By Jonah Goldberg
Saturday, March 12, 2016
I have nothing but sympathy for those of you who are sick
of my wasting the precious space of this “news”letter on Donald Trump. How you
feel about Donald Trump and this “news”letter is how I feel about the raging
Trumpster fire raging through my party and my country: Would that we could
spare time to talk about something else.
I feel a bit like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. No one has strapped
me to a chair or attached those metal scaffolds to my eyes to keep them open as
I watch that oleaginous clump of non sequiturs sweat his insecurities on
national television. But I still feel drained as I try to resist what feels
like a kind of crowd-sourced brainwashing spread across the land like a wet
rolling fog.
At times, I sometimes think I’m living in a weird remake
of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
If you’ve seen any of the umpteen versions, you know the pattern. Someone you
know or love goes to sleep one night and appears the next day to be the exact
same person you always knew.
Except.
Except they’re different, somehow. They talk funny. They
don’t care about the same things they used to. It’s almost like they became
Canadian overnight — seemingly normal, but off in some way. Even once-friendly
dogs start barking at them. I live in constant fear that I will run into Kevin
Williamson, Charlie Cooke, or Rich Lowry and they will start telling me that Donald
Trump is a serious person because he’s tapping into this or he’s willing to say
that. I imagine my dog suddenly barking at them uncontrollably. (I don’t worry
about this with Ramesh because Vulcans are immune.)
I’ll say, “I’m sorry Rich, I don’t know what got into
her.”
And I can just hear the Lowry-doppelganger replying,
“When Mr. Trump is president, dogs will behave or they will pay a price. Just
like Paul Ryan and Michelle Fields.”
“Lowry you bastard! You went to sleep! Why!? You went to
sleep and now you’re gone!”
I for One Welcome
Our New Orange Overlord
I’m losing the will to rebut Donald Trump’s “arguments”
because he really doesn’t make any. First of all, most of his interviews are
rapidly becoming as journalistically adversarial as the infomercial host
asking, “Mr. Foreman, is it really true I’ll lose weight and save money by using the George Foreman grill?”
But more importantly, if you listen to Trump’s answers to
almost any question about how he will
fix a problem, he uses up the first 95 percent of his time explaining,
re-explaining and demagoguing about how bad the problem is. (That is, if he’s
not talking about polls.) Then in the last few seconds, he says we’ll fix the
problem by being really smart or by winning or by hiring the best people.
In other words, he has no idea how to fix it.
Before Trump gelded him, or before he went to sleep and
awoke from his husk with a strange, new, Renfield-like respect for his master,
Chris Christie was very good at pointing out how Trump can’t explain how he
will do anything. Now no one seems to care.
What I can’t get my head around is how other people can
listen to this stuff and hear something substantive or serious. I truly don’t
understand it. Or maybe I do understand it, and I just don’t want to because I
don’t like what it might say about a lot of people I respect.
The Stages of
Trumpodism
Among the commentariat, the first signs of creeping
Trumpodism take the form of anti-anti-Trumpism. The argument usually starts off
by grudgingly and bloodlessly conceding that Trump is imperfect — who isn’t? Wink
wink. Then comes the extended and passionate diatribe about how the real nuts
are the ones who are making a big fuss about how awful he is. Sometimes, they
talk of “Trumpophobia” without the slightest acknowledgement they are buying
into the left-wing crutch of attaching the suffix “phobia” to delegitimize
arguments they can’t or won’t deal with.
Politically, anti-anti-Trumpism, as Orwell could have
told you, amounts to being objectively pro-Trump, even if it doesn’t sound like
it.
Often, the next stage is to lock into a face-palmingly
stupid logical fallacy: People said Reagan was awful, therefore people who say
Trump is awful must be wrong, too.
In part because I think the word “meme” should be banned,
I suspect this argument is an earworm. (That’s a calque for ohrwurm for those of you who subscribe
to this “news”letter for the pretentious Tuetonic-tinged sesquipedalianism.
(“‘Sesquipedalian’ refers to long words, not obscure ones, you fraudulent
logophile!” — the Couch.)
But this earworm isn’t Milli Vanilli’s “Girl You Know
It’s True . . .”; it’s “They Called Reagan Bad Things, Too.”
I shouldn’t have to explain this, but you could replace
“Reagan” with “Charles Manson” or “Carrot Top” or “Bud Gretnick the narcoleptic
plumber of Muncie, Indiana” and it would have exactly as much logical power.
Just because some people were wrong about one politician nearly 40 years ago,
doesn’t mean completely different people are wrong about a completely different
politician four decades later.
