by John Hinderaker | October 27, 2024
Powerline blog
David French’s current New York Times column is the manifesto of a self-described Never Trumper. French recounts the four lessons he claims to have learned from his nine years of opposition to Trump. They seem to me to be deeply deluded.
Lesson number one is that “Community is more powerful than ideology.” French’s point here is that Trump is not a Reaganite purist, but nevertheless has been embraced by the Republican Party. But French completely fails to acknowledge the many ways in which Trump aligns, ideologically, with the Republicanism that has been mainstream since the 1980s. He calls Trump a “big government” politician, but Trump pushed through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which drove economic growth throughout his term. Trump also launched the largest and most successful attack on federal over-regulation in decades. And he consistently appointed principled conservatives to the federal bench.
French also, here as elsewhere, fails to acknowledge the binary nature of our politics. Trump was not a conservative purist, but was Hillary Clinton? Joe Biden? Kamala Harris? It is not unreasonable for those of us who are more purely conservative than Trump to support him enthusiastically when those are the alternatives.
Finally, it is worth noting that many conservatives have changed their ideology, in some respects, in response to events. Pretty much all of us grew up as doctrinaire free traders, but events since the 1980s have convinced many–including me–that while free trade is the default assumption, it is not the whole story. National security considerations demand that exceptions be made. Recognizing this reality is not an abandonment of conservative principles.
French’s second lesson is that “We don’t know our true values until they’re tested.” His point here is that evangelicals and others, like the Southern Baptists, who were critical of Bill Clinton’s moral lapses have taken a more indulgent attitude toward Trump. French thinks this is sheer hypocrisy, but in truth it represents a reasonable scale of moral judgment.
