Does Trumpism exist?
There is little doubt in my mind that Trump exists—nightmares don’t go on for this long. But does Trumpism exist? My biggest fear has not been Trump himself, but rather that Trump will take over the GOP and turn it into a neoreactionary party. And that still may happen. But last night we received one tiny indication that voters don’t actually care about Trumpism, rather they are captivated by the man himself:
Since becoming the presumptive GOP nominee, Donald Trump has almost entirely ignored the down-ticket races in his party. But he did go out of his way to support Rep. Renee Ellmers, a Tea Party Republican running for reelection in North Carolina’s second district. Trump made robocalls for Ellmers, and she touted his endorsement in e-mails to her supporters. Early Tuesday evening, Ellmers lost her primary to George Holdings, a Tea Party-backed congressional representative who, thanks to gerrymandering in North Carolina, was drawn into the same district as Ellmers.
No coattails. It’s still possible that Trump will eventually take over the GOP. But last night it got a bit less likely. More likely Trump will lose, and the GOP will recoil away from Trumpism, just as they recoiled away from Alf Landonism, and Joe McCarthyism, and Barry Goldwaterism. People don’t follow losers, especially when the losers run on the platform of being winners. Or Trump will win and fail to implement Trump policies, and also fail to Make America Great Again, disappointing his fans.
PS. Why is North Carolina doing Congressional redistricting in 2016?
PPS. No, President Reagan was a not another pro-nuclear war, anti-civil rights laws Goldwater. Nor did he implement deep cuts in the (now much larger) welfare state. So far the GOP campaign is eerily similar to the 1964 campaign—lots of GOP leaders wavered on whether to endorse Goldwater. LBJ ran commercials of Republicans explaining why they could not support Goldwater. I expect Hillary will do the same.
Now, it should be said that Trump brings this on himself. Many Republicans had hoped that the presumptive nominee would exercise more self-control and act more presidential after wrapping up the nomination. But the man cannot help himself — hence the petty bigotry about Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a lawsuit against the now-defunct Trump University. As Bloomberg reported this week, Trump even overruled his campaign advisers, urging his supporters to continue attacking the federal judge.
I’m tempted to ask if Hitler kept overruling his generals, but I guess I won’t. If I did then some fool would say I’m comparing Trump to Hitler.
Tags:
8. June 2016 at 06:04
Trumps = US as Country Club (Caddyshack) for top 10% of Earthlings.
1. Build gate.
2. Only let in those who can pay hefty dues. Say earn $75K yr.
3. Only let in those who get along with members. Must love bikinis.
4. No your extended family can’t use the facilities.
5. Get as many members as possible under this standard.
I defy anyone who knows Trump life history
to argue this isn’t how Trump sees world.
Strategically, its Brain Draining rest of earth, making easier for US mindset to take over.
And there’s no greater job market for low skill natives.
It’s clearly genius.
If you can prove its not how Trump sees things, please do so.
8. June 2016 at 06:10
More likely Trump will lose, and the GOP will recoil away from Trumpism, just as they recoiled away from Alf Landonism, and Joe McCarthyism, and Barry Goldwaterism.
Alfred Landon was a businessman whose foray into electoral politics lasted less than six years. If anything, he was aligned with the collaborationist wing of the Republican Party, not the implacables. The collaborationists took the Republican nomination in 1940, 1944, and 1948 as well. The implacables won only in 1964.
As for Barry Goldwater, his issue was Ronald Reagan, and every opportunist and careerist Capitol Hill fixture since genuflects to Reagan’s memory. This year’s runner up was Ted Cruz, who is, if anything, more proximate to Goldwater’s 1964 viewpoint than anyone who has competed well since.
Re McCarthy, he was an opportunist and a baaaad drunk. That’s not a perspective on policy, but a mode of operation. There’s a reason he had no legacy. Richard Nixon made use of the same issue and made quite a career for himself.
8. June 2016 at 06:13
Morgan: possibly, but it seems to come with a lot of extraneous rhetorical meanderings.
8. June 2016 at 06:19
@morgan
Sounds an awful lot like the Clintons. They just do it under the guise of being “inclusive” and “charitable.” I prefer someone who wears their “crazy” on their sleeve (really, i prefer no “crazy” but that hasn’t been an option in US politics in a long time).
8. June 2016 at 06:23
Is Trump a nationalist-populist?
Maybe–but the Aussies make him look like a little boy in short pants.
Read:
“Last week Westpac Bank decided to ban loans to non-residents, becoming the third major bank to do so after ANZ and Commonwealth. In an explanatory email to mortgage brokers it said its core objective was to help Australians realize their dreams of owning a home.
Foreign property buyers received another blow late last month when Victoria raised a tax on foreign property purchases from 3% to 7% in its state budget. It also tripled the surcharge on ‘absentee landholders’ to 1.5 per cent from 0.5 per cent.”
–30–
And they say Americans are xenophobic! And don’t tell Trump about this! No more home loans for foreigners!
This is fascinating. The Aussies have been doing the free trade thing, and running chronic trade deficits, and sending slips of paper to Asia.
The Asians have been using the slips of paper to buy up Aussie housing, and evidently pushing Aussies aside.
The real solution is probably de-zoning and housing production.
But it does raise questions about chronic trade deficits in the real world. When a nation runs chronic trade deficits, it must mortgage or sell its assets.
Now, selling off assets may just result in immigration, and a win-win, but only if there is no tension between immigrants and natives.
No doubt, some will say the Aussies are being racist. But then, at one point people hated Americans, for similar reasons––buying up the best housing, or spots in restaurants etc. The Aussie law is evidently against all non-residents, including European-ancestry types.
In Thailand, foreigners cannot own land, btw.
As for Barry Goldwater, I see a thread that runs through Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan to Bushes to Trump. They were all nationalists.
Thanks to Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s speech-writer ventriloquist (he moved his lips to the words, expertly) Ronald was the classiest nationalist.
Reagan’s soaring moving rhetoric made nationalism seem utopian! Reagan was also the most rabid trade protectionist—his record also makes Trump look like a little boy in short pants.
Is Trump the New Reagan?
Naw–Trump’s speeches are drek.
8. June 2016 at 06:32
Scott,
Yes, it’s funny how the Trumpistas don’t seem to think that Trump’s team and Congressional Republicans accusing each other of racism will be a problem in the election in 5 months. I was very concerned Trump could win until about a week ago. But, Trump is even more out of control than I thought, so it’s hard to imagine this working out for them.
8. June 2016 at 06:32
Morgan: Australia already has a policy of similar effect. Also without rhetorical flourishes.
http://www.newgeography.com/content/001955-the-amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa-beats-western-europe-ties-with-asia
8. June 2016 at 06:35
Ben: “The real solution is probably de-zoning and housing production.” Yes.
8. June 2016 at 06:42
Looking at graph 3 in the link in my second response to Morgan
http://www.newgeography.com/content/001955-the-amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa-beats-western-europe-ties-with-asia
helps explain why migration is so much more vexed in Europe. Europe is importing people with significantly lower human capital, so putting more pressure on labour incomes and/or welfare expenditure.
The other factor (apart from the stronger specific ethnic identities of European countries) is that as so much of the migration to Europe is Muslim, and significant levels of (Sunni) Muslim migration raises the issue of how much the Muslims raised in Muslim communities are budding Westerners and how much said Muslim communities are intruding enclaves of a rival civilisation. (A question that really does not arise with other migrant communities, including non-Sunni Muslims.)
For a scholarly consideration of that, see http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1242&context=jss
8. June 2016 at 06:44
“My biggest fear has not been Trump himself, but rather that Trump will take over the GOP and turn it into a neoreactionary party.”
That’s where you and I part company Scott. I hope Trumpism is the new dominant losing philosophy that the (rump) GOP will stubbornly cling to for the next 50 years or so. Such a losing streak might force the GOP to split. Let the neo-reactionaries and alt-right have the losing rump GOP. Let them make every liberal stereotype of Republicans come true in spectacular fashion. But I have to admit, the evidence so far somewhat favors your hoped for scenario. It’d be a shame to see this opportunity for a new centrist/center-right party to develop be squandered.
8. June 2016 at 06:47
Tom,
Obviously that’s a liberal’s dream, but I would then be concerned about the lack of competition. Remember what the Democratic Party became in the early 90s with the overwhelming arrogance and corruption that led to the “Republican Revolution”?
