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Yes, Anti-Trumpism Is a Failure — And It Was Always Destined to Be One
From the moment Donald Trump descended the golden escalator, David Brooks opposed him. The New York Times columnist condemned him in the primaries, then in the general, in the transition and the presidency, with the harshness only growing over time. But in a fascinating column today, Brooks admits defeat.
Titled “The Failures of Anti-Trumpism,” Brooks confesses that the past two years of “Never Trump” derision has only made The Donald stronger. His approval rating hasn’t budged, his policies haven’t changed, and Republicans — pundits, party leadership, and base alike — support him more firmly than ever.
And the promised Mueller-fueled impeachment? It’s abandoned collusion with Vladimir Putin for collusion with Stormy Daniels.
Where did all the Trump mockery go wrong? Brooks finds the central issue:
A lot of us never-Trumpers assumed momentum would be on our side as his scandals and incompetences mounted. It hasn’t turned out that way. I almost never meet a Trump supporter who has become disillusioned. I often meet Republicans who were once ambivalent but who have now joined the Trump train….
Meanwhile, if Republican never-Trumpers were an army, they’d be freezing their buns off in Valley Forge tweeting over and over again that these are the times that try men’s souls….
Part of the problem is that anti-Trumpism has a tendency to be insufferably condescending. For example, my colleague Thomas B. Edsall beautifully summarized the recent academic analyses of what personality traits supposedly determine Trump support.
Trump opponents, the academics say, are open-minded and value independence and novelty. Trump supporters, they continue, are closed-minded, change-averse and desperate for security.
This analysis strikes me as psychologically wrong (every human being requires both a secure base and an open field — we can’t be divided into opposing camps), journalistically wrong (Trump supporters voted for the man precisely because they wanted transformational change) and an epic attempt to offend 40 percent of our fellow citizens by reducing them to psychological inferiors.
As any longtime reader knows, I was a Never Trumper throughout the election. But when the nation selected him, I laid down that label and accepted reality. Trump was my president for the next four to eight years, I earnestly hoped for his and my country’s success, and I would praise or criticize him based on his actions.
But if I were one of those dead-enders who kept fighting reality, the last thing I’d do is rehash the same failed strategy that didn’t stop him in 2016. What is obvious to any Army captain or novice entrepreneur was utterly lost on several of our most celebrated pundits and political strategists.
With Trump’s election, the political landscape changed, just as it did when Obama was elected. Declaring either presidency invalid — due to a Russian conspiracy or a forged birth certificate — was doomed to failure since the voters chose both of them. And mocking a president is easily blurred with mocking the millions who selected him.
There’s an old maxim in marketing: people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Likewise, no reader will take advice from a pundit who despises them.
Published in Politics
@davesussman I hope you’re right. I do. But I’m still burned over the promised and then reneged veto of the Omnibus and his threat to “Take the guns and do due process later” sends a chill up my spine.
I always thought he was too pretentious, and, well, not really a conservative — maybe a conservative left-leaning liberal.
But when he swooned at the crease in Barry-O’s pants leg…
No argument here. I am a Reagan Republican, too. It’s just that my “Reagan-ness” (for lack of a better word) led me to vote for Trump in the general. I took the half loaf because a bigger share wasn’t available. I also believe the 80% agreement rule-of-thumb applies here.
It is ironic that while Trump is no Reagan, Trump is still the most Reagan-like president we’ve had since January 1989. That says more about both Bushes than Trump.
The sun rises because the rooster crows.
Good post. I think right on.
Once a rule of law, enforceable contracts and a stable currency are established, the government can’t help the economy. In that sense, politicians can’t make the economy grow.
But the government can do harm, and has done quite a bit of it.
Thus, a president can “grow” the economy by simply curtailing previously implemented bad policies. Trump did some of that in 2017 and deserves credit for the results.
My advice to Never Trumpers: Do whatever. There weren’t enough of you in 2016 to matter, and there aren’t enough of you now to matter. Trying to convince you to get on the train makes about as much sense as trying to convince me to go back to using Facebook. I checked out, and I’m not persuadable on the Facebook issue. I wish you the best of luck finding a conservative candidate who can beat Trump in 2020. Now, I’m gonna go try to find a social media service that welcomes pro-Trump ideas. We both have our work cut out for us.
I am fine with a bit of Trumpism (I’d still much rather vote for a good primary challenger in 2020), despite my personal distaste for Trump-the-narcissistic-juvenile. A lot of his “blundering” has actually been good, because our refined types tend to be a bit too predictable (exactly what was wrong with calling Kim “Rocket Man? I liked that one as much as I hated the attack on the Indiana judge).
I think that the stuff about the young and minorities is irrelevant to Trump; those groups tend to be roughly as juvenile and narcissistic as Trump is. If someone “young” is such an ignorant fool that s/he thinks socialism is actually a solution, s/he is not reachable right now. My problem is with the suburban types who think that the lefty Democrat is a sane choice. If that is the case, we are doomed.
The problem I have with the Trump core is that they are just as eager for handouts and government goodies as are the Left’s plantation residents- foreign isolationists who simply want Santa to bestow the freebies on white underclass instead of the fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates or La Raza acolytes.
Deduct all of those, and you get the reluctant Trumpsters who simply don’t like the fact that the only people who didn’t lose any money on the financial crisis were Henry Paulson’s friends and whoever else donates a lot to Congressional re-elections.
Why do people think a person has to be a genius to be president? Bush and Obama should be sufficient proof that people of average of intelligence can do the job. The system is to stable and too tolerant of stupidity to fail. All the never-Trumpers are/were just elitists that disdain blue collar folks. It is not about policy. Their arrogance and prideful claim to be never-Trump belies their elitism.
