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The First Step Is Admitting You Have a Problem
Regarding President Trump, there are currently several divisions on the Right. While not including everybody, these probably cover most:
- Trump was my guy all along. MAGA!
- I voted for someone else in the primary but with serious reservations and crossed fingers, I voted Trump to prevent Hillary. Policy-wise, I’m pleased.
- I didn’t vote for Trump, but the economy, courts, and geopolitics seem pretty, pretty good.
- Never Trump. Ever. Never eva!!!
The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles (and cigar-group friend) penned “Can We All Finally Admit Trump Is A Good President?“
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
The Iran Deal in tatters, three American hostages safely returned from North Korea, which now offers to denuclearize and end the Korean War after 68 years, five top ISIS leaders captured — and that’s just this week. On the domestic front, in just a year-and-a-half, landmark tax reform has made the U.S. more competitive, fewer illegal aliens are entering our country than at any time in the past 17 years, and dozens of federal judges have taken the bench to defend the rule of law and our constitutional system. According to a poll from CNN of all outlets, more Americans today think the country is headed in the right direction than at any time in over a decade.
The Left unsurprisingly remains steadfast in their opposition to President Trump. What’s disappointing is that a handful of “Never Trump” Republicans remain equally unwilling to admit the obvious: Donald Trump is a good president. Indeed, the remaining anti-Trump voices on the Right seem more desperate than ever to take down the president, if only to prove that, actually, they were right all along.
Michael Knowles is no dummy. Yale-educated, podcast host at Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire and author of the best blank book ever written, Michael posits some truths that many on both the Left and Right could use a good dose of: reality.
We understand the interminable Never Trump anger. After all, Trump traded five extremely dangerous and hardened terrorists for one Army deserter while adjoined by the deserters suspicious looking parents in the White House Rose Garden. Oh, wait … that was the last guy. Today, ISIS has been reduced to a handful of knife-wielding basement-dwelling neckbeards stabbing randoms on the streets of North Mecca (Paris).
But there was this: Trump used State Dept. funds to interfere with and fail to prevent the re-election of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Oh, that was also the last guy. Today we see Israelis dancing in the streets as America had the audacity to recognize Jerusalem as their capital (something every former President campaigned for but never had the guts to acknowledge officially). Meanwhile, Iranian-sponsored Hamas uses the poor Palestinian people as cannon fodder while the White House Press Pool clutches pearls 6,000 miles away.
The list can go on: North Korea, Syria, Tax Reform, etc. It’s not necessary to present the impressive number of achievements in Trump’s first 16 months, but even intellectually honest liberal friends whisper that Hillary probably couldn’t have gotten this done, even if those policies were liberal.
Granted, we are not there yet, anything can happen, but from a conservative perspective, we’re quickly heading in the right direction.
Where are the Never Trumpers on these stunning seismic geopolitical events? You can find some remaining “neocons” on MSNBC or CNN as contributors whose talking points are similar to the liberals they are supposedly countering. They second guess or downplay every achievement, while incessantly cheerleading any and all unsubstantiated leaks on the Mueller investigation or who said what in the White House.
Who needs Fire and Fury from a leftist partisan hack when you get the same breathless narrative from these people on the “right.” While Trump is working to peacefully end the 60-year-old Korean Conflict, they are nattering about porn stars while spending their days trolling Twitter arguing with strangers. This is their life now. #Sad.
The worst part is, they present themselves as the moral arbiters of Conservative, Inc. In their mind, it’s still their show. Complain, and you’re a “Trump Snowflake.” Disagree and you’re a [expletive] Neanderthal, probably uneducated and seeking sponsors for your bowling league.
People correctly tell them this is the reason Trump won, except the NYC/DC/LA elites were usually on the left. But now, their smug, condescending act has become tiresome and boring. So, like millions, we have tuned them out.
We used to like respect these people. We bought their books, watched their interviews and even went on their rip-roaring cruises.
Right after the election, in an interview on my show, one said, “we hope Trump succeeds.”
“Magnanimous,” I replied. After all, it was. They fought tooth and nail against him. “If Trump succeeds, we all succeed,” I’d say.
Then the less than enthusiastic “Yeah… Well, we’ll see.” They were still smarting from their loss.
But it’s almost a year and a half later. Ego is helluva drug and the Id doesn’t easily crack. I didn’t complete my Ph.D. in psychology but I learned enough to know denial when I see it. In psychoanalytic theory, we learned denial is a defense mechanism used to minimize our anxiety. To not admit truths allows us to refuse to accept those facts while remaining adamantly married to our own rigid ideas. In other words, a drone.
