By Charles C. W. Cooke
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
It is fitting, perhaps, that a man who launched his
reelection campaign by transmuting himself into a series of gaudy nonfungible
tokens would eventually be transformed into an avatar. Donald Trump has long
served as a Rorschach Test, but, as he heads undeterred into his third bid for
the presidency, he has become something more protean besides. At this stage,
there are thousands of Trumps, each tailored to the predilections of the
observer. Trump is a myth, an archetype, an emblem. How can it be that a
country full of people who speak the same language cannot agree on the
elementary facts that attach to the man? Simple: Because each involved in the
debate has pulled a different trading card from an increasingly extensive pack.
Take the question of Trump’s involvement in the recent
bill that provided $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine. There, the plain
details are these: Rather than emphatically oppose further funding for Ukraine,
Donald Trump submitted that “Ukrainian survival and strength . . .
is also important to us”; rather than attempt to sink it behind the scenes,
Trump contrived the idea that the aid should be cast as a “loan”
— an idea that was adopted, and that proved crucial to its passage; rather than criticize
Speaker Mike Johnson for his role in shepherding the package through the House,
Trump said publicly that Johnson is a “good person” and “a good
man,” who is “trying very hard.” Given his previous rhetoric, it is unclear
precisely why Trump did and said these things, but do and say them he most
decidedly, indisputably, unequivocally did.
Or, at least, the real Donald Trump
mostly decidedly, indisputably, unequivocally did. The fictionalized versions
of Trump did whatever those writing about him needed him to do. Thus far, two
fabricated variations of the man have emerged. One, as contrived by his enemies,
fought desperately against more help for Ukraine. The other, as contrived by
his fans, did nothing worthy of critique. And never the twain shall meet.
Playing helplessly to type, a bunch of the writers at
the Bulwark chose to interrogate the ersatz anti-Ukraine-aid
rendition of the man. To this end, A. B. Stoddard proposed yesterday that, “to Trump,” the Ukraine funding
that Speaker Johnson had secured was “an abomination”; recorded that a bunch of
Republicans had “dared to contradict Trump’s worldview, to side with Biden, to
defend Ukraine, and to make Putin mad”; and promised that “Trump will make
Johnson pay for his Ukraine defiance.” This morning, Bill Kristol echoed this line of thought in a report — headlined
“Congress Pokes Trump, Putin in Eye” — that made no attempt to hide that it had
been written backwards from its foreordained conclusion:
Some will hasten to say that Trump
didn’t speak up as clearly as he might have against the aid package, that he
made it somewhat easier for Republicans in Congress to vote as they did.
There’s some truth to this. Still, Trump hasn’t budged in any fundamental way
from the anti-Ukraine, pro-Putin, and anti-NATO stance that he’s embraced for
years. So the congressional vote couldn’t help but be a statement of
independence from Trump.
If you find this persuasive, I do not know what to say to
you.
Moving onto more comfortable ground, Kristol went on to
note that “many Republican elected officials will do their best to paper over
this difference” — and, about that, they are absolutely right. To his fans and
apologists, the correctness of Donald Trump has become an unfalsifiable
proposition. When Trump stands on principle, it is taken as evidence that he,
and he alone, is capable of transcending the cynical political calculations
that have supposedly made the GOP so weak. And when Trump engages in cynical
political calculations, it is seen as confirmation that he, unlike the
dogmatic, inflexible, ideology-driven Republican establishment, knows what it
takes to win. Stances that yield accusations of “betrayal” for anyone else are
adopted, forgiven, or simply ignored when Trump adopts them. Questions that are
Manichaean in all other contexts become nuanced the very moment that they are
answered unsatisfactorily by Trump. His flaws are unavoidable. His decisions
will be explicable in good time. If only the Tsar knew what was happening!
At American Greatness yesterday, the
staff compiled a list of “heroes” who “said ‘no’ to the
Ukraine Aid Bill.” Necessarily, the post contains a list of enemies in turn — a
list that includes Joe Biden (who apparently covets a “Forever War in Ukraine”)
and “House Speaker Mike Johnson” (who is knocked for his “relentless effort to
bring the funding package to a vote”) — but mentions Trump only in passing, as
part of a passively voiced afterword that explains without comment, blame, or
judgment that any attempt to remove the gavel from Johnson’s hands might end up
being complicated by “former president Trump’s very public backing of the
embattled House Speaker.”
It does not take a literary critic to discern the problem
here. If Mike Johnson is “embattled” because he has contravened the wishes of
America’s “heroes,” and Donald Trump is “very publicly backing” that same Mike Johnson, then what ought we conclude about Donald
Trump? To an honest observer, the answer is obvious: That Trump — who has far
more influence than the average backbench representative — ought to be
criticized for his role in bringing about an eventuality that American
Greatness abhors. But that, clearly, isn’t an option, and so, like the
writers at the Bulwark, the staff of American
Greatness must replace the messy and incoherent reality of Trump with
a cartoon symbol of Trump, onto whom their childish political neuroses can be
projected in primary colors at the expense of nothing less important than the
truth.
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