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Words to Live By, Especially for Never-Trumpers (Part Deux)
Alright, I think it’s safe to come back out again. When I submitted my little piece (same title as contained in the brackets), over a week ago, I intended it to be a small one-off type of observation. It was nothing more than a couple of quotes from a National Review article (and yes, I know that many of you detest the publication) with a few sentences of my own thoughts. Easy-peasy, right?
I didn’t anticipate the number of comments or some of the verbiage that was contained in them; some of which was quite heated. Although I certainly don’t have the literary skills to pour the needed oil upon the troubled waters, I would like to add a few more comments to my original offering.
I now realize that we will never, and I mean never, get past this thing of “Never Trump.” It’s ingrained, perhaps in the DNA, of many folks even here at Ricochet. I suppose that’s to be expected. Looking back at the NR’s famous issue (February 15, 2016) of “Conservatives Against Trump” (which featured a caricature of Trump in a Benito Mussolini uniform) it was easy to see that passions were (and still are) running deep. (For the record, I was an early supporter of Marco Rubio, even if he did have small hands.)
However, as events showed, all that conservative intellectual firepower didn’t amount to (as John Nance Garner so eloquently said) a bucket of warm spit. Still, if you go back and look at that list of folks who wrote their opinions you’ll find that most of them are, grudgingly, holding their fire because they have realized what the alternative would have been had Hillary Rodham Clinton ascended to the Presidency.
And, that alternative would have been four (and probably eight) more years of the policies of Barack Obama. OK, if you have to, go into a dark closet, close the door behind you and think, really think, about where we would be today if that had happened. If, after some contemplation, you believe that we would be no worse off than the three and a half years we have had under Trump, well, then perhaps you should stay in your closet a bit longer.
In a recent NR “Morning Jolt” (which I recommend, mostly to get Jim Geraghty’s extremely well-done opinion pieces) there was a piece by Jonah Goldberg (yes, yes I know that some of you aren’t fans) in which he described himself as “a conservative who just can’t board the Trump Train.” And here, is what we should be concentrating on.
First of all, I don’t believe there’s as many of us on the “Trump Train” as Goldberg believes. I can’t speak for others but, for me, I’m on the “American Train.” If the tracks of the “Trump Train” and the “American Train” are running parallel then I’m fine with it. If those tracks should begin to diverge, that’s another story. In some of the comments made to my first post, there were references to “ET” or “Ever Trump” folks. I suspect that the number of those folks is far less than the “Never Trump” folks.
In terms of what we have at stake in the upcoming election, I was a bit taken aback at some of the arguments which seemed akin to those “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” disputes, only in a political sense. And, I still wonder how ideological “purity tests” can still be taken seriously when there is so much at stake.
For all you “purists” (to paraphrase Barbara Mandrell), “I was Conservative When Conservative Wasn’t Cool.” I don’t need someone explaining the fine points of conservatism to me. I want “what works” to be the final determinant in any endeavor that the government takes; and I want all government endeavors to be only what is truly required.
Like a lot of other people, I cringe at some of Trump’s utterances. His praise of unsavory characters (read thugs) such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un was bad enough but his unsolicited “great leader” and “brilliant man” remarks concerning Xi Jinping can only be described as head-shaking. Normally, in another time, this would be cause for me to scramble to another candidate. Today? In the immoral words of R. Lee Ermey, “I don’t think so.”
As I do not have a “fetish for complexity” as our last great President (Ronald Reagan) phrased, I have limited my reasons for staying with Trump to two (and only two): Defense and federal judicial appointments. Without the former we have no country; without the latter we have no society.
Defense
The degree to which our national defense suffered under eight years of Barack Obama cannot be underestimated. Although he frequently mentioned how “inspired” he was by members of our military, his actions frequently belied those words. Obama never understood military culture and gave little reason to believe that he wanted to understand it. I genuinely believe that he (and his many toadies) were caught totally off guard from the reaction of the military rank and file when he brought the deserter’s (I refuse to say his name) parents to the White House for a Rose Garden ceremony. Then, when he sent one of those toadies on a round of Sunday morning news shows to reiterate that the deserter had “served with honor and distinction”; well, that was the end of what credibility he had. At the end of his administration, when he pardoned a treasonous transgender (again, I refuse to say the individual’s name), the military was shown just how little Barack thought of them.
Awhile back, I used the term “hollow force” to describe how badly our military has deteriorated and an individual here at Ricochet sniffed that it was an “easy phrase.” Since I’m merely an old E-8, I didn’t know what that meant. I googled it and the first definition produced by the software was “I’m easy” which certainly doesn’t apply to me; especially since I’ve been married for more than three decades. So, let me go at this from another angle. Please bear with me.