Much more likely, Trump will lead the Republican Party to ruin and Trump and many of these panderers will be wiped out and people smarter at winning elections will take over the Republican Party and moderate it.
8. June 2016 at 07:00
To Scott F.
Trump’s rhetoric about Mexico is immoderate. Yet Trump’s personal behavior on immigration is moderate. Trump’s rhetoric on trade is immoderate. Trump’s personal behavior on trade is moderate.
And on social issues Trump is the most left leaning Republican to ever receive the party’s nomination. You do know that, right? He has openly supported Planned Parenthood and he still won the GOP nomination!
Trump is a vulgar pragmatist. The only political difference between him and Bill Clinton is Bill Clinton is smart enough not to say everything he thinks.
8. June 2016 at 07:07
“Why is North Carolina doing Congressional redistricting in 2016”
The usual reason for off-year redistricting — lawsuits over the redistricting process resulting in the map being repeatedly redrawn.
See
http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/02/north-carolina-redistricting-delay-denied/
8. June 2016 at 07:21
Dan,
You mean Trump’s a hypocrite? Yes, most of us know that. He’s anti-free trade, yet many products with his name on them are produced in other countries. He’s anti-illegal immigration, yet he has illegal immigrants renovating his hotel in DC.
Yes, what’s your point?
8. June 2016 at 07:31
Dan W. put it perfectly:
“Trump is a vulgar pragmatist. The only political difference between him and Bill Clinton is Bill Clinton is smart enough not to say everything he thinks.”
Trump simply has not been in politics long enough to know how to polish what he says. Hilary flip flops on just as many issues, or worse refuses to take a stance until she is sure her opinion will be the majority opinion.
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/if-i-could-be-just-completely-honest-second-i-beli-52979
8. June 2016 at 07:38
@Scott Freelander,
That’s not quite my dream. I’d like to see a new sane center right party compete with both the Democrats and the rump GOP for votes. In other words I’d like to have options myself. I’m sick of anti-science obstructionist fundamentalist bubble dwellers as the only other option.
8. June 2016 at 07:59
Goldwater was pro-nuclear war? Which civil rights laws did Reagan sign?
8. June 2016 at 08:01
Also, there is no such thing as a “neoreactionary party”. Neoreaction has no parties.
8. June 2016 at 08:01
In which Scott reasons from a political price change…
8. June 2016 at 08:02
Am I the only one worried more about using political pressure on a judge for private gain than the racist justification for that pressure?
Yes the racism is bad, but the bullying of a judge by a Presidential candidate over a private case seems a lot scarier to me, no matter the justification.
8. June 2016 at 08:12
I see a thread that runs through Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan to Bushes to Trump.
What are you talking about? Nixon was an established politicians when Goldwater was running a department store in Phoenix. Late in his career, Goldwater was addled to some degree by Capitol Hill culture, but for nearly 3 decades he was animated by a fairly crisp dissent from the norms set during the Depression and the War, while making some ad hoc compromises. Nixon may have had principles at some level and was certainly intellectually-inclined to a degree that the entire gamut of Republican contenders was not, but he was primarily a careerist and opportunist. (He seems to have been at home with the Rockefeller wing on policy questions, but antagonistic to social and professional guilds with which establishment liberals are usually friendly). Nixon may have been the most cosmopolitan of recent Republican Presidents, certainly not nationalist on that spectrum. George Bush the Elder was a highly competitive man who seems to have sought political office as another challenge after getting out of the oil business. He was another opportunist (though not one who would transgress certain boundaries). As for his son, one student of him offered that if his father owned the biggest junkyard in town, he’d want to own the biggest junkyard in two towns. He kept to his committments and issues were not so instrumental to him as they were to his father. Both were perfectly otiose about Mexican colonization of the Southwest.
8. June 2016 at 08:14
The bullying of a judge by a Presidential candidate over a private case seems a lot scarier to me, no matter the justification.
The self-awarded unaccountability of judges and prosecutors ought to worry you.
8. June 2016 at 08:19
I’d like to see a new sane center right party compete with both the Democrats and the rump GOP for votes. I
Both Richard Thornburgh and Christine Todd Whitman have authored books, which hardly anyone bought, defending their conception of what Republican politics should be. Evidently you’ve never asked yourself why their crew never founded any policy shops or even any magazines and leave not a trace of their influence on any institution on whose board they sit. There’s a simple reason: they’re vacuous. There isn’t any there there, and the sensible center inspires no sensibility at all.
8. June 2016 at 08:20
I’m sick of anti-science obstructionist fundamentalist bubble dwellers
Then stop believing in them. They do not exist outside your static infested cranium.
8. June 2016 at 08:22
Much more likely, Trump will lead the Republican Party to ruin and Trump and many of these panderers will be wiped out and people smarter at winning elections will take over the Republican Party and moderate it.
If it helps you feel better, go with that. Annoying to anyone who has to listen to you, but otherwise harmless.
8. June 2016 at 08:23
“just as they recoiled away from Alf Landonism, and Joe McCarthyism, and Barry Goldwaterism”
-And Mitt Rmoneyism and Juan McSameism and Bob Doleism.
8. June 2016 at 08:30
“I’m tempted to ask if Hitler kept overruling his generals…”
As a matter of fact he did. He made a few good calls early on, but his “strategy” of “never retreat!” probably helped bring the war to a premature close.
For example, he was so obsessed with taking a city with Stalin’s name, he forbade them from attempting to break out once they were surrounded. Another example was he insisted that their new jet aircraft be outfitted as bombers rather than fighters to take out allied bombers, over the strenuous objections of people like Albert Speer. It’s probably good that the plot to assassinate him failed, in terms of ending the war more quickly.
8. June 2016 at 08:35
Thanks to Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s speech-writer ventriloquist (he moved his lips to the words, expertly) Ronald was the classiest nationalist.
The speechwriting office during the Reagan Administration employed about six people, several of whom would at this juncture not give Peggy Noonan a ride if she were stranded in a blizzard. She never worked for Mr. Reagan prior to 1979, but he somehow managed to function as a presidential candidate and Governor of California, tasks which require making speeches. He was also employed in the public relations apparat of General Electric for 8 years and his work included national speaking tours. He was hired for that job in 1954, when Peggy Noonan was 4 years old. Somehow, he got along without her.
8. June 2016 at 09:14
I see a thread that runs through Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan to Bushes to Trump.
Right Turn columnist Jennifer Rubin today sees a parallel between Nixon and Hillary (but she says she means that in the “nicest possible way”):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/06/08/clinton-didnt-win-on-gender/
Mike Sax beat her to the punch on that comparison some time back.
Meanwhile GOP “company man” Hugh Hewitt is now saying “dump Trump”:
http://theresurgent.com/hugh-hewitt-company-man-wants-the-ceo-replaced/
and Scott Walker is now “walking away?”:
http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/06/08/rumors-scott-walker-accept-nomination-trump-implodes-convention/
8. June 2016 at 09:19
So everyone admits / agrees I am exactly right.
Lorenzo – sorry no, the rhetoric is NEEDED.
Effem, this is just WRONG:
“Sounds an awful lot like the Clintons. They just do it under the guise of being “inclusive” and “charitable.” I prefer someone who wears their “crazy” on their sleeve (really, i prefer no “crazy” but that hasn’t been an option in US politics in a long time).”
Have you ever been to a Country Club?
You have to have a GATE, so nobody gets to come in and use the club.
No gate = no country club = no keeping out the riff-raff, no forced assimilation (MUST LIKE BIKINIS).
You clearly have a low IQ. dummy up.
——
Ok Scott,
From now on you know exactly how to define TRUMPISM.
Unlimited Chinese Immigrants who can earn $75K and LOVE BIKINIS.
You take this all very personally and there’s no reason too.
And certainly no reason for you to pretend you don’t know what Trumpism is…
Use your big brain buddy!
8. June 2016 at 09:25
@Dan W.
And on social issues Trump is the most left leaning Republican to ever receive the party’s nomination. You do know that, right? He has openly supported Planned Parenthood and he still won the GOP nomination!
Yes, I agree, if we average his statements over the whole campaign (you can’t rely on just a snapshot in time since they change so frequently). And that’s one of the problems. The bigger problem is he doesn’t seem right in the head to be president. However, he seems perfect for running a boiler room or some other scam, which is essentially what Trump U was. If I had a shady boiler room operation, I’d definitely consider Trump to run it. But I don’t want that in a president. Also he seems perfect for using our court system to further his ends (3500 law suits, over half of which he initiated… I can imagine that the AMA (secretly?) loves him).
