Politics – Page 38 – Maverick Philosopher

Which is Worse: Trump or the Republican Establishment?

The latter argues John Hawkins.

Is One a Fool to Take Politics Seriously?

Some think so. The following from Thomas Mann's Diaries 1918-1939, entry of August 5, 1934:

A cynical egotism, a selfish limitation of concern to one's personal welfare and one's reasonable survival in the face of the headstrong and voluptuous madness of 'history' is amply justified. One is a fool to take politics seriously, to care about it, to sacrifice one's moral and intellectual strength to it. All one can do is survive, and preserve one's personal freedom and dignity.

I don't endorse Mann's sentiment but I sympathize with it. Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. Imagine the effect that must have had on a man of Mann's sensitivity and spiritual depth. You witness your country, the land of Kant and Schiller, of Dichter und Denker, poets and thinkers, in Heinrich Heine's phrase, transformed into a land of Richter und Henker, judges and hangmen.

The Central Axiom of Partisan Politics

According to Charles Krauthammer (Things That Matter, Crown Forum, 2013, p. 64),

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

Robert Paul Wolff unwittingly provides corroboration:

On Easter Sunday, it is only fitting that the reliably despicable Ross Douthat should once again rise from the dead with an incoherently dreadful column on Piketty. I will not try to summarize it. As Aristotle observed [I think], shit has no form, and hence cannot easily be apprehended by reason. You may read it for yourself. I take Douthat's column as a good sign, a harbinger of Spring. When the rats on the sinking ship of capitalism pause in their scramble down the hawsers to acknowledge the reemergence of Marx from the dustbin of history [how's that for a mixed metaphor?], there is hope on this annual celebration of resurrection.

Note that Wolff does not address the content of Douthat's essay, though he does have the decency to link to it. What he does is portray Douthat as a reliably despicable zombie and rat, a shill for capitalism, who has penned an incoherently dreadful column, a piece of shit beneath the apprehension of reason.

Well thank you Professor Wolff for this wonderful Easter Sunday illustration of the Central Axiom and for reminding us once again of how dangerous you leftists are, and, indirectly, how important our Second Amendment rights are.

The Leftist

A leftist is a person who can justify unspeakably evil deeds to advance a worldview according to which people are basically good and evil does not exist.

Still More on the Trump Phenomenon

A reader opines and I respond:

As far as I can tell, our thoughts on Trump’s unfitness are pretty close, and the way you’ve laid out the matter in your most recent post (Trumpian Propositions) also mirrors my thinking. This extends to the following sentence, which I’ve uttered almost verbatim to friends and family: “we know what Hillary will do, while we do not know what Trump will do.”

Where we disagree – or rather, where I may disagree with you, but am still working out my thoughts and waiting for further developments – is in evaluating the implications of that statement. You take it as an argument to vote for Trump; after all, you say, “[h]e might actually do something worthwhile.” I agree with that quotation as well. It seems to me that HRC will be a terrible President 100 times out of 100, while DJT may only be terrible 98 or 99 times out of 100.

But here’s the problem: I fear that his worst could be worse, maybe much worse, than Hillary’s. He is a thug, or at least often behaves like one (e.g. in his use of eminent domain both in the U.S. and in Scotland) and expresses admiration for thugs (e.g. Putin, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Un, the Chinese in cracking down in the Tiananmen Square massacre back in ’89, etc.). Trump, it seems to me, wants to be El Jefe, not merely the commander in chief of a Republic, subject to checks and balances and limitations on executive power. (See for example his incredible statement in the debate that he would give illegal orders to members of the armed forces, and they would follow them.)

BV: If we use 'thug' to refer to someone who habitually engages in thuggish behavior, then perhaps Trump is not fairly called a thug. But he is often thuggish, and he clearly admires thugs and thuggish behavior. This is a disqualifier. Lacking self-knowledge, he cannot see this fact about himself. This is another disqualifier.

