Bret Stephens on the Trump prosecutions
I don’t subscribe to the Times because I just don’t want to give them money. But I saw this post at Althouse discussing a recent piece by Bret Stephens, the Times’ resident Trump-averse “conservative.” It contains the following quote from Stephens:
What really worries me about this case is that, if Trump isn’t convicted, it is going to turbocharge his campaign.
Trump will be able to say, with some credibility, that the Deep State really was out to get him.
Althouse adds:
The Deep State should have thought about that before going out to get him. Also, if you think it’s credible that the Deep State is out to get him and that’s a reason for you to hope he’s convicted, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Well, yes – but (as Althouse almost certainly knows) they do not feel at all ashamed; they feel righteous.
That quote from Stephens is extraordinarily tone-deaf. Does Stephens think that the prosecutions/persecutions haven’t already turbo-charged Trump’s campaign? If so, he’s either not paying attention or fooling himself, or both. He seems to think that a kangaroo-court conviction gives people who weren’t already inclined to find Trump guilty the idea that he must be guilty.
I don’t know if that is so at all, but I know that the left and the Trump-haters are counting on it. Therefore they must at least state that they themselves of course believe he’s guilty, whether they actually believe it or not.
Then there’s “Trump will be able to say, with some credibility, that the Deep State was out to get him.” He will be able to say with some credibility? Does Stephens think this statement of Trump’s has no credibility at present? That gives Stephens absolutely zero credibility, not only because of the extreme weakness of the cases against Trump, plus their suspicious timing in terms of the election, but also due to a host of other proven ways in which the Deep State has been out to get Trump ever since the campaign of 2016.
And yet this is what passes for Deep Thought on the part of Stephens and the Times.
“What really worries me about this case is that, if Trump isn’t convicted, it is going to turbocharge his campaign.”
This idiot should think about what will happen if Trump IS convicted!
He had much the same view about bibi so i give him that little regard
At which special level of Dante’s Hell do people like Bret Stephens reside?
I often caution myself and even a couple of others, that these people are not clinical morons, that we should not underestimate our opposition.
But they sure as h#ll have a way of often acting like morons. WOW.
So it’s ok if he gets convicted by a jury in reliably hostile NYC or DC because then people will disbelieve the existence of the Deep State? Either the prosecutions are justified or they are not irrespective of the result. Stephens is concerned with the appearance not the reality
Hes concerned with the pretense not the same thing
So many people have come apart over Trump. Sad.
91 charges by 100% Democrat prosecutors…
And Trump is the issue?
Brett Stevens has been talking with our own CC™?
Stephens is “either not paying attention or fooling himself” or… is knowing telling an untruth, i.e. lying.
“this is what passes for Deep Thought on the part of Stephens and the Times.”
Ideological fanaticism is a ‘preventative’ to clarity of thought.
I’d love to get a first-rate psychologist’s take on this. As a WSJ aficionado, I can assure you that Bret Stephens wrote many opinion pieces that commenters here would have cheered. When he left for the NYT I assumed that that must have always been his dream job as a journalist. Fine. And I assumed he’d move to accommodate their worldview, but maintain some intellectual integrity. My guess is he loves his dream job, and won’t risk it. The NYT is fine with you being “conservative”, but you have to toe the line about Trump – or else. Simple cowardice? Maybe.
James Freeman says, in today’s Wall St. Journal,
If CNN’s polling says this, the Biden campaign is in dire shape.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cnn-most-voters-say-no-chance-theyll-support-biden-21b8a3a9?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb
Mike Plaiss:
I think it’s rather simple, and I don’t think it’s cowardice. As with many other supposed and/or previous conservatives, the turning point for Stephens was the candidacy of Donald Trump. See this:
So his TDS appeared prior to moving to the Times. It was probably exacerbated by the move, too, but it was more the cause of the move than the effect. Stephens is better than someone who went wholly over to the other side, such as Bill Kristol, but on the subject of Trump Stephens’ brain seems to desert him.
