Over at Commentary, definitely not one of my fave rave’s, Editor John Podhoretz has “A New Theory of Trump”, taking another crack at explaining the Donald. Podhoretz’s argument is stated rather elliptically—or perhaps obliquely—but what he’s getting at, basically, is that George W. Bush got a lot of things wrong, but Republicans were so obsessed with attacking Obama that they failed to realize that their common hatred of the president was the only thing uniting them.
As Podhoretz points out (again, obliquely) many if not most of the economic policies pursued by President Obama, which so infuriated “the right”, were simply continuations of those instituted in the last days of the Bush Administration. But what should have been an intra-party dispute over what the Bush Administration got wrong was directed outward. Both John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 were “Establishment Men,” with jutting jaws and sound principles. The Big Money men who ran the party never guessed they were like the cartoon characters who stroll a dozen steps off a cliff before realizing that they have nothing beneath them but thin air. And while the Wall Street folks have been watching their portfolios swell and wondering whether the Party should push for a 50 percent cut in the capital gains tax or outright elimination, the poor folks without portfolios have been getting madder and madder and hungry for revenge.
“Thus,” says John, “an election that appeared to be the Republican Party’s to lose now threatens to fracture the GOP beyond recognition, with the least popular front-runner in history staggering toward her dynastic installment at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Punisher has arrived, eight years later—and the only punishment he will truly deliver will be to his own voters and to the party whose nomination he seeks.”
Well, as mea culpas go, that isn’t a bad one, with a few qualifiers. First of all, the Republican base’s hatred of immigration was manifest during the Bush Administration and blazed with a fury during the 2012 primaries. But somehow that didn’t count. It’s a good bet that Donald Trump first started taking himself seriously as a candidate when he heard the crowds roaring in response to his threats regarding Mexico. Trump announced for the presidency in mid-June 2015, but a month earlier he was pumping up the good Republican folks in South Carolina with the following: “I would build the greatest wall you have ever seen. The greatest. You know who’s gonna pay for the wall? Mexico.” Sound familiar?1
Secondly, John ignores entirely George Bush’s disastrous record in foreign affairs. Big surprise, right? A neocon who won’t talk honestly about the Republican Party’s long series of disasters in the desert! Go figure!2
Thirdly, to make a point I’ve made numerous times before, the Republicans have, ever since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, pursued the politics of destruction without scruple. Now, at last, they find these weapons turned upon themselves by themselves. John, what’s that line about sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind?
Afterwords
As both Ross Douthat and James Pethokoukis point out, the Republican Establishment, in the form of its repeatedly anointed, Paul Ryan,3 refuses to admit that it needs to change its “tax cuts for the rich, entitlement cuts for the poor” mantra one iota.
- At the time I opined that Trump wouldn’t win the Republican nomination because the Republicans wouldn’t nominate someone who was “insane”. Great God, how naïve! ↩︎
- Even now, when Trump says that George Bush must bear some responsibility for failing to take the threats of a terrorist attack seriously prior to 9/11, neocons pretend he’s claiming that Bush either knew that al Qaeda was planning to crash airliners into the Twin Towers and did nothing or that he planned the attacks himself. Memo to neocons: you can’t have a meaningful debate unless you are willing to acknowledge what the other side is saying. ↩︎
- As I and that Paul Krugman fella have pointed out repeatedly, Paul Ryan’s reputation for wonkery is entirely undeserved, unless by “wonkery” you mean “unrelieved mendacity”. ↩︎
