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“The Decline of Anti-Trumpism”
The problems with anti-Trumpism are concisely delineated . . . .in the New York Times. By David Brooks. Look! The sun has been blotted out! Pigs, aflight! Millions of them!
. . . the anti-Trump movement, of which I’m a proud member, seems to be getting dumber. It seems to be settling into a smug, fairy tale version of reality that filters out discordant information. More anti-Trumpers seem to be telling themselves a “Madness of King George” narrative: Trump is a semiliterate madman surrounded by sycophants who are morally, intellectually and psychologically inferior to people like us.
I’d like to think it’s possible to be fervently anti-Trump while also not reducing everything to a fairy tale.
He’s right, I think — with careful attention to the word “more.” Some Trump skeptics — and hello, you handsome lad in the mirror — have always been concerned about his lack of knowledge combined with his disinclination to learn, his word-salad replies to questions, and his instinctive demeaning of anyone who challenges his mastery of the issues. This is different than thinking he’s a pouty toddler with the IQ of a bucket of soup.
A lot of Trump supporters conflate the “Dumb crazy baby” anti-Trumpers with the skeptics, just as anti-Trump types conflate the Trump defenders with the airhorn MAGA supporters. I hate that. Which brings us to the next point:
The anti-Trump movement suffers from insularity. Most of the people who detest Trump don’t know anybody who works with him or supports him.
Well, I think it’s fair to say that most anti-Trump types don’t know anyone who works with him. I don’t know about the second point, since I don’t know who knows who, but I can think of a few anti-Trump pundit types who wouldn’t change their opinion of Trump no matter how many supporters they knew. Their opinions have to do with — well, Trump. Their opinions about the man won’t change because the man won’t change.
But this is a distinct issue from being anti-Trump administration, and this seems to be the sticking point I do not understand. If the end result of the administration’s policies is the advancement of conservative policies, then you have to balance that against the negative influence of the Trump Personality on politics — something that seems to me to be modern culture turned up to 11 with the Loudness button enabled — and consider whether the specific, quantifiable gains exceed the cost of having Trump as the means by which they were achieved. If the answer is no, then it’s possible your objections result from your inability to throttle your lack of respect for the man, and this colors your view of the larger scene.
More:
And if they do have friends and family members who admire Trump, they’ve learned not to talk about this subject. So they get most of their information about Trumpism from others who also detest Trumpism, which is always a recipe for epistemic closure.
Oh, I have conversations with Trump-supporting friends all the time; it’s fun. Most of my info about Trumpism comes from the President’s Twitter feed.
In every war, nations come to resemble their enemies, so I suppose it’s normal that the anti-Trump movement would come to resemble the pro-Trump movement. But it’s not good. I’ve noticed a lot of young people look at the monotonous daily hysteria of we anti-Trumpers and they find it silly.
Hmm. I don’t recall the Allies building gas chambers for the Axis troops, or Afghan UN troops cultivating poppy fields and forbidding the instruction of girls, but nevermind. I am also unsure how many young people Frum has interrogated about the monotonous daily hysteria. (“Young people,” especially worried woke 7-year-olds, are the cab drivers of modern political commentary.) But I find the daily hysteria silly, and I think Donald Trump’s public performances are generally ridiculous.
He concludes:
This isn’t just a struggle over a president. It’s a struggle over what rules we’re going to play by after Trump. Are we all going to descend permanently into the Trump standard of acceptable behavior?
I don’t think so. I think he’s a one-off.
Or, are we going to restore the distinction between excellence and mediocrity, truth and a lie?
Oh, those distinctions are just suddenly apparent now? You could find a lot of people who regarded the previous presidents as excellent mediocrities and mediocre excellences.
Are we going to insist on the difference between a genuine expert and an ill-informed blow hard?
I suspect not, because many of the former have been corrupted by agendas to the point where they don’t realize how they sound like the latter.
There’s a hierarchy of excellence in every sphere. There’s a huge difference between William F. Buckley and Sean Hannity, between the reporters at this newspaper and a rumor-spreader. Part of this struggle is to maintain those distinctions, not to contribute to their evisceration.
Note how he twinned reporters with Buckley. Okay: Buckley had a coherent, detailed political philosophy he advanced through his platform; is he saying NYT reporters are doing the same?
Published in General
I took a past member’s advice and followed President Trump on Twitter and make a point to read each one. The ones you see reported are the controversial ones or the ones that 75% of the population find funny and the media doesn’t get. I used to worry about the Tweeting; now I’m indifferent or appreciative.
This is the kind of in-depth analysis that HuffPo just can’t provide.
Mr. Lileks, I wish I could agree but I’m still NeverTrump. I do not think I’m as fanatical as Jen Rubin or Frum, but I will never accede to this unworthy man’s hijacking of my [former] political party. Look at today’s press event. This was on Trump’s signature issue, immigration, the one that captured his imagination more powerfully than any other, and he still sounded like a naif persuaded by the last courtier that talked to him. Feinstein says she wants a clean DACA bill and Trump says great! Then McCarthy explains that means without a wall, e-verify, etc… A perceptive middle schooler should have picked up on that nuance, but not our very stable genius.
I see conservatism as a movement that has been talked into jumping off the Empire State Building. Now we are passing the 33rd floor and the wind is in our hair, people are gasping at us, everything’s great.
