Posted on 03/16/2016 4:19:32 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Herewith, an under-asked question for our friends on the progressive left: “Has Donald Trump’s remarkable rise done anything to change your mind as to the ideal strength of the State?”
I make this inquiry because, for a long while now, I have been of the view that the only thing that is likely to join conservatives and progressives in condemnation of government excess is the prospect that that excess will benefit the Right. Along with their peculiar belief that History takes “sides” and that improvement is inexorable and foreordained, most progressives hold as an article of faith that, because it is now a “consolidated democracy,” the United States is immune from the sort of tyranny of which conservatives like to warn. As such, progressives tend not to buy the argument that a government that can give you everything you want is also a government that can take it all away. For the past four or five years, conservatives have offered precisely this argument, our central contention being that it is a bad idea to invest too much power in one place because one never knows who might enjoy that power next. And, for the past four or five years, these warnings have fallen on deaf, derisive, overconfident ears.
The case that the Right’s cynics have made is a broad one: Inter alia, we have argued that Congress ought to reclaim much of the legal authority that it has willingly ceded to the executive, lest that executive become unresponsive or worse; that, once abandoned, constitutional limits are difficult to resuscitate; that federalism leads not just to better government but to a diminished likelihood that bad actors will be able to inflict widespread damage; and, perhaps most important of all, that far from being a vestige of times past, the Second Amendment remains a vital protection upon which free men may fall should their government turn to iron. In most cases, the reactions to these submissions have been identical: That we are skeptical of power only because we dislike Barack Obama, and that this skepticism will vanish upon the instant when he is replaced by a leader that we prefer.
This response, I’m afraid to say, is entirely miscast. In fact, we have taken these positions because, like all cautious people, we worry what might happen in the days that we cannot yet see. As Edmund Burke memorably put it, a sensible citizen does not wait for an “actual grievance” to intrude upon his liberty, but prefers to “augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.” Barack Obama’s extra-constitutional transgressions have been many and they have been alarming, and I do not regret my opposition to them. But their result, thus far at least, has been the marginal undermining of democracy and not the plain indulgence of evil. Will our executives’ excesses always take that form? Is it wise to appraise our current situation and to conclude that it will obtain for the rest of time?
To listen to the manner in which our friends on the left now talk about Donald Trump is to suspect that it is not. Time and time again, Trump has been compared to Hitler, to Mussolini, to George Wallace, and to Bull Connor. Time and time again, self-described “liberals” have recoiled at the man’s praise for internment, at his disrespect for minorities and dissenters, and at his enthusiasm for torture and for war crimes. Time and time again, it has been predicted — not without merit — that, while Trump would almost certainly lose a general election, an ill-timed recession or devastating terrorist attack could throw all bets to the curb. If one were to take literally the chatter that one hears on MSNBC and the fear that one smells in the pages of the New York Times and of the Washington Post, one would have no choice but to conclude that the progressives have joined the conservatives in worrying aloud about the wholesale abuse of power.
Hence my initial question: Have they? And, if they have, what knock-on effects has that worrying had? Having watched the rise of Trumpism — and, now, having seen the beginning of violence in its name — who out there is having second thoughts as to the wisdom of imbuing our central state with massive power?
That’s a serious, not a rhetorical, question. I would genuinely love to know how many “liberals” have begun to suspect that there are some pretty meaningful downsides to the consolidation of state authority. I’d like to know how many of my ideological opponents saying with a smirk that “it couldn’t happen here” have begun to wonder if it could. I’d like to know how many fervent critics of the Second Amendment have caught themselves wondering whether the right to keep and bear arms isn’t a welcome safety valve after all. Furthermore, I’d like to know if the everything-is-better-in-Europe brigade is still yearning for a parliamentary system that would allow the elected leader to push through his agenda pretty much unchecked; if “gridlock” is still seen as a devastating flaw in the system; if the Senate is still such an irritant; and if the considerable power that the states retain is still resented as before. Certainly, there are many on the left who are mistrustful of government and many on the right who are happy to indulge its metastasis. But as a rule, progressives favor harsher intrusion into our civil society than do their political opposites. Are they still as sure that this is shrewd?
When Peter Beinart warns that Donald Trump is a threat to “American liberal democracy” — specifically to “the idea that there are certain rights so fundamental that even democratic majorities cannot undo them” — he is channeling the conservative case for the Founders’ settlement, and taking square aim at the Jacobin mentality that would, if permitted, remove the remaining shackles that surround and enclose the state. Does he know this? And if he does, is he still as keen as ever to have the federal government spread its powerful wings and cast long shadows across the nation? Does an expansive role for Washington hold the same allure now that there is a possibility that a Trump-like figure could commandeer it? If the answer to these questions is “yes,” I have a modest second inquiry to go along with the first: “What is everybody smoking?”
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.
An other emotion based “assessment” based on building a fake strawman image of Trump that exists no where but the feverish imagination of the poster.
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.
When confronted with the truth that the lazy, welfare queens - the mailbox money voters were Democrat voters, many Americans woke up to realize that they were small government conservatives and became Reagan Democrats.
Those are the voters who have been rebuilding the local and state Republican Party - who sent Ted Cruz to Washington D.C. to fight. And he did.
Now comes Trump bragging about building the GOP, but the voters he’s bringing into the party aren’t small government conservatives, but rather the don’t-touch-my-government-check voters who could just as well swing to Sanders or Hillary.
Ted Cruz wants to roll back Big Government - and he isn’t going to take away SS for older people. The system isn’t sustainable and Trump’s boasts and half truths about what he is going to are not the wonderful winning “deals” he’s promising.
Small Government = rolling back taxes, legislation, agencies, regulations and dictates, not cynically doubling down on them.
How about the IRS targeting conservatives?
How about Obama blocking deportations?
Exactly.
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