The NeverTrumper Max Boot—and NeverTrumpers in general
I find NeverTrumpers interesting. Are they political changers, or political fail-to-changers? Are they virulent anti-Trumpers because of class and style objections, elitism, being part of the DC circle, desire to curry favor with liberal friends, or (as most of them claim) bedrock conservative principles?
No, this isn’t going to be an essay that goes into all that in depth. For now I’ll just say that I think it’s different for different NeverTrumpers.
For Max Boot, the subject of this piece, it appears to be connected with a deeper change from being on the right to being on what passes for the center these days. I never did read Boot too often even in his pre-Trump days, and I seldom read him now, but if that article I just linked gives a fair picture of him, it seems that he’s an example of that rarest of aves: a right-to-left changer (or rather, a conservative-to-middle changer).
I get the impression that the reasons for Boot’s change can be summed up as this: he never had a foundational conservatism rooted in one of the most basic conservative tenets of all, which is that humans are fallible and flawed. Boot appears to have been profoundly naive about that and remains so today. That is the constant within his personality that determines much of the rest.
For example [emphasis mine]:
Boot is ashamed not just of what conservatism has become under Trump, but of what he now realizes it has always been. Yes, Trump’s emergence on the political stage was the precipitating event that awakened Boot to his “naïve faith [his words, not mine] in the conservative movement and the American political system”; but the deeper truth is that the corrosion of conservativism has always been there. Max Boot, in reassessing his whole political outlook, is seeing his “consciousness raised.” He has just discovered that “modern conservatism is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance, isolationism, and know-nothingism.”
Let me pause for a moment to note that if any group is permeated by racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance, and know-nothingism (not isolationism, however)—as well as the desire to restrict liberty and a love of big government statism—it is the left. I will add that although I don’t think the right is “permeated” by those charactistics Boot lists, they certainly exist there. But nearly all political movements and groups (and certainly all groups which contain more than two or three adherants)—have elements of all those things.
It’s human nature. As Katherine Hepburn’s character said in “The African Queen”: “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.” But that Max Boot might have at one time thought that an entire group—conservatives—had succeeded in rising above human nature is rather puzzling. However, if someone was once that naive and misguided about a group, the fall from that sort of idealism can be quite hard. Boot appears to have taken it hard, anyway, and to have—as often happens—as a consequence swallowed much of the leftist line on what convervatives actually are: now he sees them as irredeemably racist and sexist.
If they’re not perfect, I guess they’re awful.
As I indicated, it’s not really Boot himself who interests me all that much. It’s Boot as an example of the much larger group of NeverTrumpers on the right, who in turn illustrate some even larger trends about how some people make up their minds about politics.
I also think that, for the people (and I count Boot among them) who previously were fairly prominent pundits on the right, there is an element of having gotten too deeply into Trump-hatred prior to the election, and finding it impossible to turn the ship around at this point. They made a choice and they’re sticking with it, and if they continue to do all they can to put Trump down than maybe they’ll contribute to his downfall and be able to say “I told you so.”
A commenter at that article has stated this premise quite well. I’ve long thought that something like this is operating for a great many prominent NeverTrumpers on the right, because it’s really difficult for most people to publicly admit having been wrong and to change their minds:
I think Boot’s biggest gripe…is that his candidate did not win the Republican nomination for the 2016 election . He despised Trump and, acting on the widely held belief that Hillary would win, staked out such a hateful position on Trump that with Hillary’s election, Boot could claim that he was prescient and entitled to a preferred place at the Conservative table. When Trump won, Boot had already boxed himself.
The more extreme the stance previously, the more boxed-in the pundit can become.
I say this as someone with a bit of experience on that score. I was very much against Trump the primary candidate, and wasn’t the least bit shy about saying so. But I always maintained that I was going on his previous record and his behavior while in the heat of the primary battle, and that as president he might act differently and he might pleasantly surprise me—and that if he did become president (something I did not think would happen) than I very much hoped I’d get that pleasant surprise. If so, I’d be happy to admit I’d been wrong.
And that’s the way it’s panned out.
But for most of the pundits who did not understand that Trump might turn out much better than they thought (and did not hope that he would), but who instead put all their eggs (and then some) in a “Trump is evil incarnate” basket, there is probably no turning back.
People like Boot have lived in a world of ideas without ever checking them against rthe real world or real people. The reason I treasure VDH is because his experience is so wide. He can test Greek philosophers against everyday farmers in California. Boot’s name will be forgotten in another year or two.
“Let me pause for a moment to note that if any group is permeated by racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance, and know-nothingism (not isolationism, however)—as well as the desire to restrict liberty and a love of big government statism—it is the left.” [Neo]
Pretty much sum up Leftism: lack of competence, over-abundance of hubris, and a total lack of self-awareness.
“say this as someone with a bit of experience on that score. I was very much against Trump the primary candidate, and wasn’t the least bit shy about saying so. . . . if he did become president (something I did not think would happen) than I very much hoped I’d get that pleasant surprise. If so, I’d be happy to admit I’d been wrong.” [Neo]
IMO, Neo, the big difference between your position and that of Max Boot, Bill Kristol, George Will, and Jonah Goldberg is that you don’t make your living as a nationally televised seeress on which your future ego and income are based. You’re willingness to admit an incorrect opinion is a testament to your dedication to the facts on the ground; Boot’s, Will’s (etc.) inability to do so is a testimony to their stratospheric egos and narcissism.
I actually think that Never-Trump stems from something else that is often hard for my close circle of conservative/republican friends to accept. The something else I speak of is the fake conservatism of GW Bush. I am a conservative independent (classical liberal really) and was appalled at Bush Jr.’s second term. I mentioned to a dear friend that although Bush called himself a Republican he certainly did not govern like one. His actions, I believe, are those of the progressive party rather than say a Regan Republican. I believe the never-Trumpers are the acolytes of GW Bush. They are the “compassionate conservatives” who embrace open borders, free trade (as they define it), forcible spreading of democracy to third world nations, and push the idea that “true Christians” are accepting of all lifestyles. I personally challenged my friend and stated that I didn’t believe that this was emblematic of conservatism/Regan Republicanism. I pointed out that if anything it was an amalgam of progressive postmodernism, sprinkled with some neocon foreign policy, and a dash of libertarianism. My friend disagreed and expressed a liking for the change while I longed for the pragmatic realism of what I believe true conservatism is; the return to the principles of the founders, the embrace of true capitalism, and the belief in individual freedom.
When George Will said that Supreme Court Justices didn’t matter, I figured that he was Bat Shit Crazy.
Eagerly, enthusiastically, fanatically, obsessively inventing, embracing and embellishing the narrative that the corrupt, despicable Trump—and the now-“corroded” GOP, which supposedly has been bewitched into blindly, slavishly, insanely following this purportedly revolting, crude, criminal, lying pied piper (though, curiously(?), the “blind” and “slavish” parts do seem to more accurately describe the liberal love affair with Obama et al.)—has destroyed the GOP (though, curiously(?) the “destroyed the GOP” part does seem to more accurately describe what Obama has done to the Democratic Party), Max Boot does not seem to want to realize, to see, to acknowledge, to admit—but rather seems to wish to resist acknowledging with all his might—that it is in fact the Democrats who are rotten, disgusting, thuggish and criminal—to the core.
Of course, for Boot, and those of his ilk, an anti-Liberal, anti-Constitutional, truth-trampling, justice-jettisoning, decency-shredding Party of howling thugs, depravedly devoted—with the relentless, enthusiastic support of a crazed, hysterically dishonest media—to the utter destruction of its political enemies, private citizens who have the “wrong” views (along with their families), and anyone it deems to be in the way of its acquisition of unopposed power, which it believes to be its unique birthright—is THE party that truly deserves his support.
What extraordinary delustions. What hysterical fantasies. What corrupt cogitations.
Fabulations ‘R Us, alas.
Kurt Schlichter has written often about the Never Trump Scum. His latest article:
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/06/10/ignore-the-never-trump-losers-who-are-ok-with-liberals-winning-n2547810
Given your trying to shoehorn meaning from one system (soviet) with stuff from another system….
your either going to have to start thinking soviet, or realize your thinking is broken
if trotsky is left, lenin and stalin centrists, and bukharin to the right.
what the hell has that to do with western civ?
its not even a western civ spectrum… its commnunism totalitarian up to communist totalitarian light with a dash of fascsm?
where is hitler? oh, to the right of bukharin!!
where is washington? to the right of bukharin..
if it was a number line… left would be -5… centrists would be zero point..
the right might make it to 15 on a scale of 1 to 100.. with total anarchy at 100
so the whole point is irrelevant messed up concepts being misapplied in an erudite simulation that lik emarxism seems like it should mean something.
but what does it mean? that if this was the soviet union he beame a most staunch soviet? it certainly doesnt mean that he moved from right to left?
in fact, if he say, thinks his communism is like swedens, then he isnt even on your spectrum… sweden is far right actually as they are not socialists, and are quite upset western feminists bill them as such!
there is no other right nad left
you use those terms your thinking in the broken way a soviet does
when you gonna realize that now that you think like a soviet
how far is it to bevome one? or have you become one cause you think like one?
you use their terms, but not the right way
you make feeble similar arbuments but ignore the history
your looking at a left right dynamic that never applied in the west
in our spectrum, no matter how muych you move one way or the other, yoru never supposed to end up in totalitarian land…
so NONE of your subjevts are on the spectrum you use
the spectrum of which kind of totalitarian you are to be and nothing else on it
bukharin was not about freedom
heck.. yhou might as well be a westerner trying to apply the kitcshe version of karma
or about as really erudite to people like me lik emadonna studying caballa
inanely silly and meaningless….
like when someone fakes knowlege… and no one else knows its faked
so. he mobed from repuiblivan totalitarians? to democrat totalitarians?
but neiuther are supposed to be that, and there is no specrum place for any of them
misapplied science or such sounds right, like for lysenko, but feeling is not validity
never trumpers want to be on the winnning side
ie. so theyh are playing both
they want to be free, but what if the revolution wins?
well, safer to do what than what?
