Presidential Election

Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton: A Nauseating Choice But An Easy Decision

Samuel Hooper9 Comments

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Faced with a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, nobody will come away from this American presidential election looking very good. But there is still a right choice, and a wrong one

Faced with the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I’m with her.

I do so with zero enthusiasm – certainly far less than Andrew Sullivan, once the most vocal of Clinton’s enemies, now seems to be displaying:

Some readers think I’ve been too negative, even cynical, tonight. Believe me, I am utterly uncynical about this election. I’m worried sick. We need to put behind us any lingering beefs, any grudges, any memories from the past – and you know how I feel about the Clintons’ past – in order to save liberal democracy. The only thing between him and us is her. So – against all my previous emphatic denials – I’m with her now. As passionately as I ever was with Obama. For his legacy is at stake as well.

I support Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump not in the expectation that a second Clinton family presidency will do anything to make America significantly better – she is nothing if not a continuity candidate, the living embodiment of a third (and quite possibly fourth) Obama term. I find myself supporting Clinton because the anti-establishment wave which helped deliver Brexit and the hope of return to self-government for Britain promises no equally great benefits for America so long as it is led by a charlatan like Trump.

However tawdry and oversimplified the mainstream Brexit campaign may have been, the dream of freeing Britain from a suffocating, steadily tightening political union with Europe was and remains a noble and vital goal. Trump’s goal for his own country consists of Making America Great Again (MAGA), which he plans to accomplish by building a massive wall and sending the bill to a country who will refuse to pay it, and by defeating the Islamic State and ending the scourge of Islamist terror attacks “very quickly” with a few harsh words from the Oval Office and no American boots on the ground.

Of course the United States has constitutional firewalls and checks & balances to prevent excessive overreach by the executive branch, but the man is just appalling – a shallow, vindictive egotist with almost zero attention span (as proved by his reputed offer to give John Kasich complete control of foreign and domestic policy, and nearly every speech he has ever given).

Many of Trump’s apologists in the Republican Party have been reduced to saying “oh, it’s just a persona” as if that somehow makes it better. Either he means what he says when he promises authoritarian, big government solutions or his populism is just a lie and he is going to massively let down his voters in office, creating an even more wild backlash which nobody will be able to control. Neither option bodes well for sensible conservative government.

And so while a Hillary Clinton presidency will be technocratic, soul-sappingly un-ideological, politically calculating and almost certainly stymied by furious GOP obstructionism, at least it buys time for the Republicans to wake up and try to engage with the public anger against the political elites in a more constructive way.

The Republicans have tried riding the Tea Party tiger, and were consumed by it. Now they have hitched their fortunes to Donald Trump, who will (barring further Islamist attacks or police shootings) lead them to defeat with dishonour. It is difficult to imagine a rock bottom lower than being led to defeat against Hillary Clinton by Donald Trump. Hopefully this is that rock bottom, and the party of Abraham Lincoln will rise from the ashes of defeat in 2016 chastened and renewed.

But even if none of this comes to pass, even if the GOP learns absolutely nothing and goes on to nominate Herman Cain or Sarah Palin in 2020, at least we have bought four more years of relative stability. If you take Donald Trump at his word, he is a dangerous demagogue. If you belong to the school of thought which says that it is all an act, then he is perpetrating a fraud on those millions of his supporters who take his public utterances seriously. Neither option is good. This is not somebody fit for the presidency.

Many of the scandals hanging over Hillary Clinton have substance, and she undoubtedly has been dishonest in her handling of the email scandal – she was wrong to conduct sensitive government business over a bootleg server installed in her home, and she was most definitely wrong to be so evasive and even downright false in her subsequent explanations of her behaviour. In any other circumstance – and I mean any other circumstance – this alone would disqualify Clinton from the presidency.

But these are extenuating circumstances. I’m sorry Trump supporters, but I have searched and searched and I cannot see in Donald Trump the principled, fearless happy warrior fighting the elite on behalf of ordinary Americans which you see. I see a shrewd, calculating and undeniably effective demagogue, one who understands better than any other recent insurgent politician how to command public attention, and who was aided in this tawdry work by a debased American media class whose great crime in giving undeserved oxygen to the Trump campaign in the hunt for ratings surpasses even their craven and servile attitude toward the Bush administration in the years after 9/11.

