The Other McCain

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

The Scary Trump/Reagan Resemblance

Posted on | September 13, 2017 | Comments Off on The Scary Trump/Reagan Resemblance

by Smitty

Shapiro at NRO gives Trump the Full Freud. Read the whole thing, but note this:

The civil war that’s likely to occur over Trump, then, isn’t over Trumpism. It’s just about him. Those who wish to harness the power of Trump — the id of the movement — are mistaken if they think they can. The id and ego of the movement are one. And that means that wherever Trump leads, the movement will follow. That’s why Trump’s intellectual heresies in the eyes of both Bannon and Ryan will be frequent, but his emotional heresies in the eyes of the base will be minimal.

I’ve been vaguely OK with Trump so far. I realize him for a troll and a ratings whore, at least superficially. The antics won the election. There are also any number of vaguely positive things going on beneath the smoke screen. I want Trump to succeed in Making America Great Again (whatever that means at any given moment), in the same way I wanted Obama’s effort to “fundamentally transform” America to fail. The former seems vaguely good; the latter certainly sucked.

Peering past the wreckage scattered all over the countryside of all who try to shoot down the Orange Baron, one wonders: what are we doing after 2024? 1988 saw Bush41, a decent American and Deep Stater, relieve Reagan at the helm. Sensing that Bush41 was not cut of the same cloth, conservatives (and I was one) revolted, supporting Perot. Ross lacked the benefit of the Internet to get his proto-Tea Party to coalesce. We got Ahab. Fortunately, Trump spared us Jezebel.

Unfortunately, the ideological void of Reagan has never been filled. Despite personal regard for Mike Pence, I’m far from confident that he has any fire in the belly to pick up wherever Trump leaves off on the “drain the swamp” effort.

No, the fear gnaws: after Trump, we get the next Ahab. A Progressive, internationalist, anti-American twit whose idea of a vision is whatever Brussels is doing.

The only positive note I can end on here is that I’ve been pretty much wrong with every prediction I’ve ever offered. Or, as Instapundit notes, we might opt for an alternate culture.

Category: Donald Trump

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