John Nolte released today his analysis of why the #NeverTrump movement has failed. As he is someone who has been staunchly opposed to the movement, his words obviously need to be taken with a grain of salt. Thus, I will do a line-by-line analysis of his main points and arguments.
First, Nolte points out that #NeverTrump seriously underestimated the man. I could not agree more with Nolte; I did not think Trump would last long enough in the race to become the butt of Stephen Colbert jokes. I believed that Trump’s propensity to insult groups of people every single day would torpedo his campaign within weeks (along with his ideological inconsistencies, superficial understanding of policies, and many other red flags). Nolte is right that perhaps Trump was written off too easily because of his celebrity stature, but I and nearly everyone else in the political universe (Ann Coulter, aside) merely believed that his rise would be a passing fad. We put too much faith in the American people’s ability to divorce fame from ability and presidential material.
Second, Nolte contends that we underestimated the impetus for change. This is not an unfair charge, but I figured the American people were hungry for less vitriolic politics, not vitriolic partisanship on steroids. Nolte is correct, to a point, that the average American is not ideological, but as decades of political science has shown (see Campbell, et. al, 1960 and Converse, 1964), they generally know enough to mimic an ideology (which is exactly what Trump is doing, only as an entertainer, he is better at fooling people). My assumption was that the primary electorate would be more ideological and consistent in their views than the average general election voter or Trump voter. At the very least, I assumed that those claiming to be pro-life and pro-family would not support someone who still thinks Planned Parenthood is great and is on his third trophy wife. Nolte might be correct that the voters want “change,” but it defies belief that Trump is what they would want if their concerns are about government incompetence, lost wages, and lost wars, since Trump has no understanding of government processes, ships jobs overseas in his own business and has no understanding of military theory or even basic laws of war.
His last subpoint on this topic is that Trump is a breath of fresh air with regards to so-called “political correctness.” Look, I understand the frustration with decades of politicians and academics sugarcoating everything they say so as not to offend people. But Trump and his supporters conflate being “not politically correct” with being vulgar and nasty for its own sake. The President of the United States should be a statesman who unites his people and does not declare a war on every individual in the media who criticizes them. Even the most vulgar presidents, Richard Nixon and LBJ, vented their frustrations at others in private rather than launch rants lasting months at someone who asked them a tough question. As for Trump’s supporters, their vitriol and vulgarity in the social media is unmatched (for evidence, just see who the people are who call their political opponents “cucks” and other vile terms that do not belong in civilized society). To me, “political correctness” is where someone sugarcoats what they are saying to such an extent as to obscure or even change the intent of their sentence, just so that they do not “trigger” or somehow engage in “microaggresion” that insults someone. Refusing to identify ISIS as being of Radical Islam would be an example of political correctness, but not using terms like “cuck” constitute basic decency that should be expected in our political discourse.
Third, Nolte notes how #NeverTrump “trashes Trump supporters” out of some sense of being elitist prats. I am not going to deny that this exists, but I will note how Nolte completely omits the vulgarity from Trump supporters that I have documented in previous paragraphs and how this originates from Trump, himself. And yes, I am guilty of some of this. Even though I come from a working class family (my father is a truck driver and my mom a teacher’s aide, I spent 10 years in a white trash neighborhood), I study politics for a living and am working towards becoming an academic. However, politics is my area of expertise and I will not apologize for lamenting the type of people Trump has brought in to the Republican Party- xenophobic racists fueled by anger and resentment. The Republican Party needed to expand its base, to be sure, but not with these people. Not with people who would support Hitler if he built a wall to keep people out and simultaneously believe that immigrants both drain our welfare system and steal their jobs. Not people who demand a strongman who operates on crass demagoguery by promising that the government will harm other people, rather than harm them, instead of promising to reduce the role of government in their lives. And certainly not people who obsess over a man’s divorce and project their own vile fantasies onto him. I do believe that the rise of Trump is a result of a strong nihilistic current of anti-intellectualism and anger that has enveloped the masses. Consequently, I will not return to the GOP until Trumpism is eradicated, since anger, fear, and anti-intellectualism should be scorned, not celebrated.
