Posted on 01/23/2016 7:26:46 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Donald Trump is no conservative. Now, That's not a crime, it's just a reason to vote against him.
Many fine people are not conservatives. But the reason Trump's candidacy should worry conservatives runs much deeper than that: He poses a direct challenge to conservatism, because he embodies the empty promise of managerial leadership outside of politics.
Trump's diagnoses of our key problems -- first and foremost, that America's elites are weak and unwilling to put the interests of Americans first -- have gained him a hearing from many on the right. But when he gestures toward prescriptions, Trump reveals that even his diagnoses are not as sound as they might seem.
Conservatives incline to take the weakness of our elite institutions as an argument for recovering constitutional principles -- and so for limiting the power of those institutions, reversing their centralization of authority, and recovering a vision of American life in which the chief purpose of the federal government is protective and not managerial.
Trump, on the contrary, offers himself as the alternative to our weak and foolish leaders, the guarantee of American superiority, and the cure for all that ails our society; and when pressed about how he will succeed in these ways, his answer pretty much amounts to: "great management."
The appeal of Trump's diagnoses should be instructive to conservatives. But the shallow narcissism of his prescriptions is a warning. American conservatism is an inherently skeptical political outlook. It assumes that no one can be fully trusted with public power and that self-government in a free society demands that we reject the siren song of politics-as-management.
A shortage of such skepticism is how we ended up with the problems Trump so bluntly laments. Repeating that mistake is no way to solve these problems. To address them, we need to begin by rejecting what Trump stands for, as much as what he stands against.
-- Yuval Levin, a contributing editor of National Review, is the editor of National Affairs.
It is not the EPA.
RE: Cruz has never done a wrong thing in his life.
And who is claiming that again?
Losing ? We're not even fighting, we're inviting the foreign born murderers in and even giving them government jobs while millions who were born in the US are unemployed.
We're neck deep in "Conservative" Congress critters and all they've done is piss down our backs and tell us it's raining.
Also, Yuval Levin was on staff for former President George W. Bush. I wouldn’t consider him a very good source on knowing much about limited government.
Just this past week in Iowa he said he would use the EPA to enforce higher EFS.
“The EPA should ensure that biofuel … blend levels match the statutory level set by Congress under the [renewable fuel standard],†Trump said.
The mandate is popular in Iowa, which hosts the nation’s first caucuses.
exactly
This is the first I am hearing and with your hatred toward Trump makes you perhaps not as fair to him as I would be.
Bottom line, He is President of the United States in January 2017. You will learn to appreciate him.
It is the Department of Education. Regardless, all of these promises to eliminate agencies never happen. Each has its own constituencies and special interests that prevent them from being eliminated.
Also, Yuval Levin was on staff for former President George W. Bush. I wouldn’t consider him a very good source on knowing much about limited government.
^^ THAT ^^
Trump said he wanted to use the EPA to enforce higher EFS - is that Conservatism, Yes or No? This has nothing to do with Nixon.
Interesting you have a problem with what Trump “says” but never a problem with what Cruz DID. Like take $100,000 in campaign cashola from Goldman Sachs and then advance their agenda in the U. S. Senate by campaigning for TPA/TPP. Goldman Sachs was the largest donor to the U. S. Senate during the TPA debate and wrote much of the 5,000 page TPP that Cruz enabled.
There’s a difference between hot air and the damaging actions of a sitting U. S. Senator. I’m sad to see you apparently can’t discern the difference.
I guess when we do not like something we just ignore it.
OK, here’s the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-epa-education_us_56240035e4b02f6a900cc0e7
TITLE:
Donald Trump Would Cut Department Of Education, EPA
That’s a good start, although I wished he’d use the word ELIMINATE for the Department of Education.
I am so glad Palin joined Trump’s campaign and will be part of his administration.
She came in to work with the Stevens republican administration in Alaska. She saw the corruption in the energy department “the bastard’s club” and then had her own bosses and colleagues arrested and jailed.
Then to top it off ran for governor, won, and sliced the budget. I think Alaska’s budget went from deficits to surpluses during her tenure.
I hope she still has it. I hope Trump puts her in charge. I hope she has been hardened with a slow anger at the Republican gravy train establishment that mistreated her, and cuts programs left and right.
I have full confidence that if she has a post in the Trump administration, and if Trump is of like mind, that the USA will be an lean, small, well oiled machine, raking in the bucks in no time.
I hope the old adage is true, “Hell has no fury like a spurned woman”
She was a cost cutting executive first and a populist campaigner second.
“The EPA should ensure that biofuel blend levels match the statutory level set by Congress under the [renewable fuel standard] “Â Trump said.
The mandate is popular in Iowa, which hosts the nation’s first caucuses.
Well said, look what they did to Reagan.
RE: Goldman Sachs was the largest donor to the U. S. Senate during the TPA debate and wrote much of the 5,000 page TPP that Cruz enabled.
Could you kindly show us how Goldman Sachs would benefit with or without the TPP?
By the way, Cruz eventually voted against the TPA.
So, based on this vote, how did Goldman Sachs influence him again?
This guy needs to sober up and then edit what he writes because that statement makes no sense at all. We can disagree all we want about what the government should do, but whatever it should do, it should do it well.
RE: The EPA should ensure that biofuel blend levels match the statutory level set by Congress under the [renewable fuel standard]
Disagree. The EPA should set REASONABLE health guidelines regarding levels of pollution and GET THE HELL OUT of how companies are going to meet the guidelines.
It should not be in the business of mandating what technology to favor or use.
She and Michael Alan Weiner think they are getting jobs in a Trump administration.
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