8. June 2016 at 09:28
…Trump is the most left leaning Republican…
At RedState some commenters have described his pitch as “free stuff for white people” (to contrast him with Bernie).
8. June 2016 at 09:29
On Reagan and Goldwater:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY
Now I know Reagan having supported Goldwater in 1964 doesn’t necessarily equate them, but it does show that Reagan supported many of Goldwater’s crazy policies — e.g., using nuclear weapons in Vietnam — or at least supported him in spite of them.
Needless to say, Reagan and Goldwater come from the same faction of the GOP; the faction that has been in continuous control since 1980. Why can’t we have another Eisenhower, another Nixon? Alas the Republican party ended any chance for me supporting it in 1980.
8. June 2016 at 09:35
@Morgan, I’ve been to several country clubs. Nice ones (we’ve got some nice ones here on the “American Riviera.”) I didn’t encounter any Trump like characters there.
I’ve never worked in a boiler room though… however Trump strikes me as a natural in that environment. Mike Sax (having worked in an environment similar to that) assures me that Trump is very much like his old boss.
8. June 2016 at 09:42
Alas the Republican party ended any chance for me supporting it in 1980.
…many years prior to your birth!
8. June 2016 at 09:52
Why can’t we have another Eisenhower, another Nixon?
Because Nixon was an opportunist, an incompetent administrator, and had stupid and asinine emotional outbursts which some of his staff then translated into projects. Henry Kissinger and William Safire offered that part of the art of working for Nixon was divining when he was serious and when he was blowing off steam.
We cannot have another Eisenhower because we haven’t been in a general mobilization or anything like it since 1954 and there is no one who has established himself that way. The nearest we’ve had would be Gen. Schwartzkopf and Gen. Petraeus. Gen. Schwartzkopf showed no interest in electoral politics (which is much more gruesome at the federal level than it was in 1952) and Gen. Petraeus has not either.
8. June 2016 at 10:12
Art, Nixon made an issue of reds before McCarthy. After McCarthy was rejected, Nixon focused on other issues. Reagan was very different from Goldwater. Don’t know enough about Landon to comment, but am skeptical. Wasn’t he opposed to Social Security, which Eisenhower later accepted?
Tom, That’s not how politics in America works.
Harding, You asked:
“Goldwater was pro-nuclear war?”
Yes. He favored using nukes in Vietnam.
Joe, There are so many outrages coming from Trump that we forget to even consider some of them.
John, You said:
“Now I know Reagan having supported Goldwater in 1964 doesn’t necessarily equate them”
The understatement of the century. The GOP walked away from Goldwaterism after his crushing (and well-deserved) defeat.
8. June 2016 at 10:18
Turns out that the Asians seem to best get the Essence of the Bern.
Bernie Sanders:
https://cdn.streamable.com/video/mp4-mobile/dqu4.mp4
8. June 2016 at 10:26
Yes as Tom Brown says, Trump reminds me most of this guy who owned a chemical sales company I used to work at.
Basically we sold maintenance guys an overpriced drain cleaner. We knew they weren’t supposed to make purchases but focused on them as most likely to make an impulse buy.
I have no idea how the guy that ran that boiler room isn’t in jail yet. We literally broke 50 laws on every call.
But at most a few guys got fired after their manager discovered what they’d done.
And some corporations would have way too much drain cleaner.
But at least the focus wasn’t regular people where you actually focus on those most desperate and in need.
Anyway, it’s one thing to work at a place like that when you don’t have good employment prospects at the time. It’s another to actually elect this guy President.
8. June 2016 at 10:26
Yes. He [Goldwater] favored using nukes in Vietnam.
Didn’t he also favor putting the decision on whether or not to use them in the hands of the generals? Trump apparently favors putting that decision in the hands of foreign (friend or fenemy) generals. Or at least he did at one snapshot in time. He’ll probably favor it again a few times before November.
OK Scott, what if it was a re-animated Goldwater vs Trump? Which one gets your vote?
8. June 2016 at 10:30
Scott,
“The GOP walked away from Goldwaterism”
Actually they kept all of his fiscal conservatism and much of his lack of support for civil rights.
Like it or not the party of Nixon and Eisenhower was very different from the party of Reagan, and also very different from the GOP that came out of Reagan.
The only big difference is that the GOP doesn’t suggest we nuke Syria and Iraq.
Also I’m going back on my earlier statement, Goldwater and Reagan deserve to be equated. Reagan endorsed him in 1964 and succeeded where he failed in 1980.
8. June 2016 at 10:38
Tom,
“Didn’t he also favor putting the decision on whether or not to use them in the hands of the generals?”
Wikipedia says “field commanders;” so even lower than generals.
8. June 2016 at 10:39
Ronald Reagan’s son says he will not vote for Trump. And, no, it’s not the liberal son:
https://twitter.com/ReaganWorld/status/739947539256987648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
8. June 2016 at 10:51
I now have confirmation, that’s a youtube video about Bernie done by the Chinese. Still I think they get Bernie better than anyone.
8. June 2016 at 10:53
Actually they kept all of his fiscal conservatism and much of his lack of support for civil rights.
Neither the Republican Party nor any faction within it has since 1964 offered a critique of employment discrimination law or any other measure which falls under the heading of ‘civil rights’, bar in the imagination of partisan Democrats. The closest you get to that is a critique of the patronage schemes the lawyer left and the student affairs apparat have dreamed up. Republican pols haven’t done jack about that in about 20 years.
8. June 2016 at 10:57
Ronald Reagan’s son says he will not vote for Trump. And, no, it’s not the liberal son:
Michael Reagan is a lapsed boat salesman who has tried (with indifferent success) to make a career for himself as a radio commentator. I’ll give him points for being one of the two Reagan scions (the other being his daughter Ashley) whose occupation and employment history are discernable known to the public. (I think his brother does color commentary at dog shows, but I’m not altogether sure).
You’ve been banging the drums for the corpse of the William Scranton wing of the Republican Party here, so I don’t imagine you ever gave a crap what Michael Reagan had to say about anything. So, what’s of interest now?
8. June 2016 at 11:00
I don’t imagine you ever gave a crap what Michael Reagan had to say about anything. So, what’s of interest now?
I’m just happy the Reagans will have peaceful Thanksgiving this year without Nancy to keep the peace.
8. June 2016 at 11:09
Like it or not the party of Nixon and Eisenhower was very different from the party of Reagan,
Less than you think. The parties resorted themselves into bodies which have some broad programmatic agreement, at least rhetorically and in terms of party disciplines in a legislative body. As late as 1980, you might have compared the Republicans to a trade association and the Democrats to a franchising hustle, but no longer. However, its atypical for conviction politicians to run for president or compete well when they do. You’ve had since 1970 John Anderson, Ronald Reagan, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes, Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. Robertson, Buchanan, Forbes, Keyes, and Paul were promotional impresarios rallying a constituency. Only Paul had ever been elected to public office, although Robertson and Forbes had executive experience than BO (among others) lacked. Anderson was the but end of the Ripon Society. Huckabee, Santorum, and Cruz are the only analogues to Reagan in Presidential politics in the last 30 years (and they differ amongst each other).
8. June 2016 at 11:12
I’m just happy the Reagans will have peaceful Thanksgiving this year without Nancy to keep the peace.
The principal parties to intramural bickering in that family were Nancy and Patti. You need better joke writers.
8. June 2016 at 11:49
“He favored using nukes in Vietnam.”
-That was, similar to Trump’s suggestion about Saudi Arabia, Korea, and Japan having nuclear weapons, a trial balloon, not actual policy. And it might have even won the Vietnam war, if coupled with securing Laos. I’ve long pondered whether it might be a good idea to use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan, as that place’s been giving America so much trouble. I would certainly never hesitate to use them against Turkey, starting immediately. Goldwater never supported dropping nuclear weapons on cities, but only on infrastructure and forests.
8. June 2016 at 12:19
Trump doesn’t have a coherent philosophy, so I can’t see “Trumpism” catching on.
My bigger concern is that the decline of the party system and lowering of political transaction costs means that Trump and Sanders’ populist style is going to get a resurgence. As far as I can tell, Trump’s platform is to get news coverage, amuse people and promise them whatever you think they might they want, and Sanders isn’t far off. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see that style starting to dominate in large races.
