The Problem with Trump

Yuval Levin gets us to the heart of the problem with Trump. In doing so, he actually pinpoints the problem with the conservative movement the last decade or so.

"Chaos is the essence of [the Trump] problem ... even more than his failure to quite grasp the role of the president in our system of government, or his petty malevolence, or his nasty inclination to punch downward, or whatever in the world the Russia madness is about. It is the simple inability to keep his attention focused, to be disciplined and ordered in a persistent way, to resist even the smallest provocations and insults, and to see decisions through, that has been undermining his administration."

Keeping his attention focused, maintaining discipline and order in a persistent way, and especially resisting the smallest provocations and insults, is what George W. Bush was good at. So much so that he and his administration (and via association the modern conservative movement) were engulfed to the point of oblivion by the Democrat/media attack on his integrity. "Bush lied, people died" is all but a fixed truth in history for much of the American public, in large measure because Bush resisted the impulse to respond to this outrageous lie, this terrible slander, on his reputation and legacy.

And now, Trump is facing a media complex that is so much worse than the one George Bush faced, precisely because the media learned and honed their character assassination tactics on that largely quiescent administration. The media complex is at the top of their destructive game now, and the only one who seems to realize it is President Trump. The lies, the smears, the outrageous slanders and libels roll daily across the news, and the wonder is that Trump is still standing and fighting long after a George Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney  or Bob Dole would have lain prostrate, waiting for retirement to  a post-Presidency.

Meanwhile, the stalwart conservatives who should know better, like Yuval, mischaracterize Trump's push back against the media as "petty malevolence," a "nasty inclination to punch downward," or a "Russia madness." As if punching the immensely powerful American media is in any  way a downward stroke. In truth, if there is any madness out there, it is the media that is all but frothing at the mouth. Is there one single reason why Trump should not push back, with all the strength he has, against the outrageous idea that his campaign 'colluded' with the Russians to deny Hillary the Presidency? It's been more than a year since the investigations into this allegation have been  pursued by the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, Homeland Security, and various Congressional committees. We either have supreme incompetence in all these investigations or willful maliciousness, but in either case, we have zero  evidence of any collusion by the Trump campaign, and even some evidence that the Russians did not hack the DNC or anyone else for that matter. And yet the media still runs this story, breathlessly reporting that real evidence of collusion is within days of surfacing.

I do not know  why smart guys like Yuval continue to  obsess over the Trump eccentricities, when they ought to  be outraged over the absolute malefactions of the Democrat/media complex. I am by no means a Trump guy; he was not my preferred candidate. Could another candidate have run this administration better? More tightly focused its messaging? Better managed the roll-out and execution of its legislative agenda? Undoubtedly; Trump is after all a novice at this sort of  thing, and has much to learn. But for the life of me I cannot see any other candidate confronting and enduring such a media assault, and most definitely cannot see any of the  others being able to push back as effectively as Trump has.

Unlike Yuval, I can separate out his personal ticks from the substance of what he is facing - and what Trump is facing is nothing less than a brutal all-out assault on the will of the American voter last November. Thank God we finally have someone who  will fight back against that sort of thing. 

Re: Monumental Mistake

It's nice for the Left that they have finally found an opponent who won't fight back. They have been shouting 'Shut up!' at anyone who disagrees with them and are noticeably frustrated at the lack of cooperation they usually receive.

But statues are perfect: the Left knocks them down and they quietly stay down, in complete compliance with the Left's wishes. They are the perfect political opponent, surpassing even the servile acquiescence of their other favorite opponent, the Straw Men. Straw Men however can occasionally tie the Left up by exposing their illogic and hypocrisy, but not statues. Statues are stoically quiet and accepting, whether attacked by pigeon droppings or their political equivalent, the vituperative rage of a Social Justice Warrior.

I would caution them however. When approaching a statue, don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. If instead of a statue honoring some dead white male you have stumbled on a Weeping Angel, you could find yourself back in time facing a live confederate soldier who most definitely is willing and able to defend himself against your puny sledgehammers. Live white males were made of sterner stuff back then, and they will not be intimidated by some basement boy wearing sandals and a Che Guevara t-shirt.