It is also important to note that much of the admiration and support for Trump reflects a dark side of human nature, namely, the tendency secretly to admire supposed tough guys and 'winners,' and to have contempt for 'losers' many of whom 'lose' because they are reasonable, civil, conciliatory, and concerned for the common good, Mitt Romney being one example. To admire a winner just in virtue of his winning while ignoring the question of the morality of the means to victory is human-all-too-human. It is rooted in our animal nature. In Trump's moral calculus, the worst sort of human being is the loser. This is why the first thing he said in his response to Mitt Romney was that the latter lost.

To the extent that we can ascribe a moral theory to a shallow-pate like Trump, his is the morality of Thrasymachus, if we take that to be the view that it is right and just that the strong should dominate the weak. Might makes right. Success justifies. If the panzers of the Wehrmacht roll into Poland crushing all resistance, then the fact justifies the deed. My power to kill you confers moral justification on my killing you. On the other hand, failure condemns. If you are too weak to win and you lose, then it is right and just that you lose. When Hitler saw that the fatherland was about to be destroyed, his attitude was that it deserved to be destroyed. So he ordered the scorched earth Nero Decree as much to punish the Germans for losing as to prevent useful infrastructure from falling into the hands of the enemy.

In light of this it is easy to understand Trump's mocking of the man with the palsied hand and his reference to Megyn Kelly's menstrual cycle. The cripple is weak and less worthy of life. Women are weaker than men and so their claims can be dismissed as products of their weakness. It also sheds light on Trump's assuring us that his sexual apparatus is large and in good working order. For any weakness in that area would detract from his status as alpha male and argue his lack of value. For a man as crude as Trump the measure of a man is the size and rigidity of his penis and the extent of his net worth. Now many a man is concerned with penis and pelf; but few are so morally vacuous as to have no compunction about tying one's worth as a person to such things.

What matters for our latter-day Thrasymachus is to win, whatever the cost. And or course winning is measured in the crudest quantitative terms imaginable. Trump tweeted to a journalist who criticized him, "I get more pussy than you." What matters is quantity of 'pussy,' size of net worth, height of buildings . . . . It doesn't matter that those buildings are casinos wherein people degrade and impoverish themselves.

And notice that he doesn't care that these damning facts are known about him. He is not ashamed to be the crude vulgarian that he is. He is like Bill Clinton in this regard. Nixon, who was brought up right, could be shamed, but not Bill Clinton. "I did it because I could." And like Bill Clinton, Trump has no compunction about lying. It comes as naturally to him as breathing.

And nothing he says has to make sense since it is not about making sense but about winning. So he can make noises as if he is supportive of Christianity even though, by his own moral calculus, he ought to despise Jesus Christ. For the world has never known a bigger loser and more utter failure than Jesus. Humanly speaking, Jesus was a total loser. If that is not obvious, the case has been made most convincingly by Romano Guardini in Jesus Christus, chapter 3, "Failure."

Like Obama, Trump will say anything if he thinks it will get him what he wants. It doesn't matter whether it is true or even makes sense, or contradicts what he said the day before.

My correspondent is worried that Trump's worst may be worse than Hillary's worst. Could be. We just don't know. But we do know Hillary will do whereas we do not know what Trump will do. So it strikes me as reasonable to roll the dice in his favor should he get the nomination. Meanwhile, we should do our damndest to make sure he doesn't get the nomination.

It isn’t clear to me that he’s better than Hillary Clinton, even leaving aside his Napoleonic complex. Is there anything that you know he stands for? He thinks Planned Parenthood is “great”, he’ll let all the “good ones” (Mexicans) back in, likes H1B visas, imported immigrants to work at his resort while rejecting American labor as recently as last July, was for restrictions on the second amendment until about 30 seconds ago, recommends higher taxes on the rich, has advocated torture, opposes free trade, wants to further limit the first amendment, has been playing footsies with the KKK and the white supremacists (the “bad earpiece” try was a joke, as he himself mentioned David Duke and white supremacists in that CNN interview), has a decades-long track record of engaging in crony “capitalism” – and the list goes on and on. I don’t see where he’s better than she is, except on a very few issues where his “conversion” goes back to the instant he decided to run, and which in every case has been retracted or at least undermined by later statements during the campaign. He’s a bullshitter, a bully, and a blusterer, and if you go by his actions instead of his words he’s just another liberal democrat.

