Let me start with the normal disclaimer: Trump... human turd... lying sack of sh*t... total fraud... probably into bestiality... hot wife though... etc. Ok, now that we’ve got that out of the way. Let us begin:
Should you vote for Trump or Hillary? The case against Trump is many faceted and quite strong. Trump is either an ignorant God-awful socialist with racist tendencies who will forever make the GOP into the party of misogyny and Mexicanogyny, or he’s a God-awful socialist who will redefine the GOP as the party of Big Business, Big Labor and Big Government. Neither choice is all that appealing, and the argument concludes: “He’s basically a Democrat in political views, so I’m going to vote for Hillary so the GOP won’t be tarred as the party that believes in Democratic crappola.” Makes sense.
What is the counter? Well, I could argue as Trump has done that he’s just putting on an act, and if you look at the people he’s hired to build his administration, you will find a pretty solid core of conservatives. You’ve got Arthur Laugher advising him on economics, Bill Bennett advising him on social policy, and one-time conservative darling Chris Christie acting as chief of staff. That must mean something, right? Especially for a man who will delegate almost all of his duties. So I should suggest that we vote for him in the hope that this is who he really turns out to be, right? Well, no. That dog don’t chivy because we just aren’t sure who Trump is.
How about this? Trump is a Democrat who will do conservative things, which is better than Hillary who is a Democrat who will try to win from the far left. Having him pick the next 2-3 Supreme Court justices is much more important than letting Hillary. Yeah, that makes sense, but it still doesn’t get to the whole issue.
What I will argue instead is this...
The reason Trump was chosen by the conservative public (and make no mistake, he won the primary with the support of the public) is because the conservative public lost faith in their leaders.
Why? Because for a long time now, conservatives have been selling the myth to each other that they would be super victorious except for the constant stabs in the back from disloyal secret RINOs and weak insiders. Indeed, this has been such a profitable myth that talk radio started selling it exclusively. The likes of Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter taught racism and isolationism. Rush, Hannity and Ingram taught discontent. Hot Air filled heads with nonsense outrages, fake facts and false reasoning. Mark Levin taught cynicism and paranoia. And so on.
Even worse, conservatives stopped teaching conservatism to each other and to the public, which let these opportunists redefine conservatism in nebulous and even anti-conservative ways. What’s more, they accepted with open arms some unsavory characters whose goal is to destroy the GOP and conservatism and replace with hateful idiocy.
All of this jacked up the level of paranoia and suspicion and stripped away the party’s ability to talk rationally with the public. As a result, the public got stupid and angry. Indeed, all of this made the conservative public suspicious, paranoid and gullible. They were ready to believe any nasty lie about the GOP. And when the GOP responded by pandering with promises it could not keep, it only made the belief stronger that the GOP was rotten.
Suddenly, the primaries began and the public turned on prior conservative darlings like Rubio, Ryan, Christie and prior heavyweights like Jeb Bush. This was a warning that the public was sick of being ignored by the insiders and being treated like mindless children who aren’t savvy enough to understand Washington.
I think Trump was seen by a rational public as the best way to send a message. Trump is the pubic telling the GOP: “Fine, we’re going to drop a turd in your punch bowl to show you our displeasure.” Unfortunately, rather than realizing this and going to the public to rebuild bridges, the GOP establishment openly did their best to “cheat” Trump and thereby undermine the voice of the public in picking him. Essentially, the GOP has said, “We don’t care what the public thinks. We know better.”
Now, do you vote for Trump? It strikes me that if conservatives vote against Trump (and do things like the #neverTrump stuff), they will be sending the message to the public that they refuse to hear the public’s concerns and will remain adversarial to the public. That means an even bigger loss of faith and perpetual civil war.
What conservatives need to do instead is to support Trump as “the man chosen by the voters,” and then either let him lose naturally or let him win and expose all of his promises as lies. By fighting him, conservatives become the easy target for his excuses. By supporting him, he fails on his own.
