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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
Trump ran on tax reform. That doesn’t count.
Trump pledged to select judicial nominees from a Federalist Society list during the campaign. There was not any pulling on Mitch McConnell’s part. Getting Gorsuch through once nominated is really Mitch just doing his job. The Federalist Society is not the Republican Party. So this is not an example of the Republican Party pulling Trump in any particular direction.
Don’t you see, Ed? It’s a very simple equation. Anything positive that happens, happened “in spite of Trump.” Anything negative that happens, happened “because of Trump.”
Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.
No. Trump has done a lot of great things on his own. Withdrawal from the Paris Accord, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, and requiring two regulations be withdrawn for every new regulation all come to mind.
Among other things, the Republican party has restrained Trump from engaging in the trade wars he campaigned on. Yes, I think outsourcing judicial appointments to the federalist society fall in this column even if you don’t.
Some things are indeterminate, I don’t know if the decision to end DACA was Trump’s instinct or whether he was convinced by Sessions. Trump seems to want the Dreamers to become citizens, so it could have been a bargaining chip to get the wall or it could have been Sessions convincing him that DACA was unconstitutional. Regardless, it took a Twitter feed full of people burning their MAGA hats to get him to walk away from his deal with Pelosi and Schumer on DACA.
Interesting. Did that really happen? (Were there actual fires?)
I certainly saw some real MAGA hats being burned.
A quick google search found this
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41279520
Thanks. I’m all in favor of keeping our lighters fueled and handy.
Jim, you are on a roll here and above. Excellent.
It wasn’t a fair primary. All I’m saying is the GOP has to change the rules when they have so many candidates. In the old days both parties’ bosses were more constructive at making the candidate selection constructive.
And yes there is an “e”
Read Angelo Codivilla’s ‘The Ruling Class” book. All of those people suck.
Personally I am very wary of cutting anything but business taxes. They need to control spending more. I suppose the deficit will be the measure.
How come nobody who talks about the GOPe ever mentions who they are? Trent Lott? Robert Bennett? John Kyl? John Boehner? Eric Cantor? Thad McCotter? All of them were in the Republican Congressional leadership ten years ago. All of them are gone now. That’s not much of an “establishment” if you ask me. You know who is the GOP “establishment” right now? Trump, that’s who.
Right, but do you ever see enough real conservative or libertarian governance to actually improve things? They all just do what they have to do to get past the next election. They make money off of it. Trump is a symptom.
This is what I mean. Sheryl Atkissen interviewing freshman GOP Congressman Ken Buck. Eight minutes.
I’m addicted to analyzing this stuff, but in reality there is no controlling or improving it.
It depends on what you mean by “improve things.” Personally, I think that getting the levers of government out of the hands of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi was a huge improvement. Trump has done some good things on judges, regulations, and taxes. Those are improvements, and if we are going to be honest we owe a lot to Reid and Obama because they increased the power of the Presidency, which gives Trump a lot more power than even Bush 43. For example, Reid pushed the button on the nuclear option by eliminating the filibuster for judges. Without that boneheaded move by Reid (supported by Obama) Trump would never have been able to confirm all the judges he has been appointing.
But if “improve things” means eliminating the deficit, cutting the debt, dismantling federal agencies, and so on, no – of course not. It can’t be done. We don’t have the votes for it and we don’t have public support for it.
Right now, I think the big goal is to get the public to understand that the Democratic Party is reinventing itself as the American Communist Party. Most of the younger Democrats are all in for the Bernie Sanders program of single payer health care, universal income, and free college. It is so obvious that such a program would be a catastrophe, that even low information voters will understand it if it is explained to them. That is a realistic goal, and that’s what I want to see. If there actually was a GOPe, they could focus the Party’s attention on that goal. Unfortunately, there is no GOPe. Nobody is in charge (except Trump, to an extent). Nobody has a grand strategy. I sure wish there was a GOP leadership with some clout, but modern American politics is every man for himself. Sad!
Your whole post is excellent, especially this.
See the video I just posted on comment #224. That’s what I mean. I agree with what you are saying but we are using the term differently.
This is true and Jonah Goldberg says the same thing quite convincingly. This is probably another reason why the left always keeps the ground it takes
Morning Rufus,
Great link about why the establishment is the most powerful interest group, and the most dangerous. Trump was targeted because he was not part of the group, and yes many Republicans do not want to work to further any of Trump’s proposals.
Thanks for linking to Sharyl, she is great.
I hear the remuneration loss for the various D.C. Parasite Class is just staggering. So people like Rick Wilson are just wigging out.
I think that is the most compelling video (or whatever) like that, that anyone can understand. (It’s driven by the crap I babble about constantly, but everyone thinks you’re nuts when you talk like that.)
What the Congressman in your video says is true, but it is also insignificant. It reminds me of those people who think the budget deficit is being driven by foreign aid. If you ask those people how much of the budget goes to foreign aid, they will say 25 or 35%. Of course, the actual number is far less than 1%, but foreign aid is an easy target (if you have no idea what you’re talking about).
Everybody gets to have their own opinion, but they don’t get to have their own arithmetic. Most of the budget goes to entitlements (especially social security and medicare), the military, and service of the national debt. If you cut spending on everything else down to zero, we would still be running a deficit, which would still be growing larger every year. Looking at the three major items, it would be catastrophic to default on the national debt, I (like most conservatives) do not want cuts to the military, and it would be political suicide to cut social security or medicare. So the only solution is to wait for a good crisis (it is coming, certainly) and then not let it go to waste. Congressmen looking to make a name for themselves as fiscal hawks can go on Atkinson’s program and moan about federal spending on Big Bird or whatever, but that is all a drop in the bucket compared to the real drivers of the deficit.
Entitlement reform is the only way to save our nation from disaster.
Unfortunately, the last thing the American people want is entitlement reform. Americans didn’t really want to repeal the entitlement portions of ObamaCare, which is the real reason it didn’t get repealed.
We are headed inexorably towards disaster.
I don’t know what his stated agenda is.
The American electorate isn’t as conservative or libertarian as most of us would like.
They have to make it up with inflation. There is no other political option. The problem is, the dollar has so much support they will keep pushing on it until the central banks just look ridiculous. Then the bond market backs up uncontrollably.
I completely agree with this. It’s unstoppable.
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other. Since 1914.
Listen to the David Stockman interviews on ContraKrugaman and the Tom Woods Show around 9/2016 and get a RealVision pass and watch his interview there.
No one is going to improve this mess. It’s on autopilot because there is too much wealth and graft at stake.
Now you’re being silly. Trump hasn’t gotten anywhere near to creating an establishment at this point. Given enough time he might do it, but it would take far longer for him than it took for any of the other good ‘ol boy establishments in the past to get themselves established. He is too much of a loose cannon, and is still seen as an usurper by the established powers.
As hinted at in the lead editorial in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (on the topic of agricultural subsidies) the key to entitlement reform is corporate welfare reform. And that’s the last thing the GOP Establishment wants.
I should have added that if it’s just a handful of public personalities (such as those you listed) it’s not an establishment.
This might be it, but I’m not convinced. I think there are a few more powerful factors at work here.
Add all these up and there’s no wonder why it’s hard to muster support for eliminating government programs.