BV: There is one thing I KNOW Trump stands for, namely, his own ego. He is all the awful things you say he is. And I agree that it is not CLEAR that he is better than Hillary.

So I just don’t see it. [. . .]

The only possible and meaningful plus I see for Trump is the possibility that he appoints conservatives to SCOTUS. There is no chance that Hillary will do so, but he might. (I’m not absolutely sure about that, but it’s moderately possible.) Maybe that’s a good enough reason. Given that his sister is a pro-choice judge, and given his social liberalism, and given his seeming ignorance of and disdain for the U.S. Constitution (I especially liked his recent comments about judges signing bills into law), the odds of his nominating an originalist justice are iffy at best. But again, maybe that’s good enough. Still: does one elect a liberal ignoramus who might be Mussolini for a shot at 2-3 (relatively) good Supremes?

BV: Hillary is Obama in a pant suit. She will continue his "fundamental transformation of America." Like Obama, she is a destructive leftist. She must be stopped. Therefore, you must vote for the Republican nominee whoever it is. It will be either Trump or Cruz.

I don't think it is right to say that the only good thing Trump might do is appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court. It is a very good bet that he will put a severe dent in the influx of illegal aliens across the southern border. (Forget his bluster about making Mexico pay for the wall.) But we KNOW that hate-America Hillary will do nothing to stem the illegal tide. If anything she'll encourage it because in her cynical eyes they are undocumented Democrats.

A third thing Trump might very well do is stop the outrage of sanctuary cities. But we KNOW Hillary won't.

A fourth thing Trump can be expected to do enforce civil order in the face of rampaging blacks of the Black Lives Matter ilk. These lying scum have targeted the police and are actively working to undermine the rule of law. Hillary is in bed with them. The evil bitch repeats all the lies about Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, 'mass incarceration' and so on. And what is most despicable is that she does it cynically for her own personal advantage.

A fifth thing Trump might do is defend religious liberties. We KNOW that Hillary won't. Never forget that the Left is anti-religion and has been since 1789. Part of the reason for this is that the Left is totalitarian: it can brook no competitors to State power. This is why it must destroy belief in God and in the family. The god of the leftist is the State, the apparatchiks of the latter being the State's 'priesthood.'

A sixth thing Trump might do is defend Second Amendment rights. We KNOW that Hillary won't. She is a mendacious 'stealth ideologue' who won't admit that she is for Aussie-style confiscation, but that is what the liberty-bashing bitch is for. She realizes that guns in the hands of citizens is a check on her leftist totalitarianism.

Here is the situation. If it comes down to Trump versus Hillary, then you face a lousy choice between two awful candidates. So you must vote for the least awful of the two. And that is Trump. Alles klar?

"But why not vote for neither?"

The short answer is that the Left is totalitarian. You can't withdraw from politics, because they won't let you. And again, we know that Hillary is a leftist who will try to extend the reach of government into every aspect of our lives. You must take a stand.

The Case for a Trump Dump Gets Stronger by the Day

Whoever is the Republican nominee, you must vote for him. So if it is Trump, then it's Trump for whom you must vote. I stand by that. But that is not to say that Trump ought to be the nominee. David Brooks details some of the scams the egomaniacal vulgarian has perpetrated. I wonder if this article will put a dent in the mindless support the blowhard enjoys among otherwise intelligent people.

See also Stephen Hayes, Trump: Why I Can't Support Him

Trumpian Propositions

From a reader:

a. If Trump is the nominee, the Republicans will win the election.
b. If Trump is the nominee, the Republicans will not win the election.
c. If Trump is not the nominee, the Republicans will win the election.
d. If Trump is not the nominee, the Republicans will not win the election.

I think (a) could be true, but you think it's false. You think (b) and (c) are true.

Anyway, some dismal grist for your blog.

Grist for the mill; blog fodder for the Bill.

I agree that (a) could be true. That is an epistemic use of 'could.' It means that the Republicans' winning is consistent with what we know. I don't say that (a) is false. What I say is that the Republicans' losing is also consistent with what we know. We don't know much. We are just thinking up scenarios and guessing at probabilities.

