It's on: National Review leads assault by conservative pundits on Donald Trump

I actually would have been surprised if this had not happened. The political punditry generally consists of two groups, and for the purposes of this discussion I'm not talking about liberals and conservatives. I'm talking about those on either side who are divided between those who engage in real policy thought and those who are more interested in jawboning about political strategies and campaign dynamics. Conservatives in the former group have been recruited in impressive numbers by National Review to pen their objections to the candidacy of Donald Trump. There are two pieces being talked about today. One is an editorial by the NR editors titled Against Trump, while the other consists of the various conservative writers NR recruited to give their own takes.

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Some express that they like Trump personally but can't accept him as a conservative nor as a person prepared for the presidency, while others simply lay into him as an across-the-board fraud. The most representative sample probably comes from Ben Domenech:

The case for constitutional limited government is the case against Donald Trump. To the degree we take him at his word — understanding that Trump is a negotiator whose positions are often purposefully deceptive — what he advocates is a rejection of our Madisonian inheritance and an embrace of Barack Obama’s authoritarianism. Trump assures voters that he will use authoritarian power for good, to help those who feel — with good reason — ignored by both parties. But the American experiment in self-government was the work of a generation that risked all to defeat a tyrannical monarch and establish a government of laws, not men. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people is precisely what the Constitution offers, and what is most threatened by “great men” impatient to impose their will on the nation. Conservatives should reject Trump’s hollow, Euro-style identity politics. But conservatives have far more to learn from his campaign than many might like to admit. The Trump voter is moderate, disaffected, with patriotic instincts. He feels disconnected from the GOP and other broken public institutions, left behind by a national political elite that no longer believes he matters. Trump’s current popularity reveals something good. President Obama’s core domestic-policy agenda was designed to pull working- and middle-class voters left. It assumed that once they received the government’s redistributive largesse, they would be invested in maintaining it — and maintaining the Left in power. Trump’s rise bespeaks the utter failure of this program for the American working class: They have seen the Left’s agenda up close and do not believe it is good enough to make a nation great.

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Believe it or not, I think both ends of this tussle are healthy - the Trump candidacy and the conservative intelligensia's response to it. It's perfectly reasonable that those who have been thought leaders in a movement for decades would object to the embrace of a man who not only has never been part of it, but who leaves legitimate questions about whether he's part of it now. But Trump's challenge to the conservative establishment - which is not the same thing as the Republican establishment - is a healthy thing as well. I don't mind philosphers and eggheads. They serve a useful purpose. Thought leadership is a good thing. But what conservative thinkers must grapple with is the fact that they have had virtually no success turning their ideas into political and/or policy victories. It's fine and good to say what we stand for these ideas, but at some point the country needs you to stop "standing" for things and start making things happen. Somewhere along the line there's been a disconnect between the thinkers, the doers and the voters. The failure of the GOP majorities of a decade ago serve as a troubling marker in this journey. One of those now attacking Trump is Tom DeLay, who was House Majority Leader during the Bush years and could have shepherded real conservative reforms through the House, but was more interested at the time in making sure that K Street lobbyists were happy. As both the boss and Sarah Palin have been saying in recent days, whatever Trump's faults, we can be pretty sure what we'll get from any traditional candidate we elect. Not much. What Trump supporters like is the idea that a guy is willing to cut through the political nonsense and get things done, and isn't afraid to say what he thinks even if it's offensive to some. What the NR writers are saying in response is that there's no sense electing a go-getter if there's no rhyme or reason to what he does and gets. Here's where I come down: If the conservative movement wants a hero who will wow the electorate, get things done, and make sure they are conservative things - let's see that guy. Not only that, but let's see him show he's a winner by actually winning. People can # all day long about "the Republican establishment" going in for Mitt Romney and John McCain instead of choosing "true conservatives," but the answer to that is not to #. It's find a "true conservative" whose credentials are so strong and who can appeal to voters in such a way that he can't be denied. Where is that guy? The conservative movement has failed to produce him since Reagan, and the result is that the base has little faith in anyone who comes from the political class to really change anything. So, to many of them, it seems like a reasonable risk to throw in with Trump, because whatever his ideological apostasies he seems unlikely to accept wimpy incrementalism. There are reports now that some in the GOP establishment actually prefer Trump over Cruz because they think Cruz would stock his campaign and his administration with his own people, leaving Republican lobbyists, attorneys, consultants and career staffers out in the cold. Seriously. If the dynamics on the right side of the aisle are that fouled up, Donald Trump is a symptom of it. He's not the disease. Say what you will about the left, but they'll grab power any way they can and once they have it they'll use it any way they want. Our side can't figure out what it wants to do at any point on that continuum, and the base is not so stupid that it can't see that. Trump at least appears to know what he wants to do, and appears willing to do whatever is necessary to make it happen. Are you sure it's better to throw in with people who "stand for" all the right things but can't make them happen?

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