In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On September 09 2016 06:40 TheLordofAwesome wrote:
On September 09 2016 06:37 Plansix wrote:
On September 09 2016 06:34 TheLordofAwesome wrote:
On September 09 2016 06:26 Plansix wrote:
On September 09 2016 06:22 FiWiFaKi wrote:
On September 09 2016 06:10 Mohdoo wrote: It is fascinating to infer what people must think the function of a president to be. I feel like the actual role/responsibilities/actions of a president would be a surprise to a lot of people and they may vote based on wildly incorrect perspectives on the role of a president.
What is it in your opinion?
-He's the figurehead of the USA -Appoints important people in government (hence his values matter) -Decides on foreign relations + war -Veto laws that he doesn't agree with
Are the primary roles, besides secondary stuff like giving speeches for why what congress is doing is important, and why you should support it, etc.
-He's the figurehead of the USA – Not really, but sure, whatever.
-Appoints important people in government (hence his values matter) – Controls every aspect of government not controlled by congress, including the FBI, CIA and NSA. Plus all the non- law enforcement branches.
-Decides on foreign relations + war – Sort of and Not really, no. He can take minor military actions. He cannot go to war.
-Veto laws that he doesn't agree with – And approves laws presented to him by congress. Can also introduce bills to congress as well.
Have you read the Constitution?
That specific section, not in like a decade ago or more. I forgot that the budget is introduced to congress at the president's request, not by the president directly. I stand corrected.
The president cannot introduce any legislation himself. He has to find congressmen to do it for him. Usually though that isn't very hard.
I mean, if he's gonna introduce something, it is likely something that will get at least 1 vote. I think it is a fair approximation to say the president is the one doing the introducing.
Yes, but we were discussing the specific powers of the office. I completely incorrect that the president could put forth a bill through the powers of the office alone.
Donald Trump unveiled a school choice plan on Thursday that would create a $20 billion block grant to expand charter- and private-school options for low-income children — an idea championed by conservatives, but one that has previously fizzled in Congress.
"As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice,” he said, vowing to use the presidential bully pulpit and campaign in all 50 states for the proposal.
Trump said expanding school choice would help minority students who are currently trapped in “failing government schools.” But the backdrop for Trump’s speech was an Ohio charter school that is itself failing.
Trump made his remarks at the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy, a small school located in a predominantly African-American neighborhood of the city.
Nearly all of the school’s students, in kindergarten through eighth grade, are African-American and eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch, according to the most recently available federal data. CASSA was rated highly by the nonprofit education group Battelle for Kids in 2014 for making year-to-year progress on student learning, but the school’s latest state report card essentially labels it a failure. CASSA earned an “F” for overall student progress in math and reading.
Early in his speech, Trump thanked Ron Packard, the CEO of the for-profit education company that runs the Cleveland charter school. Packard is a national figure in the charter school movement who is also active in supporting political campaigns.
Trump said his proposed block grant program would come from redirecting existing federal funds, and he would leave it up to states to decide whether the dollars would follow children to public, private, charter or magnet schools. He didn't specify which existing federal programs would lose funding to pay for this new initiative.
On September 08 2016 12:03 IgnE wrote: Whence also Trump and the aesthetics of the cult. As Benjamin says, "All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war." Trump isn't alone of course. The leftist consensus indulges in the same aesthetics, for, "Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today's technical resources while maintaining the property system." But those who subscribe to Trumpism seem to me to be totally in thrall to Trump's aesthetic mastery. Electing Trump is to enshrine this aesthetics, and to take literally the phrase, "Fiat ars–pereat mundus," which Trump should have emblazoned on all of his buildings. Just as modern media art forms like reality tv make every audience member a critic by virtue of being expert on "living" per se, it makes Trump the iconic modern artist, making art for art's sake. Those are his credentials for the highest office in the land: an expert on the one-dimensional, monomaniacal, self-delusional, peculiarly American form of "living", or of self-extension.
The underlined above strikes me as being rather harsh. And it's not like Trump would be the first president that we've had who took advantage of a tremendous cult of personality. Both Roosevelts, Kennedy, Reagan, and Obama all fit the bill in the modern era. And in the cases of Kennedy and Obama, very strong arguments can be made that they lacked any sort of real "credentials" to be president at the time of their respective elections.
Edit: And the other thing that bears mentioning is that Trump isn't unique among the previously mentioned presidents in his use of cutting edge media manipulation to boost his popularity.
Reagan for sure, but at least he had the End of History story to buttress the emptiness that was his politics. The End of History tapped into primordial myths of good vs. evil and obscured the Reagan aesthetic. He kind of prefigured the Real World by about a decade as an actor who played himself on the stage of the White House. But imagine Obama on reality tv. He would be terrible at it. He (perhaps reluctantly) represented the aesthetics of the leftist consensus.
Compare for example the titanic struggle between the USA and the USSR with Trump's story about building a wall. One has resemblances to the political; the other is Warhol.
Kennedy was the last real politician we had. The world might end with a whimper but American politics ended with a bang in Dallas.
Are you sure that you're not this guy?
But back to Trump. I very much disagree with the proposition that he's a vacuous candidate. As much as I enjoy his aesthetic (most of the time, anyway), what I really like about him are his policies. And I'm not alone in this regard. The reason Trump wiped the floor with the republican field during the nomination was because of his stated policies -- immigration above all.
There's an article that was authored by an anonymous conservative intellectual that is a hot topic in conservative circles right now. It more eloquently describes many of the things that I have articulated about the present state of conservatism and the republican party over the past couple of years. The article essentially is a massive and damning indictment of the conservative movement -- and particularly anyone who is part of the #nevertrump crowd. But the author also talks about the Trump's substance on the critical issues of immigration, trade, and war/foreign policy, while shitting on Trump's aesthetic. Here's some excerpts:
More to the point, what has conservatism achieved lately? In the last 20 years? The answer—which appears to be “nothing”—might seem to lend credence to the plea that “our ideas haven’t been tried.” Except that the same conservatives who generate those ideas are in charge of selling them to the broader public. If their ideas “haven’t been tried,” who is ultimately at fault? The whole enterprise of Conservatism, Inc., reeks of failure. Its sole recent and ongoing success is its own self-preservation. Conservative intellectuals never tire of praising “entrepreneurs” and “creative destruction.” Dare to fail! they exhort businessmen. Let the market decide! Except, um, not with respect to us. Or is their true market not the political arena, but the fundraising circuit?
....
Yes, Trump is worse than imperfect. So what? We can lament until we choke the lack of a great statesman to address the fundamental issues of our time—or, more importantly, to connect them. Since Pat Buchanan’s three failures, occasionally a candidate arose who saw one piece: Dick Gephardt on trade, Ron Paul on war, Tom Tancredo on immigration. Yet, among recent political figures—great statesmen, dangerous demagogues, and mewling gnats alike—only Trump-the-alleged-buffoon not merely saw all three and their essential connectivity, but was able to win on them. The alleged buffoon is thus more prudent—more practically wise—than all of our wise-and-good who so bitterly oppose him. This should embarrass them. That their failures instead embolden them is only further proof of their foolishness and hubris.
Which they self-laud as “consistency”—adherence to “conservative principle,” defined by the 1980 campaign and the household gods of reigning conservative think-tanks. A higher consistency in the service of the national interest apparently eludes them. When America possessed a vast, empty continent and explosively growing industry, high immigration was arguably good policy. (Arguably: Ben Franklin would disagree.) It hasn’t made sense since World War I. Free trade was unquestionably a great boon to the American worker in the decades after World War II. We long ago passed the point of diminishing returns. The Gulf War of 1991 was a strategic victory for American interests. No conflict since then has been. Conservatives either can’t see this—or, worse, those who can nonetheless treat the only political leader to mount a serious challenge to the status quo (more immigration, more trade, more war) as a unique evil.