For a pristine example of this argument, see Edward
Luttwak’s op-ed in the Wall Street
Journal from earlier this week. (Or stay tuned to this “news”letter because
it will come back.) The really infuriating part is the hidden bait-and-switch
buried in this fallacy. The people who said that Reagan was a dunce, a fool, or
fraud were liberals. The alleged
“Trumpophobes” the Trumpods are aiming their fire at are actually
conservatives. It’s a weird kind of stupid to say that Trump is like Reagan
because liberals said Reagan was a fool — in response to conservatives who say
Trump is a fool.
The next stage of conversion is the power-lusting gaze at
Trump’s popularity. “He’s tapping into something real,” is repeated endlessly
as if tapping into anger justifies pretty much anything.
I understand the anger. I understand that political
junkies are likely to marvel at anything that arouses such political passion. I
also understand that politicians have a weakness for anything that inspires the
masses. I remember how the sainted Jack Kemp was just a bit too spellbound by
Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March, for example.
But what bothers me is the way that this admiration or
appreciation bleeds into power-worship. One of the most illuminating aspects of
this entire sorry chapter in American history — and it’s not even done yet — is
how so many smart people reply to criticisms of Trump with declarations about
his popularity and his success. This form of argumentum ad populum is more fit for ancient Rome. The people want
blood sport! Give them blood sport! I get that people are legitimately hurting
from the effects of globalization and Obama’s ridiculous policies. That doesn’t
make protectionism any more advisable.
The next phase of the Trumpodian metamorphosis is often a
weird self-serving braggadocio. Trump’s fans will often respond to a criticism
of Trump by bragging that they knew “from the beginning” that Trump was going
to be big.
It goes something like this: I offer a criticism of
Trump. Someone freaks out at me on Twitter by saying “Who cares what you
think!?” or “You just don’t get it!” and then they follow up by boasting about
how they always knew Trump would be big, like some aging, bitter music critic
who saw Lou Reed play early on in some dive bar in Newark. “I knew he had ‘it’ the
moment I saw him!”
Well, the first problem with this kind of argument can be
summarized in the timeless words of Aristotle: “So f***ing what!?”
Bully for you! How does that rebut my claim that he has
no clue how health care works or my argument that protectionism is dangerous?
Saying you predicted Trump’s appeal isn’t a reply, it’s changing the topic to
some utterly meaningless preening about yourself. I remember predicting that
Bill Clinton would win the election not long after his comeback in New Hampshire
in 1992. Does that mean Clinton’s policies were right? I didn’t predict that
Obama would be reelected in 2012, but does that mean my criticisms of his
policies are somehow wrong?
Oh, and just to be clear: Donald Trump ain’t no Lou Reed,
he’s more like Vanilla Ice or Andrew Dice Clay. Just because a performer — and
that’s what Trump is, a performer — has a marketable formula doesn’t make him a
genius. Justin Bieber made $58 million in 2013. I’d rather have his pet monkey
tutor my kid.
Logically, this reflex strikes me as idiotic. But
psychologically, it’s telling. I suspect it’s a way to signal that you are more
tapped into what the masses want and show your loyalty to the Cause.
Dog Fart America
I’m reminded of a scene from Don Quixote: A man walks into the center of town and gathers a
crowd for the show he’s about to put on. The man picks up a dog and inserts a
tube into its ass. The man then begins to inflate the canine like a balloon.
The crowd watches, fascinated. The dog grows larger and rounder. Eventually,
the man pulls the tube out and the air escapes loudly from the poor pooch’s
rectum as it runs away.
The performer turns to the crowd and asks something like:
“You think it’s easy to inflate a dog with a tube?”
That guy may be the best dog-inflator in the world. He
may have tapped into something real — the need to see extreme reverse dog
farting — but that doesn’t mean we should make him president.
The Transformed
Driving home from the airport on Wednesday, I happened to
hear part of Sean Hannity’s interview of Newt Gingrich on the radio. Gingrich,
whom I like and respect, said something along the lines of “Trump’s waging a
campaign of high policy” or “He’s winning voters over with policy at the
highest level.” I can’t give you the exact quote because when I heard it, I
almost crashed into a mailbox. Gingrich added, more plausibly, that Trump is
running perhaps the most nationalist campaign since Andrew Jackson.
This prompted a good question from Hannity: “What’s the
difference between a nationalist and a conservative?”
