People Who Care about Winning Don’t Shoot the Messenger

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Wednesday, September 04, 2024

 

Some of the louder voices within the online right are angry with our own Natan Ehrenreich for having noticed that Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, is spending her time releasing music videos instead of focusing on her role as a co-chair of the Republican National Committee. On Twitter today, Dan Bongino complains that Natan’s assessment will (somehow) have deleterious consequences on the GOP’s chances in November. The end of this year, Bongino writes, will bring with it “the most critical election of our lifetime,” and yet, instead of taking his cues from “the real warriors” who “are trying to save the country,” Natan has had the temerity to criticize the RNC in public. By this infraction, Bongino concludes, Natan has confirmed his membership within “the useful idiocracy class.”

 

So, here’s my thing: I don’t believe that Bongino believes a word of that. I’m sorry if that annoys him, but it’s true. I am old enough by now to know what it looks like when people truly care about things, and this ain’t it. It’s easy to say you care. It’s even easier to berate other people for not caring as much as you say you do. The proof, though, is in the doing. And, frankly, I have seen nothing from the rah-rah-rah wing of the GOP in recent years that suggests that it minds one way or the other if the party wins, loses, ties, or disappears bubbling into the sea.

 

Find me someone who truly cares about something — be it their children or their company or their pet cause or the survival of their community — and I will show you the tangible consequences of that care. People who care act like it. They prioritize deeds over words, absorb criticism as a prerequisite to improvement, and jettison anyone and anything that gets in the way of their goals. Natan’s point was that one of the co-chairs of the RNC is there only because she’s related to the candidate, that she is wasting her time releasing music videos instead of trying to prevail in the coming election, and that this hurts the Republican Party in what ought to be its overarching ambition: winning power and executing its agenda. To respond to this by shouting at him, rather than at the RNC, is to betray yourself as a dilettante.

 

Sadly, Lara Trump is merely the latest symptom of the GOP’s indifference and sloth. I am repeatedly told that it is imperative that we “save the country,” and yet, invariably, the people who shout this most loudly exhibit no discernible interest in doing any of the difficult things that would get them closer to their ostensible goal. To put it as bluntly as possible, people who actually believe that they are facing “the most critical election of our lifetime” don’t choose bad candidates such as Donald Trump and Kari Lake — or pretty much anyone who ran for the Senate in 2022; they don’t allow their party’s infrastructure to be hijacked by nepo-kids; they don’t prioritize cults of personality over the electoral popularity that is necessary for victory; they don’t permit the private interests of their candidates to take precedent over the interests of the country; and they sure as hell don’t shout at strangers on the internet when those strangers correctly point out that one of the key figures at the RNC is “spending the crucial months ahead of the election” trying to become a YouTube star.