As an addendum, Nolte says that his one guiding principle is “defeating Democrats.” I find it incredibly cynical to believe that because one has a (D) next to their name that they are automatically unfit to hold office. That attitude, I believe is un-American, but now more than ever, I have doubts about the fitness of many Republicans to hold office. I do not believe Trump is qualified in any way, shape, or form to be President of the United States, and I will not cynically vote for him just because he happens to be a part of my (former) team. That is lazy and intellectually dishonest. Neither party has all the answers, but each party has some answers.
Fourth, Nolte disparages the attempts to “disenfranchise voters.” Again, this is not an unfair allegation, but I believe this election shows why we should have a mixed system where the voters do not get the entire say in the nominating process. Presidential nominations are party functions, not elections. Prior to the McGovern-Fraser reforms of the early 70’s, primaries were the exceptions, not the rule, and the parties generally picked solid candidates to run for our nation’s highest office (Adlai Stevenson and FDR’s GOP opponents, notwithstanding). No candidate that the old system produced, however, was anything like Trump. The party picked candidates who could win and who they could work with once in power. The old Republican Party would never have allowed someone like Trump to be the nominee.
Anyway, Nolte charges that the complex system of primaries, caucuses, and conventions is inherently discriminatory against “the people” because certain candidates can lose and yet gain more delegates to the convention. My answer to that is the system rewards candidates who take the process seriously and form the best campaign organization. And why should it not? General elections are often determined by the candidate with the strongest ground game and best organization. Another thing to consider is that the job Trump is seeking requires attention to detail. If he cannot get his own family to switch their party affiliation to vote for him in time, can we really expect him to be a competent manager of the economy or military? Ted Cruz, for all of his faults, ran a flawless campaign organization and deserved to win the delegates he did.
Point five, for Nolte, was “fuzzy math.” This is something that is easy to be a Monday-morning Quarterback about, but throughout the process, there was no reason to believe that Trump would gain support, unless you made the most negative assessment of Republican voter intelligence (which I, and others, probably should have made). And yes, I would happily have had a convention which anointed someone who did not even run (someone like Paul Ryan) because he could have defeated Clinton without turning the GOP into a fascist party and when the masses are wrong, they need to be corrected.
Nolte next disparages having Mitt Romney be the face of #NeverTrump. While I understand Nolte’s point that Romney has no constituency left, I do believe that he has shown more principle and resolve than the numerous figures who should have been leading it- Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and others could have led the movement but either embraced Trump or have slunk back into the shadows for the cowardly reason of abiding by a pointless “pledge.” We pleaded with Ben Sasse to take up the torch, but he refused. It is sad, however, that I now respect Lindsey Graham, Romney, and George Pataki more than Rubio and the others who are “voting for the nominee.” Times like these require hard, courageous choices and it is Romney and the other “RINOs” who made the tough, courageous choice not to endorse a fascist. Rubio’s support of Trump is far more important to me than the “Gang of Eight” effort. I thought with the Gang of Eight, Rubio was a courageous, visionary politician, but by endorsing Trump, he will buckle when the chips are down. Say what you want about Romney, but I respect him so much more now than I did in 2012 when I was knocking on doors on his behalf. I just wish he would launch an independent bid.
Nolte is right in his seventh point that a big problem for #NeverTrump was being against Trump, without being for someone. That is certainly the case after Rubio and Kasich dropped (at least in my case), but as Nolte can see, no one is stepping up to the plate and offering a real alternative to Clinton and Trump. And for what it’s worth, the GOP’s entire election strategy is getting people to oppose Hillary, rather than promoting Trump as being worthy of the Oval Office. By the way, I was willing to vote for Cruz, but it is ridiculous to think he would have any shot of defeating Clinton. Running up the score in Nebraska would not have helped him win Virginia, Florida, or Ohio. Further regarding Cruz, Nolte is way off-track by claiming that associating with #NeverTrump somehow “tarnished his outsider brand.” The only chance Cruz had was to unite the 60% of Republicans who did not support Trump, but his own record of burning bridges with everyone he ever worked with destroyed that chance.