Newt answered that a nationalist wakes up every morning
asking, “What can I do to further America’s interests?” (or something along
those lines). He then added that a conservative is more likely to have bought
into the “post–World War II international order.” The implication being that
conservatives are kind of like cookie-pushing internationalists who care more
about going to Davos than fighting for America. This is largely the kind of
argument you hear from Laura Ingraham, who at least seems to believe it. Then
Gingrich went on and on about how terrible the U.N. is.
Now, again, I like Gingrich. But this is flim-flammery.
It would’ve been nice if Sean had asked Newt to explain how that answer
reflects on Gingrich, given that the former speaker almost single-handedly got
NAFTA passed. Moreover, the idea that, say, National
Review’s opposition to Trump is grounded in — or even related to — our
desire to protect the United Nations is insane.
What dismays me is I have to believe Gingrich knows this.
He’s smarter than I am and better read. It’s stuff like this that makes me feel
like checking under Newt’s bed for the remnants of the giant space pod that
took over his body.
It was either Aristotle or Larry Storch who said, “You
can’t be disappointed in your enemies, only your friends.” And that brings me
to my friend Bill Bennett. I’ve known, admired, and defended Bill for years.
He’s a mensch and a fighter of noble causes.
I am a frequent listener to Bill’s radio show, mostly
when perambulating my canines. Bill is not entirely pro-Trump, but he’s
certainly anti-anti-Trump. Bill says concerns about Trump amount to
“Trumpophobia.” Last week, he asked rhetorically, “Is it because he’s crude?”
And then Bill Bennett rhapsodized about how he’s so worldly that a little
profanity doesn’t bother him. Again, we’re talking about Bill-fudging-Bennett
(that was a fantastic example of tmesis by the way). That’s not the Bill
Bennett I know.
Then there’s this from last week’s Washington Post:
“I’m used to being the moral scold,
but Trump is winning fair and square, so why should the nomination be grabbed
from him?” asked Bennett, now a conservative radio host. “We’ve been trying to
get white working-class people into the party for a long time. Now they’re here
in huge numbers because of Trump and we’re going to alienate them? I don’t get
it. Too many people are on their high horse.”
Again: I love Bill. But I don’t know anyone who knows the
view from the saddle more than Bill. Here’s an abbreviated list of his books:
The Book of Virtues
The Devaluing of
America: Fight for Our Culture and Our Faith
The Death of
Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals
The Broken Hearth:
Reversing the Collapse of the American Family
Index of Cultural
Indicators: Facts and Figures on the State of American Society
The Children’s Book
of Heroes; The Children’s Book of Faith
The Book of Man:
Readings on the Path to Manhood
Why We Fight: Moral
Clarity and the War on Terrorism
And here’s just a few things that I would have thought
the author of these books would find disqualifying for a president of the
United States and de facto standard-bearer of conservatism.
• Trump said it doesn’t matter what the media writes
about you “as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
• Trump boasted that his ordeal of avoiding the clap
while sleeping around so much amounted to his own “personal Vietnam.”
• He said that John McCain’s ordeal avoiding dying at the
hands of his torturers wasn’t heroic.
• As for everyone else’s Vietnam, Trump got out of that
by claiming to have a medical condition that instantly healed when hostilities
ended.
• He bragged — in print! — about bedding married women
and has admitted to cheating on at least two of his wives.
• He boasted that he “whines until I win.”
• He’s condemned Charles Krauthammer, George Will, and
many other friends of Bill’s (including yours truly) with far, far more vitriol
than he condemns Vladimir Putin, the butchers of Tiananmen, and David Duke.
• The man is so lacking in moral clarity that he
dismissed Vladimir Putin’s murdering of journalists by saying, “I think our
country does plenty of killing also.”
• This is a man who expresses a passionate desire to
change the First Amendment so he can punish journalists who don’t kowtow to
him.
• This is a man who praised the mass murder at Tiananmen
and criticized Gorbachev for not being as tough-minded.
• This is a man who says he “reads the Bible more than
anybody” but can’t — after months of opportunities — speak intelligently about
it for 30 seconds.
• This is a man who, by any objective measure, lies
nearly as much as Bill Clinton but with a tenth of the skill.
• He lacks the patriotic seriousness to do minimal
homework, even when his ignorance has been pointed out time and again. (Bill’s
colleague Hugh Hewitt asked Trump about the nuclear triad in August. Several
months later, when the question came up again Trump was, if anything, more
ignorant.)
• This is a man whose business dealings have been shot
through with shady practices, mob ties, and fraudulent claims (also known as
“lies”).
• This is a man with a totally thumbless grasp of what
the Constitution is about or what conservatism is (“Conservatism means,” according
to Trump, “to conserve our money”).