Alcibiades?
This is really close to my view. People want their cut of the Keynesian socialism and graft or they want it fixed. There are a ton of people that ought to know better that believe in “better living through government force”, too. Suburban socialists. “The GOP and the libertarians tare roglodytes.” Things are really messed up right now.
Jimmy Carter was one of our smartest presidents and he simply sucked. Geniuses are grossly overrated; some are indolent, some are social misfits, many are brilliant in their fields and clueless elsewhere.
Well noted, sir. I wish I’d thought of that.
I am not leaving for Sparta.
I didn’t vote for him in the primaries; in fact, I thought his run was just some kind of PR stunt. But I voted for him once he was our nominee, and I never regretted it, and I now see clearly that he was the only one who could have beaten Hillary. I laugh every time the naysayers try to portray us as unenlightened yokels who weren’t raised properly. Get over yourselves.
The poor NTers are still so shocked when the latest thing they dug up on Trump didn’t topple him. They just can’t believe it. They need to get it through their heads that nothing they ever dig up about Donald Trump will ever matter. They bleat on and on about “principles,” never realizing that the election of Trump was on principle. The principle that the people’s will can be shunted aside for only so long, and that eventually we will stick a thumb in the eye of the Establishment of both sides of the aisle. Trump is our thumb in their eye, and *news flash* we don’t care if he slept with a porn star before he ever held public office, we don’t care if he engaged in typical locker room talk with another guy, we don’t care about any of it. He’s just a symbol, and he’s our symbol, and he’s doing just what we knew he would do.
Per Axios, Paul Ryan has said that he will not be running for re-election. Hopefully, this will give him room to stand up to Trump.
On what? Trump’s inflationist Keynesian spending and entitlement non-reform?
Yes on those issues, but primarily on Mueller.
When has the GOP ever done anything about those issues? In aggregate, they are inflationists that just want to get past the next election. At least Trump does some new things well.
I wish some Republicans would stand up to the Left the way they “stand up to Trump.”
Amen to that.
Medicare Part D was an instant $9 trillion unfunded lability.
Social security has $5 trillion in treasury bonds that they are going to cash some day.
They are all Keynesians that just want to get past the next election.
Gary,
This is the classicly absurd assertion against Trump. He’s a bully and people are afraid to stand up to him. Trump has experienced more bad press and relentlessly vicious attacks than any other American President. The entire MSM media is constantly spinning every story against Trump and pro-left. There seems to be little problem with having the courage to stand up to Trump. In fact, it doesn’t take any courage at all. All you’ve got to do is follow along with the left-wing mob.
Paul Ryan’s problem was that he didn’t have the courage to stand up to the Democratic Left. That’s why he is going home with his tail between his legs. He sold out to every special interest inside the Beltway on the budget. He doesn’t need to stand up to Trump, he’s already stabbed him in the back.
I think Scalise would be a breath of fresh air. Kevin McCarthy would be worse than Ryan, a return to Boehnerism.
Regards,
Jim
Well said.
The NT-ers voted on principle, too. That principle was so compelling that it meant voting against Trump even with Hillary on the ballot and with an open Supreme Court seat.
It was indeed a seriously compelling principle.
I can respect that. The trouble is that I don’t know what the principle was.
Would the NT-ers on this thread be willing to identify that principal? Please be specific.
Trump was the abandonment of Reagan Republicanism. The Scalia seat would have been a very large price to pay, but Merrick Garland was the most moderate and old Justice we could have voted for.
I return to the quote I saw before the election: “Conservatism thrives in opposition to Hillary; conservatism dies in service to Trump.”
The whole GOP is effectively. Now it’s so late the political system went haywire.
Yes, RA makes a good point.
The NTers don’t have a real answer, but I know what they will say. We’ve heard it all before.
What surprised me the most, besides their casual ability to throw the election to Hillary Clinton, is their atrocious political calculation surrounding what happens to them after Trump is gone.
Remembering the Obama ‘birther’ controversy, many of us saw how that was a complete political loser. Let’s just imagine it could have been proven ( in these times nothing can be proven to convince everyone, see OJ Simpson trial) that he was born outside the US. Then what? Remove Obama from office? What follows? Riots? You betcha! A black population that would hate Republicans forever, believing they were deprived of their leader on a technicality, President Biden, and serial losses of Republicans on every level. What’s gained and what’s lost?
61 million people voted for Trump. Let’s say 10 million are strong supporters to be conservative. Most of his strong support comes from people already wary of, or even disgusted with the establishment GOP. I don’t know if there would be riots, but maybe a few assassinations. There certainly wouldn’t be another GOP President for decades. The people who helped scuttle Trump would never win another election. Anyone like them would lose to Democrats. Not only would 10 million or more stay home, many would vote Democrat out of spite.
After all, those bozos tipped their hand in 2016 by showing their political ambiguity. They are pretty close to being Democrats already.
Did you mean the abandonment or an additional abandonment?
Nope. Bush was the abandonment of Reaganism, and the whole party continued to move away. It’s even clearer now.
As to judges, you know that there will likely be more openings in the next 7 years, right?
I’m glad you aren’t in charge of my ideological paycheck.
It’s like they are defending or are enthused about the “establishment GOP”. The “establishment GOP” etc. is what birthed Trump as a force. Trump is no worse than those guys on economics, and he’s brought other stuff to the table. IMO, everything comes down to statist Keynesianism and cultural marxism. The media enables it. Trump is doing O.K. in this sense.
I am fascinated by this topic. If Johna Goldberg were Dictator Of Everything, I would love that. Some of these whiny, moralist Rockefeller Republicans or neocons, not so much. They don’t get why people are pissed off at the economy, or the exclusionary graft system, or the cultural marxism.