George Will is An Affront to Conservatism

Donald Trump Is an Affront to Anyone Devoted to William F. Buckley’s Legacy

By GEORGE WILL

In every town large enough to have two traffic lights there is a bar at the back of which sits the local Donald Trump, nursing his fifth beer and innumerable delusions. Because the actual Donald Trump is wealthy, he can turn himself into an unprecedentedly and incorrigibly vulgar presidential candidate. It is his right to use his riches as he pleases. His squalid performance and its coarsening of civic life are costs of freedom that an open society must be prepared to pay.

Right away, we see the coarse and diffident arrogance of this Beltway elitist. He looks down on small towns, and he looks down on the individuals who live in these towns as empty people who have wasted their lives and contribute nothing but their solitary delusions of grandeur. This very arrogance is what turned off many Republican voters to Romney, and perhaps also hurt John McCain and Bob Dole in their respective bids for President, too.

When, however, Trump decided that his next acquisition would be not another casino but the Republican presidential nomination, he tactically and quickly underwent many conversions of convenience (concerning abortion, health care, funding Democrats, etc.). His makeover demonstrates that he is a counterfeit Republican and no conservative.

Three years later, these conversions were about more than mere convenience. He has initiated and completed a number of conservative policies for the greater good of the country which many other conservatives had talked about but never accomplished.

He is an affront to anyone devoted to the project William F. Buckley began six decades ago with the founding in 1955 of National Review — making conservatism intellectually respectable and politically palatable. Buckley’s legacy is being betrayed by invertebrate conservatives now saying that although Trump “goes too far,” he has “tapped into something,” and therefore . . .

Making conservatism intellectually respectable and politically palatable meant … losing often, and losing gracefully the Left. That way, the major newspapers and television stations would continue to invite conservative pundits like George Will, Bill Kristol, and Jonah Goldberg onto their programs, although them to pontifate their points and sell their books–but at the same time ensure that none of them were making a difference to shape the culture for the better.

Therefore what? This stance — if a semi-grovel can be dignified as a stance — is a recipe for deserved disaster. Remember, Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond “tapped into” things.

This riff is a slimey character smear. President Trump is not a racist. President Trump's economic and political populism has actually restored constutional foundations in this country, too.

In 1948, Wallace, FDR’s former vice president, ran as a third-party candidate opposing Harry Truman’s re-election. His campaign became a vehicle for, among others, Communists and fellow travelers opposed to Truman’s anti-Soviet foreign policy. Truman persevered, leaders of organized labor cleansed their movement of Soviet sympathizers, and Truman was re-elected.

He won also in spite of South Carolina’s Democratic governor Thurmond siphoning off Democratic votes (and 39 electoral votes) as a Dixiecrat protesting civil-rights commitments in the Democratic party’s platform. Truman won because he kept his party and himself from seeming incoherent and boneless.

No. Truman won because the Republican candidate that year, Thomas Dewey, was a weak nominee who took no strong positions or proclaimed any committed advocacy for doing what was best for the country. He did not give a strong platform or presence to distinguishing himself from Harry Truman at all. 

Conservatives who flinch from forthrightly marginalizing Trump mistakenly fear alienating a substantial Republican cohort. But the assumption that today’s Trumpites are Republicans is unsubstantiated and implausible. Many are no doubt lightly attached to the political process, preferring entertainment to affiliation. They relish in their candidate’s vituperation and share his aversion to facts. From what GOP faction might Trumpites come? The establishment? Social conservatives? Unlikely.

More elitist arrogance. On the contrary, many Republican voters were deeply enmeshed in the political process, and they saw one establishment candidate after another refuse to follow through on policies, platforms, or promises for the greater good of the country. Republicans were continuing to push different forms of amnesty. Working-class Americans saw their jobs being shut down and shipped overseas. The public safety issues eroding middle American gnawed on many Americans, and the basic dignity and quality of life which Americans had worked hard for was slipping away from them, while government-allied crony capitalists continued to get richer, and the rest of us paid for it. They wanted a bold change to this status quo, and they elected Donald Trump.

I do submit, however, to the truth that the new cohort of Trump voters does not fall neatly within the Republican framework. Disaffected Democrats and populist independents lined up behind Donald Trump, as well. There is a massive political realignment taking place, and conservatives can benefit if they pay attention and reach out to core constituencies across the country on the trade and illegal immigration issues.

A party has a duty to exclude interlopers, including cynical opportunists deranged by egotism.


And grifters, which include all the so-called "gay conservatives". and bookish types like George Will!

They certainly are not tea partyers, those earnest, issue-oriented, book-club organizing activists who are passionate about policy. Trump’s aversion to reality was displayed during the Cleveland debate when Chris Wallace asked him for “evidence” to support his claim that Mexico’s government is sending rapists and drug dealers to America. Trump, as usual, offered apoplexy as an argument.