• This is a man who boasted for months that he will
torture our enemies and indiscriminately murder their children as a matter of
policy.
• This is a man who says that the last Republican
president deliberately lied us into war and plays coy about whether 9/11 was an
inside job.
Now, Bill has criticized some of these things, he just
doesn’t think they add up to anything that justifies trying to keep this guy
from taking over the GOP or the country. And, bear in mind, I haven’t even
talked about Trump’s “policies.”
To Bill’s credit, he had me on the show on Monday to
argue with him about it all. We did. My heart wasn’t entirely in it because I
hate being at odds with Bill. I think that’s one reason why I didn’t do as well
as I could have. Another reason: I couldn’t believe what Bennett was saying. (Here’s
the full audio.) Remember the aforementioned Reagan fallacy?
This is a partial and rough transcript:
Jonah: Conservatism has more
to do with gratitude, as our friend Yuval Levin puts it. Conservatism, as
Lincoln put it, was the adherence to the old and tried against the new and
untried. And to those things that we love, that have made this country great.
That we should be grateful for. And my problem with Donald Trump is he says he
wants to make America great again and yet he reveals not an iota of
understanding about what made America great.
Bennett: Well, neither did
Reagan.
Jonah: Seriously?
Bennett: I was just reading
Bill Leuchtenberg . . . Just bear with me for a minute and I’ll come back to
your argument.
Jonah: Okay.
Bennett: This is Bill
Leuchtenberg, great Democrat, liberal, friend of mine. Wrote [The American President:] From Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton.
“No one ever entered the White House so grossly ill-informed as RR. In all
fields of public affairs, from diplomacy to the economy, the president stunned
Washington by how little he knew.” “His mind,” said Peggy Noonan, who was
well-disposed toward him, “was barren terrain.” I wonder if Peggy would like to
be reminded of that. Columnist David Broder wrote “the task of watering the
arid desert between Reagan’s ears was a challenging one for his aides.” And on
and on it goes. Now this was said, that he was dumb and stupid and had no grasp
of policy. Now his grasp of policy in some areas was very thin. I know. I was
there. I was one of the areas. He was interested in what I was doing but he had
very little grasp of the right policy there. So these things were said about
him. He also said that the main job he had was to win. Remember: we win, they lose.
Trump is saying similar things . . .
Jonah: There are two things
going on there. First of all, I think Leuchtenberg is a great historian, but
that assessment of Reagan is sort of ludicrous, at least in terms of what I’m
talking about.
Bennett: No, but it was what
a lot of people thought for a very long time. It’s certainly what the Left
thought, almost forever.
Jonah: That’s fine. But I
think a non-biased, objective observer would know that Ronald Reagan had
thought deeply and seriously about his philosophical biases, about his core
principles. The guy read Hayek. You read his diary, this is a guy who had
thought deeply about what he believed about the world and how the world works.
Now yes, he may not have known about the fineries of tax policy or education
policy. That’s fine. But the idea that he didn’t have core convictions about
liberty, the Constitution, the role of government, and that was obvious even at
the time. And if liberals want to dismiss it, that’s fine, but that’s their bag,
that is not the truth.
Bennett: But is it, can I
just ask this? Isn’t it fair to say, in the broadest outlines, we can see, yes,
there’s been some nibbling at it and some backing away from it, some core
convictions on the part of Trump?
Jonah: I don’t see it. I
honestly don’t see it.
I Hate This
I know I’m being glib and jocular as I criticize Bill and
other friends. That’s basically how I argue. But let me be clear (as Obama
likes to say too often): I hate this. I hate
it. I hate attacking people I respect. I hate hearing from former fans who say
they’re ashamed to have ever admired me or my writing. I hate being unable to
meet fellow conservatives half-way. One of the things I love about conservatism
is that we argue about our principles; as I’ve written 8 billion times — more
or less — we debate our dogma. I love our principled disagreements. But I
honestly and sincerely don’t see this as a mere principled disagreement. I see
this as an argument about whether or not we should set fire to some principles
in a foolish desire to get on the right side of some “movement.” I have never
been more depressed about the state of American politics or the health of the
conservative movement. I hate the idea that political disagreements will poison
friendships — in no small part because as a conservative I think friendship
should be immune to politics. I certainly hate having to tell my wife that my
political views may negatively affect our income. But I truly fear that this is
an existential crisis for the conservative movement I’ve known my whole life.
And all I can do is say what I believe. If Donald Trump is elected president, I
sincerely and passionately hope I will be proven wrong about all of this. But I
just as sincerely and passionately believe I won’t be.
No comments:
Post a Comment