The NeverTrumper dividing line
Do you ever want to have been wrong about something?
As a never-NeverTrumper but definitely a huge Trump critic during the 2016 presidential campaign, I wanted to be wrong about him.
Now, I hate being wrong and much prefer to be right. But the stakes were too high to indulge my pride, and so I wanted to be wrong.
So far, I believe I was significantly more wrong than right about Trump. Although I’m about 1% sad about that, I’m 99% happy—and I’m hoping that time proves me right about that point of view, too.
But I get the feeling that one of the dividing lines—maybe the biggest one—between NeverTrumpers and the rest of the previously- or still-Trump-critical right is that the former group didn’t want to be wrong about him. They really really really didn’t want to be wrong about him. In fact, it’s my impression that they would have taken delight if things were now going even worse than they are, and they take no joy in the fact that they’re going better than they expected.
I’m not even sure they would admit they’re going better than they expected, certainly not in any meaningful way. If they’ve said it, I haven’t seen it.
I’m one of those people that can come up with a “worse case scenario” in any given set of circumstances in a nano-second. I tend toward a very hesitant approach as a general rule. I am usually relieved and glad when I am wrong and not too proud to say so. In fact it is often painful to be right. For me, Hillary Clinton winning the election was the “worse-case scenario”.
I argued with a Trump man.
I disliked Trump during the primaries.
But it took 2 seconds for me to decide to vote for Trump when he was nominated.
I found him inarticulate, a creator of his own problems as he was so inarticulate and I couldn’t stand how he savaged Ben Carson who was a good man and deserved to be the nominee.
But I recognize one thing. No matter WHO the nominee was the Democrat party and aparatus would have a field day with that person. No matter how cordial, polite, kind, giving, intelligent, focus groups, union money, ACTBLUE (who garnered 800 million dollars in donations this year for Democrats), would all get behind the BIG government Democrat narcissist criminal Hillary Clinton.
Now as an EXECUTIVE, I recognize how much Trump is working to get things done and be effective. That is quite different than Obama and the Hillary process of running tweets through 23 people before the tweet became published.
One more thing, the congressional hearing today shows deeply how disturbed the Democrat party is. The Democrat Congress people when it is their turn would constantly say the most OUTLANDISH things about the peace of the world and upending security all across the world, etc.
HELLO IRAN DEAL, Russian pipeline deal with Angela, NK, taking out ISIS, etc. Geez almight you can’t even have a reasonable discussion with these idiots who say anything and everything.
There is not a unitary Trump. There are a number of Trumps that Trump uses to suit his purposes at the moment.
Three examples:
The “Presidential” Trump seen at his recent introduction of Kavanaugh at the White House.
The Huckster Trump: Seen on the campaign trail and at rallies recently in Montana. Hale-fellow-well-met, off-the-cuff speaking style.
The Tweeting Trump whose text emissions can be read (per Scott Adams) in the tone of voice of a movie narrator.
There are more, but none of them is a unitary Trump. He’s at the center of the onion.
I seem to remember Rush Limbaugh saying in the days right after 0 was elected that he hoped he “failed as president” or something like that…and the crowd went wild…Rush was rightly excoriated.
The bigger the fail of the chief executive the bigger the wound on the body politic…I hated/hate the previous President, but I desperately wanted him to get something right for the good of the USA. I was perpetually disappointed.
NeverTrump folks are in many ways simply globalists of a different inclination who care more that their globalist point of view prevails than that the US prevails. And for folks like that…(shakes head)
I’m wrong so often I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t find it a big deal to admit, woops, I got Trump wrong.
But looking back, given the available information I had then and the stupid stuff Trump did during the campaign, I still wouldn’t do different today.
The horror of being human is that beyond the simplest scenarios such as doing basic arithmetic or getting up from one’s chair, one is always dealing with limited information, fallibility and probabilities. You can only do your best and sadly that may not be enough.
But that’s the game and your best bet is to learn what you can and do better next time.
To answer neo’s question, I’m glad to have been wrong about Trump.
I AM SO RELIEVED I WAS WRONG. I was a pro Ted Cruz supporter. I was vehemently anti Trump during the primary. I was really spooked by the Cult of Personality of the Trumpsters. It reminded me of the Obama Cultists. His narcissism. His lack of an ideology. Seeing his cruel joy in humiliating Low Energy Jeb (as much as I was repulsed by him). His throwing out the suspicion that Ted Cruz’ father was behind the JFK assassination….. I could go on. BUT, I would’ve crawled over broken glass to vote for him over the alternative. I was a reluctant Trumper, but a NEVER HILLARY guy. I was terrified of her SCOTUS picks and national security weakness on top of 8 years of Obama. I was out of my mind with relief when that witch lost and reveled in the tears and screams of her minions. Seeing what he’s done with the economy, ripping to shreds the EOs of the previous drek In Chief was a thrill. Seeing his SCOTUS picks, while knowing the Leftists Hillary would’ve loaded the courts with who would’ve shredded our First and Second Amendments. Seeing Eurostan Globalists weep and gnash their teeth as he NAILS them………Seeing him let our Generals destroy ISIS and wielding a big stick to all of our enemies…….THANK GOD I WAS WRONG.
I too was wrong. Now I am very pleased with djt so far. I am even enjoying the way he trolls the left. He’s living rent free in their fevered brains “eight days a week”.
