George Will urges voters to oust the Republicans in November
George Will has been writing columns for a long, long time, and has been considered a highly influential columnist on the right. But I never have read him much; I’m not sure why, but he just never appealed to me.
You’d think he would appeal to me. After all, when I experienced my political change, I considered myself (and still do consider myself, in certain ways) to be a relatively moderate conservative. Will was supposedly a moderate as well. But I found his writing boring and uninsightful for the most part.
Just now I wondered whether I just wasn’t remembering correctly. Maybe I liked him better or paid more attention to him than I recall. But when I did a search for posts in which I’ve mentioned Will on this blog, I only came up with eleven mentions in close to 14 years of blogging, and most of those turned out to be short takes such as quotes from other people mentioning Will in passing, or quick links to a column of his without much discussion of it, often on specific topics such as rent control rather than larger issues.
I found this, however. Written shortly after the 2012 election, it seems to be a foretaste of things to come:
This election has undermined the reputation of a lot of pundits on the right who confidently predicted a Romney victory, sometimes even a large one. What were George Will and Michael Barone (to name just two of many) thinking? I find it hard to give them any credence now when they say things like “cheer up,” when they’ve been proven not to have had their fingers on the pulse of anything except their own hopes.
George Will now appears to be vying for the leadership of the NeverTrump movement, and he’s taking it out on the entire GOP. His column from yesterday is behind the WaPo firewall, but here are some excerpts:
Amid the carnage of Republican misrule in Washington, there is this glimmer of good news: The family-shredding policy along the southern border, the most telegenic recent example of misrule, clarified something. Occurring less than 140 days before elections that can reshape Congress, the policy has given independents and temperate Republicans — these are probably expanding and contracting cohorts, respectively — fresh if redundant evidence for the principle by which they should vote.
The principle: The congressional Republican caucuses must be substantially reduced. So substantially that their remnants, reduced to minorities, will be stripped of the Constitution’s Article I powers that they have been too invertebrate to use against the current wielder of Article II powers. They will then have leisure time to wonder why they worked so hard to achieve membership in a legislature whose unexercised muscles have atrophied because of people like them.
There’s much much more, all of it dripping with highfalutin disdain and crafted with wordsmith care and pride. The message is that the GOP should never cooperate with the vile Trump. Even though Will admits that the Democrats are awful, he doesn’t think they can do much harm. As for the need to approve the appointment of conservative judges, which requires a Senate controlled by the GOP—well, this Pooh-bah poo-poos that, because they’re not as important as showing the GOP a lesson.
In all of this, Will reminds me a bit—although the style and ultimate goals were very different—of the people on the far right I used to argue with during the 2012 election, those who hated Romney (and/or the GOP establishment) so much that they said they’d be voting for the Democrats. It seemed destructive then, and it’s destructive now.
Along the way, Will makes some glaring errors (in addition to the big error of asking people to vote in a Democratic Congress to teach the GOP a lesson). He references this:
Corey Lewandowski, a Trump campaign official who fell from the king’s grace but is crawling back (he works for Vice President Pence’s political action committee), recently responded on Fox News to the story of a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome taken from her parents at the border. Lewandowski replied: “Wah, wah.” Meaningless noise is this administration’s appropriate libretto because, just as a magnet attracts iron filings, Trump attracts, and is attracted to, louts.
First of all, for what it’s worth, Lewandowski replied “womp, womp,” not “wah, wah.” It may be all the same meaningless noise to the lout-phobic Will, but it’s not the same phrase and doesn’t have the same meaning. What’s more, Lewandowski explained he directed the remark at a fellow guest on a cable news program, not at the child:
Lewandowski claimed the “womp womp” was directed to his cable news opponent, a Democratic strategist named Zac Petkanas, for using a child to “politicize an issue.”
“I never meant to insult anybody with Down syndrome. And who I was talking to was [Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas]. And I understand what the perception is here and what the media wants to talk about,” he said.
“What Zac was attempting to do was to use a child with Down syndrome to politicize an issue,” Lewandowski said.
By the way, “womp, womp” means that a person is losing, as in a game show (I’m not the expert on this, since I never heard of the expression before this incident). “Wah-wah” would have been a remark that was far more likely to have actually been a way to mock the child’s feelings, but that’s apparently not what Lewandowski said.
But that mistake of Will’s pales in comparison to another one Will makes (or at least a point he totally ignores). Lewandowski added:
But what [Petkanas] didn’t tell you, what you need to understand was that person, that poor child was not taken from her parent because she came to this country illegally. That poor child was taken from her parent because her mother has been suspected of being a material witness in a child smuggling ring. And so we have to understand the difference.”
This is the case, and it was reported four days before Will’s column came out:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said Wednesday that a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome was not separated from her family under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
The agency said in a statement obtained by CNN that the girl was separated from her mother and detained in a Texas facility because her mother is a material witness in a human smuggling case.
CBP added that the mother was “not prosecuted.”
It is typical of people who are incensed about the family separation issue to outright lie or at least be so sloppy with the facts that they mislead, and to ignore the dangers faced by illegal immigrants on their journey. Therefore Will’s failure to have noticed the true story or to mention it is not the least bit surprising. He’s become a propagandist himself. And he’s got plenty of company.
Will has gone over the edge, as have several other people I know. There is really not much chance of reasoning with them, the important thing is that they don’t come to power. I doubt Will has any influence among Trump voters, or even many potential Trump voters.
I’ve never been impressed with Will either. I recall when he was excusing Reagan’s deficit spending and disinclination to touch social security, by claiming that the economy would grow by 7% a year due to the tax cuts. Really, kind of ludicrous, and I think he had convinced himself that it was true. The other thing I remember him for was his divorce. My girlfriend at the time was a frequent traveler to DC, and Will’s divorce was the big topic of juicy gossip and a source of entertainment, topped by the time that his wife dumped all his possessions on the curbside. Strangely, little of that made it into the news …
I’m told back in Will’s glory days of the 80s into the 90s he was a force and a mighty fine writer. Plus, if you cared, he also had a beautiful feel for baseball and wrote well on that subject.
Baseball is an OK game among many, but the strain of romanticism some like Will bring to it I find cloying. Get a room!