Never having actually heard or seen Boot, I somehow picked up the idea that Boot, whose byline appeared in the Washington Post–was a smart fellow, someone to be listened to and heeded.
How this impression came my way, I don’t know, perhaps those of his ilk said he was a “smart fellow”–in any case, once I saw and heard a couple of his performances, I realized that he was a dolt.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, aka “JOLTS report“, lags behind monthly employment reports by a month as the ‘hires‘ and ‘quits‘ are contrast against available job openings.
In the latest JOLTS report we find evidence why the May employment numbers were less than expected. The data shows the economy is expanding; businesses are hiring; and the reason for lower new hires has nothing to do with an economic slow-down. In essence, the labor market is tight, very tight, and Main Street businesses are having a hard time finding qualified workers.
According to the BLS stats overall job hiring in April was 5.9 million. That’s the largest number of people hired in the history of the JOLTS record-keeping (started in 2000). There are 7.45 million current job openings and only 5.82 million workers identified as unemployed. That means there are 1.63 million more jobs than available workers.
This is a clear indication expanding economic conditions and a near ‘full-employment‘ position for the overall labor market. Additionally the quits rate is 2.3 percent, reflecting that workers are: (a) being recruited away from current employment to jump to other businesses; and (b) worker are confident about getting a job, and jumping into new jobs for higher wages/benefits. As a result, the strong ‘quits’ rate has historically been a precursor KPI for future wage growth stats.
they pick sides based on beliefs
not on knowlege, whnich is just naother belief
so, whether they are on left or right depends on what information they bathe in
OMG! A relatively sane—and concerned—Democrat!
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/russia-hoax-biggest-lie-ive-ever-seen-perpetrated-american-public-former-clinton-pollster-tells-levin/
(But will the NTs take any notice?)
Max has a day job at The Council on Foreign Relations.
He doesn’t want to get on the wrong (right) side of his employers.
I don’t think that right-to-left conversions are that rare. I can think of several. David Brock and Andrew Sullivan come to mind, although Sullivan was obviously always on the left or at least the center on gay rights. Richard Posner might be another, or at least he might be a right to center convert. Going back, Garry Wills moved right to left in a pretty big way.
I had tripped over Boot’s articles for a few decades, reading the occasional one that didn’t have a lame topic. I don’t recall ever being impressed with his writing or thinking.
A recent article that was slightly interesting was an apparent “farewell” article by Jonah Goldberg over at NR.
Some of the article is vague, but he does offer some examples for concreteness. I have to agree with him that populism and nationalism as primary standalone ideologies is not a good idea. Of course, he doesn’t consider that a little populism or nationalism or patriotism could be a useful and even positive as a secondary adjunct to a more complete conservative ideology.
Goldberg uses Neo’s favorite “A Man For All Seasons” movie clip not once, but twice if you follow through his links to old Goldberg articles.
I don’t get why this is such a puzzle. At the very least, the Never Trump position would fall under the “reasonable conservatives can disagree” umbrella. Here’s why.
The 3 pillars of modern conservatism are, in no particular order:
1. Anti-communism
2. Free-markets
3. Social conservatism
So for 1, Trump believes the USSR was right to invade Afghanistan. For Never Trumpers, this crosses a red line. Its tantamount to someone saying Hitler was right. For the rest of you, Trump either just misspoke or was doing his court jester bit. But that just speculation. How can you not understand an anti-communist being disgusted here/
For 2, we have his anti-free trade / globalization position, which is btw, related to #1. For a long time this was almost purely a leftist position, especially in the US…Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson are outliers.
Free-trade is one of the cornerstones of the post-soviet world that the US built. There’s a reason why Putin hates it. The US could point to the pacific rim and say look how prosperous you can be if you adapt American-style capitalism. Trump looks at such countries and sees America being ripped off.
Now you believe Trump’s position is a ruse, a bargaining chip. That’s a reasonable take. But its still speculative. The opposite take, that Trump genuinely despises free-trade, is also reasonable.
3 is a no-brainer. The guys a sex freak. He’s even said weird things about his own daughter. He’s called his porn-star mistress a “horseface” on twitter. That’s demented.
Now your position is that its merely personal. That’s a reasonable take. But how hard is it to understand those who find it so repulsive that it makes him unqualified?
Like neo, and thousands of others, I was deeply skeptical about Trump in the run up to November 2016. But considering that a victory for Clinton would be a disaster for the Republic, I voted for Trump without hesitation. That the nevertrump gang voted for Clinton tells me they were one and all were not as conservative as they pretended to be. They are denizens of the Beltway.
I have come to appreciate Trump, especially his efforts to keep to his campaign promises while facing the unprecedented onslaught of his legion of enemies.
“I was very much against Trump the primary candidate, and wasn’t the least bit shy about saying so. But I always maintained that I was going on his previous record and his behavior while in the heat of the primary battle, and that as president he might act differently and he might pleasantly surprise me—and that if he did become president (something I did not think would happen) than I very much hoped I’d get that pleasant surprise. If so, I’d be happy to admit I’d been wrong.” neo
“The 3 pillars of modern conservatism are, in no particular order:
1. Anti-communism
2. Free-markets
3. Social conservatism” manju
Thank you manju for providing demonstrable proof that you have no idea of what you proclaim.
As I well recall, that was neo’s consistent position. The difference between neo and the nT’s is, as commenter ‘lightning’ points out, entirely a matter of ego.
Just to be clear, Ive voted for Trump for the same reason Parker did, so Im not a never-ever Trumper. Just wished he had matured in office, but so much for that.
It’s OK to be critical of Trump when he acts like a buffoon. It really is.
“…reasonable conservatives…”
What’s that you say?
That Trump ain’t perfect? Ain’t the epitome of Conservatism? Ain’t a gentleman? Ain’t even a decent human being?
AND that ERGO it is “REASONABLE” to keep Hillary and the Democratic Mafia in power for another four or eight more years?
Churchill said that Democracy is a really lousy system of governance. But he was wise enough not to conclude that the ONLY reasonable thing to do was get rid of it and install something else in its place.
The guy I’m curious about is Ralph Peters. He’s a retied lieutenant colonel turned political commentator — a gung-ho, take-no-prisoners guy, strong for the Iraq War. Fox News suspended him for two weeks because he called Obama a “total pussy.”
One might have thought he would be a natural Trump supporter. But no. He resigned from Fox News last year saying:
Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.
I don’t watch Fox News, so I only knew Peters from links bloggers put up. I don’t know the evolution of his views on Trump, but Peters is dead-set against Trump as some absolute enemy of America and continues to rave about it.
Curious.
Huxley, I surmise that Peters bought the Russia collusion fable wholesale, (does still so far as I know though I haven’t heard or read of him for many months now) and mostly on that basis worked himself into a froth from which he has yet to extricate. There may be somewhat more to it, but that’s the gist.
I never cared for Boot; and this does not surprise me. He is Conservativism, Inc. to the core; a wannabe courtier. I doubt he has many core principles; he seeks attention, influence and prestige. He’ll get none of the above from Trump or anyone in today’s GOP outside of the beltway. He’ll get much more by denouncing Trump ad infinitum, and reiterating that, thanks to Trump, he is now “woke”
Expect a book to be forthcoming, followed by a book tour and other speaking engagements at various left leaning outlets.
Good riddance to bad rubbish
y81:
Actually, right-to-left converts are very rare past the age of 30 or so. For younger people they are quite common.
“Rare” doesn’t mean that the number is zero, however. Of course there are examples. I don’t think Sullivan is one, however. He never was a conservative—especially a social conservative—-and he still isn’t, and gay marriage was a big issue for him. He went nuts on the Palin pregnancy thing, also. But he still is kind of similar to before on the main issues that are not primarily social issues—he’s neither fully on the right nor on the left.
As far as Brock goes, he is a figure who never had any conservative points of view; he was and remains an opportunist interested in his own career. I read his book about his political conversion long ago, and was struck by how little he actually cared about the principles behind conservatism or any other stance. It was about personalities for him and about his own striving towards fame and his attraction to controversy.
T:
I agree that they make much more money and have much more fame than I do. But I don’t think that’s the big difference.
All they had to do was say initially something like what I said: that they’re basing their opinion on Trump so far, and that of course Trump might surprise them, and that if he is somehow elected and turns out better than they fear, they would be happy, not sad. And then keep evaluating him in real time, as things emerge. That way, there is much less ego involved in changing one’s opinion. And paradoxically, changing one’s opinion under those circumstances can actually garner respect. Who respects someone who sticks to an outdated opinion in the face of evidence to the contrary? I think they have become near laughingstocks in their bulldoggish clinging to their original opinions.
