Jonah Goldberg and His Angry Readers

"freedom from extraneous purpose and irrelevant interest is the sign of all seriously undertaken thought" -- Michael Oakeshott

In recent months Jonah Goldberg has afforded us a partial window into the life of a political columnist. It seems every time he writes something critical of Donald Trump he hears from his readers. Doesn’t he know that he’s just helping Hillary? He—Goldberg--is a liberal, a know nothing sellout (to be fair, the interest alone on an evil lair must be difficult to cover), he’s only saying these things to keep the Georgetown society invitations coming. And by happy coincidence all of this has occurred at the same time as Experience and Its Modes has been re-issued which is just the book to turn to if one wishes to make sense of all this.

In Experience and Its Modes Michael Oakeshott argues that experience is modal (now that I’ve cleared that up). That is, instead of being one big whole we break experience into modes, or “platforms of understanding.” Modes determine what questions we ask, how we answer them, and what we do with the conclusions. There isn’t an object and then we think about it, the object and the way we think about it are intertwined from the start. In the course of his works he identified as modes, the philosophic, the scientific, the historical, the practical, and a poetic mode and suggested there were or could be developed additional modes. A mode is coherent or sensible within its parameters but ultimately incomplete or partial. A fundamental error—an ignoratio elenchi, otherwise known as a category error—was to approach one mode from the postulates of another, that is to fall prey to the error of irrelevancy.

It may be useful here to expand on two of these modes. For Oakeshott, philosophy or theorizing was to view things critically. To question that which we already know in order to understand it better. And it was unique in that its ‘conclusions’ produced more questions rather than ‘answers’. Whereas the other modes went on the merry way without questioning its premise, the philosopher focused on just that area even to the point of questioning the premise(s) of philosophy.

The poetic mode is defined by “the thing in itself.” We enjoy a painting because it is pleasing or disturbing not because it teaches us something. To say The Godfather is a bad movie because it glorifies the mafia is modal error because it is viewing the poetic (a film) in practical terms. A joke is either funny or it isn’t. When we ask whether a joke is good for society we’ve left the poetic moment in favor of the practical.

Now if you are still following along you can probably anticipate where this is going. A political column is a modal mutt, a mix, in various proportions, of the poetic (the column’s style or as entertainment), the philosophic/theoretical, and the practical. The columnist whose work is written to bring about a result—advance a cause, get you to vote for particular politician or party known in its pure form as ‘the hack’—is operating within the practical mode. Whereas a typical Jonah Goldberg column or his newsletter is usually more theoretical in nature than practical. And it’s amusing that the friendly advice he receives to have fewer jokes contains this modal understanding. The readers won’t take a funny man seriously.

As a writer, Goldberg is showing us his work as he considers a particular event or political problem. The question he asks and the arguments he uses are at least as important as his conclusion. But for the mono-modal reader of the practical kind the only consideration is the expected practical outcome(s) associated with the column. He wants answers, a dogma, and his side to win. A political columnist is either on the Trump train or off it. What train you’re on, what side you support is for this reader the only relevant consideration.

One final thing. You may have noticed, at least to the degree I’ve been successful, that this post doesn’t really tell you how to read a political column, still less how to write one. The attempt has been to understand “a particular goings on a little better.”

Footnote: the comedian Jon Stewart was on to this modal character albeit disingenuously His Daily Show mixed the poetic (comedy, laughs for laughs sake) with the didactic. When the practical content of the show was criticized he retreated to the defense that it was all comedy, I.e the critic was guilty of a ignoratio elenchi.

Normalizing Trump

The old Candid Camera show came to mind today. If I recall correctly, the usual setup was to insert something bizarre into a regular situation and then observe the lengths to which the unsuspecting participants would go to treat the highly irregular as normal.

What brought this to mind was a Bill Kristol tweet on Wednesday night:

“Lefty media types: Stop. Take a breath. You loathe Trump. Fine. But it's now hampering your ability to report & analyze the race accurately.”

A fair point (that also presumably applies to many NeverTrumpers like myself) but also not particularly insightful. If you are on Twitter during any major political event you know something like this is a constant.