After I turned conservative, I read Will some. He was civil and intelligent. He might have been up my alley too, but mostly he seemed pedantic and pretentious in his precious bowtie and round wire-rim glasses. I never heard anything from him that impressed me — unlike, say, Charles Krauthammer.
Will seems to be selling himself as a brand.
Will was a sycophant of Reagan. As Trump is increasingly compared to Reagan, I expect Will shall defenestrate himself.
He needs to be told what a whore he is but that is futile since you can’t insult a whore.
I saw the clip featuring Lewandowski and Lewandowski’s explanation for his “wha-wha” (a muted trumpet sound denoting mocked misfortune) was on par with his former boss’s explanation of what he meant when he said Megan Kelly had blood coming out of her whatever…It insults my intelligence.
Trump has surprised me by doing a lot of things right and he’s behaving himself better than he has earlier, but he’s clumsy and tone deaf and has had associations with the same people. What was up with Melania’s coat? We’re in the midst of a culture war and he’s handing the opposition their ammunition. Yes, a lot of the time, the media tends to shoot themselves in the foot with whats handed to them but they should be doing a better job of not handing it to them anyway.
George Will?
Two comments, George (both via Instapundit):
This might be of interest:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/300204/
And:
“Hillary Clinton could have spared the country hours of wasted investigations, debates, and near civil war had she just made three easy ethical and logical choices…” in: https://www.hoover.org/research/hillarys-hamartia
Yes, hamartia can be a real bummer…
Good luck, George!
Never liked the prissy, bow-tied, little popinjay.
I have always found Will to be boring, rather silly creature of the beltway. He seems mostly interested in being “the reasonable conservative” pontificating on TV panels, getting invited to the in crowd cocktail/dinner parties, and adjusting the bow tie before the mirror. Wishing for the left to regain control of congress to spite djt is childish if someone wishes to be considered ‘conservative’.
I ditto Neo and the commenters. Will is not impressive.
I suspect Will’s son Jon’s downs syndrome prejudices his error against Lewandowski, no? It’s kneejerkish looking in this instance. Well, maybe, anyhow.
Will, Jonah Goldberg, David Frum, and other so-called conservative pundits, who are #Never Trumpers, just cannot get past Trump’s personal demeanor. For them, style and erudition are what matters, not winning elections or actually making conservative changes in our government. They would do well to observe Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment: “Speak no ill of a fellow Republican.”
I find Trump’s personal style off putting. Still, he is making a difference in many good ways. I can overlook his personal flaws because the man loves this country and wants to do the right thing for the majority of Americans. Those who value style and lofty speech over results are basically lost in a cult of elitism that seldom makes a difference in the lives of citizens.
My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy.
This Reagan quote is one that too many Never Trumpers have completely broken from. As J.J. said these supposed serious conservative policy wonks have thrown all that to the wind over style issues.
Nobody agrees with a politician on every issue but when your compass is so broken that you wish for the electoral success of a party that is opposed to all you have been pontificating about for years then that says more about you than that politician.
Will is an irrelevant loser.
George Will is an intellectual lightweight, even with the affectatious bow tie. Appreciate, if you will, the juxtaposition of Mr. Will’s body or work and that of the recently deceased Dr. Krauthammer.
Do I get this right: he advocates ousting the current Republican majority, to be replaced by… a Democrat majority? This new majority will be superior in terms of conservative focused legislation and policy to that of the incumbent GOP?
As I said, an intellectual lightweight who is also lacking in functioning common sense.
Barry Meislin
It didn’t take a lot of smarts to realize the outrage was nearly all one-way. One example where the outrage wasn’t one-way was the reporting on the sexual behaviors of Harvey Weinstein et al. I suspect this was an example of the libs setting a trap for Trump- recall Hillary’s OUTRAGE over Trump’s admittedly uncouth statements- and finding out that instead, Demos were getting their feet caught in the trap. Foot in the mouth, foot in the trap. 🙂
At one time I read George Will. This posting indicates why I do not regret having stopped reading him.
My brother, when he lived in the DC area, once had a face-to-face encounter with George Will near his workplace. My brother tried to make some off the cuff witty remark to George Will, but failed utterly. Maybe my brother mistakenly said Will was a White Sox fan, when Will was actually a Cubs’ fan. Don’t remember the details. To my brother’s credit, he had no problem telling us about his putting his foot in his mouth.
Griffin
Speaking of pundits falling for style, I am reminded of a now-famous remark by David Brooks.
Instead of flying by the seat of his pants, David Brooks flies by the crease of his pants.
A different kettle of fish, but remember when Pat Buchanan bolted from the GOP and … well, and nothing. He writes a column somewhere I believe.
George Will was not moderate, he was tepid. And useless when push came to shove, like now.
Will has probably hardened the support for Trump with this column. So, not to worry — this “Vesuvius of mendacities” may just come out stronger than ever in the midterms.
J.J. Says:
June 23rd, 2018 at 6:57 pm
Gotta disagree slightly with your grouping Goldberg into the same category as the others, here.
I think Frum, Will, Jennifer Rubin, and Max Boot are properly called #NeverTrump: Absorbed with an obsessive and hysterical rejection of Trump which has long-ago crossed the line into being destructive of the conservative agenda they once claimed to care fore.
But after listening to a podcast where Goldberg talks about this (with Ben Shapiro, I think?) and reading a column or two he’s written on the topic, I don’t believe Goldberg belongs in the #NeverTrump category. Or, if he does, then there ought to be another, even-more-ridiculous, category allocated to suicidally-overwrought pundits like Frum, Will, and the others.
Yes, it’s true that Goldberg says he didn’t vote for Trump. And that, I think, is an error on Goldberg’s fault. But what was he thinking?
Well, he says he thought there would be comparatively little difference between the governance by a New York Liberal like Clinton, and governance by a New York Liberal like Trump (basing the latter characterization on Trump’s history of political opinion from the 80’s until 5 minutes before he started running for the Republican nomination). He thought that Trump’s campaign speeches were basically Trump cynically BS-ing the yokels. He also thought that Trump would unnecessarily damage the conservative brand by going off-message, and that Trump was genuinely a bad human being, and that because Trump was unlikely to govern much differently from Clinton, conservatives would end up with a damaged brand but no policy improvements to show for it. So, on the basis of that strategic calculation, Goldberg says he did not vote for Trump, but did not vote for Clinton either.
