NeverTrump was a loose term for lots of different Republican apostates. First, were a small cadre of self-described conservatives and doctrinaire Republicans, who under no circumstances would have ever voted for Trump or embraced his agenda, or in some extreme cases, ever voted for any who would vote Trump.
So there are gradations of NeverTrumpers. But mostly the general pique comes down to cultural, comportment, class—and often careerist—concerns, rather than policies per se. After the election, we can now see better the contours of who and what these NeverTrump cliques were.
The Hardcore
Give the hardcore tiny credit for consistency: they hated candidate Trump. They swore that he would never be nominated, never be elected, never finish his term, and never be reelected. Since 2015 most of their lives have been consumed by joining everyone from the Anonymous nonentity to the Mooch in damning Trump.
A few claimed that they still remained conservative, but their venom prompted them to oppose almost all Republican Senators and House members for their apostasy of Trump support. Some claim they want names of Trumpers as if they are Stalinist prosecutors. In fact, they are akin to nerds in high school who snooted about the people on their no-invite lists for parties none of those people wanted to attend, anyway.
They did not just vote against Trump, but voted enthusiastically for Biden and raised many millions for their affiliated firms and friends to work toward his victory. A few have now become unapologetic liberal Democrats, or perhaps returned to their earlier selves. How strange that in their fury against a purported racist, corrupt, and mentally enfeebled Trump, they voted for a race-jabbering, segregationist-praising careerist, of a corrupt family syndicate, and someone who would likely flunk the much-ballyhooed Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test.
But again, many insist they are still Republicans. In narcissistic fashion, these activists, lobbyists, consultants, pundits, grifters, and ex-politicians envision a Phoenix scenario, with themselves of course at the center of the rebirth.
In the ashes of a Trump defeat, the Republican NeverTrump Phoenix bird of prey would arise with a new doctrinaire creed under sober and judicious leadership—maybe someone like a younger Romney, a wonkish clone of Paul Ryan, a rebranded and reenergized Jeb Bush—or a MAGA-veneered, reverse-engineered Marco Rubio or Nikki Haley, who now claims to be suspicious of China or wants fair rather than just free trade.
More likely, they believe that the Trump agenda could be repudiated and replaced with a new NeverTrump “contract with America”—détente with China, an end to the Israel-Arab alliance with the Palestinians again funded by the United States at the center of all negotiations; NAFTA resurrected; the wall torn down and borders again porous, along with blanket amnesties; an end to presidential jawboning about outsourcing and offshoring; more moderate judges than polarizing jurists like Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
The NeverTrumpers likely never envisioned themselves in their fading moments as orphaned grifters begging for left-wing cash to play the role of useful idiots—only to be cast off by their paymasters after their inept roles have been played out—which is now their immediate fate. Yet they were never able to capture any popular constituency, largely because of their incoherence. Trump received 93 percent Republican support in some 2020 exit polls—increasing in party support the more Republican gatekeepers damned him.
Now Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is demanding to see the figures on Lincoln Project effectiveness and, in good socialist fashion, wants the bunch to hand over their cash on hand to more deserving leftists. Almost on spec, just hours after the election ended, the NeverTrumpers were derided by the Left as impotent scam artists, and undeserving suctions of left-wing money.
Why exactly did they oppose all the agendas that Trump enacted that they had once sworn were their own—originalist justices, deregulation, global warming skepticism, pro-growth trade and tax reform, a beefed-up military, a pro-Israel, anti-Iran Middle East policy, more gas and oil development?
Apparently to endorse the reification of their lifelong agendas was to concede that an unwelcome agent had skills beyond their own to push through the laws of their dreams. To paraphrase Cicero, they would rather Trump fail with their own agendas failing with him, than see him succeed enacting all that they had once demanded.
They cited Trump’s pre-White House crudity and uncouthness, but without any historical context whether such assumed pathologies emulated or exceeded those of a sitting president Roosevelt, Truman, JFK, LBJ, or Bill Clinton, or were the artifacts of the tell-all age of the Internet and social media, or the hyped dividend of a 93 percent negative media.