A more interesting line of inquiry (he wrote modestly) is to explore whether something like the opposite of what Kristol is warning against is at play. What really stands out this cycle is the stubborn insistence of treating Donald Trump like a normal candidate. A notable political commentator can proclaim after Trump’s Wisconsin speech “that if conservatives hear this speech, he can win” and the same commentator and others on Wednesday were insistent that Donald appeared “presidential” in his meeting with the real Mexican president.

Both propositions would perhaps have merit if it wasn’t for everything else. We’re to take his reading of a speech in a completely different idiom from his other speeches as dispositive? To say of Trump that he looked presidential because he looked sober enough standing behind a podium for an hour or so is silly delusion considering the months of jackassery by the same Donald Trump.

Similarly, Rich Lowry tweeted at one point during the Arizona immigration speech:

“Very important passage here on proposed changes to legal immigration system”

It probably was, but as the immigration speech was, per usual, a verbal Jackson Pollock, to fasten on a particular point seems quite wrongheaded. Like saying in regard to Pollock, ooooh that was a good paint throw! The upper left hand corner is very effective!

What’s truly extraordinary in the current election cycle is how adamant the commentariat has been in normalizing Trump. It’s now September and the candidate still hasn’t opened field offices in many states, still hasn’t stuck to anything like a message for 24 hours, still hasn’t given any indication that he has any knowledge of or actual interest in policy. The rest is just ephemera. Treating his playing around with the forms of politics as if they are were substantive out of habit is to concede too much to candidate Trump.

Herbert Stein on our Politics (in 1989)

“But it is the talk, and not only from the Right but also from the Left, and not only from the politicians but also from the ‘intellectuals,’ that is most distressing. People routinely say with apparent certainty serious things that are if not patently false at least highly uncertain. And there is no debate, no confrontation of facts or analysis. The things people say are not meant to be measured on the scale of truth. They are only the signs by which one indicates which team one belongs to, like the identification ‘friend-or-foe’ signals that warplanes emit. Perhaps this low quality of the discussion does not hurt, but it is surely ‘unlovely,’ in Herbert Simon’s favorite word of disapproval.”

Herbert Stein, April 1989 from On the Other Hand

The Clintons Can Multi-Task

This week’s G-File http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439184/clinton-foundation-corruption-hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-love-power is about the Clintons and corruption (but I repeat myself). In it Jonah Goldberg makes the case that the Clinton Foundation wasn’t primarily about the money and our focus on pay for play is evidence of a corrupted view of corruption. While acknowledging that the Clintons are not averse to wealth Goldberg argues the Foundation "was about keeping the Imperial Court in Exile well-tended to for their return to power."


Wellllllllllll, up to a point. I take Jonah's main point to be that the Clinton's corruption is centered on power not money and on this he is certainly correct. But it doesn't follow that all of their activities are similarly sourced, that there is a necessary unifying theory of corruption at play here.

Putin, Arafat, your pick of South America strongmen were in it for the power but that didn't keep them from amassing wealth. And this accumulation didn't just happen but was rather the result of their deliberate actions to live in a manner appropriate to their station.

I take it that the Clintons in the course of fundraising in Manhattan and Hollywood came upon the idea that there were a lot of things they'd like to have and that falling back to something like the lifestyle of their Little Rock days was positively distasteful. And it isn't hard to imagine that Bill and Hill in mixing with people who were not all that impressive but who had a lot more money than they did came to feel a bit cheated in the wealth department. The Clinton Foundation was the most efficient, politically acceptable way (working to help in Haiti!) to monetize their position of power in a way that would be completely in their control.

Yes, the foundation also helped to keep their political entourage together, but I don't agree with Goldberg that this was the central motivation. Those people weren't going anywhere as any Lanny Davis to Hillary email should make clear.

As Mel Brooks noted "it's good to be the King." First on the list of reasons why is power, but the palace, the jewels, the best food and fashion also make the list. I think the Clintons are capable of diversifying into the pursuit of wealth as well as power. The email scandal was about power, the Clinton Foundation is mostly about making money.