Of course, I don’t know whether their bank accounts have grown as a result of what they’re doing now. Maybe they have. And maybe the “right” people respect them. But it seems to me that at this point no one respects them, really. The left does not embrace them, although it uses them. And the right hates them.
parker on June 10, 2019 at 6:10 pm said:
…That the nevertrump gang voted for Clinton tells me they were one and all were not as conservative as they pretended to be. They are denizens of the Beltway.
* * *
Sounds like nobody really knows what conservatism is comprised of, except that no one candidate can ever have policies that totally live up to each voter’s expectations.
However, there is a big difference in disagreeing with a candidate’s ideology or ethical standards, and actively supporting the other party’s candidate, whose policies don’t agree with ANY conservative expectations.
And who is just as ethically challenged to boot.
Disputations during the primaries are one thing; disloyalty (not just abstention) in the general election — and for such a bad reason — is something quite different.
I never paid much attention to Max Boot, but my impression is that he was mostly known as a pundit on matters of the military/defense. Am I correct? I can easily imagine a person who is strong on national defense but thoroughly Progressive on domestic issues.
lightning on June 10, 2019 at 3:52 pm said:
I actually think that Never-Trump stems from something else that is often hard for my close circle of conservative/republican friends to accept. The something else I speak of is the fake conservatism of GW Bush. I am a conservative independent (classical liberal really) and was appalled at Bush Jr.’s second term. I mentioned to a dear friend that although Bush called himself a Republican he certainly did not govern like one. His actions, I believe, are those of the progressive party rather than say a Regan Republican. I believe the never-Trumpers are the acolytes of GW Bush….My friend disagreed and expressed a liking for the change while I longed for the pragmatic realism of what I believe true conservatism is; the return to the principles of the founders, the embrace of true capitalism, and the belief in individual freedom.
* * *
There is something in that idea, although I don’t believe the Bushes themselves thought they were “fake”; they just were never true conservatives, and ended up on that team for historical reasons — as with many other Republicans who went with the GOP for the reasons Manju gave*, in the same way that many people who habitually vote Democrat are really in personal life quite conservative.
I agree mostly with lightning’s three characteristics, and I don’t think President Trump is all the way there yet, but he is closer BY FAR than any possible candidate from the Democrats, and they are going further and further away.
*
These may have been the 3 pillars of the modern Republican party, but they are not the historical roots.** Rather, they are an artifact of the 20th-century historical situation, grafted into the Conservative tree because the Left did not have a place for anyone who believed in them.
**#3 might generate some discussion, but uprooting slavery was not very socially conservative, and for most of US history, the non-Republicans did not differ in the areas we now argue about, particularly sexual relationships and marriage.
Barry Meislin on June 10, 2019 at 4:54 pm said:
OMG! A relatively sane—and concerned—Democrat!
* * *
Penn has been advising caution about Russiagate for some time now.
Sadly, this observation of his is, for the Democrats, a feature — not a bug.
Sullivan was one of the bloggers who informed my turn to the right. He seemed a lucid, principled writer, quite articulate. I was shocked the way he turned on conservatism, mostly because of gay marriage from what I could tell. Though I considered it might be a shrewd move to paying gigs, as well as staying in good with the gay community.
I’m sure Sullivan is making much better money now than if he remained a gay semi-conservative blogger.
After his hagiographic writings on Obama and his sick conspiracy mongering on Palin, I can’t take him seriously as an honest intellectual or Christian, though occasionally I read his New York column and think, not bad.
I believe we owe the rehabilitation of the word, gobsmacked, in conservative discourse to Andrew Sullivan. It’s a legacy.
The author at the post Neo linked aptly summarizes in his final paragraphs what seems to be the position of the not-never-Trumpers, who did not particularly want The Donald to be President, but are not morally defective for choosing him over Hillary. Plus, he recommends the same intellectual process that Neo described in her reply to T above: “And then keep evaluating him in real time, as things emerge.”
*The synopsis of Boot’s book sounds to me more like he “discovered” that a lot of people on the Left believed, or at least asserted, that huge numbers of conservatives were — let me think — oh yeah, deplorable — as opposed to actually going out on his own and getting to know them.
As the election in 2016 firmed up with the final candidates, Hillary and Trump (how the hell did he get here) a lot of us on the right said, “Ok, not really my choice but this asshole is not Hillary and we might get a new conservative supreme if we vote for him, good enough, let’s go!” It was that simple, Trump was never a great conservative choice for president but he’s our president and “I have grown accustomed to his face.”
That’s it, every day with goofy, asshole Trump is a day without Hillary and he has actually way outperformed my expectations, good enough and reBoot Trump in 2020.
It never occurred to me when I was young to wonder how the writers I liked were paying their bills. Later I read biographies of some of them and discovered that unless they had jobs with schools or magazines or independent wealth, it’s a tough gig to support yourself freelance.
They worried about money a lot. They worked hard touring and promoting as well as coming up with their material. They had to keep an eye on the markets and try to catch the next wave.
Which is to say, it’s a legitimate to ask how many public Never-Trumpers were making career bets.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair
Re Ralph Peters. He was on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” in March, shortly after Trump made some bad comments about John McCain, and said this:
“John McCain was, and in our hearts remains, the man Trump could never be. And Trump knows it. It’s a classic case of male fears of an inadequacy. It goes along perfectly with his lifelong obsession with having a woman on his arm to look like teenage boys’ fantasies. He wants to show us all how tough he is. But he’s not tough. He’s a draft dodger and he appears to be a fiscal coward with a big mouth.”
His animus toward Trump seems to have a very personal edge to it, as well as a political one.
And John McCain was never the politician that conservatives hoped he would be. Senator McCain never seemed to do what was needed, beyond keeping his “maverick” cred polished. RIP.
sdferr, Ann: Thanks for the info. I liked Ralph Peters and his blunt, no-nonsense style. It mystified me when I went so anti-Trump.
I get why people are put off by Trump. I don’t read his Twitter stream because even when I agree, I don’t like the nastiness. But Trump has proved himself to my satisfaction to be a shrewd, strategic player.
If he truly was the unmoored, quasi-sociopath one might assume from his tweets and his checkered history, we would be in big trouble by now.
OldTexan: the 500 day count is a little out of date, but the sentiment is ever fresh.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3cde61f20030c61302e7b9e67719358281c75b0555afbe4a07bc51bb3334085f.jpg
Trump is richer, more famous, more successful, and has banged more beautiful women than all of the NeverTrump conservatives put together. But they could console themselves that they were never really competing with him. They could imagine they were smarter and more sophisticated than this clown who could never make the grade in their elevated world.
Then Trump entered their world and beat their asses.
Think of the thing you are best at. Now think of the most detestable idiot in the world proving he’s better at it than you. That kind of ego-shattering hell either breaks you or makes you stronger. It’s pretty clear which happened to the NeverTrumpers.
Mike
Like many converts to Trumpism, NeverTrumpers couldn’t get Trump early on. He’s a difficult read. Unlike the converts who adapted and learned to focus on the bottom line, NeverTrumpers got their knickers in a bunch right off the bat and kept them that way by ironing them in a bunched configuration with spray starch.
The poor dears are in a state of self-imposed discomfort. Meanwhile, Trump wins. That’s all he does. He wins, and wins, and wins.
“Let me pause for a moment to note that if any group is permeated by racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance, and know-nothingism (not isolationism, however)—as well as the desire to restrict liberty and a love of big government statism—it is the left..” — Neo
And even their co-leftists aren’t pure enough.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/333011/
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Twitter Turns On An Editor Who’s Already Woke.
quoting from
https://www.nysun.com/national/twitter-turns-on-an-editor-whos-already-woke/90723/
That’s quite principled of you to be so forthright about it.
On the one hand, while it’s all there in your archives which are accessible to anyone wishing to look, many would try to skate past any such reminders.
But then on the other hand since you did generally strive to be temperate in tone while offering offsetting provisos, you probably don’t have much to be embarrassed about in the prognostication department.
I went through and reread and even downloaded several of those threads.
Though I get the impression that at the time you thought some of the exchanges over the issue of weighing the alternatives and the probable outcomes were a bit too filled with animus, in retrospect I don’t think that they read badly at all: Certainly not compared to much other public comment.
Perhaps in the intervening years the intensity of the emotions of the time have faded and the outcomes proved somewhat gratifying … for all but the never Trumpers and the Democrats of course.
More action from people that Max would never accuse of being bigoted or mean, hmmm? Via Instapundit:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/christian-baker-jack-phillips-is-being-sued-again/
Will They Ever Leave Him Alone? Christian Baker Jack Phillips Is Being Sued—Again
BY JIM TREACHER JUNE 10, 2019
*Treacher links background data here
https://denver.cbslocal.com/2019/06/06/discrimination-lawsuit-lakewood-jack-phillips-masterpiece-cakeshop/
Yes, it was that people like Boot spent all of the Summer and Fall of 2016 telling everyone that would listen that, not only would Trump lose, but they would be rubbing it Trump supporters faces by saying, “I told you so.”
There is a commenter over at Althouse who did exactly this for the six months leading into the election- he goes by “Chuck” with a capital C. I mean, he literally wrote that he was going to rub Trump’s loss in everyone’s faces, and when it didn’t happen the way he predicted, he just doubled down- literally couldn’t admit that he had misjudged the election.
My mantra during the election was that there were three reasons to vote for Trump:
HC-he wasn’t Hillary Clinton.
SC-he would appoint better Supreme Court candidates than any Democrat.
PC-he’d be a great counterpunch to political correctness.
All of those things turned out to be true, but the battle is not over on any of them.
