Daniel Pipes, NeverTrumper, changes his mind… — 25 Comments
Pipes says he wrote in 2016: “Expect him to treat the U.S. government as his personal property, as a grander version of the Trump Organization. He will disdain precedent and customs while challenging laws and authority. He will treat senators, justices, generals, and governors as personal staff who must fulfill his wishes – or else. He will challenge the separation of powers as never before.”
As I remarked on another thread in response to Ira’s comment, maybe Pipes himself had these concerns…but most of the vitriolic anti-Trumpers, I think, don’t care at all about separation of powers or of precedent and customs. What they did and do care about is anything that challenges the power of the *specific institutions* of which they are members, such as the mass media and the Ivy League universities.
The addendum was most interesting in that Pipes was once apparently worried about Trump’s “fascism.” Fascism has become nothing more than a term of abuse for (mostly) leftists to hurl at conservatives, when, in fact, its only proper meaning is a member of an Italian political party (of the left) which ceased to exist almost 80 years ago. Even if its use is broadly extended to encompass statists who desire control over almost all elements of the body politic (including freedom of speech), it describes only progressives and leftist activists, especially of the SJW/Antifa/BLM variety.
Trump is brash and cantankerous. Yeah, he can be crude and the DC denizens of the cocktail party circuit are all twisted up because he doesn’t play nice and follow their sense of decorum. Mr. PIPES I too was an ardent Cruz supporter, I volunteered for his Iowa and Neveda campaigns. I too mistrusted Trump’s intentions. But I sure as hell didn’t vote for the Shrew Queen, I held my nose and voted for Trump.
Within a few months after his inauguration I knew he was a fighter and opposed the entrenched “swamp creatures”. My question to Mr. Pipes is what took you so long to shed your nevertrump schtick and see the light?
As someone who works in the Arabic sphere of things, I’ve come to deeply respect Mr. Pipes. He’s very much a traditional conservative. It’s worth pointing out, too, that despite Mr. Pipes’ antipathy toward Trump until recently, he was never really on board with the Never Trumpers.
Pipes’ article was so aggravating. These guys were so worried about Trumps possible bad behavior, but completely ignored Hillary’s obvious incompetence and corruption. Meh.
Looks like Pipes’ prime directive is ‘Is it Good for the Jews?’ and has flipped since Trump clearly *is* Good for the Jews. To be more precise, Trump is good for well-adjusted Jews who support the continued existence and flourishing of Israel and not the self-hating J-Street / ADL / Kevin McDonald Culture of Critique Archetype types.
The rest is just fluff and window dressing. Same went for the original Neocons; the big issue wasn’t that they were Trotskyites who Saw the Light… Doctors’ Plot and similar unpleasantness was what flipped them.
Nothing wrong with this. I am all in favor of family and in-group solidarity and enlightened self-interest. Also it’s always good when a public figure at least partly ceases the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over Trump’s vulgarity. They shit and fart too. Just imagine the horror if some of these Intellectual Delicates had had to interact with LBJ :D.
Zaphod:
That’s not what Pipes is saying, and if that’s all you see, you are using blinders.
Paul in Boston:
I wasn’t just the aesthetics of Trump’s bad behavior for Pipes, although that was certainly part of it. It was how they felt he would govern. In 2016 that was certainly a valid concern.
Now that Pipes has seen more of what Trump has actually done as president, he’s on board.
It’s people like Kristol who are exceptionally puzzling and infuriating, not Pipes.
I’ve been bothered all along by the “fascist” charge against Trump. Maybe it’s pedantry, because people from Orwell on have noted that the word doesn’t mean much, but I still argue the point.
I don’t think very highly of Trump but he is not a fascist or in danger of becoming one. Fascism is a collectivist ideology. Trump is not ideological. If there is a pathological tendency in his approach to governing, it’s toward the sort of personal authoritarianism that has tended to flower in Latin American countries. It’s not a good thing but it’s not fascism in any useful sense. And I haven’t been too worried about it with Trump because our system presents so many obstacles to that impulse.
A deeper concern for me is that too many Americans now *want* the president to be that kind of leader, or rather ruler. The tendency is more pronounced on the left.
Looks like Pipes’ prime directive is ‘Is it Good for the Jews?’
