Right-wing double domes, some of them with hair, have been both generating and garnering pixels with critiques of our president’s character. Too much Woody Allen, not enough Gary Cooper, says Peggy Noonan, who seems to have started the ball rolling. Narcissistic and domineering (ya think?), says Charles Krauthammer. Not sufficiently Greek, says David Brooks.
I’m not bothering to link to the particular articles written by these folks, mostly because I won’t link to Peggy because she writes for the Wall Street Journal, which I not only hate but which also charges for its articles, and who am I to play favorites? But I will link to Jeff Flake, an actual Republican senator (from Arizona) who hammers both Trump and his fellow Republicans for enabling El Caudillo.
Jeff’s take has some real substance to it, rather than mere artsy-fartsy musings on “styles of masculinity”, whether drawn from “Old Hollywood” (Noonan) or “Ancient Greece” (Brooks),1 but a few snippy liberals (you knew it would be them, didn’t you?) have pointed out that Jeff talks the talk something fierce but don’t walk the walk—despite all his tough talk, Jeff almost always votes the way Trump wants—prompting the National Review’s David French to reply “Don’t Let the Left Define Conservative Opposition to Trump”. As Dave points out, criticizing Flake for voting “for Trump” on procedural matters, appointments, etc., is pretty picky.
Well, yeah, except for voting “Yea” for Jeff “Rebel Yell” Sessions for attorney general, but Flake also voted for Mitch McConnell’s “Skinny Bill”, aka the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body Commits Moral and Intellectual Suicide Act of 2017”, setting his seal of approval on a months’ long process of legislative abdication, the Republican Senate basically tossing the American health care system under the bus because to do otherwise would force them to admit to the Republican “base” that their elected representatives had been lying to them for the past eight years, encouraging Republican voters to believe that an unrelenting program of political search and destroy without regard to scruple or honesty was somehow a “return to constitutionalism.” Donald Trump’s presidency is simply the culmination of the Tea Party movement, which actually began “pre Tea Party” with the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate in 2008. Yes, Jeff made some awfully good points, and it took some real courage to do it, but it’s been a long time coming. Too long.
Afterwords
How many conservatives felt that they didn’t have to stop Trump because Hillary would do it for them? Too many.2 I guess the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
- Peggy Noonan and David Brooks both yammering about “styles of masculinity”? There must be a joke in there somewhere, but I’m damned if I can find it! ↩︎
- If Hillary had taken care of Trump in 2016, “grateful” anti-Trump right wingers like French would have spent the next four years calling for her head, to “prove” to Rush Limbaugh that they hated her as much as he did. ↩︎