So, don't blink; don't even blink.

Re: Monumental Mistake

Well done, Whit. And although you make cogent points, I'm a little more straightforward about this whole affair.

Whoever owns these statues, whether it's the state, local governments, local communities, the Feds or whoever, I want a democratic process of public discussion in which all sides are heard from. Then whatever a majority of the people decide, I want a proper law or ordinance passed by politicians who have voted and gone on the record. At that point, I for one will be satisfied, whatever action is taken, whether to leave them standing or tear them down.

But if we've got to do something about vestiges of slavery immediately, then I would be all in favor today of dismantling that greatest vestige of slavery in the world today - the Democrat Party. Regarding slavery, the Democrat Party is about as vestige-ridden as they come. It was the Democrat Party that was the political party of slavery, supporting it,  promoting it, and trying to expand it before the war. It was the political party that advocated for secession and war. It was the political party that refused to accept the results of the war. And it was the political party that invented and enforced Jim Crow segregation laws, and created its own paramilitary wing, the Ku Klux Klan, in order to intimidate both blacks and whites in the South to maintain a one party political hammerlock on the region for more than a hundred years.

As Mark Steyn has said, the Democrat Party is the one segregationist and white supremacist organization that has survived into the modern world. You go to South Africa, you go to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, and the formerly powerful white segregation parties have long since disappeared.

But the Democrat Party has survived and they've done so by telling lies about their sordid history and their political opponents and engaging in demagoguery to provoke fear among blacks.

This is a vestige of slavery that we could all do without.

Monumental Mistake

And now, for the next chapter in the Left's continuing story of the desecration of all things American. As the chapter unfolds, we find a seemingly indefensible piece of American history being targeted for elimination - the 1,000's of memorials and monuments, mostly in the South, but also dotting the rest of the Country too, of the Confederacy.

Except, as the estimable Arthur Herman (Pulitzer Prize finalist historian, bestselling author, to name a few of his achievements) reminds us, the statues are not of the Confederacy per se, but of the dead soldiers who fought on the Confederate side. This is an important distinction - we do not generally ascribe the wrongfulness of a war against the soldiers thereof, for the simple reason that soldiers in whatever cause are doing those things that characterize a soldier: acting on the virtues of duty, honor, courage, and self-sacrifice even to the point of death. This kind of behavior is laudable, whether exhibited by a fighter of the Confederacy or the Union, the Allies or the Germans, the Cowboys or the Indians. Courage in the face of death is rare and always eminent, especially when that courage is in the service of the protection/preservation of others - even if 'the others' are not deserving of protection (x-reference Russians who died protecting Stalin's Russia, a bloody regime without parallel in history to that point, from the German Army).

This was the original shameful stain among many in the Leftist movement of the 60's, which openly despised and dishonored the Vietnam soldiers because the Left hated the war they fought. And then flash forward to the Left's attempt to do the same to the soldiers in the 2000's - e.g. John Murtha, John Kerry, and Hollywood, slandering our people as rapists and terrorizers of women and children in Iraq - and it is obvious they have learned nothing, and indeed, do not want to learn. They simply want to tear down America, beginning with its most obviously impressive part, its soldiers.

Let's get straight about what monuments and memorials are. They are historical memory markers. A society bent on erasing all artifacts of its history is in a state of denial, and thereby (as the saying goes) doomed to repeat its mistakes. None of us appeared pristine into the world upon birth, but instead are a complex product of the history which preceded us. And that history contains mistakes made and lessons learned that, if we are to leave the world better after we are gone, will inform and guide us.

And that points us to the dynamic essence of a monument: a statue is sculpted and the materials used are thereby frozen in time. But beyond the materials, what is sculpted is also a hope, a hope that the reasons this statue was made will endure to remind and inspire those who come after, that it will be an enduring memory marker. But the original meaning of the statue changes and morphs with the changing times in a way that mirrors all other interactions between the present and the past. In the flux of time we seek eternal verities, and over time certain meanings from the past reveal themselves as cheap flint to be chipped off and discarded, others as rough stone that need rounding and smoothing, and some, very few, as fine cut diamonds that cannot be improved upon, only admired.

