One of the correct criticisms of President Trump is that he has broken norms that should guide all presidents, and I largely agree with that criticism. His personal behavior is often childish and boorish. His habit of twittering is a constant detraction from the dignity of the office he holds. He engages in public insult slinging with individuals, most recently the husband of his political advisor Kellyanne Conway, that make him seem small and petty. Trump and the truth are rarely on speaking terms. The list could go on at some length.
However, when it comes to governing, Trump has done so largely as a mainstream conservative. His pro-life record is second to none. As a steward of the economy he has performed magnificently. His record of filling the federal courts with able constitutional conservative jurists is unsurpassed, probably his longest lasting legacy. In foreign policy he has kept the peace and avoided new military commitments.
Thus, in regard to Trump his norm breaking is largely one of tone and personal behavior.
How about the Democrats who wish to replace him? Most of them now endorse the following:
- The Green New Deal that would cost in the next ten years over an estimated hundred trillion dollars.
- The abolition of ICE and, in effect, the abolition of our borders, inviting the entire globe to resettle in the US.
- Reparations for slavery.
- Abortion on demand through all nine months, and immediate infanticide for late term infants who survive an attempted abortion.
- Abolition of the electoral college.
- Packing the Supreme Court with new Justices.
- Confiscation by the government of semi-automatic rifles.
- Some form of universal basic income, i.e. money for existing.
- Medicare for all.
- “Free” college for all, starting with “free” community college.
One could debate the wisdom, or lack thereof, of each of these policies, but taken together it is clear that Trump’s Democrat challengers do not give a fig about the norms that have long held sway when it comes to policy in this country. If I must choose, and I must, I prefer Trump’s personal breaking of norms, rather than the policy breaking of norms of his would-be replacements. (This is not to say that many of the Democrat challengers do not also have questionable, at the least, personal behavior, but that is a subject for future posts.)
Trump: Boorish on style; Brilliant on substance.
Democrats: Pandering on style: Insane on substance.
Twitter is a necessity in my view. How else would the President communicate to the electorate without being censored or ignored by the media?
He was not my first choice for president, but the ONLY choice against HC. I knew of his lack of shall we say civility with other candidates and his crassness of speech, but I knew this was the real Trump talking and not some polished politician that would say what ever you wanted to hear and never give you and honest answer, instead, feeding you a bunch of pablum over and over ad nauseum.
Funny how dems like to say Trump lies, but what about all the lies they spew during the campaigns about doing this and doing that for the people and never following through? I’m tire of that…very tired of their lying.
Trump is no saint. He says a bunch of stuff that makes me uncomfortable but I also know much of it is hyperbole. Come on! He’s from New York! He speaks like a New Yorker. Mine is bigger than yours! New Yorker! Know him by the his fruits. As is listed above in the article, Trump has accomplished much and much more than predecessors have. I will vote for him again and never, ever for a person from the party of death.
Fortunately, America longer had the luxury of not selecting another smooth-talking, establishment honed, compromising DC hack, but wisely made the best choice they reasonably had. If God can bring us salvation by using a scum like Judas Iscariot, maybe, just maybe, he’s allowing sinful America one more shot at maintaining freedom and family by selecting another less than perfect instrument..
President Trump loves this country. All Democrats hate it. Decorum went out the window with the election of Clinton, yet the Republic remained standing. What will kill it is another Obama.
I can not believe that any of the Republican candidates for president in 2016 would of been as firm as Trump has been in regards to pro-life issues. God bless him for that.
Don. Please allow me this pitch.
At the end of Forty days for Life, on April 13th, a National candlelight vigil will be prayed all across America at Planned Parenthood locations. Peaceful protests start at sunset. This is the eve before Palm Sunday. The movie “Unplanned ” will be mentioned at these gatherings to help spread the word. The story is from Abby Johnson who once was a director for an Planned Parenthood office. Her conversion story is worth the trip to the Theater.
This movie could have a very powerful effect on a number of women and men who are walking the fence regarding the worse law America ever instituted.
Thank you for your consideration.
Phil.
