On the Point of Politics

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Tuesday, April 08, 2025

 

One of the most common rejoinders that I have seen offered up to those of us who think that President Trump’s global trade war is a disaster is that our criticism is inevitable because we “hate Donald Trump.” This complaint takes many forms, but the implication in all cases is the same: That the policy in question is immaterial; that what we really care about is who is responsible for it; and that our many objections can be ignored as a result.

 

This is stupid. I’m sorry that I don’t have a better way of putting it, but there it is: It’s stupid. It’s dumb. It’s absurd. About a decade ago, I used to hear this line whenever I expressed dissatisfaction with Barack Obama. “Even if he agreed with you,” his fans would say, “you’d oppose him.” I thought then, as I think now, that this was simply projection. It was an admission of guilt. It was a declaration from the person lobbing the accusation that they had reoriented all their political positions to fit the moment, so you must be doing that, too.

 

But, of course, I wasn’t. Had Barack Obama woken up one morning and become a consistent advocate of federalism, low taxes, and free markets; a defender of the unborn; a constitutional conservative; a champion of school choice; and so on, I’d have been thrilled. Oppose him? I’d have praised him to the hilt, and, had it happened prior to 2012, I’d have been quite happy for him to retain the presidency. Why? Because that’s the point of politics, that’s why. Because that’s h0w you win, that’s why. The entire aim here is to get politicians to do what you want them to do. I disliked Barack Obama being in charge of the executive branch because Barack Obama agreed with me on basically nothing. Had he agreed with me on basically everything, I’d have been pleased that Barack Obama was in charge of the executive branch. The alternative is madness.

 

The same is true of Trump. I am sure there are some people out there who cannot bring themselves to agree with Donald Trump even when he does thinks they say they like — ahem, Bill Kristol — but the vast majority of the conservatives who are currently upset with him over tariffs were quite happy to praise him in the early weeks of his presidency when he did things of which they approved, and, for that matter, they are quite happy to praise him right now when he does things that they like. If Trump completely changed his mind on tariffs tomorrow — not reversed course while lying about it, but changed his mind and got the policy right — I would be thrilled. I wouldn’t change my mind on the topic just to disagree with Donald Trump because, unlike some people, I’m not a complete psycho.