Trump’s vulgarity is in fact a godsend to the conservatives. It allows them to hang their public opposition on his obvious shortcomings and to ignore or downplay his far greater strengths, which should be even more obvious but in corrupt times can be deliberately obscured by constant references to his faults. That the Left would make the campaign all about the latter is to be expected. Why would the Right? Some—a few—are no doubt sincere in their belief that the man is simply unfit for high office. David Frum, who has always been an immigration skeptic and is a convert to the less-war position, is sincere when he says that, even though he agrees with much of Trump’s agenda, he cannot stomach Trump. But for most of the other #NeverTrumpers, is it just a coincidence that they also happen to favor Invade the World, Invite the World?
Another question JAG raised without provoking any serious attempt at refutation was whether, in corrupt times, it took a … let’s say ... “loudmouth” to rise above the din of The Megaphone. We, or I, speculated: “yes.” Suppose there had arisen some statesman of high character—dignified, articulate, experienced, knowledgeable—the exact opposite of everything the conservatives claim to hate about Trump. Could this hypothetical paragon have won on Trump’s same issues? Would the conservatives have supported him? I would have—even had he been a Democrat.
Back on planet earth, that flight of fancy at least addresses what to do now. The answer to the subsidiary question—will it work?—is much less clear. By “it” I mean Trumpism, broadly defined as secure borders, economic nationalism, and America-first foreign policy. We Americans have chosen, in our foolishness, to disunite the country through stupid immigration, economic, and foreign policies. The level of unity America enjoyed before the bipartisan junta took over can never be restored.
But we can probably do better than we are doing now. First, stop digging. No more importing poverty, crime, and alien cultures. We have made institutions, by leftist design, not merely abysmal at assimilation but abhorrent of the concept. We should try to fix that, but given the Left’s iron grip on every school and cultural center, that’s like trying to bring democracy to Russia. A worthy goal, perhaps, but temper your hopes—and don’t invest time and resources unrealistically.
By contrast, simply building a wall and enforcing immigration law will help enormously, by cutting off the flood of newcomers that perpetuates ethnic separatism and by incentivizing the English language and American norms in the workplace. These policies will have the added benefit of aligning the economic interests of, and (we may hope) fostering solidarity among, the working, lower middle, and middle classes of all races and ethnicities. The same can be said for Trumpian trade policies and anti-globalization instincts. Who cares if productivity numbers tick down, or if our already somnambulant GDP sinks a bit further into its pillow? Nearly all the gains of the last 20 years have accrued to the junta anyway. It would, at this point, be better for the nation to divide up more equitably a slightly smaller pie than to add one extra slice—only to ensure that it and eight of the other nine go first to the government and its rentiers, and the rest to the same four industries and 200 families.
Will this work? Ask a pessimist, get a pessimistic answer. So don’t ask. Ask instead: is it worth trying? Is it better than the alternative? If you can’t say, forthrightly, “yes,” you are either part of the junta, a fool, or a conservative intellectual.
Perhaps if Trump was some dignified statesman of high character you would have a point.
Now, now. I don't think anyone can say that only "dignified statesmen" have substantive policies. The uncouth can certainly have them, too.
There is definitely something of the political in the article you've posted here, unlike the misdirecting emptiness of the Third Way, devoid of politics by virtue of overwhelming consensus. So Trump is maybe tapping into the same populist urge to "change the property relations" as Benjamin would put it.
Comparing Trump and Clinton, it should be pretty clear that Trump is the one proposing the more radical changes to the current "property relations." Now there's no doubt that he isn't going as far as our socialist/Marxist brethren (or others) would like, but his proposals are definitely more upsetting to the current world order than Hillary's.
But how is he doing it? By bringing l'art pour l'art in the vein of the Kardashians to the Presidential election. I'm not convinced he even fully understands it himself. He's entirely within the domain of habit. That's why he needed new handlers. That's why to even write the article you've posted you have to grant Trump, the image, a solidity that it doesn't possess. The only constant is the Trump aesthetic itself, and it is that which makes belief in all things Trump possible.
Yes, Trump is using his image as a means to an end. But I think that the important breakthrough that we're having is that Trump clearly has a political end in mind. So to use your terminology, Trump is not strictly a case of "art for art's sake."
I guess the difference between you and me is that I think if Trump were elected he'd essentially be an ineffectual twat. I don't think there is anything deep inside Trump beyond art for art's sake. An elected Trump is a Trump who goes on publicity tours for four years until he's thrown out of office while the "junta" runs the country.
and to quote myself in a double sense, that is why i think you might have had a point if trump were a person of "high character", someone with a contemplative air. someone who could at least be a self-conscious warhol instead of the perfectly habitual product and producer of the self-aggrandizing american aesthetic
You could be right. I have freely admitted that a vote for Trump is a roll of the dice.
you know the more i think about it, isn't james goldsmith the dignified version of trump? and doesn't it seem likely that the fascistic impulse in trumpism wouldn't be present in a goldsmith campaign? why is this? isn't it because trump is the pure aestheticization of politics? it's possible that the reason we have such shitty candidates is that anyone whose "political" raison d'etre is NOT aesthetics is not a "viable" candidate in the first place.
Yes, that's not a bad comparison. But I'm not sure how far down the rabbit hole that I'm willing to go with regards to your ultimate point. Clearly some degree of celebrity is required in politics in the sense that those without it will be at a huge disadvantage to those who have it. That said, I'm not quite ready to throw the American public under the stupidity bus as you have. Despite my constant disappointment in people, I still think that they are smart enough to vote on the basis of basic policy considerations instead of on the purely aesthetic.
John Kerry will fly to Geneva for Syrian peace talks on Friday with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, the US state department has said.
Lavrov arrived at the talks venue in Geneva on Thursday, and held a one-hour meeting with the UN peace envoy, Staffan de Mistura.
But Kerry delayed his departure, seeking to narrow differences between Washington and Moscow on the details of the proposed truce before flying across the Atlantic. Just a few hours before the state department announcement of Kerry’s departure, spokesman Mark Toner said that remaining gaps on “technical” issues meant it was “not worth his while to go have a meeting”.
State department officials would not comment on the change of mind, and it was not clear whether the differences had been fully resolved or Kerry had decided his presence in Switzerland would help clinch a final deal.
It is believed that the peace plan would start with a ceasefire around Aleppo and a withdrawal of forces from key routes into the besieged city, leading to an end to the Syrian regime’s airstrikes and a joint US-Russia campaign against groups both countries designate as terrorist.
US officials said on Wednesday the last differences to be resolved included delineating territory between Jabhat Fateh al-Sham formerly the Nusra front, a former al-Qaida affiliate – which both Moscow and Washington agree is a terrorist organisation and a legitimate target – and other opposition groups, on which they differ. A European diplomat said on Thursday, that there was just a single remaining substantive issue dividing US and Russian governments but it is not clear whether that involved Nusra positions or another subject.
I've been pretty busy (good thing, because this election cycle sucks) but I thought I'd comment on that Claremont piece because apparently it got a lot of play. I read the first few paragraphs one night and, not seeing anything of value, went to sleep. But it lists so many of the pro-Trump positions and lights a truly magnificent fire to a field of large and imposing strawmen.
I will skip around but I have made a good faith effort to not leave anything out that would be important for the arguments being made.
2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.
Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.
...
If conservatives are right about the importance of virtue, morality, religious faith, stability, character and so on in the individual; if they are right about sexual morality or what came to be termed “family values”; if they are right about the importance of education to inculcate good character and to teach the fundamentals that have defined knowledge in the West for millennia; if they are right about societal norms and public order; if they are right about the centrality of initiative, enterprise, industry, and thrift to a sound economy and a healthy society; if they are right about the soul-sapping effects of paternalistic Big Government and its cannibalization of civil society and religious institutions; if they are right about the necessity of a strong defense and prudent statesmanship in the international sphere—if they are right about the importance of all this to national health and even survival, then they must believe—mustn’t they?—that we are headed off a cliff.