And in these exceptional times, the only responsible thing to do is to pick the lesser of two evils. Hillary Clinton continues the dubious tradition of American presidential dynasties. She has a perpetual cloud of scandal hanging over her head which cannot all be dismissed as the fact-free imaginings of Newt Gingrich. And she is a political weathervane with seemingly no fixed political convictions or guiding ideology. But even for all of these flaws, at least she is not Donald J Trump.

However, this blog is concerned that the current Hollywood celebrity love-fest taking place at the DNC convention in Philadelphia, while buoying the spirits of Hillary fans (and disappointed Bernie Sanders supporters) is actually feeding the Trump campaign’s effective – and partially true – message that the American cultural elite is bullying ordinary people into feeling ashamed of their often perfectly legitimate political concerns.

And never more so than on the topic of immigration, where whatever racism and xenophobia exists at the fringe of the Republican Party is more than cancelled out by the gleeful subversion of law and language encouraged by many mainstream Democrats, with their embrace of the exculpatory term “undocumented immigrants” and repeated, tawdry attempts to ennoble the idea of living in America illegally.

As Jeremy Carl fumes in the National Review:

Witness what we have just seen: One candidate for president has been the first-ever candidate for president endorsed by the union of Border Patrol agents. The other candidate proudly features, on the first night of her convention, illegal aliens up on the main stage, while Democrats nationwide cheer.

If you wanted to understand the hold that Donald Trump has on a large swathe of conservatives and even fed-up Democrats and independents, the Democratic convention is pretty much a living explanation.

At this point, we’ve become so accustomed to the Democrats’ immigration lawlessness that too many of us accept it. We think there is simply nothing strange about one of our two political parties happily parading lawbreakers in a forum where they are celebrated for their law-breaking.

As a future American citizen (proudly married to a Texan, with the ultimate intention of living back in the United States) who will one day gratefully join the back of the line and emigrate the lawful way, nothing enrages me more than this holding-hands-underneath-a-rainbow celebration of people who either snuck into America illegally or otherwise outstayed their visas. But the Clinton campaign’s emotion-based, identity politics-ridden position on “undocumenteds” (whoops, where did their documents go? Never mind, no point being a stickler for the rules) should not just be offensive to current and future legal immigrants who played by the rules. It should be offensive to every single person who places value in the rule of law.

And still Clinton is better than Trump. Some of Trump’s ideas on immigration – such as defunding “sanctuary cities” which refuse to cooperate with federal immigration rules and officials, and ending the anachronism of birthright citizenship – are entirely sensible. But the sanctions with which Trump intends to threaten Mexico in order to coerce payment for building his wall would greatly hamper cross border trade and actually put people out of work, as would many of his other protectionist policies.

Donald Trump has the greatest potential to harm America in the sphere of foreign policy. When it comes to domestic matters, the ability of the executive branch to take drastic or radical action is fairly well constraint by the checks and balances built into the American system of government. But in managing America’s relationship with other countries, President Donald Trump would have wide-ranging abilities to antagonise or alienate other countries in a way which the Constitution is not designed to constrain. Now, some of those countries may well deserve a tongue-lashing from Donald Trump – that is a large part of his appeal, the ability to come out strongly against the indefensible. But if Donald Trump has a coherent foreign policy, it is a closely guarded secret. There is certainly no mention on his campaign website. Therefore, there is no guarantee that Trump will antagonise only those countries which America can afford to alienate.

One may disagree with many of Hillary Clinton’s decisions while serving as Secretary of State, but at least she knows her way around foreign policy and will not need to keep Wikipedia to hand as she takes congratulatory calls from world leaders if she wins the election. That matters. Leadership matters, even if the direction of that leadership is sometimes less than optimal. While the American presidency always involves on-the-job training with incredibly high stakes, to bestow that office on somebody with no record of or interest in public service prior to this point would be reckless in the extreme.

