From the editor of National Review:
It’s amazing that Biden and his team feel comfortable lecturing us about the rule of law and the Constitution without feeling the slightest self-consciousness about his having just lawlessly spent up to $1 trillion…
They think they can get away with it—and they’re right
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) September 2, 2022
I swear I will never understand this kind of thing. NR is institutionally anti-Trump. They are specifically opposed to Trump's disdain for the law and his Big Lie about winning the 2020 election. So even if there are things about Biden's speech Lowry dislikes—Biden's a liberal, Lowry's a conservative, so it's no surprise if there are—it's still the case that it was mostly an anti-Trump speech that specifically called out Trump's disdain for the law and his Big Lie about winning the 2020 election.
That sounds great. But what does Lowry spend his time on? His pique over Biden "lecturing" us and his outrage over Biden "lawlessly" cancelling some student debt. For chrissake. There's nothing lawless about it. This is just a routine disagreement that will be settled in court. Maybe Biden will win, maybe he'll lose. But either way, presidents do this kind of thing all the time, and they're forced to defend it in court all the time.
So why not spend more time on the core of the speech instead? Would it kill Lowry to say that Biden is basically right and then add some caveats? How are Republicans ever going to rid themselves of Trump if no one with an audience is willing to do even that much?
If Lowry says Biden is basically right, his audience (and subscription base) would revolt because they're heavy MAGA density, I've seen the same thing at Commentary magazine and American Conservative. Where those platforms have comment sections, it's overwhelmingly the Cult of Trump. (For reasons unknown, Hot Air doesn't flinch from criticizing Trump/MAGA.)
Yes. The problem for conservative intellectuals and non-insane conservative electeds is that their political fortunes are now inextricably yoked to the MAGA chud base. Additionally, they are basically in lockstep with Trump on policy (their opposition to him is mainly that his attempts at doing what they themselves want to do were too obvious and incompetently executed; I think their opposition to his "disdain for the law" in the abstract is about a millimeter deep).
So of course they easily get sucked into this idiotic anti-anti-Trump posture - not only are they are unwilling to admit that they are willing to pay the price of having principles and be relegated to the political wilderness, they are also by their nature adherents of Cleek's Law and thus programmed to screech about anything Democrats do, even when it targets their rivals.
They have always been yoked to the MAGA Chud base. It's is the only way they can compete in national elections. The base flexed & got their perfect president: one who is as ignorant, bigoted, and hateful as they are. They don't want to go back to voting for the Romneys or even the Bush family.
Doesn’t DeSantis fit that bill? Maybe even more so?
But for whatever reason, DeSantis doesn’t get the love Trump does.
He definitely does from conservative elites (Rich Lowry himself wrote a dumb slobbery DeSantis lovefest not three months ago; this is itself a tell that NRO is also totally on board with Trump himself when it comes to the substance - it's just his style that rankles them). But the base can only have one god-emperor to worship at a time, so for now at least, most of them aren't spending much time talking up DeSantis.
"But the base can only have one god-emperor to worship at a time"
It's going to be interesting to watch what happens when they replace Trump with a different savior. Will they denounce him as a counter revolutionary like the Communists in China used to do when there was a leadership change?
George W. Bush seems to have gotten that treatment, but not until near the end of the Obama Administration when Bush had been out of the public eye for a long time. Trump seems determined to remain in the public eye, as the dispute over documents held at Mara Largo shows. We might have never heard about the search warrant if Trump hadn't publicized it. Trump is going to be really hard to displace.
Will the Shia MAGA look to Don, Jr., as inheritor while the more plentiful Sunni MAGA condemn hereditary rule?
Doesn’t DeSantis fit that bill? Maybe even more so?
DeSantis sure hopes he fits the bill. He's trying his damndest!
Once Trump is dead and buried—politically or for real—they may indeed find a different standard-bearer.
That day has not yet arrived.
None of the others can be compared to the anti-honesty attitude of Trump. They are dishonest, but at the milli-trump level.