No one looks at a pyramid or the Sphinx and sees an eternal paean to the value of a slave working class, nor as an example of the greatness we could all achieve if we just brought back Pharaohs and their gods to rule us. Something like that may have been the original impetus to these massive projects, but these meanings are consigned to  the dustbin of history. Today, they represent the marvel of human society, what it can do if it has the will and strength to strive for something great.

And so too with Confederate statues. It is not disputed that many of these were built to revere the Lost Cause of the South, which in large measure (albeit not totally) was the maintenance of slavery as an institution. But this is a meaning that has not survived subsequent history; whatever hope the creators may have had in this respect has been dashed against the confirmed Southern belief that slavery was an evil and had to end. So, these statues,  some begun with infamous purpose, have morphed in their meaning as a diamond core was discovered after chipping away the flint.

A diamond core of multiple, enduring meanings.

First, reverence for our forebears. These statues were made to last. As such they were created by our forebears essentially as a conversation with the future, or better, an offer of a dialogue that we entertain out of respect for those who came before  us.

Continue ..... 

Uncovered

As our esteemed Republicans sally forth in defense of the Republic's Healthcare system, they keep foundering on a seemingly insurmountable battlement: the Congressional Budget Office. This is the office that analyzes proposed Congressional legislation to determine what impacts it will have on various measures deemed relevant to the CBO. This analysis - termed a 'score' of the Bill - becomes somewhat of a sacred writ for the politicians, who will quote it as undeniable objective truth. When the CBO speaks, apparently, the science is settled, and there shall be no deniers allowed into the sacred spaces of Congress.

With regard to Healthcare, the CBO says many things, but the most important score is that of the number of citizens who will  lose their health insurance coverage should the Republicans make any changes to Obamacare. This number hovers around 20 million, about 6% of the population.

So for want of the 6%, the politicians feel the need to restructure the Healthcare of the 94%. As absurd as that is, the 6% is the fulcrum around which all Republican proposals circle. But there is a problem, and the problem is not the 6% per se, it is the CBO.

Avik Roy of NRO gives us the skinny, based on some new information recently disclosed by a(nother) Washington leaker. Apparently, the super majority of those losing insurance are … wait for  it … due to the proposed repeal of the Obamacare mandate to purchase insurance. That's right; the uninsured results, not from losing any particular coverage, but from  the CBO's estimate of how many citizens will choose to forego insurance when they are no longer required to purchase it.

Thus, if every jot and tittle of Obamacare were left in place, but the insurance mandate was repealed, the CBO would score the result as 20 million 'losing' coverage.

But that's not losing coverage; that's citizens exercising their right to pursue their own happiness. And therein lies in microcosm the warp and woof of our public discourse on issues major and minor: instead of arguing the substance of the policy, our betters substitute loaded rhetoric for honest description - e.g.  'losing coverage' for 'refusing coverage.'

And here's a question: how much are we paying these experts at the CBO? We should fire the economists and replace them with entry-level PR flacks. At least then we would all be honest about our dishonesty.

Re Trump's Faction

So, what's happenin', as they say in the vernacular?

Easy's patriotism argument is a gesture in the right direction. But it is more organic than that. Patriotism for all its nobility - or perhaps because of its nobility -  is an aspiration, an ideal to be achieved. But the founding of this blessed country was not only an example of patriotism of the highest order, as Whit tells us, but also a congruence of cultural forces ingrained in the America colonialists by their peculiar history and traditions.

The Glorious Revolution in England some 150 years earlier that established true representative government as a political ethos; the sturdy self-reliance demanded of a people who literally had to hack their existence out of the wilderness; and perhaps most important of all, the uniquely American Protestant Christian emphasis on the primacy of Christian conscience before God, that issued forth as a commitment to toleration of religious and political plurilism.

All of this congealed to form a people that were quite committed to democratic reform, the popular will, the rule of law, and civil order, but extremely obstreperous and jealous of their prerogatives ... when the political hierarchy appears to be over stepping its proper jurisdiction.

And thus the American Revolution. So what connection do we find with that singular event of 200 some years ago to Mr. Trump?

