In Idaho, of course, my "liberalism" places me in a clear minority, and perhaps that has contributed to my feeling like a stranger in my own land, but I think it runs deeper. I simply cannot accept a country that would elect someone like Donald Trump as its president. Although I don't have much choice as to legal citizenship, I do have some choice as to emotional citizenship, and if by some catastrophe Donald Trump is elected president, then "my fellow Americans" will have revoked my emotional citizenship, any possible emotional bond of allegiance to the government of the US. If someone like Trump represents the democratic will of the people, then my already eroding faith in democracy and the wisdom of the people will have collapsed into the flood waters. I assume the converse is true. My conservative counterparts simply could not accept a country that would elect someone like Barak Obama as its president, and even less someone like Hillary Clinton. Their "fellow Americans" have long since renounced their emotional citizenship, and you hear it in their rhetoric. Indeed, the label, "tea party," signals a declaration of independence and rebellion. If my fellow Idahoans have a sense of patriotism, and they do, it is local and tribal and rural. They can sing along to "god bless the USA," but their USA doesn't really include, except perhaps abstractly, New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, or even Atlanta. The Smiths cannot even fathom living in Nashville, much less "a place like Chicago," which I'm sure they imagine as a dark place seething with crime and corruption.
Today in Vox, I came across an interview with Mo Fiorina, an historian who disputes the claim that "America is more polarized than ever." It is, I believe, so it might be worth thinking through Fioria's objections. Initially, he admits the polarization of the two political parties, and "they are more at odds today than they’ve been since the ’60s," but he goes on to suggest that "My point is that this elite-level polarization hasn’t infected most of the American electorate." He suggests:
The country is not full of partisan warriors. Most people are a mix of conservative and liberal positions with some sympathy for both sides of political debates. Moreover, they aren’t that involved in politics. They're not going to move to Canada if their side loses, let alone want to kill people who disagree with them. What they mostly would like is for some party to come in and govern the country with some degree of success.
At one level, of course, he is absolutely correct. Take my wife, for instance. On the one side, she believes there is a moral hazard in the "nanny state" and people should take more "personal responsibility" for their actions. She finds current efforts to regulate soft drink size absurd, and we clash on the issue of guns. She sees gun control as a slippery slope incursion of the "nanny state" on people's inherent right to act with stupidity. On the fence, her racial attitudes are mixed between the moral decay of the black community she has experience in the Detroit neighborhood of her childhood and her genuine distaste for bigotry when it is imposed on individuals, particularly when it is imposed arbitrarily and unfairly without justification beyond race. On the other side, she doesn't confuse the moral hazard of the "nanny state" with legitimate expansion of the "social safety net," to include provisions for universal health care. On the whole, she is indifferent to politics, and she couldn't accurately articulate the party line on various "issues." Her voting is more a matter of "character" than "policy." She is put off by Clinton, sensing perhaps what many Americans sense, a personal ambition often at odds with the idealism of her alleged commitments. She is, however, thoroughly disgusted with Trump, and was so long before the Billy Bush tape, though the attitude captured in that tape sums up her disgust, a narcissism fully entitled by wealth to reduce others to objects for his own amusement or aggrandizement. She is, like most Americans, a complex human being that cannot be reduced to the label of conservative or liberal.
Fiorina, however, glosses over a few things. First, of course, is just what counts as "some degree of success." By most objective measures, the country is in better shape today than it has been for some time. Crime has been on a steady decline for some time, particularly violent crime, with some recent up-tick exceptions in Chicago, but even with the up-tick it is still down relative to the days of my youth. The economy is improving, albeit perhaps more slowly than many would like, but employment is climbing and wages are starting to rise. There is, of course, plenty of room for improvement, and a discussion of how best to effectuate that improvement is sorely needed, but again, by most objective measures, the Obama administration has had "some degree of success" in addressing the fundamentals. Doesn't matter. Not a whit. Take Obamacare, for example. By most objective measures, it has had "some degree of success." The numbers of uninsured have gone down, and without it, my wife and I would be uninsured. It hasn't been nearly as calamitous as the conservatives predicted, and may have had some ancillary effect holding down rising costs of health care. While our insurance premiums are going up unconscionably, the causes are mostly "technical" and can be addressed within the scope of the law as many liberal pundits have pointed out. Still doesn't matter. Not a whit. From a conservative perspective, the law must be repealed, wholly, and something terrific put in its place, though for conservatives, something truly terrific is understood as code for "nothing at all."