This is in fact histrionic. Every presidential election we are told that this is it. That was said in conservative circles in 2012 for sure. It was less pronounced in 2008, but I think that's because few really knew Obama and it seemed like whoever came after Bush was going to lose (and the cherry on top was that McCain was/is terrible to conservatives).
Well, in my estimation this is not the end. I could comment on why, but I think it should be obvious that, even if you disagree, one could understand why someone else (such as myself) doesn't see this as being "it." Indeed, why is this it? What makes this election different than the one eight or four years ago? Hillary will certainly continue to the progressive policy implementation, will continue to expand the power of the executive branch, and will make a mess of the world. But that doesn't mean this is it. One must keep in mind that the progressive project has been in the works for over a hundred years.To say that this election will be the final touch or the only chance to reverse it is wrong. It might take a hundred years to undo.
Indeed, we are headed for a cliff. But we aren't at the edge yet.
But it’s quite obvious that conservatives don’t believe any such thing, that they feel no such sense of urgency, of an immediate necessity to change course and avoid the cliff. A recent article by Matthew Continetti may be taken as representative—indeed, almost written for the purpose of illustrating the point. Continetti inquires into the “condition of America” and finds it wanting. What does Continetti propose to do about it? The usual litany of “conservative” “solutions,” with the obligatory references to decentralization, federalization, “civic renewal,” and—of course!—Burke. Which is to say, conservatism’s typical combination of the useless and inapt with the utopian and unrealizable. Decentralization and federalism are all well and good, and as a conservative, I endorse them both without reservation. But how are they going to save, or even meaningfully improve, the America that Continetti describes? What can they do against a tidal wave of dysfunction, immorality, and corruption? “Civic renewal” would do a lot of course, but that’s like saying health will save a cancer patient. A step has been skipped in there somewhere. How are we going to achieve “civic renewal”? Wishing for a tautology to enact itself is not a strategy.
Continetti trips over a more promising approach when he writes of “stress[ing] the ‘national interest abroad and national solidarity at home’ through foreign-policy retrenchment, ‘support to workers buffeted by globalization,’ and setting ‘tax rates and immigration levels’ to foster social cohesion." That sounds a lot like Trumpism. But the phrases that Continetti quotes are taken from Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, both of whom, like Continetti, are vociferously—one might even say fanatically—anti-Trump. At least they, unlike Kesler, give Trump credit for having identified the right stance on today’s most salient issues. Yet, paradoxically, they won’t vote for Trump whereas Kesler hints that he will. It’s reasonable, then, to read into Kesler’s esoteric endorsement of Trump an implicit acknowledgment that the crisis is, indeed, pretty dire. I expect a Claremont scholar to be wiser than most other conservative intellectuals, and I am relieved not to be disappointed in this instance.
Yet we may also reasonably ask: What explains the Pollyanna-ish declinism of so many others? That is, the stance that Things-Are-Really-Bad—But-Not-So-Bad-that-We-Have-to-Consider-Anything-Really-Different! The obvious answer is that they don’t really believe the first half of that formulation. If so, like Chicken Little, they should stick a sock in it. Pecuniary reasons also suggest themselves, but let us foreswear recourse to this explanation until we have disproved all the others
.
This is a very large strawman. There is lots of urgency. This is in fact why conservatives held their nose and voted for McCain and Romney. This is how the GOP gets their money and support- from conservatives convinced we are fast closing the cliff-road gap. This part is so dishonest. Now there may be some intellectual who would rather have their sweet think-tank bubbles, but this is not the view of the majority. I myself have expressed, shall we say, displeasure at the current Republican party for all that it does (or, often, does not do). But this case he makes sounds exactly like the case made by GOP politicians every time an election comes around.
More to the point, what has conservatism achieved lately? In the last 20 years? The answer—which appears to be “nothing”—might seem to lend credence to the plea that “our ideas haven’t been tried.” Except that the same conservatives who generate those ideas are in charge of selling them to the broader public. If their ideas “haven’t been tried,” who is ultimately at fault? The whole enterprise of Conservatism, Inc., reeks of failure. Its sole recent and ongoing success is its own self-preservation. Conservative intellectuals never tire of praising “entrepreneurs” and “creative destruction.” Dare to fail! they exhort businessmen. Let the market decide! Except, um, not with respect to us. Or is their true market not the political arena, but the fundraising circuit?
Indeed, there has been precious little done besides slowing the advance. This is a common alt-right argument, which refuses to recognize that conservatives have been out for power for those 20 years. It isn't the same as the "dorm-room Marxism," because, imo, conservative ideas have been tried, and do work.
Moreover, he implies that people who don't agree are bought off. Now, I understand this article is geared more towards other think-tankers like him and so perhaps his criticism relating to self-preservation has some merit, somewhere. But for those of who don't live writing for these publications, this entire argument is hollow. And guess what? Those conservative Republicans not voting Trump aren't just doing so because Jonah Goldberg says he won't.
I'd go through this thing in it's entirety, but that would take too much time. I would say this all boils down to Trump, however. The author takes Trump's statements at face value, good and bad, all while ignoring the other, less immediate effects of Trumpism.
When the strong-border candidate today was criticizing Romney for being too hardline in 2012, I have good reason to doubt him.
When Trump promises to promote constitutionalists to the court, yet loves eminent domain and doesn't appear to care enough to spend the political capital, I have reason to doubt him. (Also McConnell would probably have to use the nuclear option, which he would never do.) The courts are basically gone anyway, Congress must rein them in. Merely appointing more like Thomas or Scalia won't help. After all, John Roberts was a Republican appointee.
Then of course nevermind what he was wrong on: trade, welfare, healthcare, spending, etc.
And finally, the problem of Trump himself. There is a difference between being "anti-PC" and being a massive a-hole. I don't think Trump is a racist, but he's so incoherent he is basically the Democrats dream candidate. Every election they say that Republicans are racists, sexist bigots. Trump aids that view. From the wierd women commenst he has made to his ridiculous attacks on the judge and the Khan family, Trump plays right into the Democrats hands. Republicans are still having to live down the Bushes (hell, even Hoover). Why support someone who could do just as much damage?
Then there is the man's character, which I find terrible. That's not even given a second of thought in the piece.
If you support Trump because Hillary really, really, really, really sucks, then I get it. That would be, in those much criticized words, "voting your conscience."
But pretending that it's only Trump's lack of conservative orthodoxy is what keeps people away from him is preposterous. It's about playing the long game. Conservatives who opposed Trump played this time, too. Supporting people like Cruz, Rubio, Walker, and Paul. We lost this round.
Trump will do nothing to roll back the tide of leftism, but in the process could do serious damage to the right. It's not worth it, in the estimation of some. That is the core of the argument. It's not that we don't recognize that things really suck, or that we don't want them fought. That's asinine.
Despite it's length, I am still a little rushes so I apologize for any errors or funky grammar.
The underlined above strikes me as being rather harsh. And it's not like Trump would be the first president that we've had who took advantage of a tremendous cult of personality. Both Roosevelts, Kennedy, Reagan, and Obama all fit the bill in the modern era. And in the cases of Kennedy and Obama, very strong arguments can be made that they lacked any sort of real "credentials" to be president at the time of their respective elections.
Edit: And the other thing that bears mentioning is that Trump isn't unique among the previously mentioned presidents in his use of cutting edge media manipulation to boost his popularity.
Reagan for sure, but at least he had the End of History story to buttress the emptiness that was his politics. The End of History tapped into primordial myths of good vs. evil and obscured the Reagan aesthetic. He kind of prefigured the Real World by about a decade as an actor who played himself on the stage of the White House. But imagine Obama on reality tv. He would be terrible at it. He (perhaps reluctantly) represented the aesthetics of the leftist consensus.