Trump has done better than I ever thought he would on most issues. His position on lowering corporate tax rates to internationally competitive levels, flattening marginal tax rates for individuals, and reducing the regulatory chokehold are admirable.
I find his ideas about international trade incomprehensible, but to the extent I understand them, they seem wrong.
He is vulgar, but he fights. I note that he mostly counter-attacks people who have attacked him. GHWB, GWB, and Romney wouldn’t do that. McCain was erratic and made a career out of sucker-punching his friends to the applause of his enemies–it was not a good look.
Trump is raw, energetic, and ambitious. He is at heart a huckster, and he has taken on promoting the American dream–if you work hard, you can better your condition. He appeals to strivers from the outer boroughs and from across the country–the people who want to work hard to get ahead in their lives. He pushes the same buttons that Reagan did for those folks.
I have always admired George Will and Bret Stephens, and to a lesser extent, Jonah Goldberg. I cannot understand their deep antipathy to Trump.
On to 2020. The forces of darkness are on TV and cable and the internet. They are clear about what they want.
Are we clear about what we want?
I think this goes with the psychological science of Changers.
Ideologies are often a collection of beliefs and understandings, but those beliefs aren’t always shared. Within this ideology, we have a peer group with whom we commune and re-inforce our ideology.
Neo, I’ll classify you as a Type 1 Changer (Forgive me if I make assumptions based on what I recall of the history you’ve shared). Type 1’s agree with most or all of an ideology’s tenets, until one day something happens which severely challenges one of those tenets. Or perhaps an event brings to the forfront a pre-existing tenet which they did not agree with. The Type 1 Changer then does extensive research and soul-searching trying to find the difference between what they now see and what their peer group believes. But the peer group is intolerant of outside views and as soon as the Changer begins asking hard questions (which any ideology will have) the peer group begins to exorcise them. Instead of warm re-assurance, the Changer meets all the bristly barbs they thought were reserved for the “bad people”. Suddenly, the Changer finds themselves on the outside and begins looking for a new peer group with which to commune.
Then there’s a Type 2 Changer. A Type 2 Changer isn’t an ideologue. They are primarily there for the peer group. They hang out with the cool kids. They never have really agreed with any tenets. They just agreed with the cool kids and repeated and copied. Over time, their lives and careers change, they associate with new people, and meet a few new friends now and then. One day, the friends they hang out with are just completely different friends. They still hang out with the cool kids, but the cool kids are different kids. You could say that the Type 2 Changer never changed ideology – they never really had one to begin with.
A Type 2 Changer might represent the symptoms you describe – Someone who sees no fault in their peer group, who never challenges the peer group’s philosophy, but one day finds their former peer group to be imbicile and cruel.
I think it would be very difficult for a Type 1 Changer to look back on their former peers and see them as cruel or evil. They would typically see them as blind or ignorant. They would say “They were wrong, as I was once wrong” because they understand the reasons for their present and former beliefs. But a Type 2 Changer never understood the reasons for their beliefs in the first place, and so opposing opinions are easy to classify as unreasoning evil rather than misguided zeal.
I liked Cruz/Fiorina…but the Establishment wasn’t going to excite those who… thought that the Establishment was the problem.
I use to really like George Will and Bill Kristol. Now I can’t stand them.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
—R.W. Emerson
Maybe one should feel sorry for Boot, who for all his virtue signaling is just another sick Trump-hater?
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/leftism-makes-people-meaner-reflections-on-the-torture-of-paul-manafort/
Or maybe not.
Or perhaps Boot is himself a victim—oh, that poor man!—of his seemingly uncontrollable tendency towards what Victor Davis Hanson calls: “rank Trump hatred”….
(In: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/fbi-tragedy-elites-above-law/ )
The prominent Never Trumpers like Boot and George Will, Bill Kristol, etc. are trapped because Trump has shown through his election that the conservative ideology of free trade and fiscal responsibility don’t really matter to the average Republican voter. It was the electorate that disengaged from conservative orthodoxy leaving Will and his principles to the dust bin of history.
While you give Trump credit for achieving results you deem desirable, such as supporting Israel, advancing economic nationalism, shoring up our military, rolling back regulations, and pumping up the economy with a huge business tax cut, you seem blind to the fact these things would have been objectives of Scoop Jackson Democrats in an earlier era. Trump’s whole focus is on bringing back manufacturing and other jobs lost to globalism in an effort to benefit the working class and unions. Put on your glasses and look at the people who attend his rallies.
As a confirmed Never Trumper, I have no illusions about the man. I don’t constantly rationalize his boorish behavior like Victor Davis Hanson does, but then Hanson is an old Democrat Populist since his youth when he recited William Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech. If I vote for Trump next year it will because of his judicial appointments and his support of the 2nd Amendment, and because I have nowhere else to go.
Maybe Boot is a right-to-left changer as you think, or just maybe you’re showing your own roots Neo, as you backtrack and kid yourself.
I have, on a slow afternoon, taken the time to re-read the history of my posts on this forum. I found it to be a worthwhile experience and would suggest that all of the regulars here take a moment from time to time to do just that: review their own posts over a period of years, watching their ideas develop and change. This is a good forum for that. There’s a consistent crowd of well-informed, polite people who engage in good exchanges – the sort of atmosphere that brings out the best in written discourse.
Speaking for myself, I was a stark “changer” on the subject of Trump. In the spring of 2016, I was an outspoken opponent of Trump; I even registered Republican again so I could vote against him in our local primary, having previously been registered as Independent. I wrote posts here on this very forum that could have been written by NeverTrumpers: about how, if nominated, he stood no chance and would ruin the Republican party, etc. The difference is that once it was locked in as a choice between Trump and Clinton, I did the math and knew that it was a 100% chance that a Clinton presidency would be bad for me, the people in my life, and the things that I value, while there was something less than a 100% chance that a Trump presidency would be bad for me. It was also evident that anything other than a vote for Trump was a vote for Clinton. I grudgingly voted Trump, like many here, as a not-Hillary vote in hopes of avoiding another four years of far-left liberal hell. I was on the record as an anti-Trumper but not necessarily as a never-Trumper. I wanted to be pleasantly surprised.
It was right about the time of the “pussy grabbing” incident that I first found myself defending Trump. The particulars of that particular matter aside – in which I found myself even fighting against our gracious host – I found that my attitudes were taking the first steps in a shift from purely “not-Hillary” to “pro-Trump”. I was outraged that they were taking a trivial, private conversation of years before, typical of what happens between many guys when they don’t think their wives, mothers or broadcast news is listening, and trying to pretend it was something that it was not. (Not to restart that fight, but let’s just face the facts: rich, powerful men are surrounded by women who will gladly do anything* to get what they want from that man. * “anything” being defined as what that woman will entertain doing, which almost certainly includes ordinary sex acts.) It started what came to be a familiar pattern: attack Trump on made-up cr@p.
In retrospect, it seems to me that one of the divides came between the purist contingent and the rest of us. Remember them? They were the ones who thought we lost in 2012 because we weren’t conservative enough, and were certain that if you blew up the Republican Party, it would magically rebuild itself from the ashes as a perfect representation of conservative purity. (They also tended to believe, even more magically, that if you could break the country circa 2016 it would reform as some kind of original-values paradise, which of course is asinine.) They were the ones who threatened to vote for leftists “to show” the bad old GOP how annoyed they were, or if a given candidate didn’t perfectly match their belief set, as in, “Candidate Smith (R) is squishy on (fill in pet subject here), so I’m going to vote for Candidate Jones (D) (whose platform is 100% diametrically opposed to everything I stand for).” Trump is definitely not the candidate of the purists’ dreams so it’s easy to see how he went afoul of that group, which is foot-shootingly obstinate to begin with.
But it highlights what seems to me to be a critical difference between hard right and hard left of our times. A lot of hard rightists are purists. On the other hand, the far left seems to evolve organically, twisting and jumping to make new victim groups at the direct expense of existing ones. At any given moment, its platform is likely to be inconsistent with what it was last week and makes no sense today, but it’s a group that’s all about the feelz and the “shoulds” and stated intent (vs obvious outcome) rather than about logic or reality. I’m sure there are lefty purists, but it has to be a challenge.
RE: Russ Falconer: “I think Boot’s biggest gripe (and I think it no more than that) is that his candidate did not win the Republican nomination …”
This comment is very close. Max Boot, like many in the GOP establishment, cannot stand President Trump’s position against the Iraq war (SC primary debate). That was sacrilege — especially to Boot. He has been huge advocate for endless wars.
KyndyllG, about your final paragraph, in particular concerning apparent leftist inconsistencies — those seeming contradictions melt away so long as we bear in mind that the will to power alone is the principle. Power is the aim. Solely power. So no piffling rhetorical contradiction can be amiss when deployed for the proper end: power.
If I recall correctly, there was a study which differentiated between left-progressive and right-conservative personalities in terms of various “dimensions” of moral reasoning.
The left-progressive types were focused almost exclusively on fairness as judged by equality of outcome. Various other dimensions of moral reasoning were largely ignored.
The right-conservative types had a broader set of moral criteria including such notions as purity, respect for authority, and maintenance of traditional norms.
I think some of those dynamics are at play with the NeverTrump crowd. The question is not, “Why did they suddenly shift left?” so much as “What was it that initially caused them to identify as right-of-center?”
The answer to that second question varies from person-to-person, but I suspect that the most wild-eyed NeverTrump-ers are those who, at a gut level….
