Burn, Baby, Burn

Thoughts on the NeverTrump divide.

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Dear Reader (Including those of you who can’t wait for Rob Zombie’s new album, Alien DNA, Demon Sperm, Hydroxychloroquine),

So I guess we’re doing this. 

You may have noticed that I’ve largely tried to stay out of the whole “Burn it Down” versus—um, what is the other side called? “Mend it, don’t end it?” Naw. Well whatever, the anti-burn-it-down camp. 

I’d call it the Frenchist camp, after my colleague David French who rejects the burn-it-down position. But “Frenchist” is already taken by Trumpists and Trump-adjacent intellectuals to describe socially conservative classical liberalism and a politics of decency (though they think it describes the cowardly capitulation to cultural Marxists who want your children to be taught by illegal immigrant drag queens). 

As well-argued as I think David’s position is, and as much as I agree with most of it, I actually think the best argument for why the burn-it-all-down folks are wrong comes from my friend and our former National Review colleague Ramesh Ponnuru. Read the whole piece, but the gist of his argument is: It won’t work. Problems without solutions aren’t really problems, James Burnham said. This is a very hard concept for people to grasp—and in some realms of life, that’s a good thing. The faith that seemingly insurmountable obstacles are actually surmountable is how the airplane was invented. 

But in politics, the refusal to understand there’s no solution—or at least no immediate solution—to inconvenient facts of life leads to an enormous waste of time, resources and cable TV “debates.” 

Let me put it this way: Even if the burn-it-down folks are right that the ideal option would be to raze the current GOP and build it anew, they can’t do it. (Indeed, it’s funny: Anti-Trump conservatives have spent three years being told we don’t matter, and many of us have said we’re okay with that. But now suddenly we’re debating—as if it were a real possibility—whether or not we should tear down the existing GOP and redesign it on our terms.)

And sometimes if you can’t succeed, the worst thing you can do is try. Say I’m in a boat with Steve Hayes, far from both shore and medical assistance. Now, suppose Steve has appendicitis. We know the best solution is to remove his appendix. Well, possibly the worst thing I could do is bust out my Swiss Army knife and start cutting away at his abdomen in search of his appendix. Even if I found it, I wouldn’t know how to remove it, never mind sew him back up. Better to leave it in there and figure out the best possible way to get help. 

To the extent that the Lincoln Project folks have the power to do anything to Republicans, most of the Republicans they can actually take down aren’t the Trumpiest ones. They’re the least Trumpy. Indeed, the fact that they’re the least Trumpy is the reason they hate them the most. It’s analogous to the way hardcore leftists hate moderate liberals so much. When two camps agree on a lot of first principles, deviation and compromise are seen as acts of cowardice or betrayal. Everyone knows that Sen. Susan Collins isn’t a Trump stooge, which is why her concessions to Trumpism enrage the fiercest Trump opponents the most (including me, sometimes). On a psychological level, you expect more from people who you think should know better. And because she’s a fairly liberal Republican from a liberal state, she can be hurt by the charge of being a Trump stooge in ways that, say, Tom Cotton or Rand Paul can’t. So that’s why the Lincoln Project is running ads calling her a “Trump Stooge.”

Let’s say they succeed in getting rid of Collins and those like her. Will that make the GOP more or less Trumpy? The answer is more. The GOP is on path to becoming a rump party for a while, no matter what. I don’t really see why anyone would want to see it be run by the most Trumpy Republicans—except, that is, for Democrats. 

Indeed, part of Ramesh’s argument is that the divide among  “NeverTrumpers”—a term I dislike—is really an ideological dispute masquerading as a tactical one. Those who basically agree with Democrats on issues like gun control, abortion, and high taxes are going to be more comfortable with unified Democratic control of government. They use “Trumpism” as a Trojan Horse to smuggle in ideological assumptions.   

Ramesh writes:

Whether Republicans will move away from Trumpism depends on what that word means—and the term resists precise definition. The journalist Ronald Brownstein predicts a Trumpist party after Trump’s presidency, but he thinks any Republican who wants 500,000 legal immigrants a year instead of 1 million is a Trumpist. So is anyone who calls for a harder line with China. (Which would seem to make Joe Biden a Trumpist, too.)

One of the least persuasive arguments against Trump’s GOP from the left and chunks of the anti-Trump right is when they point out often senator-so-and-so votes X percent of the time for the “Trump agenda.” The vast majority of these votes are for things that Republican senators would have voted for under a president Rubio or Cruz. In other words, that stuff isn’t “Trumpism.” I mean, should Republicans not have voted for Neil Gorsuch, just to send a message to Trump? Their voters wanted them to vote for Gorsuch. 