My fear was that Trump would be like some variation of Berlusconi in Italy, or Schwarzenegger in CA. My hope was that he was some kind of conservative who was closeted because of his high profile life in NYC.
I have a very speculative theory about Trump’s presidency based on comments by Charlie Gasparino and Scott McNealy. Charlie is business journalist who specializes in hob knobbing with the biggest CEOs to get the inside story, usually in NYC. He is a moderate anti-Trumper and claims to know him more than a bit.
Gasparino has claimed that Trump is not a particularly great executive, nor is he a great negotiator; but not terrible either. But he is strong and effective promoter and self promoter.
Scott McNealy was the CEO of Sun Microsystems from 1984 to 2006, and in the runup to the 2016 election made a simple comment on a talk show. He said the worst CEO of a major corporation would make a better president than the best career politician. At the time it seemed like hyperbole.
What if both Gasparino and McNealy are correct? Maybe this is a weird but great set of traits.
“Do you ever want to have been wrong…?”
Indeed, the “virtues” of being wrong… (though I’m redirecting a bit).
Or rather, the virtue of being able to recognize when one is wrong.
That is, the desirability of being able to be wrong. (And, more importantly, being able to correct it.)
IOW, the importance of the feeback mechanism required to conclude that one has been wrong. And why this mechanism should be so cultivated and cherished.
Basically, it’s just (just!) an OODA loop. And the absolute necessity to be as aware as much as possible of GIGO (AKA the MSM?).
Because, simply, if one is never wrong, there’s nothing to correct…which is the hallmark of the totalitarian mindset: AKA just double down.
As Wretchard writes (in the link further below):
“But perverting [the] feedback mechanism always carries the risk of creating an echo chamber…”
(Though one may certainly be justified in concluding that there are certain people and groups—and administrations—who/that intentionally “pervert the feedback menchanism” precisely in order to “create an echo chamber”. At which P.T. Barnum reputedly directed his repudiation; and lo and behold came the 2016 elections….)
Two rather interesting views of the issue from 2009:
http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2009/07/the-limits-of-reductionism.html
…from which:
“The wisdom of capitalism is that it facilitates the integration of maximal amounts of input. This is not infallible and cannot prevent periodic failures but does produce a dynamic equilibrium that is much more stable than the alternatives.”
…and which, itself, links to Wretchard’s:
https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/07/13/procrustean-bed/
For a significant contingent of NeverTrumpers, I’ll argue that they had their entire identity wrapped around the Axle of Not Wrong. For some professional pundits (of whom we can all identify), their entire reputations. Perhaps never to be recovered, even…
That’s how it looks from the perspective of a Flight93’er, if that makes any sense whatsoever.
Baklava@3:30, that is a very well stated comment, FWIW…
Thanks Steve.C. 🙂
Neo, to your credit, you admitted you were wrong. When you were posting your anti-Trump essays, I agreed with a lot you wrote. Yes, Trump is a vulgar loudmouth. Yes, given how Trump had previously been a Democrat, one couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t merely follow Democrat policies.
Trump was not my first choice. I preferred Ted Cruz. As a former Democrat, I was going to vote Democrat over my dead body. I wasn’t going to change my vote because Trump was a vulgar loudmouth etc., which is why I slacked off on reading your copious anti-Trump essays.
As the campaign progressed, I warmed to Trump. The vehemence of the attacks against Trump showed me that my enemies were also Trump’s enemies. And the enemy of my enemy can be my friend.
I also liked the way he took the attack to the Democrats. There are some things to be said for being a vulgar loudmouth. 🙂
Regarding the way some of the never-Trumpers have not slacked off in their attacks on Trump, I am reminded of that famous Henry Clay quote: “I would rather be right than be President.” Similarly, the never-Trumpers would rather be right than have Trump implement policies that are more congenial to them than would be policies that a Democrat President would implement.
LOL. Well, Rush was leftly excoriated for sure. Per the usual, I’d observe.
But I entirely disagree that he was correctly excoriated JG.
That Rush line was taken out of context. Read it for yourself: Here’s his monologue of a few days before O’s inaugeration.
The point he made that morning wasn’t exactly subtle either …simply put, Rush expressed his hope the incoming president’s political, social, and cultural aspirations and intentions (which weren’t exactly “secrets” lol …though vastly under-reported by the media) would fail.
And …O’s plans and machinations did fail. Abysmally, obviously, and spectacularly.
And thank G-d for that.
The nation is in recovery from those – via the corrections of the Antidote Presidency – now.
The one positive outcome I recall considering – and hoping for – the morning that O’ was sworn in (in the day’s after listening to Limbaugh’s monologue, and not very successfully hoping Rush was wrong), was that, maybe, just maybe, we could at least finally put the lie of embedded institutional racism behind us (i.e., how could a white majority nation be called racist after electing a black president).
Instead we endured one of the most racist presidents since LBJ. And the racial divide deepened and widened.
(That’s yet another counter point of the current president to the former …as near as I can tell, Trump is color blind.)
…I don’t disagree with anything else you wrote. Mostly “me too” lol.
I think I was like you. I really thought he’d be a bad choice. But once he won the nomination, come hell or high water, I was going to vote for him. Because NOT voting for him was in essence a vote for Hilary. And as bad as I thought Trump MIGHT be, I knew Hilary would be worse.