#ProtestPP
https://www.lifenews.com/2019/03/19/packed-theater-gives-unplanned-movie-standing-ovation-after-glitzy-hollywood-premier/
btw this is a good insight;
at 4:12am
“Twitter is a necessity in my view. How else would the President communicate to the electorate without being censored or ignored by the media.” – OC
Thanks Don! I thank God that Trump is President and I pray for our country to rediscover the road to sanity. What was the old saying? “The fastest way to get through Hell is to put your head down and push straight through it.” We’re in it now…it could have been much worse, but we’re in a hot spot now. I pray we put our heads down and keeping pushing through it…May God bless all who visit and support TAC.
If Donald J. Trump hadn’t triumphed in the nomination process, the eely establishment-GOP again would have handed over the WH to corrupt, incompetent Hillary who today would be feverishly laboring to wreck our country.
Watch TV’s prophetical “The Walking Dead” as a how-to manual.
All’s fair. The lying media (America-hating scum with bylines), Dems (traitors and knaves), liberals (worse than the Khmer Rouge), execrable leftists, et al hate you and America; and want to “fundamentally” wreck everything you hold dear.
Roger Simon: Trump should quit Twitter after he has won.
If in the last 20 years the Democrats hadn’t already shot the norms of decorum to hell and gone, Trump wouldn’t have been possible in the first place.
The concatenation of stances taken by the Democratic Party (derived from the attitudes of the guilds and strata which make up the Democratic Party) are incompatible with functioning Democratic institutions. You talk to street-level Democrats, you realize they have no procedural principles at all. They just want what they want. They expect every other element in society to accede to an increasingly shambolic political order wherein they are subject to escalating abuse by the guilds and strata which make up the Democratic Party.
The most optimistic scenario is a replay of what happened during the period running from 1978 to 1994: enough electoral losses to persuade the Democratic Party elite to unload some of their more inane stances. A less optimistic outcome would be what Gottfried Dietze called a diffidatio: a violent rupture which displaces an abusive ruling element and restores traditional liberties. IIRC, Dietze identified the baron’s revolt under King John, British civil war (1642-49), the Glorious Revolution (1688-89), and the American Revolution (1775-83) as what he had in mind. Dietze believed that the Anglophone world was due for another in the 21st century. The Hispanophone world confronted these problems in Spain (1930-39), Chile (1955-90), and Uruguay (1962-85). Imagine the country run by a board of technocrats appointed by the military chiefs of staff because the political culture and extant social relations did not permit of anything better. That’s close to where we are today.
Thus, in regard to Trump his norm breaking is largely one of tone and personal behavior.
They’ve been able for over four decades to control public discourse through manufacturing nonsense controversies. (See George Allen and the macaca controversy of 2006). Trump doesn’t apologize and generally prospers. If the rest of the GOP can go to school on Trump’s methods, the media will be neutered and the Democratic Party injured. The idea enrages them, especially in the context of their economic losses to date.
A sadly accurate appraisal of our situation Art.
If the rest of the GOP can go to school on Trump’s methods, the media will be neutered and the Democratic Party injured.
It ought to be an easy lesson: care less about the opinions of your perceived peers in media-political complex and more about the opinions of your voters.
But it won’t be.
You are right. It won’t be a lesson they want to learn because I believe them to be at least knee deep in the swamp themselves. NOTHING they’ve done or said in the last 10 years and more leads me to believe otherwise. I no longer associate with the dems or republicans. I vote as I see fit no matter who the Republicans put before us. I used to be a conservative Republican, now I’m just a conservative. Being Republican does not a conservative make today.
Comment of the day, Art!
What’s even worse is that they don’t even understand why procedural norms are needed in the first place. It’s an entire movement of spoiled brats who consider any frustration of their immediate desires to be the worst injustice of the universe.
.
Though this can lead to hilarious results like watching them having a serious fight because then it just becomes both sides screaming about how the other made them feel.
What’s even worse is that they don’t even understand why procedural norms are needed in the first place.
Orwell nailed it long ago:
So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.
The thing that amazes me the most about Trump is his ability to inspire both white hatred in his detractors and cult like following in his supporters. There are even some, like Dennis Prager, who went from the former to the latter.