Cleveland; Are We Even Trying to Understand?

Goodness. The arguments that presumably smart people are willing to make.

For instance, we have the reactions to the “lock her up” chant along the lines of “we don’t jail our political opponents” and “this isn’t a banana republic”. Objections made not just by Dem hacks (see Al Franken) but by conservative intellectuals.

Are we really going to take that chant out of place and time context? A majority of those polled disagreed with James Comey’s decision not to indict Hillary Clinton for her use of a private server. That decision was made less than a month ago. The chant was made at a political convention which is decidedly more pep rally than philosophical symposium.

And then again the reaction to Ted Cruz’s speech last night. We get this sort of thing:

“Any party in which 'Vote your conscience & honor the Constitution' gets you booed off stage is not my party”

It’s perfectly clear that what was being booed was “vote your conscience” not “honor the constitution.” And it’s perfectly clear that the former was a rather high minded (or weaselly) way of saying don’t vote for Trump, made at a convention to nominate and get elected Donald Trump. The Trump backers took it as an affront because that’s what it was.

It would be nice if our public intellectuals didn’t spend so much time spouting cant arguments to support their initial premise.

Donald Trump, and Having to Play a Very Bad Hand

I'm noticing lately, a bit of sympathy insinuating its way into my thought for unlikely characters.

For example, Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus. At least among many of those I follow on Twitter, Reince is getting killed for supporting Donald Trump. But what honestly is he supposed to do? He is the party chairman and Trump is the party’s presumptive nominee. It’s either stated or implicit that at the top or very near it of his job’s objectives is to get the party’s nominee elected to the presidency. And the party chairman is more grocery clerk sent to collect a bill than philosophical head of the party. Reince, in short, is just doing his job (which is the most one can say for him).

Or consider Trump’s opponents in this election who are now endorsing him to some extent or another. My guess is that these endorsements are mostly based on a 2020 calculation. Candidate X is running through the following:

- I gave my word during the debates to support the nominee [see, this is why you don’t answer silly questions]

- When I’m the party’s nominee in 2020 I’m going to want the whole party behind me.

- How will I answer the inevitable George Stephanopoulos question as to why everyone should get behind me after he rolls the tape of me NOT supporting Donald Trump?

- The #NeverTrump people seem to think that in short order anyone who supported Trump will be toxic within the Republican Party. Why? What other moments of epistemic clarity can they point to that supports this belief?

And so—perhaps just like Tessio—they end up supporting Trump because it’s the smart move.

The senators and reps are making the same calculation and arriving at the same conclusion. They can’t change things in Washington if they don’t win, and they can’t feel good about winning if Trump’s supporters don’t vote for them. And so we witness what we’ve witnessed.
 

But it does raise the question of how Trump managed to lose money with a casino. Because if there is one thing that has become clear in this cycle it is that Donald Trump has mastered the art of dealing everyone else a very bad hand to play.

Republican Politicians and Rusher's Gap

This afternoon it was reported that former Texas Governor Rick Perry made public that he would support Donald Trump. Shortly after on there was the following tweet:

Phineas Fahrquar ‏@irishspy:

It bears repeating: "Politicians will always disappoint you. Always."

In short order I thought of Rusher’s Gap, a concept that was shared in William F. Buckley book or column that I can no longer place. The aforementioned Rusher is Bill Rusher the long time publisher of National Review. Rusher’s Gap goes like this:

Suppose you need some work done on your house. You call in a contractor or two and get an estimate of what it will cost. Let’s say the estimate is $10,000. But you’re a wise man of the world, you know the actual cost is going to be higher so you make what we might term a cynic’s adjustment and tack on say another $2,000. Rusher’s Gap is the amount that the actual cost exceeds your revised, adjusted cost estimate.

Yes, you and I know that politicians will always disappoint. But for conservatives, the Rusher’s Gap this cycle has really been something to behold.

A Comment on Jonah Goldberg's; Denationalizing Our Politics

In a column/post yesterday Jonah Goldberg gives us a glimpse into a new book from Yuval Levin arguing for a more decentralized politics. As someone who came into the conservative fold after hearing James Buckley’s A Plea for a Return to Federalism I’m sympathetic to the idea.

