John Podhoretz, neoconservative par excellence and renowned 5-time Jeopardy! winner, has taken a look at the present state of the Republican Party and sunk into a state of abject despair.
No sense pretending: Donald Trump is the only news of the 2016 race, and this fact says something very troubling about the Republican party, the conservative electorate, the mass media culture, and the United States in general. Sounds like an exaggeration, but it’s not. Really it’s not.
No, it’s most definitely not an exaggeration. And I never agree with Podhoretz about anything, ever.
There will be the first Republican debate in ten days. It’s the most important political event of the year thus far. And it will be all about Trump. He will see to that; the reporters will see to that, and the minor candidates looking to move up will see to it by trying to pick fights with him and best him.
I can’t argue with that.
It’s not enough to say that there are matters of deathly serious to be discussed, from Iran to ISIS to the possible collapse of the Euro and the Chinese economy to the harvesting of fetal organs, because there are always serious matters to be discussed as elections approach. The issue with Trump is that his approach can only be called “the politics of unseriousness.” He engages with no issue, merely offers a hostile and pithy soundbite bromide about it. He yammers. He describes how wonderful things will be when he acts against something or other without explaining how he will act, what he will do, or how it will work.
Harvesting fetal organs?
These people are nuts.
But, other than that nod to the phony ACORN Solyndra Fast & Furious Shirley Sherrod Benghazi! Planned Parenthood controversy, I can’t find anything in that paragraph that I disagree with.
And Podhoretz stays mainly on track, here, too.
The problem is not with [Trump]. The problem has to do with his reception. He is garnering support that may actually be real, and may actually change the course of the 2016 election — and, therefore, American history — through nothing more than blowhardism.
But that remark about “blowhardism” is where Podhoretz finally gets off track. That’s making the problem Trump, and he just correctly said that the problem is not Trump but the reception Trump is getting. So, oops. Now we’re off the path and into the woods.
Efforts to figure out how to coopt him and his issues on the part of other Republicans are doomed to failure because it’s not the message that people are attracted to; it’s the messenger.
Okay, so that was quick. We’re completely lost. We went from the problem being the voters to the problem being the messenger who, by they way, has no message.
No. No. No. No.
The problem is not the messenger but the receptivity of the audience. Podhoretz understood this clearly for a moment but couldn’t stick with it because he wants to believe this is about people being attracted to celebrity.
But, you know what? Podhoretz has enough self-awareness to realize that he’s contradicted himself and so he makes an allowance for the truth of the matter.
Or, if it is the message, it is a message that cannot be coopted because it is little more than a vile expression of open hatred toward Mexicans in a country where people of Mexican descent make up 11 percent of the electorate. For those who want Trump because of it, anything less than his defamation will strike them as the castrated bleating of what they have started to call a “cuckservative.”
I’m not sure what “defamation” means in this context but cucksurvatives are Republicans who don’t stick up for the white race. Having arrived at the proper explanation for Trump’s success, Podhoretz skitters away again.
Trump doesn’t even have a real issue to bring in Democrats and Republicans dissatisfied with their choices. Trump is Trump’s issue.
It’s true that Trump is Trump’s issue, but what goes on in The Donald’s head has absolutely nothing to do with why he is doing so well in the polls. This is a guy who promoted Birtherism until the president utterly humiliated him at the May 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner and killed bin-Laden at virtually the same moment.
As I said at the time:
Only complete morons believed for a micro-second that Donald Trump was actually going to run for president. But he did do the president a giant favor by grabbing all the loose ends of dead-ender Birtherism, tying them all up into one giant ball of Stupid, and thereby letting the president set the whole thing on fire.
Now he’s trying to do the same thing on Hillary Clinton’s behalf, only this time it’s not Birtherism but the Republican Party that he’s tying into one giant ball of Stupid.
For neoconservatives like Podhoretz, though, the main reason this matters at all is because he’s accustomed to using the GOP as a vehicle to protect Israel’s right flank.
These are unhappy times in the United States, and unhappy times generate unhappy political outcomes. Last week I made the case for despair following the Iran deal. I know people always want commentary that offers a path forward, a way out of trouble, a hope for something better. Sometimes, though, you just have to sit back and despair at the condition of things, and maybe from the despair some new wisdom may emerge.
He never suspected the white supremacists.
But he’s kind of figured it out now. It’s just hard to admit it to himself.
LOL!!!
After 50 years of stupidity, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia experiments, Dr. G.O.P. Frankenstein is successful in creating his perfect monster:
“It’s ALIVE!!!”
Oh-oh!
Now, what the fuck do we do?!?!?!?!?!?”
Trump(et) couldn’t happen to a more deserving political party and conservative “philosophy!”
LOL!!!!
Unless he become POTUS…
Another fun scenario for folks like Podhoretz: Trump ultimately drops out of the race and agrees not to mount a third-party challenge, on condition that he be allowed to campaign actively for the Republican nominee.