NeverTrumpers had no recollection that their current allies in the media once damned George W. Bush as a recovering alcoholic and Texas frat boy, who with his cabinet officers had “no-blood-for-oil” stains on their hands as would Nazi-like criminals. They turned John McCain into a supposedly adulterous conniver, and redefined him as near-senile who could not remember how many houses he had leveraged in his second marriage by leaving his wife to court a young rich heiress.
They reduced Mitt Romney into a teenage snot-nosed hazer, a vulture capitalist, an animal torturer, a callous rich kid who had grown up with an elevator in his house, who shunned even a simple word of his kindness to his garbage collector.
Nor could hard-core NeverTrumpers ever explain how their own brilliance and insight were going to recapture the lost 6-10 million working-class voters of the Midwest, or to increase black support to 12 percent or Latinos to 35 percent or to win over seniors who did not wish to have their Social Security pensions privatized, or how those whom they mocked and smeared would welcome them back as saviors. Instead, we are left with the “racist” Trump getting support from more minorities than any other Republican since the pre-civil Rights movement.
NeverTrump Realists
A second, saner group of NeverTrump realists was also more polished and practical, and avoided both the crudity and the apostasy of the unhinged Lincoln bunch. They, of course, secretly hoped that the Democrats’ constant melodramas of the past four years might rid them of Trump. So they kept mostly mum during the Russian collusion fraud, the Mueller hoax, the 25th Amendment joke, or the whistleblower Ukraine set-up. In their world, the crime was not so much fabricating a Russian collusion narrative, as Trump complaining that his wires were “tapped”—the former was a lie, the latter true, given the surveillance of his national security advisor and campaign aides.
But all the same, they cheered on the good judicial appointments and were outraged at the Democrats’ treatment of Kavanaugh and Barrett. By threading the needle, they never would give Trump much credit for either being in the position of a Republican president to appoint such stellar justices or refusing to repeat the error of appointing a John Paul Stevens, Harry Blackmun, or David Souter.
They praised the Middle East breakthrough, the exits from the Iran deal and the Paris Climate accord, but felt they were marred by Trump’s braggadocio or merely spontaneously generated without Trump’s parentage.
They clapped for record-low minority unemployment, and conceded that the Trump recovery boom was historic, but seldom to the extent they connected cause and effect. They faulted Trump for his “sloppy” rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic, the quarantine lockdown, and the rioting and looting, but otherwise offered no alternative policies that might have produced better results.
They cheered Trump’s singular effort to champion religious liberty and to protect the unborn, but from the sidelines and without having to lend their overt support to his messy thankless efforts to enact their lifelong agendas. Others more deplorable and irredeemable might do that.
They see occasional bouts of advantage with Trump, but are happy to cut him loose when they feel his utility has now ended. They envision a failed Biden presidency, and hope for a Republican and obstructionist Senate that by 2024 can show the pathway to a more mannered Republican nominee. When Biden begins to issue his left-wing executive orders and a billion dollars soon pours into the Georgia races from Bloomberg, Steyer, and Soros affiliates, few will listen to the NeverTrump light gnashing of teeth.
But like the hardcore, the realists have no plan for how to keep MAGA stalwarts in the party. They have no real idea how or why Trump won more minority support. They don’t buy into fair trade rather than “free trade.” And they are OK with some, but not massive, illegal immigration, with jawboning, but not tariffing, China, with encouraging, but not hectoring, industries to stay in the heartland.
They were indifferent to Robert Mueller, impeachment, and the current voting mess—calibrating their views on whether Trump implosion would or would not hurt their own Republican agendas. At best, they would say they found Trump at times useful in the “calling balls and strikes” sense, without accepting that a viable president who rams through agendas one feels are central to the republic needs support in extremis and when it is unpopular to offer it.
NeverTrump Trumpers
Finally, there were a third group of quasi-NeverTrumpers who likely voted for Trump. They saw the world in more pragmatic terms of 51 percent advantage when they collated his deficits and assets. At times, they were amused that Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop energy could be directed in the right direction.