But my thinking and reading since that speech has led me to conclude, that however fine the idea, the emphasis was/is a mistake. Arguing for decentralization confuses cause for effect or put differently it ignores that in politics as in modern architecture, form follows function.

It was Michael Oakeshott who argued that our politics were dominantly enterprise association and rationalist. As anyone who has been in a decentralized business knows, the pull to the center is constant and never resisted for very long (usually the first hint of trouble). As to rationalist politics, Oakeshott defined it as “the politics of perfection and of uniformity” and noted that circumstances—the unique conditions that would argue for a decentralized approach—“are for the rationalist to be overcome, not accommodated.”

In short, decentralized politics is a fine idea but to bring it about you have to target its rationalist/enterprise association underpinnings.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434891/yuval-levin-denationalize-politics-rebuild-communities

Be Wary of the Businessman as Politician

If I were capable of writing a book it would be titled Untapped: Michael Oakeshott and the American Conservative Movement. You may have noticed that Oakeshott’s thought appears disturbingly often (is this guy obsessed?) around here. It’s because his thought clarifies to a degree I haven’t found anywhere else.

In his magnum opus, On Human Conduct, Oakeshott distinguished between civil association and enterprise association in regard to political activity. Conceptually this is far better than left/right (a low bar), liberal/conservative, or negative/positive liberties.

Civil association rules or laws are neutral and are in Oakeshott’s words “subscribed to” rather than carried out. They are purposeless except in the sense that they minimize the clashes that occur as free people pursue their own choices. The rule that we drive on the right side of the rode belongs to civil association. It merely specifies that if we decide to drive we do so on the right side, but it is indifferent as to where we go or whether we drive at all.

Enterprise association is of a completely different character. As its name suggests it is government as enterprise. An enterprise (think of business) is directed to a goal and everything it does is with that goal in mind. You are hired if you can contribute to the enterprise’s goal and you’ll be fired if your contribution is inadequate.

Oakeshott argued that neither civil association or enterprise association was possible in pure form but that civil association was compatible with free people, a populous who enjoy and value making their own decisions. He also believed that viewing government as enterprise association has regrettably become the dominant way of thinking about government (for Oakeshott, what the government should do was the critical question not its form).

Now with the above in mind it should surprise no one that men and women who have spent most of their adult lives in business and are running for office on the back of their business success will naturally view government as an enterprise association. Immersed in a world of getting things done, delivering results, of the constant pursuit of efficiency they cannot but see the idea of government as a neutral activity, one that values checks and balances, and one that deliberately sets up impediments to action as an absurdity.

In short, at least from the conservative perspective, there is much in the businessman’s outlook that should make him wary. Unless the businessman is that rare person who views government as a wholly different activity, he or she is likely to be more of a progressive/rationalist than a conservative.

Never Trump!

During the weekend the journalist/commentator Megan McArdle, noting the #NeverTrump trend on twitter, asked life-long Republicans to send her emails as to why they’d decided they would not support Donald Trump if he is the nominee. The piece is here: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-02-29/the-die-hard-republicans-who-say-nevertrump and there is a link within it to some of the material that was not included. It’s a fascinating and I think important column.

My submission, a slice of which made it into the column, is below [Note: I stayed away from any policy differences because I didn’t want to give the impression that not supporting a, b, and c would be enough for me to break with the Party’s nominee]:

I first started exploring conservative thought in 1977 after attending a speech by James Buckley as a high school student. My first presidential vote was for Reagan in 1980. I've sat out some elections because the result in my state was a foregone conclusion (example Dole vs Clinton when I lived in California), but I've never voted strategically for a Democrat or Independent.

I didn't like McCain in 2008 but voted for him. Thought Romney was the wrong nominee (because he was neutered on ACA) but voted for him in 2012. Living in Chicago my last vote was for Rahm--who I loathe--against Garcia because, this being Chicago, Rahm is the Buckley rule candidate. Vote for the video suppressor, it's important!

