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After just over a week of pretending to be pleased about a Republican election victory, National Review sank back, with an almost audible sigh of relief, into the warm embrace of the Deep State.
Mark Antonio Wright, the executive editor at NR, dropped a piece in "The Corner" entitled "If the Senate Wants to Help Trump, It Should Be Ready to Tell Him 'No'." Of course, the tactical advice is that "by rejecting Matt Gaetz ... and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ... the Senate would be doing Donald Trump a major favor." Why? Essentially, because Mr. Wright wishes the world was other than it really is. Whether he actually denies reality, too... Well, let's see.
Mr. Wright acknowledges that "Trump wants to shake up Washington. He ran on that message. He believes in it. He was elected for it." But - and here the departure from reality begins - "[s]tocking his administration with bomb throwers and cranks will not help Donald Trump." Instead, he should "seek to nominate cold-eyed operators who know the ins and outs of the departments and agencies that he seeks to reform." Apparently, there are "plenty of pro-Trump conservatives who fit that description." Color me, as they say, skeptical.
If we probe more deeply into the worldview of Mr Wright's piece, however, we begin to see what actually motivates him. These "operators" are "well-respected." They "build a strategy that goes beyond cable news hits and shock-jock tweets." What sunk the first Trump administration was "Scandal, chaos and bad headlines." Mr. Wright's concern is whether "normies" will "really be pleased by the constant sight of Matt Gaetz on the nightly news." That is, it's all surface. It's not about reality - it's not about fighting against injustice or ill health or the betrayal of democracy. Instead, it's about what appears on the nightly news or in the 'quality' press.
The game is given away in the penultimate sentence of the piece:
Trump's best chance to be viewed highly by the American people is to deliver four years of prosperity and sober, conservative government.
I do not think that is in the least bit true. (And I'm pretty sure "the American people" that Mr Wright means here excludes quite a few people living in the icky bits of America, or holding icky views.) But, even if it were, it seems entirely beside the point. Unless one inhabits a world where there are only surfaces (and, let us not forget, those surfaces are created in large part by the enemies of freedom and conservatism), the point of politics really should not be to burnish one's image.
But I guess that's much easier than actually, you know, shaking up Washington.
Discussion (59)
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This is going to be an interesting dynamic. The Senate, and the entire Congress, will have to strike a balance somewhere between rolling over and reflexive opposition. Whatever that balance, there will be those who find it unacceptable.
I don't care very much about the Kennedy appointment. Even if he's a flake (as I think he probably is), a flake who leans toward a less- rather than more-intrusive posture is probably a net positive. The AG is something else: I want a serious house-cleaning by someone who adheres scrupulously to the Constitution. If Gaetz can be that person, fine. If not, if there's strong reason to doubt that he can approach this critical task with integrity, then I hope the Senate objects and another man is selected.
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*Or woman, obviously.)
To tell the truth, I'm not sure what "integrity" means in this context. I think "energy" and "persistence" are the virtues that are required. And perhaps "violence [in the bureaucratic sense] of action". A bit more shock and awe, a bit less institutional deference, please.
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There is an argument to be made that a more "normal" Republican - perhaps a DeSantis or a Rubio rather than a Jeb! or a Romney, of course - would have run the table against the historically bad Kamala, and come out 15 points ahead. (The same argument was made about Trump 1.0 and Hillary.) I'm not sure this is a terribly strong argument, but it's one that a person of good conscience could make.
If this "normal" Republican had won the primary and the general, then appointing "normal" swamp-dwellers would be a permissible course of action. But they didn't. Trump won a contested primary. He won the general. He did not hide his bomb-throwers and cranks. He did not run on business as usual. He ran against the swamp. Surely to refuse to even try to govern against it would be a betrayal of his mandate?
But, of course, that seems to be what a lot of people (but not a lot of people on Ricochet, to be fair, and no-one in this comment thread - as yet) actually want. Same old same old.
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The scandal and chaos were manufactured. The headlines amplifying the scandal and chaos were published by since-discredited organs of the media.
They are free to try to play that game again, but they'll need a new playbook.
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Pedantic point: It's not The National Review, but "National Review."
Semi-more serious point: I tend to agree with Wright. I really don't know that Gaetz has accomplished anything really useful in his Congressional terms, except bomb-throwing for the sake of bomb-throwing. I think a steely-eyed man or woman who knows how to cut staff, etc., would be a better choice. But I'm also willing to see how the Gaetz pick pans out.
I also think that even when a party controls the Executive and Legislative branches, they are two independent branches. POTUS can accomplish nothing lasting without Congress. It does POTUS well to listen to advice on what & who can make it through the Legislature. Congress has its own powers and privileges which should be jealously guarded. It's job is not to just roll over for what the POTUS wants, and the country would be better off if each branch protected its own powers.
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