There’s open space in the Unz comboxes for you to stink up.
Why would I hang around at Unz when I support one of Pipes’ main interests:
Israel isn’t going away, and it’s certainly the best thing to happen to the Jews in a very long time. Terrible psychic blow to the Arabs who have this mirror held up against their myriad dysfunctions right next door and all that, only way to go is forward.
Big fan of Daniel Greenfield (Sultan Knish), too… who tells it as it is and isn’t shy to take swings at individual phenotypes exhibiting the Societally Corrosive strain in his people.
NOT a fan of people who fool themselves or others as to their motivations.
10,000 times more not a fan of people who virtue signal about how they are not vulgar. We are *all* vulgar when it gets down it it.
As a scholar of the Arab World, Pipes is clearly one of the best. But spare me the nonsense about his coming around to Trump being the Least Bad Option (I agree.. Trump sucks but he sucks least!) through a process of reasoning and gradual enlightenment.
Neo, Pipes has a problem that he can’t he can’t see the corruption of the Clintons. Way back in 1999 they were selling out the US for cash so that Loral could sell Missile technology to the Chinese. The entire Clinton Foundation that they ran during the Obama years was nothing but a vast bribery scheme including multi-million dollars from Russian oligarchs. If Hillary had won, the Clintons would be richer than Trump by now, and the entire US government would be for sale.
@ j e , on ” statists who desire control over almost all elements of the body politic”:
Hearing most never-Trumpers, you’d have thought that he’d been running in ’16 vs. Mother Teresa, and that Biden’s current Dem Party was akin to that J.C. in ’76.
Instead, he was running then vs. the ultimate Establishment hag, and is now running vs. a guy with one foot in the grave, certain to be dominated by the Squad, antiFa, BLM, and the D.S.
What could possibly go wrong, other than these crowds I just listed, becoming the U.S. equivalents of the S.A., the Gestapo, etc.?
aNanyMouse, you nailed it!
*But Pipes kept his self respect by voting for Gary Johnson!* 🙁
Pipes finally realized that Donald Trump is the worst President ever, except for the other side’s candidates.
“Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…” – Churchill
I will gladly take his vote for the President, but he still labors under the misperception that if Trump would only play more nicely, he’d be a better POTUS.
On that score Mr Pipes, shut up and write more checks.
Pipes’ appeal to decorum, vulgarity and so forth cannot be serious. He is too perceptive to have missed the same the Clinton crowd.
He hopes his readers, some of them, will buy one of his excuses.
I share much of Daniel Pipes feelings about President Trump’s style. I voted for him because he was obviously a much better choice than Hillary or even Gary Johnson. He has surprised we doubters by doing so many good things. (Conservative judges, deregulation, tax cuts, standing up to China, strong pro-Israel policy, strengthening our military, bolstering NATO, defeating ISIS, USMCA trade deal, unleashing the energy sector, and much more.) To watch him go toe to toe with the media in his pressers is actually fun. I still wish he had a more “presidential” style, but I find it rather easy to accept that his style isn’t going to change as long as he keeps delivering so many good policies.
As to the choice coming in November. It’s the choice between free market democracy and the evil of socialist statism. In other words, a stark difference. To any person who values liberty, Trump is the only possible choice.
Pipes may have slowly come to see the benefits of Trump in the White House, but he still fails to recognize many of the most important ones.
And his comment that Trump is like Obama in his deference to the Constitution is a nasty, vile slander.
This is what Doc Zero says to the Never Trumpers; at least Pipes agrees in spirit, although he might consider Doc’s rhetoric over-heated.
I think he’s just laying out the facts. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1286640866090725376.html
We usually have spirited discussions about what it means to be conservative during elections. This time it’s pretty simple. We’re fighting Democrats to conserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If you’re not up for that fight, stop calling yourself conservative.
If you want to reposition yourself as “center-left” or take a new position as a moderating influence on the deeply, dangerously radical Democrat Party, then good luck and farewell, but that’s not conservatism. The centrist rump of a far-left party is not conservative.
We need conservatives on the battlements to fight for things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, political freedom – the entire Bill of Rights. We’re fighting just to have police protection for law-abiding American families, for God’s sake. That’s on the chopping block.