But I won't vote for Trump if he is the nominee. It's not just that I don't think he's conservative. It's that as President I think he'd be quite capable of doing anything, except governing reasonably well. Trump as President would essentially ruin the Republican/conservative brand for decades.

To my mind, if Trump is the nominee the conservatives have to break with the Republican Party in the clearest and most explicit manner possible. I have no illusions about Hillary. I realize the Supreme Court hangs in the balance. But something can be salvaged from being in opposition. In power with Trump at the head is to lose everything.

"The Prime Minister said that the nations [read in this context, political causes] which went down fighting rose again, but those which surrendered tamely were finished."

Five Days in London: May 1940, John Lukacs

 

Thoughts on Christie Endorsement of Trump; from Chinese Philosophy

“Wealth and high station, these are what men would like to have; but it they cannot be obtained in conformity with principle [Tao] they must not be held.”

“The Master said, ‘A man of honor is not a mere tool.’”

“If the way prevails among the states, you can make yourself prominent; but if it does not prevail, then keep in retirement. If it prevails in your area, it is a disgrace to be poor and humble. If it does not prevail, it is a disgrace to be rich and honored.”

Chinese Philosophy in Classical Times, edited by Ernest Rhys

To Bring Down Trump Remember Acton and Focus on His Power

"…that soul [Kurtz] satiated with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham distinction, of all the appearances of success and power."

"He could get himself to believe anything—anything. He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party. ‘What party?’ I asked. ‘Any party’, answered the other."

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
If you follow twitter and other media sites you will notice that the emphasis in the anti-Trump camp is that he is not a conservative, is woefully uninformed about politics, and is too erratic to be trusted with nuclear weapons. They will highlight his absurd, innacurate boasts about having warned against the invasion of Iraq and the oddity of a thrice married casino owner being supported by evangelicals.

To understand why Trump has thrived despite these weaknesses and to gain a better sense of how to actually take him down, it is better to think of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness and to recall Lord Acton's observation that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." And here it is important to understand that Acton the historian was speaking not of the actor, the person in a position of power, but the observer or how people respond and evaluate people in power.

Trump is invulnerable to normal political attacks because he occupies a position of perceived personal power, like Kurtz as demi-god, that is unlike the normal politician. This is the key to all of the free media that he has been able to garner. It isn't just the exposure, it is the constant reinforcement of the idea that this a man to whom attention must be paid.

If the above is correct then the point of vulnerability isn't the incoherence of his political pronouncements, his personal behavior or even his business tactics such as his use of eminent domain. All of these can be ignored, pace Acton, of the powerful wielding and benefiting from their power. To truly damage Trump you have to take down the perception of Trump as wildly successful businessman. That's the source of his power.

And a good place to start would be to focus on Trump's involvement in the USFL as related by Joe Nocera. The USFL was set up as a professional football league that would operate in the NFL's offseason. It had a very successful first season. Trump came in as an owner of the New Jersey Generals and characteristically, in thinking only of Trump, disrupted the salary discipline by signing stars like Herschel Walker and Brian Sipe. Then he got the League's games moved to the fall--only losers play spring football?--where they would compete directly against the NFL. And that was the end of the USFL. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/sports/football/donald-trumps-less-than-artful-failure-in-pro-football.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1


The beauty and utility of Trump's destruction of the USFL is that it is so easily communicable. This isn't a Hillary cattle futures trade or Whitewater. This is professional football. The ONE business that every american understands. And one thing they will all be able to grasp is that for a new league to face off directly against the NFL is lunacy. Start there and then go on to his bankruptcies and other business failures. Bring down Trump the successful businessman and you will bring down Trump the putative political leader.

Addendum: Note the Trump searches

Wait, Conservatives Object to Super Delegates? What?

I take it that a certain ambivalence and distrust towards full blown democracy is consistent with, if not a core tenet of, conservatism. And yet in the aftermath of Hillary Clinton losing the New Hampshire primary by 22 percentage points to Bernie Sanders but still being awarded the same number of delegates, you’d get a different impression. On social media and in numerous columns conservative pundits and supporters have been either mocking or highly critical.

