Washington Post book critic Carlos Lozada surveys the recent spate of mea culpas by conservatives alarmed at Trump’s rise and conservatism’s fall, and comes away unimpressed. “The Never Trumpers hold everyone culpable for the appeal of Trumpism except, in any worthwhile way, themselves.”
With these books, the Never Trumpers are engaging in a worthy exercise, even if it’s one they are executing with varying degrees of consistency, clarity and introspection. Yet it took the nomination and election of Donald Trump to make it happen. In a sense, the Never Trumpers are also the Only Trumpers. Only with the rise of Trump did they even think to interrogate the conservative dogma they’d long defended. Only with Trump did they begin to reconsider their roles in feeding a frenzied base. Only with Trump did they see the need to reach for higher ideals.
Had Trump come close but failed to win the 2016 Republican nomination, had the GOP establishment and donor networks eked out one more mainstream nominee while still capitalizing on the angry, conspiratorial base to run against the Democrats, these books would not exist. The conscience and corrosion of conservatism, the mind of the right, would remain unexamined.
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On this date at Daily Kos in 2005—The Islamic Republic of Iraq:
I wonder why the war boosters think elections are in and of themselves a reason to declare "mission accomplished" (yet again) in Iraq.
What good are elections if the violence continues? What good are they if Iraq's infrastructure is in shambles? What good are they if Iraq's economy continues to founder.
"Wait!" the triumphalists will interject, "Elections show that Iraqis want democracy, and democracy will work to reduce the violence."
Of course, lots of things were supposed to reduce the violence—Saddam's capture, the first elections, the second election, the capture of myriad "Al Qaida number twos," the supposed training of a new Iraqi army, and so on. Forgive those of us underwhelmed by such rosy predictions. Reality has made a mockery of all previous expressions of optimism.
But I wonder, would the triumphalists still think this last round of elections was a success if it brought to power a fundamentalist Islamic party with strong ties to Iran? Because that's what appears to be happening.
Funny that -- we've expended hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives to give Iran what they most coveted -- a friendly Iraqi government.
And the wingnutosphere is celebrating.
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