At the Trumpist website American Greatness, there are not one but two pieces today talking about how Republicans are fiddling their thumbs while Democrats work assiduously for unlimited power.
Here’s my fellow Kansan Ned Ryun:
While the Left is actually working to achieve generational political power, elites on the Right seem satisfied to simply celebrate . . . what? The latest white paper? The sold-out conference on how the Left is beating them in the political arena? Another record fundraising year where 60 percent of the funds go to promote the institution rather than on-the-ground efforts to implement the ideas? It’s usually all of the above. 1
The Democrats, like Frederick, will do what it takes to gain victories, while their opponents appeal in vain to high principle. While the Democrats do have the support of our leading cultural and political institutions, they also enjoy another significant advantage: They fight relentlessly, and with a greater determination than their opponents.
The Gottfried piece heavily references this Substack from former AmGreatness contributor Pedro Gonzalez (behind a paywall so I haven’t read it, but the headline gives you a sense of things):
To read pieces from the Trumpist right, you would think that Jan. 6 never happened. That Republicans and conservatives are babes in the woods, too devoted to high-minded thinking to really get their hands dirty. That the right is just too nice.
That certainly doesn’t square with the Trumpist conservatism as I’ve seen it practiced.
Here’s a quote from a Roger Kimball piece at AmGreatness over the weekend.
The late English philosopher Roger Scruton put his finger on one aspect of this division when he observed that “Left-wing people find it very hard to get on with right-wing people because they believe that they are evil. Whereas I have no problem getting on with left-wing people because I simply believe that they are mistaken.” What I have called the Manichean spirit of the Left, its almost gnostic division of the world into an elite of virtuous souls against a coven of ignorant wickedness, is something we see everywhere.
Whether the subject be “climate change,” COVID policy, racism (real or imagined), the latest wrinkle of sexual exoticism, the perfidy of Donald Trump, or any other item on the menu of woke enthusiasm, the spirit of segregation and snarling repudiation is alive and well. You are either with us or you are damned.
Which is funny coming from AmGreatness because:
And so on and so forth.
Listen: Ideologues of all stripes, being human, tend to think that those who agree with them are good and those who think differently are bad. It's a mistake to think the other side thinking you're bad is proof of narrow-mindedness that your side is somehow exempt from. Most people who think about politics are a little bit Manichean, I think.
Also: Ideologues of all stripes tend to think the other guys are tough and our side is just a bunch of high-minded weaklings. It’s always a justification for erasing the lines of propriety, of saying we don’t have to observe the niceties because they don’t. And often we forget, or justify, our own previous lapses.
But enough of the both-sides part. The Trumpist right is cornering the market on ideology-as-victimhood stuff right now.
And that’s scary, because we’ve already seen how far they’re willing to go to ensure their power. That they still perceive themselves as victims doesn’t bode well for the rest of us, whom they see as their victimizers.
As my friend Damon Linker says: “Always ask: What are they giving themselves permission to do?”
To be fair, Ryun here is wrapping this message around a critique of right-wing think, but still.
What is needed here is a prescription.
But certainly it wouldn't be "become them", right?