Live from the Journamalists' and the Republicans' Self-Made Gehenna: Ross Douthat rejects Trump but endorses Trumpism, saying that the idea that Trump is either "a typical Republican... [or] the scourge our rotten system needs" is "a plausible argument". No, Ross, that's wrong: misogynist white racialism--either in the hard-core version of Trump or the soft-core version that Republicans since Goldwater have embraced is not plausibly a good path for America.
Shame on you, New York Times.
Jamelle Bouie: Buried lede:
Buried lede is that large parts of the conservative intelligentsia have embraced a white nationalist politics.
Ross Douthat: [Trump and the Intellectuals][]: A case for Trump's ideas that ignores the man himself:
THE Republican Party’s politicians have mostly surrendered... [and] entertainers have mostly been enthusiastic.... But the conservative intelligentsia — journalists, think-tankers and academics — has been conspicuous in its resistance [to Trump].
Now, though, we have “Writers and Scholars for America” — a collection of prominent signatories... hacks of the sort who inevitably flutter toward Trump’s flame... writers I’ve admired for many years.... arguments that attract these thinkers to Trump’s candidacy.
Many... believe... Trump would... govern... as a conventional Republican... [and] liberal ideas are dangerous or destructive.... Others... are attracted... because he isn’t a conventional Republican. Reagan-era conservatism had its time and failed... and the time has come to roll the dice.... Some... feel that the American republic has already gone under.... Others take the more modest view that Trump is correct on particular issues (immigration, foreign policy, the importance of the nation-state) where the bipartisan consensus is often wrong, and his candidacy is a chance to vote against an elite worldview that desperately needs to be chastened and rebuked.... If Trump gets restrained by his advisers, he’ll be a typical Republican, this combination would go, and if he stays true to his own essential Trumpiness, he’ll be the scourge our rotten system needs. If ideas were all, this would be a plausible argument...