Lastly, Nolte assumes that the “evil” of Clinton will erode #NeverTrump down to nothing and that we will all vote for Trump in the end. He could not be more wrong. I oppose Trump for reasons that transcend ideology and take on essentially moral dimensions. The presidency is not an office for a novice politician, nor is it an office for someone temperamental, thin-skinned, uninformed, unprincipled, untrustworthy, or unserious. Trump is all of these things, Clinton is only unprincipled and untrustworthy. Yes, I disagree with Clinton on most positions, but at least we know what her true positions actually are and we know that she will not provoke international incidents if someone insults her (to the contrary, Clinton is far better respected, internationally, than Trump is). Republicans can actually oppose her (ie: The Hamilton Rule) and I believe she will be more pragmatic, ultimately, than Obama was and will foster better relationships with Congress. Trump, on the other hand, is a clueless wildcard who could well end up being to Clinton’s left on most issues as president and has no redeeming features. He has gotten as far as he has by grandstanding and faking his way successfully enough to fool his gullible followers, but that will not work if he actually wins in November. The average day in a president’s life does not involve making speeches about building a wall, it is about making decisions most Americans will never learn about and are probably too technical for Trump to even bother caring about right now. Trump wants power without responsibilities, but the presidency is ultimately about overwhelming responsibilities without power (in many cases). Clinton understands this, and that is why I think she will be a far better president than Trump, even if I disagree with her on policy issues. Ultimately, however, the choices both parties have made have forced the American public to decide who will be the least-bad president. Clinton is the devil we know, but Trump is the unpredictable devil unworthy of being president.
The great stories of history and literature almost always lionize those who made the right decision, especially when the odds were stacked against them. Those who chose to make the lonely and difficult decision to go against the crowd when the crowd was wrong are remembered far more favorably than those who sacrificed their principles for an ephemeral gain (be it power, money, whatever). We salute Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill for steadfastly opposing Hitler even after the fall of France when Hitler looked invincible and deplore Marshall Petain for agreeing to be Hitler’s puppet out of expediency. We honor the patriots of the American Revolution and detest the Tories who remained loyal to the Crown. We have all but deified Abraham Lincoln and have all but forgotten Stephen Douglas, James Buchanan, George McClellan, and others who either supported slavery or hid behind the easy position of “popular sovereignty” over the issue. The 300 Spartans are immortalized forever because they did not surrender to Xerxes in the face of overwhelming odds. I believe we are currently in such a situation. Those of us who do not give in to Trump will be remembered for standing on principles (even the most basic principle that the president should not be a maniac), while Republicans embracing Trump will be remembered among history’s chumps. From the first days of school, we have always been taught to not go with the crowd when they are doing something wrong or stupid, but that is exactly what spineless Republican politicians are doing- they are sacrificing their principles and consciences in a vain attempt to gain power or to be seen as deferring to “the will of the people.” Some, certainly, will be vilified more heavily than others depending on the timing and fervor of their support (so Chris Christie endorsing Trump while he could still be defeated will make him more of a villain than, say, Marco Rubio mumbling about “keeping his word”), but it is people like Mitt Romney and Bill Kristol who will be the heroes for not backing down for the sake of power. Donald Trump poses an existential threat to this country the likes of which we have not seen before. Between his ignorance on policy, fascistic tendencies, and hardly-veiled disregard for the Constitution and the supremacy of law, the fallback excuses of “party loyalty,” “stopping Hillary,” and “saving the Supreme Court” are lamentable strawmen that abysmally fail to justify supporting Trump. Those who choose to support Trump will never be able to run from it and will be regarded in history as spineless cowards, hypocrites, or worse, and justifiably so. For the sake of the republic, Trump must be stopped and Republicans who embrace him (however reluctantly) have chosen the easy path of destruction over the narrow path of courage. I, however, will not. Even if I am the last conservative opposing Trump, I will never stop opposing him and thus will keep #NeverTrump alive as long as I have breath in my body.
