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No, We Are Not All Clintons Now
@michaelgraham wrote the following in a recent post titled We Are All Clintons Now:
For years, my conservative friends and I have mocked Clinton Democrats for their defenses of Bill and Hillary. We reminded them how they pretended they didn’t know what really happened, how they pretended Clinton was innocent. How these “truth to power” feminists empowered a guy who treated women — including his wife — like crap. “What shameless hypocrites!” we cried. “What partisan fools! What stupid-on-purpose stooges!”
Now, a whole lot of Republicans are doing the same thing.
I think “we” are being awfully hard on ourselves. I’ve never seen complete purity in any political movement. Why start now?
Yes, we have a foul-mouthed philanderer in the White House. Not exactly a new thing.
Many of his supporters aren’t entirely objective. Again, not new.
So is Trump just as corrupt as Bill and Hillary?
The Clintons are in a class all by themselves. President Clinton got impeached, not because of his affair, but because of actual crimes committed while in office. Not just a one-time case of perjury, but suborning perjury and other types of obstruction. Clinton is also suspected of other crimes not included in the impeachment.
There are four broad categories of corruption: Personal (having affairs, etc.), Financial (crooked deals or politics for personal gain), Political (cheating in an election, retaliating against opponents) and Policy (knowingly doing things that are harmful to the country, lying about policies and their effects.) The Clintons are champions in all four categories. Obama holds his own in two of the categories, political and policy.
So, what about Trump?
He’s guilty in the personal category and has admitted (bragged about) it.
In the financial area we know Trump hasn’t been entirely pure (mob-connected cement contractors) but he has been so conspicuous for the past 40 years that he can’t have gotten away with much. To become a billionaire in the private sector, people have to trust you. Yes, people got burned during Trump’s bankruptcy, but so did Trump. Trump’s worse moments have been very public, and people have been willing to invest in him even after they happened. People who invest at that level aren’t stupid. Trump made his money building real buildings that people live and work in, and producing a television show that people watched.
In the political category, Trump is the victim of corruption — not the perpetrator.
In the policy area, Trump has been the most honest President since Ronald Reagan. I think his protectionism is harmful, but he sincerely believes in it — and campaigned on it.
Let’s look at what Trump has not done:
- Invade the home of a law-abiding family to send a child to Cuba.
- Give military secrets to China in exchange for campaign contributions.
- “Accidentally” acquire the FBI files of all House members of the opposing party.
- Launch a nationwide effort using his party, the media and the entire entertainment industry to destroy the reputations of his female accusers.
- Get involved in a land deal, where others went to jail to protect him.
- Ignore opportunities to capture or kill a dangerous terrorist leader.
- Leave an embassy exposed to attack, and refuse to defend it when the attack came.
- Lie to the families of people who lost their loved ones in military conflict.
- Use the IRS to attack his political opponents.
- Create a large “charitable” foundation whose donors coincidentally got favorable treatment from the State Department.
The list is getting long, so I’ll stop at 10.
The Clintons are unique. You’re not a hypocrite if you support Trump while opposing the Clintons.
Published in Politics
Those four categories of corruption are quite elucidating. I think they are an all important part of this discussion.
Indeed! Thank you @bastiatjunior for putting into words my initial thoughts on that recent OP from Graham.
Is it the ‘new normal’ for the Main Page to contain OPs from editors and contributors to tell all of us rabble what a “Conservative” should be ‘loudly against’ and that ‘we’re all ______ now’?
Good luck with that, Komrade.
He’s also not burned up some cultists and their children.
Good point. And there’s a lot more.
He’s not appointed dishonest judges who rule contrary to the Constitution in order to implement a Progressive (statist) regime in place of freedom.
He has not, with a stroke of his pen, made “legal” hundreds of thousands of patently illegal aliens, so they could evade the deportation that they and their parents would otherwise be subject to.
For those who don’t know me, I’m not a Trump-Luvin’ Hannity-face. I’m a free-trading immigration-squish, who vehemently opposed Trump during the primaries. I argued with a lot of Trumpsters here at Ricochet. I held my nose and voted for him in the general election, because of the alternative.
Since then, I have been pleasantly surprised and now consider myself a supporter – in the Denis Prager rather than Sean Hannity mode.
And I’m sure as hell not a hypocrite, or a “Clinton.”
Well I didn’t vote for the guy but I’m more or less in your situation. We are reluctant-Trumpers right? I think we should advertise this more. I remember that ricochet during Trump was insane and (IMO) overdone. But now I feel like I got more in common with some Trumpers than Never-Trumpers but I’m still not that into Trump.
Can we say we are reluctant Trumpers with peace courtesy to either side?
I don’t know of anyone on Ricochet who voted for Trump in the primaries. And pretty much everyone who voted for him in the general was voting against Hillary. Sad, I know.
