The political world was shocked yesterday when CNN ran a poll showing Trump running two points ahead. I was not. Faithful readers of this blog know that I have long predicted a Trump victory. I have long also stated that I will not be voting for Trump because I view him as basically a liberal Democrat wearing a Republican disguise. I confess that I have toyed over the past few weeks with changing my mind and supporting Trump due to how dangerous a threat to the Republic Hillary Clinton is. However, Trump has always managed to say or do something bizarre that has confirmed me in my anti-Trump sentiments. I desperately want to see Clinton beaten on election day, and I know that the only way to accomplish that is by Trump being elected President. That is my quandry: he is a man of little character, completely unfitted for the office. Clinton is more unfit for the office and is a thorough going scoundrel, yet I cannot bring myself to support Trump.
Dennis Prager, who was vehemently anti-Trump in the primaries, at National Review Online makes the best case possible for a reluctant vote for Trump:
I cannot speak for all conservatives who are voting for Trump, but I can speak for many in making this assertion:
We have the same principles as the Never Trumpers — especially those of us who strongly opposed nominating Trump; that’s why we opposed him, after all. So almost everything that prevents Never Trumpers from voting for Trump also troubled us about the candidate. (I should note that some are less troubled today.)
So where do we differ?
We differ on this: We hold that defeating Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, and the Left is also a principle. And that it is the greater principle.
Obviously, the Never Trumpers do not believe that. On the contrary, some of the most thoughtful Never Trumpers repeatedly tell us that the nation can survive four years of Hillary Clinton–Democrat rule. And then, they say, conservatism will have cleansed itself and be able to take back the nation after four calamitous years of a Hillary Clinton presidency — whereas if Trump wins, he will be the de facto face of conservatism, and then conservatism will have been dealt a potentially fatal setback.
This argument assumes that America can survive another four years of Democratic rule. So, it really depends on what “survive” means. If it means that there will be a country called the United States of America after another four years of a Democratic presidency and a left-wing Supreme Court for quite possibly another four decades (as well as dozens of lifetime appointments to the equally important lower federal courts), the country will surely survive.
But I do not believe that the country will surely survive as the country it was founded to be. In that regard we are at the most perilous tipping point of American history.
It is true that the country’s survival was threatened in the 1860s, and only a terrible civil war kept it whole. But, with the colossal and awful exception of slavery, neither side challenged the founding principles of America.
That is not the case today. One side seeks to undo just about every founding principle that made America exceptional. Important examples include small and limited government; preservation of the power of the states to serve as political and social laboratories; a belief in individual responsibility; a society rooted in Judeo-Christian morality — meaning a society composed of people most of whom affirm God and Bible-based moral teachings; and a deep sense of a unifying national American identity and destiny.
The Left is successfully undoing every one of those founding principles.
In fact, the Left and the Democratic party (which are now indistinguishable) boast of their aim to do so. As then-senator Barack Obama prophesied, accurately, in 2008:
“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
And for the first time in American history, a man calling himself a socialist won the great majority of young people’s votes in the Democratic presidential primaries. Senator Bernie Sanders’s new political movement is accurately named “Our Revolution.” But for conservatives, “our revolution” occurred in 1776. So the Left is in fact leading a counter-revolution.
Therefore, with another four years of Democrat-Left rule — meaning a nearly permanent left-wing Supreme Court and left-wing judges controlling lower courts; the further erosion of federalism; an exponential growth in the power of the federal government; further leftist control of education; and the de-Americanizing of America in part by effectively eliminating its borders, in part by substituting multiculturalism for American identity, and in part by giving millions of illegal immigrants citizenship — America will not be America.
We conservatives who will vote for Trump understand that he is the only vehicle we have to prevent this. We recognize that though there are some fine individuals who hold left-wing views, Leftism is a terminal cancer in the American bloodstream and soul. So our first and greatest principle is to destroy this cancer before it destroys us. We therefore see voting for Donald Trump as political chemotherapy needed to prevent our demise. And at this time, that is, by far, the greatest principle.
I’m in full agreement with your assessment of Trump and in most agreement of Prager’s. My largest reservation about a Trumpr presidency is what becomes of the Republican Party when they have Democrat as their fully charged leader? But then I remember how liberal this party has effectively operated over the last 12+years and I think it’s time to have a party revolution and what better way than to give it a liberal leader…
In any course, there is no good choice, so I’m left with the final thought of the lesser of two evils, of which choice is very clear. Most 20th and 21st century presidents have had had greatly flawed characters. Wilson was a progressive racists, most DEM’s have had affairs while in office, Johnson was as unethical as Nixon, the Bush’s were less flawed but we’re corporatist, and the memory is too fresh with the the last three DEM’s to need to mention. Reagan stands out uniquely as a man with high moral,standards and great character.
