I stopped reading the never-Trump National Review a few years ago because I was worried my eyes would accidentally catch a David French article and shave off a few IQ points. Those infected with TDS are easily manipulated and fall for ridiculous hoaxes, like the Trump-Russia coup, or the Covington Kids lie, yet after each embarrassing fail, they dust themselves off and continue as if nobody will notice.
No way I could be a consumer of that site, but I caught this latest article by Charles Cooke and had to respond.
Even though I know these never-Trumpers are sick with TDS, I'm still shocked when they weigh the pros and cons of voting for Biden. I fought back the urge to reply to every single sentence he wrote because it was so dense with condescending idiocy; instead, to comply with fair use, I sliced out select snippets to satisfy some of my urge to ridicule, even though I left plenty of meat on the bone.
Fact: never-Trumpers are grifters and losers. They even think it's "kooky conspiracy theory" that Biden colluded with Ukraine. We're dealing with real idiots here.
Cooke begins his article with an agonizing dilemma falseheartedly posed by a segment of the original band of blood-oathed never-Trumpers, which is “do I go against my morals and vote Trump, or do I vote for the lesser of two evils and vote Biden?”. It's not a real dilemma because with absolute certainty they're voting for Biden.
He wants Trump to change, but he doesn’t say how. He conjures up a string of rudimentary adjectives to describe how he sees Trump through his TDS-warped lens, but it’s like the loser in high school who hates his dad and doodles death fantasies about the alpha-chad with the cheerleader girlfriend he dreams of banging.
You see, never-Trumpers who were prominent in the RINO circles are seething mad that their access to the White House is cut off, and their contacts and insiders have been cast aside like used Kleenex. They desperately wish to reclaim relevance, but they’ll never have it again.
Most people walk around the White House and feel the weight of history pressing down upon their shoulders. Lincoln’s eyes follow them around the room and Washington’s name slows their tongue.
How lame is this guy?
The first few paragraphs are Cooke basically insulting our President with the standard cliches. Here he triples down on stupid:
He has not learned what he does not know. As a political outsider he brought a different set of skills to the presidency, which, if combined with a willingness to adapt himself, could have been a virtue. But there has been no such adaptation. One part of the “art of the deal” is knowing your environment, and the environment in which a real-estate deal takes place is different from the environment in which one must negotiate with Congress or with the dictator of North Korea. Trump does not grasp this, so he ends up undermining his own position — or, worse, throwing away America’s moral capital on worldwide TV. He is exhausting, embarrassing, infuriating, and more.
He infers Trump is dumb and can’t learn, which is a plank of the never-Trump manifesto. He doesn’t like that Trump hasn’t become more swampy. Trump apparently can’t negotiate with Congress, like on tax cuts, First Step Act, and VA reform. North Korea? They were lobbing missiles all over the place until President Trump stopped it, and even stepped across the DMZ. On their face, Cooke’s points have no merit.
Cooke echos a common TDS talking point that Trump “undermines his own positions”, yet I’ve never heard of an example. “Throwing away America’s moral capital”? What? The author is simply frustrated and doesn't know how to express himself.
When one admires a politician’s character and judgment and his policy prescriptions, it is easy to cast one’s vote for him. By contrast, when one admires a politician’s policy prescriptions but believes that his character and judgment represent a threat, the choice becomes considerably more difficult. From what I understand, millions of people now find themselves in the latter camp. Why? Because it’s genuinely hard to work out what to do.
Another never-Trump plank is “Trump has poor character”, even though it was they who declared themselves never-Trump, with Trump’s character being the main reason. Their "character" may not be so strong after all, since many have tried to waffle.
If Trump, who has the character to do what's right for this country while withstanding sustained attacks from media, deep-state, intelligence agencies, social media, and not to mention never-Trump ankle-biters, has such poor character then why do they not exhibit better character and stick to their self-perceived moral imperative of being never-Trump?
To put another way, why take such a stance you believe to be so righteously moral, then retract? They have no character or morals; it’s that simple.
It was Trump who has the character to protect the lives of babies; it's poor-character never-Trumpers who will vote for Biden, who supports baby-murder.
It's Trump with the character to stand up for law and order, while the poor character never-Trumpers support AntiFa. It is Trump who has the character to move us closer to bringing troops back home, while the poor character never-Trumpers want us to remain. It was Trump who supported moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, while the inept poor-character politicians before him are still adored by the poor-character never-Trumpers of today.
The President has incredible character and radiates patriotism. Never-Trumpers, not so much. Cooke says he won’t vote for Biden because of the baby murder issue (he uses the politically correct watered-down term “pro-life”), but as sure as I’m typing this he will vote Biden.
Cooke’s article is littered with stupid points, but this one really flops when describing the two groups of never-Trumpers:
The second type has a tougher row to hoe, because he has the same political beliefs as he did in 2016 or 2012 or before, he likes a great deal of what President Trump has done if not said, but he worries that, if given a second term, this president is likely to do a good deal of damage to the country and to the conservative movement. I am of the latter type, and it is not a great deal of fun.