It could go like this. Trump 'inspires' people to vote in the general who usually don't. (He already has in the primaries and caucuses.) We all know people like this. They typically maintain, falsely of course, that there is no difference between the two major parties; it's Tweedledum and Tweedledee. If Trump gets enough of these types to emerge from their hills and hollows to vote for him, then he could conceivably beat the despicable Hillary. The latter, after all, is not that popular due to her mendacity, her lack of principles, and her merely personal ambition. And Trump's thuggishness has unmistakable populist appeal.

Or it could go like this. The uncouth Trump keeps up the demonstration of his lack of gravitas and his general unfitness for high office and large numbers of conservatives become disgusted enough to refuse to vote for him. A small subset of these will take it a step further and vote for Hillary. The opposition of conservatives, Democrats, and the groups he offends such as women, Hispanics, and Muslims will then seal his fate.

How will it go? Nobody knows.

I don't maintain (b) or (c). My reader needs to be more of a reader and less of a projecter.

Whoever gets the Republican nod, you must vote for that person. If it's Trump, then you must vote for Trump. And this despite the manifest negatives that his star-struck cult followers cannot bring themselves to admit. I won't repeat the litany. You know it by now if you have been paying attention. But I will mention something he did during last night's debate that really ought to be a nail in the scumbag's coffin: he made a reference to his penis. Horribile dictu.

And you think this guy is worthy of the presidency?

There is also a serious question whether the guy is serious or just playing us all for fools. He knows the presidency is in reach. If he is serious about attaining it, why would he engage in vile antics that he knows will undermine him? Either he is not serious or he has atrocious judgment. Either way he is unfit for the presidency.

But despite his manifest unfitness, you must support him if he gets the nod. For there is one who is more unfit. You must roll the dice! Why? Because we know what Hillary will do, while we do not know what Trump will do. He might actually do something worthwhile.

Don't forget: the coming election will not only determine who will be president but will also affect the composition of the Supreme Court. We are at a tipping point.

…………………………..

D. G. comments:

Another possibility, perhaps – he is serious, and his judgment is perfect as to the character of a large portion of the American people. He knows what they like. The miserable truth is that he may be correct in his judgment.

Another Round on Trump

This from a regular reader, professional philosopher, and Trump supporter:

You're disturbed that so many Trump supporters "refuse to admit the man's negatives". Maybe they do refuse, but I think many of them feel as I do. He has many negative qualities, and maybe in some ways he's even worse than the average politician, but — as you yourself have often emphasized — we're no longer in a situation where politics is about people with shared loyalties and values coming together to engage in fair rational discussion with each other. We are in a war. The left simply hates us, wants to destroy us culturally and maybe personally to while they're at it. The real American people are facing an existential crisis.

So what really matters in this situation? Not the personal failings of any candidate, not even the likelihood that he's sincere or able to do what he says he'll do. What really matters for now is that he is taking the crucial necessary _first step_ toward organizing a real movement to defend America and the west. What if, when Muslims were poised to invade France, we found out that Charles Martel was actually a child molester? What if I knew, in 1939, that Churchill was a total fraud and psychopath? I'd say that in that kind of situation these considerations make no difference. If he [Trump] can speak a few basic truths that inspire people to fight back and stand up, for the first and possibly last time, that's all that matters. (My analogies are extreme, but not _that_ extreme.) I realize that we won't agree on this; Trumpites and mainstream conservatives are as badly polarized as Trumpites and leftists (which may have deep implications). But I offer these remarks as a way to understand why the valid criticisms you make of him just don't have much force for me, or for millions of others, I'm assuming.

This is a good response in part because I do reluctantly incline to the view that we are in a war with the Left. So why should I be concerned with the merely personal foibles and failings of the one man with the best chance of stopping the leftist juggernaut? Who cares that he is a low life, a vulgarian, a cultural polluter, a hypocrite, a narcissist, an egomaniac, and a serial liar and bullshitter? One of his most recent lies was the one about not knowing who David Duke is. But not only did he lie, he lied unnecessarily. There was no need for him to tell that particular lie since a disavowal of David Duke and the KKK would not have hurt him much, especially since he had already disavowed Duke. This speaks to Trump's lack of good judgment and also perhaps to a lack of seriousness. Would someone who is serious about winning the presidency lie unnecessarily? He also demonstrates contempt for his audience in telling a lie that is transparently a lie.