“The issue with Trump is that his approach can only be called “the politics of unseriousness.” He engages with no issue, merely offers a hostile and pithy soundbite bromide about it. He yammers. He describes how wonderful things will be when he acts against something or other without explaining how he will act, what he will do, or how it will work.”
FFS, that’s increasingly been the GOP’s platform for decades now.
Romney’s campaign was basically unhinged and false Obama hate, mixed with an empty “I’m a businessman so I’ll fix the economy” platitude and some trickle down bullshit, which he conveniently jettisoned as needed (see Debate #1).
McCain had some ideas, but found himself running away from them to keep the base from revolting. And his War on Terror platform was basically “I’ll bomb them until we’re at the gates of hell” with no actual substance or nuance.
Bush/Cheney 04 was “if you don’t vote Republican, terrorist wolves will eat your family.” Bush/Cheney 2000 was the completely self-contradictory catch phrase “compassionate conservatism.”
Trump is just doing what GOP candidates do, but with less decorum. That’s really the only difference. He’s Romney without the genteel exterior.
“I’m a businessman so I’ll fix the economy”
Trump claimed that one or two days ago!
And when was it that the GOP ever did that?
1996 was “it’s my turn!” or was that only for the primary?
Dukakis did look ridiculous in that tank, though.
1996 Bob Dole, quote: Where’s the outrage?!? Referring to all those pre-Monica pseudo scandals of Bill’s.
Quite sensibly the voters didn’t care, possibly sensing that they were bogus or exaggerated for political reasons (true).
With no wars, they did vote on the substantive issue of the economy — improving.
’60 – The missile gap. Nixon is a dofus.
’64 – Everything is awesome and getting better
’68 – Everything is fucked
’72 – Time magazine 10 days before election: “peace is at hand”
’76 – Ford pardoned Nixon (Main reason Carter won)
’80 – Iran took hostages and the economy sucks
’84 – basically the economy is great
With some time and effort, we could improve upon that list. Perhaps the better question is what presidential elections were based on substantive issues?
1932? (Great Depression) 1952? (Korean War) 1980? (inflation)
1980 — the US embassy hostages in Iran and “government is the problem.”
Sure what was labeled stagflation sounded pretty bad, but the reality was that those born before 1945 were doing fairly well. They had their houses, and if they still had a mortgage, the interest rate was low. Those a few years older than that had some tidy nest eggs and were doing well with those high interest rates. And larger employers were keeping up with inflation for employee wages. While falling a bit behind, the minimum wage was increased. Who it hurt were those that wanted to buy houses — the prices were escalating and the mortgage rates were ranging between 12 and 16%. Ronnie and Volker didn’t correct that.
1932 — was economically so bad, not Hoover was an easy sell.
1952 — “Ladies Like Ike” and don’t like “Korea, Communism, and Corruption”
1980 – Depends on your perspective. People that I worked with then were middle class professionals. Lot’s of talk about inflation, less about the hostages.
1952 – I was only 7. My first political encounter. Seems like everyone was boosting Ike. I said “My Dad’s voting for Stevenson” and got punched in the nose. This was in Illinois where Stevenson was Governor. It was a Republican suburb, however.
Truman did not run because he was unpopular. My understanding was the dominant issue was Korea, which Eisenhower said he would end.
That’s what I suggested in my first post.
Seriously:
’60 was about a mild recession, and fear of the Soviet Union heightened after Sputnik. MLK’s imprisonment in Atlanta also was an issue, which Theodore H White argues may have been decisive.
’64 The economy was very good, there was widespread support for the Great Society and Goldwater ran a terrible candidate outside of the political mainstream.
’68 – That would take several books. It was serious.
’72 – Nixon was ending the Vietnam War, had opened China, and had a decent domestic agenda. McGovern was a TERRIBLE candidate who had to withdraw his VP nomination.
’76 – Ford had pardoned Carter, but the economy was in recovery. In many ways the dominant theme in ’76 was the insider versus the outsider 2 years after Watergate.
’80 – The economy and Iran – both serious issues.
’84 – The economy – a serious issue.
’88 – kind of a nonsensical election about bullshit
’92 – The economy – a serious issue
’96 – The economy and a sense the GOP had gone too far right. Serious.
’00 – Things were pretty good, and I am not sure the differences were really as important in the election as they turned out to be in retrospect.
’04 – Iraq and the economy
’08 – The economy
McGovern missed an opportunity to educate people that depression is not irrationality and bring them out of the Dark Ages on mental health. He would have been hurt, no doubt, but not the kind of hurt that dumping his VP that he supported “one thousand per cent” did. That marked McGovern as untrustworthy. When you already have a Tricky Dickie that you know, why dump him for another Tricky Dickie that you don’t know?