But what about this idea that he will tar conservatism with his leftist policies? First, the GOP will hold the House and he won’t get his leftist policies through any more than Obama did. Secondly, Trump loves the path of least resistance and that will be doing what the House wants. Third, Trump has done so much to separate himself from conservatism that it’s impossible to link the two at this point. Trump is Trump. He is not “the leader of the conservatives.” He is the man conservatives hate. That’s not someone who will ever be seen as a spokesman for conservatism.
So as I see it, supporting Trump defuses the public’s anger and gives the GOP a chance to regain their trust, without connecting conservatism or the GOP to his policies. But opposing him just ratchets up the GOP civil war.
Thoughts?
34 comments:
Trump won for a number of reasons, not least of which was that he "spoke to America". (Rubio, famous memorizer of talking points, crashed and burned on those talking points.) Sanders does much the same thing. Trump gained authenticity by not being a "politician" in the classic mold. It's why Jeb! imploded after spending $100M for 4 electoral votes.
Congress has a national approval ratting of under 10%. That says a lot, and Trump paid attention to that.
Barack, and friends, as well as the GOP, made Trump - who is a "Trumpian". He's not a Republican and he's not a Democrat. He's tapped into a vein of populism that appeals to more people than the other 16 Republican candidates. As the new GOP poster child, Trump might just put the party into the White House. -- or you can vote against him.
LL, I agree with you. I think the GOP made Trump because they lost touch with common sense America and then they pandered to crazy-ass America, and the result was that average people increasingly felt betrayed and the crazies felt emboldened.
My worry is that the GOP "War on Trump" is only reinforcing the idea that the GOP doesn't care about common sense America.
BTW, they will always be Trumpsters to me.
First, in the likely event Trump loses in November, he and his apologists will blame everyone but Trump even if everyone that has ever doubted him engaging in Christie-like acts of abjection.
Second, in the unlikely event Trump wins in November, expecting Congress to hold the conservative line strikes me as unrealistic.
Congress has a very, very, very lousy history of holding the line against presidents of the same party. In the unlikely event Trump wins in November, 'no' isn't going to be a word he hears very often from Congress.
If Trump wins in November, those who don't acede to his every whim and nominee, no matter how bizarre or liberal, will be damned for opposing the will of the public who voted Trump into office.
So either we abandon conservatism and surrender ourselves to Trump (telling ourselves we will pick our ideals back up once Trump is done with us) or we stand for what we believe in.
A politician telling people 'Ha-ha I won the nomination! Now you have to vote for me no matter my position on the issues important to you!' doesn't work because in America voting isn't compulsory so people have the option to stay home or even leave the party. For example, I doubt there are as many gun enthusiasts who vote Democrat as there once were due to the party's current stance on the issue.
Anthony, I don't agree.
First, I'm not worried about the Trump apologists. They are beyond hope. I'm worried about normally loyal conservatives who feel like they have been mistreated and are only using Trump at a tool. Those are the people to GOP needs to right this mess. Right now, it looks to me like they are a majority of his support and they don't support him ideologically so much as a protest. If they think the GOP blocked him, then the problem will persist. If not, then they can accept his defeat if the GOP promises to be more responsive and the GOP can rebuild bridges with them.
On Congress, this Congress is different. They are 100% secure in their districts and they got that way by doing what they've been doing. They won't risk their jobs by doing liberal things for Trump. Also, Trump is a delegator. I suspect he's going to demand Ryan creates an agenda and then he'll take credit for it when it works and attack Ryan when it doesn't.
So either we abandon conservatism and surrender ourselves to Trump (telling ourselves we will pick our ideals back up once Trump is done with us) or we stand for what we believe in.
