Have been following Bryan McGrath for maybe ten years so well back into the Obama years due to my own interest in national security issues. He is a former naval officer that I believe makes a living consulting in that space. He is a conservative of the traditional Reagan type (e.g. focused on national security and economic issues as opposed to cultural and anti-immigration stuff). He is now a never-Trumper.
In his blog, while its headline purpose was criticizing yet another Trump self-serving pardon the part that caught my eye was him agonizing about his personal relationships in the age of Trump.
http://conservativewahoo.blogspot.com/2020/07/what-in-gods-name-are-they-thinking.html
"...The folks I used to huddle in the (metaphorical) foxhole with as we tried to get what I believed were principled conservatives and civilized human beings elected to the Presidency....people who turned their backs on integrity and honor in the pursuit of ephemeral political power, personal financial gain, or some combination thereof....are also uniformly silent. These are not reticent people, mind you. They are happy to speak out on what the view as Chinese perfidy, the hypocrisy of the NBA, or the Marxism of BLM (each of which by the way, they are correct about). But across the board, fear of Donald Trump and his incompressible base has rendered them limp, silent, feckless, and beside the point.
When I see them spouting off on social media about everything under the sun except the ONE BIG THING that they ignore, two things come to mind. One general, one personal.
First, I wonder if they realize how much damage they are doing to their own ability to be seen as competent and reliable voices of opposition when someone of the other party occupies the White House? They have so often surrendered the high ground to the man they've tied their fortunes to, that when the time comes for arguments to be made from it, they will not know where to go to find it. This is a serious point. Joe Biden and his team are going to have to be constrained from the right...but upon what principles will or can these people stand? Putting aside the emergency money voted as part of an economic rescue this year--this crowd silently assented as Trump knee-capped Paul Ryan and other voices calling for entitlement reform. When the inevitable call for increases in entitlement spending come, upon what arguments will they draw? Where will they find credibility? On free trade, they have willingly given the issue away. How can they reclaim it, in the light of 3.5 years of sliming it? Given the level of constant flat out corruption that they have enabled, how ever will they have the moral standing to point it out in others?
The second thing I think about...is that I wonder what they think about me?... When these people see what I write, what do they think? Has my raving for four plus years convinced them that I am an unserious and unsophisticated person, that there is important work to be done and someone has to do it, that I am a naive waif who simply doesn't understand how the game is played? Have they long ago muted me so as a result? Has my constant reminder to them that not everyone turned their back on conscience and principle, caused them to question even one iota of their descent, or has it more likely caused them to tune me out as their self-image was strained?
As I've written here before, I've lost friendships over all of this. There are some who consider this "sad", and an overreaction. They ask "why can't we all just get along?" and "is it really worth losing friends over?" My answer remains the same--my standards for friendship are so much higher than my standards for political affinity. You cannot be my friend if you shill for this, you cannot be my friend if you enable it, you cannot be my friend if you are so inconsistent as to repudiate core beliefs in pursuit of personal gain, you cannot be my friend if you defend the corruption and dishonesty and incivility and chaos. By doing so, you by definition do not possess the basic character necessary for being my friend.
...and I mean this with all sincerity...I hope it was worth it. I hope your time in the sun was all that you'd hoped it would be, and that when President Trump rides off into glory after his term is over, you are satisfied with what you have accomplished and the price you paid. I hope the hobbling of the GOP was worth it. I hope the reinforcement of the GOP as a white, racist party...was worth it. I hope your repudiation of 20th century American conservatism was worth it."
Me:
Strong words but ones with which I identify (excluding the fact I don't necessarily agree with him policy wise on many things although the three topics he mentioned China, NBA and China and BLM will perhaps make interesting things to write about soon enough). I wrestle with this topic constantly. I wonder if it is merely me becoming more strident with age or is it really that Trumpism (and it is far more than just Trump and on a future post I will warn about what I believe is coming next which will be even more dangerous). But I do think some things are changing for the worse- Reaganism despite its popularity opened some troubling governance issues, W Bushism was far worse and Trumpism seems capable of crumbling some American edifices in ways we had thought impossible.
I will leave it there for now but needless to say I feel McGrath's pain.
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