Staring at the Conservative Gutter

[Jazzhead]

Staring at the Conservative Gutter, by Bret Stephens

Unfortunately, this is behind the WSJs paywall, but it captures my feeling as well as any piece I've read recently.

The candidacy of Donald Trump is the open sewer of American conservatism. 

Bill Buckley and the other great shapers of modern conservatism - Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, Robert Bartley and Irving Kristol - articulated a conservatism that married economic dynamism to a prudent respect for tradition, patriotism and openness to the wider world.  Trumpism is the opposite of this creed: moral gauchery plus economic nationalism plus Know-Nothingism.  It is the return of the American Mercury, minus for now (but only for now) the all-but inevitable anti-Semitism.

It would be terrible to think the left was right about the right all these years.  Nativist bigotries must not be allowed to become the animating spirit of the Republican Party.  If Donald Trump becomes the candidate, he will not win the Presidency, but he will help vindicate the left's ugly indictment [of conservatism].  It will be left to decent conservatives to pick up the pieces - and what's left of the party.

[sinkspur]

If Donald Trump becomed the candidate, he will not win the Presidency, but he will help vindicate the left's ugly indictment [of conservatism].

This cannot be said often enough.  Trump ratifies and affirms every negative stereotype of conservatism.  He has brought out into the open the demons of tribalism, and has aroused those demons in his faithful. 

Ugly, ugly stuff.

[Jazzhead]

Agreed, sink.   I'm far less concerned about Trump's deviations from conservative policy orthodoxy than his appeal to the worst of our tribal natures.   We've spent decades fighting back against the image of Republicans and conservatives as closet bigots, nativists, authoritarians and conspiracy nuts, and now Trump appears to be poised to prove that the left may have been right all along.

#NeverTrump



 

[HonestJohn]

Bret Stephens is a pundit that I try and keep up on, as I seem him as very politically astute.

If he's saying this, then I'm going to say that there are far more voting Americans appalled by Trump than for Trump.  And that when Trump takes the GOP nomination, it will be the end of the GOP and a birth of a European-style ethnic nationalist party (a la: UKIP or the National Front).

#NeverDrumpf

[Jazzhead]

Bret Stephens is a pundit that I try and keep up on, as I seem him as very politically astute.

If he's saying this, then I'm going to say that there are far more voting Americans appalled by Trump than for Trump.  And that when Trump takes the GOP nomination, it will be the end of the GOP and a birth of a European-style ethnic nationalist party (a la: UKIP or the National Front).

#NeverDrumpf

I think you're absolutely correct, HJ.   Those are the stakes. 

[GAJohnnie]

I think what we are seeing is the standard mental melt down you get when a narcissist is force to see the real world. These narcissists really think they call the shots. The believe they that they have great influence and authority. Having the voter totally repudiate them by voteing for Trump forces them to see the world as it is, not as their narcissistic minds wish it were.

[sinkspur]

I think what we are seeing is the standard mental melt down you get when a narcissist is force to see the real world. These narcissists really think they call the shots. The believe they that they have great influence and authority. Having the voter totally repudiate them by voteing for Trump forces them to see the world as it is, not as their narcissistic minds wish it were.

You cut and paste really well, Johnnie.

[Wingnut]

You cut and paste really well, Johnnie.

welp, time to change my shirt.  Thanks a lot.

[Jazzhead]

I think what we are seeing is the standard mental melt down you get when a narcissist is force to see the real world. These narcissists really think they call the shots. The believe they that they have great influence and authority. Having the voter totally repudiate them by voteing for Trump forces them to see the world as it is, not as their narcissistic minds wish it were.

Bulloney.  Millions of ordinary conservatives - not elitists with "great influence and authority" - will vote against Trump because he does not represent either the Republican party or their values.  HJ has it absolutely right - the Trumpsters want to change the GOP from a party that promotes conservatism to an ethnic nationalist party like UKIP or the National Front.  If the Trumpsters succeed,  then non-racialist movement conservatives will have to find a new home.  And we will.