By Jonah Goldberg
Saturday, July 23, 2016
So last night after driving for five or so hours to flee
the Cleve, I was pretty tired. I penned a down payment on a downright downbeat
G-File. I hadn’t slept much the previous week — I made my share of mistakes by
the lake — and I was in a foul mood. Now that I’ve gotten a solid four hours of
sleep, I’m in a somewhat better mood and I don’t want to start this
“news”letter on such a downer. But I’ve kept most of what I wrote, I just moved
it to the bottom half of this “news”letter through the magical powers of
cut-and-paste.
I’m now at a rest area on I-90 sitting in my car, with
not much time to spare. So let’s get started.
About Tonight (Or,
Last Night)
Personally, I thought Trump’s stentorian address was
awful, albeit with a few effective bits, particularly at the end. There was no
poetry, no arc, no uplift or modulation. It was like he spent 75 out of 76 minutes
shouting the final conclusions on one PowerPoint slide after another. Over
time, the sentences seemed to be getting shorter and more blunt. It looked like
he might even devolve into just barking random vowels and glottal stops. His
delivery reminded me of that old SNL newsroom skit when Garrett Morris’s head
pops up in an oval and he just re-shouts everything Chevy Chase says for the
hard of hearing.
Thematically, it was an anvil chorus minus the melody.
There was plenty of conservative boilerplate, some of which I agree with. But
the message last night had nothing to do with conservative litmus tests or
checklists. No, the desired takeaway was, “Behold this Man of Strength! Cast
your gaze Trumpwards, plebes, for our new Caesar is here to bring a New Rome
(or restore the old one) through force of will.” Here is Ivanka last night:
Good evening. One year ago, I
introduced my father when he declared his candidacy. In his own way and through his own sheer force of will, he sacrificed
greatly to enter the political arena as an outsider and prevailed against a
field of 16 very talented competitors. For more than a year, Donald Trump
has been the people’s champion. And tonight, he is the people’s nominee.
And:
In Donald Trump, you have a
candidate who knows the difference between wanting something done and making it
happen. When my father says he will build a tower, keep an eye on the skyline.
Floor by floor, a soaring structure will appear, usually record-setting in its
height and iconic in its design. Real people are hired to do real work. Vision
becomes reality. When my father says that he will make America great again, he
will deliver.
And:
Come January 2017, all things will
be possible again. We can hope and dream and think big again. No one has more
faith in the American people than my father. He will be your greatest, your
truest and your most loyal champion.
Over and over again, in videos, speeches and interviews,
the theme from Trump’s children was that their father, our champion, had been
called from his happy life to serve the Republic. He didn’t want to do this. He
has been called by destiny, pulled by patriotism. He is a modern day
Cincinnatus laying down his golf clubs.
Never mind that Trump has wanted to run for president for
20 years.
Nowhere in his speech did Trump give any sense that he
knew — or cared — how he would get things done through his “sheer force of
will.” That’s the thing about magical thinking, you don’t need to explain it.
The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For get it, and everyone else never will. As Bart
Simpson said when running for class president, “My opponent says that are no
easy answers. I say he’s not looking hard enough!”
In the Mythic Trump story, he is like Moses living
amongst the Egyptians before he sees the light. “Nobody knows the system better
than me,” he says with an ironic wink. The idea is that he has been amongst the
oppressors, in mufti, learning their secrets and now he shall deliver his
righteous people from them.
As for the doubters? They are like some heretical fifth
column. In his prepared text, Trump proclaimed “Remember: All of the people
telling you that you can’t have the country you want are the same people
telling you that I wouldn’t be standing here tonight. No longer can we rely on
those elites in media, and politics, who will say anything to keep a rigged
system in place.”
But then he ad-libbed: “We love defeating those people.”
And of course, the crowd — brimming with the very same
elites who have lived off politics and Washington like remoras on Leviathan —
went wild.
Just a day earlier Trump said, “When the world looks at
how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I
don’t think we’re a very good messenger.” Keep in mind, this was in the context
of criticizing human-rights abusers like Turkey and Russia. But no matter, he
told the audience he was going to — through that indomitable will of his — make
America proud again. And the crowd went wild.
By the normal rules the speech should have been a
disaster. But as we all know the normal rules do not apply. I am fairly certain
Trump will get his post-convention bump. I am less confident Trump is a
guaranteed loser come November. This was a bread-and-circus convention and, it
seems, a great many people want to see how the mythic story of Trump, The
People’s Champion, plays out.
Weary Tales from
the Road
So this is what I tapped out last night . . .
I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted in every way I can muster
from my adjectival toolkit: literally, figuratively, ideologically,
biologically, emotionally, ontologically, epistemically, calorically, and,
perhaps most of all, visibly.