First, Nolte points out that #NeverTrump seriously underestimated the man. I could not agree more with Nolte; I did not think Trump would last long enough in the race to become the butt of Stephen Colbert jokes. I believed that Trump’s propensity to insult groups of people every single day would torpedo his campaign within weeks (along with his ideological inconsistencies, superficial understanding of policies, and many other red flags). Nolte is right that perhaps Trump was written off too easily because of his celebrity stature, but I and nearly everyone else in the political universe (Ann Coulter, aside) merely believed that his rise would be a passing fad. We put too much faith in the American people’s ability to divorce fame from ability and presidential material.
Second, Nolte contends that we underestimated the impetus for change. This is not an unfair charge, but I figured the American people were hungry for less vitriolic politics, not vitriolic partisanship on steroids. Nolte is correct, to a point, that the average American is not ideological, but as decades of political science has shown (see Campbell, et. al, 1960 and Converse, 1964), they generally know enough to mimic an ideology (which is exactly what Trump is doing, only as an entertainer, he is better at fooling people). My assumption was that the primary electorate would be more ideological and consistent in their views than the average general election voter or Trump voter. At the very least, I assumed that those claiming to be pro-life and pro-family would not support someone who still thinks Planned Parenthood is great and is on his third trophy wife. Nolte might be correct that the voters want “change,” but it defies belief that Trump is what they would want if their concerns are about government incompetence, lost wages, and lost wars, since Trump has no understanding of government processes, ships jobs overseas in his own business and has no understanding of military theory or even basic laws of war.
His last subpoint on this topic is that Trump is a breath of fresh air with regards to so-called “political correctness.” Look, I understand the frustration with decades of politicians and academics sugarcoating everything they say so as not to offend people. But Trump and his supporters conflate being “not politically correct” with being vulgar and nasty for its own sake. The President of the United States should be a statesman who unites his people and does not declare a war on every individual in the media who criticizes them. Even the most vulgar presidents, Richard Nixon and LBJ, vented their frustrations at others in private rather than launch rants lasting months at someone who asked them a tough question. As for Trump’s supporters, their vitriol and vulgarity in the social media is unmatched (for evidence, just see who the people are who call their political opponents “cucks” and other vile terms that do not belong in civilized society). To me, “political correctness” is where someone sugarcoats what they are saying to such an extent as to obscure or even change the intent of their sentence, just so that they do not “trigger” or somehow engage in “microaggresion” that insults someone. Refusing to identify ISIS as being of Radical Islam would be an example of political correctness, but not using terms like “cuck” constitute basic decency that should be expected in our political discourse.
Third, Nolte notes how #NeverTrump “trashes Trump supporters” out of some sense of being elitist prats. I am not going to deny that this exists, but I will note how Nolte completely omits the vulgarity from Trump supporters that I have documented in previous paragraphs and how this originates from Trump, himself. And yes, I am guilty of some of this. Even though I come from a working class family (my father is a truck driver and my mom a teacher’s aide, I spent 10 years in a white trash neighborhood), I study politics for a living and am working towards becoming an academic. However, politics is my area of expertise and I will not apologize for lamenting the type of people Trump has brought in to the Republican Party- xenophobic racists fueled by anger and resentment. The Republican Party needed to expand its base, to be sure, but not with these people. Not with people who would support Hitler if he built a wall to keep people out and simultaneously believe that immigrants both drain our welfare system and steal their jobs. Not people who demand a strongman who operates on crass demagoguery by promising that the government will harm other people, rather than harm them, instead of promising to reduce the role of government in their lives. And certainly not people who obsess over a man’s divorce and project their own vile fantasies onto him. I do believe that the rise of Trump is a result of a strong nihilistic current of anti-intellectualism and anger that has enveloped the masses. Consequently, I will not return to the GOP until Trumpism is eradicated, since anger, fear, and anti-intellectualism should be scorned, not celebrated.
