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Inside the Mind of a Once Never-Trumper
A Monica Crowley article linked at RealClearPolitics Friday captures well my so far inarticulate thoughts toward Trump right now.
I was horrified when he became the Republican nominee. How could our party have pinned its hopes on someone so disreputable, so manifestly unprincipled, so low and gross? Why would anyone believe his promises? What in the world makes pro-lifers imagine he will follow through on anything? What has his whole life been about but self-aggrandizement at the expense of anyone who stands in his way?
Friends and others would point out that we weren’t electing just a president, but an entire administration; there would be good people keeping him in check. All I could think was A) he can’t possibly win, and B) he will ruin them all because that’s what narcissists do. Give them power, and they reward anyone who flatters them; they destroy anyone who won’t. Increasingly, they are surrounded by sleazy yes-men.
I sincerely believed that Trump would wreck what’s left of the Republican Party, the only viable political alternative (lame as it’s been lately) to galloping leftism. So, I couldn’t vote for him. I couldn’t vote for him any more than I could vote for Hilary Clinton. I stopped listening to Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin; I stopped going to the Drudge Report and Ricochet. It was too depressing to see so many former guiding lights defending the indefensible and touting the intolerable. The only commentators I could bear to read were people like David French and Jonah Goldberg, who saw it as I did.
Then, when he won, I was unexpectedly elated. Americans had risen up! Clinton, the Democrats, and their media sycophants had gone down! Hurrah! Happy day!
In the weeks and months following, I was glad to be in the position I was — surprised and delighted over every good bit of news and undismayed by the chaos, which is, of course, what you get when you elect someone like Trump. I liked being able to tell distraught friends and neighbors in my upscale part of Pennsylvania that I hadn’t voted for him. I thought their extreme distress was over the top and a bit ridiculous (it’s as if they took the word of his worst media detractors as literally true — as if he really were a white supremacist and a would-be fascist.) But I was glad to be able to offer at least that reassurance, so we could stay friends.
Two major streams of impressions in the time since have composed my current view.
1) Trump has been a far, far better president than I’d thought possible. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh! The embassy in Jerusalem! Roaring economy, actual border enforcement, goodbye to the egregious Iran deal and the asinine Paris accords, hello beefed-up military, movement in North Korea, calling Europe’s bluff — Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, General Mattis, John Bolton, Larry Kudlow — It’s all been much better than expected. There’s hope for American again.
I’ve had to revise practically all my opinions. Maybe the outward civility and personal rectitude of people like George W., Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Marco Rubio actually were a liability. Maybe “principled politicians” like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz really are insufferable and out of touch. Maybe we needed a crude, narcissistic president to make headway in a crude, narcissistic culture. And maybe Trump’s not as bad a person as I’d thought. Maybe he does have some core principles and values down there somewhere, under all the bluster and mess. In any case, he’s getting stuff done, and his media-baiting has served the good purpose of exposing their extreme bias, thank God.
2) His enemies have proven to be far worse than I’d imagined. I knew Obama was a covert narcissist and a leftist ideologue, a Marxist even. I knew he was governed by an evil worldview that saw America as needing to be taken down some pegs, while peoples marginalized by colonialism were given a leg up. I knew he’d set out to be the great un-Reagan and un-Churchill. He had a Saul Alinskite political MO: ends justify whatever means; isolate a target (like marriage) and destroy it. Pose as high-minded, even-keeled, and above the fray, while really being deeply nasty and harboring contempt for American institutions and the rule of law. And oppose all things Judeo-Christian and conservative, except insofar as they provide a handy cover for a leftist social justice agenda. I knew his appointees were bad guys — either ideologues like him, corrupt opportunists, or both.
But even I couldn’t have believed it was this bad — that the Justice Department and the FBI would shamelessly deploy the awesome tools of their trade to destroy Trump and elect Clinton, that the mainstream media would openly abandon even the pretense of objectivity to become flagrant propagandists while demanding the deference due to true reporters, that it would become almost impossible to have a conversation with an anti-Trumper (since to defend him is to be instantly shunned as a racist and a fascist), that so many of our institutions would be so decimated so fast.
