The Long March Back

A prudent, controlled burn of the GOP’s dead weight would be wiser than an unmitigated act of arson.

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437

Hey,

Remember the whole “burn it down” debate?

Last summer it divided the anti-Trump right. (I’m not going to use “NeverTrump” because it’s become a useless and often stupid label.) One side said the whole GOP was complicit in the damage wrought by Trump and that therefore the whole thing needed to be purged with cleansing fire. The other side said that while the anger was understandable, the remedy was too severe, costly, or (more relevant) not actually possible.

The latter basically described my position at the time. It would be one thing if it were possible to tear the GOP down to the studs and replace it with a party of our choosing, but since it’s not possible it’s a silly thing to debate.

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  1. L R Dillon

    Wow, a long feed, here, but even if Trump WERE to try to shield himself from an assassination attempt with a young child, his True Believers would see this as a great act of patriotism - in fact, the greatest we have ever witnessed - no: the greatest that could ever be IMAGINED. I used to wonder how a civilized nation like Germany could have been "captured" by Hitler: now, sadly, it makes perfect sense. Once you have decided that The Leader can do no wrong, well, the rest is simple, isn't it? And Trump is a senile, narcissistic fool: what happens when someone who is NOT all of the above becomes leader of the True Believers? Then is when our democracy will REALLY be tested.

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  2. JR

    What you're recommending is not my preferred course of action but it is probably the best. Had a few Republicans paid the price for encouraging or enabling treasonous attempts to seize power, grift taxpayer and party money, and subvert the Constitution then the road back to health would be faster and more likely to be successful. Since the enablers have been rewarded your approach is the way to go. That said, I can never trust those Senators and Representatives to stand up for the Constitution when they have repeatedly failed to do so. They need to go. I'm sorry that it will be slow and risky. It's hard to say, "no, that's not what we believe" when that crew is still there, clinging to office.

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  3. Brett

    Great piece. Your conclusion I think is right but have you considered it may be where the Left was 65 years ago? We didn't actually have conversations about a lot of culture issues, one just had to conform to a conservative ideology. Some of that was valuable, like the existence of police officers, but some of it was less valuable - has gay marriage actually injured anyone? Did keeping people in the closet help anything?

    When you openly discuss views and positions you can settle on good compromises. See the 80s and 90s? And maybe into the 2000s but now we've swung the other way and certain progressive ideologies are just enforced without discussion even when they make no sense. Conservative virtues can't even be discussed in many quarters. Half-baked but just a thought.

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    Robert Shallenberg

    Supporting your assertion that most conservatives are not in favor of full throat-ed Trumpism, down ballot Republicans did much better than Trump. That is a macro fact that is telling.

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  5. Barbara

    Barry is exactly right. Trump's behavior since the election has been disgraceful, for certain but he was just what this country needed at the time, and, in fact still do; your hatred of Trump, the man clouds your ability to acknowledge his conservatism.

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    Tom Wilson

    Before Trump I felt their was a fairly broad consensus among Republicans on what are conservative values. I was incorrect in my estimation. How will we march back to a destination if we no longer agree on the direction? Trump is no fan of financial responsibility, or honoring those who sacrifice for the good of others, to name two principles I thought conservatives would always stand for. Gullible me.

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      Narwhal

      Some/many Republican politicians have switched from chasing after the votes of the Moderates (15%) to chasing after the votes of the Politically Disengaged (26%) from the Hidden Tribes study of 2018. When this began in earnest is debatable, but I don’t think that Trump doing so completely is. Different groups with different values and concerns and different methods for engaging them.

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  7. Rob Taylor

    We need more sensible commentary like this to differentiate right of center, classical liberalism vs Trumpian views. Well done Jonah.

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    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    Merry Christmas everyone!

    And looking forward to a New Year in which we can argue about something other than Donald Trump.

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  9. Barry Morrell

    I am a fan of Ben Shapiro, whose conservative views coincide with mine. Here are Ben's ratings of 22 US Presidents:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDM2sYaZlC8

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  10. M M (Lee)

    Hi Jonah, I heard in your recent podcast, with the author who talked about Afghanistan, that at this point you believe Iraq was a mistake.

    My understanding is that the risk of leaving Saddam in power was if he had finished rebuilding his nuclear weapons (et al), he could have given them to his terrorist buddies around the world. If Al Quaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood had obtained atomic bombs, wouldn't they simply take out every city in the free world? Or perhaps they would blackmail us into some kind of subservient relationship with them.

    Either way, if terrorists attack us we don't necessarily have a nation that we can invade in order to defeat them. Therefore, the safest option was to prevent them from getting atomic bombs et al in the first place. And in that sense, isn't it arguable that the Iraq war saved civilization?

    I recall the debate about whether the true-believing religious terrorists would align themselves with a dictator such as Saddam, and I thought I remembered that Stephen Hayes wrote a long article outlining that among other things, Saddam was found to have hosted a conference with all those other terrorist groups, (effectively at the Baghdad Marriott for all practical purposes), just months before we invaded. That discovery in Saddam's papers seemed to answer the question, that yes indeed Saddam easily could have shared his atomic bombs with them once he completed rebuilding his weapons.

    My understanding was that he had everything assembled except the nuclear fission material, and for that he just needed a bit more time to purchase that last bit from North Korea, Pakistan or someone along those lines. So essentially our invasion stopped him just in time. Or, at least that's my logic based on those general points. I would love to hear your thoughts. Lee, Memphis

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      Cornelius O’Brien

      Wait, Iraq had everything needed to deliver a nuke to terrorists except actual nuclear material? The last bit? You’d be more justified in attacking “North Korea, Pakistan or someone” based on this theory/ revision of history. What kind of insanity is this?

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      Narwhal

      Why would Saddam have given nuclear weapons to Hezbollah? Could you explain?

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