I still have doubts about Trump’s nomination as the GOP standard bearer is good for the conservative movement in the long term. An important part, perhaps the most important part, of the conservative movement is its morality. And needing an immoral reprobate like Donald Trump to deliver on things like the pro-life cause can’t be helpful to the credibility of the conservative movement.
“And needing an immoral reprobate like ‘King David’ to deliver on things like the pro-life cause can’t be helpful to the credibility of the conservative movement.”
We really don’t know what is the state of his soul. We cannot make that judgement. We in some way or other are also immoral but we repent and try harder. We don’t know how Trump has handled the things he’s not proud of and his relationship to God. Yes his past is not exemplary but how many of us in our own past can say was pure? Christ came for all of us. He will judge us in our particular state including Trump. Love wipes away many sins and so when I see the love that Trump has for the unborn…well that says a lot to me.
Are we sure Trump is immoral? Granted, he’s lived a messy private life in a very public manner, but I don’t see him flaunting moral norms in order to demonstrate why those norms are wrong, or shouldn’t be normative for people like him, even if they should be for people like you and me.
I’m much more concerned about the type of because I publicly hold the politically correct views on the issue d’jour I’m entitled to whatever private vice/graft happens to float my boat espoused by, say, the Clinton crime syndicate.
Bingo Ernst.
The comparison of Trump to King David is really ridiculous when you consider that King David was rebuked by his own inner circle (namely the Prophet Nathan) and showed repentance for his actions. Neither has been the case with Trump.
Yes he was rebuked by Nathan as was revealed to us, but what was not revealed was how his less than perfect life had to have led him to commit adultery AND led him to murder Uriah by ordering him to the front lines of the war in order to procure his death. David was chosen by God but that did not make David perfect by any means. Trump as with David was a vessel chosen by God to do his wilI. Neither of them is perfect. Reprobates? Yes, if they refuse to repent. David we know did repent, but just because we do not know of Trumps repentance doesn’t mean he hasn’t. Does he still fall into sin? Do we after confession? Did David?
I think the only thing that bothered me about the response was the ‘reprobate’ part. I do not see Trump as a reprobate any more than I do David.
There is a posting of Victor Davis Hanson on YouTube that touches on this issue. It is titled: “Victor Davis Hanson on 2020 Democrats’ Radical Ideas.” The URL is:
*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXDUWWz_HOI
*
At about the 15:30 to 15:40 point he starts to discuss Trump’s willingness to hit back at his critics. He talks about Trump hitting back because to Trump the demagogues that make up his critics would view his magnanimity as a show of weakness. He goes on to talk about how Republican politicians double cross their own backers by refusing to defend themselves.
Noah was a drunkard, Abraham was a bigamist, Jacob was a polygamist, and a liar and a thief, Moses was a murderer and David, at the time he slew Goliath was an unremarkable, scrawny little kid.
My point being, God uses whom He will for His reasons. The only one of which I’ve been able to suss out being: He uses the flawed and the weak so that there can be no doubt Who’s responsible for the great deeds He has done.
Doesn’t mean I’ll be recommending Donald J. Trump to the modern Plutarch for inclusion in the updated edition of Lives of Illustrious Men; at least not for the section of men worthy of emulation.
“He talks about Trump hitting back because to Trump the demagogues that make up his critics would view his magnanimity as a show of weakness.”
I think that is unfortunately true. Bush I and II seemed to be punching bags for the Dems. Palin was hung out to dry by a McCain who didn’t seem to want to fight nor win.
McCain didn’t want to be elected. He wanted to be coronated. Failing that, he wanted to show that there was, after all, such a thing in politics as losing with grace and magnanimity. At that, he succeeded all too well.
McCain and Trump were like oil and water. Trump could have asked Congress to come up with a plan to eradicate poverty in the whole world and McCain would have refused to go along because it was Trumps idea. No love lost there.
“and showed repentance for his actions.”