Before the election, I thought the best-case scenario was that Trump would be elected and impeached so that we’d have a President Pence. I don’t think that anymore. Now nothing seems more important, more absolutely necessary, than keeping the House, preventing impeachment, and strengthening Trump’s hand. America seems to me on the brink of complete destruction, overwrought as that may sound. Allow the Democrats and the media to get away with this corruption, with Mueller’s search-and-destroy mission, and we’ll be lost for good. It’s weird and ironic, but true: our best hope for national salvation lies in rallying round Trump.
I’m back with Rush and Drudge and Ricochet. I’m practically stalking Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hansen. Now it’s David French and Jonah Goldberg I can hardly stand to read. Forget about Commentary and The Weekly Standard. How can they not see what’s really going on here? Who cares how sleazy and corrupt Trump and his inner circle have been over the years? It’s nothing, just nothing in comparison with the depth and extent of the corrosion at the heart of things in Washington DC. If we care about our country, we’ll make electing Republicans this November our top priority.
That’s how I see it now. I bet I’m not alone.
Published in General
You and me both.
The only thing I’d argue with is this:
We don’t need a crude narcissist. We just need someone who doesn’t give damn what left say. Unfortunately, many of the “darlings” of the right seem to care. Of course, this feature is inherent in a narcissist.
I suppose, however, that all politicians at that level think a lot of themselves.
Welcome back Katie! You have been missed.
What the heck is that?
She’s all over Facebook…
Is this the same Monica Crowley who helped Obama beat Romney in the debate?
That was Candy Crowley. An entirely different crow.
I’m 60% of the way there. All those things we feared from Trump are still possible.
Maybe. Maybe not. I think the left has simply been so bad (as you rightly note) that they’ve driven him in our direction. If they could learn to flatter him better than people on the right I think we’d see entirely different outcomes.
I’ll add: all the good you point out does exist. I’m not denying or failing to adequately celebrate it. I do, however, remain reserved about the future. I’m becoming a little more hopeful that the left is constitutionally incapable of seizing the opportunity to use his narcissism against us though.
Maybe, but it seems to me moot at this point. He happens to be the one standing between us and the abyss right now.
But I agree that the left’s being worse than anticipated has worked hugely in our favor. I really thought they’d be clever and self-interested enough to suck up to him, which might have caused him to lurch in their direction. But no. They’re too demented by their loathing for that.
Here! Here!
Wow, Katie. Just wow.
I felt largely the same way – although I did pull the lever for President Trump.
My dad died the Saturday before Thanksgiving in 2016. We spoke almost daily (ever since cell phones with unlimited long distance and hands free were invented) in the last year and our political discourse was about the election. He was pro-Trump from the start. It was easy to see, they share a number of traits. I was a Cruz supporter – still am, in fact. We had a deal that is Trump won the nomination, that I would vote for him and not simply refuse to vote for President.
My calculus was this. I felt there was no chance that Hillary would install policies I could support. With Trump the chance was not zero, although depending on how he talked it could go either way. Still, not zero. So I pulled the lever for President Trump, betting on my non-zero outcome. I have been very happy since. The day after the election, I called dad up and sang “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead”. Been happy ever since.
Oft evil will doth evil mar.
I appreciate your position and could follow your story and the logic of it.
I still believe Pres. Trump to be poison. A corrosive character that eventually corrupts those around him. His legacy will not be enduring or stable or ultimately positive for those who have participated.
I know it is just me but there it is. A view from a nobody of any real consequence.
The best umpires/referees are the ones that you never notice.
I didn’t expect much of anything good, and the man is still a swine, but so am I. One of the most effective bosses that I ever had was such a man — a rakehell and a congenital liar. He got stuff done, though.
