“That 2016 moment”: politics and culture
Peggy Noonan writes:
Have you had your 2016 Moment? I think you probably have, or will.
The Moment is that sliver of time in which you fully realize something epochal is happening in politics, that there has never been a presidential year like 2016, and suddenly you are aware of it in a new, true and personal way. It tends to involve a poignant sense of dislocation, a knowledge that our politics have changed and won’t be going back.
I had my 2016 moment in November of 2012, right after the election. Actually, I had it a week before that, when after talking to a series of friends I realized in my gut that the election was almost certainly going to end with an Obama victory. But you get the idea.
However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t had further refinements on the moment this year. I most definitely have. Ever since last summer, I keep losing hope, and then getting hope revived—that somehow the forces of reason will pull this one out. But each time that hope has been short-lived. I’m with Noonan on this one:
We’ve had a lot to absorb””the breaking of a party, the rise of an outlandish outsider; a lurch to the left in the other party, the popular rise of a socialist. Alongside that, the enduring power of a candidate even her most ardent supporters accept as corrupt. Add the lowering of standards, the feeling of no options, the coarsening, and all the new estrangements.
The Moment is when it got to you, or when it fully came through.
But I don’t fully agree with this, at least not exactly:
As she stood watching a video of Reagan speaking, he thought of Reagan and FDR, of JFK and Martin Luther King. His daughter, he realized, would probably never see political leaders of such stature and grace, though she deserved to. Her first, indelible political memories were of lower, grubbier folk. “Leaders with Reaganesque potential no longer go into politics””and why would they, with all the posturing and plasticity that it requires?”
I still see some leaders with “Reaganesque potential” and “stature and grace” in politics. I even have seen people I might describe that way during this election cycle. For example, I saw those things in Carly Fiorina, particularly when I saw her in person. Cruz likewise, when he gives speeches and interacts with crowds. They are not the only ones. Are they Reagan, or up there with Reagan? No. But they have those qualities and that potential, and there is no reason other aspiring politicians of the future couldn’t sometimes exhibit those qualities and have that potential.
The real difference between Reagan’s times and now, as I see it? It’s the American people who have coarsened, who respond to posturing and plasticity positively rather than rejecting it, and who are less likely to elect politicians with those qualities of “stature and grace.” This is true not just in the political world, but in our cultural life across the spectrum. I don’t blame politics or politicians. The problem and the trend goes much much deeper.
Noonan also writes:
Lately conservative thinkers and journalists had taken to making clear their disdain for the white working class.
Well, maybe I don’t read those particular thinkers and journalists. Noonan doesn’t name them or quote them, so I’m not sure who she’s talking about, or what she considers evidence of this disdain—certainly it can’t just be criticism of Trump’s supporters, because criticism is not the same thing as disdain, and besides “Trump supporter” is not even remotely synonymous with “white working class,” because Trump supporters come from many different classes and educational levels (although most, like most Republicans, are white).
Earlier in this post when I wrote, “It’s the American people who have coarsened, who respond to posturing and plasticity positively rather than rejecting it. This is true not just in politics, but in our cultural life across the spectrum,” I was not referring to class at all. In fact, I don’t see the “white working class” as necessarily exhibiting more of these traits than anyone else. It’s not about money. It’s not about race or class. It’s more common across the board, part of public and private life, and it’s been worsening for decades.
I don’t even blame it on the left, although I believe the left has long encouraged and celebrated it. At this point it is bipartisan and pervasive.
Towards the end of her column Noonan writes of her grief that “the great choice in a nation of 320 million may come down to Crazy Man versus Criminal” this year. Well, I feel grief, too, but have felt it for many years. And I find “Crazy Man versus Criminal”—cute, snappy, and memorable—inaccurate. Trump is not a crazy man, not at all. And although Hillary may be guilty of some crimes, “criminal” is not her most salient characteristic, nor her source of appeal. I realize that cute and snappy makes a column that people will quote and remember, but if I had to think of a way to put it I’d say (trying to be a bit cute and snappy myself) something like “Cunning Con Man versus Cunning Con Woman, the first from the world of business and the second from the world of politics.”
It does no good to disrespect working class people, and I don’t think I’ve ever done it (I don’t even like the term “working class,” although I can’t think of a better one to designate a certain group of people). I grew up in a mainly working class community, and although my father was a professional, my parents had a number of working class friends because the community in which they grew up and lived was a tight one where people had mostly known each other since childhood. I’ve lived ever since in mainly working class communities, and I see stupidity of mind and coarseness of thought and culture as equal opportunity qualities, cutting across classes and educational levels. Some of the dumbest people I know are well-educated professionals, some of the smartest are not, and vice versa.
I think something else is going on. I was in a Trader Joe’s the other day, pushing my cart and happily loading up on supplies (including this favorite), when I saw a youngish man in a T-shirt with the F-word on it. He was accompanied by his daughter of about six years old, and as they were talking I stared in realization that years ago—and not all that many years, either—such a thing would be highly unlikely, but now it’s just a matter of course. Years ago, it would be highly unusual for a father to wear such a T-shirt in public at all, much less in the presence of his young daughter, but these days it’s a sort of ho-hum experience for most people. That’s how coarsened our lives are, in small but meaningful ways.
As Andrew Breitbart (not the blog, the man) so memorably said, politics is downstream from culture. Politics can’t be some sort of highfalutin oasis, isolated from the culture and above it all—au contraire—and it never was. What we’re seeing today in politics is not primarily about politics, politics is just one of its manifestations, albeit an important and powerful one.
I’ve been writing about this phenomenon, both in politics and elsewhere, almost since the beginning of my blogging (see this for an early example, and this for a recent one). If Noonan’s “Reaganesque” politician of “stature and grace” came on the scene (particularly on the right), I submit that these days he or she would be considered a big boring yawn, and/or would be attacked by tabloid accusations that needn’t contain a particle of truth to be disseminated widely even by those who don’t write for tabloids. Such a politician would not be a winner—because way too many Americans neither demand nor appreciate such qualities in their leaders or their public figures, nor do they demonstrate them in their own public or private lives.
