Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Making Conservatives Lazy, Cowardly and Stupid, by James Delingpole.
The conservative thinkers in Britain and the U.S. I most admire are the ones who can complete a sentence on the achievements of Trump’s presidency without ending it “but personally, I find him deplorable.”
I admire these mavericks because they are so brave, clear-headed and rare.
It takes courage to speak up for Trump in a climate where even conservative publications like my own beloved Spectator run pieces like this – ‘Trump’s presidency has imploded – in less than two years’ and this – ‘Trumpworld is spinning out of control’.
It also takes a certain career-suicidal cussedness. In the UK I cannot think of one newspaper or publication – not one, even among those supposedly on the right – which has given a fair and balanced assessment of Donald Trump, let alone a favourable one. …
The PC media have trained even many “conservatives” (yes, the sneer quotes) to be PC, only rewarding them with publicity when they agree with a PC point. The all-powerful media-led herd loves them only when they are anti-Trump.
If you want to be taken seriously as one of the right-wing intellectual elite, you basically need to advertise yourself as a NeverTrumper. …
By dissing Trump, by holding your nose every time you talk about him, by distancing yourself from his character and his policies, you get to achieve every spineless conservative commentator’s dream: you get to show that despite being a conservative you’re also a really, really nice guy whom even non-conservative readers should love and take seriously because, hey, you’re free-thinking and you care and, by the way, did you mention how much you deplore Donald Trump? …
These people talk the talk about conservative ideas. But when push comes to shove, when there’s a guy in the White House with the determination to turn these ideas into reality, they run shrieking like lustful but repressed Victorian virgins for the smelling salts.
I can forgive their cowardice: no one wants to die, whether literally or figuratively; most of us would rather be liked than not liked. …
How do we survive in such a climate of leftist bias in the opinion-forming organs of society?
It’s hard, really hard, living in a world where all the really bad stuff is being perpetrated by the left – the aggression, the contorted thinking, the suicidal policies – and where people on the conservative side of the argument are basically the sensible, decent people who just want to do the right thing.
It’s hard because it goes against everything we’ve been taught by our “progressive” culture these last few decades: the idea that the middle is the only place to be.
But in these weird times, moving away from the conservative position to try to accommodate yourself with the revolutionary left or the eco-fascists or the Islamists isn’t a form of sensible compromise – it’s just a form of dangerous appeasement. It feeds the regressive left’s delusions that it is justified in its grievances. …
Let’s get this straight:
We — at least the vast majority of us — on the side of the argument that Donald Trump is currently representing believe in stuff like: national borders, free speech, protecting citizens’ interests, equality of opportunity, lower taxes, smaller government, democratic accountability, the family, personal responsibility, rising standards of living, property rights, the rule of law, checks and balances, the Constitution, liberty.
There is nothing in any of this we should feel awkward or guilty about. It does not make us Nazis. Or even semi-Nazis. Or alt-right. Or any of the other pejorative terms which — according to our opponents — make it wholly acceptable to punch the teeth out of anyone in a MAGA baseball cap.
hat-tip Charles, Stephen Neil
