Perhaps it would be better to say that the view that Mr. Prager expresses coincides exactly with the view I have been developing over a number of posts. His piece therefore earns for him the coveted plenaryMavPhil STOA (stamp of approval).
There is a profoundly fascist element to the American left and the political party that it controls (the Democrats) — from the fascist students and faculty who violently take over college presidents’ and deans’ offices and shout down non-Left speakers to the left-wing thugs who disrupt Trump events by screaming obscenities, carrying obscenity-laden posters, and extending their middle fingers to, and in some cases, spitting on the overwhelmingly peaceful attendees, etc. Having said that, whenever I begin to hope that Trump, even if he continues to act indecently, will at least begin to act intelligently as the possibility of his being nominated approaches reality, he does something so stupid that my heart sinks again.
Both are utterly unfit to be president of the United States. They are equally bad, though in different ways. Trump, not yet having access to the levers of power, has so far shown himself to be personally and professionally disreputable. Hillary, first as the appendage, latterly as the prop of her once-charismatic husband, has been a boil on the countenance of the public for decades. Either would be a disaster for the country.
I grant that Trump and Hillary are bad in different ways, but how does Kimball know that they are equally bad? By what process of calculation or reasoning did he arrive at this assertion? As it stands, Kimball's claim is a gratuitous assertion and the Latin maxim applies: Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. A bare assertion is adequately met with a bare counter-assertion. But I will do better and give seven reasons why Hillary is worse. I conclude that if one is a conservative, and if Trump and Hillary are the nominees of their respective parties, then one ought to vote for Trump. This is obviously consistent with holding, as I do hold, that the nominations of Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders would offer the voters a better choice, and in a two-fold sense: a starker choice ideologically speaking, and a choice between two basically decent people. By the way, it is astonishes me that there are blind partisans who think that the moral character of a candidate is irrelevant to his fitness for office. But I suppose that is what makes blind partisans blind.
A. Trump might appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court. But we KNOW that Hillary won't. This reason by itself ought to incline one to take a stand against the leftist candidate. I don't need to explain to my astute readers how important the composition of SCOTUS is. The composition of SCOTUS 'trumps' in long-term importance the identity of POTUS, if you will excuse the pun (and even if you won't.)
B. It is a very good bet that Trump will put a severe dent in the influx of illegal aliens across the southern border. But we KNOW that Hillary will do nothing to stem the illegal tide. If anything she'll encourage it because in her cynical eyes they are 'undocumented Democrats.' The strategy of the Left is to alter the demographics of the USA in such a way that conservatives are permanently rendered politically ineffective.
You will have noticed by now how liberals routinely suppress the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants by speaking of immigrants or 'migrants' without qualification. Michael Dukakis — remember him? — recently went on about how Trump's ancestors came from Germany. Right, but they immigrated legally. So how is that relevant to the topic of illegal immigration? Here again we see another example of liberal mendacity. Dukakis, De Blasio, and the usual suspects misrepresent their opponents as wanting a stoppage of all immigration. They are lying.
C. A third thing Trump might very well do is stop the outrage of sanctuary cities. But we KNOW Hillary won't. By the way, what do sanctuary cities provide sanctuary from? The rule of law.
D. A fourth thing Trump can be expected to do is enforce civil order and free speech rights in the face of such disorderly elements as the members of Black Lives Matter. These liars and thugs have targeted the police and are actively working to undermine the rule of law. They disrupt speakers. One even disrupted a speech by Bernie Sanders! Hillary is in bed with them. She repeats all the leftist lies about Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, 'mass incarceration,' 'white privilege,' and so on. And what is most despicable is that she does it cynically for her own personal advantage.
When I floated this reason earlier, a reader objected:
If there is one thing that Trump is not doing and not showing any interest in whatsoever, it’s enforcing civil order, and he isn’t much for free speech either. (Except, obviously, when he is the beneficiary.) On the first point, Trump talks about the good old days when protesters would get roughed up, talked about wishing he could punch someone in the face, ever so slyly suggests that his followers will riot if the GOP denies him the nomination at the convention, has offered to pay the legal bills of a follower who cold-cocked a protester, and his conduct in the dispute between Michelle Fields and his chief of staff is rather poor as well. As for free speech, he’s a well-chronicled disaster.
I disagree thoroughly with my reader's first point. The single most important issue respecting the question of civil order is control of the nation's borders. Hillary will do nothing on this issue except lie about it. Trump may do something about it. See (B) above. This clinches the matter for me. My reader strains at a gnat while swallowing a camel when he brings up Trump's threatening remarks. Ask yourself: which is worse, Trump's words or the repeated and well-orchestrated leftist disruptions of conservative events? Words or actual physical violence?