“….their disdain for the white working class.”
That would be a pack led by Kevin Williamson at the National Review.
Here:\
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432876/donald-trump-white-working-class-dysfunction-real-opportunity-needed-not-trump
That’s been taken up in a vast number of places over the past few weeks. Hot Air, for example, sees it this way:
“There’s been a growing sense of desperation among the #NeverTrump forces for a few weeks now, and as we move closer to largely winner take all states in the primary line-up it was inevitable that full blown panic would set in. One side effect of this increased feeling of urgency is that critics of The Donald have increasingly given up on critiquing the business mogul’s record and frequently mystifying comments, choosing to focus their attacks on his supporters instead. While a seemingly self-defeating strategy, that movement has hit its full stride this weekend with National Review’s endless fountain of Trump blasting, Kevin Williamson. I’ll confess to being entirely taken aback after reading his diatribe, The Father Fuhrer, where he mostly ignores the candidacy of Donald Trump and instead focuses on the many failings and general worthlessness of a large segment of Trump’s voters… working class white residents of depressed manufacturing centers.”
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/13/those-white-working-class-trump-supporting-communities-deserve-to-die/
vanderleun:
Thanks for the links.
I see Williamson as offering a variant (albeit a very different one) of what I’m saying: politics is downsteam to culture. He thinks the culture of the white working class is pathological, and they have no one to blame but themselves, and that Donald Trump makes them feel better. I agree that there’s a lot of pathology there but I see a lot of pathology everywhere, and do think Trump makes them feel better and more powerful—but I think they have real grievances and some people to blame, although they are not innocent either and a victim mentality helps no one. I think Williamson was railing against a victim mentality in those communities, but he went way overboard and swung the pendulum way too far in the other direction.
At any rate, I don’t think Williamson is joined by a lot of other columnists on the right saying the same thing. At least, I haven’t seen it.
Fair enough but I think that, in his zeal to be “cute, snappy, and memorable” (as well as please his paymasters/NR donors) he has helped engineer the largest single exodus of National Review readers and subscribers in its history.
As is said in some pop song: “It’s the singer,not the song.”
But as is said in another pop song:
“Look what they done to my song ma
Look what they done to my song
Well, it’s the only thing that I could do half right
And it’s turning out all wrong ma
Look what they done to my song “
For me, the most disappointing thing is that we had a really amazing slate of candidates this year, and a loud mouthed, narcissistic, asshole came along with a wrecking ball and destroyed it. I am grieving because I think the we had a real shot at winning the presidency, and holding congress and the senate. I think it’s all blown up now, and I think we’ll come to see it as a major opportunity lost. I also think we’re crossing the point of no return, and that the end of the country as we knew it is very near.
Neo:
“But they have those qualities and that potential, and there is no reason other aspiring politicians of the future couldn’t sometimes exhibit those qualities and have that potential.”
Yes. As you’ve pointed out, this presidential election cycle started with an encouraging stable of impressive conservative Republican political talent. That wasn’t an illusion and that’s not the problem.
The problem is conservatives failed to learn the essential lesson of Obama’s victory over an obviously superior candidate in Romney who was chockfull of “those qualities and that potential”: traditional electoral mindset and skillset are no longer sufficient in the greater context of the evolutionary activist game. Participatory politics subsume electoral politics.
The Trump campaign, which is a joke by traditional electoral standards, has been raised by relatively unsophisticated “jayvee” Left-mimicking activists who’ve seized the opportunity to exploit the invitingly vulnerable deficiency of activism in the GOP, following the exploitation of the same essential deficiency by the Democrat-front Left.
If Trump and the alt-Right had left the GOP to its own devices in this presidential election cycle, the same fundamental weakness caused by conservatives’ willful negligence would have been exploited – once again – in the general election.
Politics is downstream of culture. Culture is a function of activism. If you wish to elevate our culture, the mechanical process to correct the nation’s course is activism, which is the same mechanical process for coarsening our culture. The general will of We The People is – and always has been since the nation’s founding by activists – a function of activism. The activist game is the only social cultural/political game there is.
Right now and in the pipeline, there are a number of conservatives who are worthy of the Presidency. But it’s unlikely they’ll win until conservatives adopt the necessary activist mindset, adapt the necessary activist skillset, and organize collectively and move aggressively as a social activist movement that’s sufficient to compete for real and defeat all competitors in the arena.
By the same token, as social conditions stand, even if a worthy Republican were to win the White House this presidential election cycle, he and Republicans in Congress would lack the range of social means needed to fundamentally correct the nation’s course, which requires for conservatives to seize the critical social nodes throughout the arena via activism.
Whether to compete for real is a choice for conservatives, collectively. The power of the people is equally available to them as it is for anyone for any cause. The founding fathers relied on activism to create this nation. If conservatives choose to concede the nation, it will be because conservatives chose to spurn the activism that is, and has always been, necessary to compete to “keep it”.
Tom:
I agree that we had a good crop of candidates, a bad Democratic candidate, and therefore a wonderful opportunity that was squandered, and that the squandering may be permanent.
However, when you write, “a loud mouthed, narcissistic, asshole came along…and destroyed it,” I would say that because politics is downstream of culture that a “loud-mouthed, narcissistic a-hole” is what a lot of people wanted or they wouldn’t have voted for him. No one put a gun to their heads. In other years, “a loud-mouthed, narcissistic a-hole” would not have gotten nearly so many votes and would have destroyed nothing except his/her own chances at the nomination.
“The founding fathers relied on activism to create this nation. ”
That and a solid helping of gunpowder.
As for “we had a really amazing slate of candidates this year, and a loud mouthed, narcissistic, asshole came along with a wrecking ball and destroyed it.”
The “We” you speak of, who is that? Is that a “We” other than those that voted for the “loud mouthed, narcissistic, asshole”? Seems to me that “we” was the wrecking ball to all those others on the “amazing slate.” The “loud mouthed, narcissistic, asshole” was, though probably as surprised as many others, was smart enough to ride that every growing “we” to this point.
