Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
Ah. Thanks.
I think hundreds of thousands used the same calculus. I did.
You mean you wouldn’t trust an local umpire who announced to the hometown crowd “See, I just called a strike on the outside corner. Against our hometown team with a full count and the bases loaded. I know many of you doubt it was a strike but that’s what I saw. And I am a principled umpire. You need to restrain you tribalist perceptions.”
And then repeated his admonition after every called strike against the home team for eight more innings.
And then followed up after the game with a letter to the editor decrying the surly behavior of the hometown fans. Their lack of disinterested appreciation for the talents of the visiting team and rude insistence on cheering disproportionately for the fine play of their own players.
Who couldn’t utterly trust such an umpire and his selflessness?
What I meant by “America has risen up” is that despite the bias of the media, and the antipathy of the political class on both sides of the aisle, plus Trump’s unsuitability for the job, Americans voted for him. Even rust belt Americans, who’d despised Romney and liked Obama voted for him. They weren’t going to be talked out of it by elites.
For heaven’s sake, CBA. You don’t need polling information to believe something is true. I’m not trying to prove anything here. I’m not making a case. I’m just sharing my thoughts.
Well yes. But more people are seeing and believing it now. I’m not claiming the point has been empirically verified. It’s just what I sense, and it’s one reason I’ve been happy about his presidency.
And deploying the Justice Department and the FBI against a rival campaign, using the IRS to target political opponents, sending billions to the Mullahs in Iran, weakening our borders, undermining marriage law, appointing leftist ideologues to the Supreme Court and the Federal bench…
I don’t say he was the only horrible Democrat in history, but he was bad, and did great harm. After him, we were/are at a tipping point, imo.
Because he happens to be the President right now, and if he’s impeached, the corrupt DoJ and FBI plus their media sycophants will be vindicated and strengthened. Pence will be horribly weakened. The already divided Republicans will be more demoralized and divided, plus alienated from the voters. If he’s strengthened, on the other hand, he will be in a great position to clean house, plus do lots of other good stuff. Weak-kneed Republicans will be more likely to come on board, etc. I’ll have hope that America can actually be turned back around.
I am with Paul. I appreciated your OP, but believe that Trump’s character will be his downfall.
I love the Judges, regulations and taxes. I do.
The issue is far more than Trump’s personality. It is his character. I believe that he is corrupt. I cannot abide his repeated attacks on the press or the Rule of Law. This is the first President to talk like a mobster. I detest him playing footsie with racists.
There is a more serious issue, which I hesitate to state, as I don’t have evidence, and I don’t want to speculate in public.
I think, but do not know, that Trump has been compromised to some degree by Putin (“kompromat”). It is within the realm of possibilities that Trump might actually be the first Manchurian President, who is literally under the control of a hostile country. While this sounds like crazy talk, it certainly is more likely than the Birthers and Truthers. (Does this make me a “Russier,” a “Russierer,” or a “Putiner”?) This is why it is critical for the Mueller Probe to continue, not just to protect the Rule of Law, but literally to determine if Trump lacks free will. I hope that this isn’t true, but he is the first President where this is, in my mind, an actual possibility.
“Colonialism” usually implies one group invading another and forcing their culture onto the natives. I’m sure we were that to the Indians, but we weren’t colonized by anyone else.
I hope you’re wrong, Gary. Time will tell.
I find the fact of Trump’s practical hard line against Putin reassuring. Even if he’s got personal debts to Russia, due to past dirty business dealings, he hasn’t been acting preferentially toward them, as far as I can tell. Not like Hilary and with her uranium deals-for-cash, or Obama, who removed the missiles from Poland.
I also find the double standard at Justice and the FBI more troubling and corrosive of our national goodness than anything I’ve heard about “Russian meddling.”
I’m with you in cringing over Trump’s manners. But to me, Hilary and Obama’s characters are just as bad. They’re just more covert about it.
I hope you’re right Katie! Time will tell.
We rose up against the inertia and corruption of both parties in Washington by rejecting their usual array of candidates. The term “rise up” doesn’t necessarily connote oppression as you are using the term. And if you believe polling after what happened in 2016, I feel bad for you.
