Today’s New York Post features an opinion column by law professor F. H. Buckley, wherein he notes his amusement with:
NeverTrump conservatives who’ll support Hillary, or at least do what they can to ensure her election, because they say Trump isn’t a real conservative.
I myself was amused by what followed: a series of assertions that the particular subset of conservatives that amuse him purportedly holds paramount. He asserts they are demonstrating intellectual poverty by being ideologically pure, and does so by claiming that the nevertrumpers are prioritizing entitlement reform and fearful of Trump’s possible support for nationalized health care.
Buckley does correctly identify the source of the nation’s malaise, a list of symptoms stemming from a government run amok. What his article lacks are the real beliefs of those of a conservative bent who won’t vote for Trump: Trump is not the solution.
Trump’s plans for the nation’s malaise are, apart from sorely needed tax reform, a disaster-in-waiting. Economic protectionism hurts everyone but the croniest of cronies, and the sorts of trade wars his policies would generate sound like a redux of Smoot-Hawley. Trump’s mass deportation plans would similarly savage the economy. Yes, he’s backed off that rhetoric, and no, it was never really going to happen, but Trump’s popularity traces directly back to that over-the-top rhetoric. Trump has not said one kind word about individual rights. He’s promised to defend the Second Amendment, and I believe that’s a promise he’d keep, but I see no evidence that this was born out of any principled fealty to the Bill of Rights or the Constitution’s limits on government power. The list of issues on which Trump’s ideas trample individual rights, on the other hand, is too long to list here, and his overall tone is one of a “boss of bosses” doing as he wishes.
As Barack Obama reminded us, elections have consequences. President Hillary Clinton will continue driving the nation in a statist direction, expanding entitlements, spending money we don’t have, taking more from wealth creators, growing the regulatory state and shifting the Supreme Court in a statist direction. All of this will harm the nation and its citizens, but this won’t be the last election ever to occur.
Anyone who thinks that the election of Trump to the presidency will lead to corrections in a Republican Party that abandoned small government principles a couple decades ago is engaging in the same sort of fantastical self-delusion that socialists routinely display when they think that socialism can be made to work. A Trump-led GOP will offer nothing to those who believe that the only path out of this country’s stubborn doldrums and steady decline is through shrinking government and restoring freedom. Trump’s GOP will be nativist and authoritarian, and likely to continue the cronyism that now embodies our system. When his policies fail to produce the expected results, the electorate will turn to the other major party, which will likely have shifted leftward after Clinton’s loss. A Trump victory will shift the major party duopoly in an even more statist direction and offer no home for small government conservatives (not to mention the growing ranks of libertarians and libertarian-leaners). THAT is the concern of many conservatives.
Now, in fairness to Mr. Buckley, I must acknowledge that he specifically referred to the subset of nevertrumpers who intend to work in Clinton’s favor. However, his vague “do what they can” can be considered to include not voting for Trump (perpetuating the “not voting for Trump is no different than voting for Clinton” folderol), or voting third party, and a willing reader can read Buckley’s column as applying to every nevertrumper.
Buckley makes zero mention of third parties or Gary Johnson. While the chances of Johnson winning the presidency are perhaps those of my winning a Powerball jackpot, voting third-party has meaning beyond the selection of the White House’s next occupant. Barring a SMOD-like event, either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be the next President. Neither is acceptable to a good number of voters, and some of us are resigned to the fact that the next few years are going to suck. There will be more elections, though, and our votes can issue guidance to both the parties and to the voters for those future elections. If the Johnson third-party candidacy draws an outsized vote percentage, several things will happen. The major parties’ strategists will see a significant voter pool that can be appealed to with a shift in messaging, some of the voters who said “I’d waste my vote voting third party” might actually vote third-party next time, and people who have a thought about entering politics with a message compatible with those third-party votes might be encouraged to do so. A good turnout for Gary Johnson this year will have a positive impact on future elections.
To the win-lose duopolists, the people who prioritize their team’s victory in this election over all else, this long-view reads as a vote against them and their party. They don’t want to accept what they see defections from or betrayals of “their team,” so they engage in erecting scare crows and setting up straw men. They play label games, and look to bully the “defectors” into submitting to their views. Buckley’s condescending piece on conservative ideologues is just one of many that we will experience in the next 98 days. Expect straw to be shaped and toppled in every single one of them, and expect the shrillness to grow. Sit back, grab a bucket of popcorn, and enjoy.
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