Friday, September 2, 2016

Washington

I experienced a teeny-tiny insight that I feel compelled to share. It was served up by way of visual image and came from recalling a tweet before I slammed the door behind me to that platform that does not work for me.

I'm talking about an item linked by Instapundit that I didn't even bother to read. Whatever it's worth to you, it altered my own thinking considerably.

It's titled Hugh Hewitt, Jonah Goldberg: The "core alt-right" needs to be driven from conservative ranks. With audio. Presently the link has 555 comments on Insty. And that's all that I know about it.

I like both of these people. They're both smarter than I am. Were I to tolerate them further I'd stand to learn quite a lot. But I don't think that's possible. And that's too bad for me.

First, "alt-right" is another of those epithets that means whatever the writer needs it to mean in order to make their point. Its original meaning lost to the individual who contrived it. The term is vacuous. But still useful to writers who must write. Vacuous and flexible as "tea party," contrived and flexible as "neo-con" that can mean anything that you want them to mean. And by using the terms then the writers try to bring their readers about to their own intended meaning.

So we're on pre-shaken ground right off.

I listened to Hugh Hewitt interviewing Trump, and honestly, I became a bit embarrassed by his obsequiousness. He was talking about imagined upcoming Hillary Clinton / Donald Trump debate and he said no less than three times that he'd like to moderate one of them. He made sure to press the idea upon closing.

Second, before leaving Twitter I was following Jonah Goldberg because I respect his knowledge that appears to me vast. I considered him worth following. He tweeted a lot about his dog, and I like that. He tweeted about jogging around Washington. He tweeted about life in Washington. So he wants us to know that his dog sure does amuse him, that he's athletic in jogging and he's chuffed about living in the city that is the center of real power. These things are important to him.

I don't know where Hugh Hewitt lives. His residence doesn't come up readily by searching and I'm not that interested enough to dig further. His biographies mention only radio, the Salem group, religious radio. I still always enjoy seeing him guest on television. I still appreciate both these people and their tremendous insights. They are both very smart people.

Goldberg seems to have a good deal of difficulty accepting that like it or not Trump is his candidate. Whereas Hewitt sucks up to Trump directly and embarrassingly, Goldberg seems to still wish Trump can disappear. But to what? Goldberg writes as if living and abiding in Washington is more important to him than Trump actually winning. As if his picking and pecking at Trump and Trump supporters serves to elevate himself at Trump's expense can have the slightest affect on Trump's success while securing his place in the city of power. As he must while living in Washington. As if he's trying to discourage voters and that's not going to happen.

Just reading the link, and nothing more than that, nothing worthwhile can come from pursuing it except for me to become angry. I'm thinking, "Look, Buddy, Trump is your candidate. Now get used to it. For good or for bad, you are not going back to establishment GOP. It's not there to go back to. That is dead. Do what you demanded of conservative voters all along and support your candidate voters have chosen, not your conceits. The choice has been made. That's done. That party, that expression of conservatism is quite dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

Dead!

It does not exist anymore. Trump is proof of that. And alt-right, whatever that is to you, is not going anywhere. Tea party didn't go anywhere either. You say it's been killed because you don't see it in that incarnation. They evolved. The result of corrupted government attempting to kill it. You don't see those words anymore and imagine they've been brought into line. They have not. They've evolved into something more mean. And now you have Trump as evidence to that. No more proof is needed.

I take alt-right to mean simply alternative right, alternative conservative, alternative to GOPe as we call the fossilized political dinosaurs, evolved conservatism. Once people evolve in their thought and their values they are not returning back to whence they came. They actually grew while you have not. It cannot happen. People do not reverse evolve. The vast swaths of conservative people having abided without representation and outside of Washington, outside New York and the beltway, and between the West Coast have demanded and received, their representation. And that is the way that it is. There is no going back.