It’s a rather common phenomenon, alas. I think it’s happened to many very well-educated people on the right who have always been part of the “intellectual” class and are simply grossed out by Trump, and then come up with all sorts of strange arguments to justify it in their own minds. They can’t admit it’s just a gut revulsion that’s more about class and style than anything else.
I think [TDS has] happened to many very well-educated people on the right who have always been part of the “intellectual” class and are simply grossed out by Trump, and then come up with all sorts of strange arguments to justify it in their own minds. They can’t admit it’s just a gut revulsion that’s more about class and style than anything else.
–neo
That’s my take. I identify somewhat as an intellectual and back in 2016 Trump punched a lot of my buttons.
However, I’ve been wrong about so many things in my life that after Trump was elected, I chose to observe rather than confirm my biases.
The gut revulsion as noted above is likely correct. Including class and style.
But there is the need to feel good and righteous about oneself as also noted. And, not to forget, looking morally and intellectually superior to others.
As I said, I think it was four or five years ago, discussing policies with Trump haters brings up a look of confusion.
What is this policy thing of which you speak and why is it so important to you?
To the extent policy is good or bad, it is good or bad depending on Trump’s view of it. Other factors need not apply. I have relations who tell me inflation isn’t that important, if it’s happening at all.
Some people get called elitists by their political opponents, but my impression has always been that elitism runs deep in Bret Stephen’s psyche and personality. I think it had something to do with his being a Yankee growing up in Mexico and feeling himself to be an outsider, and a superior one. It’s harder for Stephens to get around that than it is for other people.
As a WSJ aficionado, I can assure you that Bret Stephens wrote many opinion pieces that commenters here would have cheered.
Who believes that Bret Stephens is anything more than an actor who can play the part of a principled conservative at the WSJ, and yet sing in perfect harmony with the NYT chorus? He’s paid to write, and writes what brings in the most dinars and shekels. If you don’t like his principles, well, he has others.
Who believes that Bret Stephens is anything more than an actor who can play the part of a principled conservative
–Insufficiently+Sensitive
Bret Stephens is a conservative? I’ve never had a good fix on him. He has an interesting wiki. He started at Commentary, then to the WSJ, then to … Israel?
_______________________________________________
In 2002, Stephens moved to Israel to become the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. He was 28 years old. Haaretz reported at the time that the appointment of Stephens, a non-Israeli, triggered some unease among senior Jerusalem Post management and staff.
Stephens said that one of the reasons he left The Wall Street Journal for The Jerusalem Post was that he believed that Western media was getting Israel’s story wrong. “I do not think Israel is the aggressor here”, he said. “Insofar as getting the story right helps Israel, I guess you could say I’m trying to help Israel.” Stephens led The Jerusalem Post during the worst years of the Palestinian campaign of suicide bombings against Israel and pointed the paper in a more neoconservative direction.
Stephens left The Jerusalem Post in 2004 and returned to The Wall Street Journal. In 2006, he took over the Journal’s “Global View” column.
In 2017, Stephens left the Journal, joined The New York Times as an opinion columnist, and began appearing as an on-air contributor to NBC News and MSNBC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Stephens
_______________________________________________
His parents were secular Jews. His maternal grandparents fled the Nazis. His paternal grandfather fled a pogrom in Moldova for New York City and changed the family name from Ehrlich to Stephens (after poet James Stephens).
So … he was neoconservative on Iraq, contrarian on climate change, anti-Second Amendment, anti-Trump and pro-Israel.
That’s one hot mess! 🙂
A hot mess in the press? Malleable?
A stain in the fabric of society?
In other news, comedy legend Jerry Seinfeld is stumping for his new film “Unfrosted”, a comedy about the cereal giants rival and race to make the first Pop Tart! Out in May on Netflix.
