Posted on 09/11/2015 6:39:55 PM PDT by Steelfish
The Great Trumpian Divide
by JONAH GOLDBERG September 11, 2015
In last Friday’s Goldberg File I offered a lament or a screed or a diatribe or a thoughtful essay — opinions vary widely — on how and why I think Donald Trump is damaging conservatism. There’s no way I could — or should — respond to all of the criticisms or attacks. So I’ll just focus on a couple themes. The biggest criticism — in terms of quantity, not quality — is that I am a RINO squish faker fraud no-goodnik lib sucking at the teat of the establishment blah blah and blah. These usually take the form of angry tweets and e-mails. So I’ll fold my response to this silliness into my responses to the longer-form stuff.
One of the most popular rejoinders comes from the Conservative Treehouse, a site I’ve liked in the past. But if it weren’t for the fact that Rush Limbaugh enthusiastically plugged it on air, I’m not sure it would merit much of a response. A 2,000-word “Open Letter to Jonah Goldberg,” written by someone named “Sundance,” it devotes barely a sentence to responding to anything I actually wrote. Nor does the author really defend Donald Trump — or his supporters — from my criticisms. Instead it is a long and somewhat splenetic indictment of the “establishment.” Sundance writes: “The challenging aspect to your expressed opinion, and perhaps why there is a chasm between us, is you appear to stand in defense of a Washington DC conservatism that no longer exists.” He then proceeds to conflate the GOP’s record with “Washington conservatism” as if they are synonymous.
This strikes me as projection and deflection and nothing more. The whole thing is a non sequitur masquerading as a rejoinder. He lays down a tediously long list of questions, including:
Did the GOP secure the border with control of the White House and Congress? NO. Who gave us the TSA? The GOP Who gave us the Patriot Act? The GOP Who expanded Medicare to include prescription drug coverage? The GOP Who refused to support Ken Cuccinnelli in Virginia? The GOP Who supported Charlie Crist? The GOP Who supported Arlen Spector? The GOP Who worked against Marco Rubio? The GOP Who worked against Rand Paul? The GOP Who worked against Ted Cruz? The GOP Who worked against Mike Lee? The GOP Who worked against Ronald Reagan? The GOP [sic] Who said “I think we are going to crush [the Tea Party] everywhere.”? And so on.
I won’t go through every item on the list, in part because a few of them are just ridiculous (opposition to the Patriot Act is now a conservative litmus test? Who knew?) and in part because all of them are red herrings.
But the questions are a useful illustration of how Trump’s supporters see things. The argument very often seems to be: “You don’t like Trump? What about X?” Where X can be anything from Jeb Bush to John Boehner to the infield-fly rule.
But as a rejoinder to me or to National Review it is about as on point as a stemwinder on how Trieste shouldn’t belong to the Italians. — and yours truly — were on the “anti-GOP” side of a great many of the examples on Sundance’s list. National Review was instrumental in helping Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio win their primaries (just ask them). We were relentless critics of Arlen Specter. We opposed Bush on immigration, criticized the formation of the TSA, and we’ve heaped support on Mike Lee etc., etc. I was complaining about Bush’s spending and compassionate conservatism when many of Trump’s most prominent defenders would brook no criticism of W. And I was lamenting that the GOP had betrayed the base at least a decade ago. I defended the Tea Parties from the get go, dubbing them in part a “delayed Bush backlash,” and I’m fairly certain I’ve spoken to more tea-party groups than Trump has.
The case against the GOP establishment is not the case for Trump, no matter how much it feels like it is in your head or your heart. I am to the right of Trump on nearly every issue I can think of. I came out in favor of a wall on the border in 2006. On specifics — wolfsbane to Donald Trump — I tend to agree with Mark Krikorian that you don’t need a literal wall everywhere, but I am 100 percent in favor of securing the border, and was saying so when Trump was posing with DREAMers and bad-mouthing Romney for being insensitive to Hispanics.
