Tag: Conservative Principles

Right Noise ShortCut [Abolish the Electoral College?]

The Democrats just can’t stop whining about their loss–much to the joy of President Trump. Part of their plan is to attack the Electoral College. Is this a good idea, or a bad one steeped in sour grapes? The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake weighs in. So do I.

 

Credits:

Dirty Hands

In Jean Paul Sartre’s “Dirty Hands,” two Communist revolutionaries argue about politics. Hoederer, the leader of the faction, believes that rhetoric and principles serve as vehicles to deliver a political reality that comes as close as possible to an ideal. He is a tough pragmatist who understands short term trade offs can serve long term ends. Hugo; his secretary who, unbeknownst to him has been sent to kill him; believes passionately in the Communist rhetoric and principles. He believes that compromising those principles with rank politics so undermines the movement that it loses its right to exist.

As a Republican in the “Era of Trump,” I ask myself: “Who, in this analogy, am I?”

For years, I railed against “RINO Hunters,” arguing Hoederer’s point, that imperfect messengers who delivered incremental victories were worth more than political losses delivered by principled grandstanders. Besides, I argued, the America that the so-called RINOs want closely resembles that which the conservative zealots envision. It was the naive ideologues who cheered on Senator Ted Cruz’ “Green Eggs and Ham” filibuster, or Ron Paul’s half-baked immutability. These ideologues rejected Senator John McCain and Governor Mitt Romney–both men more conservative than their Democrat opponents, but deemed not sufficiently pure. For nearly a decade I wrote Black and Red, touted the supremacy of conservative principles, and supported “the most conservative candidate who could win,” even when the candidate was less conservative than my ideal.

Then, came 2016.

The GOP primary, and election of Donald Trump as President, caused me to reconsider my place in the GOP; and to rethink the Party’s desired goals. For years, I defended my tribe against liberal attacks that Republicans’ advocacy of principles like a smaller federal government, supply-side economics, and federalism, were nothing more than a Trojan Horse designed to deliver on darker, more sinister ends. I found these critiques the lowest of political demagoguery. Then, Trump wooed Republican voters, appealing directly to these dark impulses; while paying only cursory lip service to the grander principles the Party ostensibly supported. Clare Malone writes an incisive piece for Five Thirty Eight that reads in part,

“Many have assumed that adherence to a certain conservative purity was the engine of the GOP, and given the party’s demographic homogeneity, this made sense. But re-evaluating recent history in light of Trump, and looking a bit closer at this year’s numbers, something else seems to be the primary motivator of GOP voters, something closer to the neighborhood of cultural conservatism and racial and economic grievance rather than a passion for small government.”

One of Five Thirty Eight’s findings, which took into account multiple polls that gauged immediate feedback, found that among Republicans, candidate Trump’s approval ratings increased whenever he said the most outrageous things (e.g.–Judge Curiel couldn’t be impartial because of his Mexican heritage). Quite notably, his approval rating among Republicans has not dipped below 81%, in spite of his heretical views on conservatism.

So, who am I now?

Am I Hoederer, the pragmatist, who (if he weren’t a communist) would see Trump as a political means to an end?

Or am I Hugo, the idealist, convinced that this political concession threatens to entirely obliterate our shared ends?

That depends on who the GOP is–who we have become. Are we bigger than one man? What are our long term goals? How do we propose to improve Americans’ lives? What vision do we have for the country? Currently; between a White House perpetually embroiled in self-inflicted damage control, and a Balkanized Republican Congress; it appears that the conservative agenda (whatever it really is) has stalled.

The Right to be Victimized

Those of us already concerned about how Donald Trump’s legacy threatens to permanently erode the character of the Republican Party, may be seeing a small glimpse into what lies ahead after November 8th. At this very moment, the FiveThirtyEight “Polls-Plus” forecast shows Donald Trump with a less than 18% chance of winning the election. The RealClearPolitics electoral map shows red meat states like Texas and Utah, which Mitt Romney won in 2012 by 16 and 48 points respectively, colored more like dull-pink, medium-well Trump Steaks (He leads in both states by single digits, with at least one Utah poll showing him tied with Hillary Clinton). In other words, Mr. Trump and the GOP look ahead to an epic repudiation at the polls. And while Republicans should walk away from such a defeat with an appetite for introspection and self-criticism, we likely won’t, because Republicans have increasingly accepted the mantle of victimhood, and Mr. Trump intends to accelerate that trend.

 

Though Trump spent most of the general election reacting allergically to unfavorable polls, that era appears to have ended. Reluctant to take responsibility for his own words and actions, Trump insists that his precipitous decline owes itself to a pernicious conspiracy among the media, the Republican “establishment” and the Clinton campaign. He, and his obsequious toadies, have spent a great deal of time warning of a “stolen election,” with more potential culprits than Oliver Stone’s “JFK.”  Ashley Parker notes as much in the New York Times:

 

“Mr. Trump’s ominous claims of a “stolen election”…are not entirely new. But in recent days, he has been pressing the theme with a fresh intensity, citing everything from the potential for Election Day fraud to news media bias favoring Mrs. Clinton to rigged debates.”

 

Contrast Trump’s preemptive finger-pointing with Mitt Romney’s concession speech in 2012, in which he stood alone, taking the blame for the campaign’s shortcomings; and the troubling difference comes to light.

 

To be sure, decrying left-leaning media bias is nothing new for the GOP. The tone of this criticism, however, has changed from one that recognized the supremacy of conservative ideas–so powerful that Americans choose them in spite of media bias–to a defeatist tone that paints the political right as powerless victims, and American voters as simpletons. Trump’s claims, which unfortunately hit paydirt with too many Republicans, threaten to unnecessarily undermine the integrity of a staple of American democracy–the vote.

 

While many Republicans have spoken out against Trump’s claim, the Republican nominee implicates these GOP critics in his decline as well. When House Speaker, Paul D. Ryan announced that he would turn his attention away from defending Trump, after a video emerged showing the nominee bragging about sexually assaulting women, Trump pounced, reigniting a feud, and implicating Ryan in a conspiracy to elect Hillary Clinton.

 

“There is a whole deal going on there. There is a whole deal going on and we’re going to figure it out. I always figure things out. But there’s a whole sinister deal going on.”

 

Overcoming obstacles, used to form the backbone of conservative ideology. Taking personal responsibility for our actions, and for where those actions placed us, was the message that attracted Americans from every race and class to join the GOP.

But now, we have Trump.

Neither Trump, nor his apologists, appear ready to face the reality that has been staring them in the face since the purported billionaire descended down the escalator to greet a smattering of paid supporters: Donald Trump is a loser. Whether he wins in November or not, Trump will either damage conservatives’ credibility, or so misshape the GOP that what will remain of the two political parties will be competing organizations of aggrieved victims of first-world problems.

 

Rather than carry the mantle of personal responsibility, we’re told that individual choices–like picking fights with a Gold Star family, an American judge of Mexican heritage, and a sympathetic beauty contestant–don’t matter. Instead, we’re sold the liberal message: that the deck is stacked against us, no matter what we do. We are powerless, pathetic, duds, whose only hope lies in government, or in Trump’s case, in an American version of a Latin American strongman.

 

No. Trump’s is not a conservative message. That’s why he’s losing. If, after November, Republicans fail to recognize that, Trumpism will doom us to perpetual victimhood and political failure.
And, if we’re honest, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.