This is an interesting article by the professor at Legal Insurrection.
What caught my eye is that Mr. Jacobson said this piece was based on a discarded essay he wrote but resurrected out of the trash after reading someone else’s essay.
I’m resurrecting a piece I trashed this morning based on reading Jacobsen’s piece.
Here’s the basic thesis of Legal Insurrection post-
I supported Ted Cruz… but Cruz didn’t win even the Republican nomination. As I have argued in my “you go to war with the President you have” posts, Trump is not a conservative, but he is willing to do some conservative things. The anti-Trump movement, by contrast, seeks to drive conservatives out of the public square.
Much of the relentless opposition to Trump from #NeverTrump Republicans is not principled in conservatism, because if it were they’d have to present a viable more conservative current alternative.
Instead, it’s resume building for the possibility that #TheResistance may actually succeed in taking Trump down, likely with substantial help from Trump’s own foibles. It’s also an insufferable desire for a disastrous Trump presidency, so they can say “I told you so.” I want no part of that.
The choice now is between Trump and the conspiracy theorists, Antifa street thugs, campus anti-free speech police, Soros-funded front groups, deceptive anti-Trump media, Democrat obstructionists, and illegal leakers in the permanent bureaucracy who consider themselves above the electoral process.
You don’t need to be pro-Trump to be against those who collectively are a greater threat to our liberty than Trump.
I was writing a somewhat similar post this morning and decided to chuck it.
My post was inspired after reading a piece by David Limbaugh on the Daily Wire-
Past Time to End This Democratic Witch Hunt
Knowing that Limbaugh was one of the relentless asses who kept the drumbeat going about how rotten Trump was, even after he won the nomination, I had to read his post.
It was in defense of the Trump presidency and the insufferable left who keep the drumbeat going about Trump’s “collusion with the Russians.”
This is rich coming from a guy who would be using this very same issue against Trump had Trump been “governing like a liberal” – something the myopic Limbaugh predicted… with unfortunate regularity.
There are currently a lot of pointy headed right-wing pundits that are defending Trump from the left’s “baseless attacks” now that Trump isn’t the person they told “us morons” we were being duped by.
But it is precisely their post-primary anti-Trump antics and poisoning rhetoric that gave special gravitas to the left’s anti-Trump movement, and suddenly they want to defend Trump?
If only their brains were as big as their balls.
Who do I hate more?
– The Never Trumpers
– The Left
Answer: It is tempting to say the Never Trumpers since they are backstabbing asses who were effectively benefiting Hillary, the truth is the leadership of the Leftists is an evil and dishonest lot whereas the Never Trumpers are generally just stupid. I hate evil over stupidity. I hate Leftists more.
I swore off Charile Sykes for becoming an irrational Never Trump under any circumstances. I can’t stand him now.
It’s as if they have made a complete separation between Trump the man and the President of the United States whose term’s success or failure is shared by the entire nation.
Alert. Maxine on msNBC in 2 minutes. Hurry.
“I’m for whatever I think will keep me employed as a word prostitute”, said every news pundit out there.
The only one I have sympathy for is Krauthammer, who lost a promising future as a Dr. due to an accident.
Alert Over.
Orbit achieved.
The nut of Jacobsen’s argument is a false premise. One has to agree with it in order for everything else he posits to make sense: “As I have argued in my “you go to war with the President you have” posts, Trump is not a conservative, but he is willing to do some conservative things.”
There are others who are in a better position to say such things, having been in the inner circle at the time, that Trump is even more conservative than the Republican’s god of Conservatism, Ronaldus Maximus. Once such important historical and political witness is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. While some have argued that Gingrich was a “back-bencher” during the Reagan era, no one can truthfully say he wasn’t a keen and able eye-witness and analyzer of Reagan’s presidency.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, Gingrich’s analyses of Trump include the fact that Trump is dealing with a very different set of circumstances in today’s political landscape than confronted Reagan. In an opinion piece he wrote in the Washington Post, Eric Mack (NewsMax) quotes Gingrich’s assessment of Trump’s interactions with the Left (1/27/17),:
“Trump resembles Thatcher far more than Reagan,” Gingrich wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Thursday.
“Reagan was focused on breaking the power of the Soviet Union, not breaking the power of political correctness and the elite media that has increasingly dominated the United States. They were frightened of Reagan, but they weren’t enraged by him.
“Trump is a direct, mortal threat to both the power structure and the ideology of the left. The left knows it and is responding just as the British left wing responded to Thatcher.
“The young liberal fascists breaking windows and intimidating Trump supporters on Inauguration Day displayed the kind of hostility that Thatcher evoked on the left.”
Gingrich went on to contrast the Democrats’ opposition in Congress, holding up President Trump’s Cabinet confirmations, to House Speaker Tip O’Neil’s “more nuanced approach” to Reagan in the ’80s.