A mad lunge to the left by a radicalized opposition should be a deeply clarifying moment for conservatives. If you’re not ready to fight like mad against the people who want to abolish the police, then what ARE you willing to fight to “conserve?”
If you’re not ready to fight against judging and punishing all of America for “racism” without trial, against crippling our economic freedom with Green New Deal insanity, against taking a knee before Communist China as the new rulers of the world, what battle cry WILL you answer?
…
Do you really think the party that turned the streets over to mob rule, the party that talks every day about using the power of government to permanently suppress its “evil” opponents, is going to start listening to its NeverTrump “moderate” friends after it wins?
The Dems are already having vicious battles inside their own toxic alliance to purge anyone who isn’t far enough to the Left. What lunacy makes you think they’ll welcome advice from former Republican turncoats about how to “moderate” after they seize total power?
…
You can’t fool yourself into thinking this election is business as usual and only a few marginal issues are really at stake. You can’t look at the rabid Left and see a bunch of moderate centrists who got a little overheated in their rhetoric because they hate Trump so much.
Basic public safety is on the line now, the rule of law itself. Without that, nothing else matters because everything else is temporary. If you help Dems win and validate the use of force in politics, you’re going to get more of it. They won’t leave anything to chance ever again.
…
Conservatism is about standing for what is right, not negotiating terms of surrender with what is wrong. We’ve lost too much because the Left gleefully exploits that surrender instinct as hypocrisy, proof the Right doesn’t truly believe what it says. They take it as weakness.
The stakes are clear as a bell today….
What constituency do you think you’ll have in 2021, or 2026, that will impress your left-wing masters into thinking they need to take you laughable, impotent, servile “conservatives” seriously and give you a seat at the table of power? You won’t be much of an obstacle to them.
Now is the hour to rally everyone around the battle for basic freedom, the rule of law, capitalism and even democracy itself. (There is nothing “democratic” about what’s coming under the Left. They won’t need majority support for their agenda. They scoff at that notion NOW.)
If that’s not clear to you, if that’s not what you see at stake when you watch the Democrats wheeling Joe Biden toward the White House, then you aren’t conservative and you NEVER WERE. At least do us the small courtesy of not insulting us by claiming otherwise. /end
This was printed in 2016; as we approach Election 2020, the Bell is close to being broken completely in two.
Well good for Pipes. That must have been a difficult column to write and an important one as well. We need as many of the neverTrumpers back as possible.
The one thing I never understood was the Lyin’ Ted Cruz nickname. My perception is that Ted Cruz will never recover from that and that Pres. Trump lost a possibly important ally. Pipes was a Cruz supporter and although he doesn’t mention it, I wonder if that didn’t play into his decision not to support Trump in 2016.
My concern about Trump was that he would take insults personally and get us into unnecessary international conflicts. Anyone who says they knew that wouldn’t be the case is overestimating their knowledge. Trump does still take insults personally. Fortunately, he applies that only to domestic political competition, not international. He has done very, very well on avoidance of unnecessary war. I had some of the same concerns as Pipes about Trump’s potential for executive orders that were poorly thought out. I reasoned at the time he could hardly be worse than Obama, and Hillary bid fair to be worse still. Trump ain’t good on that, but he is miles ahead those two, and a bit ahead of Bush and Clinton. This has been a downward trend for both parties for decades.
Trump’s supporters believe that his rudeness and combativeness are inseparable from his effectiveness as a leader. I think there is a separable quality, in that his decision-making is not swayed by opposition, yet he can (sometimes) take advice. That resistance, that steadfastness, is the important point, not his vindictiveness and retaliation. I have concluded over time that many people just like the idea that he kicks other people in the balls, whether it works or not. As liberals have been acting that way toward conservatives for decades, I understand that temptation. But that is not Trump’s strength, it’s just good feelz for conservatives who need to keep their heads clear (as we have been telling liberals since at least the 1950’s) instead. It is not the fighting but the steadfastness, the intuitive grasp of what the American experiment actually is and has tried to live up to for 200 years that is important.
He doesn’t need to shoot off his mouth, but I’ll take it. I’ll take it twenty times over and ten times worse because of the alternatives. He has succeeded admirably at not being Hillary Clinton and done even more. I believe I can count on him to not be Joe Biden and do more still.
