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Charlie Sykes on Scott Walker: “I think the nativist rhetoric does not come naturally to him.”
This is where Sykes is coming from. It is open-borders beliefs wrapped in self-righteousness about who is a True Conservative.
The praise for Russ Roberts’ Econ Talk is well deserved. Thanks!
Jay and Mona: If you were hoping to hear from people who love Burke, Locke, Sowell and the Constitution, and deplore Trump for being every Oberlin freshman’s nightmare of a Conservative stereotype come to life — consider that precinct heard from.
I also deplore Trump for, in Mona’s words, “discrediting ideas that are good ideas.”
Much appreciated. You have no idea how much.
Jay and Mona – I appreciate you more than you know – you are my Saturday morning housework companions. Thank you.
I met Jay at the MFRW convention in Ocean City, MD back in April or May – he is actually the main reason I attended. I read his book – very enjoyable.
Like you, I am saddened, sickened, by the abandonment of Conservative principles by people with whom I have toiled in the trenches for years.
Daughter S is about to be a senior at UChicago. Here is the Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression.
As always, you and Jay are among my favorite commentators. That you have remained adamant in your detestation for Trump while a storm of Alt-right acrimony flies in your direction is inspiring. I hold my views as strongly, but I am not under attack as you are. It is truly heartening that you do no fold, that you maintain.
filmklassik has said it better than I ever could.
Mr. Sykes nailed it with his Orwell reference. I sometimes wonder if I am going mad, and a podcast like this allows me feel, for at least a few minutes, that I am going mad in the best of company. I especially appreciate the rejection of the notion that there is nothing to worry about even if Trump is elected because Ryan and Pence will be there to keep him in check. To this: No. A thousand times: No. Neither they nor no one else can control him, and the mere appearance of such an effort invites a constitutional crisis.
Please continue doing what you are doing. Your voices are more essential than ever.
Mona Charen – You related this about John McCain in 2008: “At first, McCain grasped (former F.E.C. Commissioner, Bradley) Smith’s outstretched hand (Smith was in a wheelchair, recovering from surgery), but when he recognized his campaign finance opponent, he snatched back his hand, snarling, ‘I’m not going to shake your hand. You’re a bully. You have no regard for the Constitution. You’re corrupt.'”
I understand your opposition to Trump, but do you support another term in the Senate for John McCain?
Mona and Jay — I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: PLEASE keep doing what you’re doing. It’s like oxygen to a drowning woman — as is Charlie Sykes, to whose show I listen daily here in Wisconsin.
This year has indeed been a nightmare to so many of us of us who care about this country and about the conservative movement. I believe that the repercussions will continue far into the future, and may be irreparable. And I am sick to death of the accusation that our stand is “moral preening.” We are watching in anguish as a train wreck is about to happen, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop it. But no one can force me to get on that train, or to contribute to its momentum.
Hang tough, Mona, Jay and Charlie! You’re not alone.
Well said.
By the way — may I add a correction and a fun fact about Charlie’s interview with Donald Trump? Neither Charlie nor anyone else at WTMJ actually invited Trump to be interviewed. The campaign actually contacted the show’s producer and asked if Trump could be a guest on Charlie’s show. They did the same with a number of other Wisconsin talk-radio hosts, such as Vicki McKenna and Jerry Bader — both also strongly opposed to Trump. Apparently, his campaign just assumed that they would get the same softball treatment here that they got in other media outlets around the country. They had no ground game in Wisconsin — no one to tell them that these were not likely to be friendly interviews. It was not a good day for the Trump campaign.
When I first read the tweet that Donald Trump would be a guest on Charlie’s show, I thought they had to be kidding. Who let that happen? Of course, it was even better than I could have anticipated.
As a “movement conservative”, did you oppose the candidacy of John McCain in 2008?
No, I supported McCain, even though I did not feel he was the best candidate our side could have chosen. In fact, he made me a little nuts at times. Still, I believed he was a good and honorable man, a patriot, and a war hero. He would advance many, if not all, of the policies I favored. He was certainly far preferable to Obama.
