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.
Conservative Swamp Creatures
Listening to a podcast by Jonah Goldberg it suddenly dawned on me why the guy is skeptical of Trump. As he said on the podcast, he has lived in Washington D.C. most of his life. He worked in think tanks there for years and all of his friends are government or political wonk types. He goes to all the big insider parties and functions. Most of the guests he has on the podcast are DC insiders, often second or third generation Swamp Creatures. He’s a Swamp Creature.
I have no doubt that he’s conservative and smart, but apparently he’s a Swamp Creature first and foremost. In fact, after a little research, I found that many of the other prominent conservative Trump skeptics are similar. They’ve been in and out of government in DC and/or work in this or that conservative think tank or publication. I expect that their first loyalty is to the place from which they draw their sustenance. Any threat to that is going to evoke a visceral reaction. And we all know what Trump promised to do and is doing with the Swamp.
First comes the emotional reaction, then there follows the rationale for it. With time this rationale becomes more elaborate, and what you’re left with at the end are conclusions that make no sense. So you have Bill Kristol saying that Trump has turned him into a Democrat. Editors of the Bulwark are advocating for a third-party candidate and David French is saying that Christians should not vote for Trump. This against the most firmly conservative, effective, and anti-abortion president ever.
Some of them say that Trump is an “existential” threat to the country, and he is in fact a threat to what they hold dear, but under Trump, the rest of the country is doing fine.
I’m not sure how fond of democracy any of these guys ever were, but increasingly they are open about being skeptical of it, and that’s apparently because democracy and the people have turned against the Swamp. And let us remind ourselves about why this has happened — the Swamp failed a large number of the American people. Washington insiders have contempt for ordinary Americans, and their policy preferences show it. Free trade and relatively open borders, among other things, boosted the economy and made Swamp Creatures and their friends rich and powerful. Ordinary Americans suffered from a loss of jobs and income, depression, dislocation, drug abuse, and suicide. The people have pushed back against Creature policies. This the conservative Swamp Creatures deride as populism and warn of mob rule, but instead of picking up pitchforks the people elected Donald Trump and most likely will do so again.
Published in Politics
I’m with you, Jeanne. I absolutely love being lectured on racism. I mean, it’s not like we get our fill from Lefty.
Race baiting: the beat goes on.
Everyone who has been behind the scenes in any industry or area of endeavor comes away horrified. I say this as a person who worked for an international airline for 11 years (you do not want to know). If we’re talking about Washington, DC, I have a feeling there are those who feel a sense of self-importance and being an “insider” if they have dirt to dish. And if we’re talking about being inside the Trump Administration, I’d say those who say derogatory things are likely working against him for their own reasons. I’d think it makes them look a lot worse than it makes Trump look.
And where did I call, much less lecture, anyone on this thread about racism? Come on, folks.
Do hold your breath but don’t turn blue. But since you asked…
That is a seemingly willful misinterpretation of the OP. It’s not as if every resident of the District and environs is like Mr Goldberg in the sense discussed here. As a former resident of that area myself I can vouch for the fact that it is most diverse, demographically speaking. Instead, my interpretation is that it’s the company Mr Goldberg keeps, not his street address, that matters. It’s not unreasonable to judge people by the company they keep to some extent.
Much the same as I feel about your comment.
Too bad for you, and for him, that his constituents felt otherwise. It was my understanding that their collective opinions were more consequential than your individual opinion. He was turned out of office by the voters. That’s our system, objectionable though you may find it.
You may cease waiting and resume breathing.
It’s not a willful misinterpretation. Mr. Goldberg may live in blue, blue, blue DC, but his company is Buckleyite. I’ll take that over the company of the come-and-go sleaze that Trump has largely surrounded himself with, the Haley’s and Mattis’s notwithstanding.
And about Eric Cantor? Brat did nothing useful and lost to Spanberger. His formerly useful seat is held by a Democrat. How about them apples?
I’m surprised no one mentions the Dolphin laugh.
Preach it, brother. Preach it.
Works best with the lounge lizard version of the Flipper theme. With the implied dolphin sex…
No, the social conservatives were largely quiescent until Rov v. Wade. It was Reagan who at least rhetorically embraced Christian conservatives (the third leg alongside economic and national security conservatives).
@drusus, unacceptable. You got a family member that declares Flynn human scum? That needs facts, man. 5Ws. As an ops guy, Flynn’s way of doing business was revolutionary (which, I think, is why he was set up and sunk by the IC).
But I know for a fact that Flynn made considerable contributions to killing our enemies and protecting the force.
So, if you’re going to call out Flynn as human scum, I’m calling out your family member. What service, what job, what deployment, what personal experience with Flynn?
You called an American hero scum; Support or retract your statement.
You are welcome to consider the additional facts laid out in the earlier part of my statement that you did not quote. The family anecdote is icing, not the cake.
The Flipper laugh was a delightful idiosyncrasy back when Jonah mattered.
Since his onset of TDS he sounds like an annoying 10 year old girl imitating a sea mammal.
Once upon a time conservatives were the deplorables, the worst of the Republican extremists. Barry Goldwater called himself a conservative, at a time when conservative was synonymous with outcast. By the end of the Reagan term, though, people found it desirable to attach the conservative label to themselves. G.H.W. Bush was an example. It was about that time that the term “conservative” was in trouble.
There’s that “chaos in the White House” meme again. For a place where chaos rules they sure do seem to get a lot done. I wonder if any of those stories being passed around in DC are true.
Add to that the concept that all this time there were holdovers and resisters within the Trump Administration intentionally attempting to create and cultivate the “choas in the White House” meme.
Like I said, I have no doubt that he’s conservative, and it’s not just about his address, but where people get their rice bowl filled and who their friends are has a lot to do with their opinions.
