Jay Nordlinger: ‘I Like Him, I Like Him.’ I Don’t.
12th July 2018
I have a soft spot in my heart for the National Review crowd, but this is just too stupid for words.
Just because Trump says X doesn’t mean that X is true. Nordlinger and the other pearl-clutchers of the Establishment Right have this serious psychological defect that, coming from the right-wing think-tank/opinionator realm, they say what they mean and mean what they say; as a result, they think that anybody who isn’t a Lying Democrat (of which there be many) does (or at least ought to do) the same thing. That’s not Trump. For Trump, what he says is a tool, and any correspondence between what he says, and what actually is, may or may not exist. What Trump says is what he wants you to hear, and that’s all. If you take it for more than that, then you’re a fool and he will play you like Eric Clapton with a guitar.
Trump knows more about what’s going on than you or I or even (gasp) Jay Nordlinger. He has all of the intelligence apparatus of the President of the United States at his disposal. If he does something, there’s a reason for it, and that reason is likely to be far from obvious — so to look at the obvious and recoil is on a par with a cow changing direction because a cowboy is flapping a blanket at it. Nordlinger has locked down his membership in the herd, and I find it very distasteful that supposedly intelligent people are so easily duped.
Jay Nordlinger doesn’t want a real President; he wants somebody Righteous. Ronald Reagan was Righteous. George W. Bush was Righteous. Mitt Romney was Righteous. Nordlinger suffers from the same disease as every SJW in the DemLegHump Media: They want a President who will Signal Virtue with every word he speaks and every act he takes (which is why they loved Obama so much). This is why the National Review crowd would rather have a Republican Presidential candidate who is Righteous but loses over one who isn’t and can win.
Trump isn’t Righteous. He has seen Righteous in the business world and has correctly deduced that it is a Loser. Trump is Cunning. As a result, he wins far more often than not. As President, the American people have benefited from the winning along with Trump. That’s why Trump has gotten More Stuff Done from a ‘conservative’ standpoint in two years than Reagan managed to get done in four, and is likely to continue winning.
When it comes to winning, I’ll pick Cunning over Righteous every time. People like Jay Norlinger need to go back to sucking their thumbs and leave governing to those who understand the process and can get the job done.