Trump, on the other hand, is an unstable, unprincipled, pathologically narcissistic man who is manifestly unfit to serve as the leader of the free world. He is willfully, even proudly, ignorant of the complexities of most issues, and is not interested in learning more, because he does not feel he has much to learn. He surrounds himself with sycophants, from whom he demands absolute, lifelong fealty. He is utterly undisciplined, and is obsessed with his own ego and image and with punishing perceived slights. He has the maturity of an eight-year old with poor social skills. I have absolutely no trust that he would advance conservative policy, because his adherence to those principles is paper-thin, and shifts with the wind. And he is doing grievous damage to the conservative movement by confirming every cartoonish stereotype the left has ever foisted on us. We are all smeared with his stink.
In short, McCain was an imperfect candidate, but he was so much better than Trump that there is no comparison. Even Hillary, awful as she is (and she truly is unthinkably awful), is not crazy. I could never, ever vote for Hillary, but Trump may well be even worse.
Karen Humiston – Do you remember this?: “What Mr. McCain almost never mentions are two extraordinary moments in his political past….: His discussions in 2001 with Democrats about leaving the Republican Party, and his conversations in 2004 about becoming Mr. Kerry’s running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket.”
I would not conflate McCain’s incredibly honorable military career with his largely dishonorable political one.
I’m not #NeverTrump. I am #OhForCryingOutLoudWhyDoesItHaveToBeThisBlowhard.
I do take a little issue with the idea that this was not predictable. The last two nominees were pretend conservatives at best. The wedge issue that Trump found resonated with a lot of people who feel that their issues and concerns are treated with neglect if not contempt by the fiscal conservative branch of the party.
Once Trump loses (and I think he likely will), putting the party back together is not going to be a matter of rallying the troops behind another Ken-doll candidate.
I do like the podcast. I usually don’t comment on podcasts because I listen later than most people.
Powerfully said. Thank you. Thank you.
I’m a #NeverTrump guy who loves the podcast. Keep up the good work.
I’m so tired of these puff pieces for Trump. I can’t believe they way you just glossed over his failings. And to compare him to an eight-year old is totally ridiculous. Three-year old, max.
I do. That was a terrible aspect of McCain’s record and conduct, and it wasn’t his only departure from conservative orthodoxy (if that term hasn’t become antique). But McCain is pretty conservative and I hope Republicans can keep control of the Senate as a brake on Hillary. Here’s his ACU rating from a few years back:https://votesmart.org/interest-group/1481/rating/5397#.V8H4A2VSpTc
Trump has not, and cannot kill conservatism. What kills conservatism are conservative politicians who will not use all the tools in their arsenal to stop the march of modern liberalism. There are two tools that the Republican House and Senate threw out the window: impeachment, and government shutdown via the purse. Once they took those off the table, they enabled Obama and the looney left to run rampant on our Constitution and rule of law. Trump has proven that elections might be more about electing politicians that can do the will of the voters, rather than politicians having our values (conservative or otherwise) but who lack the will to follow them.
I believe the left is in a similar position. Just look at Bernie Sanders’ supporters . . .
The will of the people. Trump is our voice. Sigh.
Thank you for this oasis of sanity in the current moral desert.
Trump hasn’t killed conservatism, he just backed his bulldozer over it a few times for good measure.
That’ll keep them stuck in the mud for the next 2 to 4 years. The media will just show David Duke reruns like a nostalgic ’90s throwback to tamp down conservative opposition to Clinton II’s Post-Western Agenda.
I think the conservative icons who presided over the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama Eras dropped the ball on warning voters of why a high-risk tempestuous candidate is not the way to go in this high-tension geopolitical climate… and against heavyhitters like the Washington-Clinton Pro League.
The Donald played right into Hillary’s strike zone sweet spot with his clumsy screeds.
