The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

#NeverTrump: Double-Secret Head Fake?

Posted on | October 30, 2017 | Comments Off on #NeverTrump: Double-Secret Head Fake?

by Smitty

Taking in the NRO’s latest ritual Trump denunciation:

Trump’s substitution of sneering for analysis, his shallow anti-“elitism,” his attacks on free trade and on freedom of the press, his adolescent social-media habit: Republicans have not rallied behind him in spite of these things, but because of them.

. . .one is inclined to wonder if it’s all been a role.

Forced to take a label, I’d say I’ve been a “Trump skeptic”. His out of the NY-blue yonder campaign seemed (and no refutation has ever been offered) an ersatz Romney offering, suitable for the framing using the 2012 Mitt’s-an-elitist framework. Trump gets the nomination; the Trump University and parade of sexual harassment accusers demolish Donald’s numbers; Her Majesty puts the hurt on another case of chardonnay.

But like some Roadrunner of the citrus orchard, Donald of Orange keeps forgetting to fall prey to these traps. At some point, his ‘sneering’, ‘shallow’, ‘adolescent’ approach starts to look more methodical than mad. Which invites the question: just exactly how sincere is this NRO “Against Trump” business?

There are certainly quite a few #NeverTrump idealists who are as serious as lung cancer in their opposition to Tribble-head. He was certainly the penultimate choice, just ahead of JEB, during the primaries for quite a few conservatives. Trump had zero conservative history; he was contemptuous of the Tea Parties during the Obama Insurrecti–I mean, Administration; his pageants and ex-wives collection raised moral questions. And so forth.

And the temptation to post hoc reasoning should be avoided. We have as much evidence of a grand plan for a Glorious MAGA Revolution as we have evidence that Barack Obama ever delivered any academic work in college. This post is not me saying “OK, I get it. It’s obvious in retrospect.”

Instead, it just seems that:

  • Altering course from the “Hope & Change” malarkey of the last decade wasn’t going to be easy.
  • The Left was braced to neutralize any traditional candidate, including the ones (a lot of) conservatives favored.
  • Lesser mortals would’ve melted in the napalm shower delivered by the Left, and finally:
  • They may never admit it, but, if the NRO were secretly, deliberately driving the conversation toward #MoarTrump, I would not be surprised.
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