And I agree it was an “amazing slate” except that I now have trouble remembering the last name of that “Marco” guy and wonder why the spiteful slogger whose name start with, I think, K is still bothering to show up and, BTW, who is paying for him to still bop around? Very strange for him to still be hovering.
In sum I have to admit that when I reflect now on the “amazing slate” they all blur…. I feel like Dirty Harry:
“Was that amazing slate made five folks or lebenty-leben? Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being this is the 2016 election for what used to be the most powerful man in the world, one who can still blow the world clear off its axis and who has to clean up after the racial healer, the “we,” with the choice it has left, has gotta ask itself one question: “Do we feel lucky?” Well, do we, punk?”
Didn’t mean to echo Neo. That was written as I was commenting. Still.
neo,
You left lazy out of your description. Too many people just don’t want work to learn about the issues. They want instant tweets and reality TV. In an era in which the internet puts the whole world at their feet, they want to sit on the couch and bitch. The 24-hour superficial news coverage they see only feeds this.
Back to Noonan. I fault her, and others of like mind (although I know of no one who reaches her level), who are so enamored with the mythical Ronald Reagan that they must denigrate anyone who would follow him. As noted, to suggest that Mitt Romney did not rise to the stature of the candidate Reagan is pure foolishness. Unfortunately, we will may never know whether the potential of a Scott Walker or Carly Fiorina would have reached fruition. Although, the same could have been said about Reagan in 1976.
Whether National Review and its writers are pontifical jerks, or whether they are describing the world as it is, is a question beyond my scope. Clearly, however, there is justification to look beyond Trump and try to analyze why a meaningful percentage of the presumed GOP electorate willfully ignore the abundant evidence of his negative attributes. When you repeatedly hear, and read, statements along the lines that it is necessary to destroy the party, to save the party, then you must question the thought processes. When people who obviously consider themselves outside of the GOP mainstream, call those inside RINOs, then one suspects that they have passed through the looking glass.
This feels like the flip side of 2008, and 2012, and it does not bode well at all.
I think I have written here and at Power Line about how Trump has played his campaign as the WWE character Donald “The Businessman” Trump. He will hire Top Men to defeat our foreign enemies.
By calling Trump a “Crazy Man” Noonan is foreshadowing Hillary’s entire campaign theme. Trump is A crazy dangerous, mean, radical, extreme hater.
I don’t see Trump changing that narrative. It nearly worked on Reagan and there was no internet then. And Ron had a clean public record to boot. Trump only wins if Sanders voters don’t show up and he can really bring in Dems and independents in big swing states. Tall order.
Cornhead:
As I said in my post, Trump is definitely not crazy.
But “crazy man” will be one of the many charges used against by Hillary if he is the GOP nominee, and it will stick—as will many others. It will stick because it’s easy to interpret his erratic behavior as “crazy.” However, “loose cannon” would also work.
I believe his behavior is calculated. It appeals to the 1/3 to 1/2 of the GOP electorate (or people who vote in the GOP primaries). It appeals to no one else.
And any pivot he does in the general to better behavior (which I don’t think he’ll do much of anyway) wouldn’t erase people’s memories of his previous behavior, nor the videos of his previous behavior that Hillary will use against him.
Neo, as you’ve repeatedly mentioned, Trump has rarely carried more than about 30% of the vote. The way that I see it, and again I think you’ve mentioned this, the only reason he’s gotten so far is because the “Not Trump voters have been divided among a lot of candidates, and no one has been able to capture the momentum. I think there’s always been a very small percentage that actually supported Trump.
vanderleun, the “we” I speak of is the Republican party, and more generally, the conservative movement.
The candidates I’m talking about are, in no particular order:
Cruz
Fiorina
Walker
Rubio
Perry
Carson
Never mind the ones that didn’t even run
John Podhoretz — for whom, believe it or not, I once babysat — said something memorable about the trouble this country is in: “It’s not even cultural. It’s civilizational.”
Oldflyer,
I’m with you on Noonan. She likes to believe she stood at the right hand of God, but Reagan was also a man. How she could suppport Obama is beyond me. One would think that a New Yorker would have some idea of how bad community organizers are.
“… there is justification to look beyond Trump and try to analyze why a meaningful percentage of the presumed GOP electorate willfully ignore the abundant evidence of his negative attributes.”
For the same reason the negative attributes of Obama, Hillary, Cruz, etc. are ignored. They find his positive attributes more compelling than his negatives. The “abundance” of evidence is important only to those who oppose.
vanderleun:
But why did they find his positive attributes more compelling than his negatives?
Furthermore, I think for many of them, they ignore, deny, or wish away those negative attributes, most of which they say either do not exist and are inventions of the “Trump-haters” with “TDS.” Or they say they are not negative attributes but are positive ones which they reframe in different ways as positives (“he’s a fighter”; “he’s our weapon to destroy the GOP”; “he doesn’t care about political correctness and ‘tells it like it is'”; “he’s no pinheaded intellectual”; “he’s a man of action, not words”).
Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen that many Trump supporters who admit that Trump has any flaws. That’s particularly true on other blogs; the Trump supporters here mostly will admit that he has flaws.
I gave up on Noonan years ago; ’08 most likely. The few times I’ve looked at one of her columns convince me I made the right choice.
I concur with GvdL that much of the dislike/hate for Trump stems from his having support from “all the wrong people”. Name the ONE demographic that can still be dissed without protest from the left, and unfortunately, too much of the right. Don’t have to guess, do you.
I saw the first unmistakable sign of this coarsening of our national character in the response to Bob Dole’s 1996 convention speech. Admittedly, Dole was a lousy candidate, but the speech, written mainly by novelist Mark Helprin, was great oratory, and Dole delivered it well. Yet almost no one commented on the stark beauty of the language they’d heard. It went completely over their heads.
Here’s part of it:
“I was born in Russell, Kansas, a small town in the middle of the prairie surrounded by wheat and oil wells. As my neighbors and friends from Russell, who tonight sit in front of this hall, know well, Russell, though not the West, looks out upon the West.