The reason for the New Hampshire result is the Democratic Party’s use of super delegates. Of the total 4,763 delegates and 2,382 needed to win, 712 are super delegates whose voting is not constrained by the voting in primaries. So super delegates constitute 14.9% of the total. If my math is correct a pure insurgent candidate would need to win 58.8% of the voting determined delegates to gain the nomination [2,382/(4,763 – 712) = .588].If you hang out with Vox, Salon, MSNBC this an abomination, but for conservatives? If Aaron Burr having dispensed with Alexander Hamilton seeks the Federalist Party nomination is an 8.8 percentage point higher bar in the popular will beyond the pale?

This same week, John Yoo wrote an interesting piece titled Trump and Sanders, The Founders Worst Nightmare on the founder’s view towards selecting a president. Yoo notes:

“To prevent mindless populism from seizing the White House, the Founders rejected nationwide election of the president. Instead, they created the Electoral College. States choose electors (equal to the number of their members of the House and Senate), who meet and send their votes to Congress. If there is no majority, then the House votes by state delegation to choose the chief executive.

While the Electoral College today seems Rube Goldberg-esque, it served the important purpose of weeding out emotional passions and popular, but poor, candidates.”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/trump-and-sanders-the-founders-worst-nightmare/article/2001014

I suspect the real issue here for conservatives is a) the progressive tendency to overplay the idea of their being the true voice of the people, and b) disdain for Hillary Clinton. A better avenue of criticism would be Hillary’s call to abolish the Electoral College in the aftermath of the 2000 election. On that occasion Hillary stated:

         “We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago,…I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/264347-obama-clinton-backed-reforms-to-electoral-college-after-bush-v-gore

In light of recent events, an enterprising reporter or debate moderator might ask her about this.

The Christie Critique of Repetition in Politics is Nonsense

As you probably know, Chris Christie is widely regarded as landing a solid blow to the Marco Rubio candidacy by claiming that he frequently repeats the same material in his speeches and debate answers. This as part of a larger argument that Rubio is a scripted, inexperienced candidate in stark contrast, one supposes to Gov. Christie.

Now I will admit that of the remaining candidates I favor Rubio. That said, I find the Christie jab to be on the merits rather ineffectual, and it becoming such a big story just shows the silly importance attached to these ‘debates’. For it seems to me that anyone who runs for president should have arrived at a substantial body of understandings in regard to politics. They should have a set of stable, but not rigid, political ideas such that certain expressions, quotes, phrases will appear frequently in their speeches and comments. This isn’t improvisational comedy. The LAST thing we should seek in a potential president is day to day originality.

If we embrace the Christie rule than the obvious choice isn’t Christie, who not surprisingly gave a packaged answer in the debate to a question on drug abuse, but Donald Trump. The lightly thought out, spur of the moment, incoherent ideas of the real estate magnate is apparently what we should value in a president.

 

It Wasn't the Candidate or the Campaign; Jeb Never Had a Chance

In the Iowa post mortems one thread has been that the Jeb campaign has been a historical failure. I disagree with that only in the sense that the blame is being put on Jeb and his political skills. These aren't completely irrelevant, but the biggest factor is that Jeb never had a chance. His and his donors failure is that they didn’t see that he never had a chance.

Before I explain, what I mean by establishment in what follows is that prevailing sense of ‘respectable opinion’ which if it doesn’t persuade at least is taken into account, such that if you see things differently you at least pause to consider that you’ve lost the plot. And that relationship between establishment and conservative is somewhat adversarial with the tension increasing as the conservative viewpoint becomes more ideological.

So why was Jeb doomed? Because he came after the following:

1) His father, Bush I, picks up the mantle of Reagan and promises not to raise taxes. He then raises taxes

2) His brother George, Bush II, is supported fervently for his actions after 9/11, but conservatives aren’t please with the notion of “compassionate conservatism” nor with the explosion of spending that occurs under his watch (zero vetoes!).

3) McCain as nominee in 2008 is widely perceived as the establishment choice. Conservatives aren’t thrilled but they go along with it. They don’t like losing to Obama, but deep down they understand it. Base/conservative wariness with the establishment has increased but hasn’t disappeared.