As for my reader's second point, here he is on solid ground.
E. 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 apparatchiki of the latter being the State's 'priesthood.'
F. 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-basher and Constitution-trasher is for. She realizes that guns in the hands of citizens are a check on her leftist totalitarianism.
G. And then came Brussells. A seventh thing Trump might do is take serious and 'meaningful' steps against Islamic terrorism. We KNOW that Hillary won't.
Add these reasons together and you have a strong cumulative-case argument for the preferrability of Trump over Hillary should it come to such a contest.
I have on occasion praised Ross Douthat and David Brooks as worth reading among the contributors to the reliably piss-poor Op Ed pages of The New York Times. But my estimation of Brooks has dropped a notch after reading his No, Not Trump, Not Ever.
Donald Trump is a deeply flawed candidate as any half-way objective observer would have to admit, and most of what Brooks says against him is on target. But Brooks does not understand the factors responsible for Trump's spectacular rise. (The explanandum is not that Trump is in the race, but that he is still in the race with a very good shot at the nomination.)
Trump voters are a coalition of the dispossessed. They have suffered lost jobs, lost wages, lost dreams. The American system is not working for them, so naturally they are looking for something else.
Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation.
This is only part of the explanation. Brooks ignores both the role of the ultra-divisive Obama with his project of a "fundamental transformation of America" and the role of the do-nothing, go-along-to-get-along 'establishment' Republicans who refused to oppose the pernicious and often extra-legal Obama initiatives. These factors are at least equal in explanatory relevance to the rage of the dispossessed and alienated. In a cute slogan of mine:
Trump's traction is mainly due to Obaminable action and conservative inaction.
Think of all those who support Trump who are not dispossessed or alienated. I am neither and I support Trump in the following weak sense: Should he get the Republican nod, I will vote for him. For Hillary is worse, for reasons I have sketched elsewhere.
Brooks comes across as a blind anti-Trump partisan. He writes,
Trump is perhaps the most dishonest person to run for high office in our lifetimes. All politicians stretch the truth, but Trump has a steady obliviousness to accuracy.
That is true, but it is also true of Obama and Hillary as every half-way objective observer of the passing scene knows. Trump exaggerates, bullshits, lies, refuses to admit his lies when they are exposed, and so on. Not a pretty sight. In no way presidential. But the Obama-Hillary tag team is just as bad if not worse. Why does Brooks omit to point out the obvious? What's he going to do? Sit out the election? Vote for Hillary?
So I say Brooks is as bad as the blind pro-Trump partisans who would refuse to admit any of Brooks' positive points about Trump's negatives.
UPDATE:
Jonathan V. Last understands and documents Obama's role in begetting Trump. Excerpts:
When no one on the left was asking for it, Obama pursued the narrowest-possible reading of religious liberty, resulting in Supreme Court showdowns with a Lutheran school, which wanted to be free to hire its own ministers without government interference, and with the Little Sisters of the Poor, who didn't want to be forced to pay for abortifacients. There was no reason for Obama to pursue these policies except as an exercise in premeditated divisiveness. On the question of religious liberty, Obama has sought to undo a national consensus and foment conflict. In doing so, he set in motion a slow-rolling constitutional and cultural collision that is likely to end badly. The only reason this chaos isn't apparent to the general public is because Lutherans and nuns don't riot.
[. . .]
Then came Obama's penchant for wading into every racial police controversy that reached the front page of the New York Times. He took sides against the Cambridge cops in their arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. The police in this case were almost certainly in the wrong; but no one needed the president of the United States preening about it. He did the same with the death of Trayvon Martin, showing up unscheduled at a press availability to talk about the case the week after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting. Did Obama come before the cameras to reassure the public and vouch for the rule of law? No. He stoked the fires, telling America, "Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago." This was a ridiculous exaggeration. Martin was (to put it charitably) a troubled teen with a history of problematic behavior; 35 years before, Barack Obama had been a promising student at an elite private school. By likening himself to Martin, Obama was viewing the episode through the most reductive and demagogic lens possible.
When the Michael Brown shooting turned Ferguson into a powder keg, Obama was ready for the cameras, calling it "heartbreaking" and sending his Justice Department in to ferret out wrongdoing. (They found none.) In a world full of real police abuses — such as the killing of Eric Garner in New York and the shooting of Walter Scott in Charleston — Obama seems to have a knack for tying himself to the cases where the police were actually in the right. It's enough to make one wonder if Obama can't tell the difference between proper and improper police conduct — or if he just doesn't care.