Fiorina's interviewer points out the obvious, "your counter-thesis — that the American public actually wants a less rancorous and less partisan and more pragmatic politics — is much more hopeful. But it doesn’t seem to match up with the hyper-partisanship we saw rewarded in the primaries." Nor does it seem to match up with the hyper-partianship we see playing out in the general election, and in either case doesn't fully explain why we're seeing it at the level of the "elites." Part of the explanation can be traced in attitudes toward the government itself. Johnathan Chait, writing for the New York Magazine, for example, traces a familiar historical arch. In the not too distant past, one would not assume the term “conservative movement” was synonymous with “the Republican Party.” He goes on to write, "like right-of-center parties in industrialized democracies across the world, the GOP throughout most of the 20th century understood there to be a role for government in daily life." It was "led by figures like Dwight Eisenhower" who "accepted the broad contours of the New Deal" and the "party did not attack government intervention as an impingement on freedom or as inherently immoral." The conservative movement, however, "began in the 1950s and was "a minority faction operating only loosely within the party." What is perhaps more important, movement conservatives "regarded the party’s leaders as traitors." The best exemplar being "Phyllis Schlafly’s popular conservative treatise from 1964, A Choice Not an Echo," which "posited that 'secret kingmakers' employed 'brainwashing and propaganda blitzes' to maintain their nefarious control of the GOP, in part to serve their own self-interest."
Just as an aside, but a pertinent aside, the sorts of paranoia and conspiracy theorizing implicit in Sclafly's assertions can be found not only in the tabloid press, but in more "mainstream" popular entertainment. My wife and I have given up on cable, and so we "binge" watch certain series. Some of course are better than others, but it just so happens we have been watching a show "Prison Break." It continues to air on Fox, and that might be significant, politically speaking. It is a show with many twists and turns of plot, but in its overall arch, it presents a topsy-turvy view of the world, where the protagonists have been wrongly imprisoned, literally, by a secret cabal of global businessmen who have virtually complete control of the executive branch. The vice president commits murder to curry favor with the cabal and to satisfy her own ambition to become president, not unlike a wannabe gang-banger who seek favor through murder of a rival gang member. It is not an isolated phenomenon. Other Fox shows present a similar view of the "government," ranging from the "X-Files" in the 1990s to "24" in the 2000s. While such "entertainments" are not to be taken literally, the archetype should be familiar. The aggrieved underdog knows, just knows! the elite are corrupt. He doesn't quite know how, or to what extent, but their corruption isn't in question. He engages in a quest to find evidence exonerating himself and his reputation, or as someone put it of Clinton, the convenient representative of the entrenched Washington elite, "they know she's guilty, they're just trying to decide what she's guilty of." Nick Tabor also writing for the NY Magazine, quoted one Trump supporter as saying, "I still have no sympathy for Hillary Clinton. I’m sure if a woman were a godly person, I could be proud of that. But I would never be proud of Hillary. Unless she totally recanted, repented — and frankly, if she did that, she would reveal what’s she’s done, and she’d be in prison. She has a very dark side. I think Trump put it in good words, I just recently read, about a dark soul." She knows, just knows! Clinton is corrupt. She doesn't quite know how, or to what extent, but her corruption isn't in question.
