Never Trumpers in Trumpian Times
Donald Trump has won - again, in a landslide. This must be terribly disconcerting to those Never-Trumpers who now envision the nuclear button under the fingertips of a narcissistic megalomaniac who aspires to be Hitler and who will refuse to leave office.
This hyperbolic imagery is dramatically overblown. Yet all these fears have been expressed in a multitude of mainstream media outlets, and indeed in person to me by friends and acquaintances who, in all good faith, have tried to dissuade me from voting yet again for Donald Trump. I wrote about this in the article Explaining Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Tom Klingenstein addresses these distorted perceptions in his insightful 4 November 20024 essay, A Response to My Liberal Neighbor. Discussing his center-left neighbor, Klingenstein writes:
Either my neighbor doesn't know that he lives in a bubble, or he doesn't know that I do not. He can easily avoid conservative news. I, on the other hand, cannot avoid his sources of news because they saturate the air I breathe. I could not avoid them even if I tried...
He says there is a difference between us in "fundamental values." He doesn't define "fundamental values," but it sounds as if he is saying he has better values than I have, or even that he is a good person, and I am not. Liberals have always said this of conservatives. For the record, I doubt my values really are different from his, and his values are, by and large, good - although there is one value he might work on: humility...
It seems impossible for him to entertain the possibility that the error is his - a good-faith error perhaps, but an error all the same...
Klingenstein continues:
My neighbor thinks my values have changed, but I doubt it. What I think has changed is my assessment of the current situation.
I now believe (and have believed for any number of years) that America is being attacked by an enemy regime that wants to destroy our way of life. Former President Trump is a warrior who has a constellation of assets well suited to meet our current situation. My neighbor, on the other hand, does not believe we are in a war, and he hates Trump... He looks at Trump in a vacuum; whereas I judge him, as one must, in the context of the current situation.
... Those who call themselves "Never-Trumpers" betray an ignorance about politics. As I have written any number of times, I believe Trump would have been the worst president at any other time in our history, when circumstances were very different than they are today, but he is the best president we could have hoped for in these times; indeed, we are blessed to have him...
... the current election is not about which candidate you would rather have for dinner, or even which one has the better character. It is about which one will likely save America and which one will likely destroy it. This is a contest not between representatives of different political parties within the same regime, but between representatives of different regimes. In other words, this is a war.
What makes it a war? At root, each side has a different understanding of what constitutes a just society...
We might consider three orders of contrasting political candidates, parties, and agendas. The first order is to view opposing candidates as a personality contest. Many discussions at this level revolve around proclamations such as "I simply can't stand him/her," and "don't you believe what the Atlantic said about Trump?" Most Never-Trumpers remain fixated at this level.
The second order is to contrast the agendas of opposing political parties. Today's Democrat agenda is based on identity politics, intersectionality, and abortion, because they can't run on the economy and international relations, which they have decimated. The Democrat agenda emphasizes a socialist / communist-based equality of outcome.
Today's populist Republican agenda is based on MAGA and the principle of national sovereignty, and emphasizes equality of opportunity.
For those who say, "I've always been a Democrat," I would ask why? Today's Democrat party isn't your grandfather's Democrat party.
The third order is to view political contests as part of a broader and deeper contest between regimes. Klingenstein writes:
Unlike the well-known totalitarianism of the twentieth century - where the state alone was the enemy - in our soft but growing totalitarianism the regime is a loose confederation of the country's major institutions.
I would suggest that that regime is a strong confederation of the country’s major institutions, including the leftist mainstream media, which has devolved into the propaganda arm of the leftist Democrat party.
One regime represents globalism and dissolution of the nation-state - in particular, dissolution of successful Western capitalist states. The other represents perpetuation of the sovereign nation-state.
The key point that Klingenstein makes is that we are immersed in a third-order conflict - a conflict of regimes with distinctly irreconcilable governing paradigms.
He continues, discussing some of the tools of the left:
The Right must understand that the charge of systemic racism is the Left's most powerful weapon, for it is that charge that justifies overthrowing America... Most Americans do not believe they are racist or have white privilege, but they need their leaders, Trump foremost, to confirm what they know and give them permission to say it.
Who exactly is the enemy weaponizing the law (lawfare) and depriving the citizens of their rights? It is not primarily the Democratic Party, though it plays a meaningful role. Unlike the well-known totalitarianism of the twentieth century - where the state alone was the enemy - in our soft but growing totalitarianism the regime is a loose confederation of the country's major institutions...
The destructive Left tells us morning to night that if Trump is elected, we should fear a coup. This is projection, another favorite tactic of the destructive Left. It accuses the Right of things the Left has already done or plans to do... Non-stop character assassination, bogus investigations, impeachments, disloyal intelligence agencies, crimes, fraud and lies amounted to the overthrow of a duly elected administration...
Never-Trumpers might do well to consider that Donald Trump is in fact the perfect president for these times. He is a wartime president. And we are most certainly at war.
Related
Well-Designed Systems Self-Correct, by Charlie Martin, PJ Media, 6 November 2024.
The closing of the liberal mind and the globalist agenda, by Fred Elbel.
Explaining Trump Derangement Syndrome, by Fred Elbel.
