Jonah Goldberg explains why he is not moved by arguments urging him to fall into line and start supporting Donald Trump.
I can’t stand Kasich. But he meets my own minimal requirements for support. Trump, simply, doesn’t. He falls short of the mark like John Candy in the long jump. I’m not going to rehash all of my reasons for this conviction, but suffice it to say I think he’s unpatriotically unprepared and unqualified for the job. Politically, conservatism at its core is about the importance of ideas and the importance of character. With the exception of his longstanding support for protectionism and the unalloyed importance of “strength,†Trump cares not a whit for policy or philosophy. His attachment to principles is, for the most part, a nearest-weapon-to-hand approach. As a matter of character he’s crude, boorish, dishonest, proudly promiscuous, and has launched countless businesses based on the idea that it’s morally acceptable to take advantage of people. He dodged the actual Vietnam War but claimed that avoiding the clap in the 1970s was his own personal Vietnam.
Kozak and many others either disagree with me on these points or they simply don’t care. If it’s the former, we have some substantial disagreements about what I think are obvious facts. If it’s the latter, then I take our disagreement as a badge of honor. If Roger Simon wants to describe that as “moral narcissism,†so be it. But, there’s a practical point here too. I plan on being in this line of work for a while longer. In the future, I want to be able to continue to say character and ideas matter without someone shouting, “Oh yeah, then why did you support Donald Trump?†…
By waiving the standards we use to judge liberal politicians in order to defend an allegedly conservative one, we are waiving those standards for all time. I’m not talking about some allowances at the margins, politics should be flexible — strange bedfellows and all that. But there’s a difference between being flexible and willingly snapping your own spine to bend over for a politician who, almost certainly, has contempt for the standards you once held near and dear.
Read the whole thing.
GoneWithTheWind
I fully expect Hillary to win. The fact that she has committed crimes and may be indicted means nothing to Democrat voters who will turn out and vote. I fully expect the next president to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court. If it is Hillary who appoints those justices that will destroy our 2nd amendment and any efforts to reign in illegal immigration is gone as will be our country. IMHO the fact that Kasich meets his minimal requirements but Trump does not seems incredibly trivial by comparison to what Hillary will do to us.
LibertyorWhat??!!
Sometimes Jonah proves himself to be just a mite too clever. This is one of those times. I began like everyone with the Hamiltonian thought that the ghastly Trump would be the enemy at the head of government “whom we can oppose.” But I doubt even Hamilton envisioned this election’s choice. Clinton will move aggressively to crush all opposition by whatever means necessary. Trump is by far the most malleable of the two and might even be reined in by an active and responsible Congress and even some of his family members. I cannot see it as a patriotic act to be complicit in delivering the reins of this country to Clinton, whose aims, disregard for law and tyrannical ambitions are evident.
BILL
CIRCLING THE DRAIN AND JONAH WILL FLUSH IT.
LibertyorWhat??!!
I misspoke above obviously, I meant to say that the unthinkable Clinton is the enemy whom we can oppose in Hamilton’s phrase, and I began like everyone thinking that Trump is a ghastly alternative. I still hold that view but Clinton is entirely unacceptable.
Paul
I confess I didn’t read it. He lost me at John Kasich. I’ve got principles too.
bob sykes
One of Trump’s real accomplishments is that he has outed all the progressives who were pretending to be conservatives. People like Goldberg, Kristol, Krautmann, Kasich, all the Bushes, etc etc. The elites of the Republican Party do not oppose a single New Deal or Great Society program. They are fully on board with free trade, open borders, racial quotas, gun control and hate speech suppression. I don’t know how you can get any more progressive than that.
Ironically, Trump himself is a classic moderate Northeast Republican, in the mold of Nelson Rockefeller, John Lindsay and Weld.
A number of them, the neocons, are really Israel-firsters and care nothing about the American people or America.
JDZ
This is a spectacular demonstration of low-information Trump supporting.
Free Trade is the conservative position. Opposition to free trade is characteristic of leftist demagogues and people who really do not understand Economics.
Trump didn’t out anybody. Kasich decided to run to the left on his own. Jonah Goldberg on Gun Control:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428569/war-guns-failed-after-san-bernardino
Krauthammer: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/another-massacre-another-charade/2015/10/08/e45d0004-6dec-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/20/krauthammer-clintons-gun-control-argument-rather-tepid-trumps-stance-is-strong.html
Bill Kristol (urban & Jewish) came out in 2012 for the “assault weapons ban.” He’s been quiet since.
Jeb Bush & George W. Bush were elected in conservative, gun-owning states, and neither has any particular pro-Gun Control record. George H.W. Bush, well, he’s an old-time Country Club classic moderate Northeastern Republican and is long retired and 92 years old.
There is no evidence that “The elites of the Republican Party do not oppose a single New Deal or Great Society program. They are fully on board with … open borders, racial quotas, gun control and hate speech suppression.” Quit reading that stupid Alt-Right bullshit.
Steve Gregg
This match between Trump and Clinton carries the stench of decadence. If I were reading this in a history text, this would be the prologue to disaster.
Please Leave a Comment!