His scathing comments about Woke killing comedy in his New Yorker podcast interview. EXCERPTS via YouTube. But I went for the 35 minute interview, HERE
https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour
(His Wokery comments start at 29m.)
Poster and trailer
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14914430/
Jerry looks good — but great for 70 or something!
He used to show some sense.
Further proof that TDS is a degenerative disease…?
(Or maybe he can plead victim status, e.g., “I WUZ BRAINWASHED!!!)
He seems to think that a kangaroo-court conviction gives people who weren’t already inclined to find Trump guilty the idea that he must be guilty.
My husband is quite convinced that this is the case – or maybe it’s better stated that people who pay no attention and might be inclined just to stay home in November, upon hearing Trump is convicted, will assume he is guilty and be motivated to voted AGAINST him.
What was Trump guilty of? Doing business in the State of New York? Sounds about right.
Bret Stephens is now, and has always been, a fatuous ass.
In 2016 I voted for Trump as a brick through the window of politics. I had no idea of what he would do as President. I had considered him a clown for years. I suspect many stopped there and did not pay attention to his actions. I was a bit surprised to see his actions and became a fan, not of his manner, but of his policies . I can see how others never got beyond the initial impression.
People can have multiple motivations. As many have noted, a lot of the NeverTrump reaction among supposed conservatives in the elite class is just that, class. Pure class-based revulsion. Instinctive, visceral, a reaction that exists and seeks an _ex post facto_ justification. ‘He’s just not one of us’.
Which also means that they _need_ for the allegations to be true, so I think in many cases they genuinely, sincerely convince themselves that they are. Not all cases, of course, many of them are pure frauds pretending, but some of them I think have convinced themselves.
Also, people like Bret Stephens and Bill Kristol and Max Boot and Paul Ryan (and many others) used to be influential. They were the _leaders_ of the conservative movement, and Trump came along and deposed them almost without effort. I can still remember their stunned horror from 2016, as Trump won primary after primary, broke through barrier after supposedly impassable barrier, and nobody cared what they had to say about any of it.
They had never fully realized, I think, the degree to which they had alienated GOP and right-wing voters over the years since Reagan left office. When they spoke of conservatism, they mostly meant economics, many of them were social liberals in private and most of them were free traders and internationalists of one flavor or another. At street level, many of the GOP’s most indispensable voters are economically centrist and socially conservative, and _nationalist_.
There just aren’t very many libertarians, and there never have been.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/06/new-study-shows-what-really-happened-in-the-2016-election.html
This is from a very lefty source, but it’s mostly accurate. I’ve known what the story is telling since the 90s. But the GOP was dominated by its business wing, who wanted ‘economic conservative (meaning pro-corporate policies) and social liberal’. Which is the Empty Quadrant.
Today the former dominant faction longs to return to control of the GOP and the movement, and tells themselves that if they can just help the Dems take down Trump, things will go back to ‘normal’. The Bulwark becomes the core of the movement again, we can pass immigration amnesty and free trade, we can make speeches for big bucks again and go on NR cruises again and so on.
Of course, even if they destroy Trump, none of that is in the cards. The base voters will be angrier than ever, and Trump’s successor, whoever he or she might be, will be worse in every way, from their POV. But it’s all they have.
Also, I think a lot of NeverTrumper types received a hard lesson in 2016 from the Dems about their relative status.
A lot of supposedly Republican and conservative pundits, politicians, lobbysits, etc. thought of themselves as being part of the ruling elite, the ‘in crowd’, as C.S. Lewis described it: https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/
That is, they thought they were part of the innermost layer of the onion. They were not.
I still remember, after the Democratic Convention in 2016, the reaction of some of those NeverTrump Republics and right-pundits. They had expected Hillary to reach out to them in her speech, to offer them some kind of something in exchange for their supporting her against Trump. She offered them zilch. Nothing. Nada. As if they did not exist.