8. June 2016 at 12:33
I remember a time when I thought Morgan Warstler was a crackpot. I’ve changed my ways.
I ? bikinis.
8. June 2016 at 13:16
I think the redistricting happened recently because it got tied up in court until 2015
8. June 2016 at 14:13
The Whigs were a majority-Northern pro-industrial pro-abolition party.
However, the Whigs couldn’t win in the South on a platform of protectionist tariffs and abolitionism, so the Whigs nominated guys like Southern slaveholder Taylor to broaden their appeal. It didn’t work for more than one election.
The solution was to kick out the Southerners. The Whig party disappeared, but most Whigs transitioned seamlessly into Lincoln Republicans, the pro-Northern pro-abolition ‘extremists’ as they were viewed at the time.
The 2016 Republicans have the same problem. The party is majority social conservative and majority middle class. But the Republicans can’t get through a national contest without nominating a Northeastern liberal to “broaden the appeal.” The result is watered down and inarticulate values, and pro-government and pro-multinational corporate corruption.
The 2016 Republican solution is the same. Kick out the Northeasterners, and become an searingly ideological, sectional party. Social conservatism is at its core race-blind, hence it could appeal to western Latinos. Without the Wall St. anchor and Acela regulatory sand in the gearbox, Republicans could craft their message toward middle class families. This New Republican party could be led by an ‘extremist’ like Ted Cruz. Lincoln Republicans were viewed as ‘extremist’ by contemporaries, too. But Lincoln was previously a loyal Whig!
8. June 2016 at 14:30
“@Morgan, I’ve been to several country clubs. Nice ones (we’ve got some nice ones here on the “American Riviera.”) I didn’t encounter any Trump like characters there.”
Er, what? er man OWNS Country Clubs. Dude who own country clubs are all the same guy. They are a specialized subset of a group of guys called RE Developers – and even those guys are pretty much all the same.
They are all descendant from this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Flagler
America’s original land swindler.
So I don’t know what you are talking about…..
8. June 2016 at 15:43
“The Whigs were a majority-Northern pro-industrial pro-abolition party.”
-Majority-Northern? The National Republicans were majority-Northern; the leader of the Whigs, Henry Clay, was a slaveholder whose home state was Kentucky -not exactly a northern state! The four states that voted for Scott in 1952 were Vermont and Massachusetts (makes sense), but also Tennessee and Kentucky -both southern states. Neither of the parties were pro-abolition until the Republicans in 1864.
Also, southern states were won by Millard Fillmore and John Bell, both Whigs, in 1856 and 1860, when the Whig party was formally inactive. Yes, Abraham Lincoln ran as a de facto northern Whig, but southern Whigs largely didn’t vote for Breckinridge -they voted for Bell.
The Second Party system was the most interesting of the party systems, as the Democrats had the best platform of any major party in U.S. history, and there was very little interstate popular vote polarization -almost as little as in the election of 1960 (which was the least polarized election in history).
“The solution was to kick out the Southerners. The Whig party disappeared, but most Whigs transitioned seamlessly into Lincoln Republicans, the pro-Northern pro-abolition ‘extremists’ as they were viewed at the time.”
-True.
“The 2016 Republicans have the same problem.”
-Indeed. But if the Party really wanted to Decide on a northeastern liberal who could broaden the appeal, they would have picked Kasich (who got over 25% in San Francisco).
“Kick out the Northeasterners, and become an searingly ideological, sectional party.”
-That worked miracles for the Democrats in 1896. No, wait, it led to them winning a presidential election only by accident, in 1912, and then winning re-election by a margin of a mere four thousand votes. “Free silver” (the 1896 equivalent of the social conservatism that the past three GOP Iowa caucus winners were offering) ended up being the most pathetic idea ever.
“This New Republican party could be led by an ‘extremist’ like Ted Cruz.”
-Dominating the Northeast beats dominating the Great Plains. That was a valuable lesson the Democrats learned in 1924. That’s why the candidate that wins Pennsylvania is generally superior to the candidate that wins Iowa (or, for that matter, New Mexico).
Lincoln won the Presidential election of 1860 soundly in the electoral college with less than 40% of the popular vote by dominating big states like…
Pennsylvania.
I.e., not Texas.
8. June 2016 at 15:47
*Scott in 1852.
8. June 2016 at 15:48
Sumner wrote:
“I’m tempted to ask if Hitler kept overruling his generals, but I guess I won’t. If I did then some fool would say I’m comparing Trump to Hitler.”
As if the ending of your underhanded comparison of Trump to Hitler is going to dissuade astute readers that you are still comparing Trump to Hitler. You keep mentioning Hitler in your Trump posts in a pathetic attempt to deceive your readers to psychologically juxtapose them in their own mind and hence come to the very conclusion you intend for them to come to by continually juxtaposing their names!
Your tactics are transparent, obvious, and extremely immature, not to mention insulting to your other readers. You can deny you are comparing them as many times as you want, but the more you wrote the name “Hitler” in your Trump posts, the more you show yourself as comparing Trump with Hitler.
8. June 2016 at 16:56
Still, in America you play patty-cake politics.
From the NYT:
“[A SE Asian nation begins with a T] is among the world’s most dangerous countries in which to oppose powerful interests that profit from coal plants, toxic waste dumping, land grabs or illegal logging. Some 60 people who spoke out on these issues have been killed over the past 20 years, although few perpetrators have been prosecuted in a culture in which powerful people have the last word and professional killers are easy to find.”
Really, comparing Trump to Hitler, or even a Xi or Putin, is histrionic.
Have some cupcakes with your eclairs, Americans. Hillary and Trump are such threats! To my sense of well-being in Internet-land!
Come to Asia if you want to see hardball. It is ugly.
8. June 2016 at 17:04
E Harding,
Three states were reliably Whig: Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Vermont
I suspect Kentucky was pulled Whig as much by force of personality of iconoclast Henry Clay, as by ideology. MA and VT represented northern interests. E.g., Sen Morrill of VT was a Whig in 1852, but then was Republican in 1856 and sponsored the Morrill Tariff. The Tariff of 1842 was also a Whig tariff, whereas Democrats kept cutting tariffs on behalf of Southern agriculture.
Abolitionists were always a force in the Whig Party too, despite Southern slave owners also being part of the party as well. It’s just that for much of the antebellum period the debate was over stopping slavery in the territories, rather than ending it in the South, and many ‘reasonable’ people of the day, including some Southerners, saw reason in opposing or compromising on slave expansion.
The larger point (with relevance to today) is that the Whig Party didn’t melt away; rather people like Morrill and Lincoln rapidly switched party affiliation and built a smaller more focused party, that ended up dominating politics for 75 years (until the Great Depression).
8. June 2016 at 18:03
“It’s just that for much of the antebellum period the debate was over stopping slavery in the territories, rather than ending it in the South, and many ‘reasonable’ people of the day, including some Southerners, saw reason in opposing or compromising on slave expansion.”
-Washington County, Mississippi had the highest percentage of its population enslaved of any county in the Union. I’m pretty sure those Bell voters in it did not even think of any compromise in regards to Dred Scott.
Also, the Free Soil Party ran Martin Van Buren (consistent Democrat) as its candidate. Sure, there were plenty of anti-slavery-expansion Whigs (Lincoln was one of them), but the Whig party was at no point anti-slavery-expansion at its core, and both parties had opponents and supporters of slavery. In Missouri, the slaveholding counties voted Whig while the non-slaveholding ones generally voted Democrat (this was, I think, due to the desire of the slaveholders there to protect the hemp industry with tariffs). The reverse was the case later, when those Whig counties became extremely solidly Democratic (to the point of one of them even voting for McGovern), while the nearby formerly Democratic-voting counties became Republican strongholds (with a bunch of them even voting for Goldwater).
Also, you didn’t address my point about the disaster of the Democrats’ 1896 free-silver strategy. My advice is always to focus on holding big swing states, like Pennsylvania and Florida. Bryan tried to do that (his campaign was largely focused on Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana), but couldn’t avoid the fact the free-silver strategy just wasn’t popular there, and that winning Ohio was worth losing Nevada.
And, in the recent primaries, who won every county in Pennsylvania and all but one county in Florida?
Again, Lincoln won far more electoral college votes in 1860 than his nationwide popular vote share warranted, because of his winning majorities in Pennsylvania and Ohio (including states Republicans today have no chance in, like New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont). Bush 2004 is always a very, very tenuous strategy, due to the potential Ohio might just slip away.