But they were “ambiguous” about Trump. If he got himself in trouble with sloppy talk that won him a Bob Mueller investigation, or mishandled the whistleblower gambit and thus earned a railroaded impeachment, or found himself in the present fix of losing an election to possible voter fraud—well, then, he was damned well on his own, and should have known the eventual wages of his trash talking.
When they wrote reluctant endorsements for him, they usually spent three-quarters of their essays throat-clearing by first listing the various crudities, their own past renunciations of Trump, and the pervasive callousness of Trump before finishing the last quarter of their op-eds with a reluctant “he’s better than the alternative right now.”
They were happy that Trump made good judicial appointments, but were not ready to concede that no other Republican in 2016 would likely have been in such a position of power to have made any; or, if they had been, would have made such good ones. They saw themselves as sort of free riders, to board and depart the Trump train, depending on whether his accomplishments in any given week outweighed his tweets.
So the NeverTrump Trumpers are not the hardcore, who actively worked to destroy Trumpism as payback for their own inert careers. They are not realist NeverTrumpers who see advantage in Trump’s anti-Left animus but never so much as to vote for or condone it.
The NeverTrump Trumpers liked almost everything about the actual Trump record, indeed more so than anything the two Bushes accomplished. But they feel they are under no compulsion to defend the agenda’s author. Somehow they believe that better, kinder, and more gentler surrogates will pursue many of Trump’s policies, equally blast them through, and rally the troops in the arena—but can do all that in the fashion of a Ronald Reagan II: a happy warrior who would never joke of civic unrest about getting the bloodbath over with, or dreaming that forced free food handouts to the poor might be infected with botulism, or recklessly on a hot mic jesting about bombing Russia.
Gratitude
And the pro-Trumpers? It was simply a question of whether the livelihoods of the middle classes were better off before or after Trump, whether the Middle East and Israel in particular will be safer now or before Trump, whether the U.S. economy was better or worse for Trump’s efforts, and whether the progressive cultural agenda is stronger or weaker for his presence. Perhaps bad men can do a few good things, but they cannot do a lot of good things. And Trump did a lot more good for the country than had prior supposedly good presidents.
Oh, and they saw Trump the target as a strange illuminator of those targeting him, as the public finally grasped the toxic nature of the mainstream media, the Washington political establishment, and the bureaucratic elite at the FBI, CIA, and Justice Department.
In the end, most Trumpers appreciated that Trump took risks to enact a populist agenda that could save conservatism from its theorists and unite the formerly suspicious of different backgrounds and races, in a common belief in an America worth conserving.
Or maybe it was simply the ancient idea that the cinematic Pike Bishop reminded his crew of deplorables in “The Wild Bunch”: “When you side with a man you stay with him. If you can’t do that, you’re like some animal! You’re finished! We’re finished! All of us!”
“And Trump did a lot more good for the country than had prior supposedly good presidents.”
No, he didn’t. He and his family engaged in constant grift and corruption. He violated norms repeatedly. He lied constantly. He separated kids from their families. He cheated on his taxes (which he refused to show). He laundered money and would not show his financials. He encouraged white supremacy over and over. He encouraged autocrats and dictators (particularly Putin) around the globe. Like them, he threatened to jail political opponents. He pardoned felons who supported him. He endorsed nearly every conspiracy theory. He insulted our allies. He did nothing about climate change except make it worse. He never produced any alleged ACA alternative while litigating to end it. He never did any infrastructure work, much less a plan. He denied the threat of COVID and thousands died. When the economy collapsed, he just wanted everyone back to work at the risk of their health. No problem for him; he could have a team of 10 doctors and a private floor at Walter Reed where he received drugs not available to the rest of us. He falsely promised a vaccine. He encouraged bogus cures. He completely failed on race relations. He never even completed his damned wall. And Mexico did not pay for what he did complete. He debased the office of the Presidency. And now, he does not even have the grace to concede his loss to Biden. What a loser!
Foam and spittle, down on all fours, baying at the moon, empty-headed ranting.