Yet Hillary Clinton can easily lose this election. More to the point, her supporters can lose this election for her with their sanctimonious moral grandstanding, finger-wagging lectures to Middle America and constant diminution of the issues and concerns which motivate Trump supporters. In Britain we have already seen how endless celebrity interventions accusing Brexit supporters of racism and evil intent quite rightly provoked a backlash against the bien-pensant clerisy who haughtily preached that Britain is no good and that we could not survive without the EU’s antidemocratic supranational government. Piling up the celebrity endorsements could end up harming Hillary Clinton more than helping her.

And so the need now comes hardest upon the Clinton campaign manager, Robby Mook, to be a skilled and fearless strategist. Trump will not be beaten easily. The gaffes and missteps which harm normal political candidates only further cement his popularity among his most ardent supporters. And Hillary Clinton is a famously weak political candidate, less effective on the campaign trail than she is when in office.

This blog takes absolutely no delight in making its choice for the 2016 presidential race. I would have leapt at the chance to support a smart, sane conservative alternative to Democratic Party occupancy of the White House. But eight years of hysterical, hyperbolic opposition to Barack Obama effectively put rocket boosters on the GOP’s crazy wing, and now there is no smart, sane conservative left to support. In fact, there is no small-c conservative running in this presidential race at all.

That failure is not the fault of Barack Obama. He did not spike the juice of every Republican politician with crazy powder over the past seven years. This is an entirely self-inflicted wound struck by obstructionist conservative politicians who chose to make American politics this angry and volatile, aided by the conservative-industrial complex of media and punditry who cynically portrayed what has been a frustratingly uneven economic recovery and an overly timid and contradictory foreign policy as an unprecedented American decline brought about by Kenyan socialism.

In short, it is the fault of the political-media class, and the opportunistic Republican Party in particular, that Donald Trump was able to take over the GOP so easily. It is their fault that the only semi-responsible choice on the ballot paper will be for Hillary Clinton’s predictable, uninspiring centre-leftism.

And it is their fault that this blog is left with no choice but to follow my conscience and support Hillary Rodham Clinton for president – very much the lesser of two evils.

 

Hillary Clinton - Tim Kaine

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Bernie Sanders Is Right To Seek To Ban Private Prisons

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Bernie Sanders - Abolish Private Prisons

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Free market and small government arguments are immaterial: privately run jails and prisons are morally repugnant and should be banned

As yet more evidence that the world is rapidly going insane, I find myself in agreement with Bernie Sanders on a matter of domestic policy.

The Washington Post reports:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will unveil a plan Thursday to ban privately run jails and prisons, which he says have a “perverse incentive” to increase the number of incarcerated people in the country.

Under the proposal by the Democratic presidential hopeful, the federal government would have three years to end its practice of using private companies to keep people behind bars. The ban would also apply to state and local governments, which have increasingly turned to private contractors in a bid to save money.

“It runs counter to the best interests of our country,” Sanders said in an interview Wednesday. “You should not be making a profit off of putting people in prison.”

Sanders’s “Justice Is Not For Sale Act,” which he plans to introduce as legislation in Congress, also includes several provisions intended to dramatically reduce the number of immigrants who are held in detention facilities while awaiting court hearings on their legal status.

Good. This blog is all for privatisation of state-owned industries and competitive free markets, but there is a limit to how far small government absolutism should go.

The most sacred and fundamental powers of any democratic government are the power to wage war and the power to imprison (or in America’s case, even execute) a citizen found guilty of committing a crime. Both matters are far too serious to be left to the private sector, especially for so tawdry a reason as cost reduction.

Just as Western democracies now rely on volunteer armies for defence and (generally – again, with some regrettable exceptions) eschew using paid mercenaries to do their dirty work, so the state, at whatever level of government is best applicable, should be directly responsible for the welfare and rehabilitation of offenders. Contracting the job out to private firms, ostensibly in order to save taxpayer money, is wrong and often counterproductive, producing the kind of perverse incentives correctly identified by Bernie Sanders. Besides which, the idea of private companies incarcerating citizens under government contract is morally repugnant, whether it is done in Britain, America or elsewhere.

There are plenty of things ripe for privatisation in America, including Amtrak (a giant taxpayer subsidy for wealthy elites living in the Acela corridor) and the United States Postal Service. In this day and age, there is less and less argument for the government having an active hand in transporting people, goods or items of correspondence. So by all means, let’s privatise what government has no business doing in the first place.