1. …assure themselves of their own moral acceptability by identifying with the most morally-acceptable party or movement;
2. …are most prone to adjudicate moral acceptability by standards of purity and the maintaining of traditional norms; and,
3. …are most prone to believing in America’s “civic religion” with the kind of emotional attachments that orthodox Christians and Jews associate with their actual religions.
Now persons who match the above 3 criteria would easily find a home on the conservative right, prior to Donald Trump. After all, the conservative right had the moral dignity associated with holding higher moral standards for officeholders (compare and contrast the Dems’ treatment of Ilhan Omar with the GOP ousting of Trent Lott over significantly smaller offenses). The conservative right was associated with treating the Oval Office as a quasi-holy-place (Reagan would always put on a tie) whereas the Clinton administration, uh, treated the Oval Office with somewhat less sanctity. And for 50 years now leftists have been associated with glassy-eyed hippies, bombthrowers, the kind of people who throw buckets of urine or blood at a public figure…. It’s easy to see how persons whose “wiring” inclined them to emphasize certain moral dimensions would naturally gravitate to a sort of respectable, academic, right-conservatism.
But it’s also easy to see that Donald Trump is spectacularly “impure” and defies the norms associated with the dignity of the presidency, by the standards of such an observer.
Take, for example, Trump’s philandering. Prior presidents have been divorced or philanderers. But the really obnoxious ones (The Kennedys, Clinton, Johnson) have tended to be Democrats. The GOP seemed relatively pure and decent.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think Max Boot is offended by the impurity of Trump’s adultery. I think he’s offended by the impurity of having a prominent defier of norms in the Oval Office, and associated with (what was) his political party, his political movement. It needn’t have been adultery. It probably wasn’t just the adultery. The chav-ishness of putting ketchup on steak, the brawling Springer-esque Tweets, probably counted against Trump twice as much.
Also, I don’t think most NeverTrump-ers “bought” the Flight 93 Election interpretation. They saw this as just another election, not a last-ditch effort to forestall the loss of the Republic. They haughtily sneered at anyone who took the latter view.
So, in my view, the NeverTrump position was likely to grab anyone whose moral sensibilities emphasized certain dimensions, who previously associated flaws in those dimensions with the Left, and now was suddenly compelled to associate them instead with Trump.
Those folks reacted with horror at the impure invasion of their civic religion.
Most of them had no strong religious orthodoxy outside that civic religion, and thus had no other independent source for feelings of their own moral acceptability.
And most of them did not think that the 2016 was an urgent enough matter to take unusual risks.
Thus, they flipped from right to left as soon as Trump became the most prominent personality on the right. They changed their surface-level political affiliation, but they kept their functional religion and their moral sentiments intact.
That’s my theory.
Comments? Did I miss anything?
R.C.:
I think you’re onto something for at least some NeverTrumpers. Simply put, I think they don’t want to dirty their hands with Trump. They see supporting Trump as an “end justifies the means” move.
The Other Chuck:
I don’t know in what way I’m supposedly kidding myself (your words), or how it would show my “roots” (your word again) if I was kidding myself.
In the post I clarified that I don’t think Boot is a right-to-left changer in that he really isn’t on the left right now. But I think he’s moved more to the middle, which is what I said in this post. I also said I have read very little of his writings, so I’m relying pretty much solely on this one article. Obviously, I’m not “fooling myself” about Boot, since I admit that what I say here about him is based on very incomplete knowledge.
I also wrote, in the first paragraph of the post: “Are [NeverTrumpers] political changers, or political fail-to-changers?” That means that it’s not clear whether their change of politics is a fundamental one or even a change at all.
Also, this post—as I also said—isn’t really about Boot himself. He’s just a jumping-off place for a discussion about NeverTrumpers in general.
Mary Max, the wife of world-renowned psychedelic artist Peter Max, killed herself in her Upper West Side apartment over the weekend, police said Monday.
That’s interesting. Democrats supporting tax cuts? Our memories tend to be short, but they have supported tax cuts in the past, sort of. See here and here. Some of those cuts are Keynesian and only reduce taxes for below middle income earners.
I see the business tax cuts as reducing the throttling of our businesses. Not that this was the original intent of our corp. taxes. It’s just that we’ve been unresponsive to business realities while the rest of the developed world got a clue and acted.
The suggestion that Trump’s whole effort is to appeal to manufacturing laborers and union, smacks of zero-sum thinking. If a manufacturing economy gets better, don’t the owners, managers/operators of that manufacturing benefit also? Even the investment-finance people can make a little cash directing people into that rising tide.
While tariffs primarily help manufacturing and materials businesses, the corp. tax cuts impact the entire economy.
The Other Chuck is stuck in the primaries of 2016, as if nothing has happened since then and the actions of the opposition (Democrats and NeverTrumpers do not matter). Don’t complain about Neo’s glasses when you have misplaced your white cane.
Watch out for “purists”.
Be especially careful with “perfectionists”.
(One might wish these people would just grow up….and take a look around them…)
Maybe the more pragmatic (if that’s not a four-letter word) people to the right (or tending toward the right) of center and deeply concerned with the sheer lawlessness, dishonesty and abuses of the Democratic Party—now that “Operation Crossfire Hurricane” seems to have been neutralized (though not without causing tons of damage)—should, in preparation for the upcoming battle royal in 2020, mount “Operation You Can’t Always Get What You Want”….
huxley on June 10, 2019 at 8:41 pm
I like this comment and quote. While creative writing is an entirely different bailiwick than commentary, I am reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his efforts to make some cash in Hollywood, as chronicled by Sheilah Graham.
Three or four films were made from his scripts but only one had his name on it, at the time. He was paid a stipend for his “pages” but was largely screwed out of his credit and financial reward. The advent of the screen-writers guild was desperately needed.
Another weird and 1-in-a-billion story was how Charles Bukowski became published and a paid writer.
Consider the possible dynamic between Max Boot and his father, Alexander Boot.
http://www.alexanderboot.com/
I recall being impressed and influenced by the “Flight 93 Election” essay from September 2016, which received mixed reviews here (IIRC) and elsewhere. I just read it again and still think it was apt….
“2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees. Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.”…
I think we’ve spun pretty damned lucky (so far).
You can read the whole thing (again) here:
https://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/
The Other Chuck:
You write:
So what? I fail to see your point. Are you saying that a conservative or someone on the right can’t support a principle or policy that used to be championed by a moderate in the Democratic Party?
Jackson, by the way, was very pro-union, and although Trump is very pro-working-class, I don’t see him as pro-union (see this, for example). Otherwise, the things you list there are now in the province of conservatives, and there are almost no “Scoop Jackson liberals” left among Democratic office-holders on the national level.
I am reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his efforts to make some cash in Hollywood, as chronicled by Sheilah Graham.
TommyJay: If you haven’t read Fitzgerald’s “Pat Hobby” stories, I recommend them. Pat Hobby is an older, semi-washed-up screenwriter, who can still manage to get a few jobs and perform them in semi-washed-up way with small, cynical adventures in the process. I find the stories quite funny, if a bit painful, but few people seem to know of them.
Aldous Huxley (of all people) thought he could move to LA and live comfortably writing for Hollywood. Not exactly. He did write the screenplay for “Pride and Prejudice” though. He lost his house and all his possessions in a big 1961 fire, when he and his wife lived in Beechwood Canyon below the iconic “HOLLYWOOD” sign.
Professor Jon Haidt’s theory of moral foundations and “tastes”. https://moralfoundations.org/
As his research has evolved he has included a “liberty” taste [“reactance” I think it is] to account for libertarian leaning sensibilities, and has observed that a “fairness” dimension or interest can be attributed to conservatives and libertarians as well as to liberals.
The difference is that for a conservative “fair” means a proportionate return to the producer of the benefit his efforts have generated; whereas “fair” to a modern liberal, means more or less, merely equal.
So it was good to see him expand and refine his theory.
Now as for your civic religion observation, I think that that is a very acute and powerful insight … and not just because the same has occurred to me. But yeah, there is a kind of messianic enthusiasm on the part of some people who I guess you could call conservatives. Though they remind me of “civic republicans” as much as anything else.
But yeah, there is a kind of messianic enthusiasm on the part of some people who I guess you could call conservatives. — DNW</I.
I'm not sure how much of factor it might be with Never-Trumpers, but the abuse heaped down upon them by overbearing Trumpers during 2016 was unpleasant to see. I experienced a bit of it myself and didn't care for it all. It was the icing on the cake for my refusal to vote for Trump.
Everyone is responsible for their choices and all that, but I can well imagine such abuse plays a part in current Never-Trumpism.
huxley:
Indeed, there was a lot of nasty stuff directed from Trump supporters to anyone who was not a Trump supporter even during the primaries, when it wasn’t yet just Hillary vs. Trump.
I experienced quite a bit of it here. And it’s still going on, actually. On certain other blogs there are some commenters who continue to trash me, representing me as a NeverTrumper and spreading falsehoods about what I said then and about what I say now. It’s annoying. But that’s the depth of their rage.
Lightning and several others have pointed out that Boot’s democracy-spreading-if necessary-by-force and free trade policy preferences are most of the impetus that caused him to become a Never-Trumper. I agree.
As a fellow JFK-style democracy-spreader, I can understand where Boot’s coming from. However, I can also see that we have screwed up virtually every attempt we have made in that effort since the Korean War. While my response to that reality would be, “If only we had smarter people running things, it would work, let’s try again,” I can certainly understand Trump’s position that “It will never work, let’s stop trying,” and I can’t say that he’s unequivocally wrong.