Trump MIGHT nominate a Souter, but that’s probably as bad as it would get a the Supreme Court. Hilary WOULD definitely keep adding Kagans and Wise Latinas. Trump MIGHT install his cronies. But Hillary WOULD definitely keep the cronies and thieves and liars. Trump MIGHT turn out to be like Ahnold. Hilary WOULD definitely be at least as bad as Obama. Probably worse.
The Never Trumpers mystify me. Surely they couldn’t possibly think that for our eight years of Hilary would just be treading water….
I voted for Trump. And I’ve been very happy ever after.
I’ll say this. I worried about reputation. I worried about the conservative brand.
Now I see how UNHINGED Democrats are and I don’t worry.
You all see the news story with Abolish ICE protesters calling the African American police officer the n word. Horrible people. And then the antics today during the Congressional hearing. They have zero awareness.
You want to see amazing stats about Hillary/Trump?
https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1015644869275062272
Historicize everything. Never Trumper nostalgia for Reagan demonstrates their unfitness as oracles. As Mr Lincoln said, “As our case is new, so must we think anew and act anew. And then we shall save country.”
Kristol, Goldberg, inter alia, are the Ashley Wilkes of conservates.
John Guilfoyle: Rush said he wanted Obama to fail because Obama told us that he wanted to fundamentally change America. He didn’t completely fail, but fortunately, he didn’t completely succeed.
Barry Meislin: I think most liberals are so emotionally involved in their beliefs that they see opposition to those beliefs as opposition to themselves. (They confuse feeling with thought.)
Baklava: It’s a case of “hold your nose and vote for _____”. I’m paying more attention to what Trump DOES than to what he says. And he has certainly brought to our attention the fecklessness of Democrats and the viciousness of their supporters.
Yes ZZ. By the time of the election, I voted FOR Trump because inarticulate does not mean he was unable inable or whatever the sack of potatoes was that had to be thrown into a van.
Hillary was a criminal
Trump was unclear inarticulate and an executive who would be for America’s strength versus the sell us down the river Uranium One, Clinton Foundation stuff we were getting with Hillary.
Remember this is before we all learned about how corrupt top FBI and DOJ officials were.
I supported Trump when I heard him give a campaign speech before the primaries, and he absolutely nailed every real problem facing the country dead center. He was a right bastard, but also the right bastard for the job.
I guess some of us are just more perceptive. 🙂
We also perceived that 50 years of conservatives utterly failed to conserve a single thing. Y’all couldn’t even conserve the ladies room.
Conservative brand? Are you effing kidding me? What brand? A pack of feckless do nothings who, if they weren’t surrendering to the Left were actively collaborating, like John McCancer?
A lot of you folks are living in a dream space. The ProgLeft beat you harder than Napoleon in Russia. You lost every cultural institution devoted to propagating our values and culture- academia from K to 12 to PhD, the media, the sciences, the bureaucracy, even corporate America. You surrendered it all with a fight. You got shellacked, wiped out and punched in your sad little loser faces by people who wake up every morning confused by their own genitals.
Good job.
The GOP should have spent 2017 queuing up bills for Trump’s agenda like planes waiting to take off at Dulles on a busy holiday weekend. But, no, with all the power in three branches of government, you still folded like a cheap suit.
The only reason you have any chance in November is that the Democrats have collectively gone insane. The Left wants you literally dead. There’s no middle ground there. You stand up and fight or you get erased from history.
I’m coming to believe that the never Trumpers are those people who were born into their political beliefs, and did not align themselves by personality traits to political orientation as most of us did. We have traits like conscientiousness, orderliness, and cautiousness when it comes to new ideas. They’re just country club Republicans who can endorse a candidate like Hillary because they have no personal compunction not to. It’s all political calculus to them. Never much cared for their cold dispassion in the past, I’m done with them now.
Marielle writes:
This is a common talking point of the racist right. What none of them has ever answered for me is what were *you* doing while conservatives were fighting to stop the Left. There are several possibilities.
1. You were voting for Republican Conservatives, in which case you failed as much as the rest of us, so your smarmy attitude is just hypocritical.
2. You weren’t voting, were voting for Republican RINOs or were voting for some party that could never win, in which case you were not helping the fight, so your smarmy attitude is just hypocritical.
3. You were voting for Democrats, in which case you were on the side destroying western civilization, so your smarmy attitude is just hypocritical.
That’s why no one cares what you say.
I was a never Trumper until it was obvious he would be nominated. Absolute FEAR of Hilary Clinton and the coming socialism was what made me secure in my Trump vote. I am thrilled with his presidency. He is not someone I want to socialize with, although some of his children are appealing. But I think his instincts are amazing and the economic benefit of his presidency is powerful. In any case, I look at his presidency as if he is the Little Dutch Boy with his finger in the dike.
The vocal/prominent never Trumpers are all people who are living in what amounts to a gated enclave. They will cruise to the end of their lives living in 20th century security, untouched by the socialist and bizarre morality of the progressives of 21st that is being foisted on those of us who still practice random acts of free speech.
I still fear for what this country’s fate will be, but I now think it is delayed a bit thanks to Donald Trump.
Yes, Trump was my last choice in the primary. I couldn’t vote for him, so I went libertarian. I still find the man repugnant.