I will admit, I think a Trumpian mass deportation of every illegal alien is unworkable and unwise, so if that’s your yardstick, I guess I’m the sell-out (though then again, I think Trump would cave on the promise very quickly). Also, I think his “we’ll take their oil” shtick is really stupid on the merits (but brilliant red meat).
On abortion, I’ve become much more pro-life in recent years, but I may not be all the way there for some of my colleagues at NR. Still, unlike Trump, I wouldn’t appoint pro-choice extremists to the Supreme Court, so take that for what you will. But, I’m falling for the trap. None of this matters! Even if I were a RINO-squish-lickspittle of the D.C. establishment, even if every denunciation of the “Washington cartel” is exactly right and fair, that is not a defense of Donald Trump.
If I say littering is bad and Donald Trump litters and then you note that I’ve littered too, that is not a defense of Donald Trump, nor is it a defense of littering. Tu quoque arguments are a logical fallacy, not a slam-dunk debating tactic.
I don’t know how else to say this: The case against the GOP establishment is not the case for Trump, no matter how much it feels like it is in your head or your heart. Which brings me to my friend John Nolte, who at least bothered to defend Trump (unlike his boss Ben Shapiro, who concedes that he doesn’t think Trump is a conservative either, but then proceeds to dance the required tune).
It’s funny, Nolte dings me for my use of a Marxist phrase when I describe the “trumpenproletariat,” but I actually explain in the piece that I am not using it on Marxist grounds. I do plead guilty for giving in to the seduction of a pun. RELATED: The Words Trump Doesn’t Use Meanwhile, Nolte goes whole hog for Marxist-style analysis — and my Lord he’s not alone. This notion that all criticism of Trump amounts to wagon circling by a frightened and self-interested D.C./Beltway/Fox/establishment seems to be an Idea Whose Time Has Come for a lot of people. Nolte sums it up well when he writes that the “The Bourgeois GOP Is Mad For One Reason: They Are Losing.” Look, I can’t speak for the entirety of the “establishment.” In fact, part of my point is that I don’t believe I speak for it at all and I reject, and resent, many of these glib and facile accusations of bad faith. It’s usually just a lazy and cheap way of dismissing arguments you don’t like by attacking the motives of the people making them.
Then again, John admires conservatives who fight like left-wingers so maybe that’s okay by him. I, on the other hand, think intellectual dishonesty and bad faith aren’t things to be admired, even when conservatives deploy them to great effect.
Regardless, all I can do here is speak for myself on perhaps the only topic I know more about than anybody in the world: My own motivations. The idea that my opposition to Donald Trump stems from my “bourgeois” class-interest is ridiculous. I know, I know, that’s exactly what you’d expect from a court conservative protecting his luxurious billet in Versailles. So if you can’t take my word for it, explain to me why I wrote my first anti-Trump column in 2011? He wasn’t winning then, was he? (My first negative mention of the man — according to LexisNexis — was in 2001). Was I so perspicacious that I saw his true potential before everybody else?
It’s a serious question, because I keep hearing that we “establishment” conservatives don’t like Trump because A) he proved us wrong when we cluelessly dismissed him out of hand and B) because we understand deep in our bones what a threat to our livelihoods he poses. So which is it? Because A and B are in conflict. Not only that, speaking only for myself (but with ample confidence many other Trump critics agree with me) both A and B are wrong.
If you think pissing off millions of self-described conservatives is part of my secret plan to make more money, I’m going to need to explain to you how my business works. Why can’t the real explanation of my motives be the ones I put down in writing?
To wit: I don’t think Trump is a conservative. I don’t think he’s a very serious person. I don’t think he’s a man of particularly good character. I don’t think he can be trusted to do the things he promises. Etc. If all that hurts your feelings, I’m sorry. But there’s no need to make up imaginary motives. The reason I’m writing such things is that I believe them — and that’s my job.
Which brings me back to Nolte’s piece. There’s no way I can run through all of my disagreements, but I do take particular exception to this: “To his credit, Goldberg doesn’t hurl names at Trump’s supporters but his sneering (and surprisingly clueless) incredulity does boil them down to unthinking, knee-jerk cretins.” First of all, this is a pretty shabby take-back. He gives me credit for not hurling insults and then says I’m insulting people anyway in effect because I’m saying things they don’t want to hear. Look, I don’t think all of Trump’s fans are unthinking, knee-jerk cretins. Far from it.