George Will has demonstrated a greater aversion to reality. He doesn't seem to understand that conservatives in particular and citizens in general are fed up with the caving in. They want to see results, not just talking points and verbal jousting matches on live television.

A political party has a right to (in language Trump likes) secure its borders. Indeed, a party has a duty to exclude interlopers, including cynical opportunists deranged by egotism. This is why closed primaries, although not obligatory, are defensible: Let party members make the choices that define the party and dispense its most precious possession, a presidential nomination. So, the Republican National Committee should immediately stipulate that subsequent Republican debates will be open to any and all — but only — candidates who pledge to support the party’s nominee.


President Trump did the right thing when he had indicated that he would not necessarily support the GOP nominee (if it wasn't he). Keep in mind that four years later, sellout RINOs like John Kasich have openly opposed President Trump and are contemplating whether to speak at the Democratic National Committee Convention in August.

This year’s Republican field is the most impressive since 1980, and perhaps the most talent-rich since the party first had a presidential nominee, in 1856. But 16 candidates are experiencing diminishment by association with the 17th.


And guess what? The 17th became President, because the political realignment that so many of the Republican base were craving finally came to fruition. This realignment bothers beltway elites like George Will. He wants to sit at the cool kids' table and make lots of rich kids' money. All of this takes place while the country descends into abject chaos and culture war cacophony.

Soon the campaign will turn to granular politics, the on-the-ground retail work required by the 1.4 percent of the nation’s population that lives in Iowa and New Hampshire. Try to imagine Trump in an Iowa living room, with a macaroon in one hand and cup of hot chocolate balanced on a knee, observing Midwestern civilities while talking about something other than himself.


That imagining was not necessary, and would turn out to be irrelevant, since Trump did not campaign in Iowa to begin with. As many pundits have shared, and as Trump probably figured out, it did not make a difference whether he won Iowa's caucuses or not. Those election contests help to clear the field rather than isolate the strongest candidate for the nomination. President Trump was the only candidate who would not only defeat sixteen other candidates, but beat down the Hillary Clinton-DNC juggernaut which was propped up on nothing but lies, deceit, theft, and murder. Only Trump had the guts and gumption to get it done.

Television, which has made Trump (he is one of three candidates, with Mike Huckabee and John Kasich, who have had television shows), will unmake him, turning his shtick into a transcontinental bore. But not before many voters will have noticed weird vibrations pulsing from the GOP.


On the contrary, Trump has continued to manipulate and take down the media like no other. He has exposed their rank hypocrisy so well. Conservative Inc. finks like George Will want to keep close ties and happy connections with the corporate media because it's their bread and butter. They want to keep writing articles, giving speeches, selling books, etc. Of course, all of that money-making has come at a price for the rest of the country.

So, conservatives today should deal with Trump with the firmness Buckley dealt with the John Birch Society in 1962. The society was an extension of a loony businessman who said Dwight Eisenhower was “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.” In a 5,000-word National Review “excoriation” (Buckley’s word), he excommunicated the society from the conservative movement.

This is the most damaging indictment yet that I can find against George Will. The John Birch Society is in no wise a racist organization, or is it some "looney extension" of conspiracy theories. The organization emerged out of frustration with the fact that Republicans did not dismantle and destroy the New Deal Socialism of FDR and the Democratic Party. The fact that so many Republicans were swept into office in the early 1950s was a clear testimony to the fact that Americans wanted normalcy and a return to constitutionalism, not globalism or communism.

And yet, the communistic underpinnings of the New Deal were not removed during the Eisenhower Administration. In fact, they grew worse under the Johnson Administration–much worse. And where was George Will in the midst of that discussion, by the way?

Buckley received an approving letter from a subscriber who said, “You have once again given a voice to the conscience of conservatism.” The letter was signed, “Ronald Reagan, Pacific Palisades, Cal.”


Not sure why Ronald Reagan would share such a sentiment. Then again, President Trump has said, written, done many liberal things throughout his life, but has turned out to be an effective conservative juggernaut in the White House (Aside from the spending, of course).

With the article above dissected and dispensed with, I would share that indeed Georg Will is the affront to true conservatism, not Donald Trump.

George Will wrote a lot, talked a lot, pontificated even more, and has had nothing to show for all these efforts. Conservative Inc. talking heads like Will have not conserved anything. In fact, now is the time to push back hard not just on the Left but the Conservative establishment, which has been content to get nothing done but make money and make a profile for themselves while the country falls apart.

With all the rioting going on in the streets, with the increased kow-towing to the Left on one cultural issue after another from Conservative Inc., it is no surprise that more people are getting tired of the chattering classes and want to see real change, real leadership from their … leaders!

George Will is an affront to conservatism, and President Trump has exposed the conservative chatterati like George Will and Jonah Goldberg for who they really are: a bunch of do-nothing talking heads who never wanted to do better for this country. And with the decline of print media, their influence is on the inevitable wane, and all for the better.