But when it comes to the most essential functions of government, some things ought never to have been handed over to the private sector in the first place. And the awesome power and responsibility which comes with incarcerating one’s fellow citizens is a case in point.

 

Corrections Corporation of America

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Top Image: The Young Turks

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Who Is To Blame For Donald Trump?

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

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A problem of American conservatism’s own making

In a recent show, Bill Maher took American conservatives to task for daring to suggest that responsibility for the rise Donald Trump rests with liberals.

Money quote:

Is political correctness out of control? Of course it is. I think I might have done some sort of show about that once [Maher was host of “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher”]. I’ve been telling liberals when they had spinach on their teeth since 1993. I’ve ridiculed them for everything from offensive Halloween costumes to Islamophobia, from the self esteem movement to college campuses forgetting what free speech is. But none of that justifies embracing a dangerous buffoon, simply because his lack of political correctness is cathartic.

Trump is your problem. But somehow the party of personal responsibility doesn’t want to take responsibility for this one. Somewhere along the way, the slogan went from “Make America great again!” to “Look what you made me do!”

Amen to all of this. American leftists do indeed have much to answer for, but the rise of Donald Trump is not a problem primarily of their making.

It was the tri-cornered hat brigade whose admirable devotion to fiscal responsibility only materialised once Barack Obama took office, and then failed to force any meaningful change in Washington despite many of their number being elected to Congress in the 2010 midterms which, who have a case to answer. They were the Great White Hope whose inevitable failure formed the third strike against the political class.

It was not the Democratic Party which fanned the flames of birtherism (and then considered a nominee for president who was born in Canada) and refused to stand up to angry constituents demanding to see a birth certificate. That was all on the Republicans. Donald Trump led that effort, and nearly the entire GOP sat back with a tub of popcorn, thinking that the circus would benefit them politically. And so it did, until their attack dog finally broke the leash and turned on its handlers.

Has Barack Obama been a decidedly left-wing and in some (though by no means all) ways unimpressive president? Yes, he has. But is he a closet Communist, a secret Muslim planning to enforce hardline Islamism on America or a hopelessly incompetent buffoon? Absolutely not. He is a centre-left politician with undeniable skills, twice elected on a centre-left platform and governing according to a centre-left approach. But in their greed to quickly win back power without doing the hard work of making their own pitch to the voters more appealing, too many Republicans were willing to tolerate and sometimes actively participate in the anti-Obama hysteria for short term political gain.

If Democrats shoulder any responsibility for the danger that Donald Trump could soon be elected US president, it is only because they are now on the verge of nominating Hillary Clinton as their favoured successor – again, a highly competent technocrat and somebody with undeniable experience of executive power at the highest levels, but also somebody with no discernible core beliefs or values beyond the “bridges, not walls” buzzwords du jour.

Clinton’s political judgement has at times been…questionable. And she is dogged by a legitimate and troubling email scandal that cannot be dismissed as a mere partisan attack – to the extent that she is currently under investigation by the FBI. And that is to say nothing of the fact that the American political party supposedly the most committed to equal opportunity and social mobility is complicit in making the presidency a family affair. But none of this is remotely comparable to the danger which the Republican Party has unleashed on the country.

The warning signs were all there four years ago – a GOP primary debate stage filled with candidates like Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, and whose few quasi intellectuals (like Newt Gingrich) were burdened with so much personal baggage that they were non-starters. Mitt Romney was the GOP’s best bet, but as their chosen candidate he was prone to gaffes and clangers (like the 47% remark) which helped ensure he would never reach the Oval Office. But did this generate any serious introspection as the GOP picked through the wreckage of the 2012 presidential election? No.

2015/16 saw a new slate of Republican candidates ranging from the well-meaning but vaguely ridiculous (Ben Carson) to the gormlessly patrician (Jeb Bush) to the empathy-devoid social conservative (Ted Cruz) to the not-quite-ready (Marco Rubio). No Paul Ryan. No promising new blood. The only candidate who fit the typical mould of a viable centre-right Republican candidate (John Kasich) never stood a chance, because he stubbornly refused to deal out sufficient quantities of crazy every time he opened his mouth.