-3) That Barack Obama represented some unprecedentedly new threat to the Republic and that it had to be immediately resolved.
This unbelievably fatuous view of Barack Obama goes right along with the erroneous idea among many anti-Trump voters that we could have “sat out” a Hillary presidency. Barack Obama did terrible and possibly irreparable damage to the country. He put nearly half the population on food stamps. He gave aid and comfort to enemies of the United States including Iran. He stoked the fires of racial division. I could go on but it’s making me sick all over again.
He’s the only one because not one of our supposedly deep bench could have beaten Hillary. The people were sick of the same old politicians whose only goal is reelection. We chose him because he isn’t one. He’s doing exactly what we hired him to do. And every time you dig up some new tidbit that you’re sure will destroy him, all it does is remind us that this guy is no politician, and we love it.
I don’t know how familiar you are with Bismarck, but that is who Trump reminds me of. Same character flaws. But in the ends, great results.
The Brits were actively trying to turn the 13 colonies into a more regularized, centralized, rationalized system under a higher degree of central control. There had been a bunch of ad hoc colonial arrangements, and after the Seven Years War they wanted them made more orderly.
So we revolted. (I say “we” even though none of my ancestors was in America at the time.)
I find Trump to be a buffoon. A silly man with little or no moral core. He is a fornicator, liar, crook, conman, adulterer, narcissist and more bad things I don’t have time to think up. I don’t like him and have never liked him. Sadly he may have been the most honest person running for President in 2016. He may even be the best person living in DC at this time. I have always said that God has a perverse, sick sense of humor. Trump is just more proof of that.
Since you love taxes, I will happily allow you to pay mine. Enjoy. Where do I send the bill?
Absolutely wrong.
Life is full of irony and paradox.
Trumps down fall was destined when he won. No GOP POTUS was ever to happen again. The Democrats figured they had it rigged. Trump broke their system by winning, but it would not have mattered. Any GOP POTUS would be getting the same treatment and would be getting impeached when the Dems take the House. The only difference is that Trump is not GOP establishment so the GOP will assist in Trumps impeachment if they can.
I guess it depends on which NT’er you ask. LOL!
Ricochet’s version of shadow banning.
There is no double standard. The DOJ, FBI, etc are corrupt organizations for furthering Democrat agendas, policies, politicians. That is their standard. No double about it.
And picking a brand new type of corruption! FIFY.
Um, I like Trump’s position on lowering taxes.
Dude – if he isn’t embarrassed by sleeping with porn stars, what do you think they could possibly have.
It hasn’t stopped Trump from killing their soldiers, putting in ‘sanctions’, sending arms to help Ukraine, etc, etc, etc.
Extraordinary claims (or even ordinary ones) require evidence, and you haven’t offered any.
Missile shields in Poland, sanctions against Erdogan – shall I continue?
True. There are probably some out there who run around yelling “muh brand!” after every tweet. I’m more concerned that there will be no vessel for carrying the ideas of conservatism into action. The Rs, for all their many, multitudinous, and various faults, are the only vessel we got. If the party becomes too toxic to carry the ideas then the ideas may actually die. That’s my big fear. I only give a crap about the party to the extent that it is serving to further the ideas of conservatism and combat progressivism. It’s a tool, full of tools.
The Republicans seem to be doing a good job of ruining their brand themselves. I notice the Obamacare stuff still exists. And that budget deficit is no longer a big deal. They seem to be cool with illegal immigrants and stopping Trumps border wall. Sessions is all good with HRC crimes and just wants to investigate anybody that has met Trump for any process crime they may have had in the last 100 years.
Oh. Darn.
I don’t see your preferred alternative. I know, there is not one.
Which ideas? Prescription drug entitlements? We could have spent that money on invading Venezuela. I know that would have saved some lives.
It might be opening the eyes of moderate conservatives who didn’t realize how bad the bias had gotten, but I have yet to hear any of my liberal acquaintances say “I don’t like Trump, but the media sure seems to be treating him unfairly.” To the contrary, they all seem to be eating out of the palm of the newscaster’s hand, more convinced than ever that Trump is the most uniquely corrupt and immoral man ever elected to the office of President.
Yep, that ship has sailed. The Republican brand is Trump.