But…. I’ve discovered the need to “drain-the-swamp” was far greater than I thought. Almost all his actions I have agreed with and am frankly surprised he actually followed through on several issues. Yes, repugnant. Yes, I cringe when reading his tweets and listening to his speeches. But, the results so far have been positive changes in Executive branch actions involving both domestic and foreign policy. And for that I must give praise and support.
Well said, Neo.
I have often hoped I was wrong. Just a couple weeks ago, I hoped I was wrong that the Thai kids trapped in the cave were doomed; happily, I was.
More to the point, I had hoped I was wrong about Obama. When it became clear he was even worse than I imagined, but he got re-elected anyway, I was shocked. When the press kept saying everything was fine, and he was great, that really wore me down. I decided I didn’t know anything about politics and stopped hoping for anything, just tried to stay sane.
I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Trump, he seemed so nuts. Never even considered voting for Hillary. But I honestly felt that I didn’t have enough information about either of them, or about what would happen to the country under either presidency. It was like I just couldn’t think. An awful feeling.
So it has been a huge relief to see so much good policy.
It is rather surreal to see so many people pretending that isn’t the case. Now they are the ones who can’t think. Yesterday I saw a foreign-policy analyst on twitter say that Trump’s comments about the German gas pipeline from Russia were clearly “projection,” as he is the one who is pro-Russia, and that he couldn’t possibly know what he is talking about on this issue, because he is “malevolent,” and then she said she herself is against that pipeline but for the right reasons, which, she hilariously added, she will talk about separately but not with anyone who doesn’t agree with her about Trump. Now that is unhinged. She’s so freaked out about agreeing with him on one policy she has to weave this whole story and apparently doesn’t realize it makes *her* look nutty to present herself as a mindreader? So odd.
Whelp, I am a Never Hillary. I am happy to be both right and successful.
I did not vote for Trump in the primary, and were it anyone else but Hillary I’d have not voted for Trump (either LP, Constitution Party, or abstained). And depending on who runs in the 2020 Primary, I may not vote for Trump then either. But I might. And that is a huge change in how I view him. “We could do worse. We almost did, and you’ll have to convince me we won’t next time.”
This is has been a reasonable thread given the potential for it to veer off the rails. Marielle’s comments could have been more tempered, as could David’s in response, but this is a passionate age we are living in. I was a Cruz supporter, but he would have gotten trounced as would any other candidate. And though Trump acts like a buffoon, Gerard (3:47pm) is correct. There is no “unitary” Trump. He is what is called on the playgrounds a “baller.” He is not the best shooter; He is not the best rebounder; He is not the best dribbler; but he combines competency in all areas with a relentless drive, great court awareness, AND trash talking. The latter is one element I note that commentators on all the threads I read fail to observe. I wonder how many people on this thread grew up fighting, doing drugs, getting arrested, etc.? I did all of those things although I now have a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt. English is also my second language. What I finally came to see in Trump is that 1) he is probably on the spectrum, with all that implies in terms of his personality conditioning; and 2) his resulting personality is an aggressive posture meant to put his opponent on the defensive and shift the field of dispute. What are his tools? He can’t rebound because he lacks the “height” credentials of social class; he can’t “shoot” accurately because he lacks the “eye” of politic discernment; he can’t “dribble” because he’s not intellectually adroit in the world of ideas. However, he is a baller when it comes to playing in the courts of power. We don’t know what goes on behind closed doors when Trump meets people face to face in conflict over tremendous stakes, but the fact that he always seems to win his point should tell us all that we’re not as savvy, not as observant, not as decisive, not as penetrating as Trump is. He is undoubtedly brilliant in his own way. And the next time you’re tempted to clutch your pearls about a /tweet/, or call him /racist/, consider that those are only words employed clumsily in trash talking and compare mere rhetoric to how the smooth, upper class mannerisms of Clinton, Kerry, and Obama masked the greatest unnecessary humanitarian disaster, excepting world war, since the Biafran famine, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the displacement of millions. Is Trump worse than they are because of his crude tweeting? People are more upset about Trump’s tweets than the destruction of Libya, Syria, and ultimately Europe. /Ignore/ what he says. It’s all gamesmanship that anyone growing up urban or rural poor would recognize on the spot. Judge what he does. Had Ted Cruz done all those things, would we not have been ecstatic? Trump is in the mold of a Saul (a traitor), a David (adulterer and murderer), a Moses (cowardly). He is a great leader of flawed moral character whose great weakness is a reflection of a grossly imbalanced Aristotelian mean. Yes, he goes too far, but it is because he uniquely has the ability to go too far in the wrong direction that he is able to go farther than anyone else could have in the right direction. I hope no one is deluded enough to believe that Cruz or Carson or Rubio (!) would have moved the embassy or fought the immigration wars battle the way Trump has. Given the stakes and the forces arrayed against him by all of the cultured despisers of religion, the 1%, the globalists, and the brainwashed half of the hoi polloi, what Trump has accomplished makes the case for him being the greatest /leader/ this country has seen since Lincoln. He amazes me with his political ballin’.
Marielle’s right.
The “conservative” leaders were self-deluded fools, always looking over their shoulders wondering when the media would take their side. Good press was their goal and they modified their policies to try to achieve it.
And after all their efforts to play nice, they were labelled as Fascist, racist, women hating bigots giving hand-outs to the rich while the poor starved in the cold and grandma was pushed over the cliff when they were not busy planning for nuclear Armageddon.