In that light Trump’s flawed character isn’t so bad, and he could eleven prove to be better than most ( albeit far from Reagan).
Good metaphor, Donald as Chemotherapy.
The cancer hasn’t infected all of America, thank God, and even though using Chemo. is a sickening proposition, it is a measure that might save the what the founding fathers birthed.
In Michigan we will fight the cancer.
Never Hillary.
Never.
Let our actions prove St. Teresa of Calcutta correct; There will not be a woman president because she was already aborted.
Storm Heaven with prayers….. please!
The latest type of cancer to infect the populous; http://www.lifenews.com/2016/09/06/admin-proposed-rule-prohibiting-states-from-defunding-planned-parenthood/
We must take tough measures to eradicate the above camp, who is spreading this cancer.
Enough is enough!
End the disease. It’s killing us.
http://time.com/4475634/trans-man-pregnancy-evan/
This is the face of an America that didn’t stop to ask itself if it should do it, just because they could do it. This is the face of a society that embraces disordered behavior and disregards the consequences… trampling if you will, over the word of God. This is the face of defiance.
Cancer is too kind a word.
An absolutely fantastic article at the Claremont Review: The Flight 93 Election. There are too many quotable sections to list, but here’s a sample:
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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.
That mass of tripe helped confirm my instincts in not supporting Trump! Better than Hillary he is, and that is the absolute best that can be said of him.
Four more years of desecration?
https://goo.gl/images/kYQHys
Can you imagine what Hillary will shine on the once honorable White House?
Haha. Well, I’m happy to let history vindicate the article’s perspective.
Buchananites and History are not on speaking terms.
Thus spake the right-liberal.
Thus speaks someone who knows that Buchanan has no more understanding of history than a pig does about penance. Anyone who thinks I am a right-liberal hasn’t been paying attention to what I have been writing here for the past eight years.
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.
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The problem with trade agreements has been delineated by Jagdish Baghwati: they’re not about trade anymore; they’re four-digit-page-count lallapaloozas chock-a-block with special interest carve-outs. Buchanan was all about a 15% tariff on imports, which is cargo-cult economics and cargo-cult public finance. Gephardt had some satisfactory points that all the trade agreements seemed to leave extreme protection in place guarding the South Korean market (among others), but that was laden with speeches where he showed up at work-sites promising to save specific jobs (i.e. a special-interest carve-out).
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Ron Paul’s views on foreign policy are that if events are inconvenient to your world-view, concoct fanciful alternative histories.
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We do need to put that wall up, erect a dedicated interior immigration police that does nothing but enforce immigration law conjoined to special magistrate’s courts and special jails.
Anyone who thinks I am a right-liberal hasn’t been paying attention to what I have been writing here for the past eight years.
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The smart money says if your name were Donald Margolin he’d have called you a neocon.
No offense, but this really seems to be a generational divide. Boomers and Silents tend to be firmly entrenched in the Overton Window of today’s political system, in which the differences between “liberals” and “conservatives” are seen as a vast ideological gulf, rather than the narrow (and ever-narrowing) brook that they actually are.
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But “conservatism” just is right-liberalism. (Note, e.g., how many conservatives are fond of calling themselves “classical liberals” in a bid to recover “true” liberalism from its left wing.) Liberalism is the anthrocratic state religion of the Western world, and no mainstream Western political party that I’m aware of rejects liberalism in any fundamental sense. Even Marine Le Pen’s Front National and other European nationalist parties pay lip service to many liberal shibboleths in order to have a place at the table.
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Liberalism, in the broadest sense, must be rejected tout court, meaning pretty much every political and social innovation that traces its lineage back to the Enlightenment. To do this, we need a true dissident right, one that’s truly illiberal and just as importantly, cheerfully immune to the liberal boo-words that turn conservatives into quivering heaps of jelly.
Prager’s always been wobbly and prone to falling in line.
One little thing that bugs me about “Never Trump” is that it is a little like an unfinished sentence. Akin to saying to a person, “God bless!” with out saying a direct object in that sentence. Just God bless…. whomever whatever however I guess.
Never trump? Then what?
“Liberalism, in the broadest sense, must be rejected tout court, meaning pretty much every political and social innovation that traces its lineage back to the Enlightenment.”