But why should we care about any of this? One reason is that these are not merely personal defects but defects that could bring down the conservative movement and lead to a victory, perhaps even a landslide victory, by Hillary come November. This is what lefties are counting on. They hope Trump will destroy the GOP. You say you don't care? But then what party will implement conservative ideas and policies? The Constitution Party?

Another reason is that it is not clear that Trump is better equipped to defeat Hillary. Is he better qualified than Cruz? It is not clear to me or to anyone. If it is clear to my reader, I should like him to tell me why Trump is a more effective culture warrior than Cruz. And let's not underestimate the opposition Trump will get in the general election. Women, minorities, leftists, and a sizeable number of conservatives will align against him. Among the conservatives, many will not vote at all, and some will vote for Hillary to punish Trump and the GOP for supporting him.

I appreciate the force of my reader's historical analogies. But let me try one of my own. Would you have supported the Austrian corporal back in '33 to stop the Communists? Now we know what happened after 1933. Abstract from the sequel and imagine yourself to be a German anti-communist who in '33 is trying to make up his mind about the incendiary outsider. Would you have rolled the dice?

Bernie Sanders: A View from the Left

Chris Hedges:

Bernie Sanders, who at least acknowledges our economic reality and refuses to accept corporate money for his presidential campaign, plays the role of the Democratic Party’s court jester. No doubt to remain a member of the court, he will not condemn the perfidy and collaboration with corporate power that define Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party. He accepts that criticism of empire is taboo. He continues, even as the party elites rig the primaries against him, to make a mockery of democratic participation, to hold up the Democrats as a tool for change. He will soon be urging his supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton, actively working as an impediment to political mobilization and an advocate for political lethargy. Sanders, whose promise of a political revolution is as hollow as competing campaign slogans, will be rewarded for his duplicity. He will be allowed to keep his seniority in the Democratic caucus. The party will not mount a campaign in Vermont to unseat him from the U.S. Senate. He will not, as he has feared, end up a pariah like Ralph Nader. But he, like everyone else in the establishment, will have sold us out.

For a lefty one can never be too far Left. Some on the Right are like this as well: balanced positions are anathema to them.

For a lefty like Hedges, corporations are at the root of all political evil:

Corporations control the three branches of government. Corporations write the laws. Corporations determine the media narrative and public debate. Corporations are turning public education into a system of indoctrination. Corporations profit from permanent war, mass incarceration, suppressed wages and poor health care. Corporations have organized a tax boycott. Corporations demand “austerity.” Corporate power is unassailable, and it rolls forward like a stream of lava.

In other news, see below, Spike Lee has come out for Bernie. Well, with Lee, Dick van Dyke, and 'Killer Mike' supporting him, how can he lose?

Partisan Intransigence and Political True Belief

The last few days I have spoken with a number of people about Donald Trump, almost all of them supporters. What surprises me is their refusal to admit the man's negatives. Their partisanship blinds them. And then there is the naive belief that, if elected, Trump will accomplish what he says he will. Given his bad judgment and school-boy mouthing off and glee at offending people, how will he work with Congress? Or will he try to do everything by executive order? There is this document called the Constitution. Or does he too believe in a 'living' Constitution?

Will I vote for Trump if nominated? Of course. Hillary must be defeated, and Trump has so mastered the politics of personal destruction, hitherto a specialty of leftists, that he has a good chance of defeating her.

So what's my point? My point is that we are very sick society if it should come down to a choice between a brazen hard-leftist liar like Hillary and a low life like Trump. I would like to see a bit of understanding by Trump's supporters of who it is they are supporting. That and a little less rah-rah partisanship. You don't think he is a low life? He fails the decency test. Max Lucado has his number:

I don't know Mr. Trump. But I've been chagrined at his antics. He ridiculed a war hero. He made mockery of a reporter's menstrual cycle. He made fun of a disabled reporter. He referred to the former first lady, Barbara Bush as "mommy," and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail. He routinely calls people "stupid," "loser," and "dummy." These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded, and presented.

