Oh, man. I wish you wouldn’t go there. That’s crass.
Jim, I am sure you know that I did not say it lightly. You also know I am a student of history. From what I can tell, what you didn't like in my going "there" is that the parallels, although obviously unpleasant, are also unpleasantly obvious. Hopefully they are not beyond criticality (they certainly won't be if I can do anything about it). But my concern isn't nearly as much about Trump as it is about what his following says about America, particularly here at FR. This is exactly what Hayek describes in Steps 9-10 of the cartoon version of Road to Serfdom.
Where America is going with Trump, frankly, terrifies me. I've never been so concerned in my life. Now I'm not speaking of this as a matter of Trump v. Cruz, hell I'd take Gilmore over Trump and I am not a "Cruz supporter." I have too many problems with his lack of penitence and forthrightness when it comes to how he's changed his positions over time or when he was too clever by half with his votes, forgetting their political import as opposed to their temporal tactical value. No, my concern is about conservatism, what I had thought analogous to God's remnant in America. We have all seen it, now including Trump's supporters vilifying lifelong proven conservative thinkers as "RINOs". This is simply unbelievable. Brent Bozell a RINO? Dear God Jim, Bozell (William F. Buckley's nephew) has given his life to collecting and distributing hard objective data to expose liberal media bias. He's done a fantastic job. So the best I see in defense of Trump's supporters' charge is that "RINO" now means somebody not aligned with the current direction of the Party (for all of a few months). Hence, to them, proven conservative intellectuals are now RINOs, as if the context of "Republican "moderate anti-conservative" the term "RINO" Has had for the last twenty years suddenly means something else, because those icky conservatives oppose "our" guy. It's a subjectivity designed to "win" an argument, rather than to present a winning argument, twisting language itself as a means to an end, every bit as destructive as its use while citing a "living Constitution." If we inculcate that kind of thinking here, is that possibility of us becoming our own enemy really so impossible? If they attack the intellectual foundation of conservative arguments without bothering with their content, are they really that far from burning books?
History says "no." The first step to transforming a nation from people who would never go "there" to one that will is to use that kind of discourse in politics, because subjectivity in language destroys the exchange of ideas. Orwell invented "newspeak" to teach that lesson. Apparently he failed.
That's crass.
From Dictionary.com:
You know better than this Jim. How many 'crude or unrefined' people would cite the Wiemar economy or the Spartakusbund with respect to the rise of fascism in Germany, or inflation in Italy, and the Great Depression in America (for all realistic purposes. There was much about America under Roosevelt before and during WWII that was international socialist, eugenicist, and corporate collectivist, more like the NAZIS than not, complete with racially based internment camps. Consider how Hitler must have looked in 1933 when he promised to make Germany great again (not my choice of words). Germany, once the world's leading industrial country, saw itself as beaten down by a raw deal in Versailles, broken by Weimar inflation, and desperate for a leader who promised them a "New Deal." What they got was something else in both cases because they were blind to the warning signs to be found in their own speech. Desperation will do that to a people, and the more spoiled they once were, the more desperate they get as they see it slipping away.
My post was 'crude' only in that it was a blunt instrument, it was simple and it hurt, but only because it hit the target. I want you to scan the replies I got for their tenor by comparison. They were attacks on me, not as much on the accuracy of the analogy, which is exactly what Trump's backers have done in response to the articles at NR.
They neither know nor care whom they attack. How many FReepers have written whole books about how to reverse the progress of socialism in America as I? How many have posted their articles of original research here first? I could have gone anywhere with material of that quality and you know it. I am well regarded by serious libertarians and conservatives (the second reference is when I spoke at a conference sponsored by Henry Lamb). I came here because I believed that this site, uniquely, was a big group dedicated to liberty. Well now it seems more dedicated to "winning" than to liberty, nor is such a supposedly 'half-way' incremental measure as Trump likely to yield anything other than compromise in the opposite direction. It has certainly happened here before.
I know you remember what happened here at FR in 2002: Arnold Schwarzenegger was promised to be a "conservative." That recall election was the best opportunity conservatives had had since Deukmejian to retake the governorship, because it was an off-year election promising low turnout and we had a fine candidate in Tom McClintock, a conservative whose integrity had convinced his liberal Santa Barbara district to elect and elevate him from the Assembly to the State Senate. Yet despite Arnold's history as a Hollywood liberal, FReepers fell for him in droves and bashed anyone who disagreed, beating conservatives down with "he can win." Well Arnold said all the right words, assailing State profligacy and promising to "cut up the credit cards." Yet at the same time he was making deals with his Wall Street backers that cost Californians over half a billion dollars in tax revenue and the initiatives he proposed were designed to break the last of the Gann spending limits!! That creep should have gone to jail for malfeasance right there. You also know that I opposed Arnold Schwarzenegger, and was vilified for it.
I was right. Arnold drove the final nail into the conservative coffin in California, cutting out the legs from under every statewide conservative GOP nominee and the heart out of the CAGOP as a whole. Conservatives left the State in droves. Not a few very good FReepers who continuously backed their carefully constructed and polite posts with citations to original sources left FR in disgust. Remember calcowgirl?