I get the argument that they lent political support to Trump’s “record of accomplishment” by voting “with” him, but I just don’t buy the argument that elected Republicans shouldn’t vote like traditional conservative Republicans just because it might benefit Trump. 

Moreover, as I’ve written countless times, Trumpism isn’t an ideology, despite many desperate and often embarrassing attempts to make it one. It’s a psychological phenomenon that begins with the president’s own deformed psychology and extends outward like a radiation cloud, mutating all those not immune to its seductive Eldritch energies. Today’s GOP and much of rightwing media is a vast Rube Goldberg (no relation) machine powered by a hyperactive hamster with improbable fur, spinning a wheel as it runs after its own reflection in a mirror. That hamster is Donald Trump’s id.

If Trumpism were an ideology, there would be a consistency to the Trump presidency that could be explained by a coherent ideological program. On a few issues, like trade and immigration, that’s possible. But even these ideological commitments have little explanatory or predictive power when compared to what comes with understanding Trump’s irritable mental gestures, intellectual laziness, cavernous appetite for attention and praise, and the manifest incompetence they all produce. The people who say anti-Trump conservatives need to rally around the president ask much of people who care little and nothing of a president who—daily—undermines himself and their cause with a superhuman determination to step on his own Johnson on an international stage. Endorsements from every NeverTrumper would carry a fraction of the weight a week of competence and dignity in office by Trump would. But they demand nothing from him, and everything from those who refuse to lie on his behalf. 

Indeed, the bulk of my contempt for Republican politicians—and conservative commentators —these days is reserved for those who cater to this definition of Trumpism at the expense of their principles, both ideological and civic. Mike Pompeo’s refusal to reject postponing the election yesterday is all I need to know about the guy. Any radio host or scribbler who celebrates Trump’s genius, character, or statesmanship has revealed themselves to either be in the fanservice business while doing party work by proxy or—in the rare cases they’re sincere—members of a cult of personality. I’m sick of hearing how radiant the emperor’s new clothes are. 

Much of that garbage will go away with Trump, thank God. But I think it will go away faster if the GOP isn’t simply reduced to the Matt Gaetz crowd. 

Dear Prudence

But you know what? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s a genius to the Lincoln Project’s effort to, like the hero of the old Adventures of Letterman cartoon, put a “T” in front of the coming rump party. Maybe giving the Democrats control of the Senate and the ability to get rid of the legislative filibuster is the best path to reviving conservatism. I honestly don’t see it, and since I’m being honest, I don’t put a lot of stock—any, really—in the idea that Jon Weaver and Steve Schmidt are the Top Men we need to usher in a new GOP.  

But there are sincere conservatives who take this view—Charlie Sykes, George Will, and Bill Kristol come to mind—and if they could fashion such a thing I’d be open to it. But I don’t think they can. 

Which is to say that at least among actual conservatives, and to the extent this debate matters at all, it is a prudential question. “Prudence,” Edmund Burke wrote, “is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the standard of them all.” I have significant prudential disagreements with Bill, but I am unaware of any significant ideological ones. You can be a conservative and vote for Donald Trump or a straight Republican ticket. You can also be a conservative and vote a straight Democratic ticket. There’s nothing in conservatism that says conservatives can’t be wrong on tactical questions. 

Which gets me to why I’ve been reluctant to weigh in on this stuff. I’ve spent a lot of time condemning the tendency to confuse partisanship for ideological purity. So much of this debate is really a NeverTrumper version of what I’ve criticized in Trumpers. Liz Cheney, we’re told, isn’t a real conservative because she hasn’t been sufficiently loyal to Trump. That’s nonsense on stilts. Every day, people call me a RINO and a “lib” as if the terms were interchangeable. You know who is—or was—a real RINO? Pat Buchanan. His (misguided, by my lights) version of conservatism mattered a hell of a lot more to him than party loyalty, which is why he arguably cost George H.W. Bush a second term (he certainly tried to). Is Buchanan a “lib?” So many of the Trumpers proved themselves to be CINOs whenever the choice came to siding with Trump or with the positions they long held. 