And they were able to get away with it. Why?
Because Republicans would always play defense. Trump didn’t. As a result the media went to war … and lost.
Conservatives lost the culture, academia, the courts, and the arts. They made promises to the voters they had no intention of keeping, playing them for fools. Remember “Repeal and Replace?”
They cooperated with Democrats in hollowing out American manufacturing, preaching the gospel of Comparative Advantage while millions lost their jobs and deadened the pain with opiods.
That’s why Trump was able to wipe the floor with over a dozen conventional Republicans. I liked many of them but in my heart I knew that they were all destined to lose to Hillary because none of them was as big a brawler as Trump.
One other thing: Trump was willing to raise issues that the media made toxic but that people worried about but were afraid to talk about. That’s why he won.
What osocrates said. In Spades.
The one trait we deplorables love about President Trump is “He fights”.
Bush was savaged by the press but tried to look presidential and never fought back. We hated that.
The Donald has the intel resources to know just about everything. He knows where the bodies are buried. He has been extremely brilliant in using that intel to change Washington. The press and the never Trumpers are always on Defense. When they think they have got him, he tweets and slips away. Drives the left crazy but the Deplorables love him.
I disagree with a lot of what the previous posters say about his abilities. I truly believe him when he says he’s a Very Stable Genius (VSG). He has an exceptional ability to use the iinformation provided him. That’s one area where he’s a transformational President. AND…. the best is yet to come.
Once I realized we are $20 trillion in debt with nothing to show for it except the ruling class’ enrichment, voting for Trump was a no-brainer. Now, I hope it is completely visible to all how corrupt our establishment betters are. Thank God for Trump and all of his appointees as they are the only honest and transparent forces in DC. Unbelievable.
Thanks for all you do Neo
What does success look like in Trump world? A list:
1. Conservative Supreme Court. Check!
2. Roll back of regulations. Check!
3. Fossil fuel promotion and independence. Check!
4. Business friendly tax cut and tax policy. Check!
5. Full employment. Check!
6. Stock market to the moon. Check!
7. Reversing 8 years of military decline. Check!
8. Exposing the corrupt deep state. Check!
9. America First foreign policy. Check!
Having listed those successes it seems ludicrous of never Trumpers to still be whining on about how uncouth he is, or nitpicking at his methods. Barely a year and half in, and this is what he’s accomplished. We should be shouting, Bravo!
And yet we know, with the exception of SCOTUS, the long range success of those policies rests on illusion – that unpaid debt isn’t a problem – that oil isn’t running out – that the left will wither away – that an aging population will become young – that our multi-racial and multi-cultural nation is still a melting pot – that the world will be brought to heel — that the old man leading the charge doesn’t have feet of clay – and that logic doesn’t matter.
Enjoy the spectacle while it lasts. I know I am.
You omit the pecuniary aspect. If you’ve made a career inside Washington as a gelded “Conservative” someone like Trump who gets RESULTS is profoundly upsetting. Suddenly, many realize the never-Trumpers e.g. George Will do nothing worth paying for. Conservatives don’t book cruises they’ve organized or buy their books and the lamestream outlets realizing the rubes are wise to their con must find other gelded “Conservatives” e.g Tomi Lahren.
For me the election was about one thing only: “Hillary must never make a Supreme Court appointment.”
That was it, and it was enough to get me to vote for Trump with no hesitation. Since the victory, I’ve been quite pleased with what he’s done.
He has a sound sense of what all of America is about — not just the coastal parts — and whenever he makes a false step, he corrects course quickly.
At this point, I want to see him destroy the Deep State, which is the biggest domestic threat to American liberties we face.
[Never-Trumpers] didn’t want to be wrong about him. They really really really didn’t want to be wrong about him.
And that describes exactly the large swarm of folks in ‘the arts’ who are bright and articulate, yet who decided that Trump was The Devil the minute he entered the 2016 primaries. Due exclusively to his manner, he was Not One Of Us, and so remains. There’s not a word of analysis from these bright and articulate souls regarding his policies or of progress made with the US economy, its foreign policy, its steadily decreasing CO2 production or his rising approval among people of color. Just jeers, and a competition in creating ringing denunciations following each hit piece in the MSM.
I quote Abraham Lincoln:
I can’t spare this man. He fights.
You never get the politician you want, but sometimes you get the politician you need.
I was lukewarm on Trump, but I despised the Clinton crime family, so I voted for him.
Yeah, he’s still vulgar. You know what? New York is full of vulgar businessmen like Trump. He’s one of them!
Trump is highly ambitious. He wants to be the best of the best, standing tall with the biggest d*** in the world.
That means he wasn’t going to be elected president and then take a victory lap, like Obama did for eight years. He wants nothing less than to change the course of American history.
He wants to be America’s best president.
osocrates at 7:52 am
KUDOS!
…with an honorable mention to Mark at 11:51 am
osocrates:
Very interesting take on Trump.
Great analysis, osocrates, I enjoyed reading that!
Now that Americans are less panicky and interested in demanding salvation, it makes Trum look better. The problem was always the people, not necessarily their leaders in DC. If the people were not corrupt, cowardly, and collapsing, DC would not be allowed to have traitors as your leaders.
osocrates – you nailed it.