After the election, Goldberg claims to have been consistently pleasantly surprised by Trump’s policy moves, while being consistently unpleasantly unsurprised by Trump’s off-message pot-stirring on Twitter and spontaneous comments. And he still thinks that Trump is a genuinely bad human being, but no longer thinks that Trump will govern indistinguishably from Clinton. He thinks that Trump is damaging the conservative brand, but he no longer thinks that conservatives will have “nothing to show for it.”
Goldberg says criticizes Trump when he goes off-message, but believes that he has fairly given Trump credit when he did things right. Finally, he says he’s hasn’t decided who he’s voting for next time around.
So much for Goldberg. As for the others (Will, Rubin, Frum, Boot), my understanding is that they actively voted for Clinton in opposition to Trump, have not expressed pleasure in the conservative-friendly good moves Trump has made, and are actively campaigning to get Trump primaried and to have conservatives vote for the Democratic candidate if Trump isn’t primaried.
To my mind, then, Will, Rubin, Frum, and Boot fully meet the qualifications for being #NeverTrump.
Goldberg, by contrast, strikes me as having been overly-pessimistic about how Trump would turn out, and overly-grudging about how Trump has turned out. Not friendly to Trump, to be sure; but not #NeverTrump in the same kind of emotionally-unhinged, hyperventilating way as the others.
I am not denying that Goldberg was in the wrong in not voting for Trump: He should have voted for Trump, because he should have realized that a man with Trump’s history, surrounded by a lot of conservative advisors, would in fact be significantly better for the country than a woman with Clinton’s history, surrounded by the kinds of corrupt cronies and SJW leftists she’d have had for cabinet and staff, would have been. (Sometimes who you elect is less-important than who you thereby empower.)
Correspondingly, I think it’s a mistake that Goldberg isn’t yet fully on-board with voting for Trump next time out. He seems to remain in “wait and see” mode.
Still, I do think this puts Goldberg in a different category from Frum, Rubin, Boot, and George Will, who have beclowned themselves utterly.
In my opinion the two pundits that have beclowned themselves the most are Jennifer Rubin and Bill Krystol. Rubin has came out against more things she was for like a year ago than can be counted and Krystol may have literally lost his mind.
A few others like Boot, Frum and and a few lesser sorta pundits like that sleazy Wilson guy come to mind but Rubin and Krystol are the worst. Those two have lost me forever.
Ann:
instead of bashing trump or repeating MSM lies here, why not share with us what you think we should do with the illegal immigrants and their children?
btw, you seem to be a very generous person, mind showing us your receipts for your contributions to the unfortunates? I don’t like taking advises on generosity from people who have never give to charity more than I do.
Should the police all let the prostitutes who bring their kids along to work go because separating families is bad?
the blame should be on the criminals when any families separations resulted from Criminals bringing their kids along when committing crimes, not the law enforcement. If you don’t want your family separated, don’t commit crimes. Gee, rights are wrongs and wrongs are rights now, the leftists have successfully turned morality upside down.
R.C., that Jonah is not quite as #NeverTrump as others I cannot argue with. He has made some grudging tips of the hat towards Trump policies. I may have been a bit off base to lump him with Will, Frum, etc.
I have long been a Goldberg fan. Though I disagree with him on Trump, I agree with him on most things. His books have been first rate, though I haven’t read his latest yet.
By the way, Jonah is the son-in-law of a high school friend of mine. I have it from the horse’s mouth that he is a splendid man and good husband, but I have never actually met him.
Jonah Goldberg in his latest G-File talks about the different groups of Republicans today:
The whole piece is worth a read.
Like I keep saying, there is no such thing as being immune to propaganda, any more than there is an immunity to bullets.
When you are verbally attacked, you either fire back, or get suffocated beneath a pile of swastikas plastered to your reputation. Romney let himself be labeled a Nazi, McCain let himself be labeled a Nazi, even Dubya let himself be labeled a Nazi, which is probably what killed the War on Terror more than anything else.
Trump doesn’t let people just call him a Nazi. He fights back, with brilliant propaganda barrages of his own, and has plastered “fake news” all over the faces of his enemies even more effectively than they could plaster their swastikas over him.
I was very suspicious of djt (and that is putting it mildly) during the primaries. I have been pleasantly surprised by his focus on key issues that are my priorities. Yes, he is a bull in the china shop, but that has what has won me over. He doesn’t back down, and he is 180 degrees from the pompous decorum expected of POTUS image.That is refreshing.
I hope he moves the Federal District to Ogallala, Nebraska. The chattering class will stay 1,000 miles away.
I’ve lost all respect for the #NeverTrumpers. To be that wrong requires willful blindness. They can’t see the larger picture because their egos are invested in the status quo.
Trump does seem to rub some people the wrong way. I’ve talked to a few Never Trumpers who before Trump were reliably conservative. I do not understand their obsession with form over substance. It is odd but a fact that Trump a liberal from New York has been a more effective conservative than many ‘career’ conservatives (e.g. McCain, Bushes, Romney) at accomplishing goals on the right. He is in fact a political genius and disrupter who is re-arranging the political landscape and that guarantees he will be hated by those targeted.
Ann,
Goldberg, like Will & Ben Shapiro are hardly conservative. They like the idea that they are “loyal opposition,” but they are neither.
You gotta move farther to the right if you want my attention for very long…because what have all these great conservatives actually conserved?
Will seems to be lamenting what Charles Murray asserted back in May 2016 at AEI.org.
“Without getting into the comparative defects of Clinton and Trump (disclosure: I’m #NeverTrump), I think it’s useful to remind everyone of the ways in which having a Republican president hasn’t made all that much difference for the last fifty years, with Ronald Reagan as the one exception.”
Trump is turning out to not be a typical Republican president of the last 70 years. He’s cutting back regulations, he’s not accepting the status quo on North Korea, the EU or anything without asking questions that upset those who’ve come to benefit from the current set up.
Will is one of the old guys who can’t conceive that things might need to change from the Cold War establishment.
10 years ago I read Will fairly often. Then he posted this article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041502861.html
To save yourself the 5 minutes of utter disbelief. I shall quote
“Writer Daniel Akst has noticed and has had a constructive conniption. He should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has earned it by identifying an obnoxious misuse of freedom. ”
The reason? The wearing of blue jeans. I never read another article by Will again.