4) And now we get to the point that finally kills the Jeb campaign. In the 2012 race the perception is that Obama is a colossally bad president. If the Republicans don’t screw it up they’ll win. While the conservatives have doubts about Romney, they eventually give way to the establishment view--after a frantic and failed attempt to find a suitable alternative—on the argument that Romney is the only candidate who can/will beat Obama.

Then the Romney general election barely brings up the subject of Obamacare, which is kind of a big deal for conservatives, and ends up losing. Queue The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again.

That is what Jeb had to overcome, plus the fact that most conservatives weren’t pleased with the royalist suggestions that would come with a third Bush presidency. The surprise isn’t that Jeb failed, it’s that so many pundits didn’t see from the start that he would (and my twitter followers will know that I had Jeb as the John Connally of this race—see 1980—from the start). Jeb was always the longest of long shots in this cycle.

Does it Matter That Ted Cruz is Disliked?

A thread on Twitter began with a post questioning why Cruz being disliked would matter if he was president with an expression of doubt that senators would actually block him out of spite. A following tweet, pointed out that all Republicans would have self-interest in cooperating. And finally that while there was disagreement over tactics there was agreement on policy.

Now all of this is true up to a point, but as argument to wave away the issue of animus directed towards Cruz by his colleagues (and I would guess it goes beyond the Senate) this fails to convince. Are we really supposed to believe that being strongly disliked doesn’t matter in politics? If so, then politics is truly alone in human endeavors.

Yes, at the general level there is policy agreement, but probe a bit and real differences emerge. Tactics in politics are hardly a matter of little importance. The extent to which cooperating conforms to self-interest doesn’t exist in the abstract it is determined.

And we need to consider why Ted Cruz isn’t liked. To some extent it is that he is intent on shaking things up and this I take to be positive. But another aspect is that he is thought to have made some serious tactical blunders (see the shutdown) that have cost the party, and to be concerned with Ted Cruz well beyond anything else. You’re really trying to tell me that this is of no account? That it won’t in anyway impede Cruz’s ability to get things done as president?

To be considered a successful conservative president, Ted Cruz will have to persuade his colleague’s and the people to go beyond what they are comfortable with; to trust him and his judgement. Everything else being equal or near equal, I’ll take the guy who is generally liked and charming over the guy who is despised.

Let's Not Oversell A Cruz Presidency

In a piece on Donald Trump, Roger Kimball by way of explaining the beltway Republican support for Trump, writes:

“As Rush Limbaugh put it, the GOP establishment hates Trump, but they fear Cruz. They are right to do so, because were he elected the gravy train that is business-as-usual in Washington really would come screeching to a halt.”

https://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2016/01/24/montgolfier-trump/

Welllllllllll, color me skeptical.

One of the causes of the Trump moment is that conservative politicians running for office have promised to end business as usual in Washington. Duly elected, they failed to deliver engendering disillusion or a search for someone who really means it. That Trump emphatically doesn’t mean it is beside the point. It’s the disillusion, stupid.

But for some reason conservatives can’t shake the habit. A Cruz presidency will probably mean a Republican majority in both House and Senate, but it probably won’t be filibuster proof. That the democrats will fight with tenacity to defend the current system should go without saying. If actual cuts are made the media will be sure to present them in apocalyptic terms.

A Cruz presidency will be different than Obama’s, hopefully significantly so. But there won’t be any screeching halts. K Street will go on being K Street. Sorry. The first step in political recovery is to distinguish and accept the possible from the impossible.

Jeb's Run for President Was Always Irresponsible

In last few days, besides Jay Costs tweets, there have been two pieces critical of Jeb Bush pointing to the irresponsibility of his campaign. Liam Donovan’s is here https://medium.com/@LPDonovan/in-defense-of-mike-murphy-b046e0dc0d0b#.pafylgli2 and in the Weekly Standard Steven Hayes http://www.weeklystandard.com/how-jeb-cleared-the-way-for-trump/article/2000726

The common thread is that Jeb has found it impossible to promote himself in the race so he’s opted for a strategy of destroying all the alternatives to Trump but himself in the belief that faced with no alternative voters will turn to him. Having raised a great deal of money Bush has been successful in stopping better candidates--$20m against Rubio—and that this is a dangerous, irresponsible game he’s playing.

