Why I’m Still a NeverTrumper
- 6 years ago
Why I’m Still a NeverTrumper
But as a (pro-Trump) friend wrote me the other day, “presidents empower cultures.” Trump is empowering a conservative political culture
that celebrates everything that patriotic Americans should fear: the cult of strength, open disdain for truthfulness, violent contempt for the Fourth Estate, hostility toward high culture and other types of “elitism,” a penchant for conspiracy theories and, most dangerously, white-identity politics
Here’s one I’ve always liked: “The central conservative truth is
that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society,” said the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
This is the fatal mistake of conservatives who’ve decided the best way to deal with Trump’s personality — the lying, narcissism,
bullying, bigotry, crassness, name calling, ignorance, paranoia, incompetence and pettiness — is to pretend it doesn’t matter.
Trump is normalizing all this; he is, to borrow another Moynihan phrase, “defining deviancy down.” A president who supposedly wants to put a wall between the U. S.
and Latin America has imported a style of politics reminiscent of the cults of Juan Perón and Hugo Chávez.
To which he added: “The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”
Conservatives used to believe in their truth.
But as a (pro-Trump) friend wrote me the other day, “presidents empower cultures.” Trump is empowering a conservative political culture
that celebrates everything that patriotic Americans should fear: the cult of strength, open disdain for truthfulness, violent contempt for the Fourth Estate, hostility toward high culture and other types of “elitism,” a penchant for conspiracy theories and, most dangerously, white-identity politics
Here’s one I’ve always liked: “The central conservative truth is
that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society,” said the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
This is the fatal mistake of conservatives who’ve decided the best way to deal with Trump’s personality — the lying, narcissism,
bullying, bigotry, crassness, name calling, ignorance, paranoia, incompetence and pettiness — is to pretend it doesn’t matter.
Trump is normalizing all this; he is, to borrow another Moynihan phrase, “defining deviancy down.” A president who supposedly wants to put a wall between the U. S.
and Latin America has imported a style of politics reminiscent of the cults of Juan Perón and Hugo Chávez.
To which he added: “The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”
Conservatives used to believe in their truth.