Nicholas M. Gallagher writing in NRO
* * *
Donald Trump clinched the GOP nomination by exploiting
vulnerabilities few were aware existed.
* UM... OK... IF YOU SAY SO...
(*LAUGHING*)
When the 2016 race began, almost no one seemed to have
understood that a plurality of the Republican party had a fundamentally
different set of policy preferences from those of doctrinaire conservatism.
* ON TRADE, YES; ON OTHER ISSUES (INCLUDING,
UNFORTUNATELY, AT LEAST TO A LARGE EXTENT, FOREIGN POLICY) NOT SO MUCH.
* NO. THE KEY REASON TRUMP IS WHERE HE IS IS THAT A HUGE SEGMENT
OF THE REPUBLICAN VOTER BASE HATES THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS THAN
THEY (WE!) HATE BARACK OBAMA AND HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON!
* OH... AND WE'RE NOT SO THRILLED WITH THE LIKES OF NRO
EITHER...
(*SMIRK*)
Trump saw this opening and took full advantage. Trump’s
positions follow the contours not of movement conservatism but of American folk
nationalism, often known as Jacksonianism.
* AND REAGANISM.
As Walter Russell Mead, my boss over at The American
Interest, has noted, Jacksonians characteristically emphasize anti-elitism and
egalitarianism while drawing a sharp distinction between members of the folk
group and those outside it.
In domestic policy, this translates to tough-on-crime stances
and stubborn adherence to traditional views on social issues (and,
historically, opposition to civil rights), and to advocacy of government
assistance for “deserving” members of the folk group.
Looking abroad, they are uninterested in Wilsonian nation-building
projects or promoting global order, but if they feel the nation is threatened,
they are willing to fight back by whatever means are necessary.
* I WONDER IF THE AUTHOR IS AWARE THAT WE JUST SUCK AT
"PROMOTING GLOBAL ORDER."
* AND I WONDER IF THE AUTHOR "GETS" THAT OFTEN
WE "PROMOTE GLOBAL ORDER" AT THE COST OF OUR OWN PEOPLES' BEST
INTERESTS.
* ANYWAY... CONTINUING:
Jacksonians don’t fit easily into either the liberal or
the conservative camp; they are the “radical middle.”
They also don’t comport with regional stereotypes. (Jacksonians
are not synonymous with southerners or rednecks: Trump has performed best in
northeastern states and prospered in cities.)
In the past, Jacksonians have been found at the heart of
the Confederacy, but they also formed the core of the Union Army, and later the
one that defeated Hitler.
* I WONDER IF THE AUTHOR KNOWS THAT IT WAS ANDREW JACKSON
WHO QUASHED THE ORIGINAL SECESSIONIST MOVEMENT WHICH HAD SPRUNG UP DURING HIS
TIME?
(*SNORTING WHILE SHAKING MY HEAD*)
When Jacksonians take up politics, they do so with a
vengeance, and Jacksonian uprisings have overturned the American political
order more than once. But Jacksonians tend to be quiet politically when things
are going well. Much of the time, it’s easy for elites to misread them as
supporters of other movements, forget them, or take them for granted.
And that’s exactly what Republicans had been doing.
* NOT "REPUBLICANS" - "REPUBLICAN
ESTABLISHMENT TYPES."
After the “paleoconservatives” and "Buchananites"
were defeated a generation ago...
* THE COUNTRY STARTED GOING TO HELL.
* LET'S REPEAT THAT:
* AFTER THE "PALEOCONSERVATIVES" AND "BUCHANANITES"
WERE DEFEATED A GENERATION AGO THE COUNTRY STARTED GOING TO HELL. THANKS TO
PAPPY BUSH WE GOT CLINTON. THANKS TO CLINTON WE GOT BUSH. THANKS TO BUSH WE GOT
OBAMA.
