By David French
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431720/donald-trump-voters-want-destroyerIn the past few weeks and months, I’ve had countless conversations with friends and neighbors who support
Donald Trump. I live in the heart of Trump Country, in a small southern town with a median income well below
the national average. And while the dominant Evangelical vote is split between Trump, Cruz, and Rubio, Trump
gets more than his share of support, even from people who are staunchly pro-life and supported the Iraq War
until the end.
When Trump first announced his candidacy, many of my Evangelical friends and neighbors were thrilled by his
stance on border control. They were tired of the notion that “compassion” somehow required immigration
policies that made America more vulnerable to terrorism, drove down wages for working-class voters, and
overwhelmed social services. And they were sick to death of political correctness. So while they didn’t necessarily
admire Trump’s character, they admired his strength.
Indeed, that strength is the secret to Trump’s success. It’s the quality that allows him to paint such an effective
contrast to the Republican political class, so widely perceived as weak and feckless. Trump voters find themselves
caught between
a Democratic political class that will bend every engine of the government to its will and a
Republican opposition that can’t seem to hold a single public official accountable, conduct a single hearing with
real competence, or do one meaningful thing to stop the president’s overreach. As one neighbor put it, “
Can
you honestly tell me that Republicans and Democrats are equally dedicated to their principles? Republicans
say they’ll fight, and they never do.”
Yes, there are unrealistic expectations. Generations of bipartisan congressional action helped create the runaway
regulatory state, and the Democrats control the bureaucracy so effortlessly because they are the bureaucracy.
What Obama wants, the bureaucrats will give him — and more. What Republicans want, the bureaucrats will
resist to the point of lawlessness. But the bottom-line criticism rings true.
The Democrats are very good to
their base. Republicans are very good at using their base to win elections, and abandoning their promises at
the first opportunity thereafter. But the argument for Trump as a cure-all for this sorry state of affairs kept collapsing every time he opened his
mouth. As the race has dragged on, he’s proven that he would be a “strong” leader. But for what purpose would
that strength be employed? To keep funding Planned Parenthood? To establish
a bizarre form of touchback amnesty
disguised as “toughness” on the border? To ruin relationships with the Kurds, our
most stalwart fighting force against ISIS? To cozy up to Vladimir Putin? To replace Obamacare with something
even worse?
As the evidence mounts that Trump isn’t exactly channeling justifiable conservative (or even populist) anger for
constructive ends, Trump’s fans have found themselves reduced to a single argument in his defense: Even if he’s
wrong on substance and they reject his personal values, at least he’ll “burn it all down.” He’ll wreck the broken
system and destroy a failed party. Every other Republican will maintain some form of the status quo, but not
Trump. He’s the destroyer. And given the failure of the Republican party, destruction is the answer Trump
voters seek.
Yet it’s hard to think of an answer
more antithetical to the spirit of the American Revolution and our Constitution than “burn it all down.” The American colonists, faced with a crisis far graver than the crises we face today,
decided not to “burn it all down” but to build something. Even before the “shot heard round the world,” they built
a Continental Congress, a representative body that could express their grievances to the crown.
Immediately after the fateful shots on Lexington Green, they built a standing army led by a distinguished
general, and fashioned a coherent argument about liberty and democracy that has endured for more than
two centuries. The constitution that is that argument’s foundational document has endured for two centuries,
underpinning a participatory democracy and the individual liberty it represents.
The torch and pitchfork, meanwhile, are instruments of the French revolutionary, of the nihilist who lives
only to take revenge on his enemies, with a will to power but no interest in justice. Replace men who
surrender to Planned Parenthood with a man who embraces Planned Parenthood? Replace men who
supported a path to legalization with a man who supports amnesty? Replace men who failed to stop Obamacare
with a man who embraces single-payer health care? Nominate a man who believes in Iraq War conspiracy theories
to confront the party that spawned those theories? Meet the new boss.
He’ll be the same as the old.
You say you want a revolution? Well, “burn, baby, burn” is the language of the Left. The true American
revolutionary builds, and that means supporting people with high character and true conservative
convictions. It means doing the difficult work of repairing our constitutional democracy, which includes
repairing our own families and communities. It means supporting a convention of states to undo decades of
damage inflicted on our constitution by feckless ideologues in the judiciary and in public office.
An American revolution isn’t a temper tantrum. It’s hard work. It’s anger channeled into virtue. Trump
represents anger stripped of virtue. He will burn the GOP, but what will he build in its place?
—
David French is an attorney and a staff writer at National Review.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Emphases added.---EA.)