I could tell some of those people were shocked and dismayed by that. It left them more or less irrelevant. They _had_ to either win back the support of the people who had chosen Trump over them, or else become ‘house conservatives’, tokens, for the actual inner circle of the elite. The latter at least looked possible, every effort at the former just turned into egg on their faces.
“As I said, I think it was four or five years ago, discussing policies with Trump haters brings up a look of confusion.
What is this policy thing of which you speak and why is it so important to you?”– Richard+Aubrey
Ironically, this is something the Democrats and the Lefties _taught us_ . Remember Bill Clinton? Remember how nothing, no scandal, no crime, no lie, nothing, dented his approval numbers? It was as if his character and behavior just didn’t matter.
Partly, that was because the economy was booming at the time, and any President rides a boost when that happens. People were afraid to risk upsetting the apple cart.
Partly, that was because the news media carefully filtered the news and shielded him to the best of their abilities, which led many people to completely misunderstand what he was accused of and why. As much as we complain about the influence of the lefty press today, it was _vastly_ stronger and worse twenty-five years ago. Back then, it was Hollywood, ABC/CBS/NBC, the NYT, the WP, NPR, PBS, Disney, academia, etc. all on Clinton’s side, basically vs. Rush Limbaugh on the other. Limbaugh was effective, but the other side vastly outgunned him.
It’s bad today, but lefty news/cultural power is only a shadow of what it was then.
Yeah, that stuff was important, but another reason was that Democrats, even ones who disapproved of his behavior, _wanted his policies_ and were scared of us in power, which trumped (no pun intended) all notions of character or behavior. Feminists who had once chanted ‘all sex is rape’ suddenly talked about ‘boys will be boys’, etc.
Which is one reason why the supposed horror at Trump’s personal life or other behavior now falls on deaf ears. As Kurt Schlichter is fond of saying, the Left changed the rules and now they’re stuck with it.
Now that I think about it, Jimmy Carter actually suffered from a shadow of the same class-based revulsion Trump faces. He was a Dem, yes, and the news media and Hollywood and academia hated Republicans even back then. But those of us who are old enough can remember that the press had trouble supporting Carter in spite of that.
They harped on about the Iranian hostages day after day, in spite of the damage it did to Carter. They played up the ‘killer rabbit’ angle. They just _didn’t like him_. They thought he was a hick from the sticks. Lyndon Johnson had some problem with that, too.
Which may be why they gave Teddy Kennedy’s abortive presidential run in 1980 so much attention, at heart, they wanted a Kennedy or someone from that crowd.
Which helped land them Nixon and Reagan, and which in turn might be a lot of why they no longer cared about Bill Clinton’s low-class origins. Thet got burned by their classism against Johnson and Carter.
@ HC68 > “lefty news/cultural power is only a shadow of what it was then”
A minor quibble with your excellent comment: the lefty power is just as strong as before, or stronger with control of the presidency, Senate, and most of the House (if you add in the GOPe to their side), in addition to all the Executive departments and agencies, which they have been consolidating Democrat control since before Reagan, but only revealed so fully after Trump.
However, they are facing far more opponents than just Rushbo now, IMO largely due to his perseverance and effectiveness (“strong horse” thing added to the usual American preference for supporting the Underdog, which is kind of an oxymoron, now that I think about it).
And now their opponents include many Democrats who were formerly centrist or (actual) liberals who are appalled at the hard-left turn that has made a mockery of the principles the Dems used to stand for (although those have often been either wrong or ineffective). See Substack; I especially enjoy Matt Taibbi’s posts.
And then there is this:
https://nypost.com/2024/04/25/us-news/nyc-construction-workers-scathing-message-for-biden-goes-viral-after-trump-visit/
Maybe…
…but he/she/it who counts the ballots…
(…or manufactures them, alas….)
And then there’s the power of the hyugely corrupt, compromised, complicit media, which must not—cannot—be overemphasized….