Compare for example the titanic struggle between the USA and the USSR with Trump's story about building a wall. One has resemblances to the political; the other is Warhol.
Kennedy was the last real politician we had. The world might end with a whimper but American politics ended with a bang in Dallas.
But back to Trump. I very much disagree with the proposition that he's a vacuous candidate. As much as I enjoy his aesthetic (most of the time, anyway), what I really like about him are his policies. And I'm not alone in this regard. The reason Trump wiped the floor with the republican field during the nomination was because of his stated policies -- immigration above all.
There's an article that was authored by an anonymous conservative intellectual that is a hot topic in conservative circles right now. It more eloquently describes many of the things that I have articulated about the present state of conservatism and the republican party over the past couple of years. The article essentially is a massive and damning indictment of the conservative movement -- and particularly anyone who is part of the #nevertrump crowd. But the author also talks about the Trump's substance on the critical issues of immigration, trade, and war/foreign policy, while shitting on Trump's aesthetic. Here's some excerpts:
More to the point, what has conservatism achieved lately? In the last 20 years? The answer—which appears to be “nothing”—might seem to lend credence to the plea that “our ideas haven’t been tried.” Except that the same conservatives who generate those ideas are in charge of selling them to the broader public. If their ideas “haven’t been tried,” who is ultimately at fault? The whole enterprise of Conservatism, Inc., reeks of failure. Its sole recent and ongoing success is its own self-preservation. Conservative intellectuals never tire of praising “entrepreneurs” and “creative destruction.” Dare to fail! they exhort businessmen. Let the market decide! Except, um, not with respect to us. Or is their true market not the political arena, but the fundraising circuit?
....
Yes, Trump is worse than imperfect. So what? We can lament until we choke the lack of a great statesman to address the fundamental issues of our time—or, more importantly, to connect them. Since Pat Buchanan’s three failures, occasionally a candidate arose who saw one piece: Dick Gephardt on trade, Ron Paul on war, Tom Tancredo on immigration. Yet, among recent political figures—great statesmen, dangerous demagogues, and mewling gnats alike—only Trump-the-alleged-buffoon not merely saw all three and their essential connectivity, but was able to win on them. The alleged buffoon is thus more prudent—more practically wise—than all of our wise-and-good who so bitterly oppose him. This should embarrass them. That their failures instead embolden them is only further proof of their foolishness and hubris.
Which they self-laud as “consistency”—adherence to “conservative principle,” defined by the 1980 campaign and the household gods of reigning conservative think-tanks. A higher consistency in the service of the national interest apparently eludes them. When America possessed a vast, empty continent and explosively growing industry, high immigration was arguably good policy. (Arguably: Ben Franklin would disagree.) It hasn’t made sense since World War I. Free trade was unquestionably a great boon to the American worker in the decades after World War II. We long ago passed the point of diminishing returns. The Gulf War of 1991 was a strategic victory for American interests. No conflict since then has been. Conservatives either can’t see this—or, worse, those who can nonetheless treat the only political leader to mount a serious challenge to the status quo (more immigration, more trade, more war) as a unique evil.
Trump’s vulgarity is in fact a godsend to the conservatives. It allows them to hang their public opposition on his obvious shortcomings and to ignore or downplay his far greater strengths, which should be even more obvious but in corrupt times can be deliberately obscured by constant references to his faults. That the Left would make the campaign all about the latter is to be expected. Why would the Right? Some—a few—are no doubt sincere in their belief that the man is simply unfit for high office. David Frum, who has always been an immigration skeptic and is a convert to the less-war position, is sincere when he says that, even though he agrees with much of Trump’s agenda, he cannot stomach Trump. But for most of the other #NeverTrumpers, is it just a coincidence that they also happen to favor Invade the World, Invite the World?
Another question JAG raised without provoking any serious attempt at refutation was whether, in corrupt times, it took a … let’s say ... “loudmouth” to rise above the din of The Megaphone. We, or I, speculated: “yes.” Suppose there had arisen some statesman of high character—dignified, articulate, experienced, knowledgeable—the exact opposite of everything the conservatives claim to hate about Trump. Could this hypothetical paragon have won on Trump’s same issues? Would the conservatives have supported him? I would have—even had he been a Democrat.
Back on planet earth, that flight of fancy at least addresses what to do now. The answer to the subsidiary question—will it work?—is much less clear. By “it” I mean Trumpism, broadly defined as secure borders, economic nationalism, and America-first foreign policy. We Americans have chosen, in our foolishness, to disunite the country through stupid immigration, economic, and foreign policies. The level of unity America enjoyed before the bipartisan junta took over can never be restored.
But we can probably do better than we are doing now. First, stop digging. No more importing poverty, crime, and alien cultures. We have made institutions, by leftist design, not merely abysmal at assimilation but abhorrent of the concept. We should try to fix that, but given the Left’s iron grip on every school and cultural center, that’s like trying to bring democracy to Russia. A worthy goal, perhaps, but temper your hopes—and don’t invest time and resources unrealistically.
By contrast, simply building a wall and enforcing immigration law will help enormously, by cutting off the flood of newcomers that perpetuates ethnic separatism and by incentivizing the English language and American norms in the workplace. These policies will have the added benefit of aligning the economic interests of, and (we may hope) fostering solidarity among, the working, lower middle, and middle classes of all races and ethnicities. The same can be said for Trumpian trade policies and anti-globalization instincts. Who cares if productivity numbers tick down, or if our already somnambulant GDP sinks a bit further into its pillow? Nearly all the gains of the last 20 years have accrued to the junta anyway. It would, at this point, be better for the nation to divide up more equitably a slightly smaller pie than to add one extra slice—only to ensure that it and eight of the other nine go first to the government and its rentiers, and the rest to the same four industries and 200 families.
Will this work? Ask a pessimist, get a pessimistic answer. So don’t ask. Ask instead: is it worth trying? Is it better than the alternative? If you can’t say, forthrightly, “yes,” you are either part of the junta, a fool, or a conservative intellectual.
Perhaps if Trump was some dignified statesman of high character you would have a point.
Now, now. I don't think anyone can say that only "dignified statesmen" have substantive policies. The uncouth can certainly have them, too.
There is definitely something of the political in the article you've posted here, unlike the misdirecting emptiness of the Third Way, devoid of politics by virtue of overwhelming consensus. So Trump is maybe tapping into the same populist urge to "change the property relations" as Benjamin would put it.
Comparing Trump and Clinton, it should be pretty clear that Trump is the one proposing the more radical changes to the current "property relations." Now there's no doubt that he isn't going as far as our socialist/Marxist brethren (or others) would like, but his proposals are definitely more upsetting to the current world order than Hillary's.
But how is he doing it? By bringing l'art pour l'art in the vein of the Kardashians to the Presidential election. I'm not convinced he even fully understands it himself. He's entirely within the domain of habit. That's why he needed new handlers. That's why to even write the article you've posted you have to grant Trump, the image, a solidity that it doesn't possess. The only constant is the Trump aesthetic itself, and it is that which makes belief in all things Trump possible.
Yes, Trump is using his image as a means to an end. But I think that the important breakthrough that we're having is that Trump clearly has a political end in mind. So to use your terminology, Trump is not strictly a case of "art for art's sake."
I guess the difference between you and me is that I think if Trump were elected he'd essentially be an ineffectual twat. I don't think there is anything deep inside Trump beyond art for art's sake. An elected Trump is a Trump who goes on publicity tours for four years until he's thrown out of office while the "junta" runs the country.
and to quote myself in a double sense, that is why i think you might have had a point if trump were a person of "high character", someone with a contemplative air. someone who could at least be a self-conscious warhol instead of the perfectly habitual product and producer of the self-aggrandizing american aesthetic
You could be right. I have freely admitted that a vote for Trump is a roll of the dice.
you know the more i think about it, isn't james goldsmith the dignified version of trump? and doesn't it seem likely that the fascistic impulse in trumpism wouldn't be present in a goldsmith campaign? why is this? isn't it because trump is the pure aestheticization of politics? it's possible that the reason we have such shitty candidates is that anyone whose "political" raison d'etre is NOT aesthetics is not a "viable" candidate in the first place.
