Toward a Trump Republicanism

Donald Trump's surprisingly good State of the Union speech got a record 70 to 75 percent positive approval rating from those who watched. Even if you discount (as you should) for the Trump haters who can't bear to watch him and chose another of their 100-plus cable channels, that's not chopped liver.

If they'd watched, their reactions would undoubtedly have been as sour as those of the Democrats in the chamber who stayed slouching and frowning in their chairs even after some patriotic lines.

White House staffers hinted that the speech would be nonpartisan, a reach out to Democrats from a president whose consequential first-year accomplishments -- judicial appointments, tax cuts, regulation repeals and rewrites -- were conventionally Republicanism.

The speech didn't live up to that billing, though it should not be forgotten that Trump's willingness to sign legislation giving "dreamers" a path to citizenship, together with other immigration law changes, is a genuine move in that direction.

Rather, what I think we're seeing is a reshaping of the character of the two major political parties, the emergence of Trump-Republican and anti-Trump-Democratic parties from the dried husks of the parties of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Back in the 1990s, I wrote an article for Irving Kristol's The Public Interest in which I divided parties that had emerged over the 150 years of electoral democracies in various countries into four types -- religious, liberal (classical free market liberal, that is), socialist and nationalist.

The Bush Republican Party leaned free market liberal on economics and religious on culture. The Clinton Democratic Party leaned mildly socialist on economics and liberal on culture. Both were quietly nationalist.

Trump is different. He has embraced the causes of religious conservatives -- as anomalous as that may be, given his persona -- but you didn't hear much about that in his State of the Union address.

He has abandoned much of free market Republicanism. You heard no mention of the national debt, no hint of reforms in Social Security or Medicare entitlements. House Speaker Paul Ryan, sitting behind him, must realize with sadness that these are non-starters in the Trump presidency.

You did hear a lot about the new tax law, formerly known to Democrats and mainstream media as the "tax scam," how it's producing wage increases and bonuses for those at the low and modest ends of the income scale, and how paychecks will rise when the IRS' new withholding schedule goes into effect in two weeks.

What you heard most of was nationalism. To some Democrats, including many in the chamber, that sounds like Adolf Hitler's national socialism. To those who realize that we have no political prisons full of reporters and less government surveillance of the press than in the Obama administration, it sounds more attractive.

Trump did, appropriately, pay more tribute than usual to Americans' engagement in the world and aid to foreigners. But his repeated theme was that he will always serve Americans first -- such Americans as the heroes in the gallery whom he spotlighted with grace.

So though Trump Republicanism has elements of other party traditions, its dominant tone is nationalist. That puts the Democratic Party, now suffused with Trump hatred, in danger of positioning itself as anti-nationalist. The withering contempt of many coastal Democrats for heartland Americans who regard patriotism as normal and benign is probably not a political asset.

Two other issues mentioned briefly in the State of the Union address have the potential to move his party away from Bush's. One is his daughter Ivanka's proposal for family and medical leave, something free market Republicans have usually spurned.

Democratic versions of this feature yet another Great Society bureaucracy and new taxes on businesses. Trump Republicans might embrace the proposal of lawyer Kristin Shapiro and the American Enterprise Institute's Andrew Biggs to allow parents to finance leaves through early withdrawals from Social Security in return for delayed retirement. As with Social Security retirement, recipients would arguably be paying something for what they get.

The second issue is infrastructure, on which Trump called for $1.5 trillion in spending. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pre-emptively attacked the public-private financing Trump is said to support. But public-private financing has been enormously successful abroad, whereas Schumer's preferred system, The New York Times reports, has produced subway tunneling costs per mile that are seven times the average of the rest of the world.

The State of the Union address probably won't elevate Trump's low job approval rating. But competition between Trump Republicans and Democrats wedded to socialism and a religiously intense secularism may not turn out the way the latter would like.

It must be very difficult for someone who wrote for Irving Kristol to comprehend what is going on - and if they do comprehend it, it is probable that they will not like it very much.