But I do think they’re wrong. And I said so, and I explained why. I thought that’s what conservatives are supposed to do (“There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism,” Emerson wrote, “joined with a certain superiority in its fact”). It’s the Left that judges facts and opinions entirely by how they make other people feel. It’s funny how John is so eager to defend Trump’s insult-hurling and celebrate his ability to “fight like a leftist,” but condemns me for simply telling the truth as I see it.
A polite Trump supporter offered I think the best explanation of what’s really going on in this disagreement. Here’s the deal on Trump. There are those of us prepared to give him benefit of the doubt (e.g. me), and those who are not (you).
That’s exactly right. It’s not, as Nolte and so many others suggest, that my cluelessness stems from my inability to see his appeal. It’s that I can see through it. Or at least I think I can. What I am truly clueless about is how so many other people can’t. — Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review.
Pretty much stopped reading right there.
We want that wall, we need that wall.
Are you kidding? He is about as a direct candidate as you will ever get as far as policy.
That is some funny $hit right there. Walker is at what 1%. Jindal attacked Trump this week with all the GOPe talking points and Carson even tried to go after Trump. Are you gullible enough to think that was all a coincidence?
These are not the positions of a liberal
There are two types of people on the right, one group thinks that the USA is being invaded by foreigners both legally and illegally and it needs to stop now or the USA is doomed. They "get" Trump and he is a God send, warts and all. And there are a lot of warts for sure.
The other group doesn't not see the existential threat(stupidly so) and so does not "get" Trump.
Ah 'Steefish', clearly a better name for you would be 'red herring'
Anyway what you posted is such bull crap and you know it. The goal is to put pressure on the illegals to go home on their own. Stepping up deportations is just one tool. ICE doesn't have to deport everyone. You detain, try, confiscate assets and ship home a million then 9 million do it on their own. Stop spreading your trash talk crapola.
We're gettin' a wall!
This election is going to be the easiest one for me ever. Since I support Trump I won’t have to send him money and he appears to not need a strong ground game; he has recognition and a household name already. He is famous in his own right. It’s non auto pilot.
I would say supporting another GOPe candidate is irrational....
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
I already feel that way about posting in FR. No point in getting in long drawn-out arguments when your choice of candidates is easily winning so many arguments without your help.
I am much more relaxed in the presence of Trump critics (and even agree with some of what they say) than I was when I was defending Gingrich in 2012 or Fred Thompson in 2008. Those were some rough rows to hoe, I'll tell you.
Jonah takes the lame and rebuts them, but ignores the good and better arguments.
This is the fallacy of Contradict Confidently. It works by vigorously denouncing each of your opponent’s arguments as fallacious but just select one or two that you can easily defeat to prove the point. The harder arguments—the better cases, so to speak, are ignored. You concentrate on the easily rebutted points, even if there are only a few, and spend all your time by speaking or writing only about those, and lead the listener/hearer into the idea that that is all your opponent can muster. Then assume that you have won.
MY LOGICAL ARGUMENT
I don't even attempt to defend Trump. I WANT an assault, a full offense against the GOPe. I only want to see the RINO party broken in true defeat. I believe when the democrats win, the RINOs are fine with that because they still get power and money as "the loyal opposition" and are more than glad to become the convenient democrat and media punching bag as they still get "paid".
For years this win/lose between the democrats and RINOs have been a virtual shell game for the rest of us. The "pea" is in the same "shell" all along. The Uniparty.
They need a defeat from the inside, one which breaks the lobbyists, moneymen, bag men and all the other enablers of the Washington money cabal. Trump has his own money--he cannot be bribed like so many we've in the past.
Even if Trump turns on us after the election, well, we've had that happen since George Herbert Walker Bush with every Republican who won. If it breaks many of these RINOs from attaining power, it is a good deal in the long run.