All of which lead to Obama's semi-embrace of the Black Lives Matter movement. As Heather Mac Donald has documented, Black Lives Matter is not an innocent college protest movement. It is an ugly strain of anarchic racialism that has led not just to the defense of looting but to the killing of police officers. Obama does not merely refuse to condemn Black Lives Matter — he attempts to rationalize it, explaining, "There is a specific problem that is happening in the African-American community that's not happening in other communities."
I see you're paying attention to current affairs. Very hard on the nerves. I can't do it. I tried to watch one Rep "debate": the most vulgar public display I've ever seen. Do you remember the saying "he who slings mud loses ground"? I think the "contestants" dug themselves mineshaft-deep holes that night. Shameful. Didn't try to watch the Dems, but I can imagine. I'll ask you a question: as citizens do you think people deeply offended by the mudslinging nevertheless have a duty to attend to the political debate and eventually try to make an educated choice (even if it's another egregiously malum minus choice)? Unlike some countries which legally mandate voting (Australia), US citizens have no statutory obligation to vote, but I'll guess you don't see that as exhausting the duties of a citizen.
That is a wonderful saying, "He who slings mud loses ground." I had never heard it before. I shall remember it. A variant occurs to me, "He who digs up dirt loses ground."
An interesting logico-linguistic point that should interest Slim: Constructions of the form He who Fs Gs, while featuring what is grammatically the third-person singular masculine pronoun, are not logically pronominal at all. The use of 'he' in such constructions is quantificational. Thus "he who slings mud loses ground" is replaceable both salva veritate and salva significatione by
For any x, if x slings mud, then x loses ground.
Now on to to Slim's question:
As citizens do you think people deeply offended by the mudslinging nevertheless have a duty to attend to the political debate and eventually try to make an educated choice (even if it's another egregiously malum minus choice)?
After Trump referred to his phallus, praising its size and efficacy, I turned off the TV. So there is no duty to listen to all the mud slung from side to side. But yes, one does have a civic duty to "attend to the debate" in the sense of informing oneself of both (i) what the candidates represent and (ii) their character as individuals. Why? Well, since we have benefited from civil order, we have a moral responsibility to help maintain it and pass it on. It is a question of gratitude, a good conservative virtue.
One ought to attend to both (i) and (ii). I am puzzled but also appalled at the number of Trump supporters who are blind partisans who are either unaware of or dismissive of the man's obvious negatives. They are so enamored of his populism that they are willing to ignore the man's character as if that has no bearing on his fitness for high office.
Mandatory Voting?
There is a reason not to go the way of the Aussies and make voting mandatory. As it is here in the USA, roughly only half of the eligible voters actually vote. This is arguably good inasmuch as voters filter themselves. If I were a liberal, I would say that eligible voters who stay home 'disenfranchise' themselves, and often to the benefit of the rest of us. (But of course I am not a liberal and I don't misuse words like 'disenfranchise.')
What I mean is that, generally speaking, the people who can vote but do not are precisely the people one would not want voting in the first place. To vote takes time, energy, and a bit of commitment. Careless, lazy, and uninformed people are not likely to do it. And that is good. I don't want my thoughtful vote neutralized by the vote of some dolt who is merely at the polling place to avoid a fine. And if you force a man to vote, he may rebel and vote randomly or in other ways that subvert the process.
Of course, many refuse to vote out of disgust at their choices. My advice for them would be to hold their noses and vote for the least or the lesser of the evils. Politics is always about choosing the least or the lesser of evils. The very fact that we need government at all shows that we live in an imperfect world, one in which a perfect candidate is not to be found. Government itself is a necessary evil: it would be better if we didn't need it, but we do need it.
I support the right of those who think the system irremediably corrupt to protest by refusing to vote. Government is coercive by its very nature, and mandatory voting is a form of coercion that belongs in a police state rather than in a free republic.
If you think that a higher voter turnout is a good thing, that is happening anyway as divisions deepen and our politics become more polarized. The nastier our politics, the higher the turnout. And it will get nastier still. So why do we need mandatory voting?
Fact is, we are awash in unnecessary laws. We don't need more laws and more government interference in our lives. And will a mandatory voting law be enforced? How? At what expense? Isn't it perfectly obvious to everyone with commonsense that we need to move toward less government rather than more, toward more liberty rather than less? (You may infer from this that Hillary and Bernie lack common sense.)
If you think about it, 'One man, one vote' is a very dubious principle. I think about it here. Voluntary voting is one way of balancing the ill effects of 'One man, one vote.' But isn't voting a civic duty? I would say that it is. But not every duty should be legally mandated.
