On this slowest of slow days we have a pointer to an enjoyable essay on the death of Never Trumpism by Emerald Robinson.
The Never Trumpers have self-exiled. If not converted. Those in exile still pine for a return to the Old Ways, in which they were loyal opposition, feted and consulted as the important people they knew themselves to be.
Robinson asks, “What was your favorite blunder, or blown prediction, which marked their ignominious end?” Hers was “when Bill Kristol, longtime editor of the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, showed up in New Hampshire telling people he would run against President Trump in 2020.”
Mine was when National Review put out their “Never Trump” edition. That proved what we had long suspected. That there was no difference between Democrats and Republicans or liberals and conservatives. The real divisions are between progressives and traditionalists, fantasists and realists, man worshipers and God worshipers.
The linked essay is by a NRO neocon who said “Many conservatives who oppose Trump have felt it morally imperative to declare that they will never vote for him, even if he wins the Republican nomination. They will vote instead for Hillary Clinton, or for a third-party candidate, or a write-in candidate, or no one at all.” This happened. But we recall that there is no difference between liberals and conservatives, and so it didn’t matter. Those of us on the other side of the Democratrepublican divide knew Michael Anton was right in his “The Flight 93 election,” which Robinson cites.
And now the “Never Trump intellectual crowd has no momentum and no popular following these days.” Robinson says, and we agree, though she still writes of a liberal-conservative divide, “it now seems self-evident that conservative pundits were preposterously out of touch.”
This myopia has several causes. The first is a kind of cultural “capture” that occurs when conservatives live in blue districts and big cities too long. They become, in other words, clueless (RINOS). The second reason is more obvious: many of these people are paid to be openly hostile to Trump’s agenda. The free trade absolutists at AEI and Cato are on salary to oppose any protectionist trade policies. Likewise, hawkish interventionists such as Max Boot knew they had no professional future once Trump’s isolationist instincts became policy.
Then comes her keenest observation:
The greatest disconnect is religious and cultural: the Republican Party is overwhelmingly Caucasian and Christian and traditional on social issues, while its pundits skew Jewish and agnostic and libertarian. Krauthammer wanted to have it both ways, which is not unlike the hedging that Brooks and Goldberg have displayed. George Will went so far as to say: “I’m an atheist. An agnostic is someone who is not sure. I’m pretty sure. I see no evidence of God.” Meanwhile, Gerson is a liberal Episcopalian who took to the pages of the Atlantic to attack evangelicals for supporting Trump. In sum, the conservative intellectuals didn’t understand the base’s concerns about religious liberty because they hardly cared for religion — which should have disqualified them long ago.
As Robinson rightly says of these people, they are “heretics who claim to be spokesmen for the Christian base.” Surprising, is it not, the number of Christians who put their trust and faith in those who did not believe Jesus Christ is Lord.
Not one of them every said that everybody ought to find God as soon as they can. Because the end draws near. Maybe not the end. But your end.
Comments to the article are worth scanning. People are not fond of Never Trumpers.
“Never Trumpers” are conservative ideologues thus ‘neverlanders’. Ideology blinds folks to reality. Trump is a practical conservative who uses good ideas wherever he finds them. Up with Trump!
Do not mis-under-estimate the power of the Trotskyite neocons’ information warfare. They are experts in manipulating Normal Americans’ feelings.
They have burrowed deep, deep into nearly all organizations that would be considered “conservative.”
They took over and destroyed the Tea Party–the most recent Normal American rising that expressed Normals’ issues clearly–Taxed Enough Already. Within a couple years nearly every Tea Party meeting was obsessively focused on “Sharia! They’re coming for your children!” This was the result of a massive influence effort by the neocons.
Robinson’s analysis is badly off-the-mark in asserting that the neocons are “paid” to hold their views. Very, very dangerous mis-assessment. They are totally beholden to their foreign master’s interests. But it’s not “pay” that creates that loyalty. It is much, much deeper than that. Their motivation is a tribal connection. They are acting in the interests of their foreign master because they believe their foreign master’s very survival is at stake. While they would likely lose their positions, publications, and status, should they actually advocate for American interests, they’re not doing it for the “pay.”
The key is that the neocons are not, and have never been, “conservative.” They are advocates for the interests of their foreign masters. They are experts at fitting in to whichever American political skin is needed for their foreign master to prosper. Communism? Did it! Trotskyism? Did it! Liberalism? Did it! Republicanism? Did it! Anti-communism? Did it! Scoop Jacksonism? Did it! Mondalism? Did it! Carterism? Did it! Conservatism? Did it! Anti-Trumpism? Did it! Progressivism? Doing it!
They are snakes in sheep’s clothing. Real Normal Americans have been fooled, and are being fooled (see the Normals’ slobbering over the fake “conservative” Krauthammer’s death).
Watch the snake’s shedding their skin. What will their next chameleon-color be? I don’t know–but you can watch as it happens!
See the slimy Max Boot’s exhortations against Normals in today’s Washington Post:
“That is why I join Will and other principled conservatives, both current and former Republicans, in rooting for a Democratic takeover of both houses in November. Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must be destroyed before it can be rebuilt.”
