{"id":6439,"date":"2016-05-13T13:28:24","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T13:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/05\/13\/peter-wehner-on-the-dennis-prager-argument-for-trump\/"},"modified":"2016-05-13T13:28:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T13:28:24","slug":"peter-wehner-on-the-dennis-prager-argument-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/05\/13\/peter-wehner-on-the-dennis-prager-argument-for-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Wehner on the Dennis Prager Argument for Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Wehner, Trump Supporters are Wrong, not Evil<\/a>:  <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The argument of people like Prager is that we know how Mrs. Clinton would govern if she were president: as a person of the left. In addition, she\u2019s an ethical mess. The Trump-over-Clinton crowd also argue that Mrs. Clinton is sure to nominate Supreme Court justices that will lock in a liberal court for a generation. Trump may do that, too, but he may not. He might put an actual conservative on the Supreme Court. At least the chances of getting some<\/em> good things done are better under a President Trump than a President Clinton.<\/span><\/p>\n

I disagree with this bottom line judgment for several reasons. The first is that in considering those who run for the presidency, one needs to look beyond which candidate correctly checks the preferred policy boxes. That matters, but it\u2019s not all that matters. And it may not even be what matters most. <\/span><\/p>\n

Judgment, wisdom, temperament, and prudence are the most important qualities by which to evaluate a potential president. It\u2019s obvious to me that Mr. Trump is not only temperamentally unsuited for the Oval Office; I think he\u2019s quite dangerous\u2014emotionally unstable, erratic, narcissistic, impulsive, cruel and vindictive. He is appealing to our darker impulses. He\u2019s also stunningly uninformed and shallow, at least on matters of policy and philosophy. Even when running for president, he has shown no interest in even acquainting himself with the issues, let alone mastering them.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s something else as well: Mr. Trump, if he were to win the presidency, would redefine the Republican Party and conservatism in ways that Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders never could. As president, he and the Republican Party would essentially become one. Trump and Trumpism would be definitional, and therefore discrediting. As Bret Stephens puts<\/a> it:<\/span><\/p>\n

Trumpism isn\u2019t just a triumph of marketing or the excrescence of a personality cult. It is a regression to the conservatism of blood and soil, of ethnic polarization and bullying nationalism. Modern conservatives sought to bury this rubbish with a politics that strikes a balance between respect for tradition and faith in the dynamic and culture-shifting possibilities of open markets. When that balance collapses\u2014under a Republican president, no less\u2014it may never again be restored, at least in our lifetimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe conservative movement can wait out a Clinton presidency intact,\u201d added<\/a> Jonah Goldberg. \u201cA Trump presidency is a ride straight to perdition, with a capital H.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

That is where I have been and where I remain. Like other conservative commentators, I will continue to speak out against Trump during this campaign, despite the fact\u2014and in some respects because<\/em> of the fact\u2014that he\u2019s running as a Republican. It matters to me that he\u2019s soiling the party of Lincoln and Reagan. I have higher expectations for my side than the other side.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I count three arguments here.  <\/span><\/p>\n

First, the argument from bad character.  It is true: Trump does have a bad character, but then so does Hillary, who is an "ethical mess" as Wehner admits.  Is there some algorithm by which we can compute who is worse?  No.  What criteria would you use?  How would you weight them?  Is it worse to store state secrets on a home server or to be a vulgarian who gratuitously insults women and references in public the efficacy of his primary male characteristic?<\/span><\/p>\n

It looks to be a wash<\/a>.   Both are liars.  And both are opportunists who quite plainly place their own personal ambitions above all else. Proof of that is that both readily change their positions when it is expedient to do so.  Hillary is famous for her 'flip flops' or policy reversals. Here<\/a> is a list of 20.  Perhaps some of these reversals are justified. But an objective observer would have to conclude that Mrs. Clinton is not 'principled,' not rooted in carefully thought-through principles that guide her decisions.  Personal ambition and the needs of the moment guide her decisions.  In this respect she is surely not better than Trump.  And let's not forget that she is staring at a federal indictment, which is not something that could be said of Mr. Trump.  Furthermore, what has Hillary accomplished on her own?  What qualifies her for the presidency?  Being a woman? Trump inherited a pile, true, but he did something with it and  lot of people get a paycheck because of him.  <\/span><\/p>\n

So I reject the first argument.  I see no good reason to think that Trump is ethically worse than Hillary.  Both are bad people. Neither is really presidential.  But who else is there who is electable<\/em>?  Given that Trump and Hillary are equally bad character-wise, policy considerations ought to push a conservative over to the Trump camp.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wehner's second argument is hard to make out, but it has something do with altering the Republican Party beyond recognition.  But unless one's livelihood is tied to the preservation of this feckless, joke of a political party, why should anyone care about its continuance? Clearly, we don't need two left-wing parties, the liberal Republicans and the hard-left Dems.  If you are headed for a cliff it is better to be riding an elephant than a jackass, but you are going over the cliff all the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

The third argument is the Goldberg argument I refuted<\/a> the other day.  As I said,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Hillarious appointments to SCOTUS will damage the country irrepararably.  I am told there might be as many as three.<\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose I am becoming weaker by the day and you are becoming stronger by the day.  You are my sworn enemy and I must defeat you.  Does it make sense for me to wait four years to fight you?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Think about it.  Can conservatism remain "intact" during four to eight more years of a hard-left administration?  Yes it can — as a debating society, which is essentially what the boys in the bow ties have going.  But meanwhile in the real world we will still have sanctuary cities, a flood of illegal immigrants, a.k.a. 'undocumented Democrats,' the destruction of the universities, the state assault on religious liberties . . . .  While the bow tie boys talk, the country moves ever Left-ward.<\/span><\/p>\n

I see no reason to abandon the Prager argument.  Trump is bad, but Hillary is worse.  Hold your nose and vote for Trump.  Because Hillary is worse, abstention is not the right course.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is more to be said.  In particular, we need to discuss whether there can be a conservatism that avoids both the impotence of the go-along-to-get-along Republican establishmentarians but also does not descend into a Blut und Boden<\/em> nativism that certain neo-reactionaries seems to be slouching towards.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the way, there is something very strange about fearing a merely potential Trumpian fascism when actual left-wing fascism is being imposed upon the country by Barack Hussein Obama.  Latest outrage: Obama's Transgender Edict<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Peter Wehner, Trump Supporters are Wrong, not Evil:   The argument of people like Prager is that we know how Mrs. Clinton would govern if she were president: as a person of the left. In addition, she\u2019s an ethical mess. The Trump-over-Clinton crowd also argue that Mrs. Clinton is sure to nominate Supreme Court justices … Continue reading “Peter Wehner on the Dennis Prager Argument for Trump”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}