Issues change, politicians change, people change, rhetoric changes, even principles morph and transmute over time. But culture has an inertia all its own that resists change. And this exceptional culture of the United States has been building up mass for some 200 years and will not go away quietly in the face of political challenges.

The American culture operates mostly on the visceral level; but it makes its appearance in response to specific political programs that enable it to express itself in the body politic. It is this that has bollixed up conservative pundits about the Trump Faction. Inasmuch as Trump is no true blue conservative, then his supporters must not be conservative and ipso facto, the people are not as conservative as we all once thought.

But this puts the cart before the horse; or better, it puts the principles before the passion. Conservatives are nothing if not principled, so much so that they actually think their principles are sufficient in themselves to motivate people. But life does not proceed purely en raison. There must first be a given passion in the culture to which reason might appeal, or more properly, convince to give vent to itself. In Platonic terms, the Charioteer can crack his whip all he likes, but if there is no snorting horse of Valor or Desire at the ends of the reins, then he will go nowhere.

The key is that American cultural passion generally finds its best expression in conservative principles and policies. This is so simply because conservatism is nothing more than a return to the Founding principles of this country, and hence it resonates profoundly with the culture that Founding nurtured. But it is not self-activating; you can't just stand up and shout "Liberty!" and expect to move the American viscera. You need leaders capable of articulating conservative principles, effectively communicate the same, all within the context of the current political moment.

That is what Reagan did so effectively. And notice that he did so without relentlessly invoking the Constitution or the Founding or Enlightenment principles of freedom per se. He did not give a history lecture. He spoke instead of policies and a future that would unleash the energy of the people to solve problems of his day, in ways that excited the populace. He himself was clear about what kind of country he wanted to bring back, and was well versed in the Constitutional scheme that needed to be reinstated. But he knew that he needed to move people. And he did; boy, did he.

There is the Republican/conservative problem we have had since Reagan in a nutshell. We have had no leaders capable of instantiating conservative principles in a robust policy prescription for contemporary problems. No one capable of tapping into the unique American cultural passions. And so we've wandered politically, finally falling exhausted to the mat in the failing Presidential bids of John McCain and Mitt Romney

Then Trump came down his escalator with a straightforward political program: build the wall, make better trade deals, spur economic growth, and quit entering into stupid foreign entanglements. His overarching theme was putting America and the American worker first, and it's corollary, winning once again.

Manifestly, there is nothing unconservative about this agenda. But manifestly, Trump has not attempted to back up his agenda with a political manifesto of American principles and ideals. Instead, he has offered his program as sheer red meat, to an electorate starved for something more than the bare subsistence on offer from the Republican leadership class. And hungry Americans have flocked to him, ravenously.

This, then, is the Trump Faction, visceral conservatives as only the exceptional American culture can produce. In this context, what has been startling is how truly conservative Donald Trump has remained - even after winning his prize. Principles, after all, are the guardrails of behavior when you are navigating twisty mountain roads of events, and most men uninterested in principles (which is different, be it noted, from being unprincipled) will lose their way as the rush of political events sweep over them.  But our President seems to be clear and focused about the way forward, as evidenced by the way he has assembled one of the most conservative cabinets in the  history of cabinets, to give but one example (See also Judge Neil Gorsuch).

The  answer to this is that Donald Trump is culturally an American and as such is unmoved by the cheap rhetoric and anti-American tactics of the Left. He is no mental light weight as his adversaries think, but he is comfortable with his instincts and willing to give them their head, and those instincts are shaped and formed by the American culture he grew up in. And that culture, as I said above, is basically conservative, as conservative as was the Founding itself.

And that is why Trump has a Faction: like is attracted to like, and Trump is nothing if not authentically himself, and that self is American, through and through.

Facebook Strikes!

It is official: Facebook is unusable.

It's the algorithm. I don't know what rationale Facebook uses in its shadowy corporate rooms to determine which of my friend's posts will show up in my news feed, or which of the (very few) posts I write show up on theirs, but I woke up this morning to non-stop, wall to wall, postings from the few liberal family/friends I have, utterly dominating my feed with their particular obsessions. Or rather, the obsessions of Facebook's algorithm.

