Posted on 02/28/2017 6:45:17 AM PST by RoosterRedux
Paradox: How does a supposedly bad man appoint good people eager to advance a conservative agenda that supposedly more moral Republicans failed to realize?
We variously read that Trump should be impeached, removed, neutralized or worse. But until he is, are his appointments, executive orders, and impending legislative agenda equally abhorrent?
General acclamation followed the Trump appointments of retired Generals H. R. McMaster as national-security adviser, James Mattis as defense secretary, and John Kelly to head Homeland Security. The brief celebration of Trumps selections was almost as loud as the otherwise daily denunciations of Trump himself. Trumps equally inspired decisions, such as the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and Jeff Sessions as attorney general, presented the same ironies.
Most of these and other fine appointments came amid a near historic pushback against Trump, mostly over what he has said rather than what hes done. But again, do the appointments create a dilemma for his existential critics who have gone beyond the traditional media audit of a public official and instead descended into calls for his removal or worse? Indeed, removal chic is now widespread, as even conservatives ponder impeachment, invoking the 25th Amendment for mental unfitness, while the more radical (here and abroad and both Right and Left) either abstractly or concretely ponder a coup or some other road to his demise.
How do his opponents square such excellent appointments with Trump himself? Even bad people can occasionally do good?
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
see my #20
McMasters, a retired general? Believe he is still active duty. Anyway McMsters position that ISIS is not Islamic is disturbing, especially after Trump proclaimed that it was in fact Islamist terrorism. With all the generals and admirals that Obama purged, one wonders how McMasters survived.....
In column after column VDH has exposed the NeverTrump position as an irrational position for conservatives to hold.
Now, these NeverTrump “conservatives” we are dealing with are not stupid people. They are not normally irrational.
When smart people continue to adhere to an irrational position in the face of constant, withering, logical arguments demolishing their position, why is that?
Some possibilities:
1. The apparent political agenda of the NeverTrumpers is not their true agenda, and for some reason they cannot be honest about their true agenda. For purposes of furthering their true agenda, opposition to Trump is rational.
2. The reasoning of the NeverTrumpers is clouded by a strong emotional bias. Even smart people can be gripped by irrational thinking resulting from, for example, an emotional attachment to an ethnic identity or some unrelated personal experience. If, say, nerds were bullied in high school by a person who by some bizarre coincidence was the spitting image of Donald Trump, then no matter if Donald Trump is doing something for them fantastically in their favor, they may irrationally resist him.
VDH is a smart and observant guy. I would love to sit down with him and have a cup of coffee and hear his honest assessment of what is going on here. But then again, he may be smart enough to know better than to openly share his honest assessment of what’s happening here.
Donald Trump is a genuinely compassionate, big-hearted guy. He relates to everyday folks because that's who he really is. Look at his family, friends, people who remain loyal through the years. When you treat people with respect and kindness, when you genuinely like people, it shows. His ability to connect with people can only come from one place: his heart.
"I thought that both Bush presidents were fine and good men and their agendas far preferable to the alternative. But was either in a political position to effect (or perhaps even willing to embrace) the sort of conservative change that the supposedly not a conservative Trump might well attempt?"..... Yeah we all wonder.
"Im not sure that John McCain or Mitt Romney would have enforced immigration law, frozen government hiring, or embraced Reagan-like tax and regulatory reform"....Ha no no, they never would.
What's 'odd' to those of us in flyover is how the supposedly elite Republicans never saw what was happening to the country...never saw the list above... UNTIL we realized their 'blindness' was caused by the fact they personally were benefiting from the same forces that were destroying the country. They CHOOSE not to see... they choose NOT to act.
Trump ran against corrupt elites... of both parties... he saw their greed - the greed many of us sensed, but mistakenly thought was only on the dem side.
” ... he may be smart enough to know better than to openly share his honest assessment of whats happening here.”
Unless he wants to walk the John Derbyshire plank. National Review is still seriously cucked.
I predict this time next year Hanson will be less sub rosa and more candid in his opinions. He’s a good guy.
In four years, Rich Lowery will go over to TWS (if it is still around, because it will never change) and by that time NR will have uncucked itself.
VDH was not a Trump supporter in the primary, I never said he was and he does not claim to be. He outlines that in his October article I quoted. As our daily survey here showed 40% to 30% of FR did not want him as the candidate during the period you pick some article from in the first half of 2016.
He has no radio show or media presence to try and be in “Save-my-butt” mode for as you put it. He has a lifetime Senior Fellowship at the Hoover Institute and is a best selling historian and essayist.
I never said he supported Trump with his analysis in the primaries but I did say he was not a Never Trumper in the general election and gave a October example in the NR issue raised where he said we all need to support this guy because he figured it out.
bump
> He gave lukewarm to Trump in the general election after smearing him viciously in the primaries. Overall VDH did much more harm to Trump than he did benefit. As I said, VDH is a smart man and finally jumped on the Trump Train in order to save his paycheck. Do you really think this is a quote of a Trump supporter?
I knew that VDH was a fool looking for a pay check after I read Carnage and Culture. I couldn’t believe that a guy who was touted as a classic culturist and historian knew so little about military history and then wrote a book to prove his ignorance.
I’ve marked him down as another example of a person blinded by his own brilliance. Too damn smart to see what’s staring him right in the face if it would require him to change his previous, oh so intelligent, opinion.
>Ive marked him down as another example of a person blinded by his own brilliance. Too damn smart to see whats staring him right in the face if it would require him to change his previous, oh so intelligent, opinion.
That’s a very adapt description.
Biographer Catherine Drinker Bowen wrote The Most Dangerous Man in America about Benjamin Franklin; in it, she blamed human nature for the many outcries at the time against Franklin, arguably one of the most significant figures in recorded history. She opined that people are always suspicious and condemnatory towards people of extremely high intelligence, and try to stop or thwart the progress of visionary thinkers.
If so, brava.
VDH wasn’t one of the writers on that execrable issue. They were:
Glenn Beck
David Boaz
L. Brent Bozell
Mona Charen
Ben Domenech
Erick Erickson
Steven Hayward
Mark Helprin
William Kristol
Yuval Levin
Dana Loesch
Andrew C. McCarthy
David M. McIntosh
Michael Medved
Edwin Meese III
Russell Moore
Michael Mukasey
Katie Pavlich
John Podhoretz
R.R. Reno
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Rot in hell, all o’ ya.
No, he was more “wait and see.” Check post 37 above.
See post 37.
Why yes, yes I am. (takes bow) Why do you ask?
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