I thought Ted Cruz was as bad or worse than Trump too. But in the end, he’s just another politician. Whatever it is that Trump has that keeps his fans in thrall is beyond me. It’s something I really never understood. But it is there. Trump’s people may like and vote for guys like Cruz or DeSantis, but not with the fervor of their love for Trump. It really is a cult.
I think that was the thing that astonished me the most--I had thought that somebody like Cruz or Rubio would (with some justification!) regard Trump as the asshole clown that stole the presidency from them, and thus would (like McCain did for Dubya) harbor a desire to stab him in the back when the opportunity presented.
But despite many, many back-knifing opportunities being presented, none of 'em have gone for the knife, and have instead thrown themselves in the way of others trying to take down Trump. It's bewildering.
It's not all that bewildering.Ted Cruz has 1) no meaningful constituency, especially not compared to Trump, 2) he's one of the most craven and self-centered people on planet Earth; 3) he agreed with Trump on almost all the policy stuff he wanted to do.
Let's game out a scenario where Cruz is somehow the deciding vote to impeach Trump. It's literally all downside from the perspective of 1), 2), and 3). Even though the short-term result would have been installing Pence as President, bringing down Trump totally destabilizes Republican attempts to make more of Cruz's favorite policies, as the far-right wing of the party in Congress freaks out and refuses to work with other Republicans on anything as a way of displaying fealty to Trump. Being the face of impeachment means that Cruz's career in Republican politics is finished, and that's not the half of his problems: there's a very real chance that the militants in Trump's base, which Cruz happily egged on when he thought it suited him, will now make every attempt to murder him.
There are rocks with more charisma than "little adolph" desantis
@iamr4man
The big money in the GOP would rather see DeSantis than Trump, but DeSantis is still a humorless stiff with thin skin. Trump is a malignant clown and that's a big draw for the base.
Trump is off Twitter and never appears anymore on Fox, but the Jan 6 committee and other legal troubles have put him in the news again. DeSantis, who led the last GOP poll in NH for '24, now trails Trump by 20+ percent.
Why does Herschel Walker in GA seem to be doing better than, say, Blake Masters in AZ? Being a complete idiot is a plus for GOP voters. We breed idiots in this country at an alarming rat, and they are the bedrock of the Republican coalition.
DeSantis is a mean asshole, but that's probably not enough to win in today's GOP.
"alarming rat"?
Not sure, but I think that's a typo.
Trump is doing a Nuremburg rally in Wilkes-Barre today.
Would be rich if his gluttonous, cretinous ass makes fun of John Fetterman's stroke-depleted capabilities, but then the former president dies of a stroke. Best Pennsylvania politico death scene since R. "Budd" Dwyer.
To Hot Air, El Jefe is prolly still a RINO swish.
They want Fr. Coughlin or Chucky Lindbergh, not some Jew York City dilettante who would corrupt his own vision for monochrome America by hiring the likes of Elaine Chao, Nikki Randhawa, & ( ( ( Steve Miller ) ) ), plus consortium with poofters like Ric Grenell & Peter Thiel.
Indeed, ideological writer, ideological audience.
He is standing up for the law of IOKIYAR. That's more important than any one person or any one democratic country.
One of the failings of many of the pundits of Kevin's generation (Kevin himself mostly included) is that they were temperamentally unable to call out what had been staring them in the face for years: that the pre-Trump conservative movement, especially after the year 2000, had eliminationism at its core in addition to being stocked with ethnonationalist psychological authoritarians who think the rules should apply to everyone except themselves.
Lowry, Dreher, K-Lo, and all the rest of the NRO crowd are all just as all-in on this as any mouth-breathing Tea Partier, and they always have been. It's just that they would prefer that their opposition could be made to quietly disappear with a wave of a magic wand, rather than Trump's scary and loud way of doing it with militias, which will surely cause an unpleasant interruption to all their favorite Beltway cocktail parties and think tank panels.
