Posted on 02/16/2016 11:12:57 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Trump's crafty move on Iraq: His war comments allow conservatives to move past the Bush years while saving face
Most of Saturday night's Republican debate held by CBS in South Carolina was more of the same stuff we've seen in the previous eight debates, with Donald Trump insulting people and lots competitive right-wing posturing. But there was one moment that was unexpected, when Trump went after Jeb Bush by attacking his brother, former President George W. Bush.
Trump accused the former president of lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and called the war "a big, fat mistake." Trump also sneered at Jeb Bush that the "World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign." These comments range from demonstrably true (the 9/11 comment) to arguable (there's no proof that Bush knowingly lied, but his administration did heavily massage the evidence to get their preexisting desire to start a war in Iraq). Perhaps unaccustomed to hearing reality-based rhetoric during their debates, the Republican audience booed Trump loudly for this.
But does that booing actually mean that this stance, which Trump has been continuing to push in media interviews, will hurt him in the polls? As Salon's Sean Illing points out, it should hurt him. George W. Bush gets high approval ratings in South Carolina, which is holding its Republican primary on Saturday, and, as a general rule, Republicans don't enjoy admitting that the last president they voted into office was one of the worst presidents in American history.
And yet, as Illing points out, it doesn't seem that this is budging Trump's numbers. "There are no sacred cows left for Trump to slay," he writes.
Heather Digby Parton of Salon agrees, writing, "Trump's appeal all along has been based upon his taking on sacred cows. That he does it to their faces reads as courage."
But I would argue that there's more going on here than just the fact that Trump's supporters are able to rationalize away anything he says, though that is undoubtedly a huge part of this. There's also a possibility that Trump is giving conservatives exactly what they need right now, which is a way to move on past the Iraq War.
As with most things conservatives support, from the Vietnam War to bans on same-sex marriage to support for segregation, there comes a time when a topic stops being "controversial" and instead a consensus forms that the conservative position was wrong. When this happens, conservatives usually have to find a way to reconcile their own positive opinions of themselves with the fact that they were very, very wrong. Usually this requires reframing the issue so they can keep preening self-righteously while quietly moving off the wrong opinion and hoping everyone forgets that they ever held it.
Once it became unacceptable to openly support segregation, for instance, the move was to push for "private property" rights, such as the right to refuse service to black people or to sell your house to them, that just so happened to uphold segregation. With same-sex marriage, the shift has been from openly opposing it to supporting the "right" of individuals to cite Jesus and interfere with the ability of couples to get married smoothly. Once it became undeniable that Vietnam was a losing cause, the right switched off to supporting the myth that POWs had been left behind, in order to retain a sense of righteousness.
But no such reframing has really emerged that allows conservatives both to let go of the Iraq War while maintaining a sense of self-righteousness around the issue. Republican candidates have offered up some distractions - ISIS! Benghazi! Iran has nukes! - but the problem remains: The tribalism of the right allowed them to support a war that was obviously a bad idea, and history will judge them for it. It's embarrassing and there's only so long you can deny the obvious before reality starts to seep in.
Trump offers a way out of this conundrum. No one is a more obnoxious anti-Muslim bigot in the race than he is, and yet here he is, denouncing the war as a bad idea. His stance gives conservatives a way to save face while carefully and oh-so-quietly admitting the war wasn't the best idea.
By repeatedly calling the war a "mistake" and focusing on the Bush administration's choices, Trump might be able to frame the Iraq War not as a failure of conservative ideology, but just one more example of why the Republican establishment is corrupt and needing of an outsider like him to fix it.
After all, Trump validates all the emotional reasons conservatives had for supporting the war - tribal loyalty, fear of terrorism, loathing of Muslims - while simply suggesting that the war was not the way to address these emotional desires. Just as the POW/MIA myth allowed conservatives to retain their hatred of the North Vietnamese while quietly admitting the war was a misfire, Trump has established a narrative for conservatives to admit they made a mistake without admitting what is wrong in their ideology that led to the mistake.
And he offers a way out that allows them to save face. They don't have to take back their vote for George W. Bush. They just need to not vote for his brother. It's a perfect way to let conservatives have it both ways, to reject the legacy of the Bush family without actually admitting that they were wrong to trust the Bushes in the first place.
Trump's move is smart in another way, in that he's subtly signaling that he's not as eager to head to war as the Bush family traditionally is. Talking to conservatives on this front is a delicate operation. The entire conservative movement is best understood as a bully that likes to talk tough and brag about how many fights he's won while actually preferring not to risk getting punched in the face. What they want is a politician who will talk tough and even brag about how tough he is, but they don't necessarily want to actually go to war.