Yes, that's not a bad comparison. But I'm not sure how far down the rabbit hole that I'm willing to go with regards to your ultimate point. Clearly some degree of celebrity is required in politics in the sense that those without it will be at a huge disadvantage to those who have it. That said, I'm not quite ready to throw the American public under the stupidity bus as you have. Despite my constant disappointment in people, I still think that they are smart enough to vote on the basis of basic policy considerations instead of on the purely aesthetic.
I dunno man. You seem to have implicitly admitted that you are voting for an image qua image throughout the course of this thread whether you are willing to admit it or not. I don't even fault you for it. I think the whole thing I've been talking about is really another angle on the central tendency toward fascism at the limits of democracy. It's not even clear whether Hillary is the less fascist alternative. I think there's a relation between Benjamin and Baudrillard here. Baudrillard was on to something when he wasn't going off the deep end into his pataphysics. It's hard to have a meaningful politics when the body politic itself is drowning in a sea of distraction. At this point distraction is the foundation of our economy on two levels. Services are directly economic and distraction itself is the only way to get through the day for everyone in the bottom 80%. It's no wonder that the only "art" that proliferates is that which provides reprieve from the burden of deliberate prosumer self-extension.
On September 09 2016 06:38 zlefin wrote: Igne -> issues with the article, I'm noting things as I go along, so it's more stream of consciousness as I read; here's the article link again for convenience: http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/
Seems odd to use an obscure pompous latin nom de plume, but doesn't really matter.
The opening paragraphs are ridiculous histrionics; he notes that others may think it histrionic but seems to persist in his claim of that, no matter how objectively silly it is.
then he goes on a long diatribe against conservative thinkers; not entirely without merit, but clearly emblematic of academic spats. He seems to assume his brand of conservatism is the correct one, even though others obviously will disagree with it. his complaint about the disparity in statements vs actions of the severity could be simplified to: politicians exaggerate problem to get votes (or other support, for non-politicians who, I guess, make their money off speaking fees or think tanks or somesuch). He himself is doing this same thing, exaggerating a problem to get whatever he's after (and/or simply not understanding it well).
some sketchy claims about the causation of shifts in crime patterns; which don't seem at all justified by anything.
he choose to assert things as questionable with a clear lack of understanding, or at least of recognition, of them: " But they don’t dream up inanities like 32 “genders,” elective bathrooms, single-payer, Iran sycophancy, “Islamophobia,” and Black Lives Matter. They merely help ratify them."
then some paranoia and unfounded claims, and/or excessive claims. assertion that all media and universities are corrupt; which is a rather ridiculous overgeneralization, and just ridiculous on its face.
he basically sounds like an extreme far right guy complaining abotu the right for not being far right enough.
his claims of there being a "bipartisan junta" mostly just reek of crazy.
then a paragraph on immigration which has a whole lot of stupid, and doens't relaly connect with reality much.
then another idiot quote: "The level of unity America enjoyed before the bipartisan junta took over can never be restored." which shows a complete lack of understanding of the level of unity in american history.
I think the flaws in this quote rather speak for itself: "The election of 2016 is a test—in my view, the final test—of whether there is any virtù left in what used to be the core of the American nation. If they cannot rouse themselves simply to vote for the first candidate in a generation who pledges to advance their interests, and to vote against the one who openly boasts that she will do the opposite"
so, like I said, a whole lot of drek. well-written drek, but the idea of someone with a rather poor grasp of reality.
PS I know my response isn't that well written.
I actually knew a guy in high school who was a catholic archconservative who went by Publius. I think it's a pretty common moniker among a certain set.
Meh, so you don't like his style. I like a little rhetorical flourish myself.
The bolded part above seems as uncharitable as it is off-the-mark. He's not complaining that conservative politicians trump up provincial issues to get support so much as saying that they trump up non-issues with buzzwords and nonsense
Yeah you are right about the "sketchy claims", but conservatives notoriously have shoddy understandings of criminality and crime rates
Whether he's right about whether his list items are inanities is completely separate from the fact that he is right that most republicans would "merely help ratify them". This is because 1) most republicans are right about those things not necessarily be inanities 2) those things tend to have a majority support anyway, and 3) they know in any case that letting the public express itself in these identity-oriented ways is much better than having it upset property relations
I think he's mostly right about a "bipartisan" junta, that is the "consensus left" that's been discussed on these pages since I posted the Zizek article
Yeah the guy has "drek" for values but at least he's somewhat consistent in his reasoning from those bad assumptions. And the interesting substance of the article is that he's at least talking about something vaguely political as opposed to the circus show put on by the consensus. If anything he's harkening back to the old Foucaldian notions of "race war" in national politics
On September 09 2016 06:26 Plansix wrote: -Decides on foreign relations + war – Sort of and Not really, no. He can take minor military actions. He cannot go to war on his own.
Constitutionally, yes. In reality, no. The last US declaration of war was against *drumroll*.... Romania. (In WWII).
The last time we Congressionally authorized military force was in 2003. Everything since then has at the President's whim, including the war against Libya, ISIS, etc.
On September 09 2016 10:32 Introvert wrote: I've been pretty busy (good thing, because this election cycle sucks) but I thought I'd comment on that Claremont piece because apparently it got a lot of play. I read the first few paragraphs one night and, not seeing anything of value, went to sleep. But it lists so many of the pro-Trump positions and lights a truly magnificent fire to a field of large and imposing strawmen.
I will skip around but I have made a good faith effort to not leave anything out that would be important for the arguments being made.
2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.
Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.
...
If conservatives are right about the importance of virtue, morality, religious faith, stability, character and so on in the individual; if they are right about sexual morality or what came to be termed “family values”; if they are right about the importance of education to inculcate good character and to teach the fundamentals that have defined knowledge in the West for millennia; if they are right about societal norms and public order; if they are right about the centrality of initiative, enterprise, industry, and thrift to a sound economy and a healthy society; if they are right about the soul-sapping effects of paternalistic Big Government and its cannibalization of civil society and religious institutions; if they are right about the necessity of a strong defense and prudent statesmanship in the international sphere—if they are right about the importance of all this to national health and even survival, then they must believe—mustn’t they?—that we are headed off a cliff.
This is in fact histrionic. Every presidential election we are told that this is it. That was said in conservative circles in 2012 for sure. It was less pronounced in 2008, but I think that's because few really knew Obama and it seemed like whoever came after Bush was going to lose (and the cherry on top was that McCain was/is terrible to conservatives).
Well, in my estimation this is not the end. I could comment on why, but I think it should be obvious that, even if you disagree, one could understand why someone else (such as myself) doesn't see this as being "it." Indeed, why is this it? What makes this election different than the one eight or four years ago? Hillary will certainly continue to the progressive policy implementation, will continue to expand the power of the executive branch, and will make a mess of the world. But that doesn't mean this is it. One must keep in mind that the progressive project has been in the works for over a hundred years.To say that this election will be the final touch or the only chance to reverse it is wrong. It might take a hundred years to undo.
Indeed, we are headed for a cliff. But we aren't at the edge yet.
I agree that the author is histrionic in the opening paragraphs, and it's my least favorite part of the article. Keep in mind that he is the first to admit that he's a pessimistic outlier among conservative intellectuals.
But I think that he is directly on point in that last paragraph in the passage that you cite. If you're a social conservative who holds socially conservative values, you absolutely will see the country as being already off the cliff and on the express elevator to hell. Traditional sexual morality is all but dead. The pro-choice vs pro-life debate is over; all that's left there is the beating of a dead horse. Traditional Christian values are on the retreat across the board. There's no way around the fact that social conservatism has been routed. Its Judeo-Christian foundation is in shambles.