Seldom Seen Slim has correctly guessed my position: the duties of a citizen are not exhausted by what is legally mandated. One has a moral obligation to stay politically informed, to do one's best to form correct political opinions, and to vote.
There are those who love to expose and mock the astonishing political ignorance of Americans. According to a 2006 survey, only 42% of Americans could name the three branches of government. But here is an interesting question worth exploring:
Is it not entirely rational to ignore events over which one has no control and withdraw into one's private life where one does exercise control and can do some good?
I can vote, but my thoughtful vote counts for next-to-nothing in most elections, especially when it is cancelled out by the vote of some thoughtless and uninformed idiot. I can blog, but on a good day I will reach only a couple thousand readers worldwide and none of them are policy makers. (I did have some influence once on a Delta airline pilot who made a run for a seat in the House of Representatives.) I can attend meetings, make monetary contributions, write letters to senators and representatives, but is this a good use of precious time and resources? It may be that Ilya Somin has it right:
. . . political ignorance is actually rational for most of the public, including most smart people. If your only reason to follow politics is to be a better voter, that turns out not be much of a reason at all. That is because there is very little chance that your vote will actually make a difference to the outcome of an election (about 1 in 60 million in a presidential race, for example). For most of us, it is rational to devote very little time to learning about politics, and instead focus on other activities that are more interesting or more likely to be useful.
Is it rational for me to stay informed? Yes, because of my intellectual eros, my strong desire to understand the world and what goes on in it. The philosopher is out to understand the world; if he is smart he will have no illusions about changing it, pace Marx's 11th Thesis on Feuerbach.
Another reason for people like me to stay informed is to be able to anticipate what is coming down the pike and prepare so as to protect myself and my stoa, my citadel, and the tools of my trade. For example, my awareness of Obama's fiscal irresponsibility is necessary if I am to make wise decisions as to how much of my money I should invest in precious metals and other hard assets. Being able to anticipate Obaminations re: 'gun control' will allow me to buy what I need while it is still to be had. 'Lead' can prove to be useful for the protection of gold, not to mention the defense of such sentient beings as oneself and one's family.
In brief, a reason to stay apprised of current events is not so that I can influence or change them, but to be in a position so that they don't influence or change me.
A third reason to keep an eye on the passing scene, and one mentioned by Somin, is that one might follow politics the way some follow sports. Getting hot and bothered over the minutiae of baseball and the performance of your favorite team won't affect the outcome of any games, but it is a source of great pleasure to the sports enthusiast. I myself don't give a damn about spectator sports. Politics are my sports. So that is a third reason for me to stay on top of what's happening. It's intellectually stimulating and a source of conversational matter and blog fodder.
All this having been said and properly appreciated, one must nevertheless keep things in perspective by bearing in mind Henry David Thoreau's beautiful admonition:
Read not The Times; read the eternities!
For this world is a vanishing quantity whose pomps, inanities, Obaminations and what-not will soon pass into the bosom of non-being.
Here. The problem is not that Hillary is too stupid to grasp the distinction between legal and illegal immigration; the problem is that she is a corrupt leftist out for her own personal gain at the expense of her country.
Chris Hedges over at Truth Dig is worried about the rise of American fascism. But first things first. First we crush Hillary and the Dems. There will be plenty of time to keep an eye on Der Trumpster should he make it to the White House.
I am not worried about American fascism. We Americans are not a bunch of Germans about to start goose-stepping behind some dictator. Our traditions of liberty and self-reliance are long-standing and deep-running. A sizeable contingent of Trump supporters are gun rights activists who would be open to an extra-political remedy should anyone seek to instantiate the role of Der Fuehrer or Il Duce. True, Trump appeals to those having an authoritarian personality structure. But his supporters are also cussedly individualistic and liberty-loving. I expect the latter characteristic to mitigate the former.
There is also the following interesting question wanting our attention: why is it better to have the personality structure of the typical leftist? Why is it better to be a rebellious, adolescent, alienated, destructive, irreverent, tradition-despising, anti-authoritarian, ungrateful, utopian, dweller in Cloud Cuckoo Land?
Someone told me today that Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals is dedicated to Lucifer. Lucifer, not Lucifer Schwarz of Poughkeepsie. Makes perfect sense.
Democrats advance a woman, a serial liar, a self-proclaimed feminist who trashed multiple women for political gain, an ideological ambulance chaser who will follow votes anywhere, who compromised state secrets and amassed a fortune while serving in the Cabinet, partly through suspect dealings with donors in foreign nations.
