Posted on 01/25/2016 6:39:44 AM PST by AndyJackson
Today we learn from Jim Robinson of a movement afoot to proselytize among the so-called conservatives here to abandon Free Republic.
This is but another effort by the supporters of Ted Cruz to squirm out of the Trump's closing in on the Republican nomination, and, perhaps the presidency. If the close is forestalled, and they SCREAM loudly enough in block capital letter that TRUMPIZOIDS ARE INSANE they will see Trump for what he is and the nomination will go to Cruz. They even project idiocies such as Trump's supporters would overlook it if he killed 500 puppies on TV with a hammer, a projection asking for an analysis that I leave to the clinical psychologists.
While Trump has provoked Bill and Hillary into cornering Hillary exactly where Trump wants her, we learn from Cruz's supporters that Trump did not do this using "pure conservative" tactics, which means, in Brent Bozell's view, Trump is a charlatan. He doesn't walk with "us."
Whatever kind of charlatan Trump may be, at the end of the day, when he promises his investors he will build a building, he builds the building, which is a lot more than the present government establishment ever does. As one of my sometimes libertarian, sometimes Democrat inclined friends and colleagues points out, Trump completed the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on the ruins of a lot of former landmark, but now decayed casinos, and he did it at a time when Las Vegas and many of its other developers, famously, went bust around 2008 leaving a zone of bleak ruin in their wake. It is a constant lament among Trump's critics that he has holds his bankers and investors at bay, "stiffing them" while he finishes a project, sells the units, and operates the facility. From this we should conclude not that he is a shyster, the evidence for which would be a deed to swampland or a demolished crater, but the consummate project manager getting done what he set out to do, probably the highest moral standard a real estate operator can demonstrate, e.g. deliver the project he promised to deliver, come unions, the mob, city council members and the ivy-league trained mob-in-business-suits, the NY bankers and their legal counsel. Presumably, at the end of the day the banks all got paid, else the first Trump project liquidated at pennies on the dollar would have been the last Trump project. Instead his bankers continue to lend money for his projects.
The fundamental error made by those who walk with Brent Bozell is that they violate an old military principle that attacking a well-defended position by constantly on the same axis comes at a very high cost. Fortifications are built exactly because they are easy to defend and hard to attack. And conservatives have been attacking the liberal fortification along the same tired old line of attack for fifty years now. The Art of the Deal is just another version of Alinsky's Rules for radicals. The constant thrum of the conservative drum has gotten to be a drag [Alinky's Rule #7]. We know the battle plan on both sides of this argument, but conservatives insist on a civil war re-enactor's exactitude towards authentic paraphernalia, but they never go home except to retreat and refight the same battle another day with, they hope, a different outcome. The notion that the liberal establishment will fall if only we get a true conservative to attack them on true conservative principles is fantasy. Grant struggled in his campaign against Lee's Army of Virginia to get them out of their fortifications in the Wilderness and Petersburg. The costs of doing so earned him the opprobrious title of "butcher." But, eventually Lee was forced out of his defensive position and Grant out-maneuvered Lee's army forcing the surrender. Sherman's flanking move through Georgia was another part of this same maneuver.
As an example, the "non-conservative" Trump destroyed political correctness overnight after "true conservatives," spent decades wailing on every street-corner in the nation, even writing articles for publication in the National Review. Trump made the other side live up to his own rules [Alinsky's Rule #4]. Killing conservatives was the whole point of political correctness. What Trump pointed out was that political correctness was also killing those whom it was designed to benefit by making common cause with the injured parties, the majority of whom are not traditional supporters of the conservative cause.
In response to Trump's theme of competence conservatives have likewise screamed foul. They have become the flip side of the liberals believing "right- thinking" in both senses is far more important than right doing. Some 97% of the decisions people make are correctly made on the basis of "common sense" or at least the technical experience of trades, crafts and practitioners. That itself is common sense - the human species survived and evolved large brains not just for the elite, but for everyone because most of the time individuals of the species have a higher probability of survival by using his brain to adapt to the unique circumstances of each case. The argument against centralized thinking was the conservative case against the liberals. Now they demand the same of themselves. And in those cases where centralized direction is needed, wisdom is also needed underscored by the Robert's clever smart-aleck decision that Obamacare is a tax.
In short, Trump has triumphed by side-stepping the tired liberal/conservative attack / counter-attack by showing up the shortcomings of both sides, approaching from a different angle altogether. Whatever the 22 participants in the National Review attack on Trump mean by conservatism, is has unfortunately become the mirror reflection of the liberalism that it seeks to undo. And liberalism has built itself up as the antidote to the conservatism that sees itself as the antidote to liberalism. Each assails the other's stronghold and accomplishes nothing while marauders sack the undefended ground in between.
The fundamental problem, of course, is that conservatism is built on the political foundation of the Republican Party, and, with that party's devolution into crony capitalism, what conservatives attempt to defend is built on a "dismal" plague infested miasma. Defend the ramparts of your castle all you want. You are defending ground no one wants to occupy and the political battles will be fought elsewhere. If conservatives want to be relevant. they need to move to solid ground.
In supporting Trump have we abandoned conservatism? Well, define conservatism. If it is old go to church on Sunday small town America, that is dead. High-speed internet, Amazon, NETFLIX and FEDEX are now regarded as daily necessities in the most remote parts of America and anyone curious avails himself of these connections to the broader world. The doctor is not going to do house calls. Modern medical procedures are so complex and so dependent upon a vast healthcare system, that it sweeps up everyone. We decry government involvement, but is a "free market" solution available? Those who would hope so do have a burden of proof.