Intransigence from those who can’t admit success by this President where there clearly are successes is one such example, and that denial is forever changing the conservative landscape. One can argue Trump changed the landscape, and that’s a valid point. But his policies and appointments are most certainly as conservative as we have seen from any traditional Republican President, and would otherwise be supported by most everyone who values national security, smaller government, and economic policy. We can argue over his process but, so far, the results are unmistakable.
Those once highly respected “thinkers” have all but a few original fans left, while their new followers seep from the same free-speech-fearing, big-government-advocating corners who want the demise of the conservative movement. These people have been relegated to be used as weapons against the President by the antiquated news media and hysterical left (but I repeat myself), only to be eventually disposed of if and when the left regains total power.
To what ends? Maybe the obstinacy stems from a fleeting hope when an impeached President Trump waves his fingers in V formation from Marine One as he’s escorted from the White House, they will be given a token post in a 2020 Kamala Harris administration.
Hate to think they put themselves above country so maybe it’s just appearances. Remaining virtuous and just, and being right, means you can preen across social and print media. Some of these people are brilliant, well-read academics, historians, and their opinions used to matter. We would anticipate their every word (even if we couldn’t understand some of them) as we felt smarter for the time we invested.
No longer. They have joined with the hyperbolic shrill left who aren’t dissimilar to emotionally unstable 13-year-old girls. There are fewer tantrums in a Judy Blume book.
Refusing to even acknowledge this President has beaten the odds and is becoming what may be one of the most pivotal presidents in modern times isn’t a right or left thing, it’s history. And for many of us, we see this group along with the unhinged left desperately attempt to rewrite history as it happens, all so they end up on the correct side.
If President Trump continues on his trajectory, over the next two/six and a half years the credibility factor of many of our former conservative icons will continue to diminish. Or, they can admit things aren’t Armageddon by simply saying “Hey, I may still not like him personally, but he’s achieving many of the same results I would have wanted of any Conservative President. Now let’s work together on the things we all agree on.”
Why is that so hard?
Published in General
Execellent! You nailed it with Indeed, the remaining anti-Trump voices on the Right seem more desperate than ever to take down the president, if only to prove that, actually, they were right all along.
I really think that due to our digital age where soundbites never go away, they feel they’ll lose face unless they can be proven right. Too bad they never heard that when you’ve dug yourself into a hole, the best thing to do is put down the shovel. The ones who have admitted they were wrong look so much bigger by comparison. The rest of them just look worse and worse by the day, as it becomes clear that they place their own need for vindication above the good of the country.
Indeed.
I suspect that even if such overt admissions were to come (not very likely) there would be a significant portion of categories 1 through 3 that would not be part of that big group hug anytime soon…if ever. With group 4 membership came a somewhat permanent loss of credibility with the rest. That will not be easily erased or glossed over. During their extended temper tantrum, the market has filled the voids and all but a few have been largely tuned out…forever? Such is life…suckers.
When you face losing the direction of the country for decades by giving the keys back to the left, instead of using the numbers to ensure success, then yes, you’re right. All about saving face. Meanwhile, screw everyone else. As long as they can preen.
I have only ever been anti-anti-trump because the whole anti-trump thing was as I mentioned at the time, was “an infowars like sewer of crazy” that has only gotten worse and sadly boring.
Anybody with eyes to see and ears to hear could see that he was a boring political moderate from the political consensus of the reactionary heyday of 2006. No amount of trolling on twitter was going to change that. Hell he is the archtypical radical centrist.
There are a couple of trends driving it:
1.) The fall of the house of Bush. Bushworld is over, and the edifice of writers and wagon circling by conservatives around bush, is unraveling.
2.) The scions of conservativism aren’t their parents.
They should have said that in July, 2016.
Agreed, but who do you think they are?
I find myself in a strange new world and I’m quite happy.
I don’t want Trump to get the Nobel Prize, I don’t want to watch Bill Kristol have anything like a come-to-Trump moment, I want George Will to remain George Won’t.
I want Alec Baldwin to keep imitating the President on every cold SNL open, and I don’t ever want CNN to give up on Russia. Mueller should investigate forever and I want to see Stormy Daniels everywhere (clothed), license her name for a brand of cantaloupe-flavored wine coolers, have her own reality game show with Rosie O’Donnel, Kathy Griffin and Shep Smith called Celebrity Spa Survivor where they gossip endlessly about Trump’s family.