Yes, the Democrats peddle in identity politics and often come down on the wrong side when it comes to favouring political correctness over freedom of speech, religion and behaviour. But it was the Republicans who opted to whip up (and profit from) blind fury about the state of the country instead of articulating a serious, coherent alternative. And in the end they were beaten at their own game. Why vote for the politician who smirks or winks when someone else is making ignorant, bigoted remarks when now you can vote for the real deal?

None of this means that the Democrats are not firmly capable of pushing Trump over the finishing line in November – as this blog has made clear. If their flawed presidential nominee doesn’t self-destruct on the launch pad before election day, the Left’s unbearable condescension toward those who disagree with them (you’ll see it earlier in the Bill Maher video, where he gloats about being the sole custodian of facts and truth) could well do the job.

But the Democrats and other American liberals did not cause this mess. Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president because there is a gaping void where serious, credible conservative policies which speak to Americans from every social strata (and which do not reek so strongly of elitist self interest) should be.

Or as Bill Maher puts it:

The Tea Party is named after a tax revolt. And TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already. And yet two years after Obama lowered taxes on 95 percent of Americans, 90 percent of tea people believed he’d raised them.

So if you don’t know the first thing about the thing you claim is the most important thing to you, are you bright? And is it my fault for pointing out “No”?

And through that gaping void of ignorance rode the host of The Apprentice, a man with no ideology, no policies and no impulse control, a man who gets into Twitter feuds with D-list celebrities and believes that the globalisation of trade can be reduced to a zero-sum game in which America always “wins”.

Oh, there is lots of blame to be appointed for how we arrived in this position. But as Bill Maher says, the party of personal responsibility should stop behaving like a petulant child – an innocent victim on whom Donald Trump was arbitrarily and unfairly inflicted – and take the lion’s share of responsibility themselves.

 

Donald Trump - school

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The Left’s Self-Righteous Fury Toward Donald Trump Turns To Violence

Samuel Hooper6 Comments

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On campus and off, the Right are coming under attack in America. And one does not need to approve of Donald Trump to abhor the violence currently being directed at his supporters

The Washington Post reports on a disturbing turn of events:

Protests outside a Donald Trump rally in downtown San Jose spun out of control Thursday night when some demonstrators attacked the candidate’s supporters.

Protesters jumped on cars, pelted Trump supporters with eggs and water balloons, snatched signs and stole “Make America Great” hats off supporters’ heads before burning the hats and snapping selfies with the charred remains.

Several people were caught on camera punching Trump supporters. At least one attacker was arrested, according to CNN, although police did not release much information.

“The San Jose Police Department made a few arrests tonight after the Donald Trump Rally,” police said in a statement. “As of this time, we do not have specific information on the arrests made. There has been no significant property damage reported. One officer was assaulted.”

In one video circulating widely on social media, two protesters tried to protect a Trump supporter as other protesters attacked him and called him names.

Another video captured a female Trump supporter taunting protesters before being surrounded and struck in the face with an egg and water balloons.

To be sure, there have been instances of Donald Trump supporters behaving aggressively and attacking anti-Trump protesters, too. But the strong trend at present is that of anti-Trump supporters being unable to contain their anger and committing acts of violence and intimidation against Trump supporters.

Worse, though, is the way in which these acts of mob violence are often being blamed squarely on Donald Trump – as though the screaming, egg and punch throwing protesters are utterly blameless and without agency or responsibility for their actions. In this case, the mayor of San Jose was quick to blame Donald Trump for inciting the violence and his beleaguered supporters for bringing it upon themselves.

From local news:

The mayor, a Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter, criticized Trump for coming to cities and igniting problems that local police departments had to deal with.

“At some point Donald Trump needs to take responsibility for the irresponsible behavior of his campaign,” [San Jose Mayor Sam] Liccardo said.

How quickly the much-vaunted compassion and tolerance of the Left evaporates when someone they don’t like is in the crosshairs.

And so we have the bizarre spectacle of the mayor of San Jose condemning Donald Trump for daring to hold a rally in the city for his supporters, and in so doing inflame the violent passions of the mob which then duly assembled to attack them. At one time, many on the Left could reliably be found condemning the act of so-called “victim blaming”, but when the victim hails from the radical Right then apparently those rules are inverted and the people cleaning blood and egg from their clothes are exclusively to blame for the behaviour of their attackers.