One colossal fat-free lunatic assertion succeeding another like tracer bullets.
You are truly terrified of a recount.
Poor baby.
Your point is well taken. An honest election count — and the methods used to derive it — must be able to withstand public audit and public scrutiny. The desire for a quick wrap to this election suggests that many feel it cannot.
If for no other reason than what the American Left sportingly refers to as ‘fair play,’ Mr. Trump should be provided at least the same amount of time to work through the election questions as was given Mr. Gore in 2020.
I’m nominating your post for a Pulitzer.
Easy to tell from where he gets his news
Typical Hollywood idiot…enough said
The moniker “Hollywood “ tells us all we need to know.
You wanna know who is terrified? It’s Team Trump. Losers all. https://digbysblog.net/2020/11/the-losers-have-a-plan/
hollywood is down on all fours, that’s for sure. He’s the catcher, and the media is the pitcher.
Wow, have you run out of your medication?
1) you have no proof or evidence so you opening line is fake and a lie.
2) he continued obama’s policy on kids….did you scream bloody murder then.
3) no, he used loopholes like all good honest Americans including all your sainted Dem libs
4) WS…Lie
5) Dictators like Putin….you really need to get out more and read other than CNN/MSBNC
6) Like our “allies” have always been so straight and kind to the US….coughcoughbscough
7) ACA failed, own it, get rid of it, then try something else.
8) Dem govs and mayors are the ones killing folks from the CHINA FLU
9) The rest of your crap is all lies and stupidity
10) And why should he concede why bitchery herself was saying never concede.
They have now found the algorithm used to change votes in a second computer tabulation system. First one was in Antrim, MI, second one found in Fulton Cty GA. Sydney Powell knew of these programs developed by the CIA (the software that flips votes as much as a 3% difference – low enough threshold to avoid detection). Software program is called The Hammer, application it runs on is called Scorecard. Suspected these alterations are in many, many of these Dominion voting systems. A company which, btw, have Nancy Pelosi’s former chief of staff as a senior executive and Diane Feinstein’s husband as a primary investor.
Anyone on this site who wants to help fight this please do two things. First, go to GiveSendGo, the Christian crowdfunding platform. You can Google GiveSendGo – voter fraud project. It is funding a massive effort to buy voting data by state and cross check the rolls against the Social Security roster of deaths, and the national Change of Address listing. So please either give to this and/or spread the work to friends, compatriots and EVERY relevant comment thread you participate in today.
THANK you.
Do you actually have a job, or do you spend all day sitting around dreaming up this kind of stuff? Do you need a good stiff reality check brother.
Forget to take your meds again? My God your delusional. You are talking about the ever corrupt, ever racist and sell out America Biden and his hoe Kamala – not Trump.
But, continue onward into your land of leftist illusion, confusion, lies and chicanery – you obviously love living in a land where trust is not to be found nary anywhere – fool.
What a liar you are, hollywood. Nothing you wrote is accurate. But of course you know that. You are a Hillary Clinton supporter who, like Hillary, do not have enough sense to move beyond your hatred. I would call you hollywood hillary. You both are pure evile.
Hate is not a family value & delusion is no way to go through life.
Scared of our checking your “election” numbers? Crying much, now that Trumps virus inoculation was announced and China Joe can’t claim it? Ready for that giant tax increase? BOHICA, you little shaking like a leaf weirdo.
Dear hollywood, you should immediately search for professional help to cure you feet. Your head is far beyond hope
Reads like a DNC fortune cookie. The only thing you didn’t mention was Charlottesville. Loser
If you are successful, your vote won’t be needed anymore. They won’t have to care what you think ever again. You won’t matter.
Hollywood? That says it all. Back to your cesspool little one.
Speaking of cesspools, let’s look at one of your “witnesses.” https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/11/09/man-featured-at-giuliani-press-conference-is-a-sex-offender-1335241
You are a liar blinded by hate. Oh, did your fave programs not get the attention they deserve? Tough. You make generalized accusations – he cheated on his taxes! Yeah, ’cause the IRS is helpless without your intervention. You claim he “encouraged white supremacy,” which of course explains his growing support with blacks and Latinos. Goodness gracious, seems your analysis is just flat wrong. Which may explain why Hollywood and the entertainment industry is held in such low regard right now. Go sniff some coke, genius.