I’m not pulling the lever for Trump OR for Bush. If either of those two RINOs get the nomination, I’ll vote straight up the line conservative until I get to the line for the president. That will not be checked.
This thread proves Goldberg’s point, and painfully. You make a simple assertion of fact like “Trump is not a conservative” - a point of substance, and one debatable with facts and logic - and within seconds the supporters begin the substance-free name calling, and the pre-recorded exegesis of the demonstrable false dilemma takes up the rest of the white space.
I never thought I’d see an old style cult of personality erupt among conservatives, but I’m watching it, with all the fascination due a slow-motion train wreck. It won’t end well, and the landscape will be littered with executed partisans at the end. Cult leaders always betray the first generation in order to grow the second. Something here about being doomed to repeat history. Sad.
Sad, but actually fascinating at the level of pure intellectual curiosity. I do enjoy (it’s a sort of hobby) sociological crowd-watching. When I can’t make it to the mall to watch teenage girls shriek over a 15 year old kid with no observable qualities, I can now just come to a freeper show and collect the shrieks of the freepers as they swoon over another bad boy who - what? - offended daddy? Is that what you wanted all these years? Someone to finally say rude things to daddy that you couldn’t say yourself? Wow. Those of us who’ve retained our reason and can’t identify one good quality in the strutting blowhard are just....fascinated.
Meanwhile, a conservative governor with a record of economic governance drops out of the race. Another conservative governor with a history of actually fighting the left and winning is largely ignored.
Allow me to blow some rational oxygen into the room between shrieks (you can stagger back here and resuscitate your sanity after it all blows over):
No. No, Donald Trump is not:
1. putting the media in their place (they’re laughing)
2. removing the establishment GOP from their seats of power (they’re still there)
3. going to run for the presidency without taking money from “special interests” (he doesn’t have the liquid assets)
4. going to deport the illegals (he’ll change that position overnight when he is pressed on the details. Watch.)
5. build a wall and make Mexico pay for it (again, he is the most malleable under pressure of all the candidates)
6. not, I say, a conservative on any issue. (He will say anything, then reverse himself within a day.)
7. Not different because “he fights”. (No, he bluffs, then backs down when called, or just lies about what he said. He’s a poker player. The table is attracting real pros. Just watch.)
7. Not going to win the GOP nomination.
8. Not going to be President of the United States. Or hold any public office, for that matter.
Now go ahead and put those posters up on your bedroom wall, but you’re not going to the dance with that idiot.
Jonah’s strawdog RINO factory is working overtime in this latest squishy screed. Blah!
He doesn’t have the money. He’s running on free air time right now. He won’t liquidate hard assets to fund his campaign.
I am not all in for trump, I am enjoying the show. Way to early to get series about anyone.
Jindal and Walker are both GOPe. You’re dismissed as a troll.
Trump is 100% pure, unadulterated RINO. One year ago he was against the dignity of life (pro-abort) and against the metaphysical right of private property ownership (pro-Kelo). You’ve just been TRUMPED!
Excellent points, Taliesan.
Conservatism is, and has always been, about preserving heritage; about preserving the historic verities of your people. But the priorities that one Conservative may have, may differ from those of another. A clear example would be some of your comments--your insulting comments--directed at people whose Conservatism is directed more at preserving the value system of the Founding Fathers, as opposed to an over emphasis on aspects of personal safety, etc.. What you ridicule, is more truly Conservative than some of the things that your ridicule implies that you take for granted.
Your own arrogance reminds one a bit of Trump's; but his arrogance is tempered by being better keyed to an understanding of the actual dynamics of the current American debate.
Goldberg's piece, like much that is written on the subject, today, appears more calculated to look intellectual, rather than actually achieve any appreciable level of true analysis. It was not, in my opinion, something that really requires counter-analysis, as I can not see it changing anyone's opinion.
Trump & Cruz are the best shots we have at present to save the heritage that has been so severely eroded during the Clinton/Bush/Obama era. That is not an easy task; but it will not ever be achieved by endless fluff pieces, like that at the head of this thread.
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