Such insensitivities wouldn't even be acceptable even for a middle school student body election. But for the Oval Office? And to do so while brandishing a Bible and boasting of his Christian faith? I'm bewildered, both by his behavior and the public's support of it.

The stock explanation for his success is this: he has tapped into the anger of the American people. As one man said, "We are voting with our middle finger." Sounds more like a comment for a gang-fight than a presidential election. Anger-fueled reactions have caused trouble ever since Cain was angry at Abel.

We can only hope, and pray, for a return to decency. Perhaps Mr. Trump will better manage his antics. (Worthy of a prayer, for sure.) Or, perhaps the American public will remember the key role of the president is to be the face of America. When he speaks, he speaks for us. Whether we agree or disagree with the policies of the president, do we not hope that they behave in a way that is consistent with the status of the office?

Is Sanders a Socialist?

Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist and I have loosely referred to him in the same way, violating my own strictures against loose talk. Mea culpa. But of course Sanders is not a socialist in any reasonably strict sense of the term. Not only does he misuse the term, but he also does so quite foolishly since in American politics 'socialist' remains a dirty word. By so labeling himself he insures that he will never be more than a Vermont senator. He is a decent old coot, unlike the despicable Hillary, but in the end a side show on the way to the main event. Practically, then, my question is moot, but theoretically interesting nonetheless.

Sanders recently claimed that he, like Pope Francis, is a socialist. When asked to clarify his meaning, he said the following: "Well, what it means to be a socialist, in the sense of what the pope is talking about, what I'm talking about, is to say that [1] we have got to do our best and live our lives in a way that alleviates human suffering, [2] that does not accelerate the disparities of income and wealth."

I have intercalated numbers to distinguish the two different claims Sanders makes. [1] has nothing specifically to do with socialism. After all, I agree with [1] and I support free enterprise under the rule of law. Capitalism is good because it leads to prosperity and the alleviation of human suffering. Capitalism makes charitable giving possible. [2] has something to do with socialism but it is based on the foolish notion that there is something wrong with inequality as such.

The main point, however, is that Sanders' definition of 'socialism' is risible. Here is a dictionary definition adequate for present purposes:

Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods;

a system of society or group living in which there is no private property : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.

By this definition, Sanders is not a socialist. For he does not advocate government ownership of the means of production, nor is he out to abolish all private property. He needs capitalism to generate the loot that he wants to confiscate and redistribute.

Here it is argued that Sanders would do better to label himself a social democrat rather than a democratic socialist.

While Sanders is not a socialist strictly speaking you could say he is drifting in the socialist direction toward the omni-competent (omni-incompetent?) and omni-intrusive state. So if you value liberty you must oppose Bernie and Hillary and the whole bunch of gun-grabbing, religion-bashing, race-baiting, tradition-trashing, free speech-despising, liberty-quashing, Constitution-shredding, state-worshipping, hate-America leftists.

So if it comes down to Trump versus Hillary, you must roll the dice and vote for the awful Trump and hope for the best.

Trump: For and Against

A regular reader, professional philosopher, and Trump supporter writes that he is "very puzzled" by my position on Donald Trump. The occasion of his puzzlement is my linkage to a vitriolic anti-Trump piece by C. W. Cooke at NRO.

But what exactly is supposed to be so terrible about Trump? So terrible as compared to anyone else who has any chance of winning the [Republican] nomination or the election? For the most part, he [C. W. Cooke] seems to be focused on issues of character or history: Trump is 'an entitled mess' with a 'questionable' record, he merely pretends to be religious, etc. He fails to even address the real reason for Trump's appeal.

What's so bad about him? Well, for one thing he is vicious and narcissistic. He is in some ways like Brian Leiter who is also a New Yorker and who is on record as justifying his offensive behavior because he is one. Like Leiter, Trump viciously attacks people without provocation and then acts hurt and wronged when a reply in kind is made, sometimes to the point of threatening a law suit in retaliation. Trump's attack on Carly Fiorina's appearance is a clear example, one of many. He did not criticize her on something over which she has control such as personal hygiene, but because she is not beautiful. And he did it in public. Is this the sort of person we want representing the greatest country that has ever existed? If nothing else, it shows very bad judgment on his part.