I think the damage done by FairOpinion and others on FR was significant in getting Arnold elected. Now I am asking you: Do you really want to see that happen again in the last best hope on earth? Because once conservatism is done in America the earth is headed for the abyss. Well Jim, in my educated opinion, if Trump is nominated, it's the end for conservatism in America, and everything FR stands for with it, and that means any possibility of returning to a Godly nation will be gone forever. All the NR articles showed me is that I am not alone in that opinion and its bases, and I know damned well you and most FReepers have respected virtually every one of the authors in that NR pantheon at one time or another. What is crass is the manner that they are vilified here without seriously addressing the content of what they wrote.
If that is all they can offer, then all they really have in Trump ideologically is "he can win," which is because he will appeal to... whom? Oh, 'Reagan Democrats and independents.' That is what the GOPe said about George Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Arnold. Yet every time we have allowed Democrats, the GOPe, or the media to pick our candidates, how have we done? By contrast, don't you remember the freak-out over "war monger" Reagan? Well? As I have said since before 2008, you can tell who the Washington elite doesn't want by whom the media starves for air time. It's reciprocal is Trump, who has been granted TENS of millions in free air time. I promise you, the people who sell advertising time by the second are not stupid: he's their boy.
My dog could beat Hillary Clinton (if she doesn't wind up in jail first) or Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden on the other hand knows how to come across as such a "nice guy" he would crush a lout like Trump, if only on style points. Yet to defeat any serious Democrat requires BOTH superior proposals with command of the details AND simple clear explanations, simply because the left controls EVERY institution of public indoctrination except talk radio. No, we win by convincing Democrats that OUR IDEAS are better and the disaster they see is because of the left they elected. Hence, what we need is a candidate equipped to defeat LIBERALISM ideologically, of which Trump is simply neither prepared nor ideologically predisposed.
Let's face it: what we are voting about is not just getting the left out of the White House, it's about what is to follow, which is far more about ideas than personality. Yet even as to ideas, there is very good reason to believe Trump does not mean to do as his malleable words allow his backers to infer from his glowy, ambiguous, and situational promises, to the occasional notification of a future gotcha. We have every good reason to suspect that this YUGE employer of low skilled Hispanic workers will do everything he can to assure that today's illegals become tomorrow's citizens. He sure as hell isn't going to commit economic suicide.
I know that you know that I knew what would happen if I posted that analogy. I took that risk out of respect for you and this forum with posters having the knowledge of my fifteen years here and the intelligence to realize that there was content behind the contention. Yet all they can see in me these days is that I'm supposedly the Cruz supporter I am not. I have seen NOTHING from Trump's backers taking on these NR articles one-by-one for lack of factual content. Thomas Sowell, a RINO? That isn't just chutzpah; THAT'S crass. Look at how much has he endured as a black intellectual against liberalism. Such a charge is disgusting on this forum. ALL I see out of Trump supporters is the same kind of bashing-to-win I see out of Trump himself, bashing conservatism because they have no faith it will sell. Well then why are they here? They bash the very people who have finally put us in the majority within the Republican Party and within sight of the first arguably conservative government since 1928, thus booting the biggest chance we have ever had to take it back.
Dave Brat didn't win because "he can win." Dave Brat won because he could articulate better ideas and the people were sick of Cantor's backstabbing. Same with Mike Lee, Matt Bevin, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott, and Ben Sasse. We're gaining, but we're not done. So why boot the gains because we haven't won yet? The conservative candidates who have lost in this resurgence have done so more because of GOPe backstabbing than because the independent vote wouldn't buy their ideas (Virginia and Mississippi anyone?). After so many historic wins, after Republicans taking both houses of Congress with a historic fraction of conservatives, here we are believing a conservative can't win? Really? Are we really so frustrated that we haven't won over liberalism yet that we are willing to vilify the people who did so much to get us this far and fall for "he can win" again because we supposedly can't? That's what the GOPe and the media would have us believe. Trump too. All will note the GOPe preference at this point is Trump, including Rupert Murdoch, as I have been saying for the last three months. I was right again Jim.
I do regard Trump as a leader and that's the problem: HE is the epitome of crass, and where he is leading I do not wish to to see America go, because too much of it is already there and needs to be led back from the brink. Look at how petulant Trump has been since he saw his lead diminished. Dirty politics proffered as dishonest "concern" meant nothing to him. Once he did that, look at how the Senate backed him up. Look at how his supporters feel justified to continue with the ruse. Anger and desperation will do that to people.
How many posts have you seen on this site stating that a civil war with the left is inevitable? The similarities are with national socialist Germany are scary Jim, and I fear what it portends is a lot worse than any of us could imagine. But then, neither could the Germans in 1933. Breaking down the barrier of civility is the first step to tolerating barbarism. Hence what I said: this is not so much about Trump as it is about us.
I don't want a civil war. Nevertheless, I have more research on the origins of a militia-based logistical strategy than certainly anyone else here. I live in the worst hotbed of liberalism in the country, yet somehow I have managed to get my neighbors on our local discussion board to realize that I post facts and all is not as they believed. Many respect what I post on environmental issues and read them eagerly. I deal with leftist academics regularly and am respected by not a few as a technical equal, even if they can't figure out why I am a conservative. It really is possible to get liberals to reconsider their thinking, but it is slow because of peer pressure. It takes time, data, and careful refinement, because the first thing to undo is their acculturated biases about conservatism as crass, ignorant, bombastic, arrogant, self-absorbed, uncaring, lacking compassion, and trying to beat down competitors rather than laying out a superior set of policies... all attributes Trump has embodied at one time or another. All will undo that careful groundwork.
Trump may be winning in the polls, but conservatism in America is losing as a result. Personally, I think that's the plan.