Movement conservatism as embodied by the Republican Party in recent decades (certainly going back well before the arrive of MAGA, as you point out) has long had a problem with democratic norms. That's because they feel that, fundamentally, the Democratic Party doesn't possess a legitimate right to rule.
In part this flows, I think, from the typical, prevailing personality type of many or most people on the right. And also, relatedly, they believe the constitution as properly construed prohibits progressive goals such as redistribution, say, or regulatory curbs on profit-seeking.
If your political opponents are attempting to subvert the constitution, anything goes when it comes to opposing them, including throwing in with the likes of Trump or the Proud Boys or QAnon.
QAnon and the Proud boys are globalist cons. Do some DNA checks. My guess some surprises await.
No lies detected.
Canadian metrosexual Gavin Mac Innes & Afro-Cuban Quique Terrio are not true sons of gliberty.
Right - though I would qualify this with the claim that all of their supposed "beliefs" are actually in bad faith, and stem from one very simple axiom:
"We are the best and thus we deserve everything, while conversely, you are trash and deserve nothing."
They don't really have some deeply held principle about the constitutionality of the 16th Amendment or most of the other things they profess to believe, but they've found it more convenient to pretend they are principled, because the little people won't like you as much if you say the real principle out loud: "Unlike you, I'm special and that is why I deserve to not have to pay taxes."
Their extremism flows from this posture of superiority, and not the fake "beliefs" they've invented to disguise it. Hatred of liberals is their *starting point* and the basis for how they define their own identity; it's not some consequence of genuine but wildly misguided concern for the sanctity of the Constitution.
I love that the Q sainted Ohio, soon to be represented in the Senate by J.D. ANTIVAXXX, has its statehood considered invalid for much of its existence by Q adjacent weirdos who don't want to pay taxes.
Maybe the Sulzberqer Advertiser's Ohio diner stories are the result of a guilty conscience over marginalizing the Buckeye State.
Ethnonationalists???? Nope. Zionism yes. Republicans have become very mongrelized since 2000. Very. Your not paying attention. It's a lot like waspy Anglo Saxons in the Midwest hating Scott irish trash down south.
The rise of the Republican Jewish financial overlords is really only in the last 50 years. It's why they self project with the Soros crap. They know the Buffets and Thatchers pull the Democratic string.
Nancy Le Tourneau is one of the rare (late) boomer pundits who seems to get that.
No doubt, her familial history plays a role in being able to see thru the noise of Republiqan invocations of inclusive patriotism.
I mean, they'll be disappointed when Pelosi is led out of the cocktail party to be sent to the camps, but they'll realize if just had to be done. More in sorrow than anger.
Don't threaten the Jacobin Krew & #OurRevolution with a good time.
Walker Bragman will be angling to push the button that disperses the Zyklon B into Neoliberal Nancy's shower.
Well, this is kind of the whole problem, isn't it (?):
"How are Republicans ever going to rid themselves of Trump if no one with an audience is willing to do even that much?"
Yeah, notice how they haven't gotten rid of trump yet?
Rich knows any future POTUS can rescind the student debt forgiveness program. He's just bitching and moaning because he knows any conservative who promises to rescind the program will face a backlash and lose.
I accidentally saw a little bit of meet the press last weekend ( I swear it was an accident - I was channel surfing), and Lowry was there sounding much like you describe him, mr. Drum. He dislikes trump but still believes Biden is much worse.
To be fair, most of the dirtbag left also believes Biden is worse than Trump.
It's not just an (openly) right-wing thing.
Preach it, Brother Monty!
Republicans inability to let go of Trump is because they are echo chambering the grassroots of the party. Secondly, the fact he hasn't been a electoral disaster with white female swing voters. Then you have 30% of the party which are coalition voters with some flexible positions. They were pretty lukewarm with him in 2016.10% of the vote heavily driven by white women who in a term "swing". That is the key group that decides. Look at Donald Trump 2016 vs Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Yes, white ladies, I see you.