Damage the country how? Stronger military? Booming economy? Reduction of Marxist propaganda in government and schools? Better foreign policy and more stable and secure alliances? Better national security? Stronger national pride? Exposing journalistic malpractice? What is being damaged, other than the lie that someone never-Trumpers support could do it?
Damage to the conservative movement? Cooke and his fellow never-Trumpers are the ones deciding if they should or shouldn’t vote Biden. I’ll let that point crumble on its own.
Even if Trump were to win, we would see no substantial legislation or reform;
They said he wouldn’t build the wall and secure the border. They said he wouldn’t stand up to China and restore our manufacturing base. They said he wouldn’t do literally everything he’s accomplished. Yet, these Nostra-dumbasses continue to foretell what he won’t and can’t do?
we would see a further hollowing out of talent in the executive branch;
How will the country ever carry on without the likes of Marie Yovanovitch, Alexander Vindman, James Comey, and other such brilliance?
and we would see the striking of no treaties or international deals of which the Democratic Party did not already approve.
Like the USMCA?
Naturally, if Trump were to win while the Republicans lost the Senate, we would see a dramatic slowing down of the appointment of good judges, too.
I guess it’s good he’s appointed over two-hundred judges. Yet, this “conservative” still isn’t quite sure:
How, I wonder, should I balance these permanent revolutions in American government against another four years of President Caprice?
Sadly, he’s serious.
President Trump’s claim to piety is absurd and condescending, and yet he has served as a bulwark for conscience rights. Which is more important: His transparent dishonesty, or that the free-exercise clause remain intact? I do not believe for a moment that President Trump believes that the United States is the promised land, as I do.
Cooke, with a straight face, implies that he loves America more than Trump, obviously, because Trump apparently thinks the country is a stage for a reality show. He calls the President “dishonest”, but like everyone else, they can’t name a single example of substance. Questioning Trump's love for this country does not even warrant a serious response.
Here’s where Cooke proves why academics surrounded by children should keep their elbow-patches confined to academia and not venture out into the big-boy world of business:
What about economics? I am a free-market, free-trade, free-people sort of guy — one of those unsparing libertarian types that we are told run the world. President Trump is not.
The never-Trump claim of Trump not being a “free market” guy is one of their biggest lies they push. They latch onto tariffs as justification for saying Trump is not a free-trader while citing economic thinkers like Adam Smith. Little do they know, since they've never read Adam Smith or understand the concept of tariffs for that matter, that Adam Smith would completely agree with how the President uses tariffs.
Over the past four years, Trump has happily presided over a gargantuan spending spree,
He indeed has had to spend a lot, but it’s a means to an end, and the President has said it will be part of his second term agenda;
he has flatly repudiated the idea that entitlement reforms are necessary,
A lie by Cooke. For example, welfare reform. How about the Paris Accord, which was welfare that kept entitled European socialists nice and fat? Medicare will be part of his health care plan, which is a second term issue.
and he has lied brazenly about the effects that his tax package has had upon the budget deficits and upon the national debt.
Wrong again, Cooke. Federal revenues are higher than they’ve ever been. Budget and deficits are about spending. This is basic stuff that even an Oxford graduate should be able to grasp.
In addition, his anti-free-trade instincts have damaged a key source of global wealth and expanded the influence of the executive branch at the expense of Congress.
This doesn’t even make sense. Trump is the most free-trade president we’ve had in a long time. In fact, Trump seems to be the only world leader who wants zero tariffs.
And am I supposed to ignore completely the other side of the Trump ledger? I do not believe that Trump “created” the good economy that we enjoyed before the coronavirus pandemic, and I do not believe, either, that his reaction to that pandemic played any meaningful part in determining how it unfurled.
I mean, can you believe this? Tax cuts and deregulation, while he brings back manufacturing jobs? Trump didn’t create this booming economy? This is that point when it hits you that you’re talking with a crazy person who doesn’t know they’re crazy.
In my estimation, these are superstitions, born of an ugly, monarchical attitude toward the presidency. But I do know that he has made some difference elsewhere. It is because President Trump won in 2016 that we have Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, that Judge Barrett has been nominated to join them, and that the judiciary at all levels has more law-abiding judges among its ranks than it did at the end of Obama’s term. It is because President Trump won in 2016 that the Second Amendment was saved from being dismantled by a candidate who openly argued that it has no meaning or force whatsoever. It is because President Trump won in 2016 that the United States withdrew from the Iran deal and from the Paris climate accord, took steps to reverse the illegal DACA program, and reversed the Obama administration’s astonishingly illiberal Title IX rules. It is because President Trump won that the United States government expanded the Mexico City policy, blocked Title X funds from being distributed to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, and stopped persecuting the Little Sisters of the Poor. None of this would have happened if the last presidential election had gone the other way, and all of it is welcome. Is Joe Biden offering anything to the disaffected beyond a chance to have a different president in the White House?
After that paragraph, he's still not sure about Trump:
So, yeah: I don’t know.
The final paragraph in his article is about “conservative” Charles Cooke still undecided if Trump is worthy of a second term. If you're a conservative, don't you want conservative policies?
TDS is real.
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