In fact, I began trying to type up something on a prior post in the vicinity of what you expressed, but I couldn’t find the right focusing image for it – “baller” is just perfect – so I scrapped it.
* Like you, I grew up on the rougher side of things, doing rougher sorts of things, hanging around rougher sorts of people (myself, let’s face it, being probably a rougher sort), and I instantly recognized Trump’s “trash talk” for what it was.
Also like you, I now have a PhD and float around in circles where that type of rude, crude banter and humor are not well understood or appreciated (it’s telling that whenever I fail to control my Id and let loose with something I think is funny around my colleagues, I get reactions not dissimilar to the reactions Trump received/receives from similar sources).
It’s perhaps the only way in which I am, so to speak, gauche.
The Jonah Goldberg’s of the world can protest all they want that the “class” argument is a red herring, but it most certainly isn’t. They like to point out, as if it’s a revelation, that Trump is from the blue blood upper class, so nanny nanny boo boo. And so he is. The point, however, is that it was clear to a lot of us that this rhetorical mode of his was not a mere affectation, and however he acquired it, we “got it” without hassle.
The “baller” mode was grasped as a feature, not a bug, with real positive utility in the circumstances.
* Now, as soon as we say this, the TrueCons then flip to saying, “Aha! So it’s all about charisma and a Cult of Personality. Gotcha.” Which is idiotic. Most of us eventually lined up behind DJT for very definite reasons; our relating to his bluster, his “truthful hyperbole” as he put it in his book, only meant that we discerned a use for it. All things equal, I would rather have a Prez who didn’t talk trash; but all things aren’t equal.
Incidentally, it was this reason more than any other that led a few of us to get behind Gingrich back in 2012. We knew full well what Gingrich was (even less morally impeccable than Trump, arguably). We knew he had a spotty record on certain important issues. But sensing somewhat ahead of time the paramount importance of the war of words, the culture war, the need to have a figurehead who instinctively knows that never playing defense is the only way to “win” these days – all of this drove us, more or less reluctantly, into Newt’s camp.
I’d argue that that “Gingrich moment” was the real prologue to the Trump phenomenon. Romney was the last attempt of conservatives to play it straight. When he went down in flames, Trump (or someone like him) was nigh-on inevitable.
* In any case, what I was trying to say in my deleted comment was something like this: I get the feeling that a lot of NeverTrump types were never exposed in any visceral way to the type of (loosely speaking) street culture that, on the other hand, so many of those who took such a shine to Trump knew so well.
Right or not, one gets a sixth sense for how much of a hyperbolic jibe to take seriously, which ones to discount entirely as pure bluster or offensive maneuvers, and which ones are meant with more deadly seriousness.
Typical example: calling all those countries “shitholes.” I won’t lie – in the privacy of my own home, and with my friends, that’s pretty much what I call them. No, not pretty much – it’s *exactly* what I call them. Indeed, I live in China, a first-rate shithole, and my first thought and words whenever I wake up and look out my window every day are, “What a shithole.”
Again, it may not be diplomatic to say such things in the public sphere, but people like me are so accustomed to using the phrase “shithole” as just a normal descriptive term for a dirty and corrupt place – the polite term is “third world country” or “failed state” – that it almost seems as though describing them in any other way is to refuse to call a spade a spade.
So, the sense is more like, “Hey man, you live in a shithole; it is what it is.” It’s a nice, clean, honest baseline for discussions about what advances civilization and who to take advice from on the subject.
The NT blue bloods, by way of contrast, having never developed this sense, just lump everything together into Deadly Serious policy pronouncements and statements of intent. Their spidey sense for bullshitting, trash talking, the purpose of it, the utility of it, is all but absent.
Accordingly, these people were not merely alarmed at Trump’s forthrightness in saying “shithole” of shitholes (which I could understand); they were genuinely *offended.* And that’s precisely why the baller bluster is so useful today – it reveals, in the ridiculous, hysterical reactions it provokes, just how far removed from any sane and sensible grasp of reality so many people – and particularly the dread elites – really are.
I’d assert that no public task today is more important than that simple act of unmasking. The SJW/virtue-signaling mindset, which is really a cryptic and hideously ugly metaphysical system that hides behind slogans and sophistry, needs to be seen in the full depth of its ugliness, falsity, and maliciousness before it has any prayer of being resoundingly rejected.
Real progress is directly proportional to the degree of such rejection.
* In short, Trump’s baller-talk reveals what an unholy proportion of public discourse boils down to mere virtue signaling and the worldview that equates it with virtue. Whatever Trump says, the effect is generally the same: he’s pointing at these fools and knaves and saying, “The emperors are all naked. And my, how ugly they are. Let us laugh at them.”
That is *potent* stuff. Refutation can never do the heavy-lifting that ridicule and mockery are capable of. Refutation is Clark Kent. Ridicule is Superman.
Wherever Trump got this from, it’s certain that he got it. Perhaps it’s simply a part of some people’s native equipment more than others.
kolnai:
How about this instead of “shithole”?
Neo – lol that works too. I suppose it’s a given that pejorative language has been scaled up (or down) closer to the gutter as the culture has coarsened.
Maybe we can say the pervasive crudity that made “dump” sound like a polite euphemism (we all know you really mean “shithole”), i.e., the current language of popular estimations, is itself a kind of… ehem…shithole.