Not to defend Trump for his bad behavior, but I rather suspect that David was only sorry that he got caught. There was a fair amount of the scoundrel in the man, which does show how God can use the most unlikely materials to serve great ends. David’s parting advice to Solomon was chilling in its ruthlessness:
Now you know what Zeruiah’s son Joab did to me. You know what he did to the two captains of the armies of Israel. He killed Abner the son of Ner, and Amasa the son of Jether in the time of peace as if it were in the time of war. He put the blood of war on his belt and on the shoes of his feet. 6 So act with wisdom. Do not let his gray hair go down to the grave in peace. 7 But show kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite. Let them be among those who eat at your table. For they helped me when I ran from your brother Absalom. 8 See, there is with you Shimei the son of Gera the Benjamite, of Bahurim. It was he who spoke bad words against me on the day I went to Mahanaim. But when he came down to me at the Jordan, I promised him by the Lord, saying, ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’ 9 So do not let him go without being punished. For you are a wise man. You will know what you should do to him. Bring his gray hair down to the grave with blood.”
Machiavelli would have had little to teach King David.
“as losing with grace and magnanimity.”
McCain was always concerned to be held in high esteem by Democrats and the media. Republican esteem? He only cared about that in election years.
Whence Trump? From the mass realization that the Democratic Party and a substantial number of Republicans are no longer interested in the well-being of the people who were the middle and working class of our country. Charity begins at home but avarice follows the money. If the money is in Communist China, no problem. If much of our population is left in the lurch as money goes in search of foreign investments to increase and multiply, no problem. The Democratic Party is the new party of the rich. They may try to pretend otherwise with the old propaganda but it is a charade. We make a serious mistake when we take the bait and let them make it about Trump, the person. We fall into that trap when we make it about Hillary, or Obama, or whoever. It is not about who is running but more a question of what is the agenda of those who prop them up with money. If more money can be made by letting it go to foreign interests, it will go there, even if it guts our own country. Trump can see that. Others close their eyes to it. Charity begins at home and we sometimes call that patriotism.
Being ruthless towards enemies isn’t the issue with Trump. So, I don’t see where King David’s parting advice to Solomon is relevant here. Trump can get caught, show no repentance, and still be practically venerated by many of his supporters. What is most worrisome about the Trump phenomenon is not so much Trump himself but the cult like fawning of his supporters, many of whom have reputations as principled conservatives.
These are the same people who screamed endlessly about how much character mattered to attack Bill Clinton long before the whole Lewinsky thing blew up. The Juanita Broderick thing didn’t become known until then. They don’t hold Trump to anywhere near the same standard.
One can support Trump’s good policies while acknowledging Trump’s being problematic.
Trump has certainly exposed just how phony many conservatives really are.
I still have doubts about Trump’s nomination as the GOP standard bearer is good for the conservative movement in the long term. An important part, perhaps the most important part, of the conservative movement is its morality. And needing an immoral reprobate like Donald Trump to deliver on things like the pro-life cause can’t be helpful to the credibility of the conservative movement.
I see your point. The thing is, Greg, one reason we have Trump is that ‘the conservative movement’ has since 1990 or thereabouts been a study in failure theatre. Recall Conrad Black’s remark that the American political class after the end of the Cold War managed to make a hash of every issue other than welfare reform. (And BO wanted to gut that achievement). It’s sort of disconcerting that the three starboard political figures who in this era have managed to assemble some serious accomplishments have been Rudolph Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and Scott Walker. Two of these men have severe personal shortcomings. What’s going on here?
“Being ruthless towards enemies isn’t the issue with Trump. So, I don’t see where King David’s parting advice to Solomon is relevant here.”
Being immoral is, and Trump, who is a pig around women, has never murdered anyone to cover up his adultery, has never instructed his son to slay the commander of his army, and has never promised someone his life only to later instruct his son to murder him.
In regard to Trump, the choice in the general election in 2016 was not him and an angel but him and Hillary Clinton. To blame conservatives for opting for him in that case is absurd. If the Democrats ran a candidate of pristine personal life in 2020, who was not a wacked out Leftist, Trump could well lose a fair number of conservative votes, but there is zero chances of that.
I think most conservatives who support Trump do so with eyes wide open and understand that politics is always a matter of comparison shopping, and often the wares on offer are damaged goods. I have voted for, as opposed to voting against, a presidential candidate once in my life; Ronald Reagan.
“What’s going on here?”
