as 4.5, and have been very slowly but steadily decreasing since inauguration day. I just wish he was more competent at advancing his legislative goals. With the smoldering wreckage of two abortive attempts at healthcare reform behind us, I am losing hope that he will shape up and manage to govern effectively. The pivot to the general/presidency will probably never happen…
I moved from 3 to 5 over the course of time influenced by anti-Trump behavior at the extremes and by some of Trump’s favorable moves after his election. He still makes me nervous and causes me to maintain doubts.