And then there is the fact that the man is mendacious. Many of us conservatives are sick of the brazen liars in politics. Obama and Hillary are prime examples. It is now well-known that Obamacare was rammed though on the basis of repeated lies. There is no doubt that both Obama and Hillary are liars in the strict sense of that term. Why would we want another presidential liar? Trump clearly lied when, 'channeling' Code Pink, he claimed that Bush the Younger lied about WMDs in Iraq. The man seems incapable of controlling his mouth.

You say all politicians lie? But are they all liars? There is a difference. Are they all brazen liars in the Obama mold? It may be a good idea to make some distinctions here. In any case a defense on the ground that all politicians lie is pretty weak.

Is Trump a conservative or a leftist? We expect Obama and Hillary to lie: they are leftists. Truth is not a leftist value. What matters to a leftist is power and winning. That sounds just like Trump. Winning is what counts; otherwise you are a 'loser.' Winning by any means. The end, winning, justifies the means, e.g., lying about George W. Bush, a morally decent man, even if inept.

Vicious, petty, petulant, narcissistic, and how about unprincipled? Ted Cruz is rooted in sound conservative principles. Trump is about as principled as Hillary, which is to say devoid of principles except for the supreme 'principle' of personal ambition. Anything to win. When Cruz pointed out that Trump had reversed himself on key positions, he called Cruz a liar when the mendacity is all in the Trumpster's court. He cannot take any criticism; he can only flail about and lash back.

Not only is he unprincipled, his proposals are little more than vacuous bluster. He says he will build a wall. That's great. I'm all for it. But he also says that the Mexicans will pay for it. How exactly? He said something last night about trade deficits. But how is this supposed to work in detail? We got nothing last night. In all fairness, his people have made some detailed proposals here. Perhaps the Donald should bone up on his own position statements.

Trump has some good ideas but he is incapable of articulating them in a way that could appeal to any reasonable person and persuade fence-sitters. For example, he has called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration. That is a sound idea easily defended. But he can't defend it or even articulate it. For example, to properly articulate the proposal one has to add some qualifications. Suppose an American citizen who is a Muslim visits a relative in Turkey. Does the Trump proposal prevent him from returning to the USA? It had better not. And Trump had better make this clear.

A typical business-type, he seem incapable of thinking in any abstract way grounded in principles. If I wanted to persuade you of the reasonableness of a moratorium on Muslim immigration, I would start with the idea that there is no legal or moral right to immigrate. I would then make points about the purposes of immigration and right of a nation to defend its culture and values, and in so doing select immigrants on that basis. I would explicitly point out that there is nothing 'xenophobic' about an immigration policy that excludes unassimilable elements and favors certain countries of origin over others. I would point out that at the present time there is no net benefit to Muslim immigration. I would make sure that people understand that moratoria, by definition, are temporary. And so on.

Is Trump capable of this? Is he capable of persuading anyone not already a member of the choir? I see no evidence of it. Instead of calmly making a case for those of his proposals that are reasonable, he alienates people with incendiary rhetoric, vicious and wholly unnecessary personal attacks, bluster and braggadocio. These are not just 'academic' points I am making. They pertain to electability. Hillary must be stopped. Trump, I fear, won't be able to stop her because of his manifold defects as a candidate. He won't be able to persuade enough people to support him. It is a good bet that many conservatives will stay home out of disgust.

You say he is a builder. Excellent. But what does he build? Casinos. So we need more casinos? What we really need in this country is moral renewal. But a moral low-life like Trump is not the man to lead it.

People are inspired by the fact that he's giving them a _voice_ for the first time. They can't speak plainly about the evils of immigration and multiculturalism, for example, and he talks about it. The country is facing existential threats, and pretty much everyone in power, including mainstream 'conservatives', pretends that it's all great. In this situation, what matters is that someone is standing up for the beliefs and values of ordinary people who've been silenced.

Here I am in broad agreement with my reader. Trump's appeal is a populist appeal. He 'channels' people's 'inner Jacksonian.' He does give people a voice and says for them what they cannot say for themselves free of reprisal. People are sick and tired of political correctness. They are disgusted by the liberal-left scum who have been allowed to infiltrate our institutions.