I don't accept this at all. Trump is not a conservative and no one is going to mistake his ideology for conservative ideology. So we aren't abandoning anything... there's just no conservative choice. The conservative choice is to win over the GOP voters again... and you can't do that by walking away just because you don't like their choice this time. That's not how parties work. That's how parties implode. And if you don't back your supporters when they send a message to you, they will move on and they will become the party of Trump or something worse.
"Trump is not a conservative and no one is going to mistake his ideology for conservative ideology."
I disagree. Read any left-of-center (save Jonathan Haidt) or a slew of libertarian columnists and you'll find them saying that Trump is a conservative. It will be repeated ad nauseam.
Almost every conservative speaker will be asked about how can he call himself a conservative when Trump is the GOP's nominee. It doesn't matter if the speaker says he opposed Trump, it doesn't matter if the speaker says that he's an independent, to the public whatever is a Republican is a conservative. To the public, Hannity (pro-Trump), O'Reilly (friendly), Limbaugh (friendly), and Coulter (pro-Trump) are what the conservative movement is and they have fervently supported Trump.
Most people probably have no idea that many conservatives opposed Trump because the most vocal conservatives in the public sphere have supported him to some degree or another.
To the public, Trump is a conservative.
There's a lot hung up on the word "conservative" which obscures the point. The point is that no one is going to mistake Trump as being part of the same ideological group as, say, Paul Ryan. Maybe it's a good thing that Trump attaches the word to himself. The word "conservative" is only meaningful in relation to something, and right now, it's attached to nothing.
Is today's conservative movement conservative in relation to the constitution? the status quo? religion? (which religion?) the Eisenhower era? Reaganism? Austrian school economics? pre-Civil War Federalism? Conservatives are always talking about getting back to something but it's absolutely unclear what exactly they're headed back to.
Conservative is just a sticker on a package. It used to stand for something, but now anybody can slap it on. The brand is diluted, and that's where the trust went. If Trump tanks the brand, then at least it won't have to die a withering death. It can provide a clean break for associating policies that help the public and preserve freedom with a distinct brand and then maybe some real work can get done before the process starts again.
BTW, if you think I'm fantasizing: The liberal brand tanked in the 90s/early-2000s and now they call themselves progressives. The global warming brand tanked and now they call it climate change. The communist brand tanked way back when so they call themselves social democrats.
More reasons why Trump is no long-shot for president. [insert anti-Trump disclaimers here]
1. Clinton's lead continues to narrow in national polls. According to RCP aggregate polling, she is now just 6.4 ahead and it's still springtime.
2. The media is already offering excuses for why Hillary won't win. Among them: She's just too good a politician and can't distill her complex policies into soundbites. Yes, she is playing the woman card (brilliantly) but Trump is playing the man card (the cad!). Her proposed cabinet is too diverse for an America supposedly uncomfortable with its own diversity. She connects too deeply with niche voters. She's too good at responding to the public who ungratefully count it as wishy-washy. She's too focused and detail-oriented to bother with trying to look down to earth. It goes on and on. In short, the media is treating her like a loser already, which will only encourage the public to regard her as one.
3. An interesting item I learned just today: contrary to all prior wisdom, new research indicates that women do not respond to negative political campaigning. As in, at all. They aren't drawn in by it but they aren't turned off by it, either. On the other hand, men are significantly drawn in by candidates who campaign negatively. Which basically means Trump has nothing to lose and everything to gain by going negative against Clinton, and we know he has no compunctions about doing so. Of course, I don't doubt that Clinton will go heavy negative against Trump, but do you really think she can beat Donald at that game?
Excellent comment, tryanmax! I think conservatism is at a crossroads. The question now becomes, does it try to wrestle back the bulk of the public or does it form a tiny opposition and go sit in the corner. Right now, it seems content to play opposition, which is too bad.
To me, it makes sense to perhaps change the name to something more appealing -- "Pro Freedom" or something (too bad Libertarian has been taken), to create an agenda aimed at the public generally devoid of fringe appeal, and then to triangulate against the more unsavory elements of the right. (Tonight, I'm actually breaking down who I see on the right these days.)