As an addendum, Nolte says that his one guiding principle is “defeating Democrats.” I find it incredibly cynical to believe that because one has a (D) next to their name that they are automatically unfit to hold office. That attitude, I believe is un-American, but now more than ever, I have doubts about the fitness of many Republicans to hold office. I do not believe Trump is qualified in any way, shape, or form to be President of the United States, and I will not cynically vote for him just because he happens to be a part of my (former) team. That is lazy and intellectually dishonest. Neither party has all the answers, but each party has some answers.
Fourth, Nolte disparages the attempts to “disenfranchise voters.” Again, this is not an unfair allegation, but I believe this election shows why we should have a mixed system where the voters do not get the entire say in the nominating process. Presidential nominations are party functions, not elections. Prior to the McGovern-Fraser reforms of the early 70’s, primaries were the exceptions, not the rule, and the parties generally picked solid candidates to run for our nation’s highest office (Adlai Stevenson and FDR’s GOP opponents, notwithstanding). No candidate that the old system produced, however, was anything like Trump. The party picked candidates who could win and who they could work with once in power. The old Republican Party would never have allowed someone like Trump to be the nominee.
Anyway, Nolte charges that the complex system of primaries, caucuses, and conventions is inherently discriminatory against “the people” because certain candidates can lose and yet gain more delegates to the convention. My answer to that is the system rewards candidates who take the process seriously and form the best campaign organization. And why should it not? General elections are often determined by the candidate with the strongest ground game and best organization. Another thing to consider is that the job Trump is seeking requires attention to detail. If he cannot get his own family to switch their party affiliation to vote for him in time, can we really expect him to be a competent manager of the economy or military? Ted Cruz, for all of his faults, ran a flawless campaign organization and deserved to win the delegates he did.
Point five, for Nolte, was “fuzzy math.” This is something that is easy to be a Monday-morning Quarterback about, but throughout the process, there was no reason to believe that Trump would gain support, unless you made the most negative assessment of Republican voter intelligence (which I, and others, probably should have made). And yes, I would happily have had a convention which anointed someone who did not even run (someone like Paul Ryan) because he could have defeated Clinton without turning the GOP into a fascist party and when the masses are wrong, they need to be corrected.
Nolte next disparages having Mitt Romney be the face of #NeverTrump. While I understand Nolte’s point that Romney has no constituency left, I do believe that he has shown more principle and resolve than the numerous figures who should have been leading it- Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and others could have led the movement but either embraced Trump or have slunk back into the shadows for the cowardly reason of abiding by a pointless “pledge.” We pleaded with Ben Sasse to take up the torch, but he refused. It is sad, however, that I now respect Lindsey Graham, Romney, and George Pataki more than Rubio and the others who are “voting for the nominee.” Times like these require hard, courageous choices and it is Romney and the other “RINOs” who made the tough, courageous choice not to endorse a fascist. Rubio’s support of Trump is far more important to me than the “Gang of Eight” effort. I thought with the Gang of Eight, Rubio was a courageous, visionary politician, but by endorsing Trump, he will buckle when the chips are down. Say what you want about Romney, but I respect him so much more now than I did in 2012 when I was knocking on doors on his behalf. I just wish he would launch an independent bid.
Nolte is right in his seventh point that a big problem for #NeverTrump was being against Trump, without being for someone. That is certainly the case after Rubio and Kasich dropped (at least in my case), but as Nolte can see, no one is stepping up to the plate and offering a real alternative to Clinton and Trump. And for what it’s worth, the GOP’s entire election strategy is getting people to oppose Hillary, rather than promoting Trump as being worthy of the Oval Office. By the way, I was willing to vote for Cruz, but it is ridiculous to think he would have any shot of defeating Clinton. Running up the score in Nebraska would not have helped him win Virginia, Florida, or Ohio. Further regarding Cruz, Nolte is way off-track by claiming that associating with #NeverTrump somehow “tarnished his outsider brand.” The only chance Cruz had was to unite the 60% of Republicans who did not support Trump, but his own record of burning bridges with everyone he ever worked with destroyed that chance.