And I've only mentioned the social issues. You can pick any of the other items on that laundry list, and the unavoidable truth is that the country is either rapidly moving away from the conservative position, or at best, conservatism is holding its ground. Critically, there is no advancement of a conservative agenda anywhere to be seen. The exceptions to this are in trade policy and military policy, which the author reject as still being good for the country (and I agree with him on this point).
But it’s quite obvious that conservatives don’t believe any such thing, that they feel no such sense of urgency, of an immediate necessity to change course and avoid the cliff. A recent article by Matthew Continetti may be taken as representative—indeed, almost written for the purpose of illustrating the point. Continetti inquires into the “condition of America” and finds it wanting. What does Continetti propose to do about it? The usual litany of “conservative” “solutions,” with the obligatory references to decentralization, federalization, “civic renewal,” and—of course!—Burke. Which is to say, conservatism’s typical combination of the useless and inapt with the utopian and unrealizable. Decentralization and federalism are all well and good, and as a conservative, I endorse them both without reservation. But how are they going to save, or even meaningfully improve, the America that Continetti describes? What can they do against a tidal wave of dysfunction, immorality, and corruption? “Civic renewal” would do a lot of course, but that’s like saying health will save a cancer patient. A step has been skipped in there somewhere. How are we going to achieve “civic renewal”? Wishing for a tautology to enact itself is not a strategy.
Continetti trips over a more promising approach when he writes of “stress[ing] the ‘national interest abroad and national solidarity at home’ through foreign-policy retrenchment, ‘support to workers buffeted by globalization,’ and setting ‘tax rates and immigration levels’ to foster social cohesion." That sounds a lot like Trumpism. But the phrases that Continetti quotes are taken from Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, both of whom, like Continetti, are vociferously—one might even say fanatically—anti-Trump. At least they, unlike Kesler, give Trump credit for having identified the right stance on today’s most salient issues. Yet, paradoxically, they won’t vote for Trump whereas Kesler hints that he will. It’s reasonable, then, to read into Kesler’s esoteric endorsement of Trump an implicit acknowledgment that the crisis is, indeed, pretty dire. I expect a Claremont scholar to be wiser than most other conservative intellectuals, and I am relieved not to be disappointed in this instance.
Yet we may also reasonably ask: What explains the Pollyanna-ish declinism of so many others? That is, the stance that Things-Are-Really-Bad—But-Not-So-Bad-that-We-Have-to-Consider-Anything-Really-Different! The obvious answer is that they don’t really believe the first half of that formulation. If so, like Chicken Little, they should stick a sock in it. Pecuniary reasons also suggest themselves, but let us foreswear recourse to this explanation until we have disproved all the others.
This is a very large strawman. There is lots of urgency. This is in fact why conservatives held their nose and voted for McCain and Romney. This is how the GOP gets their money and support- from conservatives convinced we are fast closing the cliff-road gap. This part is so dishonest. Now there may be some intellectual who would rather have their sweet think-tank bubbles, but this is not the view of the majority. I myself have expressed, shall we say, displeasure at the current Republican party for all that it does (or, often, does not do). But this case he makes sounds exactly like the case made by GOP politicians every time an election comes around.
I disagree. I think the author is right on point. And I think that you're missing his point. His concern in the article is not a specific set of republican politicians or candidates (nor is it really about Trump). Oh no, his indictment is far more damning than that. What he's really arguing is that mainstream intellectual conservatism -- the very foundation of the republican party itself -- is intellectually bankrupt on account of the utter failure of conservatives to both 1) create an agenda that actually tackles the large problems that the country is facing, and 2) even advance their own, highly-limited agenda over the past generation. The author is making the big picture argument.
More to the point, what has conservatism achieved lately? In the last 20 years? The answer—which appears to be “nothing”—might seem to lend credence to the plea that “our ideas haven’t been tried.” Except that the same conservatives who generate those ideas are in charge of selling them to the broader public. If their ideas “haven’t been tried,” who is ultimately at fault? The whole enterprise of Conservatism, Inc., reeks of failure. Its sole recent and ongoing success is its own self-preservation. Conservative intellectuals never tire of praising “entrepreneurs” and “creative destruction.” Dare to fail! they exhort businessmen. Let the market decide! Except, um, not with respect to us. Or is their true market not the political arena, but the fundraising circuit?
Indeed, there has been precious little done besides slowing the advance. This is a common alt-right argument, which refuses to recognize that conservatives have been out for power for those 20 years. It isn't the same as the "dorm-room Marxism," because, imo, conservative ideas have been tried, and do work.
So let's get back to the author's point: How many times must traditional conservatism be rejected at the ballot box before we question its political legitimacy and viability? At what point does it become a failed ideology?
On September 09 2016 10:32 Introvert wrote: I've been pretty busy (good thing, because this election cycle sucks) but I thought I'd comment on that Claremont piece because apparently it got a lot of play. I read the first few paragraphs one night and, not seeing anything of value, went to sleep. But it lists so many of the pro-Trump positions and lights a truly magnificent fire to a field of large and imposing strawmen.
I will skip around but I have made a good faith effort to not leave anything out that would be important for the arguments being made.
2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.
Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.
...
If conservatives are right about the importance of virtue, morality, religious faith, stability, character and so on in the individual; if they are right about sexual morality or what came to be termed “family values”; if they are right about the importance of education to inculcate good character and to teach the fundamentals that have defined knowledge in the West for millennia; if they are right about societal norms and public order; if they are right about the centrality of initiative, enterprise, industry, and thrift to a sound economy and a healthy society; if they are right about the soul-sapping effects of paternalistic Big Government and its cannibalization of civil society and religious institutions; if they are right about the necessity of a strong defense and prudent statesmanship in the international sphere—if they are right about the importance of all this to national health and even survival, then they must believe—mustn’t they?—that we are headed off a cliff.
This is in fact histrionic. Every presidential election we are told that this is it. That was said in conservative circles in 2012 for sure. It was less pronounced in 2008, but I think that's because few really knew Obama and it seemed like whoever came after Bush was going to lose (and the cherry on top was that McCain was/is terrible to conservatives).
Well, in my estimation this is not the end. I could comment on why, but I think it should be obvious that, even if you disagree, one could understand why someone else (such as myself) doesn't see this as being "it." Indeed, why is this it? What makes this election different than the one eight or four years ago? Hillary will certainly continue to the progressive policy implementation, will continue to expand the power of the executive branch, and will make a mess of the world. But that doesn't mean this is it. One must keep in mind that the progressive project has been in the works for over a hundred years.To say that this election will be the final touch or the only chance to reverse it is wrong. It might take a hundred years to undo.
Indeed, we are headed for a cliff. But we aren't at the edge yet.
I agree that the author is histrionic in the opening paragraphs, and it's my least favorite part of the article. Keep in mind that he is the first to admit that he's a pessimistic outlier among conservative intellectuals.
But I think that he is directly on point in that last paragraph in the passage that you cite. If you're a social conservative who holds socially conservative values, you absolutely will see the country as being already off the cliff and on the express elevator to hell. Traditional sexual morality is all but dead. The pro-choice vs pro-life debate is over; all that's left there is the beating of a dead horse. Traditional Christian values are on the retreat across the board. There's no way around the fact that social conservatism has been routed. Its Judeo-Christian foundation is in shambles.
And I've only mentioned the social issues. You can pick any of the other items on that laundry list, and the unavoidable truth is that the country is either rapidly moving away from the conservative position, or at best, conservatism is holding its ground. Critically, there is no advancement of a conservative agenda anywhere to be seen. The exceptions to this are in trade policy and military policy, which the author reject as still being good for the country (and I agree with him on this point).