I get it, Facebook, Trump is a liar; Trump is a Nazi; Trump is a rascist, bigot, homophobe. And, of course, Trump hates women, and all women (except Pro Life women) must take to the streets and brandish cute and/or profane signs about how bad the Orange Man is.

But all I wanted was my usual update on what my family and friends are about, together with some cute puppy videos. But instead, ..... Sigh. Looks like its going to be another few years of all politics all the time, brought to us by the party of a Special Kind of Stupid, the Democrats.

Re: Trump's Faction

It has been a mainstay of Republican primary politics for, oh, a quarter century at least, that all candidates must tack to the right to gain the Presidential prize. This was true for George ‘Read my lips, no new taxes’ Bush, but also Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and even those candidates running a loud counter-cultural campaign of moderation like John Huntsman. Whatever a candidate’s real intentions, whatever strategy they think will work in the general election, in the Republican primaries, obeisance must be paid to conservative principles or else your candidacy will be a non-starter.

 Then comes Donald Trump, upsetting the apple cart, smashing the china shop, and shattering the glass house of conventional campaign wisdom – and perhaps the careers of some of the best paid consultants in the business. Trump’s faction, as Ezra calls them, got on board his candidacy early, and after going through a bit of denial about Trump’s viability as a candidate, the other candidates, the donors and the consultant class confidently began hitting him with everything they had about his conservatism – or lack thereof.

And Trump was an easy target; in this new age, tweets and TV interviews are forever, and Trumps has not been bashful about offering his opinion about everything in any media he could get in front of. And his opinion has nearly always been some form of the conventional northeastern liberal take on things, with an overlay of Trump bravado to brand it as distinctively his own. Trump has always craved what in former times was called headlines but in today’s new age is termed buzz. And buzz only occurs along liberal lines, because liberal’s own the culture (see Andrew Breitbart). Headlines and buzz was Trump’s brand, that’s how he built and nurtured his brand, that’s how he maintained his brand, so oppo research to attack Trump politically was easily available.

 Except …. None of it worked as conventional wisdom said it would. Then began the angst of conservatives: all these years they had invested in the Republican Party, fought to make it their own, established litmus tests. After all of this, are we back to 1965 and the terrible defeat of Barry Goldwater? How? Where did the conservative base so painstakingly built up over countless election cycles go? Was it never really there?

Ezra has nodded at the answer.

To be continued.

Re: Trump's Faction

Whit, I did not say Trump was running a campaign based on patriotism. I was identifying the passion he was tapping into among the Republican base.

 In this, I am putting you might say the best face on the situation. It is clear that Trump's intention is to galvanize a nationalist/populist coalition around an America First agenda, whether that be immigration controls, international trade, or national security. And there is a vast gulf, in my opinion, between bonafide patriotism - which is a national good - and nationalism/populism - which is a national cancer. The former is a positive pride and self assurance that, whatever particular agenda the body politic undertakes, magnifies the civilizational gains of the Founding of this country around individual rights, whereas the latter distorts and ultimately undermines those rights.

Compare the universal admiration of a patriotic leader like George Washington with the worshipful idolatry of a nationalist/populist like Franklin Roosevelt, and you can begin to see the effects, beneficial and deleterious, respectively, on our politics. The former evokes the unum in E Pluribus Unum; the latter, E Pluribus only, and a bitter, divisive electorate, jockeying for power and favors from the Guvmint.

Trump's quasi Dear Leader style does bear watching. But that is part of my point: the patriotic instincts of the American public are there, Trump is tapping into them, and if we advocate strongly for our principles, I think Trump and Trump's style can be directed to enhance the 'good' instincts of the public, preserving what is best in America - its patriotism, love of country, and pride in our Founding principles.

And thereby put Obama's America with all its rancor, animosity, and divisiveness on the ash heap of history where it belongs.

Re: Trump's Faction

Soaring rhetoric, Whit. And I mean that in the best sense because it is in the service of the best cause.

But I think Ezra is onto something, something that I have not seen clearly expressed among the commentariat, which has tied itself in knots trying to come to terms with the Trump phenomenon. Talk about cognitive dissonance, Whit, they got it.

But let me not project my own cognitivity on Ezra's thesis; at least not yet.

Ezra you have the floor.