Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

Shut up they explain

August 19, 2016 --

That, to LPR, sums up the attitude of the Never Trumpers to Donald J. Trump’s voters. The phrase is a variation of Ring Lardner’s classic “Shut up he explained” in his 1920 novella, “The Young Immigrunts.” How dare Trump’s voters back a candidate who does not meet with the approval of the cream of the Republican party. How dare Trump’s voters comport themselves as if Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence – on government based on the consent of the governed – are to be taken seriously, when it should be obvious that the just powers of government are based on the consent of the intellectually superior. The role of the John and Jane Does in American politics? Do as your betters instruct and, thereafter, shut up they explain.

Which brings LPR to the Frank Capra-ization of this election. LPR has a hunch that the late populist director would recognize Donald J. Trump as an amalgam of John Doe, from the movie “Meet John Doe;” Jefferson Smith, from “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington;” Longfellow Deeds, from “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town;” –and, of course, George Bailey, in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Doe was targeted for destruction by D.B. Norton. Smith was targeted for destruction by a group of corrupt U.S. senators. Deeds was targeted for destruction by a corrupt lawyer who had two elderly sisters testify at a sanity hearing – for Deeds – that he was “pixilated.” (Who will be the first Never Trumper to aver that Trump is pixilated?)

George Bailey is targeted for destruction in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” by the evil banker Henry F. Potter, who embezzles an $8,000 deposit from the Bailey Building and Loan and then demands that Bailey be arrested. Earlier in the movie, George told the Bailey directors, meeting to determine the future of the building and loan on the death George’s father, that the town of Bedford Falls needed this building and loan if only so that people could take out loans without “crawling to Potter.” For LPR, the Never Trumpers would be on Potter’s side.

Now consider the statement from David Plouffe, quoted in The New York Times, August 4, that not only must Trump be defeated, “’He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not arise again.” Has Hillary Clinton, have the Never Trumpers, has the media protested Plouffe’s comment that is appropriate to a totalitarian state, not the United States? Not to LPR’s knowledge. What can this mean, if not: elect Hillary Clinton president and, finally, see the federal government destroy the “vast right-wing conspiracy” against the Clintons, root and branch. Let the IRS harassment against conservative groups continue until these groups are crushed; establish midnight raids on conservative activists not only in Wisconsin, again, but throughout the country.

In a piece called “Hillary’s Neoliberals,” Victor Davis Hanson points to the class aspect of the divide between the Never Trumping Republicans and Trump’s supporters. The former, for Hanson, consists largely of the neo-conservatives who left the Democrat Party in the 1970’s and 1980’s and are now returning to the Democrat fold where, as elitists, they feel more comfortable. Hanson calls them “neoliberals.” He writes, in part, “A mostly urban, highly educated and high-income globalized elite often shares more cultural and political affinities with their counterparts on the other side of the aisle than they do with the lower-middle and working classes of their own parties.” To that, LPR would add that these American elites likely feel they have more in common with the elites of the European Union than with their ordinary countrymen.

And so, the Never Trumpers are joining the left to elect a president – Hillary Clinton – who, Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger predicted, August 11, ,will exercise federal powers beyond the control of Congress. It would seem to LPR that Mr. Henninger is telling his readers that with Hillary Clinton our 45th president, the United States not only will have its first woman president, but its first truly imperial president as well. To the acclaim not only of the Never Trumping Republicans joining the ideologues on the left, but, certainly, the media as well.

Jim Rutenberg gave the media a green light to cover the Trump campaign irresponsibly and hysterically. For Rutenberg, a pretense to objectivity is not tenable when one covers a candidate regarded as dangerous. This of course, makes the reporter’s politics the test of what she deems “fit to print.” For LPR, this is simply ends- justifying-means reporting. But, after all, hasn’t this mindset has already hammered conservatives beset with harassment from the IRS, and other federal and state agencies? Why did the IRS place heavy and unfair burdens on conservative groups seeking tax exemptions if not the certainty of elitist bureaucrats in the IRS that the aims of these groups are inimical to the welfare of the nation – in that they might well lead to the election of Republicans to public office!

LPR expects the fanatical pursuit of conservatives will increase after President Hillary Clinton takes the oath of office, January 20, an oath she will have no intention to honor. Will there be a check on the imperial drive of Hillary Clinton? Where would such check come? From Democrats marching in lockstep to her direction? From judges who accept her terms for decision-making on the bench? From Never Trumper Republicans? From a media that uses the power of language to twist reality into robotic devotion of a president of whom a disparaging word is tantamount to hate speech?

Benjamin Franklin famously was heard to remark, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, September 1787, that the delegates had given the country “a Republic, if you can keep it.” It seems to LPR, as we are a month short of the 229th anniversary of the drafting of our Constitution, that too many Republicans have no more interest in maintaining our constitutional Republic than the leftist elites who, come January 20, 2017, will take their pleasure, seeking the “ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few.”

People of America – hearken to the words of Richard M. Nixon, August 9, 1974: “Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”

People of America: believe in our legacy of freedom, be brave in the face of the forces that would crush our heritage of liberty, trust in our common sense and good conscience – and, above all, trust in God.