Now some NeverTrumpers come along and say that you’re not a “True Conservative” unless you vote straight Democrat. If I rejected the argument that conservatives must vote for the Republican nominee in 2016, I’m hard pressed to understand why I must now vote for Democrats in 2020 to prove my bona fides. And it’s not just voting, which I don’t care much about. The same argument for what I should be doing as a writer is now coming at me from the NeverTrump side. For almost four years, I’ve been told that it is my duty to make the best case for the GOP or the worst case against the Democrats. And for that entire time, I’ve said, “That’s not my job.” I honestly don’t see what’s changed. 

This isn’t a black and white thing, either. Prudence enters into it. I write about politics for a living. It is impossible to do that without trying to influence the debate and taking a side in various controversies. If there was a bill in Congress to legalize pedophilia, I’d write a column saying, “Call your congressman and tell them to vote no on the Jeffrey Epstein Act.” But I’m not going to write as if my job is to make the best case for a political party or a faction determined to replace it. And one reason I won’t is that I don’t think it’s prudentially necessary.  Despite the perpetual effort to turn every presidential election into an existential crisis, I don’t see one. If I did, maybe I would write accordingly.  But I’m not going to try to rally the passengers on Flight 93 if I don’t think the plane is being hijacked. To do so would be to join a partisan marketing campaign masquerading as a conservative crusade, which I have no interest in. Similarly, I have no interest making the same argument, just in reverse. Even if Steve Schmidt, the Cicero of MSNBC, thinks I have to. 

Various & Sundry

Canine update: Some of you who follow me on Twitter may know that a person who goes by the Twitter handle @ComfortablySmug has waged a relentless war of vilification against Zoë and Pippa. It all stems from a contest for the Best of Dog Twitter. Zoë and Pippa were counted as one dog (something some folks grumbled about). Before this event—and it was arguably the most important event in the history of Twitter, Smug was a fan of the girls. But, because he is a nearest weapon to hand political mercenary and he wanted Dana Perino’s Jasper (an excellent dog, btw) to win, he started attacking my canines mercilessly and fomenting his “minions” (the preferred label of his followers) to vote against Z&P. He lost, the girls won. And Smug has been bitter about it ever since, tweeting regularly about my “garbage dogs” and calling for them to be “thrown in the pound” or in the “trash.” So the other day, I posted a Twitter poll asking who you would rather see sent to the pound. Smug once again tried to marshal his minion army to skew the poll. He lost. Again. But I have to say it’s something of a scandal it was so close.

Anyway, the girls took it all in stride. This week, Pippa’s gotten to go to the creek so she’s been particularly happy. But even on dry land they’ve maintained their commitment to their work.

 Note: I’m travelling next week—without the dogs. Unclear at this time how much G-File, or Doggo, content there will be.

ICYMI

Last weekend’s Ruminant

The week’s first Remnant, with Michael Strain

My appearance with Josh Kraushaar on the dad-joke-named Chuck ToddCast  

What is to be made of the “Silent Trump Voter” theory?

The members-only Wednesday Epistle: On “America First,” and if it really means anything

The week’s second Remnant, with one of my favorites A.B. Stoddard

Everybody loves a listicle, right?

A shockingly un-rank edition of GLoP

And now, the weird stuff

BREAKING: Ancient bacteria return from bottom of ocean to steal our precious bodily fluids

Just in case you want to learn about all of the differences between D&D’s Beholder varietals

Professional jazz drummer rants about the Spin Doctors and Van Morrison for 10 minutes

A mystery cassette from a thrift store contains music from an unheard-of prog-rock band

The Great Vowel Shift: How we ended up with modern English, basically

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  1. Brian

    A lot, though not all, of the divide between the burn-it-all-down Never Trumpers and those more like Jonah is that the former tend to have more real campaign experience, and the latter tend to be pundits. I grant that it’s not a perfect divide, maybe more of a spectrum, but I think there’s at least some truth to it. And I think that divide is due to that fact that campaign veterans see a vote as a signal, similar to how us free marketers see price. The pundits believe that removing less Trumpian members from the caucus will make the caucus more Trumpian. Those more campaign oriented understand that political parties react to signals, and losing votes and members is a pretty strong signal. The only real option if you want to send a signal is going after the members in swing districts and states, and those members almost have to be less Trumpian as they are anticipating the price they will pay with their electorate if they were too Trumpian. The idea of punishing a party for its misbehavior brings us to Jonah’s oft lamented weakening of the parties. The question then is, are the Parties strong enough to set norms for its elected members in reaction to signals from voters? Someone cleverer than I suggested the American political parties are becoming more like Parliamentary parties, which vest more power in the party’s leader, something for which the US system of elected representatives was not designed. Rather than seeing voting against the Party down the line as “burn it all down”, I think you could equally make the case that the Party, as an organization was already burnt down, and that punishing them sends a signal that maybe they should do something about that, because in a functioning party, Trump would never have won the nomination.