“And like most small towns on the plains, it is a place where no one grows up without an intimate knowledge of distance.
“And the first thing you learn on the prairie is the relative size of a man compared to the lay of the land. And under the immense sky where I was born and raised, a man is very small, and if he thinks otherwise, he is wrong.”
Google it, and read the whole thing. It’s a fine piece of work that went utterly unappreciated by the supposedly sophisticated pundits and commentators. Today it’s impossible even to imagine a politician talking that way. Our leaders sound increasingly like President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert “Macho” Camacho in “Idiocracy.” Sigh.
Noonan herself is from a working class background, and I’ve always thought she still feels the snubs of the country-club Republicans of gone-by days. That’s the prism through which she perceives the Kevin Williamson kind of criticism — it’s personal. I also remember her going ballistic over Romney’s 47% comment in 2012.
Noonan wants to F up this country some more, it appears. She is just waiting for her “chance”.
The average world civilization has lasted about 200 years. America is now about 235 and counting.
Maybe I missed something in Williamson’s piece. It was, perhaps, a bit harsh, but the kind of people he was describing, who live a less-than-working-class life are quite succeptible to manipulation, and Trump is the latest to prove that. A very large number of Black people are willing to believe that the enmity of Whites is the reason for all their troubles, not their criminality, preying mostly on other Black people, not having babies when they are too young to support, much less educate them, not the drugs. With all that, Blacks are their own worst enemies. Kevin was saying that the same is true for a segment of Whites. People who, if they had budgets, would set aside money for cigarettes alcohol and other drugs, are not likely to do well. If someone like Trump offers a psychological way out, that segment is going to take it. The media, especially television, fertilize that miserable way of life.
Why is church attendance falling? Devout Atheists would say that people are finally wising up to the con of religion. But, there are no other examples of increasing insight, so I am suspicious of that explanation. Television, showing no one in church on Sunday, except for Blacks, who are “too stupid to be Atheists”, after all. may be shown in church, but never Whites. The spinal stiffening of religion, a bourgeois institution, after all, countered the effects of drugs, sex and rock and roll. When the hormonal storms of the teens and twenties were passed, church helped people put their lives back together. Now, not so much. Saying that politics is downstream from culture ignores the very harmful cultural effects of politicians, like Clinton, or Trump, and definitely Obama. The cultural pollution may get them elected, but they produce more pollution, too. One of the things I like so much about several Republican hopefuls this year is their normal way of life, normal in flyoverstan, not in the elite zone.
Oops! I seem to have hit “submit” rather than
Now this is getting weird. I was trying to apologize for hitting submit instead of preview.
I’m reading Myron Magnet’s The Drean and the Nightmare: The Sixties’ Legacy to the Underclass. It is a good description of what has happened to our culture.
Sam L, I just do not agree with the idea that the dislike is aimed at Trump’s supporters instead of him.
To put it in personal term, I have little idea who Trump’s supporters actually are. Well, I know of Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Sarah Palin, and perhaps Rudy Guiliani and Jan Brewer. Of that group, there is only one I did not respect.. Other than that, all I really know of his supporters are that they show up in internet forums anonymously and say things like “we must destroy the GOP to save it from the RINOs”. Well, I personally know one well educated woman, a world traveler and normally fairly sensible, who says she voted for Trump in Florida because Romney had just said mean things about him. Is that level of irrationality typical?
I worry that so many people across this country do not see, or are willing to ignore what appears so obvious–the man is not what they imagine him to be. With no previous feelings about Trump’s supporters as individuals, or as a class (for lack of a better word), I certainly question their judgement and their motives now, as I did the ones who gave us Barack Obama in two elections.
No, you cannot sell me the idea that the opposition to Trump is simply the result of class snobbishness. (I have no class, and no reason to be snobbish.) There is ample cause to dislike Trump as a potential Presidential candidate simply for what he has revealed of himself. Of course, we keep hearing of a pending make-over, or an unveiling of the real man behind the very troubling facade. Of course, I hear forecasts of rain in drought stricken SoCal as well.
Oldflyer:
It occurs to me that, to a certain degree, Trump supporters play the class card much like Obama supporters played the race card. In other words, there can’t be any real, valid, fact-based, logical objections to their candidate, so anyone who does criticize either the candidate or the logical abilities of his supporters is a classist (in the case of Trump) or a racist (in the case of Obama).
expat:
Magnet’s book was published 20 years ago. The sixties were still visible in the rear-view mirror then. We get too soon old and too late smart!
But who knows? Maybe Trump will have a stroke and Hillary a total bowel obstruction.
Frog:
I think you have reversed the afflictions of the two “pretenders to the throne” and that both have already happened.
Here’s a vid of how Trump supporters are treated in one youtube activist vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeOkybuCXX0
It might be more tactically effective to find common ground with other patriots/conservatives/Republicans (that aren’t cucks that is) by showing that you have a common enemy with them. A lot of people won’t help Trump supporters if Trump supporters want people to bow down to Trump. But people will gladly hammer a fist into the Left’s face, now a days at least.
“But why did they find his positive attributes more compelling than his negatives?”
Because he spoke directly to their deepest needs and desires in the direct and blunt words they wished to hear. Because he got their attention. Because he knew how to do it, and keep it , and make it grow. His inner thoughts on anything he has promised are unknowable and thus are made both brighter and darker when the very baseline is unknown. And because….
(I suspect that much of the power he has garnered from tapping into what they wish to hear in a way they wish to hear it is a surprise to him. On a private level he may never have expected to get this far at all. Many billionaires seem to drape themselves in odd causes and strange hobbies as they preen for us and each other.)
…. And because, having heard what they wished to hear in a tone that they wised to hear it, their numbers across all states polled have grown steadily larger with no known limit that can be gauged as yet. And, because of this rapid daily increase in the size of the political unit that backs their Imago, they do not really care at all whether or not you “understand” them. Your puzzlement is, at best, only a mild distraction — like the noise of a single June bug buzzing its wings on a porch screen.
It’s politics. Pick your gang or get off the grid. But whatever you do always remember the first thing to do when the (metaphoric of course) shooting starts: Get off the X.