Movement conservatism fits the archetype. As a minority within the GOP and a smaller minority in the country at large, they are the aggrieved underdog. They rejected "a more pragmatic" politics from the outset, and they "rejected the expanded role of government in modern life on philosophical grounds" in part because they know, just know! that government is inherently corrupt and corrupting. Consequently, as Chait writes, "whether any government program 'worked' in any practical sense was immaterial. For the federal government to intervene in the economy and social welfare was by its nature 'violence to the Constitution,' as Barry Goldwater put it." We find the same sentiments echoed in Reagan's famous inaugural assertion that "government is the problem," and again as Chait points out, "it is this moral opposition to government that set them apart from the pragmatic skeptics of bigger government who then controlled the Republican Party." And we find the same sentiments accepted as a "first principle" by the likes of the Heritage Foundation and other movement conservative groups, an axiomatic foundational statement that itself cannot be questioned. Whether popular programs like Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, minimum-wage laws, or progressive taxation, not to mention the Environmental Protection Agency or the Consumer Protection Agency, have had any salutary effect is itself beside the point. Government itself is corrupt and corrupting. It is, as we used to say in the military, "sly, devious, and bears considerable watching," and if Shafley feared the elite employed 'brainwashing and propaganda blitzes' to maintain their nefarious control of the GOP, movement conservatism has more effectively employed the same to gain control of the GOP. Popular culture, mostly but not limited to the Fox network, has reinforced the archetypal aggrieved underdog, creating a mindset that accepts movement conservatism as a hero engaged in a moral crusade fighting an inherently corrupt government.
This position, to use Hochschild's term, creates a "great paradox." No one, of course, believes in no government what-so-ever, and conservatives, movement conservatives included, believe that government has a singular role -- to establish and protect property rights. Some taxation is necessary to provide locally for the police and nationally for the military necessary to protect one's property rights. From there, of course, one can spin a fairly elaborate legal web, but when we think of taxation, for example, particularly "progressive" taxation that support social welfare programs, there is a certain logic to considering it, along with Russell Kirk, as the "first cousin of theft." It is taking money from "the prosperous for the benefit of the less wealthy," and that works all the way down the progressive scale until you get to those who pay no taxes, but nevertheless reap the benefits -- the "takers" and "parasites." When the "takers" are coupled with racial and ethnic resentments, along with geographic fly-over resentments that place "the takers" in cities on the coasts that are seething with drugs and prostitution, we are not only taking money from the "prosperous," who deserve their prosperity, but we are giving it to "less wealthy" who likely deserve their predicaments. It is not a far leap from that "mindset" to the alt-right, those who have theirs and resent any government program redistributes tax dollars to "those people." Of course it doesn't really work that way, but Hochschild has pointed out, the very people who do and who stand to benefit from government programs, will vote for movement conservatives because they have bought into the archetype of the "hard working" hero engaged in a moral crusade against the "takers" and the gaggle of inherently corrupt "politicians" in an "inherently corrupt government" that facilitates their moral turpitude for votes and power.
There is another "great paradox." No one, of course, believes in no government what-so-ever, and one suspects there is some misalignment between the "purists" and the American people as a whole. It is, perhaps, best exemplified by the tea party voter who wants to keep government hands off his social security. Such cluelessness is off set by a more pragmatic middle, however, who might generally support a less intrusive government, but who also recognize their dependency upon programs like social security and medicare. One can justify the program, even among those who generally support moral autonomy and personal responsibility, insofar as one has made a contribution to those programs throughout one's working life and it is the contribution, not the dependency, that justifies taking benefits. Such people could form the moderate base of a conservative party. To the movement conservative, social security and medicare are not a pragmatic consideration, but a moral compromise. As Chait puts it, "the collapse of the George W. Bush administration was greeted among his party not as an indictment of its fanatical tax-cutting, deregulatory agenda and failed effort to privatize Social Security, but as evidence that Bush was not conservative enough." It was not, and never was, a matter of pragmatic consideration, choosing the ingredients and grinding out the sausage in private conversations, but a matter of faith subject to the logic of faith. As it is with a "faith healer," if one believed, sufficiently and sincerely, then all would be well with the country. As it is with a "faith healer," when it fails, and it almost always does, the insufficient faith of the patient, not the duplicity or delusion of the healer, is blamed. The rather obvious failures of the Bush era, not to mention the state experiments in Kansas and Louisiana, were not pragmatic policy failures, but signs of insufficient commitment to the one true faith.