The tea party didn't go anywhere. They delivered congress they changed the political map, and they're all still there and quite active and loud and forceful. And now they're no longer malleable. First they were humble and nice, as conservatives are, having the representatives they sent up refuse to represent them caused them to become actually angry and it shows. They've been abused by government corrupted throughout all of its departments and now they are actually mean and they're fully intent on taking executive branch and wrenching government back into the shape of its design. Like it or not. So the idea of alt-right being kicked out is ridiculous on its face. No. You are the one who must change. Change or join the dead, politically speaking.

The image served up was Jonah Goldberg as suffering Stockholm syndrome then as buttress to a ruined building. A flying buttress to a church already crumbled, with that building inside an actual bubble surrounding a city. A bubble that for all his sharp intellect and unusually large storehouse of knowledge and learning Jonah Goldberg cannot see beyond. A ruined and crumbled church, its beautiful stained glass removed and auctioned, its stones carted off and used elsewhere, and there the buttress still stands valiantly with all its brilliance still imagining the structure it used to support still intact. While it's not.

Reading Jonah Goldberg, at this point, on anything other than history, is the same thing as listening to a gorgeous flying buttress to a once beautiful church existing inside a bubble.

And my respect turns to pity.

This pity I feel extends to Hillary Clinton supporters, real pity for those still imagining their party is well intentioned. Still pure and still good. Blind to our country devolving into a one-party system and all the unhappiness that goes with that condition. Still thinking in terms of party as sports team. People who derive self-satisfaction through association and loyalty to the "good party." It isn't. It's among the most hideous saddest and most rotten entities in existence, every revelatory item about the Democratic party in its present form shows this. So that by their support they are made rotten too. And not knowing that is pitiful beyond words.

And my little insignificant self can do nothing about that. Their opinions so strong they're unmovable. I'd be foolish to even try. The single thing left is not give it any energy at all. Not that withholding energy will starve it. I can only direct my own humanity. Pity, a true pity they've already decided they must make everything political, even breathing air is political and that's no exaggeration either. Not when the pope announces we must atone for the sin of global climate change. That's a bridge beyond too far. Fifteen bridges beyond too far. Twenty-five very long bridges beyond far too far. So giving it no energy means giving them all no energy. None at all. It pains me to my heart to acknowledge and face this harsh truth. And that means a lot more than simply not following a link that I know in advance cannot inform me. Pity that all that comes from such intelligent people, well balanced and worthwhile in other areas. Because no energy means exactly that, no energy whatsoever. Or else I'm assisting its survival.

Man, sometimes these itty-bitty insights served up by visual image sure can be a real bummer.

17 comments:

edutcher said...

I don't know if this makes anybody feel any better, but Surber rips Goldberg a new one for his latest column in which he praises Frumpty for sliming the alt-right.

Not sure I'm wedded to it, myself, but if the Beast goes all Alinsky over it, there must be something worthwhile about it.

YMMV

PS Hewitt has never been my dish of lapsang soochong.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Hewitt is from Ohio but lives in California.

I am still not sure what the hell the Alt Right is. It is a broad term. To the extent individuals embrace racism (and some do) I reject that. Goldberg and Hewitt acknowledge Trump is not racist. They blame Bannon for being a Nationalist. I am not sure nationalism is automatically bad, any more than free trade is automatically good.

NeverTrumpers like Goldberg and Podhoretz get lots of antisemite tweets each day, which probably amplifies their perception of the extent of racist support out there for Trump. Milo Yiannopoulos I do not think is racist, but he loves to stir the pot and has a gift in pissing people off. Some of his followers are racist (or like to use racial terms to piss people off).

Ok, so why not equally examine the darker elements of Hillary Clinton support? Is there not racists in the Democrat party or on the fringes of the Democrat Party?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I like Hotair.

Jonah is hit with all that racist anti-Semitic bircher stuff - like he says - for 20+ years. I makes me angry as well because that racist crap is a dead end. It's all loser-ville.

I think the white supremacists are a much smaller percentage overall. It's like 40-50 angry white dudes who click on Drudge polls all night long. Sadly, Johah is harassed by these obsessed losers.