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I couldn’t finish the Will column. It just made me so freaking angry. I came across it inititally because some liberal Facebook friend of mine shared it, exulting, “Even George Will gets it!” If you’ve won an Upper West Side deep blue liberal, you’ve lost me.
I support Trump. I was not a fan during the primaries. But once he won, I was going to vote for him. Because NOT voting FOR him, was essentially a lot for Hilary.
I like what he’s accomplishing. I think it’s amazing.
These Never Trumpers, like Will, are deluded if they think/thought everything would have been fine, if not better had Hilary won. What kind of “conservative” can this jackass Will actually be, if he really thinks screw getting “conservative-ish” judges, if it means voting Republican this fall.
I welcome moving the seat of our Federal government to Western Nebraska. Unfortunately, all the hangers-on, toadys and sycophants will move it there, too, eventually. And soon, there’ll be Red Hens MXDC Cocinas Mexicanas out there, treating conservatives like trash.
“I like what he’s accomplishing. I think it’s amazing.”
It only seems amazing because the media left themselves very badly exposed, apparently believing nobody would dare fire a propaganda barrage back at them. Trump obliterated them all simply by retweeting Obama, but they’re regrouping, and have brought out an even bigger gun, accusations of child molesting, and successfully tested it against Roy Moore in Alabama.
Watch for the accusations of kidnapping refugee children to morph into accusations of child sex dungeons, as the midterms approach.
People seem to overlook the fact that Will writes for, and is employed by, the Washington Post.
He has been a hollow wordsmith for decades. I gave up on him that long ago.
The WaPo is now owned totally by one man, Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame and fortune, now the richest man on the planet.
Does Bezos wield any power over his employees? Nah, of course not.
I am glad Neo can stand to read WaPo and NYT; I cannot.
I fear this shows a vestige of her prior liberalism.
George Will’s persona–The owlish glasses, the bow tie, and the prissy delivery telegraphs the message: “Don’t take me seriously.”
Will makes the perfect “pet conservative” for mainstream media talk shows.
You can read Will’s articles in full at PatriotPost DOT us. I’ve read many of his articles over the years and appreciate getting a variety of perspectives on current events. However, I was stunned at the virulence of his most recent piece, which you mention. It seems spiteful to undermine the gains made (lower taxes, reduced regulatory burden, increased protections for conscience, reining in lawless bureaucratic actions by EPA, IRS, FBI, etc.) out of contempt for the person who is president or out of frustration that “too little is happening.”
I did not vote for Trump, but I do not loathe him, nor am I in a panic about him destroying our country. Will’s attitude toward Congressional Republicans seems as sensible as Democrats hoping bad things happen to our country so Trump gets damaged.
“The whole piece is worth a read.”
It sounds like a piece of something but not worth a read. It is clearly meant to diminish and demean anyone who supports Trump. It leaves out people – many of them represented here in these comments – who were originally skeptical of Trump but now support him because 1) his Presidency has turned out better than they expected and 2) his opposition is fanatically deranged. Even if we still get a little heartburn now and then over the occasional tweet.
John Guilfoyle:
Respectfully, I think you ought to make finer distinctions there. (Unless I have misunderstood you.)
You seem to be saying that a person’s conservatism doesn’t count as “conservatism” unless that person achieves their stated goals.
Doesn’t it make more sense to…
1. Define a set of conservative desiderata;
2. Categorize all the persons who advocate for those desiderata as “conservatives”;
3. Categorize all the persons whose tactics fail to achieve those desiderata as “less-effective conservatives” and those whose tactics DO achieve those desiderata as “more-effective conservatives”
…so as to avoid confusing Achieving Some Goal with Having The Right Goal?
Jonah Goldberg’s hoped-for outcomes, if achieved, are clearly conservative in slant. Listen to him describe his vision of How America Ought To Be, and it’s a picture that would be very attractive to conservatives (and deadly disaster to leftists).
So, in my lexicon, that makes him a conservative.
Then, he went into the booth and failed to vote for Trump.
So, in my lexicon, that makes him a conservative who was confused about to best achieve his vision of How America Ought To Be. He miscalculated.
That’s a little different, I think, from guys like George Will who are self-evidently willing for conservative priorities to lose provided that, in the process, conservatives never have a standard-bearer whom he finds distastefully gauche.
(I know, I know: Will himself might claim that it isn’t a matter of Trump being “gauche” but dishonest and unstable. But this judgment is rendered irrelevant by the fact that Hillary Clinton was at least equally dishonest and at least equally unstable, and was moreover surrounded by an entrenched machine of institutional elites constantly obscuring, excusing, and enabling her dishonesty. Moral character, therefore, was IN NO WAY a deciding factor for one’s presidential choice in the last election. One could not intelligently prefer Clinton over Trump for moral reasons. That leaves Will with no cogent explanation for all his hyperventilating, other than disgust with Trump’s style.)
Ben Shapiro has become more and more tolerant of Trump as he appreciates what Trump has done. Even Jonah Goldberg has moved in that direction, just not as much. Shapiro certainly is very conservative, even edging toward libertarian — just watch his podcast.
The Anderson article quoted by Goldberg seems to have missed the largest group of Trump supporters, including myself, and I suspect, many people on this list — people who admire what he’s doing and wish he would get the hell off Twitter! Or, to paraphrase Selena Zito’s perfect characterization, people who take Trump seriously but not literally.
Will was no Hillary supporter — see this piece he wrote the day after the election in 2016:
He then explains what his conservatism is all about:
R.C.: Thanks for your spirited and civil defense of Jonah Goldberg. I’m in the same camp.
Aside from Goldberg’s stubbornness to relinquish a principled conservatism, which I’m not sure folks like John Guilfoyle understand, Goldberg has been on the receiving end of daily mega-abuse from pro-Trump people for over two years now.
That has an effect.
The chief accelerant in my move from being a Chomskyite leftist to wherever I am on the right was the viciousness with which I was attacked by my comrades after I expressed concerns after 9-11.
I still don’t see much difference between hard-core Trump supporters and hard-core leftists. For the moment I’d agree the pro-Trump forces are on the right side of history, to use leftist terminology.