A "religious" conservatism has usurped "pragmatic" conservatism -- by which one normally means "secular" conservatism that provides a counter-balance to "secular" liberalism. I do not mean this in a shallow or inconsequential way. The conservative party has become a "religious" party through and through. With the exception of Trump (more in a bit) the party leadership see themselves as men (and women) of "faith." They have committed not only to their christianity, but also to the political party that best represents their faith, and "a way of thinking" inherent to the former has usurped practical and pragmatic political considerations. It is not just the "theocracy" implicit to such commitments -- though that should be frightening enough -- but a way of thinking that insists "he who is not with me is against me." The Trump supporter quoted above, "if a woman were a godly person, then I could be proud," points to this "all in" commitment. Obama could not be "trusted," Clinton can not be "trusted," because they will not call out and identify apostasy and evil. It shouldn't be surprising that Obama's failure to call "radical islamic terrorists" out as "radical islamic terrorists" met with criticism. He refuses to do so out of practical considerations -- not wanting to vilify the entire muslim community, not wanting to give actual terrorist groups propaganda fodder, et cetera -- but if he were truly a "godly person," a christian, he would be "all in." The muslim community IS evil, not because they all have done evil things in support of terrorism, but because they ARE muslim and should be driven from the land. Trump's call to ban all muslims signals that, at least in this one important way, he is "all in." Likewise, neither Obama and Clinton can be "trusted" because they refuse to renounce evil. Tabor quotes another woman for Trump who suggests, "I’ve already voted for Trump. I support him because he’s the only Republican running for president. I don’t want to vote for Hillary, okay? I would not vote for a Democrat because of their platform, and especially I wouldn’t vote for Hillary. It’s especially the issue of abortion. I am a total pro-life person." Clinton supports abortion rights as a matter of "individual choice" -- e.g. if you and your faith prohibit it, fine, don't do it, but for others it's a heart-rending personal choice and (ironically) the government shouldn't be the arbiter of the choice -- but if she were truly a "godly person," she would be "all in." She would renounce abortion, repent of her support, and perhaps served penance in prison for the "murders" she has suborned. So it goes, and helps explain in part why Trump, the one who literally "makes it up as he goes," polls higher rating for "trust."
Just as an aside, but a pertinent aside, the sorts of paranoia and conspiracy theorizing implicit in Sclafly's assertions can be found not only in the tabloid press, but in more "mainstream" popular entertainment. My wife and I have given up on cable, and so we "binge" watch certain series. Some of course are better than others, but it just so happens we have been watching a show "Prison Break." It continues to air on Fox, and that might be significant, politically speaking. It is a show with many twists and turns of plot, but in its overall arch, it presents a topsy-turvy view of the world, where the protagonists have been wrongly imprisoned, literally, by a secret cabal of global businessmen who have virtually complete control of the executive branch. The vice president commits murder to curry favor with the cabal and to satisfy her own ambition to become president, not unlike a wannabe gang-banger who seek favor through murder of a rival gang member. It is not an isolated phenomenon. Other Fox shows present a similar view of the "government," ranging from the "X-Files" in the 1990s to "24" in the 2000s. While such "entertainments" are not to be taken literally, the archetype should be familiar. The aggrieved underdog knows, just knows! the elite are corrupt. He doesn't quite know how, or to what extent, but their corruption isn't in question. He engages in a quest to find evidence exonerating himself and his reputation, or as someone put it of Clinton, the convenient representative of the entrenched Washington elite, "they know she's guilty, they're just trying to decide what she's guilty of." Nick Tabor also writing for the NY Magazine, quoted one Trump supporter as saying, "I still have no sympathy for Hillary Clinton. I’m sure if a woman were a godly person, I could be proud of that. But I would never be proud of Hillary. Unless she totally recanted, repented — and frankly, if she did that, she would reveal what’s she’s done, and she’d be in prison. She has a very dark side. I think Trump put it in good words, I just recently read, about a dark soul." She knows, just knows! Clinton is corrupt. She doesn't quite know how, or to what extent, but her corruption isn't in question.
