A Veteran Conservative Reader Reminds Us That Trump’s Conservatism Is Realer Than Any Conservatism, Inc Toady’s

12/20/2017

Re: James Fulford’s blog How Crazy Is Jennifer Rubin? Never Trumpers At NRO Are Starting To Notice!

From: A Veteran Conservative Reader

Now that Never Trumpers Charles Cooke and David Frum are negotiating the terms of their surrender it may be time to gain some perspective on the real history of the American right.

Bill Buckley started out life arguing that keeping American white needed no defense and finished his life running a small branch of Open Borders neoconservatism. As the Ghost said in Hamlet “What a falling-off was there!”

The slow slide into watered down respectability was a sad spectacle to behold. Adapting Joe Sobran, true conservatism as it emerged in the 1950s and 1960s believed a few things:

The wrong side won the Civil War.
1933 represented a civilizational revolution. FDR and his entourage manipulated a down-and-out-America into agreeing to things that they never would previously even deigned to consider at any time subsequent to Leif Ericsson’s westward journey.
Getting into WW2 was a mistake.
Once in WW2 we fought the wrong army.
The 1960s brought the coup de grace against traditional America with the small afterthought which was the 1965 Immigration And Nationality Act being the unofficial death warrant.

All of this now is rank hate speech. If I didn’t know better, I'd censor it myself. What happened is that first Bill Buckley came for the Birchers and then, later, came for the Brimelows, Buchanans, O’sullivans, and Sobrans. And the question then became: Who is carrying the true flame? Who is the most Catholic king?

The Flakes and the McMullins of the world think that the barbaric Trumpers are assaulting a pristine citadel of true conservatism. But those who can remember beyond the day before yesterday know that that assault took place long ago. It’s only the sides that are reversed.

I submit that the Kristols, the Frums, the Rubins, the Boots, etc., don’t have a conservative bone in their body. In a grand twist of fate it is Trump who represents the now secret and almost hidden tradition of conservatism.

It may be a “street corner” kind of conservatism but it is conservatism nevertheless. Perhaps the key was how during the campaign Trump said that Reagan was "somewhat conservative". It was a curious turn of phrase and no one asked him to clarify it, so I will. What he meant was that Reagan started out his career by saying of the Berkeley protestors "If it’s to be a bloodbath, let it be now. Appeasement is not the answer"; and ended his career by genially arming Islamists and permitting a good portion of the unwashed Third World into our historic land.

But the greatest attestation of Trump’s conservatism is his treatment of Bowe Bergdahl. Many on the right would say that in the old days he'd have been locked up for life. And perhaps a few would even venture to say that in the old days he'd have been court martialed and got the death penalty. And maybe one or two would have said he should have been shot… maybe. But who except Trump would mimic holding a gun and say "In the old days — bing — deserters…in the old days, deserters were shot."? [Trump Speech ,Franklin, TN, October 3, 2015] No one: that’s who.

And if you had to sum up true conservatism in a nutshell that would be it — bing! Ever since Leif Ericsson went marauding.

And so Bret Stephens needn’t worry. The coup has already taken place. It’s the rightful king who is returning.

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