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  2. Chris Knopf

    I feel the human tendency to slavishly adhere to ideologies is at the root of our current discord. It's a simple thing to compare political loyalties to religious beliefs. I think most people, in normal times, are able to cherry pick those aspects of the dogma that suit them, and let the inconvenient tenants slide on by. I think of all the Catholic women I've known on birth control, and my Jewish friends asking for that terrific bacon and cheese sandwich I like to make. I'm a voracious consumer of media, delving into both sides of the divide, (often to my regret) and it feels as if the priests of the opposing Inquisitions are gainfully employed by the press. And they war on each other, in their own tumultuous bubble. All are proficient nutpickers, choosing the most egregious examples from the opposing forces and blowing up the worst offenders into portraits of the whole. Notable exceptions are Jonah Goldberg and David French, which explains my presence here. And other anti-Trump conservatives like George Will, Peggy Noonan, Michael Gerson, Ross Douthout, David Brooks and Bret Stephens. As a fallen way Republican, and anti-Trump advocate, I think these folks are brilliant, since they seem to think like me. So, good job, boys and girls. But for many commentators, and a depressing number of politicians, any deviation from strict doctrine is proof of apostasy, resulting in immediate condemnation.
    No country for free thinkers. I'm a sturdy capitalist and believer in a strong defense and active participation in international affairs, but also a committed social liberal (as one pundit once wrote, no one represents people like us). I'd be burned at either stake. One painted red, the other blue.

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  3. John S

    Jonah, does it change the conversation to advocate simply not voting for Republicans this cycle, as opposed to voting for Democrats instead?

    My priority is punishing all of them (minus Romney) for violating their oaths and complete abandonment of their Constitutional duties. To do that I'm willing to let Democrats get elected, but I will vote for third party candidates.

    So I'm advocating principles, not tactics. Abandonment of principles in favor of political games is what got us into this mess. It's not going to get us out.

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  4. Hunson_Abadeer

    You had me there! I was actually excited about that new Rob Zombie album.

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    Tara Joyce

    I don’t even care if there’s a solution. I will not vote for people who lack the character and conviction of principle to forcefully condemn Trump’s actions when it was deserved, or who did not vote to remove him from office when they knew it was the right thing to do. Policy is of less importance than character, and if that means that I vote for no person from either party, then so be it. I don’t care about burning anything down. It can burn or it can continue to stand. The choice is simple for me — I have no strategy other than to support men and women of character and principle. If they also happen to align on policy then all the better.

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    VladimusPrime

    In thinking about the "Burn it down" debate I have come to one inescapable conclusion. Trumpists can not be allowed to wield power. In any form within our government. The Republican party is the vehicle for the exertion of their power. This may come with some minor sops to other interested parties who hold some stake in the Republican party, but as we can see it comes at an all too high cost to the nation. It is not just the Trump is uniquely incompetent (though he is) the ideology to which he caters to the most is inherently destructive. To deny them power their vehicle for its exertion must be decommissioned. To do that these less Trumpy Republicans must be unseated.

    So we cant get rid of the Trumpiest of the Trumper Senators, but by taking out Susan Colins and John Cornin we can remove or greatly minimize their terrible ideology/lack there of can cause the nation.

    Let the Republican Party be a forever Trump party in which the Trumpists are isolated and contained. AMD the rest of us can then figure it out from there.

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    Tom Westberg

    If you could get Bill Kristol on the Remnant to discuss your differences it could be a great podcast.

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    Matt Y.

    I think Ramesh highlighted the two key parts of the disagreement. One part Jonah mentioned, the other part he didn't.

    First: "To some extent, these writers and political operatives are engaged in an ideological dispute disguised as a tactical argument. Those anti-Trumpers who back Republican congressional candidates tend to oppose gun control, higher taxes and abortion. Those who cheer for a Democratic landslide tend to side with the Democrats on these issues or place a low priority on them. So naturally they are less worried about a Democratic sweep, and more eager to see a political catastrophe for Republicans that prompts them to undertake radical change."