Movement conservatism fits the archetype. As a minority within the GOP and a smaller minority in the country at large, they are the aggrieved underdog. They rejected "a more pragmatic" politics from the outset, and they "rejected the expanded role of government in modern life on philosophical grounds" in part because they know, just know! that government is inherently corrupt and corrupting. Consequently, as Chait writes, "whether any government program 'worked' in any practical sense was immaterial. For the federal government to intervene in the economy and social welfare was by its nature 'violence to the Constitution,' as Barry Goldwater put it." We find the same sentiments echoed in Reagan's famous inaugural assertion that "government is the problem," and again as Chait points out, "it is this moral opposition to government that set them apart from the pragmatic skeptics of bigger government who then controlled the Republican Party." And we find the same sentiments accepted as a "first principle" by the likes of the Heritage Foundation and other movement conservative groups, an axiomatic foundational statement that itself cannot be questioned. Whether popular programs like Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, minimum-wage laws, or progressive taxation, not to mention the Environmental Protection Agency or the Consumer Protection Agency, have had any salutary effect is itself beside the point. Government itself is corrupt and corrupting. It is, as we used to say in the military, "sly, devious, and bears considerable watching," and if Shafley feared the elite employed 'brainwashing and propaganda blitzes' to maintain their nefarious control of the GOP, movement conservatism has more effectively employed the same to gain control of the GOP. Popular culture, mostly but not limited to the Fox network, has reinforced the archetypal aggrieved underdog, creating a mindset that accepts movement conservatism as a hero engaged in a moral crusade fighting an inherently corrupt government.
This position, to use Hochschild's term, creates a "great paradox." No one, of course, believes in no government what-so-ever, and conservatives, movement conservatives included, believe that government has a singular role -- to establish and protect property rights. Some taxation is necessary to provide locally for the police and nationally for the military necessary to protect one's property rights. From there, of course, one can spin a fairly elaborate legal web, but when we think of taxation, for example, particularly "progressive" taxation that support social welfare programs, there is a certain logic to considering it, along with Russell Kirk, as the "first cousin of theft." It is taking money from "the prosperous for the benefit of the less wealthy," and that works all the way down the progressive scale until you get to those who pay no taxes, but nevertheless reap the benefits -- the "takers" and "parasites." When the "takers" are coupled with racial and ethnic resentments, along with geographic fly-over resentments that place "the takers" in cities on the coasts that are seething with drugs and prostitution, we are not only taking money from the "prosperous," who deserve their prosperity, but we are giving it to "less wealthy" who likely deserve their predicaments. It is not a far leap from that "mindset" to the alt-right, those who have theirs and resent any government program redistributes tax dollars to "those people." Of course it doesn't really work that way, but Hochschild has pointed out, the very people who do and who stand to benefit from government programs, will vote for movement conservatives because they have bought into the archetype of the "hard working" hero engaged in a moral crusade against the "takers" and the gaggle of inherently corrupt "politicians" in an "inherently corrupt government" that facilitates their moral turpitude for votes and power.