Clinton was a corporatist but he ran as a populist. If he had run as a “me too”, GWHB would have had his second term.
Well, he made a crucial error in waiting until the convention when he finally secured enough delegates to then turn to the VP question. Should have quietly tasked a veteran staffer to put together some names, make some inquiries, do some vetting, in the weeks between the CA primary and the convention.
I guess Frank Manckiewicz wasn’t fully up to speed on the backstory of the 1960 JFK Veep pick at the last minute, under the gun of a suddenly-interested Lyndon Johnson and his people, that almost caused a party mutiny.
McGovern didn’t choose Eagleton in a vacuum. He asked several others to join the ticket — they declined either because they weren’t available or were busy nursing resentment that McGovern won the nomination. (Let’ also not forget that Jimmy Carter was active at the convention in the Stop McGovern effort.) Eagleton was the first one that said yes and nobody objected to.
Interestingly, Eagleton was one of the more decent, sane, and qualified VP nominees in the past sixty odd years.
How was McGovern supposed to do that when there wasn’t much consensus in psychiatric community at that time? Was there even one expert around that could have explained why ECT had been helpful and not harmful to Eagleton?
Personally, I view ECT as torture. There was enlightenment about depression even at that time. Today a candidate would just take pills and no one would think anything about it.
Medical establishments are always behind the curve. They represent orthodoxy. Sometimes that is good, like debunking charlatans, but they oppose any change like any orthodoxy.
Carefully pinpointed, very low level ECT is the most effective treatment for certain individuals with depression. If the current anti-depression drugs and talk therapies are so effective, why are we not seeing a reduction in the aggregate level of depression?
Note that the anti-depression meds used back then were at effective at treating depression as the current SSRIs, but there were more negative side effects. Eagleton likely received a far higher level of ECT than what would be done today. But it must have hit the right spots because he was only zapped three or four times and had a long and productive career in and out of government for many decades after that.
The kind of answer normally seen on Gooper sites. The mg issue paled in comparison to Religion — which cost Kennedy by some estimates 1.5 million votes.
And it wasn’t Nixon as doofus but Nixon the sweaty, shifty-eyed, nervous looking candidate people saw in the first debate. This was one time when viewers were right to wonder about the person within. Events would of course prove them right. Like LBJ, Nixon never should have been allowed near the WH.
’76: It was the Dems year in a post-Watergate/Nixon resignation era of reform and cleaning house. Ford and his running mate Mean Bob Dole nearly lost the election by themselves with their gaffe-prone debate performances. But for Jimmy not running a dynamic fall campaign — perception of a vague stance on some key issues, a too-limited EC strategy — Jerry might have pulled it out. He was gaining in the final weeks.
The missile gap was another lie, but as it probably helped JFK, liberals prefer to ignore that one.
Doubt if it was a lie, if you mean a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts in order to gain advantage by deception. As I recall, he was going by a study commissioned a few years earlier by the Ike admin showing just such a state of affairs. When he got into office, he had McNamara do an updated study which showed of course no such thing.
Probably a minor issue in the campaign at best, but probably offered in good faith, and paling significantly in comparison to the Religion issue and the poor Nixon initial debate performance.
Meanwhile, it almost seems like a few lefties here would have preferred a Nixon victory in ’60 …
Cite??
I seem to recall that he was given a briefing by someone in the Ike admin during the campaign, part of the usual nat’l security briefing given nominees, but his not unreasonable attitude was whether he could trust the info considering the source and the contradictory earlier admin-ordered study.
And again I would argue the number of voters he persuaded on that issue would be a very small fraction of those voting on Religion and on the debate performance. Almost certainly too a smaller number than the # of AAs he brought into his camp over his intervention to free MLK from jail.
all that serious in the first post.
That’s as succinct as it gets. Certainly how I remember it.
I believe that the term defamation refers to Trump’s original statement/defamation of the Mexicans as rapists and criminals. Apparently his supporters will now accept nothing less than naked bigotry in their candidates.
Popcorn futures coming up BIG!!
Godwin alert.
You know, if you dig back into German opinion pages of the mid-1930s I’m sure you can find a lot of conservative writers who were disturbed by some of the trends they saw in the party they had been supporting. When the Pandora-Crazy box is opened, you can’t close it. You may think you can control it and use it for your own purposes, but like that Star Trek episode, the crazy will take over you.
What a great post, Booman. I loved it.
I just can’t…
It would perhaps take thousands of words to parse the staggering mendacity, hypocrisy, and deliberate obfuscation of such a statement (and that’s not even to bring in JPod’s notorious history as one of the most deranged Israel-first warmongering neo-cons), but the upshot is that Podhoretz is in absolutely no position to say one word about the clownishness or disreputability of Trump.
A conservative in “despair” over the “unseriousness” of American politics?
Is this satire?
If Trump can figure out a way to win a national election with 27% of the vote, we’re in big trouble.