Eva Marie on July 26, 2020 at 12:44 am said:
…
The one thing I never understood was the Lyin’ Ted Cruz nickname. My perception is that Ted Cruz will never recover from that and that Pres. Trump lost a possibly important ally.
* * *
The slander of Ted’s father was worse, and yet Cruz HAS been a Congressional ally and supporter of most of Trump’s agenda — whether that amity applies in their personal relationship or not, no one seems to be talking.
My take on the nicknames, and even some of the worse things Trump said, is that it stems from the Wrestling World and possibly even construction, where nobody (except really dense newbies) takes any of the trash talking seriously.
I recently happened to see a clip of the Trump-Hillary debate where he responded to one of her jabs with the mic drop, “You’d be in jail.”
It was a perfect remark, on the wrestling-as-entertainment circuit, and got exactly the cheers he wanted.
I believe Trump was just continuing that mindset during the campaign, and was surprised that people were (to use Zito’s inspired phrase) taking him literally AND seriously.
Actions speak louder than words and, as Pipes points out, Trump’s policy initiatives and appointments have been superb by classical liberal standards. His style is that of a New York street fighter, that’s who he is, but his substance is largely conservative and it is this aspect that makes him the superior choice come November.
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Pipes says he wrote in 2016: “Expect him to treat the U.S. government as his personal property, as a grander version of the Trump Organization. He will disdain precedent and customs while challenging laws and authority. He will treat senators, justices, generals, and governors as personal staff who must fulfill his wishes – or else. He will challenge the separation of powers as never before.”
As I remarked on another thread in response to Ira’s comment, maybe Pipes himself had these concerns…but most of the vitriolic anti-Trumpers, I think, don’t care at all about separation of powers or of precedent and customs. What they did and do care about is anything that challenges the power of the *specific institutions* of which they are members, such as the mass media and the Ivy League universities.
The addendum was most interesting in that Pipes was once apparently worried about Trump’s “fascism.” Fascism has become nothing more than a term of abuse for (mostly) leftists to hurl at conservatives, when, in fact, its only proper meaning is a member of an Italian political party (of the left) which ceased to exist almost 80 years ago. Even if its use is broadly extended to encompass statists who desire control over almost all elements of the body politic (including freedom of speech), it describes only progressives and leftist activists, especially of the SJW/Antifa/BLM variety.
Trump is brash and cantankerous. Yeah, he can be crude and the DC denizens of the cocktail party circuit are all twisted up because he doesn’t play nice and follow their sense of decorum. Mr. PIPES I too was an ardent Cruz supporter, I volunteered for his Iowa and Neveda campaigns. I too mistrusted Trump’s intentions. But I sure as hell didn’t vote for the Shrew Queen, I held my nose and voted for Trump.
Within a few months after his inauguration I knew he was a fighter and opposed the entrenched “swamp creatures”. My question to Mr. Pipes is what took you so long to shed your nevertrump schtick and see the light?
As someone who works in the Arabic sphere of things, I’ve come to deeply respect Mr. Pipes. He’s very much a traditional conservative. It’s worth pointing out, too, that despite Mr. Pipes’ antipathy toward Trump until recently, he was never really on board with the Never Trumpers.
Pipes’ article was so aggravating. These guys were so worried about Trumps possible bad behavior, but completely ignored Hillary’s obvious incompetence and corruption. Meh.
Looks like Pipes’ prime directive is ‘Is it Good for the Jews?’ and has flipped since Trump clearly *is* Good for the Jews. To be more precise, Trump is good for well-adjusted Jews who support the continued existence and flourishing of Israel and not the self-hating J-Street / ADL / Kevin McDonald Culture of Critique Archetype types.
The rest is just fluff and window dressing. Same went for the original Neocons; the big issue wasn’t that they were Trotskyites who Saw the Light… Doctors’ Plot and similar unpleasantness was what flipped them.
Nothing wrong with this. I am all in favor of family and in-group solidarity and enlightened self-interest. Also it’s always good when a public figure at least partly ceases the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over Trump’s vulgarity. They shit and fart too. Just imagine the horror if some of these Intellectual Delicates had had to interact with LBJ :D.