Mark Levin has pointed out that many conservative talk show hosts who supposedly had firm conservative principles have thrown those principles into the trash in order to climb onto the Trump bandwagon. Some extreme statements by the “establishment” wing of the party cemented their support for Trump and in their minds gave him permanent indulgence for whatever he might say or do in the future. I think the reason that Trump still has these supporters is because they still believe what he says. Like Ben Carson, they fancy that they know the real Trump and that he would never double cross them.
In other years, “a loud-mouthed, narcissistic a-hole” would not have gotten nearly so many votes and would have destroyed nothing except his/her own chances at the nomination.
Well, let’s be honest here. Obama, McCain, Kerry, Clinton, Clinton…these aren’t nice, decent people. Johnson was coarse. All three Kennedys came off as arrogant. Newt wasn’t nationally elected, but he was a national figure. Schwarzenegger can be a bit much. Gentlemanly Minnesota has elected Jesse Ventura and Al Franken. Modern-day Al Sharpton isn’t much different from Jesse Jackson at his height.
Even our dear Ronald Reagan – I loved the guy, and he was truly an intellectual, but how many people voted for him out of tribalism? Did they hear about tax cuts benefiting the poor and believe it, or did they just hear tax cuts?
vanderleun:
Not for a moment have I ever assumed that any of them cared whether I understand them. I can’t even imagine why you might think I would.
And yes, your description is correct, but it doesn’t answer the question. Of course they liked what they heard, he spoke to some (or many) deep desires and thoughts they had as well as other emotions as well (anger, resentment, frustration, hopes, etc.). In fact, strangely enough, I could say that some of his original words (on immigration, for example) spoke to some of
my frustrations with business as usual in the GOP in recent years, and my own anger at how things have been going. But that certainly hasn’t caused me to ignore all the YUUGE negatives that are glaringly obvious with Trump. Nor has it done so for many many other people, who are probably just as angry and resentful towards the GOP as many Trump supporters are, but still are capable of seeing the many many things that are seriously problematic (and even potentially dangerous) in Trump.
I think the key is, as I said, Trump supporters either are follower-types looking for a strongman and found one in him, and/or not into small government conservatism, and/or see what others see as Trump’s negatives as positives. I think there are very substantive differences between most Trump supporters and those who don’t support him, and it’s not just (or even primarily) that Trump is tapping into what they want to hear.
It occurs to me that, to a certain degree, Trump supporters play the class card much like Obama supporters played the race card. In other words, there can’t be any real, valid, fact-based, logical objections to their candidate, so anyone who does criticize either the candidate or the logical abilities of his supporters is a classist (in the case of Trump) or a racist (in the case of Obama).
People observe what works.
The greatest prize of this era is to be defined as the victim. I’d say that’s a precarious position for us to find ourselves in as a culture. It’s a fundamental change.
Ymarsakar Says:
April 23rd, 2016 at 7:50 pm
Here’s a vid of how Trump supporters are treated in one youtube activist vid.
Here: note when that was
a vid of how Republican supporters are treated if they dare to march.
And march they will. Off to the camps that is.
For years there has never been any push back.
Finally there is.
The push back has to be close, personal and immediate at the slightest hint of dismissiveness or disparagement.
You have to aggressively defend your humanity with these people.
Animal like dominance behavior. Primal.
On Ymasakar’s video notice the willingness of these people to act aggressive while by themselves, no close support.
Very telling.
If they socialize with you it means you’re inconsequential and … you’re providing them with social validation.
Aid and comfort to the enemy.
Surround yourself with those on the same mission as you.
Shun.
To some extent, every presidential campaign has to be a reaction to the previous administration(s). The current campaign seems to be a reaction to both the Obama administration and to the culture. Without Obama, I doubt we’d have either Hillary or Trump at the forefront of their parties. It’s doubtful Trump would have been running at all if, say, Romney had been elected last time.
It’s a perfect storm of reaction to an incompetent and arrogant two-term president; political correctness rife in political leadership, the entertainment industry and the country at large; the growth of terrorism and the failure of American foreign policy; and the ineffectiveness and confusion of the Republican party.
Bernie Sanders’ popularity, I maintain, has nothing to do with a “leftward lurch” or socialism. Most of his supporters don’t even really understand what socialism is. They see a likable guy, sincere and with an authenticity that people hunger for, who wants to do nice things for everyone (except Wall Street) and give things away for free. His support is a reaction to all the phoniness among the political class.
In a different and uglier way, Trump represents at least an appearance of authenticity, and because he voices the frustration that so many of us feel with the inaction of our government and lack of response to dangers at home and abroad, his supporters are willing to overlook almost any kind of behavior if they can get someone elected who cares about the same things they do.
The reasonable and capable candidates in the GOP simply couldn’t summon enough of a show of outrage to satisfy this bunch, and the mood of the electorate is not one of patience and tolerance. The country has gone too far wrong, the situation seems too urgent, for patience.
I don’t know if the state of the union is irreversible; I hope not. It feels like we’ve run off the tracks, out of control. And it does seem like activism is the only answer, which is a far cry from what conservatives usually do.
Frog,
All too many aren’t even on the way to becoming smart. McCauliffe is restoring the right to vote to felons because he thinks it will make them feel good about themselves and stay on the right path. He is typical of Magnet’s HAVES who cannot see that most felons were never socialized in the first place. They have no self control and no empathy.But it’s all our fault.
This makes me angry enough to want a Trump saviour, but I just can’t turn off my brain to support him. I demand a candidate who is capable of self reflexion.
expat Says:
April 23rd, 2016 at 2:14 pm
neo,
You left lazy out of your description. ….
&&&&&
Lazy is the wrong term.
Arrogant is the failing.
An arrogant person thinks that they know more than they do — and that they need not pound the pavement nor troll the library to find out what’s what.
The MSM is arrogant — to the ultimate extreme.
That collective believes -s is in a faith — that their word craft// social manipulations are a positive good — and that it’s their role to preach.
You’d be SHOCKED as to how many media personalities are the sons and daughters of Protestant preachers.
