Chris Keating of the Hartford
Courant has assembled a phalanx of Republican Party leaders in Connecticut who
are adamantly opposed to the re-election of former President Donald Trump.
They are not alone. Other prominent national Republicans
and, unsurprisingly, conservative outlets such as National Review are also
opposed to Trump’s presidential re-election bid. It was National
Review, at the outset of Trump’s first bid for the presidency, that devoted
a whole issue of its magazine to Trump opposition. The issue was titled “Never Trump.” Some former hard-line
Trump oppositionists have since softened
their view.
Democrats opposing the hapless President Joe Biden
administration have yet to come out from behind their rhetorical flowerpots.
Perhaps the most interesting take is that of House
Republican leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford, described by Keating as
“a fiscally and socially conservative Republican.”
That description is important because it sets Candelora
apart from what we might regard as traditional Connecticut Republicans who in
the past have described themselves as fiscally conservative but socially
liberal. Apparently, Candelora is unwilling to cede to the Democrat Party in
Connecticut more than half the political playing field; cultural orientation in
politics is every bit as important as financial orientation, especially since
the growing postmodern wing of the Democrat Party operates on the principle
that politics lies downstream from culture. Change the culture, post-Marxian
guru Antonio Gramsci said, and you will
have changed the entire political orientation of a country.
Candelora said, “Just as every fine wine has its day, I
think Trump has turned to vinegar. Frankly, all the good policies that he has
done have been eclipsed by his behavior ... Like many people, you cringe with
the behavior. I thought it would subside, but it never did. It only has gotten
worse. He has lashed out not just at Democrats, but equally at Republicans. I
just don’t think it’s a tone that this country needs to continue in the
political atmosphere that we’re in.’'
This view of Trump certainly is not new. And it may remind
some Connecticut Republicans of former U.S. Senator and Governor Lowell
Weicker, who was, as he often hinted, a fiscal conservative but a social
liberal. An irritant to Connecticut Republicans, Weicker finally got himself
tossed out of the U.S. Congress with some help from Democrats and
unaffiliateds.
Both Trump and Weicker were, at times, vinegary. Before he
lost a senatorial race to “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” Joe
Lieberman, Weicker had referred to himself approvingly as “the turd in the
Republican Party punchbowl.”
His voting record was indistinguishable from that of
Democrat U.S. Senator Chris Dodd. In fact, Weicker’s liberal Americans for
Democratic Action rating was, during his last days in office, about 20 points
higher than Dodd’s.
Weicker survived for more than two decades as the nominal
head of the Republican Party in Connecticut, without strenuous objections from
fiscally conservative but socially liberal Republican leaders in his state. Pulling
all the anti-conservative stops on his organ, Weicker’s foreign and domestic
policy choices eradicated distinctions between him and leading Democrat
officeholders such as Massachusetts U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, dubbed by the
media as the Democrat “lion of the Senate.”
Candelora also took a stab at describing a Trump character
distinction that may seem important to some non-rabid, anti-Trump Republicans.
In 2016, Candelora said, most Americans had only a partial
glimpse of Trump’s character and political views. Obscurantism is always a useful
tool in American politics. Although Trump’s “personality was given the benefit
of the doubt in 2016… Ultimately, his personality led to his demise, not his
policies... You have a combination of somebody who has very good policies but
also somebody who is a bit narcissistic, and I think that we can’t afford to
have leaders like that in politics under these current times. I would like to
see the party have fresh blood.’'
Candelora mentioned Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as one among other acceptable Republican
presidential candidates.
Political circumstances change, but character remains pretty
much a constant, except in the cases of politicians who step out of character
to amass votes, such as current President Joe Biden, a man who can more
successfully espouse contradictory causes because he has schooled himself over
the years to speak with two faces, that of a John F. Kennedy liberal and
postmodern progressive fossil fuel slayer such as U.S. Representative Alexandra
Ocasio Cortez and the inscrutable former Massachusetts U.S. Senator John Kerry.
The collision between Trump and Biden in 2024 would be
entertaining but unfortunate for the country because the end would be the same
if either won. Republicans in Connecticut, always attuned to Trump-hostile
media, have adopted the view that Trump cannot win the presidency because he is
damaged goods. Rational Democrats may in time come round to the view that Biden
should not be the nominal head of their party going forward because, were he to
prevail in a contest between himself and Trump, the county’s goods would be
irreparably damaged.
If Trump’s character is too ridged, Biden’s is too protean,
infinitely adjustable, somewhat like silly putty. Biden can never be a
convincing fiscal conservative or a social John F. Kennedy liberal. Postmodern
progressivism has swamped and drowned what was once a reliable, centrist
liberal political center of the Democrat Party.
Then too, we should not want an aging, absent minded cipher
as president. It’s time to move on from savior politicians and begin to shore
up a reliable preexisting system of American politics and culture that, so far,
has withstood foreign and domestic policy aberrations.
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