The sooner these anti-Normals are outed, the better.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-left-the-republican-party-now-i-want-democrats-to-take-over/2018/07/03/54a4007a-7e38-11e8-b0ef-fffcabeff946_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9984cc7e374c
Kent, I could not agree more. I recoil at the statements, “they are dumb”, “they have not looked at all the information”, “they are stupid”, etc. The “Pronoun People” are anything but those descriptors. Those wielding Power in D.C. are the “Most Accomplished Liars” we could have elected and there are many others “They” have put in place that we cannot touch, ref. FBI, CIA, IRS, and the list goes on. If I stand back and look at what has taken place over more than a century of time, we have been slowly maneuvered into what looks, for all intents and purposes, like a “Third World Country”. “They” have managed to do what every “invading” group knows to be needed for success, divide and conquer, take over “communications”, education, and remove all opposition once you have majority control of the above groups. POTUS Trump is the “refreshing” difference but will not stand if we, “The People” do not participate. The least painful way is at the “Voting Booth” but the public needs to understand what they are voting for. The next best method is much more “confrontational” . What are we going to do?
Sad, but ultimately not surprising, that Dr. Briggs lists as this author’s “keenest observation” a variation of “Jews control the media.” He drives this home by wringing his hands about the regrettable influence of “those who did not believe Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Everything here and in the linked article is a festival of genetic fallacies. Don’t bother to attend to the arguments of the researchers at the Cato institute, because they’re paid to make them. And don’t bother to listen to what George Will has to say, because he wears bow ties.
Hmm. I believe Briggs has been sighted wearing a bow tie now and then. But I’d never confuse him with George Will or an anti-Semite.
There were a few Never-Trumpers commenting here in the past (I’ll concede that some turned in their lifetime membership when faced with the reality of Hillary), I’d be more interested in their take on this.
Ten years ago, Trump was a registered Democrat who was touting Mrs. Clinton for VP or even Prez. He supported abortion on demand, and the Kelo decision on seizing private property from the little people to give to wealthy developers.
He claims to have changed his mind on much of this. Maybe he has.
Why do folks (Republicans/conservatives/libertarians/neo-fascists) who incessantly worship, venerate, and revere money & materialism, continue to label themselves “Christian”?
Shecky,
“…incessantly worship, venerate, and revere money & materialism…”
Please provide an example of these “folks” you think you’ve observed…?
Thanks.
Kent, I second that question. I do not know what “list of talking points” Shecky comes from but he needs to back up what he says with, at least, an example or two…
Shecky R must stay on topic.
@Lee Philips
You cannot expect people being paid to make a certain argument, making the argument on the merits of the argument itself.
Regarding the genetics, nobody is mentioning the race of the supposedly Conservative thinkers (not even using modern typographic conventions like ((())) ). The argument is that a Conservative political party based on Christian values doesn’t have leading thinkers that are self-confessed Atheists or even Agnostics, or some religion that doesn’t share much with Christianity.
I would not expect that, and in Europe, where most countries have lots of political parties, it doesn’t happen a lot. A Christian-Democratic party has Christian intellecuals, the Atheists and Agnostics are Conservatives, or Liberals, or Social-Democrats, or Socialists, or Communists.
Lee – The American media is, to a very great extent, owned and controlled by Jews, atheists, and socialists. This includes many of the ‘conservative’ foundations, think tanks, and pundits that have failed to conserve one single part of the culture. Not even the Lady’s room, the definition of marriage, or the concept of insanity. They are even now ceding ground to the pedophiles.
Please provide evidence to the contrary, if you have it. Which you don’t. Because this is the truth.
“The American media is, to a very great extent, owned and controlled by Jews, atheists, and socialists.”
Imagine how much better the media would be if this were actually true.
“Why do folks (Republicans/conservatives/libertarians/neo-fascists) who incessantly worship, venerate, and revere money & materialism, continue to label themselves “Christian”?”
Shecky, give me all of your money.
Christianity is not a political party. Whether it’s true or false.
Neo anything isn’t something anybody wants to be called and the only nice neos are neonates.
Neoreactionists are unoriginal!
Just be neon. They’re in fashion this summer. Coral is the pantone? colour of the year.
If that’s not racist I don’t know what is.
Sooo glad that Trump won 2016 and that he will win 2020. Not that President Trump is perfect…..no…..nor am I…..but God’s mercy is upon us, upon our country.
Will we as a country receive His gifts, or continue down the road of deception, and loose upon ourselves that which we have accepted as a country…..killing the unborn and just born by their mothers and so much more.
That blood shed, is piling up and filling our streets, our highways and byways, our waterways, our skies. The insolence of accepting same sex marriage against God’s creation of marriage….the horrid work of trangendering children…..and so much more.
Look, see, know, understand, have ears to hear and eyes to see. America is falling. Will we wake up??? Progressives, conservatives, democrats, republicans…..all of us…….the price we will pay for not honoring God will be horrendous. Make Jesus your life.
God bless, C-Marie