    I think that's correct. These are probably foreign policy neoconservatives who don't care about social issues or are even socially liberal, perhaps even reevaluated their FP views after breaking with the GOP, and dont have a big problem with Biden. If you think the Democratic Party agenda with no Republican Senate or filibuster to stop their agenda would be as bad or worse than Trump himself winning second term, you probably won't vote straight Democrat. You might not for for any Democrat at all, and just vote 3rd party for President.

    Second, and this is the part Jonah didn't mention: "This reality may point to another division among the never Trumpers. There are those who didn’t vote for Trump and favored his removal by Congress who are willing to concede that intelligent and well-meaning conservatives could disagree with them. And then there are those whose objections to Trump run so hot that they cannot countenance being part of a coalition with people who backed him (with exceptions for those who apologize for their past support)."

    I'll rephrase a little: Do you think it's possible for well-meaning and intelligent people to disagree strongly about a wide range of things, including whether Trump should be reelected? If no, then sure, you'll think all Republicans but Romney are scoundrels and traitors and vote against them all. If yes, you might still vote straight D this year, but be open to voting for Rubio in 2024 for example; or you might vote 3rd party for President but straight R otherwise. And you'll have more grace for those who make different choices.

    Or another way to put it, is Trump an actual fascist, basically Mussolini but more incompetent (or even the next closest thing to Hitler)? In that case, you probably won't forgive anyone supporting him. On the other hand, is he "merely" a manifestly incompetent and weak President with low character and authoritarian tendencies? In that case, maybe you won't forgive the worst toadies like Gaetz, but you'll forgive those like Cory Gardner who decided the best thing to do was to try to keep their heads down and muddle through.

    Here's a recent podcast with evangelical conservative Karen Swallow Prior (who also spoke with David French recently) who has been vocal about her refusal to vote for Trump or Biden. It's titled "The most complicated election of our generation." I don't think the burn-it-all-down folks will agree it's complicated. They think it's simple and the answer is simple: vote out all Republicans.

    https://www.pastortheologians.com/podcasthomepage/2020/07/09/the-most-complicated-election-of-our-generation

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    JohnF

    If we don't burn it all down, perhaps we compromise? It would require the cooperation of the voters in South Carolina, Georgia, and Oklahoma, but a Senate without Lindsey Graham, Kelly Loeffler (or Doug Collins), and James Inhofe would be an improvement. Assuming that Doug Jones loses, that still maintains the Republican Majority while sending an appropriate message.
    Since all of this is a fantasy anyway, a House that was freed up of the presence of Jordan, Nunes, Gohmert, and Gaetz could only be a better place. Since there's no apparent chance that the GOP will be taking back the House with or without these guys, this wouldn't be much of a loss and it would significantly raise the average intelligence level of the remaining GOP caucus.

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    1. deathtomcmansions

      McConnell the shadow president has to go.

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    Charles

    > I don’t really see why anyone would want to see it be run by the most Trumpy Republicans

    This is a sound strategy because while a party truncated from its center might be more Trumpist in the short term, it will very quickly have to reckon with having little to no relevance unless it is willing to form a broader, more durable coalition. The sooner that reality dawns, the better for the long term prospects of a healthy right of center party emerging.

    And that's precisely the problem with the Frenchist position: What makes a coalition strong is not that it merely has a center, but that the center is strong in relation to the strength of its wings. The center is the foundation, so can we really expect a different outcome if try to rebuild on sand?

    We've had enough time to see now with shocking consistency a steady flow of evidence that the center of the GOP is simply not load bearing.

    One by one, supposed paragons of virtue have either cowered in silence or openly embraced Trumpism. Did anybody else find it ironic that less than 48 hours after David French held him up as an example of a "better" Republican, we find John Cornyn downplaying Trump's threat to delay our election with the most flimsy and tired of excuses? It's shameful behavior, and as a Texan and former Cornyn voter I cannot just furrow my brow, declare "I think he's learned his lesson" and hope for a better day. If he is so feeble that he cannot even push back against the crossing of that line on my behalf, then how can I take seriously any argument that would posit politicians like him as the bedrock of a rejuvenated Republican party?

    No, best for him to get out of the way and give someone else a crack at the plate in 2026.

    I still want what I think most here would like to see: a Republican party with a strong center, more in touch with America, and with the capacity to govern and moderate at the national level, but here's where I differ with folks like Jonah and David. While I like the idea of preserving the center of the GOP, what the evidence tells me is clear. The center is gone. It doesn't exists anymore. The Trumpists already burned it down.

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