But the question is not what explains Trump's popularity; the question is how to stop Hillary. Can Trump stop her? I don't know. And I don't know whether Cruz has a better shot at stopping her.

But if Trump gets the nomination I will of course vote for him. Politics is always about the lesser of evils.

Want more? Read here how Trump got beta'd last night.

Help in Resisting ‘Trumptation’

C. W. Cooke provides some:

. . . Trump is an entitled mess whose business record is so questionable that he managed to bankrupt a casino; that he is an unashamed fraud who didn’t even wait to be elected president before folding on Planned Parenthood and Obamacare, exactly like the “feckless” Congress he is running against; that he is feigning religiosity to appeal to people he believes are rubes; and, above all, that whatever he may be pretending now, he has spent a lifetime screwing the little guy. They must repeat verbatim his previous words on amnesty; they must outline in detail how his policies will make life worse for everyone; and they must point out that a Trump nomination designed to “mix things up” will result, eventually, in more of the same.

Would You Vote for Hillary Because She is a Woman?

According to Heather Wilhelm, feminists are teetering on the brink of a "nervous breakdown":

Why, the chorus goes, is Bernie cast as the future, while Hillary gets painted as “the establishment”? Hillary Clinton is a woman, didn’t you notice? She is by her very nature oppressed; by definition, she cannot be the establishment. Never mind her questionable treatment of the many women who accused her husband of sexual assault; never mind her current classified e-mail quagmire, in which she may have put national security at risk. She is a woman, America. Everything else is chump change.

This lefty-feminist thinking is that women can no more belong to the establishment than blacks can be racists. Why? Because this is true by definition.

At this point I must plug my posts on the illicit use of 'by definition.' Here and here. ("Why must you?" Because it is my self-imposed task people to enlighten people.)

The problem here is that too many women, like too many blacks, are tribal, though not as tribal as blacks. Of course, women are not literally a tribe. Nor is it the case that all women are 'tribal' any more than all blacks are tribal. What do I mean when I say that women, many women, too many women, are 'tribal'? I mean that they place their self-identification as women at the top or near the top of more reasonable and less divisive self-identifications. Any woman who would vote for Hillary just because she is a woman or would place Hillary's being a woman near the top of her reasons for voting for the former Secretary of State is tribal in my sense.

You should vote for the candidate that you think best serves the common good. So if you support Hillary because you think she will best forward the 'progressive' agenda, and you believe in that agenda, then I won't call you 'tribal.' But I will question your judgment. If you really believe in the 'progressive' agenda, shouldn't you be supporting Sanders?

Trump’s America

I thought he would have 'flamed out' by now, but he is still going strong. Might The Donald be on the way to becoming il Duce of America? I ascribed Trump's traction to conservative inaction and Obama's overreach. But cultural factors need to be considered. And who better than Charles Murray to do the job? His WSJ piece begins like this:

If you are dismayed by Trumpism, don’t kid yourself that it will fade away if Donald Trump fails to win the Republican nomination. Trumpism is an expression of the legitimate anger that many Americans feel about the course that the country has taken, and its appearance was predictable. It is the endgame of a process that has been going on for a half-century: America’s divestment of its historic national identity.

For the eminent political scientist Samuel Huntington, writing in his last book, “Who Are We?” (2004), two components of that national identity stand out. One is our Anglo-Protestant heritage, which has inevitably faded in an America that is now home to many cultural and religious traditions. The other is the very idea of America, something unique to us. As the historian Richard Hofstadter once said, “It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one.”

What does this ideology—Huntington called it the “American creed”—consist of? Its three core values may be summarized as egalitarianism, liberty and individualism. From these flow other familiar aspects of the national creed that observers have long identified: equality before the law, equality of opportunity, freedom of speech and association, self-reliance, limited government, free-market economics, decentralized and devolved political authority.

As recently as 1960, the creed was our national consensus. Running that year for the Democratic nomination, candidates like John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Hubert Humphrey genuinely embraced the creed, differing from Republicans only in how its elements should be realized.

Today, the creed has lost its authority and its substance. What happened?