Boot obviously can’t see that as a valid point of view. It’s an attack on the very core of his being. With respect to free trade, I am a 100% supporter of free trade. As somebody said, “Free trade, it’s a great idea. When do we start?” I’m not willing to pretend that free trade actually exists now, which Boot obviously is.
As for Ralph Peters, I think Trump’s horrible comment about John McCain is what drove him to Never-Trumpdom. Peters was career Army — to him, such a comment was totally unacceptable. If Trump had said, “Sure, he was a hero in Vietnam, but he’s been a loser in the Senate,” I don’t think Peters (and a lot of others) would ever have become Never-Trumpers.
The rest of the reasons Boot and Peters append to their new philosophy, IMHO, are nothing but selective perception to support their core beliefs.
Neo says:
I fail to see your point. Are you saying that a conservative or someone on the right can’t support a principle or policy that used to be championed by a moderate in the Democratic Party?
I’m saying that what used to be bedrock conservative principles like free trade and fiscal prudence have been thrown to the wind. Trump is Pat Buchanan without the anti-semitism. No domestic or foreign policy objective escapes his tariffs. Trump’s economic advisor and main negotiator on trade is Democrat Peter Navarro, a man who ran for Congress as a no-growth, carbon tax supporting liberal. (Prediction: if Trump is re-elected we’ll have either a huge increase in gas taxes, or a nationwide carbon tax to support his infrastructure boondoggle.) The Republican Party has morphed into a kind of moderate Democrat leaning institution, and you seem to have no problem with it?
Trump cajoles and threatens Powell to force monetary stimulus with lower interest rates because most of his economic policies rest on deficit financing, something that was anathema to conservatives. Who is paying for those business tax cuts? Future generations.
I’m no elitist, style over substance insider. But certain fundamental economic and business principles have been abandoned for short term gain. Foreign alliances with long standing friends have been trashed if not completely negated.
What Reagan said about the Democratic Party leaving him, is exactly how I feel about the Republican Party. I suspect Boot, Will, and the others feel the same way. You, and most of the people posting here have adjusted.
Will’s new book looks interesting.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/09/the-conservative-sensibility-review-george-will-trump
The Other Chuck:
The Republican Party left you long long ago, if that’s what you’re looking for. That has nothing to do with Trump.
And I have a lot of problems with a lot of things that both parties advocate. But I am a realist, and the horse has left the barn on certain things.
The last Republican president who showed fiscal prudence was Calvin Coolidge. The entitlement state came into being after that, like it or not, and the electorate rejected fiscal prudence. Probably forever.
As best I can recall, Barry Goldwater was probably the last Republican nominee who advocated fiscal prudence. He got trounced.
“The Republican Party has morphed into a kind of moderate Democrat leaning institution…”
Except for slashing regulation…and appointing conservative judges…and abortion…and Iran…and immigration…and China…and NATO…and…well, I’m sure everybody besides Chuck gets the point.
Trump hatred in one respect is really symbolized by trade. Trump is not against “free trade.” The man’s been a freakin’ international businessman. The idea that Trump is somehow opposed to trade or some sort of committed rent-seeker is ridiculous.
What Trump does is look at trade policies and evaluates them on whether or not they benefit the United States, not on how closely they conform to some Platonic idea.
To me, the problem with “free traders” is emblemized by the whole non-debate over TPP. Remember that? In all the discussion and bloviating on that, I can’t recall every seeing a single “free trader” make the most obvious and powerful argument in favor of TPP, which is “NAFTA was great for the economy and TPP will be even better.” How many times can you remember a “free trader” EVERY holding NAFTA or ANY trade deal up as a concrete example of what their favored policies can achieve? Why don’t “free traders” ever point to the positive impact of NAFTA?
Because while the facts do say NAFTA had some positive impact, those same facts also state just as clearly that NAFTA failed in some cases to live up to the promises of its supporters. Those same facts also demonstrate that NAFTA either caused of failed to prevent negative developments in the American economy. No “free trader” ever wants to look at what NAFTA did and what it didn’t do because that’s the first step toward a pragmatic approach to trade instead of basing every policy on ideological fanaticism.
Mike
The last Republican president who showed fiscal prudence was Calvin Coolidge.
Eisenhower turned in three balanced budgets. Of the other five fiscal years over which he presided, one was during the wind-down of the Korean War and three were during business recessions.
I’m saying that what used to be bedrock conservative principles like free trade and fiscal prudence have been thrown to the wind.
Actually, Chuck, from 1854 to about 1981, the Republican Party was more skeptical of free trade than the Democratic Party. The Reagan Administration expanded by about half the number of SITC commodities subject to non-tariff barriers. Also, as has been noted by Jagdish Bhaghwati, a true free trade treaty would be about 10 pages long. These thousand page treaties produced by the last several administrations are compendia of carve-outs that no one truly understands. And Trump hasn’t thrown anything to the wind. He just has a more militant negotiating stance.
Pretty amusing how in your mind Hal Rogers, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Cocaine Mitch (savior of the ExIm Bank) bear no responsibility for the fiscal deficit.
I just love establishment Republicans. Twenty years of failure theatre supplemented with four years of lies.
RC,
You’ll find the study you mentioned if you look up Johnathon Haidt and his book “The Righteous Mind”
Long a NeverHillary, I knew I would be voting Rep — and expected to lose. Again. I’m glad Reps won. It really was a Flight 93 election, and the Mueller witch hunt shows it as worse than I thought.
The almost-single issue for “social conservatives” is being anti-abortion pro-life. Trump has changed to claim opposition to abortion, and in favor of appointing conservative judges — which he has done. With big-spending Reps in the Senate now going along with it. Huge win for conservatives. Boot and most NeverTrumpers aren’t so much pro-life, as pro-politeness, and Trump is not so polite. On gay marriage, Trump is the Rep that’s probably the least anti-homosexual, and most accepting of promiscuity, responsible or not-so-much.
Contrary to many above, I do think Trump’s successful promiscuous ability to divorce wives and leave them for younger, far far more beautiful wives, causes a LOT of resentment. The Christian “marriage for life” ideal is broken, most obviously, by such Alpha-men, the alpha-jerks that the #MeToo feminists have a strong case against. Yet it’s hard to claim moral superiority in supporting Hillary, the totally on-board enabler of her rapist husband Pres. Bill who commits perjury over his multiple, continued cheating on his incompetently blind or utterly dishonest wife. Still “moral superiority” is the goal of most NeverTrumpers, as well as Dems; and Libertarian purists; and even Christian true-believers.
The Dems fundamentalist pro-abortion stance has meant that those who are otherwise Dem, who like unions, workers, are Christians who want to be nice to others, non-elites, these folk who are against abortion are pushed by Dems to be Rep voters. These exDem pro-life folk were never so big on free trade, and always more populist.
Trump claims to favor total Free Trade — but that’s not at all close to what we have with almost any countries. Most other countries have higher tariffs (incl. other non-tariff barriers) against US imports than the US has on their exports, so it’s Un-Fair, and Un-Free Trade; it’s “managed trade”. No matter what the NAFTA, or USMCA titles call it. How often do you see the amount of imports & exports to a country, like China, along with the tariffs collected and identified?
I’ve changed from a radical Free Trader to also understanding that the huge increase in jobs throughout the world, and the big reduction of poverty, has been led by the US open market, and allowing other countries to “steal” US jobs, meaning have high enough tariffs on US goods to protect their own industry, but sell to the US with much lower tariffs. It is possible to be “too generous”, and the US has been since … LBJ? Boot and other neo-cons (not the neo-neo-cons), who are religiously in favor of spreading democracy, support this “generous trade”, along with endless wars and military intervention, to help other countries. To bring war to other countries for their own good.
Doing violence to others for their own good is not purely a Dem nor Rep thing, but Libertarians are mostly against it. I supported the Iraq war, and that in Afghanistan, in the goals (democracy & capitalism), but not the pragmatic reality — supporting boot-lickers who are striving to gain the most money from the US. Trump is against the post-war nation building which requires endless war. The US is good at war to achieve a military objective, but hasn’t shown much ability to build any good nations. I respect that more than I used to, and certainly oppose endless war (that’s not working).
Communism remains terrible, and the dissolution of the USSR didn’t end it. China is now, essentially run by their National Communist Workers Party, replacing the earlier “Socialist” used by Hitler with Communist. They are the most NAZI like party on earth today. Trump is tougher on them, and on Russia, than NeverTrump Boot gives him any credit for.
Finally, you should read a bit on Rod Dreher, who converted from a Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (Protestant), to a John Paul II devoted Catholic, then yet again out into Orthodox. He was a totally dedicated convert, putting Catholicism on a pedestal. Then devastated as he learned more about failings of the Church hierarchy in protecting priests and bishops, rather than those in the congregation.
He’s also on top of the David French (polite? NeverTrump) vs Sohrab Ahmari
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/identity-politics-containing-liberalism-meltdown-cultural-chernobyl/ and
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/sohrab-ahmari-vs-david-french/
Which is a more well known Nat Review Protestant French NeverTrump personality than Boot, against a strong Catholic Ahmari.