8. June 2016 at 18:46
Harding,
There was a lot of horse trading over tariffs and slavery pre-1860, e.g., reasons to support shipbuilding tariffs in order to block textile tariffs, or to oppose slave expansion in one territory to keep it in another, or simply keep a low cost labor source on one’s own plantation.
My only points are:
1) Whigs skewed Northern, Dems skewed Southern, horsetrading notwithstanding
2) As polarity increased, Northern Whigs seamlessly switched to Republican and kept winning.
You are right Lincoln was tremendously unpopular, winning only 39% of the vote.
In terms of current strategy, I think PA is a lost cause due to expansion of the Philly burbs and more people indentifying with the Acela media and political cultures. Acela including VA, PA, and NH are rock-ribbed Democrat constituencies.
Republicans need to focus on holding FL and OH, flipping WI and IA, and staying competitive in CO and NV.
After 2020, NC, FL, TX, CO, and NV will likely get more electoral votes, while CA, NJ, NY, MI, and IL will lose electoral votes.
You see the problem? FL, TX, CO, and NV are all heavily Latino and gaining evs. TX and NC are also Tea-party and Evangelical strongholds, while NV and CO have Libertarian states-rights streaks.
You need a platform that can make Latino inroads, while keeping Tea-party, Evangelical, Libertarian, and state and gun rights people happy.
Flipping increasingly liberal states like PA and NH is a waste of energy.
8. June 2016 at 18:53
Much of what is happening in this country is that the Democrat party is becoming the IP-protectionist and guild-protectionist party (tech, media, health, education and government).
Meanwhile Republicans are commodity everything (from energy, ag, and non-urban real estate, to manufacturing, industry and engineering, to small business and even non-union working class)
The reason the Acela corridor is a lost cause is that the industry mix favors the Democrats. Literally everywhere else in the country, save California, the industry mix favors Republicans. That probably explains the House, Senate, and Governorship mix today.
In my opinion, Republicans should attack Democrats for being tribalists, rather than becoming tribalists themselves. Instead Republicans should focus on family and economics for the reasons I outlined above.
8. June 2016 at 19:07
BTW, Sumner, this is what real people actually think of Cowen’s “brilliant” (not) post on “neo-reaction”:
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/739709892039081984
My comments were earliest and some of the best, despite massive attempts by Cowen at deleting them (I’m sure he deleted over 50).
8. June 2016 at 19:10
whats wrong with comparing trump to hittler ?
8. June 2016 at 19:35
“In terms of current strategy, I think PA is a lost cause due to expansion of the Philly burbs and more people indentifying with the Acela media and political cultures. Acela including VA, PA, and NH are rock-ribbed Democrat constituencies.”
-PA’s been trending red. It was Romney’s fourth-best state that he lost in 2012, following Florida, Ohio, and Virginia.
The 2000s expansion of the Virginia suburbs seems to have stopped, which should be good for keeping it a swing state.
“Whigs skewed Northern, Dems skewed Southern, horsetrading notwithstanding”
-A little. Illinois was a consistently Democratic state before the rise of the GOP, and the party system, as I’ve pointed out, was very cross-state in nature.
“As polarity increased, Northern Whigs seamlessly switched to Republican and kept winning.”
-Yup.
“Republicans need to focus on holding FL and OH, flipping WI and IA, and staying competitive in CO and NV.”
-Flipping Wisconsin is a tall order. It was one of the few states to go Democratic in 1988 (though it almost swung to the GOP in 2000 and 2004). Same story for Iowa, though that state actually did swing GOP in 2004. Like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin seems like one of those states that almost swings GOP, but never quite does. It also contains only half the electoral college votes of Pennsylvania, so it’s only half as important. However, Ted Cruz did win more votes there than Her (though not Bernie), so you could make a plausible case for going there if you tried.
NH might be considered an increasingly liberal state (it swung against Bush in 2004), though Trump won more votes there in the primary than Clinton, and Republicans won more primary votes there than Democrats, but Pennsylvania is definitely an increasingly conservative one, due largely to the fairly populated area around (but not in!) Pittsburgh, probably for the same reasons West Virginia is becoming increasingly Republican. Some counties in western PA even swung for McCain in 2008!
Colorado and Nevada are definitely trending Democratic. They are Hispanicizing and Colorado, at least, is urbanizing (much like Virginia!). Projections here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/08/12/51-charts-on-the-2020-elections-yes-you-read-that-right/
show them soon becoming unreachable.
I think the Florida-Ohio-Pennsylvania-Virginia-New Hampshire strategy is superior to the Florida-Ohio-Wisconsin-Iowa-Colorado-Nevada-New Mexico one. Pennsylvania simply has more electoral college votes than Wisconsin and Colorado combined.
“Much of what is happening in this country is that the Democrat party is becoming the IP-protectionist and guild-protectionist party (tech, media, health, education and government).”
-Smells like Denver. And maybe northern Virginia, as well (though, again, that’s slowed down).
“Meanwhile Republicans are commodity everything (from energy, ag, and non-urban real estate, to manufacturing, industry and engineering, to small business and even non-union working class)”
-Thus, Trump’s protectionist rhetoric. And this smells like Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
8. June 2016 at 19:58
Harding,
NH is a strange state. It tends to older, whiter, families so it goes Republican sometimes. But there is too much population mixing with MA, including retirees, to stay R. Finally there are working class people who move for cheap real estate…that helps Trump.
PA, you are half right. If you could split it down the middle… Philly is going to trend Dem, due to pharma, government, latino, i-95/acela population mixing. But the Western half will go with Ohio and WV. So winning OH is really the right strategy.
Speaking of WV (and WI in 1988)…that was helluva long time ago. WV was one of the most reliable D states, then narrowly flipped in 2000 and is now one of the most reliable R states. The point is that economics matter. WI and IA have good reason to trend Republican, too.
You are probably right about CO and NV, but I think messaging matters. Rs have been hostage to the NY media market, but a more coherent policy message could help (kinder to Latinos, less in hock to plutocrats, but more ideologically sharp). That’s my theory, but who knows.
Also I’m not sure the exact R electoral pickup after 2020, but it should be the equivalent of winning a small state like WI or IA, more than NH.
8. June 2016 at 22:32
Scott,
Are you out there?
I was hoping you would praise or insult my ideas.
😉
9. June 2016 at 07:45
Trumpistas,
Look, the #NeverTrumpers just won’t quit: they continue to conspire against Trump and how they can jump him at the convention. Look “conservative” Jennifer (((Rubin))) explains in a post today:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/06/09/can-romney-stoke-a-convention-fight/
Keep in mind who your enemies are Trumpistas! Look at their (((Last names))). They’re trying to stab white freedom, white liberty, white America and (for those of you who are Christians) white Jesus in the face! Never forget and never forgive!!! Lol
9. June 2016 at 07:45
“dump him” not “jump him”
9. June 2016 at 07:59
Look, the #NeverTrumpers just won’t quit: they continue to conspire against Trump and how they can jump him at the convention. Look “conservative” Jennifer (((Rubin))) explains in a post today:
Another bit of onanism from you for our edification.
Jennifer Rubin’s experience with street level politics is just what? I think you’d have a hard time finding any opinion journalist on the starboard side who has worked in that milieu. The only one that comes to mind is Dean Barnett, who died 8 years ago. Proximate thereto would be the 1st and 2d Mrs. George Will, I suppose. It’s a business with Mari Will, and she ain’t getting mixed up with anything bad for business.
You seem to fancy that Reince Priebus or AM McConnell or Pual Ryan has some supersecret black box which will activate their Manchurian candidates among Trump delegates and induce them to throw out the convention rules and make a mad stampede to John Kasich. They don’t and it’s not happening, no matter how much business-Republican twits on the WaPoo payroll protest.
9. June 2016 at 08:18
John, You said:
“Actually they kept all of his fiscal conservatism and much of his lack of support for civil rights.”
Not even close. Goldwater was far more radical right than you might imagine. The modern GOP supports civil rights laws and supports the welfare state. Indeed when they finally got both Congress and the Presidency in 2001, they expanded the welfare state.
Steve, Trump is not likely to flip either Wisc. or Iowa. Those are not good states for Trump. He needs Florida and Ohio and maybe Penn.
9. June 2016 at 08:22
You seem to fancy that Reince Priebus or AM McConnell or Pual Ryan has some supersecret black box which will activate their Manchurian candidates among Trump delegates and induce them to throw out the convention rules and make a mad stampede to John Kasich. They don’t and it’s not happening, no matter how much business-Republican twits on the WaPoo payroll protest.