But that is a discussion that takes us beyond politics into the eternal verities of beauty and the propriety of names vis-a-vis nature.
Actually, being a relative young’un myself, I’ve often been curious to ask of my elders how they experienced the explosion of acceptable vulgarity in popular discourse. Was it more like, “Oh, ok, so we’re doing that now” – or more like, “Eeek, ‘shithole’ is so grating. Why not just use ‘dump’?”
I remember about 25 years ago, when I was in middle school, I still had some teachers who were imbued with the old norms of discourse. One stands out in particular: my English and grammar teacher, the very Jewish Mrs. Leibowitz. I mention her Jewishness because, despite not being a Christian, she was absolutely intolerant of anyone saying “Jesus” as an exclamation.
She couldn’t have believed we were literally taking the Lord’s name in vain; so it must have just sounded crude and ugly to her.
Nowadays, of course, “Jesus” is considered (by most people) perfectly acceptable, equivalent to a sigh or a feigned expression of surprise or interest. “I did so and so;” “Really? Jesus.”
But regardless, it is true, I think, that this coarsening (which I was raised in: you can take the man out of the coarsening but not the coarsening out of the man) makes it much harder to speak and write in elegant English than it was before, at least for educated people.
FWIW, I think most of the hard-core never Trumpers (Jen Rubin, Max Boot) believe that the Steele dossier is probably true, that Trump did conspire with the Russians to violate US laws and that he is under Russian influence. That belief also seems to be pervasive among Democrats. This belief seems to me to be the big dividing line, and it seems quite impervious to evidence or, I should say, to the lack thereof.
Douglas Levene:
If they do actually believe that, it’s because they already hate Trump with a white-hot passion. They don’t hate Trump because they believe the dossier; it’s the other way around.
kolnai:
I was talking to a friend (a member of my generation) the other day and we decided that we are officially old, because we feel increasingly out of touch with so many things that are happening that are changes that don’t seem for the better. One of them is that coarsening of language to which you refer.
When I was young you really didn’t hear cursing from anyone; it was so rare! Maybe in the home when your parents were arguing; maybe. But nowhere else. I still remember the first time I said a forbidden word aloud. I probably was 15 or 16 at least. Now from the mouths of practically babes, the foulest expressions emanate. You can overhear it just walking down the street—there is no reticence and no shame.
I think it’s an awful development. But that horse has left the barn, I’m afraid.
This early post of mine is about this subject, by the way, or at least related to it.
Late to this discussion, but I, too, appreciate osocrates interpretation of Trump. The acknowledgement of the “baller trash-talk” brings to mind Salena Zito’s observation from the 2016 campaign; Trump’s opponents take him literally but not seriously while his supporters take him seriously but not literally. This focus on his language rather than his deeds is a classic leftist example of attention to appearance over substance. That the Never-Trumpers have adopted this approach makes it evident just how much of a uniparty certain “Republicans” and Democrats have become.
I have referenced Trump in the mode of George S. Patton several times (remember Trump attended a military academy), and an appropriate Patton quote is: “When I want them to remember it, I give it to them good and dirty.” Trump’s trash-talking follows the same pattern, although somewhat sanitized for national Twitter consumption. Patton, it seems, was either loved or hated with little middle ground. Trump follows that same pattern, too.
Furthermore, Patton, a cavalry officer, saw fixed fortifications as monuments to the stupidity of mankind and, to the consternation of his superiors, used former Nazi bureaucrats to staff post-war offices because the allies were not sending him qualified individuals who could do the job. Fixed fortifications? Just work your cavalry around them. Rebuilding the German civil structure under the Allies? Use people who can do the job. Is this any different than Trump departing from the ineffective foreign and domestic protocols of past administrations much to the consternation of the bien pensant?
A commenter above wrote that, while they are pleased with Trump’s performance, they would prefer that performance be from a Trump who isn’t a “trash-talker”, a “baller”. I suggest, however, that Trump, especially with his brash approach, is precisely the perfect solution in the perfect place at the perfect time.
Neo,
As to the question of cursing, it’s not only that. We have become more coarse as a culture. Not every man and every woman, but generally in the public sphere. Look at the more sexually provocative casual dress of many women, or many men wearing their pants so low as to reveal their boxers. IMO this is in great part because the movement of the last 50 years has been to despise and deconstruct traditional life. Bourgeoisie values have been deemed restrictive, outdated, and unnecessary and are seen as useless traditions rather than a sum total of ages of human interaction.
As I said above, not for everyone, but enough in the public sphere that it has come to typify our current society. C’est dommage.”
T – Yes, it certainly tracks the deconstruction of traditional life, and in some murky subaltern way was probably motivated by it.
I sometimes think of what happens to free societies when they go over the ledge as like those pictures you see of kids with chocolate smeared on their face, standing there with their finger in their mouth, looking like, “uh oh… look what I did.”
Every human has a strong temptation or urge that is very hard to resist, and in a free society the line between taboo and indulgence is much thinner than would be the case in either an oppressive state of natural scarcity or a panopticon/totalitarian system.
At first one hand goes in the cookie jar – and damn that cookie tastes good. Then someone else says, “look, it’s not hurting anyone. It’s a cookie. Just don’t overdo it and we’ll be fine.” More hands go in. Yummy yummy. Then it incrementally becomes clear that if we’re going to ensure everyone gets their “cookie” guilt- and shame-free, we have to remove the taboos.