There is another "great paradox." No one, of course, believes in no government what-so-ever, and one suspects there is some misalignment between the "purists" and the American people as a whole. It is, perhaps, best exemplified by the tea party voter who wants to keep government hands off his social security. Such cluelessness is off set by a more pragmatic middle, however, who might generally support a less intrusive government, but who also recognize their dependency upon programs like social security and medicare. One can justify the program, even among those who generally support moral autonomy and personal responsibility, insofar as one has made a contribution to those programs throughout one's working life and it is the contribution, not the dependency, that justifies taking benefits. Such people could form the moderate base of a conservative party. To the movement conservative, social security and medicare are not a pragmatic consideration, but a moral compromise. As Chait puts it, "the collapse of the George W. Bush administration was greeted among his party not as an indictment of its fanatical tax-cutting, deregulatory agenda and failed effort to privatize Social Security, but as evidence that Bush was not conservative enough." It was not, and never was, a matter of pragmatic consideration, choosing the ingredients and grinding out the sausage in private conversations, but a matter of faith subject to the logic of faith. As it is with a "faith healer," if one believed, sufficiently and sincerely, then all would be well with the country. As it is with a "faith healer," when it fails, and it almost always does, the insufficient faith of the patient, not the duplicity or delusion of the healer, is blamed. The rather obvious failures of the Bush era, not to mention the state experiments in Kansas and Louisiana, were not pragmatic policy failures, but signs of insufficient commitment to the one true faith.
A "religious" conservatism has usurped "pragmatic" conservatism -- by which one normally means "secular" conservatism that provides a counter-balance to "secular" liberalism. I do not mean this in a shallow or inconsequential way. The conservative party has become a "religious" party through and through. With the exception of Trump (more in a bit) the party leadership see themselves as men (and women) of "faith." They have committed not only to their christianity, but also to the political party that best represents their faith, and "a way of thinking" inherent to the former has usurped practical and pragmatic political considerations. It is not just the "theocracy" implicit to such commitments -- though that should be frightening enough -- but a way of thinking that insists "he who is not with me is against me." The Trump supporter quoted above, "if a woman were a godly person, then I could be proud," points to this "all in" commitment. Obama could not be "trusted," Clinton can not be "trusted," because they will not call out and identify apostasy and evil. It shouldn't be surprising that Obama's failure to call "radical islamic terrorists" out as "radical islamic terrorists" met with criticism. He refuses to do so out of practical considerations -- not wanting to vilify the entire muslim community, not wanting to give actual terrorist groups propaganda fodder, et cetera -- but if he were truly a "godly person," a christian, he would be "all in." The muslim community IS evil, not because they all have done evil things in support of terrorism, but because they ARE muslim and should be driven from the land. Trump's call to ban all muslims signals that, at least in this one important way, he is "all in." Likewise, neither Obama and Clinton can be "trusted" because they refuse to renounce evil. Tabor quotes another woman for Trump who suggests, "I’ve already voted for Trump. I support him because he’s the only Republican running for president. I don’t want to vote for Hillary, okay? I would not vote for a Democrat because of their platform, and especially I wouldn’t vote for Hillary. It’s especially the issue of abortion. I am a total pro-life person." Clinton supports abortion rights as a matter of "individual choice" -- e.g. if you and your faith prohibit it, fine, don't do it, but for others it's a heart-rending personal choice and (ironically) the government shouldn't be the arbiter of the choice -- but if she were truly a "godly person," she would be "all in." She would renounce abortion, repent of her support, and perhaps served penance in prison for the "murders" she has suborned. So it goes, and helps explain in part why Trump, the one who literally "makes it up as he goes," polls higher rating for "trust."