* FOLKS... IN MANY WAYS REAGAN WAS A PALEOCON AND... IF YOU
REMEMBER... PAT BUCHANAN WAS WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATION'S DIRECTOR AND SPECIAL
ADVISOR TO "THE GIPPER."
(*SMIRK*)
* FOLKS... BUCHANAN WAS ALWAYS LOYAL TO REAGAN. THE BUSH
FAMILY? PLEASE...!
(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
...leading GOP politicians minimized and sometimes
outright denied tensions between Jacksonian sentiment and conservative
ideology. They focused on issues where the two viewpoints overlapped (from an
aversion to liberal identity politics to the need to take the fight to the bad
guys after 9/11), while politely ignoring (or forgetting) the important
differences between the groups. This was made easier by the fact that for much
of that period, a rising economic tide lifted all boats and kept the visibility
of disagreements to a minimum.
Many Republicans, especially those of the “neocon”
persuasion, went a step farther by denying the existence of American
nationalism outright. This usually involved their contrasting nationalism,
which was something bad that others (usually: Europeans) had indulged in, with
patriotism, which was presented as good and American — and universalistic and
ideal-based.
* NEOCONS HAVE GOTTEN US INTO THE INTERNATIONAL MESSES
WE'RE IN.
* AND FOLKS... BOTH THE REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC
ESTABLISHMENTS ARE NEOCON. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON IS AN ARCH NEOCON!
The reappearance of naked nationalism has been a shock to
those who spent decades maintaining that America’s unique and unqualified
achievement has been to synthesize love of country and universal democratic
ideals. Jacksonians have consistently felt that some combination of ethnicity,
where you were born, and faith, unite the American people...
* YES. NATIONALITY MATTERS... BUT... ANYONE CAN BECOME AN
AMERICAN - ANYONE WHO WANTS TO. THE PROBLEM IS... OUR ENEMIES - FOREIGN AND
DOMESTIC - SEEK "FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE" - THE OPPOSITE OF DESIRING TO
BECOME (OR REMAIN) AMERICAN!
As a form of nationalism, Jacksonianism has had two
saving graces. First, it’s proven to be expandable in a way that no other folk
nationalism in history has been. Although it was originally carried to America
by the Scots-Irish who settled the frontier, the Jacksonian understanding of
the folk group has expanded in time beyond its white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant
roots to include millions of immigrants from far-flung places, such as Irish
Catholics and Eastern European Jews.
* AND ASIANS... AND BLACKS... AND HISPANICS...
* TO REPEAT: ANYONE WHO SEEKS TO TRULY BECOME AN AMERICAN
IN THE SENSE OF OUR FOUNDERS' IDEALS!
This record of assimilation is an immense and
unprecedented achievement in the bloody annals of a fallen world.
* IT WAS... UNTIL THE LEFT - AND THEIR NEOCON AND RINO
ALLIES - SUCCESSFULLY ENGAGED IN "FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION."
* HOW DO YOU LIKE THE... "TRANSFORMATION"...
FOLKS? (I SURE AS HELL DON'T!)
Second, Jacksonianism has usually embraced and supported
American idealistic patriotism.
It’s an oversimplification to think of these as competing
ideologies: One operates (mostly) at the level of feeling and the other at the
level of principle. Most Jacksonians would profess to be ardent patriots and
lovers of America’s founding principles, and most Americans have at least some
Jacksonianism in them. The tension between the two is nonetheless real and
tricky to manage for a conservative movement that is, as it’s suddenly and
rudely been reminded, a minority both in the country and within the Republican
party.
Conservatives need Jacksonian votes to form a governing
coalition. Yet from trade to immigration, foreign policy to fiscal policy,
Jacksonian instincts are often incompatible with conservative prescriptions.
* JACKSONIANS ARE RIGHT! PALEOCONSERVATIVES ARE RIGHT!
BUCHANANITES ARE RIGHT!
* IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A "CONSERVATIVE" YET
DON'T IDENTIFY WITH JACKSONIAN IDEALS... PALEOCONSERVATIVE IDEALS...