I apologize for the whataboutism, but Kevin’s insistence on engaging w NR types in earnest is particularly striking given his continued dismissive attitude toward progressive ideas. I mean, how many times does Rich Lowry have to prove that he’s the dumbest pundit alive before Kevin stops annotating his idiotic tweets and essays?
Capitalism itself is a "progressive" idea. Your problem is not respecting the crisis of capitalism and why it won't work anymore. The problem Republicans have is, "bourgeois" nationalism is dead because there isn't a technocratic method to produce growth like in the 19th/20th century via direct investment. So capitalism has created a tit for tat parasitic system where capital runs globally advancing wealthy nonwesterners so they will allow overconsumption in the "west". But there are side effects to this. Putin gets this and pushes on the wound and uses con men like Trump or Orban, with questionable genetic backgrounds to push at the deniers. While white "progressive" types stare in the mirror, they see a Nazi staring back.
Would it kill Lowry? Why are we pretending he’s a reasonable guy? It wouldn’t kill him, but he won’t because he hates you, me, and Kevin Drum more than he hates trump. What the heck?
“Joe Biden is the divider in chief and epitomizes the current state of the Democrat Party,” said Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. “One of divisiveness, disgust and hostility towards half the country.”
What part of “they hate you” don’t you understand?
“
He has to establish his R bona fides in order to have any chance of getting an audience on the right, and that means trashing Biden. We'd probably do the same if the positions were reversed.
Rich Lowery is lashing out over his Starburst lover being cheated out of a US House victory.
+1
+2
A sad day in Lowryland. I bet he's never had a Native Alaskan wink at him.
Now I want to dig up the Dan Savage/Savage Love column with the interview with the Indigenous Pornographer, & the dearth of Natives in the San Fernando Valley.
Yes. I don't think he's ever recovered from those pesky ricocheting starbursts.
Google National Review Biden Speech. The results show a long list of critical National Review headlines. In fact the National Review never likes a Biden speech. Nothing new here.
"I swear I will never understand this kind of thing. NR is institutionally anti-Trump."
You'll start to understand if you give up the delusion that they're anti-Trump. They aren't. They may find him embarrassing, but that's only an aesthetic judgment, which erodes their fundamental support not at all.
Right; Trump is essentially playing Billy Carter to Buckley's Jimmy and that embarrases them. There's on in every family.
Except Billy Beer never went bankrupt.
"Would it kill Lowry to say that Biden is basically right and then add some caveats?" From a personal brand marketing point of view, yeah, it probably would.
Spoiler: They're not.
The only thing anti-Trumpers hate more than Trump is the Dems. IfnDems dare criticize Dear Leader then they circle the wagons and set the whataboutism spin machine to overdrive.
Yeah. This is the problem. For a few pundits there was a legitimate moderate conservatism wed to anti-fasism, which allowed them to shift toward actual support for some Democratic issues and candidates. Those people, like Rubin and Frum, jumped ship a while ago.
But for most, the only thing worse than Trump's fascism is Democrats.
To be fair, the likes of Rubin and Boot were genuinely shocked that they, and not the unregenerate MAGAs, were the tail trying to wag the dog. I say that's fair because well, I always knew that those types were around; I grew up with them. But I had always put their numbers at ten, fifteen percent tops. To find out the day after in 2016 that it was more like thirty percent -- at least -- profoundly altered my world view of the United States.
A twitter post that basically proves Biden's point: the Republican party needs to get behind democracy, then we can talk.
Lowry's self-interest is republican electoral success. He believes this interest will best be served in november by attacking biden. Like basically all republicans, he has zero interesting in any underlying principles, logical consistency or honesty. It is a bit odd to me that you seem to keep ignoring this basic, obvious explanation for the behavior of conservatives. They are evil. They do evil shit.
Poor Rich. He's having a "hard" time (LOL) getting over Palin's loss.
To paraphrase the Ol' Dirty Bastard, as heard on Chris Rock's Bigger n' Blacker, "If Rich Lowery couldn't get hard off Sarah Palin's winks no more, what would you ask him?"