Neither Trump Nor Hillary!
I write this from snowy McLean, Virginia, where 24 inches of snow fell Friday night and Saturday. But all is well–the trees look nice covered in snow, our power didn’t go out, and our driveway is now clear. So I’ll be getting back to work (eventually). Meanwhile, being housebound all weekend allowed me to spend even more time indulging in phone calls about Trump, tweeting about Trump, and planning conspiracies about Trump. All perhaps to no avail?
Or perhaps to some avail. If Bill Buckley could found National Review six decades ago to stand athwart history, yelling Stop, we today should be able at least to try to stand athwart Trump, yelling Stop. Rich Lowry, the current editor of National Review, thought so too, and asked a bunch of conservatives to explain why we shouldn’t yield to the temptations of Trumpism. The whole symposium is well worth reading. Here’s my contribution:
Let us, as conservatives, seek guidance from those we admire.
The Federalist (No. 39) speaks of “that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.” Hasn’t Donald Trump been a votary merely of wealth rather than of freedom? Hasn’t he been animated by the art of the deal rather than by the art of self-government?
William F. Buckley Jr. proclaimed, in the founding statement of this journal, that conservatism “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” Hasn’t Donald Trump always been a man inclined to go along-indeed, impatient to get along-with history?
In a letter to National Review, Leo Strauss wrote that “a conservative, I take it, is a man who despises vulgarity; but the argument which is concerned exclusively with calculations of success, and is based on blindness to the nobility of the effort, is vulgar.” Isn’t Donald Trump the very epitome of vulgarity?
In sum: Isn’t Trumpism a two-bit Caesarism of a kind that American conservatives have always disdained? Isn’t the task of conservatives today to stand athwart Trumpism, yelling Stop?
And we’ve been doing our best at TWS. Our new issue has a terrific cover story on Trump by Matt Labash that should be forwarded to every GOP primary voter you know. Here’s the link. Peruse it yourself if you haven’t yet, and then feel free to forward. It’s a fun read–as well as being an accurate, amusing but also somewhat horrifying portrait of the current GOP frontrunner. You might also take a look at the editorials by Steve Hayes and me, as well as John McCormack’s reported piece based on spending time with Trump in Iowa.
And with Iowa a week away, to keep up with our reporting on the race, you really will want to visit weeklystandard.com with some regularity. Mike Warren, Steve Hayes and John McCormack will be out in Iowa, and the rest of us will be weighing in from here and elsewhere. We’ll try to provide our usual combination of lively reporting, astute analysis, and well-grounded opinion. Which we’ll supplement over the next week with burnt offerings to the gods of politics inducing them to save American conservatism from disaster. That will be each day at our office, at 5:00 p.m. Just before cocktails.
And speaking of Neither Trump Nor Hillary, I’ve registered a website to lay the groundwork for…who knows what?…if Trump does prevail. Take a look, if you wish, at neithertrumpnorhillary.com. Handsome, no? That’s Patches, our mini-Australian shepherd, whom we thought an appropriate mascot: He’s smart and loyal, pretends to be fierce, is a bit crazy, and tries to herd people into one area for their own safety whether they want to be there or not.
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And a TWS Iowa prediction market…
We all have our electoral hopes and political preferences. But we also thought it might be interesting to give all of you a chance to participate in a “prediction market”–sort of like the candidate casino you’ve seen Steve Hayes, Charles Krauthammer and others engage in on Fox News’s Special Report.
Unlike our past surveys where we ask for your preference among the candidates, in this prediction market you’re asked “who is going to win?” You’ll have 100 tokens (call them “Kristol Clear Tokens” if you like) to bet on the outcomes. And unlike candidate casino, but like betting on horse races or football games, this is a market where the odds adjust as you bet. So the final result captures the crowd consensus as to what the result will be.
Please read the instructions when you enter the game–and remember, you’re betting on the odds (probability) that a candidate will win, not whom you want to win.
I thank our friends at Consensus Point for offering their platform for this WEEKLY STANDARD political prediction game. We’ll share the results with you in the newsletter next Monday and we’ll all see how the collective wisdom of the TWS crowd does compared to the actual on Tuesday. Click on this link to get started!
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A final note on Iowa
A few points to keep in mind as you follow events over the next week:
First, caucus-goers in Iowa have a history of changing their minds in the last week, or making their minds up late. In 2004 John Kerry surged late to win the Democratic caucus easily; in 2012 Rick Santorum came from way behind to win on the Republican side. There are many theories as to who might surge and who might fade this year, but don’t assume that the final results will match today’s polls–even if they’re accurate as of today, which is of course a question (caucuses are harder to poll than primaries, and primaries than general elections).
Second, the debate Thursday night on the Fox News Channel could really be important. I imagine it will have huge viewership in Iowa, and good or bad performances could make a difference. So watch that if you can, follow me and some of my more Tweet-happy colleagues on Twitter to get instant analysis, and come to weeklystandard.com after the debate for reporting and analysis.
Third: let me be unafraid to make two bold predictions. Look for a huge upset in Super Bowl 50, as Peyton Manning leads Denver to victory over Carolina! (To be honest, I wouldn’t bet real dollars on this, just Kristol Clear Coupons). And here’s my forecast for the Iowa caucuses, a week out and contrary to the current polls: Cruz 30 percent; Trump 25 percent; Rubio 22 percent; no other candidate will get above 6 percent.
Hey, you know what they say: No Guts, No Glory.
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Back to college…
As students head back to college, here’s a new conversation on the state of higher education with Harvard professor and former Harvard president Larry Summers on Conversations with Bill Kristol. In this conversation, Larry reflects on the current climate of political correctness on campuses and its effects on freedom of thought and the pursuit of knowledge. He also discusses significant controversies from his tenure as president of Harvard, including his opposition to boycotts of Israel, his battle against grade inflation, and his interest in bringing ROTC back to campus.
Here’s just one quotation: “There is a great deal of absurd political correctness….I’m somebody who believes very strongly in diversity, who resists racism in all of its many incarnations… But it seems to be that there is a kind of creeping totalitarianism in terms of what kind of ideas are acceptable and are debatable on college campuses. And I think that’s hugely unfortunate. I think the answer to bad speech is different speech. The answer to bad speech is not shutting down speech.”
I hope you’ll find this conversation interesting–and feel free to forward it to relatives, friends and others involved in American higher education today, especially to students who might be strengthened in their resolve to push back against the forces of politically correct intimidation on campus.
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Onward!
Bill Kristol