Or as Brendan O’Neill rightly puts it:

The behaviour of anti-Trump protesters is becoming more and more despicable. Last night in San Jose they physically attacked people leaving a Trump rally. This woman was cornered, spat on and pelted with eggs. Anti-Trump protests are starting to look less like left-wing demands for a more progressive politics and more like expressions of middle-class fury and disgust with the white proles lining up behind Trump. Class hatred disguised as radical politics.

There is a lot of truth in this. Many people have serious objections to Donald Trump and his presidential campaign. That is fair enough – this blog certainly does not want Trump within five miles of the Oval Office. But what we are now seeing in some of these protests goes beyond anger and objection to Donald Trump’s policies and behaviour, and is more an expression of rage and revulsion at those segments of American society which are receptive to the Trump message.

Rod Dreher thinks that the violence will backfire on the Left:

People who think that most voters will see these riots and reason that while the riots are terrible, we have to remember that Trump is worse — they’re deluded. Even if it is true, most people, left and right, don’t vote on the basis of reason. They vote on emotion. They vote on what’s in their gut. These Social Justice Warriors are making lots of people feel in their gut that Donald Trump is the only thing that stands between them and those mobs, and that if Hillary Clinton wins, mobs like that will have their champion in the White House.

Don’t come back to me and say, “It’s ridiculous that anybody would think such a thing.” Maybe it is. But it’s going to happen. A lot of people legitimately criticized the Republican Party and its presidential candidates for not taking Trump seriously enough early on, when they could have stopped him. Now the Democrats are not taking the effect of these anti-Trump rioters seriously enough. If they think Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, then the most important thing for them to do is to do whatever they can to stop street mobs from vindicating Trump’s critique.

[..] I’ll say it again: Trump is a bad man. And the Left is doing its part to put him in the White House by vindicating his critique. The media may think it can control this by downplaying those videos of street violence, but there were many people there recording what actually happened and distributing those scenes on social media. Outside the leftist bubble, those videos are hand grenades.

Is this what the Cult of Social Justice and Identity Politics looks like, outside of the academic university setting? I think Dreher has a point – we are witnessing the more militant wing of the social justice movement.

On campus, there are powerful authority figures who can be co-opted by the Left to shut down “offensive” talks, place limits on free speech, create safe spaces in buildings and trigger warnings in the curriculum to protect students from incurring emotional “harm”. And increasingly, all it takes is a short social media campaign or a quick protest outside the chancellor’s office to bring spineless universities to heel in enforcing the new doctrine.

Outside of academia, it is different. There is no central authority which can be co-opted to make Bad Men with their Scary Ideas go away and silence those who anger the Left – at least not so long as the First Amendment exists. And in this non-academic environment, some people are clearly more used to settling disputes with their fists rather than their words. So perhaps it is not surprising that the same impulse to shut down Donald Trump and his supporters that would have seen No Platform petitions and safe spaces pop up to help traumatised students on campus is leading instead to physical violence in the real world.

Maybe, maybe not – it’s a working theory. But these protests are disturbing, and they show a particularly nasty aspect of the Left. The Tea Party rallies of the early Obama years, for all their tri-cornered hat festooned silliness, were typically not violent. American conservatives disagreed profoundly with the policies of Barack Obama, but they were not moved to rove the streets in gangs looking to beat up Obama supporters heading to one of the president’s re-election rallies. Though there are many obvious exceptions, as a general rule the Right seem better able to tolerate dissent – perhaps through being constantly exposed to liberal trends in the culture.

The Left, by contrast, are struggling at the moment. Whether it is their fortified enclaves in academia or out on the street, the American Left is becoming increasingly unable to tolerate dissenting opinions or to meet offensive speech with reasoned counterargument. Now, they are far more likely to respond with free speech restrictions at best, and outright violence at worst.

This phenomenon is bigger than Donald Trump and bigger than any one election cycle. But it is going to get worse before it gets better. And the real danger is that the Right, already cowed into virtual silence on campus and now under physical attack on the streets, will come to the conclusion that the only way to prevail is to adopt exactly the same tactics as are currently being used on them. And then we will have two sides seeking to ban each other’s guest speakers, restrict one another’s language, shelter in their own safe spaces and feeling entitled to attack other people simply for holding different political views.