No, ignoring the Stormy thing is not like Clinton… I have no doubt Trump is guilty… that is beside the point. It’s simply not important. No one in their right mind would use Trump as a role model… and I realize we probably never should have seen President’s as better people than they are. Is Trump worse than JFK? Nope.
Of all the sex allegations this year this is the one that matters? A woman who sells her body for fame and fortune is milking the affair she had a decade ago to get more fame and fortune and I am supposed to care?
Trump is a creep… but he won the election, there is no other President but Donald Trump… he has done nothing to be removed from office over. Therefore let’s stop wasting time and get stuff done.
I fully expect to lose the House this fall, then I fully expect the partisans to impeach Trump, then the partisans in the Senate… who will be right… will ignore it… and the campaign for 2020 will begin.
I always said whoever of those monsters won, I hoped they did such a good job that I could vote for them in 2020 as I didn’t not choose either in 2016.
I still hope that by then, Trump has done a good enough job I can vote for him.
I see a lot of poorly informed unfairness towards Dennis Prager on this. I could change my mind given new information but I doubt it.
I hope that President Trump will look into de-weaponizing some of the bureaus and agencies with SWAT teams. The incident in Waco was just a little momentary lifting of the veil covering the potential for violence that is possible with an armed and entitled rogue agency. Thanks for mentioning this, @randywebster
Rufus, I’m not sure what you mean here, would you elaborate?
It’s still early to judge Trump on policy but so far so good. Some will say that Clinton at least moved the economy forward, enjoyed a budget surplus. There was no surplus but he did earn the budget bonus from the end of the Cold War and the prosperity driven by Reagan tax reforms but the main reason that there was some positive inertia was that he didn’t do much. Government can’t grow the economy as politicians like to say except by dismantling harmful policies. Economies are organic things and grow if not crushed. One policy he got credit for and could claim success for in the campaign against Dole was a Japanese trade deal. Dole couldn’t counter the claim even though it was all pretend. He had a chance to cut a good deal but settled for a positive photo op and a good headline. I imagine that other policies for which he claimed credit were also just photo ops and a good one or two day story.
They are saying that Prager sold out because he’s always talking about moral behavior. He made it very clear decades ago that he didn’t care about politician’s personal moral problems. Furthermore, when he talks about this stuff in general it’s very granular and involved; and as far as I’m concerned it makes a great deal of sense. I pay very close attention to what he says about these things, because I absolutely detest the way I was raised. I’ve paid for his podcast and speeches for years, and he’s done me a ton of good.
FWIW, the stuff that Larry Elder collects on politician’s bad behavior is incredible. The Kennedy Brothers VD problems were just off the charts. One example.
The thread in response to Michael’s post got pretty heated. I was of course a model of decorum and balance.
Give Michael a little break (because I didn’t). He’s a comedian. He likes to stir things up. How many conservative Christian standups are there guys?
The problem (or the intended provocation) is the title. The piece is really aimed at tele-evangelical voters who insist Trump is a godly man of newfound virtue.
Michael’s from that world and faith tradition. It irks him.
It entertains me. We’re all a mixed bag. I’m a Roman Catholic whose exposure to televangelism was usually at 5:30am on Sunday, just walking in the door, half in the bag, watching with sidesplits the standup of Jimmy Swaggart (best standup of the 80s; favorite routine: John Paul is not going to heaven!) and the Richard Pryor looking dude always preaching about the disciples as “binissmen.”
No, we are not all Clintons now. But in some important and slutty respects our culture is very Clinton now, and not just on the left.
I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear that I voted for Trump in the primary. Because I thought he was the only person who could win. Why did I think that? Because he was, actually winning. He took center stage at the GOP debates from the very first, and never relinquished the front-runner position.
You are wiser than I was. I said I would never vote for either of the monsters. But the Democrats, in a curious bid to displace the GOP as the stupid party, seem determined to make me change my mind. There is even, God help us, talk of Hillary running again.
What is a can’t-stand-Trump-but-he-does-some-good-things conservative to do?
She’s having trouble walking. But if this is literal — actually running — I’ll spring for the pay per view at a NY meetup.
Thank you @bastiatjunior!! Graham’s post was one of the most irritating pieces I have ever read here. No, I ain’t no Clinton!!!!!
But I take issue with your four categories of corruption: I don’t think giving in to heterosexual impulses can ever be “corrupt”.
That word means acting dishonestly in exchange for personal gain, usually money.
When someone with such a public life as Trump led twelve years ago, or when a sitting president ( and many , many of our presidents have screwed around while in office, Clinton being just the most recent)
pursues an extramarital sexual conquest, he does so at his peril. There is nothing “dishonest” about it. Like it or not, this impulse is responsible for the perpetuation of our species. It’s what makes the world go ’round.
And can the motive for illicit sex ever be said to be “personal gain”? Transient gratification, yes, but at the risk of ruin, both financial and personal.