But that will change and I expect Trumpists to be on the wrong side of history soon enough, just as the hard-core civil rightists went from right to wrong in a matter of decades.
Which is why I support efforts at a principled conservatism as Jonah Goldberg espouses.
“In all of this, Will reminds me a bit—although the style and ultimate goals were very different—of the people on the far right I used to argue with during the 2012 election, those who hated Romney (and/or the GOP establishment) so much that they said they’d be voting for the Democrats. It seemed destructive then, and it’s destructive now. ”
Not surprising at all, since they are indeed opposing factions vying for control of the republican party.
Will is following in the footsteps of Brooks and Frum. Indeed, most “NeverTrumper” journalists/”intellectuals” are on the same path. They’ve realized, quite correctly, few Republicans/conservatives outside of the beltway read them or take them seriously. Their decline in influence among the masses on the right long, long predates Trump; his ascendancy only accelerated the process. Naturally, they desperately want to stay relevant and maintain a readership (and a paycheck). Thus, the obvious alternative is to posture; to adopt the persona of a “house conservative” for the left; to provide intellectual cover for whatever red-faced pseudo-outrage du jour liberals are screaming about. Lee’s FB friend is a prime example of who Will is appealing to: liberals who want to justify their position by pointing to “conservatives” who agree with them. Hey, it’s a good gig.
I couldn’t care less what George Will thinks or writes. Likewise, David Brooks, David Frum, Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, Ross Douthat, etc. I think it’s safe to say most posters on this blog (Ann excepted, perhaps) agree with me; and, most Republican voters agree with me.
I maintain (now more than ever) the GOP will do reasonably well in the midterms (e.g. maintain at least a ten seat majority in the House and likely gain a couple Senate seats). But I guarantee this: whatever the result, it will not in any discernable way, be affected by anything George Will says.
Ann Says:
June 24th, 2018 at 5:26 pm
Will was no Hillary supporter — …
He then explains what his conservatism is all about:
For constitutional conservatives, the challenge is exactly what it would have been had Clinton won: to strengthen the rule of law by restoring institutional equilibrium. This requires a Republican Congress to claw back from a Republican executive the legislative powers that Congress has ceded to the administrative state, and to overreaching executives like Obama, whose executive unilateralism the president-elect admires.
* * *
If he is supporting Democrats over Republicans in Congress he is supporting Clinton after-the-fact, because their agenda is her agenda as well.
PLUS: it’s hard to see how defeating Republican candidates is going to attain that bolded goal.
Like many others, I read Will for a while, and found his arguments weak and his punditry wanting.
Richard Saunders Says:
June 24th, 2018 at 5:12 pm
… Or, to paraphrase Selena Zito’s perfect characterization, people who take Trump seriously but not literally.
* *
I think I’m in that group.
However, I take George Will neither literally nor seriously.
R.C. Says:
June 24th, 2018 at 3:49 pm
[I omitted all of the good points you made to get to this one]
(I know, I know: Will himself might claim that it isn’t a matter of Trump being “gauche” but dishonest and unstable. But this judgment is rendered irrelevant by the fact that Hillary Clinton was at least equally dishonest and at least equally unstable, and was moreover surrounded by an entrenched machine of institutional elites constantly obscuring, excusing, and enabling her dishonesty. Moral character, therefore, was IN NO WAY a deciding factor for one’s presidential choice in the last election. One could not intelligently prefer Clinton over Trump for moral reasons. That leaves Will with no cogent explanation for all his hyperventilating, other than disgust with Trump’s style.)
* * *
Although not at all approving of Trump’s moral character, I did not think that he was any worse than most of the Presidents we have had, now that their flaws and vices have been revealed in more detail (mostly unknown to the general public at the time, through the shabby cover-ups of the Noble Press), and he did not in any way descend to the depths plumbed by the Clinton Cabal.
R.C. Says:
June 23rd, 2018 at 9:23 pm
“I am not denying that Goldberg was in the wrong in not voting for Trump: He should have voted for Trump, because he should have realized that a man with Trump’s history, surrounded by a lot of conservative advisors, would in fact be significantly better for the country than a woman with Clinton’s history, surrounded by the kinds of corrupt cronies and SJW leftists she’d have had for cabinet and staff, would have been. (Sometimes who you elect is less-important than who you thereby empower.)”
* * *
This is a very good point, and the only quibble of course is: did Trump surround himself with a lot of conservative advisers?
Opinions seem to differ (there are, after all, 4 or 5 or 6 types of conservatives…), but there is no doubt that all of Trump’s personally chosen advisers (not all his appointees, or the left-over Obama officials, but that’s a different comment) are light-years more conservative than any of Hillary’s would have been.
In the discussion of how to rank conservatives on the ideological spectrum, Ben Shapiro’s name came up several times. I like Ben’s writing (far more than I do Will’s), and this post contains a lot of good points, but he’s a few cubits short of an Ark in his knowledge of Biblical history:
https://www.weeklystandard.com/shapiro-win-back-young-americans
My complaint is with his discussion of why young conservatives are turned off by Donald Trump’s moral failings (and no one on the right that I know of disputes he has them; the controversy — which Ben acknowledges — is over how much they matter to each voter, and to the implementation of the Conservative Agenda, if I may use a short-hand label).
“First, and most pressingly, with regard to President Trump this means condemning bad behavior. Conservatives should celebrate every victory for their policies earned by President Trump; they should praise him to the skies for them. Conservatives should laugh along with Trump when he correctly attacks phony media coverage. But they should not humor him over his personal failings, proclaim him a David-like figure in the absence of David-like holiness, or shrug off his various imbecilities and vile utterances simply because they like his policies. Young Americans aren’t judging Trump. They’ve already judged him. They’re judging you and determining whether or not they can ever vote for the same candidates you endorse based on whether or not they admire your character. That doesn’t mean Trump can’t win re-election or win over young people. But that requires him to change his character, and it requires us to call on him to do so.”
* * *
I don’t know of anyone who has anointed Trump an analog to King David of the Jews (who I presume is Ben’s referent here), but he is not exactly the role model Shapiro had in mind.