If Cruz, Rubio, and especially Ryan represent movement conservatism, clearly Trump would not be their first choice. He is not an ideological purist, and I think Fiorina has it right when he says "Trump seems more a populist than a conservative." Ultimately, movement conservatism, not unlike religious conservatism, had a core of inviolable principles -- not least of which was a clear "anti-government" stance. Though it's difficult to ferret through all of Trump's statements and derive a "platform" of any sort, part of that may indeed be his populism, and as Fioina points out "populism has always had this mix of left-wing and right-wing positions. Populists traditionally attack economic elites — bankers, moneylenders, the railroads, and other big corporations. They reflect the positions of those being hurt by social and economic transformations, in the 19th century as today." So Trump would keep social security but cut taxes, and so on, revealing a mix of left and right wing positions. He also attacks the "elites," although somewhat more selectively. Aside from his disparagement of trade deals, and his willingness to curtail the US role as "global police force" protecting the property rights of multi-nationals, he has not attacked either the big bankers or the big corporations. Trump rather has reserved his attacks for the "cultural elites," and his rallies have become the very antithesis of coastal "cultural elitism," a celebration of American "culture" as many American's understand it, the white, protestant, rural culture of the "fly-over" states. It is the culture of Honey-Boo-Boo and Duck Dynasty, and certainly, most certainly! absolutely not the culture of the New Yorker. As Chait suggests, Trump rose through the cracks in the conservative alliance. "As the conservative movement has completed its conquest of the Republican Party," he writes, "it has never resolved the dilemma that haunted it from the beginning" and that dilemma is the mixed bag voter. "Conservative opposition to policies like business regulation, social insurance, and progressive taxation has never taken hold among anything resembling a majority of the public," and perhaps there are people actually DO want better, more pragmatic, more managerial government. Nevertheless, "the party has grown increasingly reliant upon white identity politics to supply its votes, which has left an indelible imprint on not only the Republican Party’s function but also its form."
Hochschild has given an empathetic view of the "white identity politics" that is fueling the Trump ascendency, and one should read her book for that reason. Though it was set in Louisiana, it could well have been a portrait of my neighbors in Idaho. They will vote republican, which means Trump, partly out of racially tinged resentment at the "takers," partly as a matter of "faith." To be a "republican" is to be an "American," or what they understand an American to be -- mostly white, mostly christian, with a belief in the redemptive virtues of hard work and a corresponding suspicion of those who "look down on them," particularly the over-educated coastal and urban elites, including the conservative elites and cuckservatives like George Will. To be a "republican" is to be a "patriot," or what they understand a "patriot" to be -- someone who is "all in" on their vision of what it means to be an "American." Despite the alt-right's self aggrandizement as "scary smart" and the evangelical sanctimonious moral superiority, in its embrace of "white identity politics," the republican party's "preference for simplicity over complexity, and its disdain for experts and facts," Chait writes, "has steadily ratcheted down its standard of intellectually acceptable discourse: from a doddering Ronald Reagan to Dan Quayle to George W. Bush to Sarah Palin. From this standpoint, Trump is less a freakish occurrence than something close to an inevitability." It would seem, at one level, that Ryan and McConnell are reaping the whirlwind of their own creation, and indeed the revolt against the "elite" has called them into question as well. At another level, however, they see it as an opportunity to seize control of the government. "How can anyone enter a strong man’s house and steal his possessions, unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house." Or so asks and answers Matthew, and who better to enter the strong man's house than another strong man? And so they have fallen in line with Trump. They have endured "the reputational damage and personal humiliation of endorsing a presidential candidate who has belittled and mocked them," not only because Trump personifies and will gather together the votes of the emergent republican base, but also out of sheer cupidity and lust for plunder. "Republicans have had good reason to believe that a Trump-led government would grant them a degree of control over American government unprecedented in this nation’s history," or so Chait points out, and "his election would grant them transformational power." They can endure and forgive the "sin and blasphemy" of a Trump, because they know, if they do not gather the republican faithful and instead scatter it, their own "blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven."