It's not just that actual Americans, often Republican-voting Americans die in war. It's also that going to war means running a strong risk of losing that war, which the Iraq War is a stinging reminder of. It's better to talk a big game and pretend you're a winner, instead of actually trying to prove yourself and failing.
Trump gets this better than anyone. That's why his anti-war talking points are likely to work. He's calling out the Bushes for puncturing the illusion, for taking the fantasy too far by actually made good on all that war talk conservatives love to wallow in. Trump drew a bright line between candidates who understand that war works best when it remains in the realm of the hypothetical and those who are foolish enough to actually send troops in to fight a losing cause. It’s a message that likely resonates with voters and why his posturing on this issue probably won’t hurt him, and may even help.
I really care what the fagalas think.
I suspect you're correct.
Salon is contemptible but there may be a kernal of truth here. Trump may have helped himself by cutting loose the Bush war baggage.
I have voted in every national election since 1976. If Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party then I will not be voting for any presidential candidate in 2016. The man is a farce. I am sure their are a lot of folks like me out in the country.
u r not alone
In conclusion, said Ray, this analysis seems to me to constitute, by and large, a fairly comprehensive description of your average Left-wing intellectual, particularly of the many intellectuals who did (and often still do) support in various ways the old Soviet system in Russia.
Spot on. When we reflect 50 years from now on the lost opportunity that was Iraq, we will wonder how we could have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Trump screwed the pooch on this one.
bttt
exactly right !
most Republicans and swing voters see Obama as a failure.
But they don’t want to go completely back to the Bush years, as there were some major mistakes there, as well as accomplishments.
Trump is distancing himself from the Bush baggage.
Trump’s support dropped 9 points after the SC debate:
....”The [ CNN/ORC] poll did show that Mr. Trump’s level of support was slightly different based on whether the interviews, conducted from Feb. 10-15, were done before or after the boisterous GOP debate on Saturday, Feb. 13. Forty percent backed Mr. Trump in interviews conducted before the debate, compared to 31 percent who supported him afterward.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/17/donald-trump-leads-ted-cruz-16-points-sc-poll/
Yes, I forgot that I got that excerpt from you. Anyway, here I wanted to focus in on Trump giving his support to the commie-in-chief during that 2009 worldwide apology tour.
That’s good.
Are you talking about TARP? You do realize Trump supported TARP, right? He even went as far as being open to nationalizing the banks.
he still could have been far more artful about it and said the same thing.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
I am a Trump fan inasmuch as he reminds me of when Rush Limbaugh hit the ‘big time’.
As either Limbaugh (or Maulsberg(sp) in for Chris Plante WMAL)
pointed out bringing this up now may get a few ‘fence sitters’ but it kind of takes the subject away from HRC and Bernie (or whoever represents them)
I think Trump should think before putting his mouth in gear but if he has to ‘carefully choose every word’ he will come across as disingenuous - Listen to all these monotone pols and it sounds like they are ‘talking down to you’ because they take all the emotion out of their talk.
BO has mastered the reading of a teleprompter and people lap it up.
BO often sounds like a ‘dolt’ when asked an off the cuff question - probably because he has conditioned himself to canned answers.
‘They’ (Trumps dissenters) make a point of saying ‘if he can’t handle a question from a ‘girl’ how will he fare with the likes of Putin.
First off, when Putin asks a derogatory or intrusive question a Male doesn’t have to think of how he will be perceived because he is addressing a female.
I remind one of the Lazio lynching because he walked across the stage - and how about the Gen/Adm chastised because he referred to Pelosi or Boxer(??) as Ma’am.
Perfectly good address - at least in my time, in fact the proper way to address a Female Officer was Ma’am, used the same way as Sir was to the Male Officers.
The fact is, when W decided to join the primary campaign as a partisan for his brother, he became fair game for criticism. He is no longer a lofty ex president, he is now a flack for Jeb, and deserves to be treated as such. If he can attack Trump, Trump can attack him. And that's the way it goes.
The leftists do love Trump
>> Ulysse: Let’s go forward !
Definitely.
>> Salon: His war comments allow conservatives to move past the Bush years while saving face
We should all look forward, but my point concerns Salon’s sanctimonious shaming of conservative support for Iraq and especially those that sacrificed.
The #s at Salon can go straight to Hell.
Indeed, let’s go forward.
Go Trump and/or Cruz!
Agreed.
kobe. how embarrassing :)
you were there for two of them?
why do dems want to keep the peace at all costs when there is no peace?!?!
they were acts of war, The Cole, and 1993 attacks.
I could have sworn there were batteries on top of the WTC, missile launchers hidden.
what a naive dope.
and only a few years earlier i think, or maybe more, we moved the port from staten island or there likely would have been a jet fighter 2 minutes away.
But what would they have done?
what a nightmare that day was. I’ll never forget. They were so beautiful and I never stopped being in awe of them on the way to work
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.