Republicans, fed up with their flaccid leaders, advance a man whose whole life speaks: no fixed principles, crony capitalism, megalomania, religious hypocrisy, authoritarianism, bullying, innocence of the Constitution and the simplest functioning of our government (he thinks judges signs bills) – and no political experience.
[. . .]
I won’t indulge in a categorical judgment for now: that would be to give in to the very passions of the moment that I find mortally dangerous. But if things continue as they are . . . I’m thinking it’s best if I simply don’t vote for president. Or write in someone sane, and not wholly on the make.
While I respect Royal's position, I say one must take a stand. Granted, both candidates are very bad, and for the reasons Royal cites in addition to others. But Hillary is worse. For conservatives to abstain because of Trump's manifest negatives is folly. But why is Hillary worse than Trump?
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, conservatives must vote for the Republican nominee whoever it is.
To spell it out a bit:
A. Trump might appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court. But we KNOW that Hillary won't. This reason by itself ought to incline you to take a stand against the leftist candidate. I don't need to explain to my astute readers how important the composition of SCOTUS is. The composition of SCOTUS 'trumps' in long-term importance the identity of POTUS, if you will excuse the pun (and even if you won't.)
B. It is a very good bet that Trump 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 Hillary will do nothing to stem the illegal tide. If anything she'll encourage it because in her cynical eyes they are 'undocumented Democrats.' The strategy of the Left is to alter the demographics of the USA in such a way that conservatives are permanently rendered politically ineffective.
C. A third thing Trump might very well do is stop the outrage of sanctuary cities. But we KNOW Hillary won't. By the way, what do sanctuary cities provide sanctuary from? The rule of law.
D. A fourth thing Trump can be expected to do is enforce civil order and free speech rights in the face of such disorderly elements as the members of Black Lives Matter. These liars have targeted the police and are actively working to undermine the rule of law. They disrupt speakers. One even disrupted a speech by Bernie Sanders! Hillary is in bed with them. She repeats all the leftist lies about Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, 'mass incarceration,' 'white privilege,' and so on. And what is most despicable is that she does it cynically for her own personal advantage.
E. 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 apparatchiki of the latter being the State's 'priesthood.'
F. 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-basher and Constitution-trasher is for. She realizes that guns in the hands of citizens are a check on her leftist totalitarianism.
Add these reasons together and you have a strong cumulative-case argument for the preferrability of Trump over Hillary. There are other reasons I haven't mentioned.
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.
You must realize that politics is a practical business. It always involves concrete choices among or between sub-optimal candidates. If you refuse to vote, you willy-nilly lend support to Hillary and her ilk and her agenda. You are a fool if you let the best become the enemy of the good, or in the present situation, the good become the enemy of the least bad.
We are in the age of post-consensus politics. We Americans don't agree on much of anything any more. As our politics comes more and more to resemble warfare, the warrior comes more and more to replace the gentleman.
Here is the best description of a gentleman I have encountered:
The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe. -– John Walter Wayland
By this definition, Trump is no gentleman; he is rather the anti-gentleman. But a gentleman among thugs is a loser. You cannot appeal to the higher nature of a thug; he has none. So you need someone who can repay the leftist in his own Alinskyite coin. You need a man who will get into the gutter and fight the leftist with his own weapons. You need a man who will not shrink from the politics of personal destruction preached by V. I. Lenin and used so effectively by his successors in the Democrat Party.
Herein an argument for Trump. I am beginning to think that he alone can defeat the evil Hillary. Ted Cruz is a brilliant man compared to whom Trump is a know-nothing when it comes to the law, the Constitution, and the affairs of state, and Cruz is a better man than Trump; but the Texan is a senator and thus part of the Republican establishment against which there is justified rebellion.
Personality-wise, too, Cruz is not that attractive to the average disgruntled voter. He is not enough of a regular guy. And being a better man than Trump he probably won't descend deep enough into the gutter to really annihilate Hillary as she so richly deserves. Trump can mobilize Joe Sixpack and Jane Lipstick. These types don't watch C-SPAN or read The Weekly Standard. They can't relate to the bow-tie brigade over at National Review. They are heartily sick and tired of the empty talk of the crapweasels* of the Republican establishment. They want action.
_______________
*I borrow this delightful bit of invective from the fiery Michelle Malkin.
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.
My response to Mann would be along these lines: It is precisely because men of the spirit must survive and must survive to create and enlighten that they must be concerned with politics and with those who can kill and suppress them. You escaped to the USA, but what if there were no such country to which to escape because all of the people of high quality practised your cynical egotism, your selfish limitation to the personal?
I will have to find the passage in Plato's Laws where he says that the good who refuse to get involved in politics will end up ruled by the evil.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