Baby and bath water. With that broad definition a term like liberalism becomes meaningless, especially since much of what is called liberalism merely built on prior movements in Western thought. The Enlightenment was, like most moments in history, a mixed bag, and I would say that we should keep the good and reject the evil, always remembering these maxims from Burke:
“Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.”
“A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it, but a good patriot and a true politician always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition to preserve and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.”
If anybody is looking for a well, more nuanced view of liberalism and conservatism than what Murray is offering, I should be back into the swing of things at the Cranky Conservative on my American Project series. I’m about to get into Locke and the Framers. Others of course are free to look to those scions of wisdom on the alt right for their guidance on these issues.
Seems it comes down to this – Hildebeast is the devil we know, Trump may be the devil we don’t. Between certain disaster and the likelihood of it, I suppose it stands to reason one would pick likelihood over certainty.
Regardless, the GOP is toast if Trump loses, and maybe even if he wins. If he loses, the Trumpsters will blame the nevertumpers (not without reason) and the GOP can kiss a significant portion of its already thin base good-bye.
Nuance to the rescue! After all, it’s worked stunningly well for conservatives in the past. Why just remember the smashing victories won by Nuance in … umm. Er…
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c matt,
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Conservative stalwarts still imagine they can push the Reset button after a Trump loss and go back to foisting the same old McRomnush sad-sack losers onto the voting public every four years, desperately pandering to various soi-disant “natural conservatives”, and ceding ever more ground to the leftist juggernaut. And if Trump loses, they may indeed get their wish. But it won’t win them any more elections. The demographic tide is already running strongly against the GOP, and the combined effect of four more years of open borders with the desertion of a large chunk of their base will end them as a significant political force. Either way, they’re done.
” Either way, they’re done.”
Of course this overlooks the fact that nationally the Republican party hasn’t been stronger since the President’s last name was Coolidge. It also overlooks the fact that the best recruiters for the Republican Party have usually been Democrat presidents.
As for Trump, he will win and I do admit that one aspect of his victory that gladdens my heart is to see the reaction of his erst while supporters when he betrays them. He is already doing so on immigration, although Trumpophiles do their best not to notice. Trump is riding a wave of justified anger to the White House, and once he is there he will govern as the consummate insider that he is. Better than Clinton? Of course, but that is a very low bar and Trump just barely clambers over it.
Mr. McClarey: For a refutation of liberalism that is not alt-right (a movement that tends to retain various liberal errors), I recommend ZippyCatholic.
One can throw out liberalism while still admiring what is best in America and the founders. I am a patriot and am immensely proud that my ancestor fought in the Continental Army even if I suspect that the Revolution was unjust. Likewise I can appreciate the noble sentiments in the Declaration of Independence even though I think it’s talk of “consent of the governed” and such is fundamentally incoherent.
I wish to add that I regret if I come off as a provocatuer who throws a bomb and runs off. My views are a bit more nuanced when fully presented but I dislike combox dissertations.
Check out Mahound’s Paradise on this being ‘The Flight 93 Election’. “Basic idea: A Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances . . . ”
http://mahoundsparadise.blogspot.com/2016/09/charge-cockpit.html
If I weren’t so intellectually shallow, I might quit thinking contemporary social problems are self-injurious responses to technological and demographic shifts and realize that it’s been the failure to follow the wise counsels of Joseph de Maistre and Benedict XIV.
gladdens my heart is to see the reaction of his erst while supporters when he betrays them.
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It does not gladden my heart that wage earners in West Virginia may find themselves taken.
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Trump is riding a wave of justified anger to the White House,
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He’s riding that wave because Scott Walker listened to his donors. The other Wisconsin pol in a position of prominence is Mr. Ryan, who fancies random people should have a franchise to settle in this country whenever they care to because free markets.
Better than Clinton? Of course, but that is a very low bar and Trump just barely clambers over it.
At or under the bar, vs. barely over it. The choice is clear.
I am in no way ignoring the fact that Jesus’ Gospel is about the eternal (render unto God) not so much about the temporal. After numerous readings of all the Gospels and The Acts, and much prayerful contemplation, I have concluded that if He needed to choose between Hillary, Gary Johnson, who-is-the-Green candidate, and Trump, Jesus would vote for President Trump.
Hillary would inflict massive damage to both the common good (annually more millions of abortions) and to today’s primal, non-negotiable Catholic Teaching: life. All that so-called social justice flack is distraction to assuage the faux consciences of those whose true religion is progressivism not Catholicism. .