The Bush dynasty, combined with the self-destruction of Gingrich and terrible leadership in the House on the GOP side thereafter, and bad leadership in the Senate until McConnell became majority leader in 2014.
I am not blaming conservatives for opting for Trump in 2016. What I am talking about is the absolute uncritical adulation he gets from many prominent “conservatives”.
hat I am talking about is the absolute uncritical adulation he gets from many prominent “conservatives”.
Who?
These are the same people who screamed endlessly about how much character mattered to attack Bill Clinton long before the whole Lewinsky thing blew up. The Juanita Broderick thing didn’t become known until then. They don’t hold Trump to anywhere near the same standard.
One can support Trump’s good policies while acknowledging Trump’s being problematic.
Trump has certainly exposed just how phony many conservatives really are.
Lot’s to chew on in that comment Greg. Thanks.
For myself, I tend to see more of the Trump can do no right because he’s a bad sort/not our kind than the Trump can do no wrong because Democrats are worse type of argument. I think the “Flight 93 Election” argument is still the best one to be made to date about the Trump phenomenon. An implicit part of that phenomenon is that the plane crashed anyway. So Trump’s supporters (as opposed to the cheerleaders you’ve made note of) know he’s a deeply flawed man who may yet wreck the country. The alternatives to Trump will certainly leave it a cratered ruin. As for the evangelical/moral majority/values voters: My guess is they’ve accepted the fact that the Left has won on that issue: personal moral probity has little or nothing to do with the public welfare, only results count. Because critics of Bill Clinton’s sexual misuse a foolish young woman only slightly older than his daughter were dismissed as cranks and scolds, those cranks and scolds decided they mostly didn’t care that Trump paid hush money to a prostitute-actress —or why he paid it. Now the Left looks at what they wrought and shriek “no fair!” If morals and ethics are going to matter to our politics, it’s up to the Left to bring that about by policing their own. Because they’re the ones in control of the terms of debate, not us.
And I don’t know any prominent conservatives (or “conservatives” for that matter) who give Trump absolute uncritical adulation. Maybe I lead too sheltered a life out here on the tall grass prairie. In fact, I would argue the most “prominent ‘conservatives'” are the ones who’ve outed themselves as opportunistic liberals who’ve finally dropped the mask.
The Bush dynasty, combined with the self-destruction of Gingrich and terrible leadership in the House on the GOP side thereafter, and bad leadership in the Senate until McConnell became majority leader in 2014.
1. Doesn’t explain why state-level Republicans are so ineffective.
2. That’s a peculiar description of McConnell, savior of the ExIm Bank. Has there been a year since 2014 where the government was financed through something other than catch-all continuing resolutions? I’m really not seeing how McConnell improves on Messrs. Lott and Dole (much less Frist, who, unlike Lott and Dole, had other things to do with his life than fart around in Congress).
3. What does it say about rank-and-file Republicans that they put their caucus in the hands of Kevin McCarthy (who doesn’t admit of a pre-political career and just threw Steve King under the bus), Paul Ryan (NGO functionary / fitness instructor and open-borders ideologue, installed after the House minority whip had been bounced in a primary due to the immigration issue), John Boehner (who actually had a pre-political career, bless him, but also a drinking problem), Dennis Hastert (careerist, grafteur, skeletons in closet), and Robert Michel (Congress4Life like Trent Lott, insipid)?
4. The best you could say of George W. Bush is that he had commitments. Commitments are not convictions. His father didn’t even have that. And they show you the limits of politics as a diversion for highly competitive men. They slumbered through the Obama years (including the IRS scandal, which really demanded some public denunciation), only to awaken to throw darts at Trump. And did you notice that they’d allowed Bill Clinton to ingratiate himself with them over the years? Why would they do that? (Leaving aside the Bushes, father and son, the two recent presidents with the most similar social background were Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, who I don’t think were particular friends. The pair with the most similar occupational history were Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (who were professional / cordial, nothing more).
Again, I’m really not understanding what’s been going on.
“1. Doesn’t explain why state-level Republicans are so ineffective.”
They aren’t. Lots of good legislation being passed in GOP controlled states.