I yield to no one in my admiration of the shepherd boy who became the greatest king in Israel’s history, but he: defied the lawful though misguided actions of his own king, Saul, eventually fighting on the side of an enemy nation; was hot-headed to the point of contemplating a vengeful massacre of a man who declined to feed his rebellious army; had numerous wives and concubines at the same time (not serially, as is the practice today); and committed adultery with the wife of one of his commanders, then conspired to have the cuckolded husband murdered.
I think Shapiro should choose another example.
Unless he is somehow saying that Trump has all of David’s vices with none of his virtues, but then he would be saying that there is some kind of “balancing” act that lets you be bad in some ways if you are good in others.
And isn’t that what Trump’s supporters have been saying all along?
Georgie Porgie is ignoring all of this: he wanted us to vote for this wicked and vile woman instead of the loudmouthed but patriotic Donald Trump —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed1H-j4Wv0g
Watch this documentary. Which assembles the major crimes of the Clinton criminal empire — truly staggering in its scope, and the trail of actual murders is far more extensive than I thought it would be. So many “suicides,” ruled as such by crooked coroners in the Clintons’ cabal. Suicides like one person who was decapitated [!], more than one who were shot in the back of the head, who were shot multiple times; and all of the “suicides” were in possession of information that would have been very damaging to the Clintons and their criminal and even treasonous activities.
Do watch it. It is worth the time, and I was staggered by it.
But yeah, The Donald was “tacky” and “Too openly patriotic,” so let’s vote for the Hell-fiend! yeah, that’s a plan!
AesopFan As an Orthodox Jew, Shapiro does not take the Bible literally, he views it through the lens of the Talmud and Midrash (stories about the Bible). In the Talmud and the Midrash, the rabbis go to great lengths to explain away David’s many flaws and build him up as a hero. Basically, this was to emphasize the importance of the Davidic line as a requirement for a Jewish king (and after the disaster of the Hasmonean kings, who could blame them!) and for the Messiah.
Let me give you some of something that I wrote to the point of George Will about a year ago…
>But Reagan is 63, and looks it. His hair is still remarkably free of gray, but around the mouth and neck he looks like an old man. He’s never demonstrated substantial national appeal. His hardcore support today consists primarily of the kamikaze conservatives who thought the 1964 Goldwater campaign was jolly fun. And there’s a reason to doubt that Reagan is well suited to appeal to the electorate that just produced a democratic landslide. If a Reagan third party would just lead the “Nixon was lynched” crowd away from the Republican party, and into outer darkness where there is a wailing and gnashing of teeth, it might be at worst a mixed course for the Republican party. It would cost the party some support, but it would make the party seem cleansed.”
So said George Will during the 79 80 election cycle.
Now, please understand before we go any further. This post is not specifically about George Will, but about a line of thinking that he represents here, and it’s one he apparently has never recanted. His insistence in the 76 cycle for Gerald Ford to be the nominee, and his insipid in objections to Reagan’s campaign even then, are of an exact match with his current objection to anyone who dares be conservative. And understand, I do not consider any of the establishment GOP to be of the right.
And yes, we’re talking about his whining about Donald Trump.
Do I consider Donald Trump to be the next Ronald Reagan? No.
That said, I can’t help but notice that his comments as regards Trump and for that matter to a lesser degree Ted Cruz and so on are so close to match to his rhetoric during the 1980 cycle that one could easily substitute one for the other with a simple change of names and dates. Does anyone really suppose, that assuming Trump is moved out Of The Way by some event, that Will wouldn’t be breaking out his poison pen to use against the new non establishment frontrunner?
The fear that Will shows us when he mentions the 64 cycle and Goldwater, is a cancer among the GOP leadership, that has long since metastasized. Despite being shown that their fears are unfounded and being shown a specific path to victory, and an overwhelming victory at that, the GOP establishment is so wrapped up in its fears, that it refuses to actually be conservative. So deeply rooted are those fears, that it’s my belief that even assuming somebody like a Cruz is elected and ends up being a wildly successful president from a conservative point of view, those fears will never be put to rest.
If Reagan and his successes did not teach the GOP establishment the truth of the matter, simply repeating those successes under another name isn’t going to teach them either. Remember, gang, the GOP establishment wasn’t too happy about Reagan back in the day either. That’s how we ended up with Bush for a vice president. The leadership felt the ticket needed what they called balance. They thought Reagan was…. sing along together children…., “too conservative”.
***
What I’m saying here is that what George will represents is the establishment GOP. An establishment GOP that doesn’t believe in being conservative. A GOP establishment that actively worked against Ted Cruz and allowed Donald Trump to be nominated figuring he would never take the nomination much less the White House. As they did with Ronald Reagan.
Never forget that the one thing the establishment GOP Sears Above All Else, fears more than Hillary Clinton winning the White House, more than Donald Trump, more than a languishing American economy, is actually being conservative. Until such time as you reckon with that fact, none of the rest of this is going to make any sense at all
> “In all of this, Will reminds me a bit—although the style and ultimate goals were very different—of the people on the far right I used to argue with during the 2012 election, those who hated Romney (and/or the GOP establishment) so much that they said they’d be voting for the Democrats. It seemed destructive then, and it’s destructive now.”
They may both have been destructive, but it’s not really the same thing, as I see it.
I myself used to say, before the 2016 Trump election, that nothing good happens until the GOP establishment falls.
Then, miraculously, the GOPe fell and good things started to happen. Coincidence? I think not.
When you get right down to where the gears grind, establishment Republicans and the desperate Right are just two entirely different things. The GOPe have far more weapons at their disposal than just their votes. The GOPe has money. They have a political network. They have the Chamber of Commerce. They have seats of power.
And they have at their disposal the well-wishes of a vast web of sympathetic liberal media operatives. Sympathetic, that is, to a point. Republicans are number two, and don’t get uppity.
What did the desperate Right have? The Tea Party — that is, the polite version of Trump, for all the good their politeness did them. They had a PR problem, plus the additional problem of wondering which of their champions was going to stick a dagger through their solar plexus from the other side today.
Y’know, like George F. Will did.
When the desperate Right asked, what’s the difference between McCain or Romney and the Democrats? — well, substantively, they were correct. Until Trump, there was nobody who would stand up to the Democrats.
Nobody.
When George F. Will says, thwart Trump and vote for Democrats, he’s saying something that is not at all symmetrical. He’s saying, kill the conservative agenda. Kill the only gains conservatives have made arguably since the Gipper, but certainly since Newt Gingrich.