You are a poster child of ignorance and foolishness. A mindless parrot who likely has never had an original thought of your own.
And you are joined by legions of likeminded sloths, unprepared for what lies ahead.
BS
“He cheated on his taxes, which he refused to show,” Then how do you know he cheated?
Because the Times got some 20 years of returns and exposed how very very little Trump paid.
I don’t you like him
Hollywood, Your comments are not deserving of a serious response. It’s no more than a rant from an imbalanced, unreasonable and disingenuous individual. Shame on you.
Why won’t the GSA do its job? https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/08/general-services-administration-biden-win-435203 Help the transition happen. I’m thinking somebody needs to be fired.
“Help the the transition”? Biden has not been elected yet.
You are pissing your pants raving while the votes are being recounted
Not a good look.
Washington DC went 97% for slow joe. any guess where most federal government employees live?
Biden is the President-Elect. Your conspiracy theories are not going to fly. https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/trump-world-clings-to-conspiracy-theory-by-from-hoax-artist-that-secret-supercomputer-changed-votes/
Nope.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/trumps-white-house-transition-staffer-is-refusing-sign-documents-to-hand-over-power-report/
There is no basis for your nonsense. https://www.newsguardtech.com/election-misinformation-tracker/
Reply
I’m thinking that someone needs a job…and needs to quit trolling comment sections where thoughtful, non Kool-Aid drinkers discuss serious topics seriously.
I’m sure they will get to it along the same timeline they used for GW Bush in 2000.
TRUE THE VOTE!
Nanette,
If you are confused by news developments announcing results of the 2020 presidential election, you are not alone.
The media has declared a victor, yet votes are still being counted in key battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and many ballots remain unaccounted for or are not yet validated. Right now, there is significant tangible evidence of fraud, counting illegal ballots, dead people voting, and system failures – potentially enough to sway the legitimate results of the election battleground states.
We launched Validate the Vote to ensure 2020 election returns reflect the principle of “One vote for one voter” and to repair our broken elections once and for all. This initiative focuses on investigating vote irregularities, pursuing every legal avenue, seeking a fair and impartial judicial decision, and restoring confidence in our American election process so that people around the world can again look to our nation as a shining example of free and fair elections.
Validate the Vote aims to uphold the constitutional rights of every voter and expose, fight, and remedy fraud where it has occurred – this is the very purpose of why True the Vote exists. Now is the time our actions matter most. The legitimacy of our leaders, the ability to govern, and the preservation of our election system are at stake.
That’s why we created a whistleblower fund of over $1,000,000 available to support those who come forward with credible evidence of criminal malfeasance. We’ve received thousands of reports from patriots around the country through our Election Integrity Hotline. If you or someone you know has witnessed election fraud, manipulation, or illegal activity, please report it on our website or call 855-702-0702.
All credible claims are being reviewed. Additionally, our data and legal teams are reviewing findings and evaluating legal options. What are we discovering? Facts like these….
In just the top 10 counties in Pennsylvania, there are over 265,000 registered voters with addresses that the U.S. Post Office doesn’t even recognize. That’s a lot of questionable mail ballots! How many voted? We don’t know yet, because Pennsylvania is still counting….
Our infomercial, “The Most Important Video of the 2020 Election,” released in September, warns of the vast security gaps in election laws and processes, and details the very path of the destruction of free and fair elections playing out right now.
WATCH
True the Vote will remain at the forefront of investigating this process and ensuring this scenario is never allowed to happen again. We will keep working to verify that every legally cast vote counts and every illegally cast vote does not. We will keep providing resources for those on the front lines during the extended ballot counting process to document and report any illegal or unethical activity with the confidence that these issues will be pursued by every available legal channel.
If you have ever thought about donating to the cause of election integrity, now is the time! We need your help!