The MSM is the New Church of the West.
Really.
It attracts the same personalities that would’ve bonded to ‘the cloth’ five centuries ago.
Strident atheists are really preaching a new religion — the one denounced by Moses, Christ and God.
It’s a faith in human judgment… Man > God.
A violent violation of the First Commandment.
I pray that humanity would drop such a conceit.
I’m sorry to be so late to the conversation. I’ve read with much interest most of your comments. I’m a 63 y.o. “working class” conservative/Republican who happens to be a Trump supporter. I believe Neo & Vanderluen and most of you pundits and politico’s are just damn over thinking this.
Us working stiffs worried and prayed because the GOP/RNC would not give us a candidate we could believe in but in 2008 we held our noses and voted for McCain (in spite of Palin) we lost. We held out hope things would turn around and voted as strongly as we could in 2014 winning back the House & Senate, you know what happened there. It’s 2012 and the same bunch offers up Romney, we had our doubts but we worried and prayed some more and voted for him, he lost. Now we’re really pi$$ed. None of this could or should be blamed on the voters.
So it’s 2016 and the RNC/GOP offers up 17 candidates but refuses to coalesce or help define a leader. Again the pundit and politico class is over thinking this thing talking and writing BS ad infinitum just confusing the issues.
One of the candidates starts talking sh!t we like to hear, starts hitting on, if not all 8 cylinders, 6 or 7, establishment Republicans sneer and look down their noses. This candidate takes an early lead, the GOP and the vaunted pundit class starts talking trash first about the candidate then against his voters. Fvck you guy’s we say, what the He!! do you know anyway.
Most of me & mine will sink or swim with Donald Trump, my very conservative friends will not vote at all, likely the Republicans lose again.
The difference this time is we’re willing to take our lumps. It has gotten so bad in Washington, so toxic, so unbelievably intolerable we are now offering YOU Trump or scorched earth. Take it or leave it.
More likely than not Trump wins the nomination. He can win enough of those unbound delegates and flip some on the second ballot. Then it becomes a binary choice and I imagine most sensible people will not vote for a criminal who will implement Obama’s failed policies.
More likely than not Trump wins the nomination. He can win enough of those unbound delegates and flip some on the second ballot. Then it becomes a binary choice and I imagine most sensible people will not vote for a criminal who will implement Obama’s failed policies.
Not to sound like Adlai Stevenson (of all people) but that still leaves a majority to vote for Hillary Clinton.
I’m beginning to think the next four years will be so bad that we may do just as well to walk around all of this like a bad accident and make the Dems, the Clintons, Obama, the MSM, and the entire opposition culture own it and just hope there are some pieces to pick up when its over.
Assuming that we’re still around, that is. All y’all have a good day.
expat Says:
“McCauliffe is restoring the right to vote to felons because he thinks it will make them feel good about themselves and stay on the right path.”
You make him seem like just another soft-hearted liberal trying to help the downtrodden. That’s bunk.
He’s restoring their voting rights because the vast majority are members of approved racial victim groups who reliably vote Democrat 80% of the time.
Coleman lost his Senate seat by a couple hundred votes to the unfunny ex-comedian Franken after multiple recounts that somehow (mostly coincidentally…perhaps) only found more Democrat votes each time. After Franken was sworn in, they discovered a thousand felons had voted illegally.
Cornhead:
Are you saying you believe that Trump would beat Hillary in a general election?
Or are you saying that a lot of people would sit out the election and vote for no one?
Or are you saying that NeverTrumpers aren’t “sensible”?
Those aren’t rhetorical questions—I’m really not sure what you meant.
tonynoboloney Says:
Trump has played you and you haven’t realized it yet or don’t care.
The flawed and feckless GOP in the House and Senate are a separate problem.
I’m not quite as old as you, still working for a living, but realized a while back that Trump is not an answer to problems, just a variant on the problem. He is a con man crony “capitalist” who is in it for Trump alone.
I was at a yard sale here in Western Montana yesterday and overheard a lady say that she would never vote for “the likes of” Trump but that Sanders was saying interesting things and she was sorry that Rubio had bowed out. I was nonplussed. The only sense I can make of that is that she either considered them all to be Liberals or “Moderates” or she considers Sanders to be some kind of conservative. Or the talking heads are right and they’ve all become one party in the people’s minds.
Not realizing it was cute, I have been stuck on the idea that the current candidates represent a criminal, a communist, a carnival barker, an asshole and a constitutional scholar. I can’t for the life of me understand why people can’t see the obvious in that list. I ask my friends that denigrate Cruz what it is about the Constitution than scares them and get no useful response. I think they see adherence to the Constitution as equating to the grimmest of fundamentalist Christianity. That we would go back to a sort of Calvinist rigidity.
Like many others, I shudder at where we’re headed as a country when the Hillarys and Obumbles of the world own the culture, the media, and the education apparatus. On the other hand the popularity of Trump and Sanders and Cruz indicate to me that the people in general really do see that the current situation is untenable and are engaged in a fairly gentle revolution to change it. If you stand back and look at what’s happening you can see that they’re essentially trying on some different ideas to see how they may fit. I don’t see much wrong with a contested convention because even if the current contenders are not selected there, I think they and their supporters have become powerful enough to demand a compromise much more conservative than we have seen in the recent past. I do worry about the “monied interests” as they were called in an earlier era and what and whom they are able to buy (especially when one of the Koch’s has opined that Hillary may be preferable and acceptable). That said I wonder who in the wings would fit the bill of being more conservative than Rubio, Trump or Kasich, but somewhat more moderate than Cruz. I don’t know the answer to that but I’m betting that there’s someone.
I agree with Eric that the conservatives have to learn activism and to continue the fight between elections rather than recede into their normal lassitude.
The Other Dennis:
You wrote:
I’ll take a stab at it.
People are not consistent, that’s for sure. But what she might have been meaning is that (a) Trump’s character is bad and she won’t vote for him; plus (b) Sanders is saying a few “interesting” things (not that she necessarily agrees with them, but they certainly are interesting); plus (3) Rubio is perceived (or was perceived) by a lot of voters as a moderate, in-between guy, as well as a “likeable” candidate (unlike Cruz, who is perceived by many as unlikeable).