This is the difference between Revolutionary War militia and Benedict Arnold. Patriotism and treachery are not the same thing.
Who’s George Will?
Outstanding comments.
Well, yes, Republicans will lose, but they will once more be invited to all the right parties.
You gotta have priorities. The right ones. The Ones the GOPe tells you to have.
Beverly Says:
June 25th, 2018 at 3:28 am
Georgie Porgie is ignoring all of this: he wanted us to vote for this wicked and vile woman instead of the loudmouthed but patriotic Donald Trump —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed1H-j4Wv0g
Watch this documentary. Which assembles the major crimes of the Clinton criminal empire —
* * *
I wonder why the Leftists running youtube allow this one to stay up?
Eric Florack Says:
June 25th, 2018 at 5:26 am
Let me give you some of something that I wrote to the point of George Will about a year ago…
Reformed Trombonist Says:
June 25th, 2018 at 6:04 am
I myself used to say, before the 2016 Trump election, that nothing good happens until the GOP establishment falls.
Then, miraculously, the GOPe fell and good things started to happen. Coincidence? I think not.
* * *
Both excellent commentary, and I think something that has begun to resonate among conservatives who have observed that the only thing the GOP conserves is their own power and personal interests and wealth.
The demonization of Reagan, and later the Tea Party, from the Left was natural and expected; the attacks from the “Right” were unfathomable — and then, when fathomed, outrageous.
“This is how you get more Trump” — even before he ran for President.
Richard Saunders Says:
June 25th, 2018 at 3:35 am
AesopFan As an Orthodox Jew, Shapiro does not take the Bible literally, he views it through the lens of the Talmud and Midrash (stories about the Bible). In the Talmud and the Midrash, the rabbis go to great lengths to explain away David’s many flaws and build him up as a hero….
* * *
Thanks for the information; that somewhat explains Shapiro’s rhetoric.
It still supports my own thesis, which is that there exists a somewhat contradictory view among pundits that “flaws are always acceptable in the first person — our flaws; they are only reprehensible in the third person — their flaws.”
Coincidentally, on Sarah Hoyt’s PJM essay last night, the subject was the degree to which the current Pope’s liberation theology/ideology detracts from his efficacy as the Representative of Christ.
I do not intend to debate the contending views about whether or not the Pope is the true successor of Peter & spokesman for God, but only to point out that there has been a centuries-long dispute as to whether or not the personal flaws (and outright moral depravity) of some popes (and also priests) disqualifies them from their positions, or obviates the sacraments they perform.
Let us say that the commentary covered both views.
IF you are a person who believes spiritual and religious leaders are efficacious (and even admirable) despite sometimes extreme moral failings, why not extend the same flexibility of conscience to secular leaders, who have never even made a claim to possess or model moral probity?
(And yes, I realize that the same argument has been used to excuse Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Che… see “first person-third person” above. I’m just saying a lot of people take contradictory stances simultaneously.)
Thanks for this post, Neo. And thank you all for the great comments!
“Will was a sycophant of Reagan. As Trump is increasingly compared to Reagan, I expect Will shall defenestrate himself.”
George Will was not a true supporter of Reagan, he only pretended to jump on the Reagan train when his wet finger told him what direction the conservative Republican wind was blowing. He has been a Globalist supporting Cuckservative all his life so this recent blithering of his should not be a surprise, except maybe for how blatant it is. But I certain hope that he defenestrates himself,
I doubt his defenestration will precipitate a war like the Hussite War or the 30 Years War; nobody cares that much about George Will.
For George Will to make this kind of comment, advising Republicans to cut off their noses to spite their faces is incredibly foolish… either that or he is more interested in virtue-signalling to the elites that he’ll have nothing to do with such an uncouth loud-mouth Cheeto like Trump, completely ignoring the fact that Trump’s accomplished a lot of good things.
Has Will looked at Democrats lately? They are furiously driving themselves over a cliff, and no matter how awful the Republicans are (and they are!), the difference is still night and day.
We are long past the day where anyone should be concerned what people will think of them based on whom they support. The Left and the media will vilify in the strongest terms possible anyone who opposes their agenda. Will might get a few brownie points on Facebook for trashing Trump, but the long term result will be nothing more than him being hated by voters on both sides of the aisle.
My wife and I were talking this week and she commented that the attacks against Trump are so much more vicious than they ever were in the past, largely because Trump often invites them, and it’s true, but based on how the media trashed Romney, who has literally none of Trump’s flaws, I suggested that what they are doing to Trump probably isn’t much worse than what they would have done to anyone. It’s the new normal.
ConceptJunkie Says:
June 25th, 2018 at 1:47 pm
We are long past the day where anyone should be concerned what people will think of them based on who they support.
[unless you want to eat a meal in peace in DC somewhere]
…
My wife and I were talking this week and she commented that the attacks against Trump are so much more vicious than they ever were in the past, largely because Trump often invites them, and it’s true, but based on how the media trashed Romney, who has literally none of Trump’s flaws, I suggested that what they are doing to Trump probably isn’t much worse than what they would have done to anyone. It’s the new normal.
* * *
I know that one factor in my assessment of Trump as candidate was based on the reaction of the Left to Romney: if he can’t get points for moral virtue, why should anyone else bother trying?
As an addendum to “eating in peace” and “the new normal”,
I saw this comment at PLB. Although it applies mostly to the reaction to the Red Hen Affair, where some on the Right were enthusiastically calling for reservations and then not showing up (among other pranking with a distinctly Alinskyite flavor), others agreed with this advice, as do I:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/06/its-crazies-all-the-way-down.php
“I truly appreciate your sentiments, John, but fear you are close to “jumping the shark.” The answer, I believe, is knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. The more the “normals,” to borrow a term from Kurt Schlichter, see the outrageous behavior of the liberal “brownshirts” as you term them the more they will be turned off. If you “jump the shark” they will turn on you as well, as much out of embarrassment at seeing “our guys” behaving as badly as anything the left does. We do hold the moral high ground — don’t squander it. There may come a time when such behavior from the left is existentially threatening. I say, keep your powder dry, don’t engage in “tit-for-tat,” and if the time truly comes to meet an existential threat then prepare to blow that threat the (expletive inserted here) away. The difference between Germany in the 1930s and us is that Germany was disarmed, while we have the Second Amendment.”