“The congressional Democrats’ decision to adopt pure negativity and opposition tactics is much more like the Labour Party’s reaction to Thatcher than then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s much more nuanced approach to Reagan,” Gingrich continued. “One-third of the House Democrats voted for the Reagan economic program in the summer of 1981. It is hard to imagine that happening in the House today.”
There are other important national and global issues facing Trump that were not issues for Reagan: The Left’s insistence on making “Global Warming” a central threat to our security, a post-9/11 America and ISIS’ invasion of Europe, and the result of obama’s “Arab Spring”, just to name a few. How anyone can measure what is and is not “conservative enough” in relationship to how any “true conservative” before Trump would manage these issues is beyond creating a kind of conservative Utopianism, at best.
However, none of this brings us any closer to understanding the so-called “Conservative” #NeverTrump movement. And I think, most of all, it is because no one has ever clearly stated what the #NeverTrump movement is beyond calling them RINO’s or Globalists. I don’t think they defy description; perhaps no one has taken the time to understand what, exactly, Conservative Utopianism is and how it cripples America’s (and Trump’s) attempts to regain a Constitutional basis for governing — both domestically and globally. This is what I think is missing from all the arguments on both sides.
And with that, Happy Mother’s Day.
Ever notice how even a complimentary article on Trump always includes a left wing, neverTrump unfounded jab in the articles opening paragraphs?
In this one it’s “substantial help from Trump’s own foibles”. Like what? Why doesn’t the author list specific traits he sees as “foibles” and contrast them with similar Obama “foibles” like letting 4 Americans die and lying about it while imprisoning an innocent man for it. Or how about lying and covering up running an illegal gun running operation that resulted in a Border Agent being killed? How about a little Obama “foible” like allowing criminal illegals to kill dozens of Americans? Perhaps a “foible” like using the IRS and NSA to persecute Americans with opposing political views?
Let’s compare the “foible” of tweeting directly to the American public without a filter of 50 paid consultants to the “foible” that results in thousands of Americans lives being destroyed by a politicized, dishonest government.
@Page O Turner — You nailed it. Trump’s biggest “foible” is having the guts to promote an America First foreign and domestic policy. If you don’t agree with this policy bedrock, everything Trump does is viewed as flawed.
I think you would like the essay in Imprimus about why Putin’s similar, Russia First, campaign is reviled by globalists in the same way they hate Trump.
“How to Think About Vladimir Putin”
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/how-to-think-about-vladimir-putin/
Surprising parallels and what they mean.
The biggest obstacle to passing the conservative pieces of Trumps agenda continues to be the Republican party. Those of us that got behind Trump early on didn’t do it because he was conservative. We did it because the so called conservatives have betrayed us for years in Congress. We were willing to give an outsider with a love of country and understanding of traditional values a try. They are just trying to get back on the winning team and save face without admitting they were wrong. Always treating the base like a bunch of rubes that won’t remember what they’ve done.
Trump is/has been conservative about most of the things that really matter.
The establishment gov’t (Dems and Repubs) is mostly leftist about the things that really matter.
Follow the money. Trump has made all of his, the politico’s have stolen most of theirs.
@AbigailAdams – I was struck from the start with the parallels in the treatment of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump by the media and establishment and began researching. The only difference is the media and establishment have become more embedded, corrupt and venal since Reagan. It’s as if they saw what patriotism and allegiance to the Constitution could do and said “Never Again”.
Trump is called a rodeo clown and buffoon. Reagan was called a failed grade B actor who thought he was playing the part of a president in a movie.
In addition to opposition within his own party over his conservatism, Reagan was thought by most of the liberal intelligentsia of the media and the academy to be “unqualified” to be President. Trump is betrayed by RINOs who pretend to be supportive but undercut at every opportunity. His VP, Bush told Soviet dictator Gorbachev “Reagan is a conservative, an extreme conservative. All the dummies and blockheads are with him…” Bush wasted no time in reversing the Reagan tax cuts and other provisions that got the government off taxpayers’ backs.
From Craig Shirley’ biography of Reagan: “His candidacy has been extraordinary. He was seen by many as shallow and simplistic and even dangerous. All but a handful of Senators and Congressmen shunned him. He was opposed by nearly every state organization. He had practically no editorial support.”
“Some insist Reagan was a boob propped up by a clever staff”- Fred Barnes
I collected dozens of similar comparisons which the media has no interest in exploring.
Right on Burner.
@Page O — I want to respond to your excellent comment, but we’re just out the door for Mother’s Day activities. I’d love to take this conversation further.
AA
Abigail – Please feel free to contact me through Big Fur. He has my email.
I’ve reached my breaking point with the lies and cover-ups. I see how younger people are unaware of a time when we were proud of our country, we wanted to work hard to be smart and successful and when government didn’t intrude on our every waking minute.
I’m also fed up with the Trump mole hills while the media – and conservative blogs – ignore the many positive things he’s done in a short time.