FUND OUR FIGHT
If our elections are not truly fair, we are not truly free. Stay strong – this is far from over!
Onward!
True The Vote Logo
Catherine Engelbrecht
Founder, True the Vote
P.S. Make no mistake – this is far from over. The following is a timeline of key dates surrounding this contested election:
Dec. 8: “Safe Harbor” – date by which states must certify results and assign electors. If an election is in dispute, state legislatures may assign electors.
Dec. 14: Electors meet in their states to cast votes for the president and VP.
Jan. 3: New Congress is sworn in; 117th session starts.
Jan. 6: Electoral votes are counted in House chamber by members of House and Senate; if neither candidate has 270 electoral college votes, the election is in dispute.
Jan. 20: Inauguration Day – new president takes oath of office. In a disputed election, the House will appoint the president and Senate will choose the VP.
A powerful essay by America’s foremost political essayist.
Andrea Widburg at American Thinker titled “It’s possible that 2020’s election fraud is way bigger than we thought”, concerning the years-old strategy laid by Obama’s minions to steal future elections, which they undoubtedly accomplished in 2018, depriving Americans of yet another free and fair election. I strongly recommend people read that piece, albeit filled with techie jargon.
This fiasco highlights the lack of any Free Press in this country. If that is indeed a pillar of of any free society, American Press is guilty of censorship and failure to uphold its constitutional duty. Therefore, what passes for “The Press” ought to lose any protections it now possesses as it has turned against the American people. It’s also curious that election security is not considered an essential element of “national security” and was handed over to foreign corporations with connections to the very people funding BLM/Antifa and working overtime to destabilize society? Hmmm, where were the Republicans when Scytl was taking over election operations with its machines? Why no “conservative” media stories about Paul Allen and Vulcan Capital’s investment in a foreign company with ties to Gyorgy Schwartz and Democrat-aligned organizations? Why are we just now being informed of this?
That any Republican anywhere believes that Mitt Romney (of all people) has any future as a “Republican” demonstrates the widespread senility and fossilization which comes from perpetual incumbencies in that party. I hate the Republican Party, just not as much as the Democrat Party, but neither one should survive this election. Americans need a vehicle to ensure widespread protection of their future, rights and property, not elites. Republicans have assumed the Whig mantle, and we need the next party iteration to render it extinct, but before that occurs, Democrats must be eliminated from the public sphere forever. They must never be allowed to slate candidates for any elections, whether federal, state or local.
excellent commentary! Especially the last 5 sentences.
They have now found the algorithm used to change votes in a second computer tabulation system. First one was in Antrim, MI, second one found in Fulton Cty GA. Sydney Powell knew of these programs developed by the CIA (the software that flips votes as much as a 3% difference – low enough threshold to avoid detection). Software program is called The Hammer, application it runs on is called Scorecard. Suspected these alterations are in many, many of these Dominion voting systems. A company which, btw, have Nancy Pelosi’s former chief of staff as a senior executive and Diane Feinstein’s husband as a primary investor.
Anyone on this site who wants to help fight this please do two things. First, go to GiveSendGo, the Christian crowdfunding platform. You can Google GiveSendGo – voter fraud project. It is funding a massive effort to buy voting data by state and cross check the rolls against the Social Security roster of deaths, and the national Change of Address listing. So please either give to this and/or spread the work to friends, compatriots and EVERY relevant comment thread you participate in today.
THANK you.
There is no credible evidence to support the false claims being made by the GOP and Trump. None. The result of your undying loyalty to a wannabe autocrat will be the collapse of the Republican Party. Sad! https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/06/the-election-that-broke-the-republican-party-434797
There’s also no credible evidence that you don’t live in your parents’ basement or that you are not involuntarily celibate.
The most amazing thing about useful idiots–despite an avalanche of historical documentation–is that they never seem to realize what inevitably happens when they are no longer useful.
Well said.
I said that too. Their votes won’t matter anymore either.
Yes, here the useful idiots are the likes of Graham, Cruz, McCarthy. I notice the Turtle isn’t sticking his neck out yet.