Rod on French, and that Trump’s not a good man:
French can’t stand Donald Trump, and that seems to be at the core of Ahmari’s ire. French was one of those conservatives who regarded Trump as a betrayal of core principles of conservatism. For his views, French — the adoptive father of a black child — had to endure a torrent of spite from Trump fans that can only be described as satanic. That is important to keep in mind. Personally, I’ve come to think more favorably of Trump than I once did, both because of judicial appointments and because of the raging radicalism of the left, but I think in no way can Trump be rightly understood as an advocate for the restoration of Christian morality in the public sphere. Trump is a symptom of our decline, not the answer to it. Mind you, I can understand traditional Christians voting for Trump as the only realistic alternative to annihilation by the angry left — I might do what I didn’t do in 2016, which is to vote for him — but I can’t understand trying to convince ourselves that he is a good man.
Pro-Trumpers being satanically angry at true conservative French.
Ahmari on French:
It isn’t easy to critique the persona of someone as nice as French. Then again, it is in part that earnest and insistently polite quality of his that I find unsuitable to the depth of the present crisis facing religious conservatives. Which is why I recently quipped on Twitter that there is no “polite, David French-ian third way around the cultural civil war.” (What prompted my ire was a Facebook ad for a children’s drag queen reading hour at a public library in Sacramento.)
How to fight the culture war? I’m mostly with Ahmari — fight to win. Try to be polite, French is good, but win. The US military failures of Vietnam & Iraq & Afghanistan were NOT won because the US was “too polite”.
I got the Slovak translation of The Benedict Option for my wife, and we say and spoke quite a bit to Rod while he was out here at a week of Catholic meetings, two weeks before the Euro Parliament elections (Christian Democrats did “good”, just under 10%).
Rod does a bit too much religion, Neo not quite enough (but much better on dance! Rod much better on food.)
“The Republican Party has morphed into a kind of moderate Democrat leaning institution, and you seem to have no problem with it?” – The Other Chuck
I have a lot of problems with it, but the morphing has been going on for decades now, cannot be totally reversed in 4 years even if we had a President (and Congress AND public) willing to tackle it, and the only other option currently on the board is a Democratic Party that has morphed into a kind of far-left-leaning-almost-Communist-but-claiming-to-just-be-socialist institution, and I have a LOT MORE problems with that.
Richard Saunders on June 11, 2019 at 8:19 pm said: — lots of things that look about right to me.
Too many labels that only mean something to humans involved in Red vs Blue entertainment events.
Contrary to many above, I do think Trump’s successful promiscuous ability to divorce wives and leave them for younger, far far more beautiful wives, causes a LOT of resentment. The Christian “marriage for life” ideal is broken, most obviously, by such Alpha-men, the alpha-jerks that the #MeToo feminists have a strong case against. Yet it’s hard to claim moral superiority in supporting Hillary, the totally on-board enabler of her rapist husband Pres. Bill who commits perjury over his multiple, continued cheating on his incompetently blind or utterly dishonest wife. Still “moral superiority” is the goal of most NeverTrumpers, as well as Dems; and Libertarian purists; and even Christian true-believers.
It’s easy for me. I support my god and my host and legion of angels and archangels that support me. There’s no reason to side with humans. Humans easily die. They won’t last that long, as mortals.
Curiously, they find this offensive, even though they do not reject the label, their humanity, nor their mortality.
It’s a fight between species rather than a fight between different sub races based on skin color, culture, and tradition.
Instead of skin color, instead humanity should invest in discrimination based on eye color and hair color. That would be more fun or anime like.
But that’s the depth of their rage.
Humans will always worship their deus ex machinas, man made gods. They are weak and pathetic like that.
Comments? Did I miss anything?
That sounds about right.
As for me, Trum being the President is not such a big deal, either way. The Deep State is not gone. 9/11 is still thought of as this thing that happened based on what the Deep State and FBI told us. And so on and so forth, with everyone, Right or Left, accepting the moon landing as fact.
Compared to that, Donald Trum’s hitchups over the Kennedy assassination and other issues, is small potatoes.
He is vulgar, but he fights. I note that he mostly counter-attacks people who have attacked him.
The same things can be said about Ymar.
I don’t see people trying to vote me into power, however, hah.
Tom Grey:
Re: Rod Dreher: Yes, I like a lot of what he says, and I think that The Benedict Option is often misunderstood as a wholesale retreat from the world, which is an unfair caricature of Dreher’s position.
I think one has to take his path to Catholicism, and then to one of the Eastern Orthodox groups, as a kind of logical oddity in some ways parallel to that of the NeverTrump crowd: One can best explain it in terms of emotional associations intrinsic to his wiring.
A NeverTrump-er is (I suspect and hypothesize) often wired for strong aversion to impoliteness, to sub-bourgeois class-markers, and to anything that defiles the sanctity of American Civic Religion. This leads him initially to embrace the conservative-right ideology in politics (pro-life, Constitutional originalism, limited government, rule-of-law, Federalism, slow-and-incremental societal changes, non-apocalyptic rhetoric), because of its associations with polite upper-middle-class manners and culture, and because Reagan always wore coat and tie in the Oval Office, whereas Bill Clinton, uh, didn’t. But as soon as Trump — impolite, non-elite in cultural mannerisms, with all the finesse of guests on Jerry Springer — becomes the figurehead of the GOP, the NeverTrumper flips on all his policy goals! He willingly scores touchdowns for the very policy agenda he previously opposed, because his original adherence to the right-conservative policy agenda had nothing to do with the right-conservative policy agenda. It was about feeling like “I’m part of the polite crowd.”
In the same way, I think Rod Dreher originally embraced Catholicism, but not for Catholicism’s sake. He wanted (I suspect and hypothesize) a safe place to raise his kids in some close approximation of doctrinal and moral orthodoxy according to the Vincentian Canon, which he could experience culturally in a tangible way, right down to the proverbial “smells and bells.”
Nothing wrong with that, any more than there’s anything wrong with wishing for a president whose personal habits contribute to the ethos of dignity of the office.
But it seems to me that Dreher, in pursuit of the feel of that way of life, embraced Catholic-ism: The idea that Jesus founded a Church with a Magisterium whose unreformable/final judgments on matters of faith and morals could not err, so that, in every age from Pentecost to the Second Coming, the question “what has God revealed and what should I do about it?” could be answered via objective standards, allowing persons to objectively obey God rather than obeying their own (or someone else’s) best guess about what God probably meant. That kind of objective knowledge of revealed truth isn’t possible, even in principle, unless disagreements can be resolved beyond any possibility of further appeal, and that’s only possible if the person resolving it is objectively identifiable and can’t err when rendering a final and dispositive judgement. Thus, the role of the papacy is intrinsic and integral to Catholicism, from Clement of Rome’s “you will involve yourself in no small danger…” circa 80 AD, all the way to the present moment.
That’s what Dreher embraced, but apparently it’s not why he embraced it. When, thereafter, he moved to Orthodoxy, he moved from a struggling, half-disintegrated, leftism-and-modernism-infected communion rife with hypocritically unchaste clergy to one which has better preserved its liturgy and the doctrinal orthodoxy of its parish priests. In so doing he reversed himself on the need for a Magisterium with binding judicial conclusions in matters of faith and morals. And in doing that, Dreher moved from a position wherein that logic-problem in Christianity (and every other doctrinal faith) is resolved, to a position wherein it is unsolved and insoluble.
And THAT doesn’t look, at first glance, like it makes any sense! But it’s only illogical if you think Dreher originally embraced Catholicism because he believed Catholic-ism. If you hold instead that he was actually looking for something else (a communion with more “wheat” and fewer “tares”, or with a better-preserved continuity-of-culture) then his reversal on matters of truth in favor of experiencing a superior church culture makes perfect sense.
In the same way, a cradle-Catholic who became Anglican because he wanted good four-part hymn-singing in his church-life might later become a Southern Baptist. The move can’t be explained at all in terms of the truth-claims of Anglicanism and Baptist-ism. But that’s because truth claims were never the motive.
I guess we all have to be careful to examine whether we hold X to be true because we hold it to be true, or because it associates us with the right kind of people to suit us.
Humans are tricky that way.
“…dignity of the office…”
But what is worse, lack of dignity? Or profoundly false dignity masquerading as respect? As civility? As gravitas?
Crassness in style and expression? Or taking pride in prevarication, in manipulation, in deceiving the “stupid” citizenry? (E.g., “echo chambers”; Obamacare; JCPOA)
Boastfulness? Or rampant dishonesty while putting on a serious mien?
This is, or ought to be, the crux.
Contrary to many above, I do think Trump’s successful promiscuous ability to divorce wives and leave them for younger, far far more beautiful wives, causes a LOT of resentment.
Trump wasn’t even tangentially acquainted with Melania Knauss at the time he separated from Marla Maples. Maples hasn’t aged well, grooms herself horridly, and (given the age difference between her and Ivana) was anything but ‘far far more beautiful’. Over the period between 1989 and 1993, Trump and Maples went back and forth, announcing an engagement, calling it off, then having a child, then marrying.
Trump’s marital history is certainly grisly from the perspective of a serious Catholic. See Bradford Wilcox quantitative research on evangelical subcultures or read Dalrock’s critique of contemporary evangelical literature on domestic life. David French is very much enmeshed in the evangelical world, which has issues of its own in this regard.
I think the moderator is correct. Unlike the rest of us, these chumps take stances for a living, and having embarrassed themselves in so doing, cannot hit the reset button out of pride. From my rough estimate, about 1/3 of them couldn’t defend an establishment Republican (Brett Kavanaugh) being treated egregiously while another 1/3 temporized and straddled. Since Mona Charen has zero chops in the realm of quantitative research, she ought to explain to us just what she’s paid to do all day by the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Tell it to Goldwater.