But it’s quite obvious that conservatives don’t believe any such thing, that they feel no such sense of urgency, of an immediate necessity to change course and avoid the cliff. A recent article by Matthew Continetti may be taken as representative—indeed, almost written for the purpose of illustrating the point. Continetti inquires into the “condition of America” and finds it wanting. What does Continetti propose to do about it? The usual litany of “conservative” “solutions,” with the obligatory references to decentralization, federalization, “civic renewal,” and—of course!—Burke. Which is to say, conservatism’s typical combination of the useless and inapt with the utopian and unrealizable. Decentralization and federalism are all well and good, and as a conservative, I endorse them both without reservation. But how are they going to save, or even meaningfully improve, the America that Continetti describes? What can they do against a tidal wave of dysfunction, immorality, and corruption? “Civic renewal” would do a lot of course, but that’s like saying health will save a cancer patient. A step has been skipped in there somewhere. How are we going to achieve “civic renewal”? Wishing for a tautology to enact itself is not a strategy.
Continetti trips over a more promising approach when he writes of “stress[ing] the ‘national interest abroad and national solidarity at home’ through foreign-policy retrenchment, ‘support to workers buffeted by globalization,’ and setting ‘tax rates and immigration levels’ to foster social cohesion." That sounds a lot like Trumpism. But the phrases that Continetti quotes are taken from Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, both of whom, like Continetti, are vociferously—one might even say fanatically—anti-Trump. At least they, unlike Kesler, give Trump credit for having identified the right stance on today’s most salient issues. Yet, paradoxically, they won’t vote for Trump whereas Kesler hints that he will. It’s reasonable, then, to read into Kesler’s esoteric endorsement of Trump an implicit acknowledgment that the crisis is, indeed, pretty dire. I expect a Claremont scholar to be wiser than most other conservative intellectuals, and I am relieved not to be disappointed in this instance.
Yet we may also reasonably ask: What explains the Pollyanna-ish declinism of so many others? That is, the stance that Things-Are-Really-Bad—But-Not-So-Bad-that-We-Have-to-Consider-Anything-Really-Different! The obvious answer is that they don’t really believe the first half of that formulation. If so, like Chicken Little, they should stick a sock in it. Pecuniary reasons also suggest themselves, but let us foreswear recourse to this explanation until we have disproved all the others.
This is a very large strawman. There is lots of urgency. This is in fact why conservatives held their nose and voted for McCain and Romney. This is how the GOP gets their money and support- from conservatives convinced we are fast closing the cliff-road gap. This part is so dishonest. Now there may be some intellectual who would rather have their sweet think-tank bubbles, but this is not the view of the majority. I myself have expressed, shall we say, displeasure at the current Republican party for all that it does (or, often, does not do). But this case he makes sounds exactly like the case made by GOP politicians every time an election comes around.
I disagree. I think the author is right on point. And I think that you're missing his point. His concern in the article is not a specific set of republican politicians or candidates (nor is it really about Trump). Oh no, his indictment is far more damning than that. What he's really arguing is that mainstream intellectual conservatism -- the very foundation of the republican party itself -- is intellectually bankrupt on account of the utter failure of conservatives to both 1) create an agenda that actually tackles the large problems that the country is facing, and 2) even advance its own, highly-limited agenda over the past generation. The author is making the big picture argument.
More to the point, what has conservatism achieved lately? In the last 20 years? The answer—which appears to be “nothing”—might seem to lend credence to the plea that “our ideas haven’t been tried.” Except that the same conservatives who generate those ideas are in charge of selling them to the broader public. If their ideas “haven’t been tried,” who is ultimately at fault? The whole enterprise of Conservatism, Inc., reeks of failure. Its sole recent and ongoing success is its own self-preservation. Conservative intellectuals never tire of praising “entrepreneurs” and “creative destruction.” Dare to fail! they exhort businessmen. Let the market decide! Except, um, not with respect to us. Or is their true market not the political arena, but the fundraising circuit?
Indeed, there has been precious little done besides slowing the advance. This is a common alt-right argument, which refuses to recognize that conservatives have been out for power for those 20 years. It isn't the same as the "dorm-room Marxism," because, imo, conservative ideas have been tried, and do work.
So let's get back to the author's point: How many times must traditional conservatism be rejected at the ballot box before we question its political legitimacy and viability? At what point does it become a failed ideology?
One thing to say at the outset: I analyzed the article as though the author was chastising and attempting to convert people aren't voting for Trump. Even if that isn't his only focus, it is certainly his biggest point. He both starts and ends with it.
I am a generally pessimistic individual, so I agree that on many issues we are gone for the foreseeable future. But Trump does nothing to advance any of those principles. In fact, I argued that he undermines them. You yourself have said that if Trump wins, it is probably the end of conservatism as we have known it. While it may be dead for now already, I'd rather not shoot it again to make sure.
And I don't think it's dead. It appeared somewhat in the 90s, and stopped amnesty dead once in the Bush years and once in the Obama years, which I think Trump voters should appreciate. But I don't mean to keep score.
Multiple people now have likened 2016 to Dunkirk, not Flight 93. I lean more that way.
Clearly this isn't the same country as it was in 1984, but I'm not sure that's the failure of the ideology instead of those trusted to advance it (though I think I know what the liberals in this thread would say). Being a good conservative, I would place the blame squarely on those who had the power to move forward an agenda. I don't think that the "arc of history bends towards justice." I don't think it "bends" at all, except by an outside force. I would rather work to advance conservative principles than throw them out. I'd be willing to make electoral compromises to win elections in the meantime (e.g., Romney).
But Trump isn't going to advance any version of what I believe, so why vote for it?
"Well, he's not Hillary."
Again, an incredibly persuasive argument. But I think, as I said before, that it is better to make clear the differences with Trump then it is to acquiesce. If I thought Trump was just Romney 2.0, I'd probably vote for him. But while Romney was a bland, forgettable placeholder, Trump could actively make conservatism worse. If I thought we merely had a different perspective on trade... but that's not all.
And finally, I find him a detestable human being. But that's just the frosting on the cake.
So in summary, I think rather than preserving (or ion fantasy land advancing) any conservative principles, Trump actively undermines them and makes them harder to move forward in the future. I don't mean to sound smarmy, but I'd rather not have the orange letter. I don't think Trump is reliable enough to take the risk.
Now, Trump has been acting slightly better lately (Putin love aside. And that's a big aside). I've never said I was "NeverTrump" because I'm not. He could still convince me, but at this point he has a lot of ground to make up.
I don't buy the "he's not Hillary" argument from a conservative standpoint. Especially regarding the respect for the state of law and individual rights, which are probably core conservative principles, Hillary is preferable to Trump. Gay marriage or whatever should be fringe issues.
On September 09 2016 04:56 Danglars wrote: Author goes way too far on "all the rest were more of the same." No way. He does a decent job hitting on the problem of nevertrumpers but could do better on the issue of academic conservatives focusing on interparty disagreements instead of advancing the fundamentals.
How so? Keep in mind that the author's focus is on trade policy, immigration policy, and foreign/war policy. How did any of the other republican candidates present a meaningfully different message and platform concerning those issues than the one that Hillary offers now?
Cruz, for one, wasn't there to "show up and lose." He was the most outspoken member of the Senate to pound immigration and conservative positions on the military and foreign policy. Trade policy is so wild with Trump in the mix that my only comment on him versus others is the author's "worse than imperfect." Trade policy should be America first, but the primary way to ensure that is to open free trade and work hard on labor laws and tax laws to not artificially hurt the competitiveness of the American worker and force American employers to keep money overseas for fear of the penalties for bringing it back home. He simply sweeps up many truths (insanity of nevertrump, hopeless optimism, intellectual conservative complacency with the status quo of losing--easily seen in national review & weekly standard) and imputes them to apply to every other candidate.