But I would contend that this charge of irresponsibility which ends up circling on Bush’s inability to win the nomination and or win the presidency doesn’t go far enough. Even in best case scenarios Jeb’s campaign was irresponsible.

First, if Jeb won the nomination but lost in the general you would’ve had what is perceived as a establishment candidate losing after the McCain and Romney losses. The result of this would be I think the breakup of the Republican Party, which in the abstract doesn’t sound so bad, but its replacement could be just about anything or things and it would almost certainly hand power to the Democrats for a decade or more. So Jeb wins the nomination and there’s something like a 50:50 chance the party is destroyed. Not good.

But what if Jeb won the general and became President? Then it’s—policy differences aside—all good, right? Ah, no. In that case we’d have the following sequence: Bush I-Clinton-Bush II-Obama-Bush III with the loser in the race being Clinton II. That simply can’t be, if the idea of a democratic republic is to hold, and most conservatives know it.

Alone among commentators Jonah Goldberg has insisted that in the Hillary e-mail scandal the server IS the smoking gun. Similarly, I would insist that insist that the irresponsibility of the Jeb campaign was inherent, was present at the beginning. Before he announced Barbara Bush let slip that she didn’t want him to run. The lesson, as always, listen to your mother.

The Popular Two Lane Theory is Wrong and Hurting Rubio

On Sunday the NFL’s AFC and NFC champions will be decided pitting two teams in each conference against each other. And yet all season, I don’t recall hearing a single comment about there being two lanes to the championship, aided no doubt by the actual existence of four divisions in each conference.

But in politics where just like football the prize inevitably comes to down to two opponents there is no comparative objective marker to guide thought and so we get the two lanes framework. This concept is both ubiquitous and I believe wrong. At the end of October I had the following lanes which I still think is reasonably accurate:

Establishment/Old Guard: Bush, Kasich, Pataki

Young Guns/Reformers: Christie, Fiorina, Jindal, Perry, Rubio, Walker

Social Conservatives/Populists: Huckabee, Santorum

Purists/Reform Radicals: Cruz, Paul

Outsider/Outsiders: Carson, Trump

And as I pointed out at the time, it doesn’t follow from no one emerging from a particular lane that it didn’t exist.

Why care? Because as someone once pointed out, ideas have consequences. In our current race the idea of two lanes has I believe hurt Rubio. The same pundits who point to his being a tea party backed senator who is not very different from Cruz have consigned him to the prison of the ‘establishment lane’.

Rubio isn’t a, my way or nothing, conservative like Cruz, but he is no ‘establishment’ candidate either. That is being lost sight of because the over-simplified two lane concept is needlessly concealing important distinctions. $20M in negative ads directed at him is hurting Rubio. So is the two lane theory of nomination races.

The State of the Union is Divided

The State of the Union speech last night could’ve been very short. We are deeply, deeply divided. And it’s fair to ask whether the level of division at this point doesn’t trump (no pun or allusion intended, honest) our military strength and GDP, if such are really the measures of national strength.

It’s tempting to focus on political rhetoric and the actions of specific politicians and public personalities but this is to look in the wrong place. A far better place to start is President Obama’s statement “that government is the word we give to those things we do together.”

Add the word “compelled” and the statement is essentially correct (it leaves out that the burdens quite frequently are not shared). But it cuts in a way the President and his followers don’t acknowledge. America is a vast nation comprised of a highly diverse people. It has been argued that fragmentation is one of, maybe THE, defining characteristic of the modern world. And yet onward we go finding new and more encompassing activities and it is fair to say beliefs that we must all do together.

We are who and what we are, in and through society. The notion of the solitary individual, even extended to the family, is a dubious abstraction. But like porcupines forced to huddle too close together, continually pricked by the quills of our fellow citizens, it shouldn’t surprise that tempers have gotten rather short.