BUCHANANITE IDEALS... RE-REGISTER AS A DEMOCRAT AND PLEASE - FOR GOD'S SAKE -
MOVE THEIR PARTY TO THE RIGHT INSTEAD OF CONSTANTLY MOVING OUR PARTY TO THE
LEFT!
There are lots of ways to deal with this friction. The
least helpful is to pretend it doesn’t exist. Exhibits A and B of this tendency
are the proposed immigration bills in 2007 and 2013, which repeated in their
essentials the failed 1986 amnesty-for-enforcement bargain.
More broadly, party leaders failed to take the Jacksonian
base’s positions on economic policy into account or even acknowledge them
rhetorically, and they failed also to respond to Jacksonian dissatisfaction
with the Wilsonian aspects of the Iraq War.
By the time 2016 rolled around, the Republicans —
including much of their supposed anti-establishment wing — were acting as
though Jacksonianism didn’t exist.
* THESE CLOWNS ACTUALLY THOUGHT THEY WERE GOING TO PUT
JEB BUSH IN THE WHITE HOUSE!
(*ROFLMAO*)
* SERIOUSLY... THESE FOLKS ARE DELUSIONAL!
Meanwhile, structural shifts in the economy, from
globalization to automation, have been breaking down traditional sources of
blue-collar and clerical employment, even as 50 years of mass immigration — a
large chunk of it not sanctioned by law — have altered the nature of the
American folk group.
* YEP. AND I'M TALKING CULTURALLY... VALUE-WISE... NOT
SIMPLY SKIN COLOR, RELIGION, OR EVEN "GENDER IDENTITY."
The latter has weakened social cohesion, and the former
not only grates on Jacksonians’ sense of economic security but undermines their
very identity as industrial workers and providers.
* OBAMA AND CLINTON HAVE BRAGGED ABOUT DESTROYING
AMERICA'S COAL INDUSTRY!
* AND JUST YESTERDAY I POSTED A PIECE WHERE SOME IDIOT
RINO WAS ACTUALLY ARGUING THAT WE'RE BETTER OFF NOT MANUFACTURING IPHONES HERE
AT HOME - IN AMERICAN FACTORIES EMPLOYING AMERICAN WORKERS!
Meanwhile, the perception that the world abroad was
threatening and thankless grew even as confidence in the efficacy of
conservative foreign and military policy waned.
* OUR... ESTABLISHMENT... LEADERS... (BOTH PARTIES!)...
ARE... TOTALLY... INCOMPETENT!
The conditions for a Jacksonian revolt were ripe.
* ARE RIPE!
* GO, TRUMP, GO! GO, TRUMP, GO! GO, TRUMP, GO!
Ideals need gut instincts and folk tradition on their
side in order to be efficacious. The Jacksonian sense of common American
identity enables self-governance, charity, and neighborliness; for many —
including groups that the GOP has been trying to court for years, such as
Hispanic Americans and single women without college degrees — it gives
important meaning to life.
(*NOD*)
And Jacksonian support will also be necessary to
addressing our pressing foreign-policy problems.
* DAMN STRAIGHT! EVERY PRESIDENT POST-REAGAN HAS BEEN
FRIGGIN' INCOMPETENT!
For now, Jacksonianism lies closer to conservatism than
it does to the identity-politics Left, and one may reasonably hope for a “best
of both” compromise between intellectual conservatism and Jacksonian impulses.
* FOLKS... LOTS OF DAMNED FOOLS IDENTIFY THEMSELVES - AND
ARE IDENTIFIED BY THE MSM - AS "INTELLECTUALS." WELL... NO MATTER
ONE'S "CREDENTIALS," IF ONE IS WRONG FAR MORE OFTEN THAN RIGHT...
THEN THE TERM "INTELLECTUAL" REALLY SHOULDN'T APPLY.
(*SMIRKING; SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
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