The Great Trumpian Divide

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.

Trump wrote a book back in 2011 that said pretty much everything he saying today.

He just updated it and it has been Published.

Can’t think of the Title right now but I hear it’s a good read.

“Jonah takes the lame and rebuts them, but ignores the good and better arguments.”

Totally true. I was going to reply to Jonah but then I decided he wasn’t being serious. He says he wants a debate with his readers, but it’s just cat and mouse games.

Why you’re nothing but a liberal in disguise! That’s exactly the liberal way of going after a conservative opponent!

By telling you to read a book before shooting off at the mouth? Hardly.

So let's review:
You've made many claims about Trump.
*All* of those claims are proven wrong by reading his book.
Since you didn't know that prior to making your claims, said claims can not be made from "knowledge."
The only alternative to "knowledge" for making claims is "feelings."
Liberals are notorious for using "feelings" interfere with "thinking."

So who's the liberal here?

Classic selective cut and paste.

Here’s what you said:

Yours is the ranting of a latter-day Archie Bunker. Nevertheless, I’m sure you’re more comfortable with an ignorant-and-proud-of-it demeanor than you would be with actually educating yourself on Trump’s positions to understand why so many FReepers disagree with you.

Here’s what I said:

YOU’RE calling ME an Archie Bunker. Why you’re nothing but a liberal in disguise! That’s exactly the liberal way of going after a conservative opponent! I guess that would make you Meathead!

Which facts are you disputing? His opportunistic changing of parties? His campaign contributions to Democrats? His 100% wholehearted support of Kelo? His use of eminent domain to try to take a woman’s property in Atlantic City? His support of partial birth abortion (which he opportunistically changed) to his support of abortion (which he opportunistically changed)? His flip flop on Planned Parenthood? His use of liberal talking points to criticize Walker, Jindal and Carson?

Trump is a butch Mayor Bloomberg; he’s Jeb Bush on steroids.

Which facts are you disputing?

This one.

Why don’t you name just one conservative position that Trump held a year ago that he holds today? You’ll have a hard time doing it because two years ago he was liberal democrat.

Aside from you trying to stack the deck by inserting "opportunistically" in every other assertion, the fact you cherry pick issues that prove he's not a "movement" conservative says nothing about him being "conservative enough."

That it's never occurred to you that you'll never get a "movement conservative" AND "the consent of the governed" shows you're the perfect sheep for the shepherds who have lead us to where we are now: irrelevant ideologues.

Nothing is more foundationally important in the USA than the right to life and the right to own property.

WRONG! The defining characteristic of the Great Experiment is self-governance. Everything else is "details." What we have now is clearly governing against the will of the people.

Voting for Trump is the ONLY vote against some formulation of the status quo. Even the other "outsiders" lack his ability to take on the fourth estate, and are thus to some measure dependent on the status quo.

If there is any hope of remaking out republic without tearing it down first, Trump is it.

Yes! These people are journalists. Their job is to be in tune to public opinion and upcoming or ongoing movements. Yet these guys are so removed from that - Happily ensconced in their ivory towers looking down on us.

IMO Jonah is the biggest disappointment of all of them because he still seems (or did seem) to represent youth/vigor/the future. But now he’s just in a lump with old establishment guys like Krauthammer and Will.

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.

BRAVO!! PRECISELY RIGHT.

You will never dance with any idiot. You are a loser. Your post is truly the most ignorant piece of garbage I have ever read.

So which loser are you for? and when that loser loses, what are we to get from it? Huh?

Oh man, you are a true conservative purist. Losin’ is so good because you feel all high and mighty and you are better than those who want to save the country.

“My background is blue collar so please save your breath about me being some kind of elitist.”

Anyone can be an elitist. It’s a mindset. Ithas nothing to do with income or what kind of career someone has.

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