I heard Hugh give the most ass-kicking answer about how Hillary and Obama inspired ISIS - even the leftwingers on MSNBC were gobsmacked. They actually said to Hugh - "wow that is the best answer Trump will never give."
(I wish I could find it on youtube.)
I also wish Hugh would moderate AND answer all the questions thrown at Trump in a debate against Hillary. Trump could just stand there and do his funny faces. At least an intellectual would be trouncing Hillary in the debates.

Anyway - the Zito quote (from the hotair link) captures the real Trump movement. Sadly the racist element is in there, too, but I think it's smaller.

While Trump supporters here are overwhelmingly white, their support has little to do with race (yes, you’ll always find one or two who make race the issue) but has a lot to do with a perceived loss of power.

Not power in the way that Washington or Wall Street board rooms view power, but power in the sense that these people see a diminishing respect for them and their ways of life, their work ethic, their tendency to not be mobile (many live in the same eight square miles that their father’s father’s father lived in).

Thirty years ago, such people determined the country’s standards in entertainment, music, food, clothing, politics, personal values. Today, they are the people who are accused of creating every social injustice imaginable; when anything in society fails, they get blamed.

The places where they live lack economic opportunities for the next generation; they know their children and grandchildren will never experience the comfortable situations they had growing up — surrounded by family who lived next door, able to find a great job without going to college, both common traits among many successful small-business owners in the state.

These Trump supporters are not the kind you find on Twitter saying dumb or racist things; many of them don’t have the time or the patience to engage in social media because they are too busy working and living life in real time.

ricpic said...

Alt Right is what used to be called Paleo Right or Paleo-Conservative. Folks who actually believe in limited government and a modest constitutional republic not an empire with military bases in 72 foreign countries (or whatever the current number is).

I've come to the conclusion that Never Trumpism is snobbery plain and simple. Trump is just too too vulgar for the punditry to abide.

edutcher said...

HotAir is bought and paid for NeverTrumper. They want the Demos to win..

ric, you are right on the money.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hey good news. A bunch of pro-Hillary registered democrats are moderating the debates.

Trooper York said...

Very perceptive take on Goldberg. There is no going back. Trump is the latest manifestation of the Tea party. As you say it is evolving. If it is cheated by a rigged election from a combination of the Democras and the Conservative establishment there will be consequences. Severe consequnces.

They will really not like what happens next.

edutcher said...

Hillary will still be in constant danger of spazzing out and no moderator can prevent that.

So Cooper and Raddatz will co-moderate the second one - I guess they need 2 to outweigh Bigfoot.

Trooper York said...

Hot Air is a big part of the problem.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Troop -that is so silly.

Hot air is a clearing house for info. If you want pro-Trump throne sniffing/ Trump worship 100% of the time, that's what tree house, gateway and Hannity are for. Or- delusion central.
If you are so sensitive to anything that isn't pro-Trump throne sniffing delusion, I feel sorry for you. It must be mighty scary out there.

Here - evil Hot air links to mind crime!

NYT: State gave Foundation donor access to Hillary in exchange for a private jet ride for Bill

Trooper York said...

Hot Air is a like severs other so called conservative websites and commenters. It has shit on a large portion of its audience and will never recover.


But then cucks gotta cuck.

edutcher said...

HotAir and Townhall were both bought and paid for websites by the NeverTrumpers, although Morissey and Allah's best wishes always go with the Demos.

The Colorado Boobird had it all laid out, but refuses to admit the facts.

windbag said...

I am not sure nationalism is automatically bad...

I recall during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics an announcer calling Americans' rooting for the US athletes "jingoism."

Methadras said...

It's very interesting to see the radio talk show punditry react this way. It's as if they believe that purity of ideology will somehow save the day when they totally neglect the fact that conservativism has been defeated and they just don't understand it. So now they go on this conservative 'purge' because of it and they show what kind of behemoth class assholes they really are.

Trooper York said...

Exactly Meth. Well said.

edutcher said...

I don't think Conservatism has been defeated as much as the hijacking of it by the alt-Left.

Trooper York said...

Conservatism and the Alt-right are too different things ed.

As you said the Alt-right is the heir of the Paleo-right, Goldwater and Pat Buchanan. With a little Bill the Butcher mixed in to spice it up.