Thursday, October 19, 2017
Political Mayhem Thursday: What's the Matter with Republicans?
That was the title of Ross Douthat's piece in the NY Times yesterday.
He makes a lot of sense, writing from the conservative side of things, in comparing Trump negatively to George W. Bush. Here is part of what he says:
.... But if you prefer pessimism, you’ll dwell instead on the second takeaway from Thomas Frank’s Trump-era vindication — namely, that a depressing percentage of American conservatives seem perfectly happy with the bargain that Frank claimed defined their party, with a president who ignores their economic interests and public policy more generally and offers instead the perpetual distraction of Twitter feuds and pseudo-patriotic grandstanding.
This dispiriting contentment is the sentiment you see from some of Trump’s blue-collar supporters, who love his uncouth rhetorical war on his fellow coastal elites so much that they’re willing to forgive him his threadbare policy agenda or else trust that gridlock and inertia will protect them from Republican bills whose actual contents they might probably oppose.
It’s also what you see from a segment of religious conservatives, like those gathered at last week’s Values Voters Summit, who cheered rapturously for an empty, strutting nationalism and a president who makes a mockery of the remoralized culture that they claim to seek.
Note that I don’t mean the religious conservatives who supported Trump reluctantly and in a transactional spirit, and who welcome his conservative judicial nominees. I mean those who plainly prefer his brutish braggart’s style to the sort of public decency that Bush or, in a different way, Mitt Romney offered — and who either spin elaborate fantasies about Trump the Christian or laud him as a Conan-esque warlord they think will drive their enemies before them.
For these Trump-besotted believers, you get the sense that the Bush administration’s attempts to devise a substantial socially conservative agenda, from bioethics to marriage promotion to faith-based initiatives and more, are remembered not for being timorous, limited or flawed (all of which they were) but for being simply boring. Far better to have a president who really sticks it to those overpaid babies in the N.F.L. and makes the liberals howl with outrage — that’s what a real and fighting conservatism should be all about!
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As we become more polarized, tribalism has emerged as a (perhaps the) dominant force in American politics. And at a time when entertainment, news, and politics are increasingly indistinguishable. In combination, that's how we arrived at a 2016 election where serious policy was an afterthought, featuring two of the most unpopular candidates in American history.
You get Trump because Republicans were willing to do anything to avoid Clinton, and willing to forgive Trump for his game-show persona (it's all theater, after all). You keep Trump because, despite his dangerous incompetence, boorishness, and swellheaded bluster, to the average Republican voter in Kansas and dangerous idiot (R) is better than the (D) alternative.
You get Trump because Republicans were willing to do anything to avoid Clinton, and willing to forgive Trump for his game-show persona (it's all theater, after all). You keep Trump because, despite his dangerous incompetence, boorishness, and swellheaded bluster, to the average Republican voter in Kansas and dangerous idiot (R) is better than the (D) alternative.
And then consider Bush's remarks today in New York: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/us/politics/george-bush-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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