No, I want Trump to be the nominee! I have no illusions about Priebus, nor does Rubin (she’s arguing he’ll be the main proponent of party unity). I wouldn’t mind a failed and amateur coup attempt, but I want Trump to be the official GOP nominee. Here Steve (((Berman))) wonders if Cruz will “pay the price” to speak at the convention, or if he’ll be principled instead:
But is he willing to pay the personal price by putting the party ahead of his principles? Cruz’s history suggests he won’t.
We will just have to wait and see.
http://theresurgent.com/if-cruz-wants-to-speak-in-cleveland-hell-have-to-pay-the-price-of-admission/
The #NeverTrump crowd sure cuts Cruz a lot of slack. Interesting in that he’s spent most of the campaign “courageously” keeping his mouth shut about Trump. Only opening it long enough to give the Democrats some great campaign ad material. Lol.
And RedState asks where were all these Trump dumpers months ago when the writing was on the wall about Trump? (i.e. when RedState became #NeverTrump):
http://www.redstate.com/jaycaruso/2016/06/09/people-retracting-support-for-trump/
I’m hoping Donald sticks to the teleprompter just long enough to survive the convention.
9. June 2016 at 09:38
Steve, Trump is not likely to flip either Wisc. or Iowa. Those are not good states for Trump. He needs Florida and Ohio and maybe Penn.
http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/06/09/kasich-im-probably-going-endorse-trump-video/
Sounds unlikely Kasich will support Trump. That should be interesting: Kasich a no show at a GOP convention in Ohio? I wonder when “courageous” Cruz will sit down for a similar interview instead of ducking the cameras? I wonder when RedState and Erickson will start wondering why he doesn’t?
9. June 2016 at 10:32
Goldwater was far more radical right than you might imagine. The modern GOP supports civil rights laws and supports the welfare state.
Please see Margaret Chase Smith’s advertisements for Goldwater in 1964. He wasn’t jonesing to shut down Social Security.
http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/
And no serious libertarian would use a pejorative like ‘radical right’ to describe a critic of civil rights laws. Elements of the contemporary critique of civil rights laws (see Gottfried Dietze et al) have been vindicated again and again. The beginnings of the ruin of higher education were manifest at Cornell University in 1969. The first elements of ‘disparate impact’ case law and the ruin of employment testing and civil service recruitment were in place by 1970. By 1971, racial preference schemes were in place. In our own time, we see the contrived abuse of cultural minorities the elite bar do not fancy. No one at the Mercatus Center has a thing to say against it. Maybe there’s someone at Cato or the Reason Foundation upset with this. Maybe there is not. Richard Epstein is 73 years old.
9. June 2016 at 11:23
Funny article:
WAIT! Donald Trump Is To Give A Speech Near the Site Of A Civil War Battle He Made Up?
9. June 2016 at 13:55
Tim Brown… Coward.. you are a coward.
If you want to attack Jews then at least have the balls to come out and say it instead of using code…
“The (((echo))), explained” by Matthew Yglesias
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11860796/echo-explained-parentheses-twitter
9. June 2016 at 13:59
The post above was for Tom Brown.. not tim
9. June 2016 at 14:12
From Tom brown’s post..
Here Steve (((Berman))) wonders if Cruz will “pay the price” to speak at the convention, or if he’ll be principled instead:”
Look “conservative” Jennifer (((Rubin))) explains in a post today:
In case you guys did not know the (( echo)) is used by white supremacists and other racists to denote when someone is a jew…It may was well read like this…
” Here Steve “a jew” Berman wonders if Cruz will “pay the price” to speak at the convention, or if he’ll be principled instead:”
” Look “conservative” Jennifer “a jew” Rubin explains in a post today:
I know some dip is gonna say its not racist just to point out that someone is a Jew… Just like it wasn’t racist for trump to point out the judge is mexican…
no one can make these arguments sincerely…the intent is undeniable even if someone who is too cowardly to admit it can find a plausible alternate story to tell…
9. June 2016 at 14:14
Tom Brown… Coward.. you are a coward.
If you want to attack Jews then at least have the balls to come out and say it instead of using code…
“The (((echo))), explained” by Matthew Yglesias
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11860796/echo-explained-parentheses-twitter
9. June 2016 at 15:06
“My biggest fear has not been Trump himself, but rather that Trump will take over the GOP and turn it into a neoreactionary party.”
Ah ha!!!
All along Sumner has claimed that it’s not any particular issue or ideology that bothers him about Trump, it’s the deception, hypocrisy, and campaign antics. Now, he’s saying the exact opposite. It is precisely the neoreactionary ideology that upsets Sumner and not any of the campaign antics which will quickly fade.
If there were a bland intellectual statesman, who achieved political success by calmly, clearly, and honestly advocating a neoreactionary platform, would that be better or worse? Before, I thought Sumner would have said it’s better: ‘hey, if that’s what you want, go ahead.’ Now, it seems that Sumner would find it worse, “I don’t mind lying and zany campaign antics, but that ideology is just too horrible to support.”
After engaging in dozens of these Sumner Trump threads, he’s doing a complete 180 on us.
Sumner, would you agree, that devout and serious supporters of neoreactionary ideology, should vote for Trump as the logical, rational candidate that supports their viewpoint?
So, Sumner should probably articulate what is so terrible about neoreactionary ideology?
Clearly, there are pieces of neoreaction that Sumner completely agrees with. For example, even Sumner thinks political correctness has gone too far and some form of reaction to that and readjustment is justified.
Sumner said no matter what side of the issues you stand on, Trump will turn on you. Whether you are for mass immigration, wildly against it, or somewhere in the middle, Trump will somehow backstab everyone. That always seemed unreasonable. Now, Sumner says Trump does represent a consistent neoreactionary ideology, and he just opposes that ideology.
9. June 2016 at 16:00
@Bill Ellis,
I’m not attacking Jews, I’m **MOCKING** the alt-right/NRx/white-nationalist/white-whatever (((code))) to indicate when a Jewish person is referred to. You obviously didn’t pick up on the sense that I don’t exactly have the alt-right’s best interests in mind.
Although I do think the alt-right deserve their own (regional) party: the rump-GOP, and I think Trump is eminently qualified to lead it. That’s why I’d like to see the Trumpistas never forget who their ‘real‘ enemies are… folks like the #NeverTrumpers. The #NeverTrumpers have largely given up on the GOP, but I want to do my small part to make sure the feeling is mutual by highlighting the apostasy.
BTW, I regularly read the #NeverTrump articles and find myself agreeing with almost all of them. Including this one by Steve Berman through which I learned of the alt-right practice of putting Jewish names in parentheses:
http://theresurgent.com/online-anti-semitism-is-a-real-problem-why-does-twitter-allow-it/
And this related one in which he owns the term ‘cuckservative’ for himself (meant as an insult by his alt-right detractors):
http://theresurgent.com/i-am-a-cuckservative/
9. June 2016 at 16:12
… and BTW, it’s no shocker to the Trumpistas here that Rubin is Jewish and that Berman is a self identified Christian of Jewish ancestry/ethnicity (if such a thing exists). But then again, so is Sheldon Adelson, and he’s supposedly kicking in $100 million.
9. June 2016 at 16:30
All along Sumner has claimed that it’s not any particular issue or ideology that bothers him about Trump, it’s the deception, hypocrisy, and campaign antics. Now, he’s saying the exact opposite. It is precisely the neoreactionary ideology that upsets Sumner and not any of the campaign antics which will quickly fade.
Is part of being a neoreactionary always excusing (or attempting to cover up) what the would-be authoritarian neoreactionary (dear) leader says, facts be damned? If that’s an integral part, I can understand Scott abhorring it. And I can understand why Caleb Howe would write something like this:
Yep. He said that [regarding a video montage of Trump’s statements]. Sorry it’s inconvenient to your attempts [Hannity and O’Reilly in particular] to ruin conservative politics forever.
