Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Two cheers for Donald Trump

Erick Erickson's assessment of Trump is one that I largely agree with:
I would prefer Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio to Donald Trump. I want a conservative President and, should Trump genuinely be converted to the principles of Hayek, Friedman, Kirk, etc., I think he needs time in the trenches of the movement to show his conversion sticks.

But I would gladly vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat. He has bested the consultant class at its own game for now and the only one giving him a run for his money is Ted Cruz who, like Trump, has refused to use the D.C. political class to advance in the field.

Whether Trump makes it out of Iowa the winner or not, Republicans will owe Trump thanks for exposing their fault lines and flaws and showing just how inept, corrupt, and out to lunch the Washington Republican consultant class has become.

8 comments:

RebeccaH said...

Amen. I prefer Cruz to Trump, but if I'm presented with one or the other, they will have my vote, because after all, can the nation do worse than has already been done? I have to rely on my fellow Americans who voted for Obama twice to have seen the error of their ways. If they don't, and they put Hillary into the presidency, then they will have taken all of us down (including my grandchildren and my now great-grandchildren). I will not forgive that, and I will foment revolution, however it may be done.

Paco said...

I'm with you.

rinardman said...

Rush gave a good discourse on who he thinks the Trump supporters are, and what motivates them to be Trump supporters. It's worth reading the transcript on his website, if you didn't hear the program. Go to RushLimbaugh.com, and check the transcripts for the one titled: Understanding Trump's Appeal (January 20, 2016)

It's made me rethink my view of who the Trumpsters are.

JeffS said...

Amen, Rebecca.

Bob Belvedere said...

One Quibble: The Use Of The Term 'Revolution'...

We do not seek a Revolution.

The purpose of Revolution is to bring down, overthrow, the existing Society, the existing Order, discarding all of it’s traditions and customs, everything that made it what it was — it’s Identity — sweeping it’s rubble and ashes into the dustbin to be discarded and forgotten as if it never had been, and then building anew — reinventing the wheel, as it were, but, this time, building the perfect wheel.

Revolutions always end-up destroying, not only the bad, but consuming all of the Good. Each and every one has laid waste to the regions in which it has occurred. And all of them have resulted in enslavement of the people, their unending misery, and, for many, death in horrible circumstances.

What we seek is the exact opposite of what those who advocate Revolution want to achieve.

Believing that we are endowed by God with certain Rights that cannot be denied us, Rights that cannot be transferred to any government or entity, Rights that can never be declared invalid, we seek not Revolution, but Restoration.

What we are working to Restore are the gifts bequeathed to us by The Founding Fathers, because the form of government and traditions and customs we inherited from them are the most conducive to guaranteeing and sustaining, our inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, Property, and the pursuit of Happiness.

What we seek is the Restoration of all that made The United States Of America a force for Good and a bulwark against Evil against the forces of subjugation and enslavement that have plagued the world since Mankind was created.

We seek the restoration of our Rights as Americans.

I don't want to be associated with the Revolutionaries of History.

[I'm going to lie down now :)]

RebeccaH said...

I take your point, Mr. Belvedere, but I would remind you that revolution is what created the United States in the first place.

Bob Belvedere said...

I would not disagree, Rebecca, but, then again, I also agree with Russell Kirk's take:

Was the American War of Independence a revolution? In the view of Edmund Burke and of the Whigs generally, it was not the sort of political and social overturn that the word “revolution” has come to signify nowadays. Rather, it paralleled that alteration of government in Britain which accompanied the accession of William and Mary to the throne, and which is styled, somewhat conf usingly, “The Glorious Revolution of 1688.”

The most learned editor of Burke’s works, E. J. Payne, summarizes Burke’s account of the events of 1688-89 as “a revolution not made but prevented.”...

We need first to examine definitions of that ambiguous word “revolution.” The signification of the word was altered greatly by the catastrophic events of the French Revolution, commencing only two years after the Constitutional Convention of the United States. Before the French explosion of 1789-99, “revolution” commonly was employed to describe a round of periodic or recurrent changes or events - that is, the process of coming full cycle; or the act of rolling back or moving back, a return to a point previously occupied.

Not until the French radicals utterly overturned the old political and social order in their country did the word “revolution” acquire its present general meaning of a truly radical change in social and governmental institutions, a tremendous convulsion in society, producing huge alterations that might never be undone....

[Russell Kirk, A Revolution Not Made But Prevented: American War of
Independence
]

Robert of Ottawa said...

Paco,

You recall that I have written several times about how the Canadian conservatives had a civil war after conservatives lost faith in what you would call RINOs, and the political party system in general.

I suggested that it would require the destruction of the Republican party, as it did the Progressive Conservative Party in Canada. However, Trump appears to offer another way and the Republicans will not only NOT spend 10 years in the wilderness, but take power of both houses and the presidency.

Yes, Trump is a populist and perhaps even a little Mussolinniesque, but the Repubs who do not reject him as candidate (i.e. NOT the establishment) can rally around him some experienced personnel and he is, after all, a real chief executive with experience.

So, though his bombast can be irritating at times, he has already set the agenda; an agenda that many regular folk agree with. And regular folk have had it with the professional political elite.