Our military still does have some awesome capabilities. However, much of that capability still resides with our nuclear forces (the “Triad”). Unfortunately, if we use those forces, it will be game over for many of us since two (and soon, four) of our leading adversaries also have those capabilities.
Even discounting our nuclear capability, we can still field an impressive array of weaponry. However, what most concerns me is the state of the personnel who will handle those weapons; that is where the eight years of Barack may have done the most lasting damage. Make no mistake: I am talking about the “Warrior Ethos” along with the military “Code of Conduct.” Although these concepts might be alien to our civilian population, they are absolutely vital to our men and women in the military.
Obama’s appointments, namely the Secretaries of the Army and Navy, were nothing short of disasters. Both Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus were solid leftist ideologues; probably the reason that they were chosen for their posts. The performance of these two was nothing short of shameful.
Eric Fanning seemed to have been chosen for his job mainly because of the fact that he was (and is) openly gay. I am not saying that being gay should have disqualified him for the job but when he acceded to be the “Grand Marshal” of a Gay Pride parade (in San Diego) while American men and women were fighting and dying in Afghanistan, he appeared to be showing the entire Army what his priorities truly were.
Fanning’s entire mission appeared to center around diversity. Toward that end he worked relentlessly, dogging the Army to install women and transsexuals in elite combat units such as the Rangers. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, the Rangers are “the tip of the spear”; the fire eaters who go ahead of the regular infantry, who seek out and destroy the enemy. It is not the place for those who cannot meet the most demanding standards. Yet. as author James Hasson noted in his must-read book Stand Down, the Army “placed their fingers on the scale” to meet Fanning’s directive. After two women were graduated from Ranger training and received the coveted Ranger tabs, all records which pertained to their training were destroyed.
Incredibly, Secretary of the Navy Mabus was even more destructive. Seeing what was happening in the Army, the Marines conducted an extensive test lasting months, in which rifle companies composed only of men were compared with rifle companies which included women. The testing insured that all training, all tactical exercises and all conditions were equal. Evaluators were brought in from outside the Corps; the testing methods were above reproach.
The results were that the “coed” rifle companies were far inferior to their all-male counterparts. The findings were compiled and sent up the command chain to Mabus. He barely looked at the report before denouncing the entire study as “biased.”
Mabus was equally destructive to the Navy and seemed more interested in naming new ships for social activists such as the USS Harvey Milk. His twin pet projects, diversity and the “Green Navy,” insured that combat readiness would be a secondary concern. As Hasson noted in speaking with a Navy two-star, “…Navy crews out there, you know, on their ass, readiness-wise, and now we have ships running into each other like it’s nobody’s business, and he (Mabus) was worried about freaking green fuel.“
Along with those two ship collisions (which were troubling in themselves), came the incident in which two Navy Riverine boats were captured by the Iranians. The entire incident was disgraceful as it illustrated both a lack of seamanship and a total abandonment of the Military Code of Conduct. The commander of those two boats was an Annapolis graduate but it appeared that he had learned nothing from his four years at the Naval Academy as he apologized to his captors, praised them, and thanked them for their “hospitality and assistance.” As for our civilian leadership, that windsurfing warrior Secretary of State John Kerry did the appropriate groveling before the Iranians (evidently James Taylor was unavailable to warble “You’ve Got a Friend”) and the Americans were released, though not before the hapless crew turned over all the classified material and equipment they had.
It’s worth delving a bit further into this incident. Is this forlorn crew’s performance indicative of a much larger problem? I don’t know. However, for the sake of the nation, we have to ensure that our troops are trained with one thing in mind; that is, to engage and destroy our enemies. Our men and women do not enter the military to be subjected to, for hours on end, lectures on diversity and acceptance of transsexuals into their ranks. They want to be trained to do their jobs; which is to protect this nation. It’s a given that the Red Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians, and the Russians don’t give much thought to whether or not they are “diverse” enough. It’s far past time for us to emphasize the “warrior ethos” over the plaintive cries for more diversity.
It’s worth noting that both Fanning and Mabus are hanging around Washington today, working in their own “public interest” companies; patiently waiting for their chance to come back into a Democratic administration, possibly in their old jobs. It’s an absolute certainty that they would continue in their destruction of morale in our armed forces.
Should we give them that opportunity?