Lastly, Nolte assumes that the “evil” of Clinton will erode #NeverTrump down to nothing and that we will all vote for Trump in the end. He could not be more wrong. I oppose Trump for reasons that transcend ideology and take on essentially moral dimensions. The presidency is not an office for a novice politician, nor is it an office for someone temperamental, thin-skinned, uninformed, unprincipled, untrustworthy, or unserious. Trump is all of these things, Clinton is only unprincipled and untrustworthy. Yes, I disagree with Clinton on most positions, but at least we know what her true positions actually are and we know that she will not provoke international incidents if someone insults her (to the contrary, Clinton is far better respected, internationally, than Trump is). Republicans can actually oppose her (ie: The Hamilton Rule) and I believe she will be more pragmatic, ultimately, than Obama was and will foster better relationships with Congress. Trump, on the other hand, is a clueless wildcard who could well end up being to Clinton’s left on most issues as president and has no redeeming features. He has gotten as far as he has by grandstanding and faking his way successfully enough to fool his gullible followers, but that will not work if he actually wins in November. The average day in a president’s life does not involve making speeches about building a wall, it is about making decisions most Americans will never learn about and are probably too technical for Trump to even bother caring about right now. Trump wants power without responsibilities, but the presidency is ultimately about overwhelming responsibilities without power (in many cases). Clinton understands this, and that is why I think she will be a far better president than Trump, even if I disagree with her on policy issues. Ultimately, however, the choices both parties have made have forced the American public to decide who will be the least-bad president. Clinton is the devil we know, but Trump is the unpredictable devil unworthy of being president.
The great stories of history and literature almost always lionize those who made the right decision, especially when the odds were stacked against them. Those who chose to make the lonely and difficult decision to go against the crowd when the crowd was wrong are remembered far more favorably than those who sacrificed their principles for an ephemeral gain (be it power, money, whatever). We salute Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill for steadfastly opposing Hitler even after the fall of France when Hitler looked invincible and deplore Marshall Petain for agreeing to be Hitler’s puppet out of expediency. We honor the patriots of the American Revolution and detest the Tories who remained loyal to the Crown. We have all but deified Abraham Lincoln and have all but forgotten Stephen Douglas, James Buchanan, George McClellan, and others who either supported slavery or hid behind the easy position of “popular sovereignty” over the issue. The 300 Spartans are immortalized forever because they did not surrender to Xerxes in the face of overwhelming odds. I believe we are currently in such a situation. Those of us who do not give in to Trump will be remembered for standing on principles (even the most basic principle that the president should not be a maniac), while Republicans embracing Trump will be remembered among history’s chumps. From the first days of school, we have always been taught to not go with the crowd when they are doing something wrong or stupid, but that is exactly what spineless Republican politicians are doing- they are sacrificing their principles and consciences in a vain attempt to gain power or to be seen as deferring to “the will of the people.” Some, certainly, will be vilified more heavily than others depending on the timing and fervor of their support (so Chris Christie endorsing Trump while he could still be defeated will make him more of a villain than, say, Marco Rubio mumbling about “keeping his word”), but it is people like Mitt Romney and Bill Kristol who will be the heroes for not backing down for the sake of power. Donald Trump poses an existential threat to this country the likes of which we have not seen before. Between his ignorance on policy, fascistic tendencies, and hardly-veiled disregard for the Constitution and the supremacy of law, the fallback excuses of “party loyalty,” “stopping Hillary,” and “saving the Supreme Court” are lamentable strawmen that abysmally fail to justify supporting Trump. Those who choose to support Trump will never be able to run from it and will be regarded in history as spineless cowards, hypocrites, or worse, and justifiably so. For the sake of the republic, Trump must be stopped and Republicans who embrace him (however reluctantly) have chosen the easy path of destruction over the narrow path of courage. I, however, will not. Even if I am the last conservative opposing Trump, I will never stop opposing him and thus will keep #NeverTrump alive as long as I have breath in my body.