But who’s REALLY “ruining conservative politics forever?” A case could be made either way. Sounds like both sides should hate each other forever to me. =)
9. June 2016 at 16:47
Berman does sometimes praise the Trump campaign:
http://theresurgent.com/thank-you-donald-trump-for-standing-with-israel-today/
9. June 2016 at 17:45
What you will not see on MSNBC, or CNN, or Fox, or any of the other mainstream networks, is reporting on people calling Israel racist for banning Palestinians from entering Isreal:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/tel-aviv-attack-authorities-ban-83000-palestinians-from-travelling-into-israel-from-west-bank-and-a7071891.html
9. June 2016 at 19:02
“NH is a strange state. It tends to older, whiter, families so it goes Republican sometimes. But there is too much population mixing with MA, including retirees, to stay R. Finally there are working class people who move for cheap real estate…that helps Trump.”
NH and UT will go to Johnson/Weld and Clinton will win in a landslide. In 1968, 6% of Mississippi voters were Republican and Texas voted for Humphrey…(i.e things can change rapidly)…the Humpty Dumpty Republican party will never recover from Trump…….
Johnson/Weld, the only rational choice
9. June 2016 at 19:09
@Freedom
-Ah; yes, the Temporary Shutdown of Muslims Entering Into Country Number 1.
9. June 2016 at 19:56
tom brown… sorry I did miss it.
9. June 2016 at 19:59
@Bill Ellis, no problem.
9. June 2016 at 20:48
@Tom Brown
“Is part of being a neoreactionary always excusing (or attempting to cover up) what the would-be authoritarian neoreactionary (dear) leader says, facts be damned?”
No! Not at all!
In the Hillary vs Trump battle, both sides will bend the truth to fight for their side. That’s unfortunate.
What Sumner, and the linked Tyler Cowen article are calling “neo-reaction” long predates Trump. To excerpt:
“Who are the important neo-reaction thinkers?
Those who come immediately to mind are Aristotle, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Jonathan Swift, Benjamin Franklin, John Calhoun, James Fitzjames Stephens, Nietzsche, Carl Schmitt, Martin Heidegger, and Lee Kuan Yew. For all of the fulminations against neo-reaction, the intellectual movement is not a flash in the pan. Of course these thinkers were not operating in the cultural matrix laid out above, nonetheless they embody varying elements of elitism, non-egalitarianism, historical pessimism, and culturalism. The most significant neo-reaction thinker today probably is Steve Sailer, who often comments on this blog in addition to writing his own. By the way, both F.A. Hayek and Murray Rothbard were drawn to neo-reaction in their later years, and perhaps a separate post could be written on the complex connections between libertarianism and neo-reaction.
The miracle to my mind is that neo-reaction as an intellectual movement was relatively dormant for so long, not that it is coming back or will persist.”
This is clearly a serious, legitimate intellectual movement.
10. June 2016 at 06:12
@Massimo, @Art, @E. Harding:
Call to arms! Look what those disgusting, backstabbing, peevish white America hating scum bucket #NeverTrumpers are up to now!:
http://theresurgent.com/the-next-two-weeks-either-trump-or-unexpected-redemption-led-by-wisconsin/
Like I said before, they want to stab white America and white Jesus in the face! They clearly hate white liberty and want to steal the nomination from the will of white people!!! You need to call Erickson, Walker, Cruz and the others out for their 100% pure unadulterated Satanic evil. No doubt Romney has his hands in this as well… and perhaps (((Kristol))) the Bush’s and others. No doubt they’ll be cheered on by the likes of Jennifer (((Rubin))), Mark (((Levin))), Steve (((Berman))) and Ben (((Shapiro))). They can’t stand to see the True Voice of White America take it’s rightful place. They will use all their slimy underhanded weasel-like powers to destroy the last best hope of white America: Donald Trump!!! YOU CAN’T LET THIS HAPPEN!!
10. June 2016 at 06:29
@Trump supporters,
Check it out, Rubin is echoing the desperation of the other #NeverTrumpers in her underhanded suggestion today:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/06/10/the-faith-and-freedom-summit-should-defend-both-from-trump/
If one’s faith conflicts with a law or regulation, they’ve defended the right to evade that law or regulation. The same should be true of the convention rules, which, as we pointed out, seem to negate the rights of delegates to abstain if guided by their conscience, which in many cases rest on their religious faith. If, for example, a delegate who believes in the Golden Rule and that we are all created in God’s image thinks a vote for Trump would undermine those values, he or she should be able to abstain on the first ballot.
If they are successful in dumping Trump, religious conservatives will be national heroes, recognized for leading a principled fight against a bigot. They will also give Republican delegates the chance to vote for someone who actually does take their issues seriously and whose character is beyond reproach. How about it, ladies and gentlemen?
The Bible doesn’t condemn bigotry. In fact it condones slavery! She has no idea what she’s talking about. She clearly wants white America to bend over and let the cuckservatives have their way!
10. June 2016 at 06:59
This makes me rest easier (about the possibility of a coup against Donald): only 27% of Republicans think his comments were racist:
http://www.redstate.com/california_yankee/2016/06/10/27-republican-voters-think-trumps-judge-comments-racist/
Suck on that slimy underhanded plotters! Still, it’s no time to let your guard down Trump lovers: the #NeverTrump backstabbers won’t quit trying to deprive you of your candidate.
10. June 2016 at 07:02
As annoying as it is to see the cult of trump willingly suspend reality to defend his racism… to fool themselves with childish semanticists games..
It’s going to be soooo fun to see them turn into an army of “Baghdad Bob’s”
10. June 2016 at 07:05
@ Tom Brown… now that I’m clued in… You’re very funny..
10. June 2016 at 07:38
@Bill Ellis
“As annoying as it is to see the cult of trump willingly suspend reality to defend his racism… to fool themselves with childish semanticists games..”
Sonia Sotomayor expressed blatant anti-white racism. Similarly with, Judge Curiel’s La Raza Latino group, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Reverend Wright, Al Sharpton, the Black Lives Matter crowd, and the people who want to put racial grievance icon Harriet Tubman on the $20 as a non-so-subtle racial culture war maneuver. To summarize, all of these people and supporters and Trump opponents are, as Tyler Cowen says, “puking on the West, the history of the West, and those groups — productive white males — who did so much to make the West successful”.
I actually defend Trump as the lesser racist than the Sotomayor/Curiel/Obama/Michelle/Wright/Sharpton/Tubman$20 side. It is you who suspend reality to deny the racism and “puking” of the latter.
@Tom Brown,
I defend Trump as having the moral high ground over Curiel’s La Raza and the critics. Your comment is a crazy rant.
10. June 2016 at 07:54
if republicans had half a collective brain they would mount a third party bid…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-romney-summit-anti-trump-republicans-in-exile-ponder-their-partys-future/2016/06/09/8c4aed3e-2e50-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html
10. June 2016 at 07:55
To some white people pointing out white privilege is racism…
10. June 2016 at 08:03
To some folks defending white privilege is just free speech… While defending the underprivileged is racist..
They are so ignorant that they believe groups like LaRaza are hate organisations like the KKK…LOL
http://www.snopes.com/judge-curiel-la-raza-kkk/
10. June 2016 at 08:12
@ steve…”In my opinion, Republicans should attack Democrats for being tribalists, rather than becoming tribalists themselves. Instead Republicans should focus on family and economics for the reasons I outlined above.”
I too would love to see the republicans concentrate on the economy and families.. But what would they have to offer but warmed over “trickle down” and “moral majority”?
those ideas are dead… Repubs can’t win by reanimating them.
10. June 2016 at 08:49
“Puking on the west” is a cacophemism for taking a hard honest look at the west.
It’s a phrase used by pollyanna patriots..
A true patriot can see the good and bad in what the United States has done… It an ugly exercise that most repub/cons can’t bear to contemplate…
A true patriot is able to see the United States as a great power, and understand that like every great power, we are guilty of a great amount of evil as well good. A true patriot doesn’t make excuses for the evil. A true patriot tries to illuminate the evil…they try and minimize it.
Any great power should be judged by the balance of the good and evil they do. As great powers go… I am very proud of my beloved America.
Despite all the horrendous things we have needlessly done, including many instances of genocide… American global leadership is also responsible for… just to point out a few…
Ending recurrent cycles of famine in much of the world…
lifting maybe half a billion people out of desperate poverty…
Bringing war to an all time low…
and maybe most importantly…we shrank the world, and we all know eachother better than we used to.
10. June 2016 at 10:37
@Massimo,
“I defend Trump as having the moral high ground over Curiel’s La Raza and the critics. Your comment is a crazy rant.”