Zaphod:
That’s not what Pipes is saying, and if that’s all you see, you are using blinders.
Paul in Boston:
I wasn’t just the aesthetics of Trump’s bad behavior for Pipes, although that was certainly part of it. It was how they felt he would govern. In 2016 that was certainly a valid concern.
Now that Pipes has seen more of what Trump has actually done as president, he’s on board.
It’s people like Kristol who are exceptionally puzzling and infuriating, not Pipes.
I’ve been bothered all along by the “fascist” charge against Trump. Maybe it’s pedantry, because people from Orwell on have noted that the word doesn’t mean much, but I still argue the point.
I don’t think very highly of Trump but he is not a fascist or in danger of becoming one. Fascism is a collectivist ideology. Trump is not ideological. If there is a pathological tendency in his approach to governing, it’s toward the sort of personal authoritarianism that has tended to flower in Latin American countries. It’s not a good thing but it’s not fascism in any useful sense. And I haven’t been too worried about it with Trump because our system presents so many obstacles to that impulse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudillo
A deeper concern for me is that too many Americans now *want* the president to be that kind of leader, or rather ruler. The tendency is more pronounced on the left.
Looks like Pipes’ prime directive is ‘Is it Good for the Jews?’
There’s open space in the Unz comboxes for you to stink up.
Why would I hang around at Unz when I support one of Pipes’ main interests:
http://www.danielpipes.org/topics/75/israel-victory-project
Israel isn’t going away, and it’s certainly the best thing to happen to the Jews in a very long time. Terrible psychic blow to the Arabs who have this mirror held up against their myriad dysfunctions right next door and all that, only way to go is forward.
Big fan of Daniel Greenfield (Sultan Knish), too… who tells it as it is and isn’t shy to take swings at individual phenotypes exhibiting the Societally Corrosive strain in his people.
NOT a fan of people who fool themselves or others as to their motivations.
10,000 times more not a fan of people who virtue signal about how they are not vulgar. We are *all* vulgar when it gets down it it.
As a scholar of the Arab World, Pipes is clearly one of the best. But spare me the nonsense about his coming around to Trump being the Least Bad Option (I agree.. Trump sucks but he sucks least!) through a process of reasoning and gradual enlightenment.
Neo, Pipes has a problem that he can’t he can’t see the corruption of the Clintons. Way back in 1999 they were selling out the US for cash so that Loral could sell Missile technology to the Chinese. The entire Clinton Foundation that they ran during the Obama years was nothing but a vast bribery scheme including multi-million dollars from Russian oligarchs. If Hillary had won, the Clintons would be richer than Trump by now, and the entire US government would be for sale.
@ j e , on ” statists who desire control over almost all elements of the body politic”:
Hearing most never-Trumpers, you’d have thought that he’d been running in ’16 vs. Mother Teresa, and that Biden’s current Dem Party was akin to that J.C. in ’76.
Instead, he was running then vs. the ultimate Establishment hag, and is now running vs. a guy with one foot in the grave, certain to be dominated by the Squad, antiFa, BLM, and the D.S.
What could possibly go wrong, other than these crowds I just listed, becoming the U.S. equivalents of the S.A., the Gestapo, etc.?
aNanyMouse, you nailed it!
*But Pipes kept his self respect by voting for Gary Johnson!* 🙁
Pipes finally realized that Donald Trump is the worst President ever, except for the other side’s candidates.
https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-might-not-accept-the-results-of-the-2020-election-says-movement-that-still-hasnt-accepted-results-of-2016-election
“Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…” – Churchill
I will gladly take his vote for the President, but he still labors under the misperception that if Trump would only play more nicely, he’d be a better POTUS.
On that score Mr Pipes, shut up and write more checks.
Pipes’ appeal to decorum, vulgarity and so forth cannot be serious. He is too perceptive to have missed the same the Clinton crowd.
He hopes his readers, some of them, will buy one of his excuses.
I share much of Daniel Pipes feelings about President Trump’s style. I voted for him because he was obviously a much better choice than Hillary or even Gary Johnson. He has surprised we doubters by doing so many good things. (Conservative judges, deregulation, tax cuts, standing up to China, strong pro-Israel policy, strengthening our military, bolstering NATO, defeating ISIS, USMCA trade deal, unleashing the energy sector, and much more.) To watch him go toe to toe with the media in his pressers is actually fun. I still wish he had a more “presidential” style, but I find it rather easy to accept that his style isn’t going to change as long as he keeps delivering so many good policies.
