Liberals have invested Obama with near dictator-like powers.
Their objection to Trump’s rise is not based on principle but out of fear of losing their spoils and everything.
In a word, they and the GOP establishment are hypocrites and have no credibility with the American people.
LOL. No one does turgid pretentious unreadable prose like Charles C. W. Cuck.
Ludicrous. The pundits are painting Trump as worse than Obama.
-—As Edmund Burke memorably put it, a sensible citizen does not wait for an “actual grievance” to intrude upon his liberty, -—
This is a Clintonesque statement with the qualifier “sensible”. The citizens seldom act and politicians never do. Reaction is what happens. Like Hillary,he slipped the qualifier in there to make it somewhat true.
Trump himself and the people at large are reacting on a very large scale.
I love it when a supposed Conservative channels ultra liberal attorney PETER BEINART in his efforts to stop Trump!!
I cannot take National Review seriously anymore.
My beef is that for years .gov has been conducting massive surveillance of its citizens in secret in the name of national security. (We now know that has been the case at least since the sixties in the case of telephony.)
So, for NR to complain about government over-reach while ignoring the elephant in the room (the national security state) is pathetic.
Bill Buckley was supposedly retired CIA. Looking back I am not so sure about the “retired” part.
I would love to see someone post a list of these.
I'm no fan of Obama, but in many cases that have been cited as an "extra-constitutional transgression," the Obama administration was actually following the letter of a law that was passed by Congress and signed by a U.S. president.
This essay is a real thumb-sucker.
The ends always justify the means to a leftist.
So now demanding the Government follow the rule of law is “authoritarian” now?
What a bunch of petulant self absorbed arrogantly ignorant twits we have in “Conservative Media”.
Dear MORON at NR,
IF you spent half so much time working to stop Obama’s lawlessness and corruption as you do ranting mindlessly abut imaginary “authoritarianism” in Trump, Trump’s Caampaign would not be necdsssary.
Obama has probably done lasting harm to this country. He has undermined the political process through his executive orders and through the massive fortification of the administrative apparatus, practically making it a fourth branch of government. He has sown division and contempt for law throughout our society and has shown that government favoritism, no longer individual effort, is the way to success. And he has governed as a celebrity rather than a political figure.
Trump promises more of the same, although favoring a different group, and the author’s question is whether this will make liberals rethink their approval of the new Obama all-powerful central state. I don’t think it will. The fact that Trump attracts a lot of Democrat voters indicates that they don’t care; for one thing, he has no conservative positions that might scare them away. He’s neither socially or politically nor economically conservative. So they see this as more of the same but perhaps favoring them (if they’re white) this time, it’s not going to make them reexamine the whole concept.
I think that unless we by some miracle get someone who believes in the pre-Obama political system and is strong enough to fight for it, we’ve basically gone over to the model of the European strong central state with a massive welfare program and deep control over individual lives. Although with Trump it would possibly be even worse, because it would be headed by an unstable, unpredictable demagogue who has already had the example of 8 years of this and would be inheriting the power consolidated by Obama.
I think the author makes a great point. Lets say the Liberals are indeed THAT afraid of Trump and all he could do, shouldn’t they be more keen as to the potential abuses by The State, which in general, they seek to empower? If not, they are apparently on drugs.
I take that an axiom. There are certain rights that are so fundamental that even a democratic majority cannot undo them. A vote, a legislative act, an executive order (even from a legitimate president, not just from the communist usurper), or a court order can trample and violate those rights, but nothing can limit those rights. Among those rights are those in the first eight Amendments to the Constitution. There are no legitimate restraints on religious freedom, on our individual right to keep and bear arms, or on other fundamental rights.
Actually, having held complete power and seeing it slip away, progressives are very very worried when the right takes complete control. They know all too well the tide of Trump is rising like a Tsunami waiting to crush their damaged candidate Hillary; hope is lost, that chance squandered with Obama’s power grabs at GM-Ford, the Banks and the Health Care Sector of the economy being over-reach coupled with Quantitative Easing. Those four actions spent his change and hope. Losing the presidency does give rise to fears that the other side will actually accomplish their legislative (Exec Order proclamations when necessary) to achieve their desires. Obama was the poster child for misuse of power, and now that they spent all the time of his administration defending his use of power they want it changed back to the days when compromise was not an illusion.
National Review = hog wash.
Reads like the thieving RINO trotskyites want an alliance with the democrat fascist apes to keep the gravy train rolling.
I will not read ANYTHING from NR.
Pearls before swine around here. This is exactly the point I made to a liberal a couple years ago. They don’t care about limits on power cause they don’t expect to give it up.
Of course, by nominating people like Trump we make it easy for them to assume we will never have power again.
NR uses a lot of words to disguise the stupidity of their ideas.