Unpleasant? Yes. But unthinkable? Not any more.

In short, the forbearance of the Right – under considerable provocation – may be the only thing preventing serious civil unrest this election cycle.

 

 

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Donald Trump’s Path To Victory

Samuel Hooper7 Comments

Donald Trump - Andy Borowitz

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If Donald Trump becomes president of the United States, it will now be largely thanks to the army of sanctimonious, virtue-signalling left-wing commentators who are unwilling to (or incapable of) grappling with the roots of his appeal

Donald Trump’s path to victory in November leads directly through sanctimonious, fatuous, hectoring, intellectually snobbish attitudes like that shown in the image above, currently being widely circulated on social media.

Writer Andy Borowitz, wringing his hands about the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, pompously warns us:

Stopping Trump is a short-term solution. The long-term solution – and it will be more difficult – is fixing the educational system that has created so many people ignorant enough to vote for Trump.

One does not have to be a supporter of Donald Trump to realise that this is exactly the kind of morally certain, unfoundedly intellectually superior leftist bilge which could yet deliver the presidency to the unstable, egotistical reality-TV star.

It is the kind of toxic mindset which endlessly repeats to itself that the only reason someone might disagree with the pro-Identity Politics, pro-illegal immigration status quo is through a mental defect of some kind.

If Andy Borowitz were capable of extricating his head from his own posterior for a few short seconds, he might note that the median annual income of a Trump supporter is around $72,000 while that of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters is just $61,000 – a whole $11,000 more. In other words, Donald Trump supporters are so ignorant and uneducated that somehow they manage to out-earn the highly “enlightened” supporters of the two remaining Democratic Party candidates.

And yet the myth persists of the Trump voter as a knuckle-dragging, uncultured simpleton who has been led astray by Evil Right Wing lies and propaganda, while even the most air-headed of Clinton or Sanders supporters is preposterously transformed into a high-minded philosopher, imbued with deep wisdom and knowledge. What dangerous nonsense.

More odious still is the implication that Trump supporters need to be “re-educated” – that their political views and priorities are somehow invalid, and that rather than openly debating and examining those views in the marketplace of ideas, the holders of Trumpian views should be quietly taken aside and indoctrinated with “good” left-wing ideas.

It is the easiest thing in the world to make a snap judgement that those people who hold differing views do so out of either ignorance or malevolence. This is an emotional comfort blanket which the American (and British) Left cling to ever-more tightly, but which now increasingly threatens to suffocate them. Assume your opponent is stupid and the best you can hope to achieve is a loud shouting match. Actually take the time to understand your opponent’s arguments and put yourself in their place, and real political dialogue becomes possible.

People support the candidacy of Donald Trump for many reasons. Some are highly disaffected conservatives or anti-establishment types nursing a “let it burn” attitude toward Washington D.C. in general. Some are dispirited social conservatives who sense that they have lost the culture war and see in Trump someone who may not share their values, but who will nonetheless give their un-magnanimous liberal foes a good kicking.

Yes, some are racist and some are Islamophobic – though this critique of Trump supporters by the New Republic is little better than Borowitz’s own fatuous take. Others simply hold the position that people who are illegally present in the United States should not be conferred with the comfort and security of American residency or citizenship. Some are very wealthy and others are very poor. And crucially, Trump supporters are drawn from every level of educational attainment.

It may be technically possible to fix the educational system so as to stop producing people likely to support Donald Trump, as Borowitz wants, but it would mean the creation of a nationwide network of leftist madrassahs, places where conservative thought and academic freedom were utterly banished, which would hardly be conducive to liberal democracy.

If Andy Borowitz really wants to fix a festering national trend, he should worry less about an educational system which sometimes has the temerity to produce Donald Trump supporters, and more about the growing inability of American citizens to handle exposure to contrary ideas without resorting either to unbearable condescension or shrill demands for the offending speech to be banished.

For as long as Democrats and assorted anti-Trump forces assume that conservatives and others who disagree with them do so merely through lack of education, they will continue to underestimate their opponents – in this case, with potentially disastrous consequences.

 

Donald Trump Hosts Nevada Caucus Night Watch Party In Las Vegas

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