So I’d say she’s probably a moderate of some sort, perhaps an independent, who is in-between parties and is somewhat character-driven in her choices.
By the way, Rubio was actually more conservative than most people realized, and perhaps if he’d been the GOP nominee people would have discovered that, some liking him more because of it and some liking him less. But his demeanor and personality, and the way he spoke about things, made him seem more moderate than he was, and therefore acceptable to a broader group of people. I think he could have beaten Hillary, and the polls back me up. But he couldn’t get the nomination.
[…] As Andrew Breitbart (not the blog, the man) so memorably said, politics is downstream from culture.
Well.
Our children’s curriculum is shaped by the likes of Bill Ayers and taught by the likes of Ward Churchill. We view the world through the lens of the mainstream media. Reality is declared irrelevant when in conflict with the dominant narrative. Etc, etc
What kind of culture can emerge from that frame of reference?
The problem is not Trump, it is Trump voters, and they are only a manifestation of a deeper trouble – a Weimar America. This is disillusionment, a sense of a lost greatness, of lost opportunities for younger peoples compared to their parents, distrust of political class as such, national humiliation – a whole roster of symptoms of decline and decadence, resentment and frustration. In such predicament either a great leader will emerge (as Reagan did, in somewhat comparable situation), or a travesty of such – as Trump.
Neo
I didn’t really get the idea of Independent from her. Perhaps a kind of Rockefeller Republican. So yes, Moderate but a fairly liberal and naé¯ve (is that redundant?) one.
It’s interesting to me that, with a relatively broad circle of friends in terms of politics, I have not heard one person support Trump. From the most Liberal to the most Conservative, they all consider him a loudmouth and a fraud, neither of which gets you far around here. I am amazed that his numbers are so high. I think these must be the same people who voted for Ross Perot and Ron Paul. The “forlorn hope of returning to the 50’s” types.
The Other Dennis:
I’m not sure it’s the 50s they want to go back to. Maybe some mythical time. Or perhaps the 1850s.
I agree about the “same people who voted for Ross Perot” idea. In fact, sometimes literally the same people, because Trump’s voters tend to be somewhat older rather than younger. I compared Trump to Perot in one of the very first posts I wrote about him this campaign season, back in July, and my comparison stands. Perot, you may recall, ran as an independent in 1992, and still got an enormous number of votes. Trump’s genius (as it were) this time around is to run as a Republican. If he was running as an independent like Perot, Cruz or Rubio or whoever (I don’t think Jeb) would have gotten the GOP nomination and it would be a 3-way race, like in 1992. Perot didn’t run as a Republican in 1992 probably because there was an incumbent, and he probably didn’t think it possible to unseat the incumbent for the GOP nomination (he was probably right at the time).
Gee, I know a number of Trump supporters. They are white working class, married, generally conservative but with a weakness for populist programs, and usually vote Republican. All the ones I know are women, but that may be because a lot of the working class people I know are secretaries.
Sergey, right on. You’ve nailed it but I would add that this isn’t fully a Weimar America yet. That happens when the dollar collapses, which is not far off. Before the election? Who knows, but it’s possible and maybe probable.
The Kevin Williamson article was unfortunate, although apparently he is from a white working class background himself. Maybe he feels the need to distance himself or maybe he is just more critical of his “own” people but that article was nasty. It is probably true that some of these folks are responsible for their own problems but it is also larger than that, the economy has changed and they have not been able to absorb that. He said that their communities deserved to die and he would never have written that about anything other than a white community. It was certainly not going to endear those folks to the NR but I doubt that many of them read it anyway. I have really enjoyed NR’s coverage of Trump but this was not a bright spot. At any rate, at least we know these folks exist and they are in pain, and – certainly some are voting Trump. Although, many of Trump’s followers are not working class or white, but there’s a segment who are.
I do think the culture has gotten more crass and again, as I said in another comment (this one on naked lunches!) I am not a prude or particularly conservative in some respects culturally. But I remember being taken aback at a FB friend who praised a story of a child who was swearing and using the “F” word while his parents said nothing. This person is Harvard educated and successful. Yes, they live in the Bay Area. They just thought that the parents were being liberated and without hangups letting the kid swear like that. I just shuddered but didn’t write anything in reply. I don’t think that’s right. Maybe that does make me more “conservative culturally” than I would have thought otherwise but it just seems normal for parents to want their kids to not use the “F” word in public. And for parents to generally want their kids to be restrained and polite and not vulgar. But maybe the whole culture is more vulgar now. People mistake liberation for license. They are very different.
Noonan is right to despair but we do have some gems in this year’s mix and one is Cruz. I’ve been shocked that more conservatives, famous ones, don’t get behind him but instead are behind Trump. Some like Coulter are supporting him partly because she sees herself in him, she thinks he is a victim of PC media coverage. She also is obsessed with immigration. I don’t get it though why the Koch Brothers are apparently more pro-Hillary than pro-Cruz… but this is an odd election cycle.
In the end, we may get the President we deserve and not the President we need. I am just not looking forward to that.
liberty wolf – nobody is saying Cruz wouldn’t be a great President. He would be — if he could be appointed. He’s just not electable. The US won’t elect a “true conservative” unless he has high name recognition and liability scores that are off the chart. Been there, done that (in 1964), got the tee shirt, don’t want another one.
I know people who are Trump supporters.
I overhear conversations when we’re out and about. Lots.
I’ve met seemingly non-political people who – once you indicate you at least won’t have a problem voting for Trump if it comes to that – say they’ll be voting for Trump.
Some are life-long Democrats who voted for Obama …but they aren’t going to vote Hillary, because they feel betrayed and lied to during the past eight years. They don’t trust her to get us out the mess she at least partially caused. (Some think she should be in jail. Jeezus. Democrats! – I don’t see how she skates that won’t damage the party itself.)