That, more than Donald’s lack of taste, discernment, tact, and decency makes me furious. Hillary and her minions bought nonsense from some Limey schnook gussied up as “opposition research” and no less than three high-ranking officials of the Department of Justice swore to FISA courts that the nonsense was credible.
Hillary/Trump, Hillary/Trump. Let me think about that a second,TRUMP.
Your story is similar to mine, @katievs . When he first announced, I thought it was some kind of PR stunt or joke. He was certainly not my guy in the primaries. A close friend who owns her own business was on the Trump Train from Day 1, though, and she enthused about him till I thought she’d lost her mind. When he won the nomination, though, I instantly threw myself into it.
I stayed up as late as I could on election night, but when I finally fell asleep well after midnight, we still didn’t know. In the morning I was awakened by the ding of this text message from my aforementioned friend:
I can’t adequately describe the feeling. Relief at the Hillary bullet we dodged, awe that the people’s voice had spoken. I actually cried for about a half hour, I was so happy and relieved and in disbelief.
I have no patience with those who still can’t put their own personal reactions to him aside and realize who the real enemy is. I know he’s a crass nouveau riche boor. I know he has a lower-class accent. I know his hair looks stupid. I know he’s a philander who uses bad language from time to time. Yet somehow these people believe they can dig up damaging information that will make us hate him as they do.
He slept with a porn star! He said a bad word! Do they think we’re going to go, “Well now that is not the Donald Trump we thought we knew.” Actually that’s exactly the Donald Trump we thought we knew. Duh.
Why does colonialism get such a bad reputation? America used to be colony we turned out great.
Well put. My sentiments exactly. I went to bed depressed, believing we were in for 4-8 years of HRC in the White House. My wife came to bed at midnight and said “I think Trump is ahead”. I got up at 1 and started surfing the web. I opened my browser to the headline that he had won. Hard to overstate my elation.
The biggest fear of never-Trumpers is that Trump will ruin the brand of “Republican”. This can only happen, if nobody else speaks for the brand. What I don’t get is why the GOP doesn’t spend it millions of dollars advertising the brand. If I ran the GOP, I would run cheap internet ads all the time to promote the brand. The folks and P&G and Coke are the smartest advertisers in the world and they know that a brand must be vigorously promoted to keep it top of mind and control what it stands for. Why doesn’t the GOP know this?
We know that Russia was able to swing an entire presidential election with $40K of ads. Imagine what millions would do!
At the same time, the DNC should be doing the same. Otherwise, they risk being branded as the party of “socialism & genocide” or “no profits! no prosperity!” or “atheism & stateism” or “deplorables serving elites”. I also don’t know why the GOP doesn’t force that brand onto the DNC. It is all malpractice.
Trump IS flawed in every way described by the Left and Never Trumps AND I thank God everyday HRC is not President.
No matter what happens moving forward, the election of Trump exposed the corruption of the Obama FBI/DOJ/Intel community to anyone paying attention. If HRC had won we would never know what we know now, nor would we have ever believed it could happen.
This essay highlights some fundamental flaws, assumptions not mentioned and/or not proven yet fundamental, in the Trump supporting narrative that no trump supporter has addressed to my knowledge.
1) The assumption that Trump’s victory over Clinton represented some kind of revolt.
Notice how there is no explanation of how Americans had been “oppressed” (or whatever other phenomena one can “rise up from) before or how the margin of victory for Trump indicates that the American people in fact believed he was some kind of “rising up” character. That would require polling information averages indicating just that sentiment. Yet none is given, and to my knowledge none exist.
2) The assumption that Donald Trump’s baiting of the media is a unique and effective strategy for winning political support.
Hasn’t it been a staple of conservative commentary forever that media reactions to any Republican has been evidence of their bias and should move public sentiment in favor of Republicans? I don’t see how Donald Trump has changed anything from that sentiment aside from participating in it.
Has there been any empirical studies conducted that links exposing media bias (which is kind of subjective; what one thinks is exposition for example) to increased voter turnout for the GOP? Again to my knowledge no evidence has been presented about this.
