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On the first of this week’s podcasts, the COMMENTARY crew (JPod, Abe Greenwald, and Noah Rothman) suggest two scenarios post-election: One in which nothing really changes and Donald Trump remains a leading force in our politics going forward, or one in which everything changes, which brings apocalyptic dangers of its own. Yes, it’s another cheerful discussion of our wondrous future from the people who are bottling pessimism but hopefully make you laugh as we do it. Give a listen.
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The Trump Movement is not the continuation of the Tea Party under a different name. The Tea Party was a true conservative movement of limited government and freedom. It was opposed and successfully marginalized by the Republican establishment. In it’s place, the Trump Movement has arisen with the philosophy that, if we can’t have limited government, I might as well elect a guy who is going to screw the other guy rather than me – or at least says that he will.
The Commentary gentleman look on it as an Obama failure that so many state and local elections have gone to Republicans over the last eight years. They don’t know what Obama knows, which is that elected positions are not an end in themselves but merely a means to achieving political ends. Obama knew Democrats would pay a short term heavy political price to push through Obamacare, as unpopular as it was. He was willing to sacrifice Congressional and state majorities to push through an epoch making legislative agenda. Once Republicans “work with” President Hillary in the next Congress to fix Obamacare, the long term Democratic victory will be complete.
Republicans failed to have similar nerve. With their Congressional majorities they could have refused to fund Obamacare (among other things), endured a government shutdown, suffered the short term political consequences, but kept alive a political movement of limited government. (continued)
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Instead, we were told that Republicans could not oppose Obama’s spending because they might suffer in the next election. We had to wave through Obama’s spending in 2012 so Romney would get elected, and wave it through in 2014 so Congressional majorities would be maintained. Eventually the conservative voter asks: What is the point of a Congressional majority if it will not do anything to control spending? Especially as determining spending is it’s primary reason for existing at all.
The answer that comes back – it would be even worse under Democrats – was never good enough. As frustrated small government types have said for years, the difference is only that Democrats drive us over the cliff at 80 mph and Republicans at 40 mph. They never had any plans to stop, let alone put the car in reverse.
I will not vote for Trump (and certainly not for Hillary) but I get the frustration. And it will continue as long as elected Republicans lack the courage to suffer politically for principle.
There’s too much pessimism about the aftermath of this election at this point. Perhaps I’m feeling glib because I suffered the pangs of realization that we were going to have a President Clinton about a week or two ago, but the reality of the situation is this: Trump was a black swan. We know that because his would-be inheritors that sought to follow in his footsteps have been stomped in every electoral setting they’ve run in. There is no Trumpism without Trump.
The damage Trump has suffered personally from this is going to dissuade him from venturing out into public as a Republican ever again. He’s going to switch his party affiliation back to Democrat about 5 minutes after he loses and never look back.
In short, Trump hijacked the party, is using it for his own selfish and greedy ends and will abandon it after crashing it into an oak tree after figuring out that piracy doesn’t pay nearly as much as he thought it would.
Responsible adults will be in charge and resist the Clintons, who will throw perfunctory bones to Progressives. It’s even possible that given how vacuous the Clinton machine is politically that some compromises might be possible with them.
There is that clever movie scene where three guys sneak up on Jack Reacher with an aluminum bat and because of close quarters, the guy with the bat is doing more incidental damage to his own guys than to Jack Reacher. There is only a comical dimension to this scene because these are feckless “bad guys”.
Its already changed, and Trump was just a symptom.
Hope for the best, and expect the best from this podcast. Not this episode.
John’s indecisiveness defined the podcast rather than Noah’s and Abe’s more defined views.
The contention that politics in America between 1960 and 1990 was more predictable, stable and patriotic and conducted against a backdrop of broad and deep cultural agreement is pretty farfetched.
The speakers in this podcast do not discuss the left’s determination to crush dissent, and to destroy their opposition, the Republicans. The mask is off, and Mrs. Clinton and her political and corporate cronies will not be satisfied with a win-they want to crush us, and they have subverted the federal government to do it. What makes you think that Mrs. Clinton will cease using the IRS, the EPA, and the (in)Justice Department to persecute her enemies? If she wins, by a little or a lot, she is going to use her position to destroy her opposition.
We in the western states have seen up close the weaponization of the federal government, and we have reasonable fear of the left. In the last fifty years, they have used federal mandates to destroy our hospitals, our schools, our industries, and they have been successful in depopulating our counties and towns. They are actively seeking to federalize our police departments. The left hates us, they want to destroy us, and they have made significant progress towards that goal.
Coastal elites on the right have not suffered material damage from the advance of the left, which may be why they are having such a hard time understanding the fury of those who have. If Mrs. Clinton wins, that will change, and then they may not have such condescension towards those who have.