I’m writing — or at least typing — this on a bench
outside the Holiday Inn, specifically the Holiday Inn Syracuse-Liverpool-Exit
37 (which may be the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in with a highway exit number
in its name). It’s past midnight and I’m drinking a beer (not my first, nor my
last) and smoking a cigar trying to pound out an acceptable “news”letter like
the beleaguered millionth monkey tapping at a typewriter in ways that failed
the previous 999,999.
I left Cleveland around 2:45 this afternoon and started
the drive back to Maine where my wife and I are holed-up with all of our
quadrupeds. On Saturday, I visit my daughter at sleep-away camp.
I understand that on the day after the Republican
Convention I should probably start with some boffo insight about Donald Trump’s
speech or the future or conservatism or at least some sort of jocularity. But,
as I said, I am exhausted. And in my fatigue, my emotional compass is pulled by
the True North of the things that matter most to me: family and dogs (but I
repeat myself).
I could regale you with tales of shenanigans and
tomfoolery in Cleveland that explain at least some of the stripes in the
rainbow of my exhaustion. But I only have so many neurons left, so let me get
to the more meaningful sources of my fatigue.
I Hate This
I know I’ve said this before, but I hate everything about
this year, politically and (not counting some great TV) culturally.
It’s clear many of my friends on the pro-Trump right are
giddy with resentment-justifying glee at the alleged comeuppance of Trump opponents.
One need only listen to quite literally anything Laura Ingraham or Sean Hannity
say about Trump critics to see how large a role spite plays in the
now-unbreachable divide between the new nationalists and the old conservatives.
But that’s just a testament to how crappy the situation
is. Any family, literal or figurative, where some members take such open
pleasure at the misery of other family members is a family on the brink of
splitting up based on irreconcilable differences. As someone who has done an
enormous amount of ideological soul-searching of late, I’d like to say I
wouldn’t give way to some of the same gaudy celebratory schadenfreude if the situation were reversed, but the truth is I
just don’t know if that’s the case.
Then again, I think maybe not. The Trump movement in its
glandular core is a movement about resentment and payback. It makes sense to
conclude that at least some of its most ardent disciples are psychologically
inclined to resentment and payback as well.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I honestly and truly believe that
many of the passengers in the First Class section of the Trump train — many
cars of which serve as cable TV green rooms — have rushed to grab their seats
out of a craven desire to enrich, empower, and elevate themselves. I know too
many liars and mercenaries who have licked their fingers and tested the winds
only to soon thereafter discover newfound respect for Donald Trump within
themselves.
But the truth is conservatism has become shot-through
with a kind of vindictiveness that reflects poorly on everyone, friend and foe
alike.
I hate what I’ve learned about my side. I hate thinking
the worst of people I once respected — sometimes unfairly and sometimes with
adamantine certitude. I hate watching TV and seeing people slowly bend to the
alleged new necessities. Every few minutes another e-mailer or Twitter follower
claims that my only option is to board the bandwagon, get with the program, or
see the writing on the wall — as if such hectoring is an argument rooted in
some kind of principle other than the fascistic glorification of the mob and a
new right-wing version of The Right Side of History. The party barge is leaving
the dock for Wales and one must jump aboard or be painted the party pooper or
the traitor.
I hate discovering that so many people are disappointed
in me for not playing my part in a racket.
Every day, if not every hour, I am told that my true
motives are in reality desires, goals, and ambitions that have never once
entered my mind. I want Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States as
much as I want to be a patient of a narcoleptic proctologist (“Oh, I’m sorry,
did I leave that in there all that time?”). I want the Supreme Court to be
handed to the Left as much as I want a lap dance from Chris Christie.
I hate that after 20 years of fighting what I believe to
be the good fight, so many can’t muster the will or generosity to consider that I’m doing what I think is
right. I’m entirely open to the argument that my analysis and judgment is
wrong. But I am resentful, furious and, most of all, contemptuous of the lazy
and self-justifying assumption that my motives are malign.
I have nothing but sympathy for those who feel they must
vote against Hillary Clinton. But I have scorn for those who think that
requires lying about Trump. If you’re a true-believer in Trump, that’s fine. I
think you’re making the same mistake that the Left’s 2008 true believers made
about Obama. There are no saviors in politics. But when millions of people
think there can be, those of us in the Remnant of doubt get treated like
heretics.
That’s fine, too. Indeed, despite my obvious fatigue and
anger, I’m actually far more hopeful than you might think. In Cleveland, I met
scores of fellow heretics. We didn’t meet in catacombs. But we plotted and
planned all the same. We are the anti-establishment now. We stand opposed to
two parties united behind two different facets of statism and identity
politics. We are the new rebel alliance fighting against the narrative of a new
empire. We aren’t as many as I would like, but we are far from few. We may not
win, but one thing is for sure: It’s more fun to be the rebel.
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