It won't be easy, but I think that it's essential if we want America to return to the Reagan plan. Otherwise, it's always going to be populism v. cronyism.
BTW, in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio Trump and Clinton are currently statistically tied in the polls. That's horrible news for Clinton.
Kit, The GOP has been running a very vocal and public "neverTrump" campaign. I don't see the public thinking Trump represents conservatism. He is clearly an outsider to their world.
And even if they do connect him to conservatism, then they will see "conservatism" as a lot different from what they expected when Trump does pro-gay, pro-legalization of immigrants and pro-tax hikes kinds of things. Most likely, I think this just confuses them because he's a very different person than the standard liberal caricature of conservatives. But that assumes the public makes those kinds of connections. I suspect they just look for personalities.
In any event though, the issue really isn't how Trump sells to the public. The question is how the GOP sells to its own supporters. That's all that matters to the GOP right now.
"The point is that no one is going to mistake Trump as being part of the same ideological group as, say, Paul Ryan." Is that the same Paul Ryan who basically gave obama a blank check?
To quote Yoda... "and that is why you fail."
Kender,
What blank check are you referring to?
I'm still with Anthony and Kit on this one. I still don't see how Trump ends in anything except a severely damaged GOP and a big Democratic resurgence. From what I can see opposing Trump is being framed as a moral issue, though the why depends on who you ask. Most Anti-Trump sentiments that I see fall into the category that you mentioned about racism and misogyny - his whole Cinco De Mayo thing was viewed as an insult and all even the relatively apolitical people I know remember about him is hating Mexicans and Muslims. He still looks like a destructive fringe victory to me and I just can't shake the thought that this is the beginning of America's decline myself.
- Daniel
I'm voting against Hillary. If Satan himself emerges from the Republican National Convention as the nominee and runs as himself (Hello,I'm Satan Himself and I'm the republican nominee for president) then I'm voting for Satan Himself.
If the AntiChrist emerges as the republican nominee, with "666" birthmarked across his forehead and "Hail" birhmarked on one cheek and "Satan" birthmarked on the other cheek I'm voting for the AntiChrist.
If Adolph Hitler has been chryogenically frozen, and he's thawed out and becomes the republican nominee I'm voting for him.
I'm voting against Hillary.
The only way to have a presidential candidate who completely agrees with you on every issue is to run yourself.I wanted Ted Cruz to be the President of the United States. I voted for him and I sent him money. But Ted's not the nominee and Trump is. He's what we've got. I'm voting against Hillary.
GypsyTyger
Kit, This is the kind of garbage that got us to where we are. Ryan, like the rest of the GOP Congress, has resisted Obama to an amazing degree. Yet, he hasn't been 100% perfect in the eyes of the crazies, ergo he's 100% EEEEEVILLL!!
GypsyTyger, I feel your pain my friend and I HATE the fact that "conservatives" have forced this idiotic choice on us. It's unbelievable.
Daniel,
First, let me assure you again... America is fine. Really. Our political system has become largely irrelevant to the health of the nation. Trust me on this.
As for Trump. Ug. Here's the deal. No matter what conservatives do, Trump is going to win because Hillary is un-electable and Trump is a celebrity. So to me, the question is not about helping Trump win or not because we can't change that. The relevant question is what do we do next as conservatives.
In that regard, I don't think it helps to make a big deal of not voting for him. Being disloyal will not sit well with the people who voted for him, i.e. conservative/GOP voters. It only reinforces the idea that our leaders are elitists who will ignore the messages sent by the public to do the bidding of insiders and cronies.
To me, the best plan is to say this: "Ok, we got it. You are angry because we didn't listen. We are listening now though and we will continue to listen. In the meantime, you wanted this nutjob socialist, so we'll respect that. After he's done screwing you over though, come back to us and see how we've changed. We can make a America great again... for real."
