Monday, March 18, AD 2024 10:16pm

Podhoretz Gets It

 

 

Lots of commentary out there about what happened in the elections, most of it rubbish.  However, one of the better short pieces is by John Podhoretz, one of the more vehement Never-Trumpers:

 

The nation’s cultural and political elite has been handed its walking papers by the American electorate.

What just happened is the most momentous shift in American political and cultural life in our time. There’s no way to digest the meaning of Donald Trump being on the verge of victory. Understanding it is the work of a generation.

Of course, we’re seeing desperate and pathetic efforts to declare the results illegitimate. For example, Paul Krugman of the New York Times said last night that Hillary Clinton’s loss was due to conscious efforts to suppress the African-American vote.

That idea is beyond preposterous and intellectually deranged. What we saw was a national wave that turned blue states red, not a case in which voter ID laws and efforts to restrict early voting changed the balance of a state or two.

We saw the populaces of America’s rural counties and exurbs — places Donald Trump visited and said had been neglected and forgotten and mistreated by America’s leaders — rise up practically in unison and vote for someone who said he would be the vehicle of their anger and the tribune of their restoration.

 

 

 

 

Go here to read the rest.  Trump’s concentration on the economic woes besetting much of the middle class and all of America’s working poor is nothing new.  Rick Santorum in 2012 in the Republican primaries spoke eloquently on the subject.  Cruz was eloquent on the subject during the primaries this year.

 

Of course much of what Trump says on economics is rubbish.  However, he does raise an issue for the Republican party that can no longer be dodged.  I am a devotee of free markets.  In my law building I have various paintings and prints.  I do not have portraits of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman on display, but if I owned such portraits they would have pride of place in my law library.  However, both Friedman and Smith were eloquent on the subject that big businesses will often attempt  to suborn government into actions against the public good.  Such is the case in regard to illegal immigration, opposed by almost all the Republican base as harmful to the ability of Americans to earn a living.  The big business donors of the Republican party are in favor of open borders as it is good for their bottom line.  Between the base and the donors, the powers that be in the Republican party have always chosen the donors.  With Trump in the White House the Republican party has a chance to redeem this by passing measures to seal our Southern border and reduce to a trickle illegal aliens.  Do this, and take other measures for the public good opposed by the vested interests, and the Republicans will long enjoy political success.  Failure to do this will lead to a wipe out at the polls in 2018.  The Republicans snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, courtesy of the forgotten, and often demonized, working men and women of America, and they must be forgotten no more.

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Don L
Thursday, November 10, AD 2016 6:01am

The left’s “War on Women”, and “You’re a Racist” cards have expired. The bigger news is that much of the revolt (and it is a revolt) has been caused by overuse of their own political correctness weapon. Apparently the populace had run out of cheeks to turn and decided to throw out the money changers from the American temple.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, November 10, AD 2016 6:56am

Tuesday was an early skirmish. Keep in mind Churchill’s “beginning of the end” speech. The culture and political wars persist flagrant.
..
The colleges and the lying media are cesspools of dishonesty, intolerance and totalitarianism. Red state Americans voted against the evil.
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Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, November 10, AD 2016 8:46am

Question for Podhoretz: Is he self-aware enough to count himself among the cultural and political elite?
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And a follow-up: Will he humbly accept the walking papers he’s just been handed?

Mary De Voe
Thursday, November 10, AD 2016 8:49am

“And for support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” “divine Providence” sees us through. God bless America.

Christine
Christine
Thursday, November 10, AD 2016 10:53am

Too bad Podhoretz didn’t get it sooner. Still so miffed that so many, so smart, so ‘conservative’, worked against him. Now I hear ripples of doubt about what Trump campaigned on- ‘hold his feet to the fire’ from LifeNews (yesterday AM!) and will he really appoint good SCJs. He made a list. I am far more doubtful of all the Repubs, conservatives, talking heads etc that turned on him. Most people I had trusted in the past. I’m not just talking about criticizism. Those who used the full weight of their position against him. I hope they get it now…..But I’m not counting on them anymore.
I was seriously disappointed in Podhoretz and the others. Trump had to overcome them as well as the lefties, and he did.

c matt
c matt
Thursday, November 10, AD 2016 3:03pm

Shock: Populist policies are popular! Who’da thunk?!?

c matt
c matt
Thursday, November 10, AD 2016 3:06pm

I have more concern about treacherous Senate RINOs sabotaging nominees than about Trump and his list for SCOTUS. I hope Trump names names when one of them rears its hideous head, with a hearty “You’re fired!”

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, November 10, AD 2016 8:38pm

Some of the more “popular” items on various state ballots this year: recreational marijuana and assisted suicide.
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So popular isn’t a synonym for “right.”

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Friday, November 11, AD 2016 4:12am

The American dream of hope and promise returns with Trump. It was sold out and destroyed by large corporations, Wall Street, academia, the Catholic Church. The dream of a good secure job was shipped overseas, it was replaced by machines, it’s name was changed to selfishness, it’s cities were destroyed, it’s morals were mocked, the rich got richer on free government money while nearly everyone else became poorer, etc.

Obama and Hillary became catalysts for change for all the ordinary Americans seething with anger and despair. Donald Trump identified, focused this exploding resentment despite his character flaws and won against the very personification, Hillary Clinton.

Let’s give thanks to God that we now have an opportunity to change our ways and make America great again.

Tim Quinlan
Tim Quinlan
Friday, November 11, AD 2016 10:24am

When the cultural elite tell me saying ” Merry Christmas” is micro aggression then I am no longer living in the land of the free and it’s time to go to war

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, November 12, AD 2016 4:37am

“I do not have portraits of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman on display, but if I owned such portraits they would have pride of place in my law library.”
You could make a triptych by adding Claude-Frédéric Bastiat – the only economist I have ever come across with a real gift for satirical humour; the fallacies he so famously ridiculed still live on after a century and a half.

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