What principals are we actually defending. Now, I think that if conservatism is anything it is the application of our great heritages of British common law, enlightenment inspired science and reasoning, and Judeo-Christian principles of morality in how we treat our fellow humans. That conservatism could be very much alive. That is the conservatism of William F. Buckley. But his doctrinaire heirs at NR have abandoned that view.
Another recent post The Ten Conservative Principles of Russell Kirk which are more fully described by discusses this at much greater length. Russell Kirk himself. Kirk himself states that "conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order."
While a discussion of the full ten principles would be tedious here, let me emphasize two:
Principle 5 Conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems [consult a dictionary. Doctrinaire conservatives are "radical"]. ... Society requires honest and able leadership ; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.
Principle 10: The thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society ...Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. .... The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old. ..Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.
Trump's genius is framing issues in ways that reflects the problems faced by voters in their daily lives and not the problems argued by inside-the-beltway think-tanks on which the conservative establishment has made itself a useless appendage. If we believe in the vitality of the civil order, in right-acting, in solving problems that face the nation, supporting Trump is not inconsistent with conservatism. Sure, we must hold Trump to our leading principles, and we will. But we can do that without abandoning the field to Hillary.
Your principal link at the very beginning does not work. You may want to coordinate this piece, or withdraw it.
We can disagree, enjoy losing.
Yeah, I’d rather not have people you on my side.
I did you the honor of reading your entire post. I find it a helpful point of discussion.
I’ll caveat now that I’m a Cruz guy, and I’ve been extremely reactionary of late on FR.
You make some valid points concerning strategy. I made similar points concerning Trump’s virtues in a vanity several weeks ago, interestingly I was roundly flamed by Trump supporters for suggesting Trump as a strategy and not an ideological match.
What I find troubling is the inability to question Trump’s merits and discuss his weaknesses in a deliberate manner with Trump supporters. I’m troubled by a very real sycophant reaction. Rarely do I see anything rational on how Trump is going to further conservative aims, either directly or indirectly. Being in charge of an out of control government is better than not being in charge, but I really don’t want an out of control government.
I’ve mentioned on FR before that I oddly find myself split between defending Trump, and arguing with Trump supporters.
If we are talking about using Trump as a tool, then I’m listening, but I’m not signing up to be Trump’s tool. I’m sticking with my own ideology.
Although I back Cruz, I’ll acknowledge that he has many weaknesses. He has no executive experience. He does not have a large network of his own people, which could be problematic in fleshing out the bureaucracy without relying on the GOPe. I’m open to listening to criticism on those points and more, but when the knee-jerk reaction to all opposition to Trump is attacks on the fundamental character of Cruz, you’re losing my support, not gaining it. Not because Cruz is faultless, but because he deserves better for his very real conservative efforts and D.C. battle scars. There is also the very real human nature, that if anything I say is going to be rejected out of hand, then I’m not going to be a very open listener.
I’d like to hear more about the strategy of using Trump as a battering ram. I think that there is a logical argument for getting a consensus to limit vast Federal power by abusing it ourselves. Dangerous, but logical.
Goof article. Trump is certainly a very smart and educated man and I honestly believe he loves this Country.
I’m making a double entendre with the Spanish name, but the e with an accent messes up here on FR, so the joke is less clear.
Absolutely brilliant. Thank you ....
I always marvel at those who seem to have to get a dig in at the millions of us who worship God on Sunday and are conservatives. Maybe you would love to flush us out of the conservative movement and embrace the atheists among us?
Exactly.
The big loser in this election cycle has been the word "conservatism." Trump doesn't really use the term. All the other Republican candidates anoint themselves in the term but use it as either 1) a euphemism for Chamber of Commerce crony capitalism, 2) a euphemism for rule by television-evangelist-quality theocrats or 3) some combination of the two. This is why "conservatism" nowadays has more negative connotations than positive in the eyes of much the public.
Those constitutional conservatives who are not interested in crony capitalism or television evangelism are orphans with no political party and no candidates. We gravitate toward Trump because we believe he is at least an excellent motivational speaker and has a chain saw—which will be more useful to the nation than what the other candidates are perverting "conservatism" into.
I am not attacking those who worship. I am pointing out that a certain part of the presumed base of conservatism has evolved along with the rest of the country and presumptions about the political potency and efficacy of those cultural presumptions needs to be reexamined.
obama has proven to be the middle left’s King Saul - clamoured for by the people and a total disaster for all
Trump, while preferable, and apparently more palatable on the surface, may end up being the middle right’s King Saul.
Pretend that Trump’s recent past has no meaning at everyone’s peril. Trump has never marketed himself as a Conservative; he has marketed himself as a liberal supporter, though. True Reagan switched parties and brought forth a tidal wave of Conservative thought and action. Trump is no Reagan, and his proclaimed conversion has taken a fraction of the time that Reagan’s took, without the associated proof of change that Reagan had.
Disclosure - I am a Cruz supporter; I will hold my nose and vote for Trump, should it come to that, because of his stated stances on certain key issues.
"Why drinking salt water while adrift at sea in a drought is not suicide"?
It all depends -- on how you define murder, suicide, and conservatism.
Some of us have already tried this approach, of telling ourselves why voting for a liberal wasn't voting for a liberal, and we've finally figured out that all it does is to continue to put leftists in office, as surprising and illogical as that outcome is! *rolls eyes*
Keep kidding yourselves that you aren't accountable for what you vote for. That kind of thinking on the part of conservatives and Republicans for the past 40 years is how we got to this point -- why change tack now, it's working so well????
It’s postmodern conservatism....
Trump dominates here, so I’m not sure what this is about. More goofiness.
As a protest to the insincerity of the question, I would also say yes.
Just repeating Trump’s own words...
I’m with you, but I’d have to hold my nose on Trump. Something doesn’t smell right there...
Ted or Donald though, either are better than Bernie or Hillary by light-years.
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