I’m going to be very honest here – and some might find this interesting – and say that if I, as I am right now, imbued with the permissions and licenses and vulgarities I’ve been imbued with (and to be fair – consciously adopted in some cases)… if this “Me” was to go back to the ‘50’s and try to live there, I would find it intolerably restrictive. I’d feel suffocated. Not just by the norms of decency but by the music and popular entertainment. It would feel too “stuffy” to me.
Notice I’m not talking about my rational response here but about how it would feel. That’s how deep it goes.
kolnai:
Interesting point you make about the 50s.
As someone who remembers the 50s well—although I was a child—I never got a stifled feeling at all. The music was great, although I’m sure if I went back now I would find it stifling—the entire society, probably—because I’ve gotten used to something very very different.
But you know what? When I think back on my parents and their friends during that time, my sense is that they had a lot more fun than most people today. They got together a lot, had many parties, went on trips they seemed to enjoy, worked hard but not incredibly hard, and had a large circle of friends who had mostly known each other for life and supported each other in a pinch. People got dressed up just to go downtown. My parents used to get together with friends at least one night a week and usually more often, and they’d play cards or dance or something like that and then have cake and coffee and really heated, interesting discussions. I know about the discussions because as a little girl I was allowed to sit at the table and listen (and even say something if I felt like it), if my homework was done. They were a very lively fun-loving bunch of people, real characters.
The worst thing about those times was the discrimination. Some of the women worked, however—some of them at very good jobs, I might add—although it wasn’t the majority. The position of black people was quite bad. We were very aware that that had to change. Things were far from perfect.
But my memory of people’s general affect was that there was a lot more happiness around then than there is now.
“. . . if this “Me” was to go back to the ‘50’s and try to live there, I would find it intolerably restrictive. I’d feel suffocated.” [Kolnai @11″49, 7/14]
I understand, but remember, every age has its own reality and that reality looks artificial from the point of view of any subsequent age.
As an example, think about 1950s science fiction showing interstellar travel with analog rocket controls (Commando Cody, Rocky Jones Space Ranger, even the much respected Forbidden Planet). It looks almost comical from today’s point of view of integrated circuits, touch screens and advanced electronics. It didn’t look comical seventy years ago, however, because that was the prevailing technology through which the future was seen.
This also works socially and culturally. It’s tautological. What looks unacceptable now was acceptable then because it was then, and unbeknownst to us, we will be looked at in the same way by future generations (although not necessarily for the same reasons).
Ahoy Kolnai. Not all of us with a brain managed to escape a rough beginning and get a PHD. (Although I guess I have a Doctorate from the school of hard knocks.)
Anyway, I understood and agreed with your analysis of Trump’s “Ballerism”. I was a Cruz supporter during the primaries. But I have enjoyed the heck out of watching The Donald toy with the media and the Democrats (BIRM), because every time he does it I know what he is doing.
These people have been dealing with spineless Republicans for so long that they honestly do not know how to respond to actual opposition. It is driving them insane, and it is all on full public display. (Not just opposition… but “IN YOUR FACE” opposition.)
To everyone on this thread, I hope you are all well. I also hope you come to enjoy the sport of watching the left and the deep state implode.
The ability to recognize and admit when one is wrong is the very definition of an open mind.
I was never Trump in the Primary and refused to vote for him in the general election. I voted for Gary “Aleppo” Johnson because I wanted my vote to make a statement. On the other hand, I lived in Illinois… so I knew there was no way my voting for Trump would make a difference anyways. What if I had lived in Wisconsin or Michigan? Perhaps I would have had a tougher decision…
But I digress. After supporting Bobby Jindal and then Ted Cruz in the primaries, I thought that Trump was going to ruin the party. I thought that he would trash the Republican brand and that he didn’t believe in anything he was saying – and that people would see through his BS.
Then he got elected. I have to admit, I was elated that Hillary wasn’t President, but I still didn’t trust Trump. I was afraid that he would sell out the Conservative movement and be a New York liberal squish. I was afraid that he was all bravado and no substance.
But then he picked his cabinet. And damn it, it’s working. I still don’t think he is ideologically conservative. I think he is a performer and just wants to cut deals to make things work. He obviously knows a lot about business and wants to make the government run more efficiently, so that’s a plus!
And the biggest thing we have going for us is that the Left hates him with the heat of a billion stars. It means they will never work with him. And he realizes he can feed off it by trolling them, which makes his base more supportive and more right-wing and damn it, things just keep getting better!
So far, I’ve been proven wrong and I’m thrilled! I still fear what might happen if the Progs get enough power and sense that they want to cut deals with him… perhaps that will never happen… or perhaps they will try to work with him and he will prove me wrong again.
For now, I will just be happy with what we’ve got. As Vukdawg said, it’s very enjoyable to watch the left and deep state implode.
Adam Mac:
Your story is something like mine in that I really thought he would not govern as a conservative at all. I thought the list of potential justices was just BS, for example. But he has surprised me that way.
However, I think he actually has gotten more conservative while in office. If he can be said to have a political philosophy/belief, it is conservative. Not wholly conservative or consistently conservative, but conservative nonetheless.
His personal style is not the least bit “conservative” however, except for his being a teetotaler.