Some are Republicans …and they are simply fed up with Washington. They too feel betrayed. They know what hasn’t worked, and are willing to take a chance.
Some are just …people. Their affiliation didn’t come up. But they too express distrust of Washington and politics.
They’re all worried about where we are, and where we seem to be headed.
They ALL loathe Obamacare.
Frankly, the only person I personally know who supports Cruz other than myself is my cousin (whose opinion on politics is generally not reliably credible: he’s never seen a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, gawd luv ‘im lol).
But I don’t hang with political junkies. Mostly my world is worker bees who pretty much prefer to ignore politics, and it doesn’t come up …but this year, well, they’re aware of Trump.
And they are going to vote for him.
I’ve never seen this kind of across the board support in such a varied group of people in …I was gonna say “years”, but heck, I’ve never seen it, period.
I don’t believe the polls at all (which isn’t exactly a surprise, as I have mistrusted pollsters for a long time …so when I hear anyone quoting some poll, I just tune it out as propaganda …I have no faith in ’em anymore).
Frankly I’m more confused by statements like “I don’t know anyone supporting Trump” then being surprised to find some ordinarily apolitical neophyte approving of ‘im.
What pools do those people (some of you) swim in, anyways lol.
…as for me, I’m in one of the groups neo listed recently in describing Trump supporters (though I remain a Cruz guy). I want the GOPe changed or gone. Conservatives need a clean house, and I believe the GOPe is too corrupt to fix.
I’ve figured since it came down to Cruz and Trump, I’m likely to see that desire fulfilled, and the result of the general won’t matter in that calculation.
(Though I think #NeverTrump is shooting your toe to spite your foot. Whatever. I’m not gonna try to talk you out of it. Shoot away.)
Since not even Trump can keep track of what he’s said–or perhaps it’s an act–the likelihood that he’d do what he promised in most cases is pretty much zero.
Granted, some things will not her doable and that happens.
Usually, when somebody turns out to have lied, they have a rationalization we’re supposed to buy about why they didn’t actually lie. With Trump, it’s just off that lily pad and on to the next one and what’s the matter with you going on about whatever ever thingy from last week.
Trump will disappoint a great many people.
Noonan is a case. I’ve reread her “Welcome back, duke” a dozen times. But when you hear her interviewed, it’s as if she’s trying to resurrect the obsolete mid-Atlantic dialect (see Buckley) and move up from not-very-much-of-a-place New Jersey. I’d be surprised if that doesn’t have something to do with her politics.
Richard Saunders:
Was Reagan too liberal for you? It appears you are at least 70+ years old. Did you vote for Ford and for Bush the elder in 1980? Just curious. And about Trump’s negatives, any wisdom?
OM — Did you not read what I said about a conservative having to have great name recognition and likability factors to be elected? Maybe if Brad Pitt suddenly declared himself a conservative, we would have the same situation, but maybe not.
I’m a Republican, and will be until the day I die. Of course, I voted for Ford and Bush I. I suppose that if John F. Kennedy, Scoop Jackson, Sam Nunn, or Joe Lieberman were running against Trump, I would vote for them, but since they’re all dead or kicked out of the Democratic Party, that ain’t going to happen.
As to Trump, of course, there are many things he could do to overcome his negatives, but since he’s his own “best advisor,” he wouldn’t listen.
Maybe a brain transplant. Maybe if my old friends from South Philly, Bruno and Patsy, could get him into a dark alley and say, “Nice little campaign you’ve got going here, Donny. Be a shame if something happened to it.”
No, I can’t see anything happening in the real world that would convert Trump into a non-assh*le.
There’s an old saying, “If you can’t impress them with your intellect, baffle ’em with your bullshit.”
My only hope for this election is that Trump picks a good vice-president, Hillary doesn’t get indicted and replaced by Joe Biden, Trump baffles the Dems with his bullshit enough to win, and then is abducted by aliens. And what are the chances of that?
The push back has to be close, personal and immediate at the slightest hint of dismissiveness or disparagement.
That McCain march was like the Christians being persecuted by the Romans and Jewish city leaders. When the world is against you, you only have your own conscience and soul to withstand it.
As for me, that’s why learning aikijutsu is very useful. With lethal force guns and what not, problematic to use it in all circumstances. But Verbal Violence and the light Physical VIolence the Left uses? Oh, I’ve researched a lot of use out of that one.
Fight fire with fire and poison with poison.
People will Learn. Or they Will Burn. Either way.
Some are life-long Democrats who voted for Obama …but they aren’t going to vote Hillary, because they feel betrayed and lied to during the past eight years.
They lied to themselves first of all, it’s a personal vice and flaw that they can’t get rid of voting for Trump their messiah. When they were told by American patriots that Obamacare was a pyramid scheme and full of lies, what did these “life long Democrats” respond with?
I share the view of those who think that a major reason for the rise of Trump and Sanders is the simmering rage of the common folk in “fly-over country”, those who are held in complete contempt by the blue state, university and MSM elites, those who long ago deemed themselves the best and the brightest. The culture of the West is no doubt coarsening and degenerating, but is the decline being led by the sheep or the wolves? Emmett Rensin, who I think is a progressive himself, recently summarized the problem neatly in an article in Vox entitled “The Smug Style in American Liberalism”, which includes the following quote:
“The smug style arose to answer these questions. It provided an answer so simple and so emotionally satisfying that its success was perhaps inevitable: the theory that conservatism, and particularly the kind embraced by those out there in the country, was not a political ideology at all.
The trouble is that stupid hicks don’t know what’s good for them. They’re getting conned by right-wingers and tent revivalists until they believe all the lies that’ve made them so wrong. They don’t know any better. That’s why they’re voting against their own self-interest.”
Is it any wonder there is anger in the hinterland?
Ricardo:
If it’s the liberal “elite” they’re angry at, then why choose Trump, a man who has been supporting that liberal elite (the Clintons, Pelosi, etc.) for a long long time? If it’s that liberal elite they’re angry at, then why choose the candidate most likely to lose to the Democrats and Hillary Clinton?
The choice is based on nothing more than his rhetoric.