P.S. Daniel, Trump definitely pandered to the sexists and the racists. That has stuck to him. BUT... if he (1) picks a female VP or (2) starts running ads showing women bosses he's hired praising him, he can undo the woman thing. His family is working on that right now and I suspect they will do pretty well because they each have their own fan bases.
On the Mexican thing, first, I don't think it's as important as it sounds because the Hispanic vote is concentrated in states he won't win or won't lose regardless. That said, I suspect he will mention a "path to citizenship" soon and that will flip the issue around for him.
By the way, it appears that Sarah Palin is campaigning on behalf of Paul Ryan's opponent in the primaries and Trump's spokeswoman Katrina Pierson is saying Paul Ryan is unfit to be Speaker.
Here's the deal: If Ryan's out, there is no way in hell I am voting for Trump. Gary Johnson, Hillary, anyone. I have heroin addicts in my family I would vote for over Trump if Ryan's gone.
I might just stay home on election day. If Ryan's gone then the GOP is, as far as I'm concerned, a left-wing party and not really worth my vote.
That being said, Trump is now taking a much more conciliatory tone than Palin or his spokeswoman, so we'll see.
Andrew, you've got me thinking. I may not vote for Trump but you've pushed me in that direction slightly. But if Ryan's out, then I'm out.
Tell us more about these heroin addicts. They sound more appealing than Trump or Clinton.
Attacking Ryan is stupid and I can't blame you.
Kit, I do think that Trump and Ryan will strike a deal. Palin is an idiot. Let's hope he doesn't pick her as VP.
Glad I made you think! That's all blogging is really about, a chance to stretch the old gray matter. :)
"Tell us more about these heroin addicts. They sound more appealing than Trump or Clinton."
Hehe.
Between Trump and Clinton, considering I live in a deep-red state (Alabama), I'll probably vote for whomever looks to be losing on election day so I can honestly tell people for the next four years:
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos."
LINK
Someone should sell bumperstickers that read: "Don't blame me, I voted for the other one."
"I do think that Trump and Ryan will strike a deal."
I do, too.
Still, I probably will not vote for Trump. I live in a state where if my vote matters then Trump is a worse GOP candidate than Goldwater.
"Someone should sell bumperstickers that read: "Don't blame me, I voted for the other one.""
Honestly, it would not surprise me if someone already has.
Either way, election night will be filled with both anxiety and schadenfreude. Anxiety because we will either have a bland crony socialist president or a loudmouth crony socialist president. Schadenfreude because if Trump wins then I can laugh about how horrible a candidate Hillary is and if Hillary wins I can tell Trump supporters "I told you so."
One thing we know for sure about election night... everybody loses.
Election 2016: Whomever Wins, America Loses!
Sound reasoning, and liked tryanmax's afternoon comments, but as a California resident, the only votes that'll matter for me involve getting Tom Del Beccaro to replace Boxer.
Good luck with that Eric. I kind of view California as a lost cause... like the old Soviet Union
It seems that every decade someone comes outside of the two parties and makes a mess of things. Perot, Nadar. Trump is exactly like these people but he found a way to get nominated by a major party. He has positions that appeal to many in each party but if he ran third party he would get about 25% of the vote. Couple that with the solid 25-30% republicans who vote party line, and you have a blow out.
I suspect Trump will be an overall failure as a president but he is like the phoenix and keeps rising from the ashes so who knows. Name me a democrat right now who has his charisma? Who can match him barb for barb? Right now the closest is an elderly socialist from Vermont.
Koshcat, This does seem to be an every decade thing, doesn't it?
I think third party candidates are jokes for the very reason you mention. They are topped out at around 25% no matter what Their only real power is in stealing votes from one side or the other.
Agreed on Trump's charisma. He is definitely winning people over with a high level of excitement. I think that will help carry him to the White House. And you're right, there's no one on the Democratic side who is even close to that... or the GOP side, sadly.
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