PS
Read the PLB post for a concise summary of the freakishly hysterical behavior of the Left and even the usually “normal” Dems who have caught the fever.
@AesopFan: You’re exactly right. All you have to do is simply not patronize establishments like the Red Hen and you will win the battle. In this case, taking the moral high ground is the path of least resistance. The most I would ever consider doing would be to enter the restaurant and then state to the staff, “Oh, wait, you’re the ones who kicked out Sarah Sanders? Well, you’ve lost my business.” and leave. But the idea of making fake reservations, etc., is awful. We don’t need to sink to their level in this case.
And as far as Trump goes, my attitude is “Yeah, he’s an a******, but he’s _our_ a******.” When you’re dealing with the press, unlike, say, snotty restaurant owners, you need to pull out all the stops.
George W. Bush ignored the attacks and slanders and tried to be above the fray and look where that got him. Nowhere. I can respect his desire to do that, but it’s a loser’s game in this age of everything-is-politics.”
Here’s another “red meat” essay on The George Will column.
https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/25/george-will-willfully-wills-defeat/
By Ed Morrow| June 25th, 2018
“Will goes on to urge voters to vote for Democrats in the coming congressional races. He claims a Democrat House would keep the “lout” Trump in check while itself being constrained by the minority Republican House members. The Senate’s Republicans would block anything ugly that got past them.
Horse twaddle. Unlike Republicans, when given power, Democrats use it. Consider the way Obamacare was forced through. No congressional custom or collegial tradition hindered the Democrats when they had the upper hand. And there are fair-weather Republicans who would be happy to go along with the Democrats so they could bask in the sunny smiles of the media as “maverick,” bipartisan statesmen.
Will staked everything on condemning Trump during the 2016 election. He wanted some softer candidate who would adhere to his brand of conservatism. In other words, he wanted something like a clone of himself. If some darkling laboratory in a Gothic castle had managed to produce such a creature, it couldn’t have won the presidency. But Trump did. Few thought he could, but he blended conservative ideas with populism, unabashedly confronted his opponents and hammered them down one by one till he finally thwarted the coronation of Hillary Clinton.
Will, who writes with the confidence of one who doesn’t have to do what he dismisses, seems to think that was no big deal. But it certainly was. None of the other Republican candidates on the ballot in 2016 could have beaten Clinton.
Will appears bitter that the nation didn’t do as he told it to do. His fantastical explanation of why his malice should be appeased in the midterms is embarrassingly self-centered.
Trump faces more opposition than any president since Abraham Lincoln. The bulk of the media and the entertainment industry, the Left’s Bernie Bros and Democratic Party Hillary worshippers, the Washington career bureaucrats, and those ladies who wore pink hats hate him with a passion hotter than the sun’s core. If he is to rebuild our economy, “drain the swamp,” and make America great again—or greater than before—he’ll need every Republican in Congress that the country can give him.”
I might change that to “every conservative that the country can give him” but at least we should start with Republicans. That some of them are (1) antagonistic to Trump; (2) Democrats in disguise; (3) clueless about the political climate on the Right are obstacles to be reduced later.
Starting with electing Democrats to Congress is a no-brainer losing proposition from the git-go.
Trump is not a saint by any stretch of the imagination but his opponents are absolute evil. pitching Americans against Americans is some communist level atrocity and bring America to the blink of cultural revolution. Allowing the devils win just because our president is not a Saint is not only absurd but even suicidal. We have seen the worst Trump could do, he worst offense is being impolite, but everything he has done was fair and adhere to law and order and constitutional. He has shown he has the flexibility to adjust. The atrocities the left are willing to do to regain power and the exercise its dominance once power is regain is bottomless. a Purge of Trump supporters is very realistic. you think illegal immigrant children getting separated from their criminal parents is bad, wait until the left gains power again. constitutions will be repealed and half of the country gets murdered or eliminated from the grid, denying jobs or have personal properties seized by the new democratic communist government.
I find George to be one of the fakest FAKE conservatives.
I, a non-fan of WJC since the first time I saw his mug on TV*, still have have to know the provenance of the video linked above in order to judge its credibility.
*At that first sight, Ayn Rand’s description of the visage of one of her more minor villains — Cuffy Meigs? — raced into my mind. She said he had “the puffy face of an aging football hero.”
.
Good posting, interesting comments. :>)
As is usual with the “breaking news” sometimes the most complete and considered articles are posted some days after the furor begins.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/george-will-endorses-democrats-terrible-idea/
[lots of historical examples of divided government, and replacing the party you support with the party that hates you]
“Most of what the Republican Congress has actually done under Trump — legislation, judges — has been conventional conservative policy. Will is asking conservatives to give that up, surrender the consolation prizes for being stuck with Trump. In exchange, he is offering nothing: just yet another promise that more time in the wilderness will cure everything while the Democrats take the wheel. After watching the Trump phenomenon, or the descent of the Virginia Republicans into the madness of nominating Corey Stewart after multiple years of reasonably competitive defeats, it is hard to think of a less realistic cure. To the contrary, if you want to build a case for getting rid of Trump in 2020, you should want a strong party apparatus of un-Trump-like Republicans to reassure voters that the party and its causes will endure.
The idea that this is just a temporary prescription is especially unrealistic with regard to the Senate. Senators elected in 2018 won’t be back up for reelection until 2024. And because Democrats have a far higher share of senators in the 2018 class than the 2020 or 2022 classes, a majority built in 2018 will be exceptionally hard to dislodge for the next six years. This is a recipe for the kinds of wilderness congressional Republicans faced from 1954 to 1980.
If Will wants to clean out the Republican caucus and start with a bunch of fresh faces, he’s in luck: That will happen anyway. Retirements are at a recent-historical high, led by Ryan himself, who at age 48 might have been expected to head the Republican House for many years. And some of this year’s Republican candidates, such as Stewart, are indeed undeserving of a vote.
But at the end of the day, divided government will give us less conservative policy and more liberal policy. It will not give us less of the things that many conservatives dislike about Trump, and it may give us more of them. That’s a bad deal.”
Will wants conservatives to win by losing. You don’t get much more Orwellian than that.
That said, he’s not worth discussing further.