A reader writes:
I am a conservative Catholic and want to give you my take on Trump and conservative attacks as embodied by the National Review. I am 61 and have witnessed the 1960s counterculture march through virtually every institution in the country. Since then Republicans have won more than their fair share of Presidencies and governorships. At best these political victories have merely slowed the march of liberalism, much less defeated it or changed the trajectory (or should I say decline) of the country. The changes that have occurred in the country during my lifetime have been astonishing. I liken the Obama administration as the beginning of the final ground assault of a triumphant liberalism.
Speaking for myself I am quite ready to vote for Trump if that is what it comes down to. He may be the political equivalent of a Hail Mary pass in football, but in my view there is 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter and the country is down by three touchdowns. Running off tackle to pick up 7 yards, picking up a few first downs (what Republicans like to describe as governing) is not what the historical moment calls for. That is why I have no inclination to vote for any of the other candidates (excepting perhaps Cruz, though he has issues of his own) whether they are more electable or not. As the past 50 years has shown, winning is not all that matters.
Trump has his faults no doubt. I cringe at his insults and low blows and given his past he is something of a crapshoot. Nonetheless, he is singularly admirable in his courage in the face of the liberal media and political correctness, and his instincts are sound on the central importance of immigration to the security, national identity (such that it still exists) and fortunes of the working class, the rot and incompetence of the federal government, and the folly of conservative military adventurism. Plus, his personality and strength of character leads one to hope that he won’t go native should he take up residence in the White House.
Lastly, I have this to say to those missionary conservatives who want to export our values and back it up with military force. Conservatives are fond of saying to older democratic voters that the Democratic party is no longer the party of Franklin Roosevelt. Conservatives need to realize that the US is no longer the country of Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart. Fight for and protect our country when attacked or truly threatened when we must, but let’s practice some humility and restraint, realizing that our culture and politics are marbled with decadence, that we are a country with a Supreme Court that in Planned Parenthood VS Casey enshrined nihilism as the essence of liberty, and that many of us trying to raise kids feel like we are living in enemy occupied territory.
There is much work to be done to restoring that shining city on a hill. Let’s focus our efforts there.
Contrast that sentiment to Alan Jacobs’s piece about our society’s impatience. Excerpt:
That is to say: firing coaches is how professional sports franchises deal with conflict. And athletes know that this is how professional sports franchises deal with conflict: so when a team hits a bad patch, and the players are underperforming, and the coach is getting angry with them, and relationships are fraying… why bother stitching them up? Why bother salving the wounds? If everyone knows where the situation is headed — sacking the manager — then isn’t there rather a strong incentive to make things worse, in order to hasten the inevitable, put an end to the frustrations, start afresh, get a do-over? Of course there is.
And precisely the same tendencies are at work in many of the key institutions of American social life. This is one of the chief reasons why so many marriages end quickly; this is why so many Christians church-hop, to the point that pastors will tell you that church discipline is simply impossible: if you challenge or rebuke a church member for bad behavior, he or she will simply be at another church the next week, or at no church at all.
More:
This belief breeds impatience with everything, and that impatience in turn breeds immense frustration with any situation that doesn’t lend itself to the discard-and-replace approach. I think even our recent university-campus controversies can be explained in these terms. Students don’t want to deal with administrators who don’t see things their way, or speakers who say things they find offensive, but they realize that an immediate opt-out isn’t possible. You can’t walk away from Oberlin on a Friday and show up for class at Carleton on Monday morning. At least for a time, you’re stuck. But what if you’re stuck in a situation and have never been taught how to negotiate, how to work things out, how to be patient in the midst of conflict? Well, then, you make demands. You are very insistent that “These are demands and not suggestions”. And often those demands are that administrators or faculty be fired — like football coaches who haven’t won enough, basketball coaches who manifest “a lack of fit with our personnel and our vision” — because that, they think, can be done right now.
What most troubles me about these pathologies is that I don’t see any way back from the current level of impatience and the inability — indeed, refusal — to persist through difficulties.
More:
People want to be able to trade in old models of anything and everything, and profoundly resent any social or political structures that inhibit instantaneous action.
In such an environment, it’s no wonder that a great many people applaud a Presidential candidate who believes that he can “see Bill Gates” about “closing up that internet.” (The old internet is messed up — let’s trade it in for another one.) I suspect they overlap pretty significantly with the folks who demand, after every losing streak, that their favorite team’s coach be fired; and with the more aggressive of the student protestors. Trump supporters may not seem to have much in common with people demanding that racially insensitive university administrators be fired, but there’s a deep temperamental affinity. They’re all enthusiastic adherents of the trade-in society.
Read the whole thing.
How can you tell the difference between something that needs to be treated with forbearance and a reforming spirit, and something that needs to be abandoned for something new? I think both can be true, depending on the context. But they can’t both be true at the same time.
Thoughts?