A Reader Weighs in on Dreher and Douthat and the Never Trump Phenomenon

Dr. Vito Caiati, historian, writes,

I appreciated your critical post on  Rod Dreher last week. Yesterday (Tuesday, August 6), he was at it again (“The MAGA Kahn & The Abyss’), linking Trump to cultural decline, while exalting a recent column in The New York Times by the never-Trump nincompoop Ross Douthat ("The Nihilist in Chief"), in which he decries "obvious moral vacuum, the profound spiritual black hole, that lies beneath [Trump’s] persona and career.”

As much as I appreciate Dreher’s work on the corruption in the Catholic Church and the existential dangers of 'woke' culture, his judgments are often suffused with a sanctimonious ahistoricity; thus, he refuses to acknowledge that the only effective responses to the vicious and increasingly violent American left have been those of the uncouth, often inarticulate, street fighter Trump. He is by far not a perfect man, but he is the only man we have; he fights back against the left’s crimes, lies, and violence.

I think that guys like Dreher who have only a thin knowledge of history are ultimately shocked by hard political and ideological conflict. He likes to pick saints and other less savory figures out of the flow of time and set them up as exemplars of the good and the bad. But history is dense and far more complicated than he imagines, and in times of crisis, Western values and culture have repeatedly been defended and preserved by political and military figures of dubious personal morality.

Hard times require hard men.

I agree entirely. But we are left with the task of explaining the Never-Trump mentality. I find the obviously decent and intelligent David Frenches and the Mona Charens among them hard to figure. 

I respect the high-minded Mona Charen, I applaud the civil courage it took for her to make her CPAC speech last year, and I condemn any thugs who may have threatened her physically for speaking her mind and heart. (According to reports, she was quickly escorted from the venue.) But people like her have no effect on what actually happens and are useless when it comes to defeating the Left. She doesn't understand the nature of politics. It is war, not gentlewomanly debate.  I wish it were the latter, and it could be if we all agreed on fundamentals; but we manifestly don't.  

You don't like the vulgar Trump? Too bad. He's all we've got, as Caiati says above.  No other Republican has the courage or the ability to accomplish what he has accomplished. Face reality and its limitations. Don't let the best become the enemy of the good. The milque-toast McCains  haven't done jack and won't do jack, except talk and obstruct and aid the enemy. Former red-diaper baby David Horowitz understands the nature of the political:

The movement galvanized by Trump can stop the progressive juggernaut and change the American future, but only if it emulates the strategy of the campaign: Be on the offense; take no prisoners; stay on the attack. To stop the Democrats and their societal transformation, Republicans must adhere to a strategy that begins with a punch in the mouth. That punch must pack an emotional wallop large enough to throw them off balance and neutralize their assaults. It must be framed as a moral indictment that stigmatizes them in the way their attacks stigmatize Republicans. It must expose them for their hypocrisy. It must hold them accountable for the divisions they sow and the suffering they cause. (Big Agenda, Humanix, 2017, p. 142)

Trump alone, a political outsider who doesn't need a job, has the civil courage and is in a position to deliver the needed punches. That's why we support him. That's why we overlook his flaws, just as the Democrats overlook the flaws of their candidates. He punches back and accomplishes what the milque-toast Republicans only talk about.

Charen and French and Co. are intelligent and morally decent. They are not foolish and destructive like Ocasio-Cortez, Gillibrand, Warren, O'Rourke, Booker, Sanders, and Biden.  What the former fail to understand, however, is that their political opponents are in fact domestic enemies who  do not care at all about the values they cherish: civility, decorum, free speech, the rule of law, and the rest. 

They can't see past Trump's obnoxious mannerisms, and they cannot see into the true nature of their opponents.  They project into their opponents the values that they themselves uphold. Perhaps that is the source of their blindness.

It's all fascinating even if disturbing, and a plentiful source of grist for the philosopher's and the psychologists' mills.