“That’s a peculiar description of McConnell”
He has done a magnificent job with Judges under Trump, especially in the last Congress with a wire thin Republican margin. He had the leadership to stop the Merrick Garland nomination cold in 2016, hoping against hope that the GOP would beat Clinton. He is about to pull the nuclear option on Judges so that by election day next year there should be no vacancies, or almost none.
“What does it say about rank-and-file Republicans”
Nothing good. To be fair, much could have been accomplished in 2016-2018 if McConnell had had the votes to nuke the filibuster completely.
Bravo to everything you said about the Bushes. They lived in a liberal social milieu as demonstrated by their spouses. At best George W. was a Rockefeller Republican. George the Younger was more complicated, but seemed to go to sleep after 2004 until he ordered the Surge. Their disdain for Trump while buddying up with Bill Clinton was disgusting and indicated that for them politics was a game and not a matter of deep seated beliefs. Bill Clinton, I suspect, at his core, was like them in that.
Republicans at all levels are ineffective, I’m convinced, because at least half of them are closet Democrats.
McConnell (R, Swamp) has done a magnificent job on judges, and nothing else. So I’d still shiv ‘im, were it in my power to do so.
Politically speaking, of course.
Again, I’m really not understanding what’s been going on.
I’ma guess you’re a fan of professional wrestling. Or maybe exhibition basketball.
[removes tongue from cheek]
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about with closet Democrats:
Now granted, Scarborough has been out of the closet for some time, but, absent 6 months in a North Korean POW camp, how does any Republic who isn’t a closet Democrat think something like that?
I doubt if Scarborough has ever had much in the way of true convictions. Opportunism has always been his one true God. He has remade himself to suit his Leftist audience.
W showed he could play hardball when the chad issue surfaced during vote counting. His father might have rolled over in the same circumstance. W displayed leadership after 9/11. The troops loved him, especially after he landed on a carrier (not a single seater, of course.) Without fanfare he and Laura spent many hours with the injured troops in military hospitals and made many trips to war zones. The Surge was definitely a success. W was a good commander-in-chief. The US and the Iraqis had won. Then Obama undid most achievements there.
The Democrat style spending toward the last of his tenure was where W lost me.
The problem with the Bushes was they didn’t and don’t fight back. Too nice, too patrician, their version of Christians turning the other cheek or weak?
The Ex Presidents Club is exclusive by nature. Cordiality and politeness are expected but buddying up to sleaze Bill Clinton and being chummy with the fake Obamas was and continues to be over the top.
Trump is a New Yorker and a street fighter, which is what our country needs at this time. Best of all, he is pro life verbally and in deeds. So is Mrs.Trump unlike pro choice Laura and Barbara Bush.
@Art – I think media power cannot be underestimated. To quote a meme:
“Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your honor.”
(see also: Romney) Why are the accomplished republicans scoundrels? Because they have nothing to lose to the media, so can act unrestrained. The Republicans which are personally virtuous also have the most honor to be stolen by the media, and so end up dancing to their tune.
@Ernst, I would also not underestimate the “cry wolf” phenomena. Namely that Trump has been accused of so much, the crowd you speak of probably don’t even believe the media about the hush money.
@Don – Sadly I wish politics were seen more as a game and less as life & death struggle (save for actual war being involved). But then that’s getting into a rant about more power being pushed to the federal level instead of being contained locally as well as the proper order of things. It’s hard not to see the numerous twitter rants of “Trump is literally killing people!” without thinking that more people need to see politics as a game (says the man who wants to make games for a living).
“Sadly I wish politics were seen more as a game and less as life & death struggle”
That is precisely what politics becomes when one party is dedicated to ever greater expansions of the power of the state. As the Democrat agenda I outlined in my post indicates, the Democrats running for President may as well be declaring war on all Americans not on the Left. Those politicians viewing this type of struggle as a game are either too cynical for office or too stupid for office.
Art,
As to which prominent conservatives who treat Trump with uncritical adulation, I would say in the world of talk radio, which garners a great deal of influence in the conservative world, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Even Dennis Prager downplays the importance of moral character of the president as a “lovely bonus”. I doubt he took that tack with Bill Clinton.
Franklin Graham railed about how character matters with Bill Clinton reduced Trump’s fling with Daniels as nobody’s business.