So in my humble opinion this kind of episode does not qualify as “corruption”. Like it, or not, condone it, or condemn it–but let’s not mischaracterize it.
If you made a big deal about Clinton’s philandering, putting it at the top of the list of reasons why you didn’t support him, saying “Character Matters!”, which was the slogan at the time, in response to “It’s the Economy Stupid!”, but you now say “So what?”, the you may be a hypocrite. I know people like that. “Well this time it is different” they say. Well it’s different this time because you agree with his politics, just admit it.
However, I’ll tell you what I said at the time. “If Clinton was as pure as the driven snow, I still wouldn’t support him, because I don’t agree with his policies.” I also challenged my Christian friends and relatives at the time. “Why does it matter? It doesn’t matter that he messed around on his wife. She doesn’t seem to care. theirs is a marriage of convenience, it looks like to me.” But they would respond “He’s our country’s leader! We expect more from our leader!” To which I said then and I say now of Trump, “He isn’t my leader. My leader is my pastor, my dad, older men who have gone before me and can show me the way. Not the President.”
The President is the CEO of The Federal Government. He is their leader. But he isn’t mine.
So it’s down to policies. Do I like what he’s doing? So far the answer is yes on some stuff and no on other stuff. Oh…sheesh…how it’s been my entire adult life.
Now, do I think Trump (or Clinton) are moral men? Not in the slightest. From a personal standpoint, I think if you can’t keep it in your pants and honor your wife, you are less than a man. But we are so far from My Perfect President ™ ever being elected, it doesn’t even seem to bear discussing.
I don’t agree with the statement (isn’t adultery derived from corrupt in Latin?) but I like the way you say it sister.
Nah..from the moment I learned the word “adultery” I always thought it meant just sump’n a lot of grown-ups do…which let’s face it: it is.
(P.S.–couldn’t resist, I looked it up. The word adultery, or adulterate, comes from the Latin ad alter, “to make other”. The word adult comes from the Latin adolescere, to develop. So adult really isn’t related to the word adultery: it’s a false etymology. I guess a grown-up oughta be called “adolt”. That would apply to a lot of us…!)
It isn’t even valid on it’s face.
If Trump has sexual dalliances with a 20 year-old intern in the Oval Office, then lies about it for a year allowing his people to shame the accusers publicly, then I’d be a ‘Clinton’ if I defended him.
This scenario was ripe for nefarious forces to engage in blackmail. (Something I strongly suspect the Clintons to be doing to their enemies and ‘friends’ alike)
Stormy Daniels is Jennifer Flowers at best. There have been no Monica’s yet. Not even close.
If they want to be represented by saints, I suggest the join the clergy.
The level of actual law breaking isn’t even close, if that matters.
Sex assault, lying as an officer of the court. The cattle futures thing is insane.
In terms of family life and morality, the moral sensitivities of the western world are different from what they were in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was in office.
I watched The Crown this year, and what jumped out at me is the Church of England’s attitude toward divorce. In 1936 Parliament forced Edward VIII to abdicate the throne before marrying the divorcee Wallis Simpson. (This was interesting in itself given the marriage shenanigans of Henry VIII just a few centuries before.) But even more interesting to me is that if the prohibition against divorce remains in force, then none of Elizabeth’s four children will be able to take the throne. All of them have been through at least one divorce. The throne will have to skip Elizabeth’s children and go to Prince William. The Church of England can rail against divorce, but its own “first royal family” has no “original marriages” among the reigning monarch’s own children.
The pendulum swings back and forth on social-political issues. The prudishness of the Victorian Era was a response to a loosening of morality that had occurred in the preceding generation. From what I’ve read over the last few years, we’re in a kind of lull here. Having seen so many of their friends’ families ravaged by divorce and its aftermath, a lot of millennials are holding off going over that cliff.
That’s how these things go.
Someday we’ll stop going back and forth and actually go forward. :) But not yet and not now. :)
A passage from No One Left to Lie To (Christopher Hitchens, 1999, Pages 77-78):
It is silliness to compare the premeditated evil that is “The Clintons” and the complete capitulation of an entire political party (and all associated surrogates) to them, from the very beginning up to the least hidden money laundering/corruption syndicate ever imagined, to any of the known-knowns and made-up-knowns of “Trump” today. Complete twaddle.
@rufusrjones hit the nail on the head – not that everybody else didn’t.
Of all the scandals of the Clinton administration, I’ve always considered this one, forgotten by most, to be the most insidious. It gave the first glance at the depth to which the Clintons had infiltrated what we now call the Deep State, even polluting the FBI. Because “Filegate” was physically impossible without collusion. And the idea that such an event could occur, without leaving a paper trail that could be followed by a blind man running for his life, was beyond risible. If an actual investigation was ever done, I challenge anyone to come up with those FD 302’s.