Thank God for Mr. Hanson. Now that there are no news media outlets to trust, reading will thankfully become more necessary. And to that reading, letters should be written. Please! Carry on Mr. Hanson, even though I will miss listening to you on television. I hope you will consider a few radio stations.
Another “Spot on”, “Nailed it” article by the inestimable master of taking complexities difficult enough ..,”to cross a rabbi’s eyes.” Victor Davis Hanson.
It is always a pleasure to read him and Conrad Black; when I grow up I want to be them! LOL
Bill Kristol should be lynched from a street sign.
I’ll buy the rope.
Hanson (and Conrad Black, along with Trump’s other apologists) remain complete, blind fools.
POTUS#45 will be remembered as the least qualified president of the 20th & early 21st centuries … a deluded psychopath born into wealth who possessed only one undeniable skill: shameless self-promotion and some undeniable talent playing a “businessman” on a reality TV show. He has spent a lifetime betraying the trust of his numerous ex-wives, financiers and business partners. Does anyone honestly think any Fortune 500 company would have hired Donald J Trump as CEO to save their moribund airline operations, or sports league or whatever? Be serious! Trump’s proven lack of ability and personal untrustworthiness mean he could be a “businessman” in only one capability, namely, as the anointed heir a family business.
Trump of course had no relevant experience whatsoever in the area of politics or public service, or any kind of understanding of the American political system. Even worse, he was almost comically lacking in self-awareness of his limitations.
As for the man’s so called “achievements” as president, the noteworthy ones were all shepherded by Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and other professional Republican operatives. Hence they bear little resemblance to the heterodox economic populism that were promoted by the candidate himself in 2016. The unfulfilled objectives such as scaling back a bigger part of Obamacare, completing more of “the Wall” or a large infrastructure project to win over non-ideological blue collar workers are due to Donald’s dithering and lack of competence building a political coalition in Congress. The remaining bits — culture war stuff for Christian evangelicals, tax cuts for rich, deregulation for big business, rude tweets to own the libs — were of course loved by the party faithful. But they had nothing in common with the pragmatic deal-making Mr.Fix It stuff that piqued the interest of weak Republicans and moderates in 2016.
Republicans should be kicking themselves for choosing an incompetent charlatan like that, four years ago. Even in early 2016 Trump was performing worse against Hillary in the early general election polls than the other major contenders such as Rubio, Kasich, Cruz and even JEB! Given the political condition at the time, there is little doubt e.g. Marco Rubio could not have won the popular vote and a bigger share of the electoral vote than Trump did. A normally competent Republican would surely have accomplished more. This includes handling the Coronavirus: if Pence had been president, he would have seized the opportunity much like Johnson did in the U.K. or Morrison did in Australia. Instead, the GOP got a one term president who had the lowest job approval and worst favorability ratings of a year one president in ages. And deservedly so: Trump’s management of his own reelection campaign was inept like anything else he has done.
It will be interesting to see what readers of American Greatness will be thinking, five years from now. I think even these folks will eventually realize they could have achieved far more if only GOP primary voters had been smart enough to choose a less flawed vessel for the party’s dreams.
Amen to this.
Haha – that’s why he had a large increase in 2020 voters. Your snively screed is repudiated.
Why are we pretending Trump lost? Stop feeding into the fake narrative because you don’t want to loose your fox job
Just in: Traitor Esper goooooooooooooooone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! = Ton of briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
An excellent indictment of the Never-Trumpers, but to what end? They have succeeded, apparently, in stealing an election. If they can do this, can the US survive? I want to say “The US is finished,” but JFK stole the 1960 election and the US survived, so maybe we can survive this one, too. But I’m not hopeful.
Nobody likes a sore loser. https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/11/trump-refuses-to-authorize-biden-transition-planning/
Why would he? The results are contested, not one certified vote has been cast. Sorry, you were never taught civics. The media and hollywood do not determine ANY election, take your narcissism and shove it.
