By Ian Tuttle
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
And just like that, the Republican presidential contest
has veered into Todd Akin territory.
In a taped Wisconsin townhall with MSNBC voters, set to
air Wednesday evening, Donald Trump says that, if abortion becomes illegal in
the United States, the mother involved should be subject to “some form of
punishment.”
Let me start here, for form’s sake: There is a valid
philosophical question here. If you carry out the logic of the pro-life
position, what should it entail, legally? As it happens, several leading
abortion opponents addressed this question at National Review in a 2007 symposium. If you’re looking for
substantive considerations of this question, give it a read.
But while people are sure to spill gallons of ink on that
question, thanks to Trump, it’s irrelevant — because Trump doesn’t mean what he said. Donald Trump has no considered
opinion about what should happen in the hypothetical situation in which
abortion is completely outlawed. He’s never given it a moment’s thought. Read
the transcript of his exchange with Matthews. He’s not substantively
“right” or “wrong.” He’s utterly and completely incoherent.
And it’s utterly and completely infuriating. In one
minute and thirty-two seconds, Donald Trump has managed to apparently validate
every far-flung accusation of retributive, bloodthirsty woman-hating that
abortion opponents have tried to fend off for 40-plus years. In 90 seconds,
Trump gave Democrats a political millstone that they will cinch around the neck
of every pro-life politician for the rest of this election season. Planned
Parenthood, NARAL, NOW, Emily’s List have all already issued breathless
statements. Hillary Clinton has sent out a tweet with her personal “—H”
signature. It doesn’t matter that, one hour later, Trump out-and-out reversed
himself. They got their soundbite, and it will be played on loop, to the
ululations and I-told-you-sos of Cecile Richards and Sally Kohn and the rest,
for years.
But is anyone surprised? This is what Trump does — and it’s the reason conservatives, real,
genuine, sincere, life- and liberty-loving conservatives, should not simply be
exasperated with Trump; they should be furious
with him. They should be enraged with every single one of the endorsers who has
facilitated this man’s rise. They should be incensed with every pundit and
talking-head who has aided and abetted and excused him.
Because this has been the pattern for months now. Donald Trump makes some
idiotic comment about a subject he’s never considered — torture, Islam, the
First Amendment, health care, women, &c. — and then real conservatives, who have actually rubbed two brain cells
together thinking about these subjects, have to spend the next day, or week, or
month, putting out the fire, assuring everyone that, no, conservatives don’t actually think like this.
It’s exhausting, it’s absurd, and it should end. Donald
Trump’s statements are not intended to be “true” or “false”; they’re not
intended to represent what he actually believes, because he doesn’t believe anything. He doesn’t intend his
proposals as serious ideas, to be debated and refined and maybe even executed.
His utterances are placeholders. They’re strictly intended to fill space in
this interview, or at that rally. Self-contradiction doesn’t matter. If one
argument is blown up, he’ll switch to another. This is how a cult of
personality works. The statements are irrelevant; the only thing that matters
is the speaker. If Trump says the sky is orange, there’s no point trying to
convince him it’s blue.
So we should stop trying. Stop trying to convince Trump
supporters that he’s contradicting himself. Stop trying to show that Trump’s
solutions won’t work. Stop treating Trump’s policies as serious contributions
to the hopper of policy ideas — because they’re not.
It’s time for a blackout. We are at a point where the
only appropriate response to Trump’s ramblings is ostracism. He’s not a reasonable
person with whom you can have a rational discussion, and we should treat him
accordingly. Whenever Donald Trump says anything — even if it has the patina of
a reasonable, coherent thought — the response of every genuine right-winger
should be: “I don’t care what Donald Trump says. He is an affront to rational
thought and reasonable, thoughtful, humane discourse. I’m not going to waste
time responding to any word that comes from his mouth. Period.” He — and every
one of his bottom-feeding surrogates, and his media minions, and his army of
Twitter eggs — should be ignored. They should be boxed out of public discourse,
with prejudice.
Donald Trump has done incalculable damage to virtually
every cause for which the conservative moment has fought for the last 60 years.
It’s not enough to say he’s wrong. He should be exiled from public life. The
Left will never do that; Trump’s success is theirs. This must be the work of
whatever conscientious conservatives remain, and it has to start now.
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