3) That Barack Obama represented some unprecedentedly new threat to the Republic and that it had to be immediately resolved.
Now to be fair Barack Obama did support legislative initiatives that were incredibly progressive, like the ACA. He had a number of scandals too, like Benghazi and Operation Fast and Furious. But to make Barack Obama out as a kind of Anti-Christ like figure to the Republic’s norms and laws is hyperbolic and completely misses the point.
FDR got hundreds of thousands of Americans locked up in makeshift prisons for a number of years based on their ethnicity, was practically living like a dictator (he had to die to get out of office), and had managed to expand progressive ideology and legal structures far beyond the wet dreams of Wilson (from Social Security to the Minimum Wage). He got tons of laws passed with large super-majority support.
Barack Obama was mostly signing executive orders that could be overturned as soon as a Republican was elected, and did. This assumption uses too narrow a form of reference.
4) Only Donald Trump can save the Republic.
This assumption is tied to number three in its lack of scope. Why is Donald Trump the only person capable of saving the Republic? No affirmative case is really made. Its not mentioned that Donald Trump’s support for creating Space Force will deter some alien invasion or something else. No plan that Donald Trump has spoken of is mentioned as being why he will save the nation. In fact no time is even given to why national salvation lies with the success of Donald Trump.
Rather what is mentioned is that “America is on the brink of destruction” and that this destruction is somehow linked to the “Deep State” and the Democrats trying to corrupt the nation. The author doesn’t mention what that destruction will look like or how it is to be carried out. The author then jumps to the conclusion that because the Democrats and “Deep State” oppose Trump so vigorously he must be the salvation that the nation needs, or that they oppose him because he is the salvation not described.
This logic fits in with the previous assumption because only the Messiah can defeat the Anti-Messiah, but it has the side-effect of making those who claim to know and support the Messiah as looking like members of a cult to those who do not believe in the Messiah vs Anti-Messiah fight.
To conclude these four assumptions need to be addressed, or change the narrative, if Trump supporters want to convince more people to sympathize with their cause.
President Trump has accomplished many good things. I differ with him on protectionist tariffs, but on balance, I am happy with him. I especially like his desire to drain the swamp. Unfortunately, there is too much swamp to drain in eight years. Yes, I am an optimist.
As I see it, he is in a full scale war against the deep state and the deep state is winning some batttles. But so is he.
Pass the popcorn.
Your first sentences in 1) and 2) sum it up nicely, and it illustrates what is wrong in Washington:
1) Career politicians put reelection ahead of any other consideration. Their argument goes something like, “I have to be in office in order to accomplish some good.” Okay then, accomplish some good! Can’t repeal Obamacare? I could vote to do it from where I’m sitting. Why can’t you? Wuss . . .
2) Congress has abdicated its law-writing role to the legislative branch and Federal regulators.
3) Judges (not just in Washington) with lifetime appointments cannot be held accountable. Yeah, I know there’s impeachment, but I’m more likely to pass for a woman than a Federal judge getting impeached. (Actually, I . . . naw, not going there . . .)
Solutions?
The only way the flattery of the left will matter is if we lose Congress. There is a scenario (unlikely but not impossible) whereby a blue wave gives Dems both chambers of Congress and Chuck and Nancy decide to eschew impeachment and opt for sweet talk. Then, all manner of mischief will be afoot. That’s why the thesis of the OP is crucial: holding the line is all that matters at this point.
It’s maybe a whole different conversation, but I’ll just say here that we weren’t a colony in the usual sense. We weren’t a people who were colonized by an alien people, as in, say, India and Africa. We were rather the colonizers, who took over a continent, bringing our culture and customs with us, and pretty much wiping out the people who were here before us. So, different case.
You could fit two Monica’s into Candy. I am just a bit catty.
Don’t worry, CBA, your team will win next time.
Monica was Allen Colmes sister in law.