As to the choice coming in November. It’s the choice between free market democracy and the evil of socialist statism. In other words, a stark difference. To any person who values liberty, Trump is the only possible choice.
Pipes may have slowly come to see the benefits of Trump in the White House, but he still fails to recognize many of the most important ones.
And his comment that Trump is like Obama in his deference to the Constitution is a nasty, vile slander.
This is what Doc Zero says to the Never Trumpers; at least Pipes agrees in spirit, although he might consider Doc’s rhetoric over-heated.
I think he’s just laying out the facts.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1286640866090725376.html
This was printed in 2016; as we approach Election 2020, the Bell is close to being broken completely in two.
https://babylonbee.com/news/crack-liberty-bell-seen-worsening-democratic-national-convention-kicks-off
Well good for Pipes. That must have been a difficult column to write and an important one as well. We need as many of the neverTrumpers back as possible.
The one thing I never understood was the Lyin’ Ted Cruz nickname. My perception is that Ted Cruz will never recover from that and that Pres. Trump lost a possibly important ally. Pipes was a Cruz supporter and although he doesn’t mention it, I wonder if that didn’t play into his decision not to support Trump in 2016.
My concern about Trump was that he would take insults personally and get us into unnecessary international conflicts. Anyone who says they knew that wouldn’t be the case is overestimating their knowledge. Trump does still take insults personally. Fortunately, he applies that only to domestic political competition, not international. He has done very, very well on avoidance of unnecessary war. I had some of the same concerns as Pipes about Trump’s potential for executive orders that were poorly thought out. I reasoned at the time he could hardly be worse than Obama, and Hillary bid fair to be worse still. Trump ain’t good on that, but he is miles ahead those two, and a bit ahead of Bush and Clinton. This has been a downward trend for both parties for decades.
Trump’s supporters believe that his rudeness and combativeness are inseparable from his effectiveness as a leader. I think there is a separable quality, in that his decision-making is not swayed by opposition, yet he can (sometimes) take advice. That resistance, that steadfastness, is the important point, not his vindictiveness and retaliation. I have concluded over time that many people just like the idea that he kicks other people in the balls, whether it works or not. As liberals have been acting that way toward conservatives for decades, I understand that temptation. But that is not Trump’s strength, it’s just good feelz for conservatives who need to keep their heads clear (as we have been telling liberals since at least the 1950’s) instead. It is not the fighting but the steadfastness, the intuitive grasp of what the American experiment actually is and has tried to live up to for 200 years that is important.
He doesn’t need to shoot off his mouth, but I’ll take it. I’ll take it twenty times over and ten times worse because of the alternatives. He has succeeded admirably at not being Hillary Clinton and done even more. I believe I can count on him to not be Joe Biden and do more still.
Eva Marie on July 26, 2020 at 12:44 am said:
…
The one thing I never understood was the Lyin’ Ted Cruz nickname. My perception is that Ted Cruz will never recover from that and that Pres. Trump lost a possibly important ally.
* * *
The slander of Ted’s father was worse, and yet Cruz HAS been a Congressional ally and supporter of most of Trump’s agenda — whether that amity applies in their personal relationship or not, no one seems to be talking.
My take on the nicknames, and even some of the worse things Trump said, is that it stems from the Wrestling World and possibly even construction, where nobody (except really dense newbies) takes any of the trash talking seriously.
I recently happened to see a clip of the Trump-Hillary debate where he responded to one of her jabs with the mic drop, “You’d be in jail.”
It was a perfect remark, on the wrestling-as-entertainment circuit, and got exactly the cheers he wanted.
I believe Trump was just continuing that mindset during the campaign, and was surprised that people were (to use Zito’s inspired phrase) taking him literally AND seriously.
Actions speak louder than words and, as Pipes points out, Trump’s policy initiatives and appointments have been superb by classical liberal standards. His style is that of a New York street fighter, that’s who he is, but his substance is largely conservative and it is this aspect that makes him the superior choice come November.