“You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked and you say, “Who is that man?”
You try so hard but you don’t understand
Just what you will say when you get home
Because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

You raise up your head and you ask, “Is this where it is?”
And somebody points to you and says, “It’s his”
And you say, “What’s mine?” and somebody else says, “Well, what is?”
And you say, “Oh my God, am I here all alone?”
But something is happening and you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

You hand in your ticket and you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak
And says, “How does it feel to be such a freak?”
And you say, “Impossible!” as he hands you a bone
And something is happening here but you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

You have many contacts among the lumberjacks
To get you facts when someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect, anyway they already expect you to all give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations

Ah, you’ve been with the professors and they’ve all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks
You’ve been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books
You’re very well-read, it’s well-known
But something is happening here and you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you and then he kneels
He crosses himself and then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice, he asks you how it feels
And he says, “Here is your throat back, thanks for the loan”
And you know something is happening but you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

Now, you see this one-eyed midget shouting the word “Now”
And you say, “For what reason?” and he says, “How”
And you say, “What does this mean?” and he screams back, “You’re a cow!
Give me some milk or else go home”
And you know something’s happening but you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

Well, you walk into the room like a camel, and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket and your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law against you comin’ around
You should be made to wear earphones
‘Cause something is happening and you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?” - Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, 1965

I originally supported Cruz. I wasn't sure how Trump would be as president because of his mercurial nature, lack of a formal underlying philosophy, doubts about sticking to his pro-life stance and the appearance of a lack of personal discipline.

I was mistaken. Trump is the man for our nation, in our era. Trump has hit all the right notes in his first year, mostly picks the right friends, smokes out the enemy and usually picks the right battles.

There still remained the problem of the lack of an underlying philosophy for him to apply. We knew what Reaganism was based on, the triad of strong defense/small government/traditional values ... the triad.

We Americans are used to making our declarations, our Federalist Papers, our Common Sense pamphlets, our Publius documents, etc. Then we set out to make it happen. But most of the world, and most of history isn't like that.

Most of the time something develops organically, to meet people's needs. Certainly the free market continually does that. Outside of Esperanto, all languages do that. The framework to describe the result comes after.

There is enough of a consistent thread with President Trump that even now Grammar of Trump is being fleshed out by people who are good at that sort of thing. It starts with Love of Country, and the Good in it. That's a good base, and it is conservative. More than a nod is made at least to Christian values, on which our country and western civilization have been based.

Trumpism is not utopian, despite the regularly soaring rhetoric, because it builds on the good without starting from scratch to avoid massive social disruption. It is the "resistance" who are pushing for massive, foundational disruption. Trumpism is, however, confident, not afraid of recognizing enemies, and confronting them.

These are principles on which nations and peoples are built. This time the building is going to go up before the plans are fully spelled out.

It is a great counter to the termites that will undermine the best of plans before they can ever go into effect.

Donald Trump's surprisingly good State of the Union speech

At the third word, you knew this was a clueless writer, even if, surprisingly Barone got a few things right.

If you go back and read the President's inaugural address and four or five speeches of substance on the economy, foreign affairs and such, you can't possibly be surprised. The president has a great speech writing team, more substantive than Reagan's Peggy Noonan.

Barone is a conservative? With friends like him, PDJT doesn't need the likes of Schumer and Pelosi.

Indeed. I don’t understand their thought process —

They think Trump is an idiot with dementia and therefore could not write a good speech.
Hello? No one writes their own speeches. Obama didn’t. You hire professionals and they write good speeches. Trump has an excellent team and they produce excellent speeches.

They think Trump is just some entertainer, just some TV celebrity.
Hello? Do you think he might be able to perform in front of an audience? Put a good speech in front of him and see if he delivers it well. Guess what? He will.

But the media is just wrapped around the idea that the President is a loser. They are continually surprised when he wins. Which I guess is fine. MAGA.

Indeed. I don’t understand their thought process —

You just triggered a thought about the thought process of these never-Trump idiots. My wife took on the care of her mother in her 90s as Mom's world became more limited by surrender of driving license, loss of vision to macular degeneration (she called it "immaculate degeneration" once and made the eye doc laugh—she did NOT laugh, because besides her vision her sense of humor abandoned her). She could no longer see to write checks or order from the menu at restaurants, so my wife had to accompany and help out on all these tasks. Result?

The old lady became ever more spiteful and resentful, pissed that she had to be helped, and took it out in snappish ways. Moral?

These so-called conservatives are resentful that President Trump is doing for them what they have not been able to do for themselves in multiple election cycles. Pissed because he's better at their self-proclaimed mission in life than they are.

Is my opinion.

I think that is a good part of it.

I see Progressives as falling into two camps:

1) Some really want slaves on a plantation. The Dems can lord it over those folks and use them for their own political power.
2) Some actually want to help the downtrodden and do good in the world (this is a smaller group than the first, IMO).

President Trump is upsetting to both of those groups. He’s freeing the slaves and he’s showing that the Liberal way of “helping” people is extremely ineffective. They’ve all been wasting their time for years.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.