Judicial Appointments
This one is easy. Despite his mercurial performance in many other areas, Trump’s selection of federal judges has been commendable. Along with Sen. Mitch McConnell, some of Obama’s damage to the federal judiciary has been mitigated. Obviously, the job is not complete as evidenced by Trump’s efforts to protect our borders. He has had to fight Clinton and Obama judges at every turn.
Until we get a majority of federal judges who have as their “guiding star” the principle of “originalism” then our existence, as protected by our Bill of Rights, will be threatened.
So, what are the choices? I’m unhappy with Trump probably 12 hours out of each day. His fits of pique have greatly damaged his administration. His disputes with Generals Kelly and Mattis were unnecessary. While Trump’s enemies are plentiful (especially in the increasingly irrelevant press), he is still his own worst enemy.
Will Trump let the military keep striving toward that Warrior Ethos? Will he continue with his so-far wise choices for the federal judiciary? My answer is a solid, unequivocal, “I hope so.” However, I do know this. If we return to a country under Democratic rule, the idiocies that have caused our military to suffer will continue and probably become even worse. As for appointments to the federal judiciary, well, you don’t have to be a genius to figure that out.
So, if your hatred of Trump is what floats your boat, go ahead and pull that “D” lever when it comes time to vote. But before you do, think about the country that was run by Barack Obama and some of his cohorts, such as Valerie Jarrett, Ben Rhodes, and Jonathan Gruber. Only this time, think about this bunch on steroids. Owing to the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party, that’s exactly what you’re going to get. “But, Biden’s pragmatic,” you say. Keep dreaming.
Note: I do not shill for authors but I believe that James Hasson’s book, Stand Down, should be read by anyone who is concerned for our military readiness. The author, a Ranger and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, makes several suggestions as to fixes we can make in improving military readiness.
Published in General
I never understood why NT’s assumed that if you thought Trump was doing a pretty good job, you were totally on board with whatever he did. I voted for Cruz in the primary, and Trump in the general because Hillary. I don’t think Trump is God’s gift to the presidency, but I think he’s doing OK.
Because they can’t argue with a balanced point of view, so they have to imagine it to be an unbalanced one. Never Trumpers are fundamentally dishonest, like all people of the left.
I never understood why NT’s assumed that if you voiced any realization that 95% of their position was irrational and/or intellectually vapid twaddle, you were totally on board with whatever he did.
I have some sympathy for the Never Trumpers. I think that they made a big mistake during the primaries, a mistake that I managed to avoid.
I was a Walker guy at first, then Rubio, then Cruz. I was very hostile toward Trump, but I resolved to reject the Never Trump label. I didn’t want him to win, but I wanted to keep and open mind and give the guy a chance, in case he got the nomination, as seemed increasingly likely.
I had the advantage of really liking the kind of guy who liked Trump early on. They were hard-working salt-of-the-earth types, formerly the Reagan Democrats, often blue-collar and union guys.
Trump made a believer out of me. This doesn’t mean that I agree with everything he says or does, but I think that in many ways, he’s done a better job than Reagan.
I would add four major things to your list of accomplishments:
(1) Trump is right about immigration. This wasn’t much of a change for me.
(2) Trump is right about trade. This was a big change for me. I was worried that a trade war would plunge us into recession. It didn’t, and Trump was careful and targeted with his aggressive actions on trade.
(3) Trump is right about China. This wasn’t much of a change for me, either, but I was more skeptical that we could do anything about it. Trump showed how vulnerable China is to trade sanctions.
(4) Trump actually fights the Fake News Media. This is sometimes so exhilarating that I don’t mind how, shall we say, unseemly his comments can tend to be, or how they sometimes have a, um, tenuous connection with the truth.
I think that the mistake made by many Never Trumpers was to take such a strong position, and incorporate into their sense of self so strongly, that they cannot admit that they were wrong.
BTW: John Nance Garner, according to historians, likely said the vice-presidency wasn’t even worth a “bucket of warm p—“, which sounds both more accurate and more like him. It was such a good quote that later generations sanitized it for general use.
President Trump makes me both wince and cheer. I am persuaded he loves America as she is, not on condition that she become someone else. Yes he has cheated on women, but I think America is one gal he will never betray.
I hadn’t heard that! Thanks!
While there are quite a few people here who dislike aspects of Donald Trump’s personality, how many Ricochet members do you think there are who call themselves conservatives and plan on voting for the Democratic nominee in November? I doubt the number goes into the double digits. If all of the posts denouncing Never Trumpers over the last four years have not persuaded these few members, I don’t think their minds are going to change.
I can only think of three, and I think even they’d abstain before voting for Biden.
Persuasion left town a long time ago. Even shaming them is pointless…they lack the character for that. Expose and taunt, that is the only game left.
