Skip to main content

Neither Trump Nor Biden


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.   

Comments

Perhaps the reason that those Democrats "opposing" Biden's re-election haven't emerged from behind their flower pots is because unlike so many of us who have yet to figure it out that, is that they know very well that "Joe" is but a potted plant who Obama has watered by his dutiful and most obedient butler Ron Klain?

Popular posts from this blog

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Powell, the JI, And Economic literacy

Powell, Pesci Substack The Journal Inquirer (JI), one of the last independent newspapers in Connecticut, is now a part of the Hearst Media chain. Hearst has been growing by leaps and bounds in the state during the last decade. At the same time, many newspapers in Connecticut have shrunk in size, the result, some people seem to think, of ad revenue smaller newspapers have lost to internet sites and a declining newspaper reading public. Surviving papers are now seeking to recover the lost revenue by erecting “pay walls.” Like most besieged businesses, newspapers also are attempting to recoup lost revenue through staff reductions, reductions in the size of the product – both candy bars and newspapers are much smaller than they had been in the past – and sell-offs to larger chains that operate according to the social Darwinian principles of monopolistic “red in tooth and claw” giant corporations. The first principle of the successful mega-firm is: Buy out your predator before he swallows

Down The Rabbit Hole, A Book Review

Down the Rabbit Hole How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime by Brent McCall & Michael Liebowitz Available at Amazon Price: $12.95/softcover, 337 pages   “ Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime ,” a penological eye-opener, is written by two Connecticut prisoners, Brent McCall and Michael Liebowitz. Their book is an analytical work, not merely a page-turner prison drama, and it provides serious answers to the question: Why is reoffending a more likely outcome than rehabilitation in the wake of a prison sentence? The multiple answers to this central question are not at all obvious. Before picking up the book, the reader would be well advised to shed his preconceptions and also slough off the highly misleading claims of prison officials concerning the efficacy of programs developed by dusty old experts who have never had an honest discussion with a real convict. Some of the experts are more convincing cons than the cons, p