Some of this might be too much to ask for, but it’s just getting fun, like the roller coaster ride that was at first terrifying and then you just want to ride again and again!
LOL! All good points. Stormy is the gift that keeps on giving.
I often think of the princes of neo-conservatism, Kristol and Podhoretz. Though Podhoretz hasn’t been nearly as bad as Kristol.
They may be an example of how the first generation breaks new ground and then the next generation winds up closing ranks around the power networks their parents created.
I loved the Ricochet podcast where they interviewed Norm Podhoretz and Norm blasted Never Trumpers. The podcasters were polite enough to never mention his son.
Got the scions comment now.
FWIW, I listen occasionally to Commentary, and like Noah Rothman. They’re not fans of this President but Noah will give credit when credit is due.
I wish people would find their sense of humor. It’s really pretty wonderful that someone as unlikely to be president was elected by people who simply liked what he had to say and what he wanted to do. President Trump’s thank-you tour was all about his own surprise that he was elected. It was really pretty amazing that a guy who ran golf courses, beauty pageants, wrestling matches, and gambling casinos and who starred in his own reality television show was able to impress American voters with his down-to-earth agenda.
I don’t think any of the other candidates would have been able to accomplish what he has done simply because they have lived their lives inside the proverbial box. I’m impressed by how fast he has worked through some problems such as the Syria war. I’m also impressed that he sat on the Iran deal for eighteen months before finally deciding it was not salvageable. It means he studies problems a little bit more than I thought he would.
I think the moment he really won me over was when he said this in his inaugural address:
And so ended the Great Recession. :-)
Mr. Knowles should chat with his boss. ;)
Spot on Mr. Sussman, spot on!
The virtue signaling ‘princes of neo-conservatism’ said over and over that they would heroically (sic) criticize the President (whilst their illiterate brethren would continue their idol worship) … but … would most certainly cheer anything that he did right.
Your list of the policy “rights” won by this President … alongside the crickets emanating from the preening pearl clutchers … puts the lie to their initial promise.
Because swallowing their pride is just too damn hard.
#Sad
Yeah, I got over my own Never Trumpism about the time he acknowledged the reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. His refusal to openly coddle Kim Jong Un helped a lot, too. Yup, he’s turning out to my surprise and delight to be almost as good a conservative president as could be hoped for in a Burkean/Panglossian dream. Almost. And that is just fine.
However until Trump admits to being gay or is somehow able to pass for a newly arrived immigrant, the Left will continue to hate him as much as ever.
Even then … they would find a way to be hypocrites. Leftists gotta do what they gotta do. Hate and preen. It’s what they do.
Out of curiosity who exactly is this post directed at? The three or four pundits that remain NeverTrump? Do the Rubins and Kristols of the world really occupy that much of your time?
Shapiro at least tries to be fair and give Trump credit when he thinks it’s justified. OTOH, someone should give the article to Rob Long and James Lileks. I listened to the latest episode of the flagship podcast last night, and those two spent an inordinate amount of time speculating on the line of presidential succession. Apparently they really really like Sec. Mattis. Well, I do too, but that doesn’t mean I’d support him for POTUS right this minute.
Oddly, Rob and James can’t seem to get past the Trump “ick” factor, whereas Peter Robinson, who would normally have been my first candidate for that role, is much warmer towards him. Of course, he, like me, fell into the second category in Dave’s list in the OP.
I’m happy about moving the embassy to Jerusalem. I’m happy that Trump is kicking Al Quaeda’s butt. Does it make me a Never Trumper if I take a wait-and-see attitude towards North Korea? During every American presidential administration going back to Bill Clinton, North Korea talks about peace, and promises to be good in exchange for certain considerations. Then after a while they are back to the same old belligerence until a new president comes to town and the cycle is restarted. I’m hoping it’s different this time and maybe having John Bolton on the team will make all the difference, but I think it’s way too early to declare victory. We won’t know for years if NK is actually going to abide by their agreements and I’d say the same thing if the president were Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, or Scott Walker.
Right on! Right on! Right on.
Shapiro both praises and condemns when it’s due. Lately, it’s much more praise, as it should be.
Jamie,
This wasn’t directed to any one person. I’ve met Kristol and found him to be an affable (when he turns it on), good family man but I disagree with his vitriol toward the President. From everything I have read on Rubin, her takes are schizophrenic, to put it mildly. She is for something until Trump is for the same thing then she changes her mind. Jennifer Rubin makes John Kerry look consistent.