13 paragraphs on defense, Zero on fiscal issues. Not very compelling, especially considering Trump’s antics with foreign leaders and his weak display in his first crises situation. Plus we’ve gotten our conservative judges now….so Trump isn’t needed for that anymore. And he has zero agenda. So, there goes your arguments.
Ultimately, he’s a terrible person, so if I can’t reject him….I’ll be forever voting for the worst that Trumpers nominate. So, looking forward to your case for Don Jr in 2024. He can nominate judges too!
A warm and loving environment in Ricochet, unless you criticize Trump. It’s disappointing.
That feature is merely another indication that they are not logical people.
The NT crowd does not think logically. They want to continue in their thoughts, which are rather shallow when analyzed, that due to his propensity to display a rather Don Rickles side of his personality, nothing else about Trump matters.
I was talking with a friend who is very NT, and she was saying how disgusting it is that Kushner was over in India holding forth with 30K a plate business dinners, and that she was absolutely appalled that Trump did not stop his son-in-law from doing this.
I mentioned that it should be a far bigger issue that Obama tanked the economy. She told me that was irrelevant – Kushner had business dinners where ordinary people in India were not allowed to participate, and that alone should be grounds for another round of Trump impeachment hearings.
I guess she really believes that back when Michelle Obama went off to Spain for her many millions of dollars worth of vacation time with her girlfriends, that no business deals were set up. Because after all, the Obamas, just like Hillary Clinton, were all about being normal and decent human beings. While Trump and family are rapacious exploiters of any and everyone who meets up with them.
I like honesty as a concept for everyone, but somehow any and everything that Hillary Clinton did was “just business as usual.” Meanwhile even when Trump went off to make attempts to broker a new deal with North Korea’s leader, in hopes it might forestall that man from launching rockets against Hawai’i, the trip was described by the lame stream press as another one of Trump’s stunts to get attention.
As we type this, Trump is currently working on a plan to get hydroxychloroquine released for use in US hospitals where it is needed most. As after all, people who are sick right now with COVID 19 cannot wait for a full month for Bill Gates to distribute a vaccine that is not developed yet.
And what is the result of this effort of his? Go to google and type “Why can’t Trump promote Hydroxychloroquine?” into the search engine and you will get a plethora of hits.
The New York Times disapproves; as does Los Angeles Times, as does Salon; as does TIME magazine; as does NPR. Words thrown around are “quakery” “stupidity” “recklessness” “carelessness” and once and a while a calm word of disapproval like “ill advised.”
But all over the globe other nations have health officials who tout the fact that hydroxychloroquine is helping their countries’ patients. These places include France, Germany, Belgium, Spain and now Bahrain. Hey the Bahrainian populace is the richest in the world – if they are using it, I imaginee it is tip top stuff. (Probably is offered to sick people there in Tiffany pill boxes as well.)
Why is it our nation’s press doesn’t want HCQ? Couldn’t be related to the one third of a trillion bucks the drug companies have spent in past 15 years on ads monies, to big chain newspapers, and to TV stations, to ensure that Big Pharma’s measures to protect our health, such as the coming mandated 132 billion dollar COVID vaccine, will not be replaced by a solution that costs one fifth as much, could it?
No, I don’t think so. How much money is spent in advertising automobiles? You don’t think the press would love to jump on a story that shows misbehavior on the part of an auto manufacturer? I think the American press is happy to trash pharmaceutical companies. I don’t know if HCQ is a magic bullet or not, but the fact that President Trump says encouraging things about it means that the mainstream press feels honor-bound to denounce it. If Donald Trump proclaims that it’s nice to have turkey for Christmas dinner, the press is going to say it’s a lie and everyone should be eating ham on Christmas. I also suspect that because of Trump’s words in support of HCQ, many of his fans do believe it is the magic bullet and anyone who has reservations has evil motives.
Sorry, I explained my rationale so I won’t have any further comment. I am impressed by your grasp of higher mathematics.
I had thought that @rgbact was being sarcastic. I didn’t know anyone could feel that way. I guess there must be really bad things about having a terrific stock market, having almost full employment, and having someone who often keeps his campaign pledges.
Deleted rest as it is duplicated by the following reply of mine.
I had thought that @rgbact was being sarcastic. I didn’t know anyone could feel that way. I guess there must be really bad things about having a terrific stock market, having almost full employment, and having someone who often keeps his campaign pledges. He is currently looking out for our health by procuring 29 million extra doses of Hydroxychloroquine, which will immediately serve as a remedy for anyone coming down with Covid 19 symptoms.
