Honey Badger don't give a shit about anything National Review says anymore, and wishes people would quite posting NR links here.
Posted on 11/27/2016 12:38:58 PM PST by EveningStar
Populism? No thanks.
I am not now, nor will I ever be, a populist. Evidently, that separates me from a growing number of commentators, including some conservatives, wistfully engaged in Washington's latest fad: over-interpreting Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election.
The normally sensible Mike Lee, Republican senator from Utah, took to our pages to plead the case of "principled populism" -- which is akin to calling for a sober Bacchanalia. Not surprisingly, Senator Lee's brief doesn't get very far before strangling in its own illogic, as odes to populism inevitably do. The "characteristic weakness" of populism, he tells us, is the lack of "a coherent philosophy," which inevitably makes its "proposals" (I'd have said "careenings") "inconsistent" and "unserious." Well, yes . . . that is because populism is inherently unprincipled, inconsistent, and unserious, such that arguing for "principled populism" is so much nonsense.
Lee, a very smart guy, is anything but nonsensical. He is clearly trying to exploit Trump's supposed populist moment for conservative ends. In his telling, "principled populism" becomes a menu of conservative proposals "focused on solving the problems that face working Americans in a fracturing society and global economy." I'm all for the menu, but that's not "principled populism"; it's conservatism -- or, as Lee unnecessarily modifies it, "authentic conservatism."
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
That’s a keeper. Good stuff...
To neoconservatives and their globalist allies, pro-American policies are populist.
Heller decision on the Second Amendment, followed by the McDonald decision, to add to your list.
The post-1994 changes in the national political conversation were far more dramatic than anything the GOP came up with when that dope George W. Bush was the president.
They occurred while the establishment media was figuring out what happened and makeing the decision to become the concious, full on propaganda arm of the Democrat party. It took the last 20 years to grow the new media enough to overcome the establishment media overbearing control of the information flow to voters.
Populism is a meaningless term to denigrate people we love that the establishment hates. If Trump has an ideology it’s nationalism, which is why the phony conservative globalist establishment hates him.
I have renounced your wish list
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I am thinking that auto correct changed “renumbered” to “renounced”, nicht var?
Anyway, it is not a wish list but an list of his actually promises from his campaign speeches during the primary campaign.
Taking donations from wealthy corporatist elites and using the ‘Conservative Movement” as a propaganda machine to support the Republican Party Establishment.
Nigel Farage spoke again recently about his admiration for Reagan and Thatcher but how he saw politics become the story of big business, big banks and big government working together against small business and the individual.
The “Conservative Media-Conservative Movement” is mixed in with those forces and the talk show hosts I suspect will pull out the long knives to deal with Donald Trump first chance they get if he threatens the Corporatists.
One thing that occurs to me is when measuring gains are we speaking in terms of seizing new ground or reclaiming old? The left has been able to boast of wins that are truly gaining new ground (phag marriage, pot legalization, expanded and federally funded abortion, etc) while our victories are all in reclaiming ground previously won by the left.
It makes their gains appear more substantial than ours.
For at least a few decades now, conservatism has meant one thing and one thing only.
That thing is to drop trousers and bend over for the pleasure and profit of the DNC in private, while running their spunk sumps with lies about how their opposing the destructionists in public.
Dishonorable and degenerate.
Populism to me means AMERICA FIRST what the HELL is wrong with ANY CONSERVATIVE or ANYONE for that matter thinking this way????
Populism is when the status qou of a political class is universally rejected by the ruled. Whether the political class supports it or not is pretty much irrelevant. Most political classes never see the populist wave coming and get swept off the beach before they know it. The astute politician breaks out the surf board and jumps onto that wave (like Trump) to ride it out until the energy behind the wave is dissipated.
Conservatives have done very little since 1995. Now those claiming to be “conservatives” but in reality are nothing more than Republican Party hacks have done a lot. A lot of compromising to the liberals and in most cases out right capitulation to them.
Agreed, what would NRO know about true conservatism. They sold out as conservatives when Buckley died. They are nothing more than Republican Party partisan hacks looking out for themselves and their owners, the chamber of crony commerce. They could care less about the country just their egos and checking accounts.
Honey Badger don't give a shit about anything National Review says anymore, and wishes people would quite posting NR links here.
Thank you.
Conservatism shouldn’t embrace National Review
Instead, what Andrew McCarthy seems to have in mind is a conservative frame of mind and rhetorical style that echo evangelical calls to repent and to turn to the true faith derived from Constitutional scripture and the Federalist exegesis of the founding era. This take-your-medicine approach though rarely works well outside of its natural base of white evangelicals.
Finally, I get to his last sentence which worries about “statism” employed by Democrats vs statism employed by Republicans. Well, that’s nice Andy but when the nation is sliding off the fn cliff your hair splitting pontifications seem as blissfully irrelevant as your employer’s ignorant opposition to Mr. Trump turned out to be.
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I totally agree, and well said.
Trump kicked your ass.
Now shut up.
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That’s what I call getting right to the point. Good job!
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