David Brooks began his Times column like this: "A few weeks ago I met a guy in Idaho who was absolutely certain that Donald Trump would win this election. He was wearing tattered, soiled overalls, missing a bunch of teeth and was unnaturally skinny. He was probably about 50, but his haggard face looked 70. He was getting by aimlessly as a handyman." Even though he is sympathetic to the man, and feels that his "his opportunities had been narrowed by forces outside his control," I'm guessing they didn't hang out over a beer, and a portrayal of Idahoans and of the "typical" Trump supporter doesn't much help. He has reinforced two set of stereotypes. The first is the rube, under-educated, under-nourished, with poor teeth -- a victim of circumstances he is altogether too ignorant to understand. He may be a "a funny, kind guy," but "everybody he knows is voting Trump so his entire lived experience points to a Trump landslide." The second, however, is the east coast snob, over-educated, pampered, with cushy job and good health benefits. He may be empathetic, but it is impossible to disentangle his empathy from an intolerable condescension. Nevertheless, everything Brooks goes on to say is correct. Although the rube may well be right in predicting a Trump win -- the polls are tightening as I write this four days out -- and Trump may shake things up in Washington, but it is hugely, extraordinarily, bigly unlikely that Trump will improve his circumstances. If "one of the mandates for the next president is to help improve the life stories of people like that," nothing in Trump's lived experience suggests he has an interest in "people like that," except perhaps his casinos, which are designed to extract money from "people like that" and redistribute it to the gilt palaces of the already wealthy. Insofar as one can assertion, nothing in Trump's policy statements suggests he will be anything other than a movement conservative with a Breitbart tone on issues of race and immigration. Chait points out that "on the vast majority of issues, Trump has aligned himself with standard conservative dogma. The Wall Street Journal editorial page probably got it right when it reasoned that 'precisely because [Trump] is such a tabula rasa, he would be more dependent than any other President on Congress.'” And it is "the tantalizing prospect of crippling the welfare state that has lured Republicans into endorsing a president who has threatened to jail his opponent, go after the business interests of news outlets critical of him, and praised dictators in North Korea, Russia, and China for crushing their opposition." They are willing to give Trump control of the military, the Department of Justice, and the domestic-security apparatus as long as Ryan controls the legislative agenda. Tempermentally, Trump loves those who love him, so it is not a long shot to believe he will be, despite all his "strong man" rhetoric, precisely what Clinton called him, a "puppet." And the true movement conservatives, the Ryan's and the McConnell's, "are willing to give Trump control of the military, the Department of Justice, and the domestic-security apparatus as long as Ryan controls the legislative agenda."
In short, Trump represents an "opportunity" for movement conservatives to stage a coup and impose the government that America SHOULD have, even if it is not the government that America WANTS. Brooks echoes Fiorina in suggesting that what American likely wants and what America needs is a more pragmatic change agent, but not necessarily the magic change agent imagined by his toothless Idahoan. "Let’s start with what 'change' actually means," Brooks suggests, and goes on to point out that, "in our system, change means legislation. It starts with the ability to gather a team of policy experts who can craft complex bills. These days, bills often run to thousands of pages, and every bad rookie decision can lead things astray." Trump, of course, has shown no impulse to "craft complex bills," and like most executives, particularly executives who have no experience what-so-ever with the nuts and bolts of organizational change, he will leave it to others -- lending credence as well to the notion that Trump will be the puppet authoritarian subservient to the "real" authority of Ryan et al. He goes on to point out that "craftsmanship in government is not like craftsmanship in business," in part because "you can’t win people with money and you can’t order people around." Moreover, it "requires political deftness," or "the ability to work non-contentiously with people they don’t like, to read other people’s minds, to lure opponents over with friendship, cajolery and a respectful nudge." And finally, it requires participation in "a team sport." Public opinion is one thing, but as most "effective" politicians realize, public opinion is mobilized into action "through institutions — through interest groups, activist organizations, think tanks and political parties. ... To create political change, you have to work within groups and organize groups of groups." Trump, of course, seems temperamentally unfit to do any of these things, and Brooks is correct when he says " if you wanted to design a personality type perfectly ill suited to be a change agent in government, you would come up with Donald Trump: solipsistic, impatient, combative, unsubtle and ignorant." Conversely, a more likely change agent would be Hillary Clinton, or perhaps more insidiously, Paul Ryan. If Trump is the Henry the VIII, then Ryan will be his Thomas Cromwell and, by hook and by crook, help usher in the changes strongly to be desired, the government that America SHOULD have.
What sort of government SHOULD America have? at least according to the wishes of the movement conservative? Look to Louisiana. Look to Kansas.
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