A balanced budget is not the definition of fiscal conservatism:
Also please see this.
In the same way, I think Rod Dreher originally embraced Catholicism, but not for Catholicism’s sake. He wanted (I suspect and hypothesize) a safe place to raise his kids in some close approximation of doctrinal and moral orthodoxy according to the Vincentian Canon, which he could experience culturally in a tangible way, right down to the proverbial “smells and bells.”
Dreher embraced Catholicism before he had any children and about the time he was married. One thing about Dreher: he’s a terribly other-directed man. He’s admitted that he was attracted to the Church because people he respect (e.g. Richard John Neuhaus) were figures within it. Can you think of a prominent public intellectual who is a member of the United Methodist Church whose public advocacy is informed by that? The closest you might get to that would be George McGovern.
Those of use following Dreher and tangling with him online during the period running from 2002 to 2006 noticed how hyper-emotional, self-centered, and ill-considered were his reactions to the unfolding scandal.
High school never ends for some people, and some part of Rod Dreher’s brain is stuck back in 1982, when he was being stuffed into lockers at the local high school in West Feliciana Parish.
For his views, French — the adoptive father of a black child — had to endure a torrent of spite from Trump fans that can only be described as satanic.
Vintage Rod. If French actually is receiving rude missives, it’s from weird cranks fixated on racial purity, an odd type even in Steve Sailer’s comboxes. Here we have Rod tarring the President and the rest of us as if ‘Trump fans’ was the salient taxon here.
Tell it to Goldwater.
If I’m not mistaken, about 40% of all public expenditure ca. 1956 (federal, state, and local) was on the military. Military expenditure is the one component of federal expenditure which is responsive to external circumstances and variable over time. During the postwar period, it’s been anywhere from 3.7% of gdp to 14.5% of gdp.
During the Eisenhower administration, you had for about 6 years a non-liberal majority in both houses of Congress, but the congressional committee architecture was (6 years in eight) controlled by the opposition. Also, the President’s party had only the slimmest advantage in 1953 and 1954 and was itself internally riven in regard to the appropriate direction of public policy. Goldwater would have faced these challenges if it had been him sitting in the President’s chair in 1956.
Art Deco:
I don’t think you understand what I’m getting out.
My only point here is to say that bona fide “fiscal prudence” is defined differently by different people. Goldwater, who certainly was conservative, did not think Eisenhower was a fiscal conservative. Three balanced budgets out of eight might be some people’s (including yours and mine) definition of fiscal conservatism, but not Goldwater’s. So my point is that one of those “bedrock conservative principles” you have listed, “fiscal prudence,” which you say has been “thrown to the wind,” was actually thrown to the wind a long long time ago, according to many conservatives. When I state that the last person who exhibited fiscal prudence was Coolidge, I’m basing that on the fact that his fiscal prudence according to many conservatives did not rest on the mere fact of three balanced budgets (which in Eisenhower’s case did not make fiscally prudent in their eyes). Coolidge’s fiscal prudence was far more deep and wide than that.
Humans are tricky that way.
Heh
Human made churches are misguided, but rich. Sorta like national State totalitarian systems. Misguided, but powerful.
The Vatican or Church of Rome pulls in a significant amount from Catholic membership “dues” or “tithings”.
The one thing that is risky to bring up in the face of Southern Baptists is Mormonism. That’s a touchy subject.
Nobody, which also includes Aesop’s rather knee jerk reaction to even hints of criticism of the tradition and culture of “Mormonism” (which is not a church per say), likes having their sacred cows cooked.
The more Southern Baptists, or whatever labels they put on themselves, talk to me, the more sacred cows of theirs I will find, kill, cook, and eat in front of them.
Which applies to any human in group or tribe.
The Label NeverTrumper group, may not like Trum because he challenges their comfortable life goals and bank accounts. But the Trum supporters, the Alt Right, also react the same way when I threaten their sacred cows, using some of the same methods they laud in Trum. That is a kind of…. something or other that is interesting, from a human psychological and behavior perspective.
Eisenhower did warn Americans about the “military industrial complex”.
This was a rather strange subject for him to use limited and valuable tv time on.
At the time, the “military industrial complex” weren’t the military contractors that we think of today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/politics/11eisenhower.html
He is very likely E was thinking of “secret combinations”. Meaning, the CIA, the FBI, and other “secret organizations” or organizations that employed secret agents and economic methods to bankroll activities related to war.
One of the more interesting stories about E is that he was told, as President, that he lacked the need to know to get into Grumm Lake’s base areas. E replied that he would have his army divisions there by the time he arrived. So they let him in via a phone call. This may be the easiest way to hint to the public that something interesting and secretive is going on, if the US military had bases in America, on public land, that had clearances so high, Congress and the President were out of the loop.
That doesn’t sound good to begin with. And now the Deep State is a plain example of what is percolating into the public consciousness. There’s a problem in your country. And it’s not the fault of ragheads or foreigners or that non sense.
A troll who says he will troll everyone, how quaint, but needing attention.
Eisenhower did warn Americans about the “military industrial complex”.
This was a rather strange subject for him to use limited and valuable tv time on.
He offered one sentence. And it wasn’t strange at all. Eisenhower was a military professional. The thing is, most of his career was spent in the inter-war military. The ratio of military expenditure to domestic product was 85% of our troops are stationed in the United States or its possessions. Only Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Afghanistan have a five-digit complement of American troops. Military service is entirely voluntary, and the share of the adult male population who undertake a stint in the military might be around 12% or so.
Eisenhower did warn Americans about the “military industrial complex”.
This was a rather strange subject for him to use limited and valuable tv time on.
He offered one sentence. And it wasn’t strange at all. Eisenhower was a military professional. The thing is, most of his career was spent in the inter-war military. The ratio of military expenditure to domestic product was < 0.02 during that era (close to 0.01 most years). Military manpower in 1940 was about 385,000 on active duty (a proportionately similar # today would be 950,000). He was familiar with wartime spikes in military expenditure (1917-20, 1940-46 being examples) as having precedent. What did not, in his view, was abiding levels of military expenditure 'twixt 6% and 15% of domestic product. That was our situation between 1946 and 1961. Military conscription was in place almost continuously between September 1940 and January 1973, suspended only for one year (March 1947 to March 1948). Up to 30% of our manpower was posted outside the United States and its dependencies.
n
This isn’t the world we live in today, not matter how much the red-haze left and the libertarian spergatroids whinge. The ratio of military expenditure as we speak (0.038) is as low as it has been since 1940 and > 85% of our troops are stationed in the United States or its possessions. Only Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Afghanistan have a five-digit complement of American troops. Military service is entirely voluntary, and the share of the adult male population who undertake a stint in the military might be around 12% or so.
xx
Art Deco:
Are you having some problem viewing your comments in a timely fashion? I noticed several duplicates or near-duplicates, and I eliminated one, but now I see another. Is there some time lag going on? Some glitch?
Coolidge’s fiscal prudence was far more deep and wide than that.
You could say that. The thing is, Coolidge’s decisions were made within a different matrix than Eisenhower’s on account of the situations they inherited. The Cold War wasn’t going to evaporate if Ike waved a Fiscal-Responsiblity wand. People weren’t going to react with equanimity of their Social Security checks ceased to arrive. Recall that Robert Taft sponsored a piece of urban renewal legislation in 1949 (something few Republican legislators would consider today).
Are you having some problem viewing your comments in a timely fashion? I noticed several duplicates or near-duplicates, and I eliminated one, but now I see another. Is there some time lag going on? Some glitch?
There was a glitch which eliminated on posting most of the text. The text would appear in the dialogue box, but not in the finished post. I had to break the post into two sections so it would appear correctly. I made four posts, the first two ruined, the latter two proper.
Art Deco:
I really don’t know why you’re still arguing about this business of Eisenhower vs. Coolidge. My point (which I’ll repeat now for the last time) is that Trump isn’t an anomaly or anything new in regard to fiscal prudence or lack thereof. It’s been going on among Republicans for a very long time, and one of the many reasons is that anyone who was truly fiscally prudent, like Coolidge was, could never get elected today.
I would imagine there’s some fringe candidate who really does espouse “fiscal prudence” a la Coolidge, but that person will remain a fringe candidate. And if somehow that person got elected, he or she would never get Congress to cooperate even if it was packed with Republicans.
Art Deco:
I hope the glitch has stopped now.
I don’t see evidence of it happening to anyone else, at least so far, so perhaps it has something to do with your browser or your computer??
Art Deco:
Ah, that’s interesting. Thanks for clarifying. I guess my “suspect and hypothesize” was correct insofar as I concluded he became a Catholic, but not because of Catholicism. But it was incorrect with respect to what it was that he did see in it, at the time. (I was making a guess on the basis of what seemed to differentiate his experience of an Eastern Orthodox parish from the complaints I heard him making about his experience in Catholic parishes.)
Interesting. I don’t think I’d ever heard of him that far back, so I have no concept of what he was doing or saying at the time. If you don’t mind my asking, in what sense were you “tangling with him online?” Did you have a blog? Or just commenting on his? And was he published anywhere prominent at the time, or is that only in more recent years?
He sometimes answers his commenters, and made a point of banning me, but not for any defensible reason. When he was employed at National Review and during the first leg of his years at the Dallas Times-Herald, he was a regular at a blog called Open Book moderated by Amy Welborn. A number of interested parties were exposed to his attitudes there. Guy’s kind of a head case.