Thank you, Victor, for your clear presentation of what is happening in these days of chaos. Politics has always been ‘blood’ sport and the current state of affairs makes all election options more difficult to achieve. Democrats ‘control’ their members by allocating funds to those who ‘toe the line’ on party ideology – vote with us or we will defeat you at the polls. To a lesser extent, Republicans are trying to do the same with the NeverTrumpers seeking to control all aspects of policy instead of working with someone they do not like for one reason or another. They cannot accept anyone outside their sphere of control.
Politics will probably never change but it does leave ‘the people’ in limbo and at the mercy of the most ruthless.
Thank you, Victor – Trump is a good president, especially in these times. He has done more for the good of the people than any of the other thirteen presidents elected during my lifetime. And he is among the most honest and straightforward presidents in history. He is less concerned with image or some ideology than with getting the work done for the people. He will be honored as one of the best.
Strike 1.
Strike 2.
Strike 3.
Strike 4.
Strike 5!
You losers have no evidence. None.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-election-irregularities-claims/2020/11/08/8f704e6c-2141-11eb-ba21-f2f001f0554b_story.html
This is a good article but VDH as well as others act like the tiny increases in black and hispanic votes is groundbreaking when essentially Trump had to buy them off with billions of dollars worth of promises via the Platinum Plan and the American Dream. At the same time that cost Trump several percentage points among the white working class who no doubt were disgusted at the disrespect and race pandering. This loss of the white working class may have cost him the election in Wisconsin, MI and PA.
Every NeverTrump piece of shit should have been hanged for sedition. That’s the only thing that will fix this country at this point. We’re not voting our way out of this.
When you ask people who are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome why they talk about this President as if he were Adolf Hitler’s worse elder brother or Satan’s personal plenipotentiary vicegerent on Earth, they either reel off a list of Left-wing smears (that he is racist, anti-Semitic, homophobe, a dictator &c) which are clearly and provably untrue; OR they deplore his vulgarity, coarseness, blowhard manner, frequent economy with the truth in very minor matters (usually personal boasting on his own behalf).
Yet these latter opponents – for whom the Hollywood Access tape was more or less the supreme outrage of human history – are not the sort of people who have got up on their toes boiling with rage when it was shown that President Clinton had been abusing young female White House interns, nor even when Mrs Kathleen Willey’s battered lips and body showed that he had physically attacked her.
Nor are these opponents folk who were deeply and loudly shocked by President Obama’s whoppers when from Day One he said of his Affordable Healthcare Act, ‘you can keep you doctor, you can keep your health plan’, the legislation making it entirely clear from said Day One that that would be impossible for most citizens.
The conclusion I draw about most of the virulent hatred felt towards President Trump these past 5 years by many people continuously sounding off, is that either they saw their own careers directly jeopardised by the popular impulse his election expressed; or are brainwashed dupes of such persons (for instance, they are students who have loads of anger issues in their own lives and park these in the Grievance Culture inculcated in them by their worthless teachers).
Mr Trump is a man who has kept sedulously to the rules of the Constitution and the law of the land.
To treat him (as the Mainstream Media and so many others have done) as an Abomination far worse than the last five presidents is a reaction out of all proportion to his character or his conduct of public policy.
Clearly he did not threaten anybody’s physical health. That undertaking has been monopolized by the rioting, looting and violent Left.
But I deduce that he threatened the progress of lots and lots of scams: in Politics, Administration, Education, and the Military Industrial Complex.
Hence the berserker demented reaction.
Looks like you have Trump Delusion Syndrome.
I stand with President Trump pure and simple. He’s the best president in my lifetime and I am grateful for all he has done and will do for all of us Americans. He’s the best!
The grift continues sucker. https://digbysblog.net/2020/11/the-next-chapter/
Yet, VDH, you continue to write for National Review, a publication that wanted Trump to wait until after the election for a Supreme Court nomination, that continues to run columns from a writer who referred to Republicans as conspiracy kooks and that communities who suffered from lost jobs and the opioid epidemic deserved to die, and now devotes an entire section of sponsored content under Capital Matters.
If you are calling out the NeverTrumpers, you should start with one of your employers.
Another great VDH effort. He’s the sanest man in America!