Yes, the threat of reverse racism is 1000s of times greater than the fake racist concerns that the turncoat backstabbing #NeverTrumpers bring up. Etch their cuckservative names into your enemies list and never forget! Look, rumors of a coup attempt by cuckservatives is now even being reported by CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/politics/gop-delegate-revolt-stop-donald-trump/
Cuckservatives like Rubin thought she could persuade the evangelical attendees of the Faith and Freedom conference to lead the charge against Trump (and thus provide cover to delegates who break their pledge to vote for him):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/06/10/the-faith-and-freedom-summit-should-defend-both-from-trump/
But I think Senator David Perdue set the tone early by leading a prayer “for” Obama’s
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/10/gop-senator-david-perdue-jokes-about-praying-for-obama-s-death.html
“We should pray for him like Psalms 109:8 says: May his days be short and let another have his office,” the senator said, smiling wryly.
What’s psalm 109:8? Here’s a snippet:
May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.
May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.
If that prayer went over well, I’m guessing it’s not a room full of anti-Trump backstabbers there.
10. June 2016 at 11:12
@Bill Ellis,
“‘Puking on the west’ is a cacophemism for taking a hard honest look at the west.
It’s a phrase used by pollyanna patriots..”
So that language is from the Tyler Cowen article that Sumner recently linked and praised on neo-reaction. Are they “pollyanna patriots”? I can’t even find a good definition on that term.
“A true patriot can see the good and bad in what the United States has done… It an ugly exercise that most repub/cons can’t bear to contemplate…”
This isn’t true. White American conservatives and Republicans broadly believe that their demographic group was the bad guy in certain points of history, particularly in relation to US slavery and treatment of native Amerindians.
My objection is that stories of historic injustices and victims and villains are often told with a heavy slant and a not so subtle political agenda. The goal isn’t to fairly acknowledge the goods and bads of different ethnic groups, it’s explicitly to raise the current standing of certain groups and lower the standing of others, and heavily curate which parts of history are told and which parts are hidden.
10. June 2016 at 11:20
@Tom
“Yes, the threat of reverse racism is 1000s of times greater than the fake racist concerns that the turncoat backstabbing #NeverTrumpers bring up. Etch their cuckservative names into your enemies list and never forget!”
Pretty much. Curiel’s La Raza lawyers group was mildly racist against whites and you are trying to flip it and shame whites for not assuming their places as the eternal villain. I realize that people like you will probably shame whites like me until the end of the Earth and are not bound by reason or facts in the slighest and I’m not interested in allowing that to continue.
Obama recently gave a speech where he mocked the idea of “reverse racism” and his audience roared with laughter at the idea of “reverse racism” against whites. Screaming racism at whites and only whites for several decades is simply losing it’s power.
The Trump crowd is used to being called racist, now they are starting to realize that isn’t bound by any kind of reason or morality and is just a way to keep them down.
10. June 2016 at 18:10
@Bill Ellis,
“If you want to attack Jews then at least have the balls to come out and say it instead of using code…”
BTW, I’m part Jewish. I love my Jewish ancestry. I’m pro-Israel.
Two leading intellectual writers associated with neo-reaction, that Tyler Cowen omitted are extremely Jewish: Ilana Mercer and Alain Finkielkraut.
11. June 2016 at 19:38
Massimo… I read that article by Cowen. I thought it was very good. And I think you misunderstood it
I think you missed a very important part of that article…
“Here is a list of propositions, noting that these are an intellectualized summary of a somewhat imagined collective doctrine, and certainly not a statement of my own views:”
and then you seemed to missed the context in which he used the phrase…
6. If you are analyzing political discourse, ask the simple question: is this person puking on the West, the history of the West, and those groups — productive white males — who did so much to make the West successful? The answer to that question is very often more important than anything else which might be said about the contributions under consideration.
Already I can see (at least) four problems with this point of view. First, white men in percentage terms have become a weaker influence in America over time, yet America still is becoming a better nation overall. Second, some of America’s worst traits, such as the obsession with guns, the excess militarism, or the tendency toward drunkenness, not to mention rape and the history of slavery, seem to come largely from white men. Third, it seems highly unlikely that “white men” is in fact the best way of disambiguating the dominant interest groups that have helped make the West so successful. Fourth, America is global policeman and also the center of world innovation, so it cannot afford the luxury of a declining population, and thus we must find a way to make immigration work.
So to me this looks like Cowen is trying to be as value neutral as possible in order describe neo reactionaries in their own words…to get in their heads as it were…
and then he goes on to basically say “That puking on the west ” is just a hollow complaint to often offered up by neo reactionaries…that it functions more as a PC purity test.
“Puking on the west” is shorthand for criticizing anyone who criticises the white male driven atrocities committed by the west … Just because Cowen and Sumner didn’t call them pollyanna patriots doesn’t mean they aren’t…
And since you can’t seem to comprehend what I meant by Pollyanna Patriot… Here,….
Pollyanna
[pol-ee-an-uh]
1.an excessively or blindly optimistic person.
patriot
[pey-tree-uh t, -ot or, esp. British, pa-tree-uh t]
1.a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.
11. June 2016 at 21:03
@Bill Ellis,
“‘Puking on the west’ is shorthand for criticizing anyone who criticises the white male driven atrocities committed by the west”
No, Tyler Cowen didn’t say, “puking on the atrocities of the west”, he said, “puking on the west”. Most neo-reaction types completely accept the moral wrongness of certain historic white male driven atrocities.
“and then he goes on to basically say ‘That puking on the west’ is just a hollow complaint”
No… I did read his “four problems” paragraph and his other criticisms against neo-reaction. He isn’t entirely critical of it, he considers it a completely valid intellectual movement, although he has some strong criticisms of it. He also says:
“The miracle to my mind is that neo-reaction as an intellectual movement was relatively dormant for so long, not that it is coming back or will persist.”
“I think it is a category mistake to dismiss neo-reaction on the grounds of racism or prejudice.”
“it would be a big mistake to simply dismiss neo-reaction, even though there are some rather easy and facile ways to do so. “
13. June 2016 at 08:27
This whole Trump saga, Sumner has insisted that, “The problem isn’t Trump’s policy or ideology, it’s his character”. Now he’s switched to “I don’t care about Trump’s character, it’s the neo-reaction ideology that horrifies me”. I’m disappointed there is no further comment on that.
14. June 2016 at 06:10
I saw this on Twitter and immediately thought of TheMoneyIllusion:
“I feel like this presidential election is essentially a battle between the article and the comments section.”
– Laurent Dubois, @SoccerPolitics
14. June 2016 at 06:43
Good news and bad news for Trump
Good news: he is preferred to Hillary on Wall St 45-30.
Bad news: Wall St. usually prefers the Republicans by a higher margin.
“But 45 percent of the 41 respondents, who include economists, fund managers and analysts, say Trump’s policies are best for the economy, compared with just 30 percent for Clinton and 25 percent saying they don’t know or they’re unsure. That’s a dramatic improvement from the 4 percent who backed Trump’s economic policies in the last survey when John Kasich was Wall Street’s clear favorite and Ted Cruz was also still in the running.”
“The bad news for Trump is that 65 percent of respondents picked one of the three Republican candidates, compared with just 45 percent now choosing Trump. So Trump has received the bulk of the support on the economy from the other Republican candidates, but he falls about 20 points short of getting all of it. Some appear to have gone to Clinton, whose economic approval on Wall Street has doubled to 30 percent. But a larger percentage of respondents are also now unsure whose policies are better for the economy.”
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/13/wall-st-still-bullish-on-hillary-but-divided-on-who-best-for-economy-survey.html
They do think Hillary will be better than Trump for the stock market:
“By 80 percent to 15 percent, respondents to the June CNBC Fed Survey think Clinton will win the election, virtually unchanged from the April survey. When it comes to whose policies are best for the stock market, Clinton bests Donald Trump 38 percent to 25 percent. A large group, totaling 38 percent of respondents, say they don’t know or are unsure”
14. June 2016 at 06:53
Now if you want some unambiguously terrible news for Trump it’s that a third straight poll has him tied or very close with Hillary in Utah.
Third poll in a row showing Clinton competing in Utah. It’s official. Utah is a battleground state this year.”
https://twitter.com/benchmarkpol/status/742707788858679296
I wouldn’t expect Hilary Clinton to be tied in Mormon country against the very Devil himself.
14. June 2016 at 08:45
Massimo, My views on Trump have not changed, except perhaps that he’s even worse than I thought. I’ve always regarded him as bad for many reasons.
Jacob, That’s excellent.