But now that I've absorbed the article in it's entirety, the author hits it out of the park on his main points. Only in a corrupt republic, in corrupt times, could a Trump rise. The Trump persona has been the only big tool against The Megaphone for a very long time. The vilification of Trump went way too far to find common ground amongst detestable enemies, and I might add that I never found the same fierce opposition to the schemes and movements of the left out of a kind of defeatism. If all you have is blind optimism, it is a tacit acceptance that the left is right: leftism is truer than conservatism because we're all doing hunky dory losing ground for decades because the next single piece of tax legislation will magically right the ship.
One other big gripe with the text: the writer really does assume the Trump departure from Hillary-esque ideas. But he's spent a great deal of time with establishment figures who made a job out of dealing in the same double talk the Hillary and the Democrats do like they were his best buddies in the coming fights. He picked Manafort and the old Bob Dole buddies to run things for the longest time. He and his supporters at convention worked to give Priebus unprecendented power to use at his discretion between conventions ("to concentrate and centralize more power at the top of the party, and to shut off opportunities for power in the party to flow from the bottom up.”-Blackwell). So "Publius" is willing to rake people like Kesler over the coals, but won't tell both sides of the story on Trump beyond generic flaws. "Trump is the most liberal Republican nominee since Thomas Dewey" and that should mean something if we're faulting conservatism. Far from departing from conservative orthodoxy, he's doing his own thing and trying to find common ground with Bernie supporters of all people. He'd have better success encouraging them to vote Johnson. + Show Spoiler +
"What people don’t know is that Obama got tremendous numbers of people out of the country, Bush the same thing. Lots of people were brought out of the country with the existing laws. Well, I’m gonna do the same thing."
--The man who has no idea what Bush & Obama did
Oh, and, I suppose, for those who like to pour a tall one and dream big, a second American Revolution that restores Constitutionalism, limited government, and a 28% top marginal rate.
I don't see where people get the whole "conservationism has failed and loses at the ballot box" when it arguable is having a high water mark of power it hasn't had in a generation with control over the legislative branch. Granted it can't get a good presidential canidate but its winning the majority of elections in the states even if the ones that arn't mostly republican auto wins.
I mean it needs a good reorientation and a leader you can actually vote for but its not in anywhere near a bad situation I'd say. Dems have a bigger problem beacuse they've basically cooped a bunch of conservative ideals to stay competitive after the Reagan years. If anything merkel has taught the world is that people don't really care that much about social issues and you can drop them just fine.
The best thing that could happen to the republicans is for the dems to wake up and try to be liberals again.
On September 09 2016 13:49 Nyxisto wrote: I don't buy the "he's not Hillary" argument from a conservative standpoint. Especially regarding the respect for the state of law and individual rights, which are probably core conservative principles, Hillary is preferable to Trump. Gay marriage or whatever should be fringe issues.
The problem is that you can't sell Hillary on any conservative. Respect for law goes out the door with all her email scandels and individual rights have always taken a back seat to "the good of the country" for conservatives.
With her bandwagon support for gay rights it'd probably be the last thing to not sell hillary on conservatives. Guns are the thing that breaks support with conservatives.
Edit: I'm inventing "bill clinton conservative" and going to use that term from now on and sometimes BCC.
On September 09 2016 14:59 Sermokala wrote: I don't see where people get the whole "conservationism has failed and loses at the ballot box" when it arguable is having a high water mark of power it hasn't had in a generation with control over the legislative branch. ...
I don't know, but I'm guessing the answer is going to have something to do with the particular definition of "conservative". In other words, it's a broad description and many people who call themselves conservatives think that the actions of other people who call themselves conservatives are thoroughly un-conservative. (Have I obfuscated that sentence sufficiently yet? :/ )
On September 09 2016 14:59 Sermokala wrote: I don't see where people get the whole "conservationism has failed and loses at the ballot box" when it arguable is having a high water mark of power it hasn't had in a generation with control over the legislative branch. ...
I don't know, but I'm guessing the answer is going to have something to do with the particular definition of "conservative". In other words, it's a broad description and many people who call themselves conservatives think that the actions of other people who call themselves conservatives are thoroughly un-conservative. (Have I obfuscated that sentence sufficiently yet? :/ )
Pretty much. Bill clinton was a better conservative and the bush's were better liberals then the conservatives and liberals they fought against.
On September 07 2016 05:14 KwarK wrote: Trump has a stance on the environment, he thinks it was something made up by the Chinese to make American manufacturing less competitive. Never mind that you can't fucking breathe the air in some Chinese cities.
And you can't drink the water in vast swathes of the USA that have been fracked. Ever watched the doco gasland? The tapwater in many of those homes is flammable! All under the Obama administration.
Not to say this is in any way a good thing (I am against fracking for environmental reasons, although I think the safety could be resolved with good regulations), but in what world would a GOP candidate have advocated regulating the fracking industry?
In fact, Trump's stance on fracking is that we need to get rid of any incentives for solar or wind power, and that would lead to fracking being even more economically viable.
Never said they would, just pointing out how ridiculous it is for Dems to say global warming is such a huge issue when under their watch US oil output has doubled.
Watching Clintons "speech" from Cleveland recently - these coughing episodes are really getting worse.Watch this video for a couple of minutes and see for yourselves guys, how can someone be president in this condition? Struggling to put five words together.
Please, someone just watch a couple of minutes of that video and tell me how the fuck she is supposed to debate Trump on national television.
Just wanted to talk to you about the bold section since the rest is horse shit.
Energy independence is not mutually exclusive to reducing global warming. The aim is to do both. There is no energy replacement for oil as of now that the American people would expect. So what does Obama do? Increase funding on climate change research and alternative energy research while also making gas cheaper for Americans during Bush's toppling of the economy. If you cut the people's spending by making gas cheaper, they can more easily recover from the financial crisis. Now that wasn't the only thing he did--its one of the many compromises he helped wrangle to nickel and dime his way out of the debt. And it was from that hard effort that we've had the longest continual job growth in american history, cheaper gas, a huge reduction in Bush' debt, and are now far enough away from the horrors of the crisis that people are buying houses en mass again.
That's called a compromise. Aiming to reach a goal, and making sacrifices where needed to achieve that goal. Not everything is a moral quandary where you're either 100% all in or 100% all out. That's just stupid and immature thinking. Wait--how old are you? If you're a kid then it would make sense why you'd say such stupid things out loud.
So basically the US would never undermine the petrodollar by encouraging movement away from oil.... It's no coincidence that after Saddam Hussein was ousted that Iraqi oil was once again priced in Dollars not Euros.Can America be seen as some kind of climate change fighting hero when they're so desperate to keep the petrodollar system afloat?
In October 2000 Iraq insisted on dumping the US dollar - 'the currency of the enemy' - for the more multilateral euro.
'It was seen as economically bad because the entire global oil trade is conducted in dollars,' says Fadhil Chalabi, executive director of the Centre for Global Energy Studies.
A more compelling argument as to why the US invaded Iraq than WMDs which even UN weapons inspectors said didn't exist no?
On September 09 2016 14:59 Sermokala wrote: I don't see where people get the whole "conservationism has failed and loses at the ballot box" when it arguable is having a high water mark of power it hasn't had in a generation with control over the legislative branch. ...
I don't know, but I'm guessing the answer is going to have something to do with the particular definition of "conservative". In other words, it's a broad description and many people who call themselves conservatives think that the actions of other people who call themselves conservatives are thoroughly un-conservative. (Have I obfuscated that sentence sufficiently yet? :/ )
Pretty much. Bill clinton was a better conservative and the bush's were better liberals then the conservatives and liberals they fought against.
I was watching a 1992 US presidential debate a few months back. Huge difference - parties and supporters far less polarised, audience more polite, more intelligent questions from both the audience and moderators.
Any discussion of conservatism from a big picture standpoint that does not account for how robust conservatism remains at the local and state levels is an ill-conceived discussion imo.
EPT
