Blast from the Past: Trump and the Tempting of Conservatism

If this email is difficult to read, view it on the web.
 
March 04, 2016
 
 
The Goldberg File
by Jonah Goldberg
 
 
 


Editor's Note: Jonah will be back with your favorite "news" letter next week. In the meantime, we editorial lackeys thought we'd share this classic G-File with you from September 4, 2015, on Donald Trump's corrupting of the conservative movement.

Dear Reader (if there are any of you left),

Well, if this is the conservative movement now, I guess you're going to have to count me out.

No, I'm not making some mad dash to the center. No, I'm not hoping to be the first alternate to Steve Schmidt on Morning Joe, nor am I vying to become my generation's Kevin Phillips. I will never be a HillaryCon. And I have no plan to earn "strange new respect" from the Georgetown cocktail-party set I'm always hearing about but never meeting. But even if I have no desire to "grow" in my beliefs, I have no intention to shrink, either.

The late Bill Rusher, longtime publisher of National Review, often counseled young writers to remember, "Politicians will always disappoint you." As I've often said around here, this isn't because politicians are evil. It's because politicians are politicians. Their interests too often lie in votes, not in principles. That's why the conservative movement has always recognized that victory lies not simply in electing conservative politicians, but in shaping a conservative electorate that lines up the incentives so that politicians define their self-interest in a conservative way.

But if it's true that politicians can disappoint, I think one has to say that the people can, too.

And when I say "the people" I don't mean "those people." I mean my people. I mean many of you, Dear Readers. Normally, when conservatives talk about how the public can be wrong, we mean that public. You know the one. The "low-information voters" Rush Limbaugh is always talking about. The folks we laughed at when Jay Leno interviewed them on the street. But we don't just mean the unwashed and the ill-informed. We sometimes mean Jews, blacks, college kids, Lena Dunham fans, and countless other partisan slices of the electorate who reflexively vote on strict party lines for emotional or irrational reasons. We laugh at liberals who let know-nothing celebrities do their thinking for them.

Well, many of the same people we laughed at are now laughing at us because we are going ga-ga over our own celebrity . . .

Read the whole thing here.

EMAIL_DONATE_BUTTON_350

 
 
 
 
TRENDING ON NRO
 
Network News Loves Covering Trump but Not His Liberal Past
RICH NOYES
 
Trump's Wall Is an Outlandish Promise Even By Campaign Standards
JIM GERAGHTY
 
Beware Feds Bearing Gifts
MARIO LOYOLA, JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON
 
Nobody's Health-Care Plan, Including Obama's, Has a Mandate. But They Do Have Tax Provisions
DOUG BADGER
 
The Impending Battle of Mosul Will Define Iraq's Future
TOM ROGAN
 
DJT the SOB
KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON
 
 
 
WHAT NATIONAL REVIEW IS READING
The Divided Era: How We Got Here and the Keys to America's Reconciliation
By Thomas G. Del Beccaro
 
ORDER YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TODAY
 
 
 
  Manage your National Review e-mail preferences or unsubscribe.

To read our privacy policy, click here.

This e-mail was sent by:
National Review, Inc.
215 Lexington Avenue, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10016
 
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

FOLLOW THE MONEY - Billionaire tied to Epstein scandal funneled large donations to Ramaswamy & Democrats

Readworthy: This month’s best biographies & memoirs

Inside J&Js bankruptcy plan to end talc lawsuits