What precipitated this was George Wills recent column. “Trump is what he is, a floundering, inarticulate jumble of gnawing insecurities and not-at-all compensating vanities, which is pathetic. Pence is what he has chosen to be, which is horrifying.”
As stated in the OP, these people are brilliant, but they have fallen into trap of thinking their intelligence gives them license to throw ad-hominem attacks at this President and Vice President, who are a proxy for the voters. He was yelling at us, by using his big words. It’s infantile. ‘I’ll insult those Trumpanzee mouth breathers and they won’t even know it!’
His writing drips with disdain for the 50% of America that support this administration, and yet he is supposedly still a conservative, albeit, no longer a Republican. Fine, neither am I. But I am a conservative and surprisingly, so is this President’s policies.
I am not sure what his purpose is. Who is he writing for? There’s certainly a contingent of NT’ers, some on this site, who love this stuff. But again, to what end? If Trump had turned out to be the disaster they all predicted, then, by all means, gloat. But their opponent is winning, and not just winning the game, but currently on track to win the whole dang season.
So it’s to this whole crowd who the MSM rags still give ample space to write their hate letters to US: Please put country (and the world) above your apparent thin-skin.
Afternoon Dave,
When Kristol and O’Rourke said that they would prefer Clinton because she fell within the “normal” range of politicians, I was flabbergasted and relieved. First I was flabbergasted because I never saw this coming, Clinton “normal? and relived to have seen the true nature of these men. I thought it was good to know who your allies are and who your opponents are. Since you are personally closer to many of the conservative writers, have you lost friends like VDH? If so, I am sorry. I am also flabbergasted that most conservative writers have not blown their tops over the weaponization of the govt, including the FBI. To pull out an old Dole quote, “where is the outrage”, the govt is not only more dangerous now, than Trump, but if unchecked only will get more so, yet Will worries that Pence has become a toadeater. Will has lost his mind. The real threat is the size of an unaccountable govt, yet this threat is not interesting to all but a few writers, Strassel, McCarthy, Attkisson, and all the kids on Hannity. VDH has a clear understanding of Trump’s flaws and noticed that the English speaking Hispanics in Fresno were going to support Trump and he saw that Trump was a better choice than Clinton. That Jonah, Hayes and others are continually finding reasons to worry about “populism/fascism” and ignore the weaponization of the govt, show more of a deep class resentment and disdain than rational criticism.
VDH is a gem. We’re rebooking him for a sit down at the end of June.
Are you asking if I have lost friends? No. (I have hidden a bunch of Facebook profiles, but no.)
Some of my closest friends are either left-leaning or apolitical. I choose my audience when talking politics and I never insult them when we do have discussions. I always come back to the big picture. It’s important we make it clear that conservativism believes in the individual, and the Left believes in the state. The players are all just chess pieces that will eventually be replaced.
Something something searching the country side and shooting survivors.
I’m a 3, and I think your assessment of his presidency so far is pretty fair. I’m certainly pleasantly surprised to date and I might even vote for him in 2020 (something I never thought I’d say).
A lot rides on this North Korea gambit though. Honestly, the fear that he didn’t have the temperament or judgment to manage that situation and that genuine (read: nuclear) catastrophe might result was my key reason for opposing his election. At present, there’s hope that my previous assessment will be proven utterly and completely wrong. Nothing would make me happier. But we’re not there yet either. Praying he’s able to bring it home.
That said, your gloating is unattractive, even if it might be justified.
It’s something to remind everyone about they complain when the left gloats on a number of social issues
Agreed Randy, hence all my qualifiers. ‘So far’, ‘on-track’, etc.
But let’s not forget, it wasn’t more than a few months ago we were told by the DC pundit class that WW3 would occur because of Trump.
I’d rather be on this track.
I didn’t particularly like Will’s column, but I don’t think his writing drips with disdain for anyone other than Trump and Pence – and while he gets policies correct Trump deserves disdain for the way he conducts himself in his private and public life. People personalize politics way too much. Will’s description of Trump is accurate, and anyone who claims to be a neutral observer would agree with that. That doesn’t mean he can’t get some policies right and Will has even admitted as much in columns and on Uncommon Knowledge with the great @peterrobinson.
The arguments that Will uses big words is rather infantile and smacks of the anti-intellectualism that has taken hold on the right. Will has always written in such a manner and no one complained about it until his columns were directed at the current POTUS. The thing is: Will’s argument in that particular column was a bad one – attack that! – attacking him because he chooses to use words that in previous generations would be easily accessible to those with a high school education is nothing but demagoguery.