The economy has surged this year due to Republican economic practices, above all regulatory reform that any Republican President would have done after eight years of Obama’s asphyxiation. But we haven’t repealed the business cycle. If Trump and Repub numbers look like they do now with peace and prosperity, where will we be when the country needs a leader in more than the Kim Kardashian sense, when there is a market or economic turndown, if there’s a foreign crisis?
Do you believe Trump believed it when he said thousands of Muslims were cheering 911 on the rooftops in Jersey City? Or do you believe that was four dimensional chess? Do you think Harry Truman or LBJ or anyone else ever elected our leader could have come up with that?
What kind of soup?
I think he can deliver a written speech well enough. Off the prompter, it’s a different matter. Same with George W. Bush, but in GWB’s case you were in a state of presumptive cringing, because something was going to come out a bit odd. With Trump unbuttoned it’s often like watching someone throw a box of dishes into a jet engine; you’re awed at the noise and the wreckage. But it all matters less than policy and actions.
Problematic metaphor aside ;), that is the question, isn’t it? Consider that the set of professional NT’s is vanishingly small, and does not include those who were NT before the election but have settled into wary skepticism tempered by dispassionate appraisal. The few NT folk left either want employment as election consultants or think-tank pontificators, or maintain a position of opposition to lead the resurgence of the values they hold. This doesn’t mean they’re not principled; it doesn’t mean they are. Doesn’t mean they aren’t like most people – a mix of self-interest and principle.
That’s not very nice.
There’s little daylight between the views they’re currently espousing, but they’re extremely different in terms of personality and demeanor. I like Brooks. I think he’s a nice guy with some really bad views about politics. Frumm, on the other hand, is a Gregor. He’s a human cockroach.
I had the same basic thought, not as eloquent.
Brooks is well-meaning. He’s in an elite bubble and is quite naive (I’m beginning to think well meaning and naive are fraternal twins) . He actually tries to understand and his mind is open. I’ll mock him anytime, but he’s not in the same category as Frum.
That’s because men decorate with electronics, while this is a picture of a huffpo editorial meeting:
My take on Conservatism/(R)’s now and into the future(hopefully I’m wrong about the future) is we do not have the numbers to win national elections, so when we luck out and the (D)’s put up such a terrible candidate that they lose to Donald Trump, Conservatives have to come together for the two to four years we have this rare opportunity (numbers in the House, Senate, and the Presidency) and get as much done as possible.
So you think Donald Trump is awful …. get over it. Get as much done as we can now because the pendulum will certainly swing the other way politically and if Conservatives get little to nothing out of this time in history it will be the greatest choke job in the history of blown opportunities.
You are forgetting Johnson’s preoccupation with his, er, Johnson or Kennedy’s sharing a moll with a gangster. Trump has to be at least a step up from that.
True. There usually is more to a subject than a one sentence summary can provide. :)
Agreed.
But “loudness” was really unrelated to cassettes.
Hence my qualifying Ifs. But you and I have had this discussion, and I think there is plenty of evidence of a wave coming, certainly enough to be concerned. As I have said the biggest obstacle to making the 2018 election not about Trump will be Trump himself. But, will the population think it is bad for the country economically? And if you hate a guy, are you really inclined to give him credit for things going well?
Often presidents get the credit and blame for the economy, even though they don’t really deserve either. But usually presidents are likable people, or at the very least not in your face offensive. Trump in this department has burned many bridges, which if you wanted a hardcore audience of fans is not a bad idea, Hannity, Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Keith Olberman, that 10 year old boy with glasses on MSNBC (I know, which one?) all used the same model to become successful political entertainers. Trump has taken that to a new level.
Yes. We said exactly the same about Obama — and it was true then, too.
I’m no longer sure about that “declining” part.
That was actually a reference to something that had nothing to do with either of them. Anyone want to take a guess at the source?
Annie Hall, of course!
Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
I have a couple of questions for you about the President’s public performances, Mr. Lileks. I saw his speeches in Saudi Arabia and Poland, and I thought that both were excellent. I thought that they were probably better, bolder, and more sensible than anything I heard from either President Bush (and that’s not a put-down, as I have great respect for both GHWB and GWB on international affairs). Did you see these, and if so, do you agree with my assessment?
Anyone who has heard Trump speaking can know with certainty that those speeches were written by someone else. That’s not to criticize Trump – most modern presidents have employed speech writers. But perhaps more than any of his predecessors, the difference between Trump delivering prepared remarks and Trump delivering his thoughts off-the-cuff is a vast one. On his own he seems barely capable of stringing anything more than a very few sentences together with any coherence. Hint: If it sounds well-informed, intelligent, and especially if it contains details, it was likely written by someone else.
I can’t stand Trump the man. What can I say? I was raised by my parents to value good manners and honesty, and to treat people with respect. In contrast, Trump is a lying pig of a man. I am, however, liking what his administration is doing. I would also go so far as to say that his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was a move (one I was delighted with) that I doubt my preferred candidates (Walker, Rubio) would have done – I give Trump a great deal of credit for that one.
That’s as good as it gets for me. And I am saddened by his apparent inability to keep from ruining his own chances and those of his party by engaging in needless controversies over petty matters. If he could just get out of his own way….