Trump isn’t just tossing a slow underhand softball for Hillary to slug outta the thunderdome park… he’s the actual tee-ball Tee with the ball perched on his noggin and a corked Arkansas Slugger headed his way. The only surprise is that Clinton is not running away with it yet. It seems voters are running away from both distasteful ‘choices’.
Keep in mind, there’s many more shark jumping shoes to drop in the coming weeks & months… and Clinton n’ Trump are leaping them every other day. We don’t know what the collective fallout will be when the jumping sharks reach critical mass.
I agree with Mona and Jay that Bill Bennett’s charge of moral preening is particularly rich given the man’s own oeuvre and the characteristic faults that come from exhorting men to virtue.
However, there is also some truth to Bennett’s charge that Mona and Jay are less likely to discern given the fervor of their position. The truth lies in this: many #NeverTrumpers entered never-trumptitude without giving sufficient consideration of the possibility that, well, maybe Trump’s inchoate responses to certain questions were speaking to legitimate frustrations and grievances among the electorate–and that these frustrations and grievances were not going to be placated by rote repetition of GOP talking points.
This never-trumpitude arose so quickly and in so unified a way through some organs of the Republican party and conservative movement that it seemed more a class posture and less a reflection on the current state of the republic or the underlying reasons Trump might be succeeding (other than the common refrain of ignorance and prejudice…..likely to win a hearing among Trump supporters that!)
(consider this take on Trump’s rise based on Aristotle’s political science).
In so far as there is a coherence to Trump’s positions (and I am more than well aware that Trump has taken practically every side of every issue), it is in his diagnosis of our present situation:
(1) conviction that the rule of law in America is broken and works one way for the privileged and connected and another way for others;
(2) denying that the foreign policy of Bush’s Second Inaugural and of R2P are in the nation’s interest; belief that our national security strategy was not being executed competently.
(3) belief that there is unity between the elite strata of the two parties in favor of a de facto open borders arrangement for labor or amnesty with no serious intention for enforcement of existing laws.
(4) belief that as trade agreements are currently structured they are not good for some Americans–or that the net good of lower prices for higher quality goods does not supplant the human need to work and be valued for one’s work.
(5) rejection of the language of political correctness which either does not permit discussion of some topics or smears part of the electorate.
If #nevertrumpers are unwilling to give some thought to these kinds of points, and to give voters who hold opinions like these the time of day, is it any surprise they should be seen as out of touch and morally preening?
I think that you can agree with some of the things that Trump has said and still believe that Trump taints the causes he espouses with his over-the-top, divisive rhetoric. Moreover, Trump has been on every side of every question, so he’s bound to have said something about each question that we can agree with. Does that make him someone we want in the White House? I’m willing to be convinced that Trump is less bad, but arguing that opposing Trump is immoral is not going to get me there.
I agree. So too with his conspiracy theories about the Bush administration and 9/11, his inability to actually run a campaign, Trump university’s defrauding of its patrons, his various infidelities….and the list goes on and on about his undesirables. I don’t excuse anything Trump has said or done, nor do I think him a good man or a good candidate.
Moreover, as I’ve said since the beginning of this, it is deeply ironic to me that the wing of the party that had policies to address some of these deep domestic economic apprehensions–reform conservatives–won’t get a hearing on that part of their agenda from Trump supporters for other reasons.
What I am seeking (and its not only me seeking it) is less outrage at the possibility of Trump from #nevertrumpers and more introspection and reflection about how we got here and what the tectonic forces are in our politics that are making this possible.
Sounds reasonable. There have been a number of articles in National Review on dead tree about this very subject. Ramesh Ponnuru had one that I think you’d like.
See, that’s the thing. McCain and Trump are incredibly similar, both personally (narcissistic & self-righteous) and politically (McCain-Feingold above; unfortunately not unique)
Consideration of Trump should not be done in a vacuum. Most conservatives agree about Trump as to his character and lack of principles.
But we can’t afford moral preening. This podcast is the flip side of the Trump fan-boy squad.
Cuccinelli lost because the Republican party abandoned him as too extreme (as Mona once admitted, when she was honest.) The Goldilocks party is in for bad times.