I see no reason to slam Trump for lack of decent military policies, especially given that one of the generals Clinton was closest to was hell bent on having a war with Russia by autumn 2017. Whether that war would have been for the benefit of us Americans or for the benefit the friendships the Clintons and Dem leaders have forged with China, I can’t say. But if I was forced to, I would err on the side that the Clintons and Dem leaders seem to absolutely adore Chinese leaders, and have disdain for the penny public, regardless of which nation we inhabit.
The Clintons certainly did not shower any love, or any cash on the people of Haiti, even though school children around the world emptied their piggy banks to help the Haitian people. Too bad the school kids didn’t know giving money to the Clinton Foundation is like giving money to Don Corleone.
Yeah, that seems to have been a world-class scam.
Hear ye, hear ye!
Persuasion and enjoyable conversation are why we have Ricochet. Shaming, Exposing, and Taunting are for other websites. Some Ricochetti should make a list of the better websites for Shaming, Exposing, and Taunting. Many of the Never Trumpers have stayed rational on Non Trump related issues. Max Headroom and Jenifer Rubin have gone off the deep end, but David French and Jonah Goldberg are still worth reading on many subjects.
This is still a false choice. I’ll never pull the lever for a D no matter how bad the R is. I’ll also never pull the lever for and R if he is not worthy of my support. Thankfully, I live in Wa and my vote is meaningless in federal contests. I might make a difference in the park department elections if anyone ever ran opposed, but voting here as a conservative is a matter of futile protest.
You make a very strong case for Trump based on the military. Many of your points are well founded and indisputable. The case is, however, incomplete. There have been missteps and kerfuffles. Less so than the [expletive]show that went on under Obama, but there are times the sailors I work with every day are embarrassed by the leadership. Hell, we recently started using velcro on the chain of command boards for the SECNAV and SECDEF spots instead of screws because the names change so often. The policies may be far better, but the performance is still lacking. There’s love now rather than malevolent hatred, but we’d still like some competence.
Not everything need be viewed through the lens of Trump, but it will be. Sadly. I still think Perry had the right idea with the federal government should be as inconsequential to your life as possible.
He beat me to it. You can get some understanding of Garner from Caro’s magnificent biography of Johnson.
It’s the age-old problem here, one I used to occasionally write about, but have since come to despair of: there will always be a core here who think it their divine duty to “win” Ricochet for “right people” and “right ideas”, while driving off all of the “wrong” people and their icky icky filthy ideas. For such people, it is not enough to argue and say “You are wrong here, and here is why” but to say “you are a horrible / stupid / ignorant / traitorous / liberal plant for refusing to see the error of your heretical ways.” Rather than engage, they would prefer to mock, to taunt, and treat them like dirt.
It’s nice to see an NT try to defend his indefensible choices.
Yeah, Roosevelt really blew that Pearl Harbor thing. Come on.
I honestly don’t know what point you are trying to make with this comment. Please expound if you’d like to have an exchange on substance.
The thing was we did not know what he was going to be policy wise. He was an unknow and all we had was his private life to judge him on which sucked. That is the problem we you have no record (aka political actions that have consequences). He basically is your mill moderate president that we usually tend to elect.
However on the other hand no he is not the most conservative since Regen, (Regan on domestic policy was much more center right than conservative than peoples memories serve them). He is more like a Ford or a H.W. Bush with better (more conservative) judicial nomination/cabinet. And his foreign policy (which I thought he would be worse than Hillary and I thought Hillary Foreign policy was lacking) actual as been half way decent better than G.W. in retrospect (I doubt it in hind site). Yes he lies worse than Nixon but thank goodness policy wise he is not a Nixon.
He has turned out all right. I still would not of voted for him in the Primary but I don’t regret a General Election vote for him. So other than his personality and one or two issues he pretty conservative one.
I want to hate him for the crushing of our civil right and doing nothing to protect are God given right to freely assembly and associate with others in the public sphere. However there are plenty of who I thought where better ,more conservative Governors who are showing they have no principals and are just CINO’s (conservatives in name only). So Trump when you judge him by his policy actions (not his personal actions), is your typical Republican which means pretty moderate with some policies that are conservative. So when compared to other and what I am stuck with I can’t be to mad about him. Since the Republicans have mostly left me (not that its a new direction). So long term it remains to be seen if he does the damage Never Trumpers think he will. However I am not convinced the Democrats were doing to due that anyways.
Agreed. If the federal government weren’t involved in nearly every aspect of our lives, we would be less inclined to turn every piddly little issue into a coast-to-coast fight.