Scaramucci
Every time I hear this I think Christopher’s Sacaramanga in the Man with the Golden Gun and his infamous 3 nipples.
Says the hater of Trump. Jonah was interesting and his book was good but he has gone off the edge in his disdain for the man who is doing what conservatives promised for years and did NOT deliver. John McCain ran for reelection in 2016 on a promise to “Build the Damn Wall” and repeal Obamacare. How’d he do ?
Have you ever heard a Chris Matthews rant, where he is almost foaming at the mouth? I heard Jonah do a rant like that once, on the edge of control. It was quite sad. I like Jonah, have listened to him and read him for a long time.
There are lots of things going on here. The half century long project among Conservatives to maintain a government in waiting through think tanks and all the various employment opportunities outside of government in Washington didn’t deal with an outsider very well. Especially when the outsider had nothing but disdain for them. Except for a few, like the people who are coming up with judges.
Trump directly campaigned against the Republican foreign policy establishment, using the same language as he would have used talking to a subcontractor who wasn’t performing. He made enemies and they have responded poorly.
Trump also challenged the quasi libertarian economic consensus among this establishment. Free trade, open borders were the goal.
But even worse was the hard arithmetic that for every Jonah Goldberg there were 50,000 disgruntled and unhappy voters to be gained. Watch this election cycle; it is a battle between those who consider themselves important vs those who consider the working class voters important. Jonah was on the losing side of that fight last time.
I’ve said many times that Obama made the person he was talking to feel like one of the two most intelligent people in the room. Trump forces people who think they know to argue the point with the guy who has been displaced by cheap labor overseas, or the military grunt who is grist for the unending war mill. There might be an argument to be made, but no one comes out of it feeling good about themselves.
Finally, a specific complaint. I know people like Trump, I have worked for them. I suspect every single thing positive and negative that is said about Trump is true. But they are movers and shakers, they make things happen. Another thing I know is that the world of commercial development is the most chaotic and anarchic that you could imagine, where the ‘rule of law’ means that everyone goes broke; time costs vast amounts of money. So disputes are negotiated and enforced not by law but by bludgeon. If you can’t walk away from a project and let everyone else bleed you are in a weak position and you won’t survive. Everyone else at the table is in the same position. It is a tough world. During the nomination process, Goldberg went on and on that Trump wasn’t committed; he openly talked about walking away, giving up if it didn’t work out. That instinct of having an exit strategy is deep within his psyche, that is how you survive in the world he knows. Goldberg showed me he really didn’t know; I was less informed after reading him than before. Not good.
I wonder how many know that the president of the Stanford college Republicans is Susan Rice’s son ?
Mismanaged might have something to do with the fact that 95% of the federal government is still being run (being charitable) by the people who were mismanaging it before 2016. It is a fact that Trump never had “Binders Full of Women,” or men for that matter. Ross Perot would have faced the same problem if he had been elected in 1992. The Deep State might have been less well organized since 8 years of Clinton and Obama were in the future.
I will self -censor my reaction that statement. Flynn was the first target of the Deep State (or Intel community if you prefer) because he knows how useless the CIA has been since the Church Committee, if not before. Also you might be interested in the fact that the FBI agents initially reported on the 302s, which have vanished somehow, that he was not dishonest in his answers. That was before Sally Yates got hold of them.
All true, but I choose to not get overly wrought up over his Never-Trumpism. I still regard “Liberal Fascism” and “The Tyranny of Cliches” as must-reads for Conservatives.
Not so much a “must-read” but more like “(sigh) if you must. But could I interest you in something by Thomas Sowell?”
I agree that living and moving in DC circles cannot be a disqualifying factor, if the individual doing that living and moving has not been corrupted.
If lobby-ism is seen as a perfectly normal and decent way to affect legislation, if assassinating the reputations of decent people by amping up some minor character flaw is approved even while ignoring the decent qualities of those people, if failing to understand that populism is the last need of everyday people who see the entire way of American life being flipped to the absurd notions that our society can absorb overnight 75 million out of one billion people from south of the border, then those involved in such beliefs and behaviors should not be surprised if their beliefs, activities and they themselves are suspect.
I have quit using the word racism as the expression “hate-filled bigotry” can apply to both sides with much more of a sting than the now over used word “racism.”
@drusus
EXCELLENT! “Intellectuals and Society”, “Dismantling America”, “The Vision of the Annointed” and a half dozen others occupy places of honor on my bookshelves. I still miss his periodic “Random Thoughts” columns.
Yes, they’ve moved on to white supremacist since racist is so ubiquitous as to be meaningless. In this instance, I guess racism, oh, I’m sorry, reverse-racism, had to do to in order to hurl a nonsensical insult. Location-of-residence supremacist or whatever just wouldn’t have had the same sting – not that the allegation of reverse racism was anything but ludicrous.
You bring up perhaps the most salient point of all: the 302’s initially recorded somehow mysteriously vanished.
And it was reported that Comey (IIRC) himself told FBI agents to lie or do whatever was needed to bring down teh Trump personnel they had in their gun sights.
If it was not Comey, then it was someone almost as powerful.
Once that admission was noted, Flynn’s entire indictment should have been negated.
And Obama himself, allied with Schwartzennegger who was Calif gov at the time, deported some 3/4 of a million people from Calif without the matter making much of a wave, from the Big Media point of view.
How did Obama do that? Yet people who support Obama and consider him the greatest President of modern times do not even know of his purge of undocumented people, not only here in Calif but across the nation. (As many as 1.75 million people may have been ousted circa 2009 and 2010.)
Anything Trump does to limit new people coming in is considered racist; but Obama deporting people has not taken his high ranking “compassion index” down even a notch.