GOP

Ron DeSantis 2024: A President, Not an Idol

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

Having established that conservatives and Republicans would have to be brain-damaged to nominate Donald Trump for president again, the question now becomes who we should pick instead as our 2024 standard-bearer. As evidenced by the fact that Trump got nominated the first time, the GOP talent pool is usually slim pickings, to say the least.

Fortunately, this time around we have a Republican who for years has been proving himself an aggressive, effective leader, a genuine movement conservative, and a skillful communicator. Someone with all of Trump’s perceived strengths and none of his fatal defects: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Results, Results, Results

First and most importantly, DeSantis’s record reads like a conservative Christmas list, a collection of results almost too good to be real. Let’s start with an excerpt from a March 2019 rundown by Deroy Murdock:

• DeSantis pioneered Florida Deregathon — a one-day summit in which agency heads targeted red tape, especially in occupational licensing. While eye surgeons and airline pilots should certify their competence, why do nail polishers and boxing timekeepers need Tallahassee’s permission to work? Florida’s 1,200-hour training requirement for new barbers, for instance, stymies competition by boosting costs and headaches for new entrants.

DeSantis summoned the chiefs of 23 professional-licensing boards to Orlando to “discuss, debate, identify and recommend substantive regulations that can be targeted for immediate elimination,” as his letter told these officials. “I see this event as a first step toward creating a regulatory climate as welcoming as the Florida sunshine.”

• DeSantis signed an executive order instructing the commissioner of education to “eliminate Common Core (Florida Standards) and ensure we return to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic” and “equip high school graduates with sufficient knowledge of America’s civics, particularly the principles reflected in the United States Constitution, so as to be capable of discharging the responsibilities associated with American citizenship.” DeSantis also supports legislation to expand school vouchers.

• DeSantis demands accountability. He accepted the resignation of Broward County elections director Brenda Snipes and Susan Bucher, her Palm Beach County counterpart, for their spectacular incompetence, if not corruption. DeSantis called Bucher’s operation “the Keystone Kops of election administration.”

He also sacked Broward County sheriff Scott Israel for totally bungling the deadly Parkland mass shooting in February 2018, then exacerbating that toxic failure with a deluge of finger-pointing and a drought of self-criticism.

• DeSantis replaced the entire South Florida Water Management District with appointees not beholden to the heavily subsidized sugar industry — a notorious polluter whose fertilizer, pesticides, and other agrochemicals befoul Florida’s waterways. DeSantis was one of only three members of Florida’s 27-member U.S. House delegation who voted last May to curb the disastrous sugar program. DeSantis’s appointees should make Big Sugar clean up its bitter harvest.

• DeSantis’s tax proposal is modest, but it steers levies the right way: down. His budget cuts taxes $335 million: $289.7 million in property-tax reductions; a three-day, $39.5 million back-to-school sales-tax holiday; and a one-week, $5.8 million disaster-preparedness sales-tax holiday before hurricane season.

It cannot be stressed enough that DeSantis did all of the above in just the first two months of his governorship, during which we can already see a key contrast between him and Trump: DeSantis came in and quickly recognized the need to fire holdovers before they could do additional damage and replace them with subordinates who shared his vision. Trump left in place countless Democrat resisters and saboteurs who undermined his voters’ agenda every step of the way (fun fact: Trump rejected his advisers’ urgings to fire ex-FBI Director James Comey as soon as he took office, and we all know how that turned out), not to mention hiring scores of officials for key posts whom he came to not only regret but detest.

Since then, DeSantis has cut more taxes, cut more spending, strengthened election security, punished election fraud, pioneered legal remedies to internet censorship, banned late-term abortions, required parental consent for minors’ abortions, worked to defund Planned Parenthood and stop the illegal distribution of abortion pills, ousted a prosecutor for refusing to enforce pro-life laws, barred men from women’s athletics, toughened penalties for rioting, banned localities from restricting gun rights, allowed more teachers to undergo training to carry guns on school grounds, banned sanctuary cities, sent Florida law enforcement to Texas and Arizona to help secure the southern border, shipped illegal immigrants to leftist enclaves that advocate open borders mandated E-Verify for public employers and government contractors, banned anti-Semitic propaganda in public education, strengthened transparency and parental consent for sex education in public schools, cracked down on foreign influence in higher education, signed laws requiring that high schools teach the evils of communism & totalitarianism, that colleges make civic literacy a condition of graduation, and requiring colleges to conduct annual assessments of intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity on their campuses; embarked on a comprehensive purging of woke indoctrination from public education, required schools to provide silent time students can use for daily prayer if they so choose, banned transgender mutilation of children, punished venues that expose children to pornographic drag displays, taken the lead in a multi-state effort against leftist hijacking of corporations, ended Disney’s self-governing sweetheart deal with the state, banned localities from giving the environment legal rights (yes, that’s a thing leftists actually want to do), prevented the state pension system from investing in companies complicit in the anti-Israel “boycott, divestment, & sanctions” (BDS) campaign, curbed China’s ability to buy influence in Florida, and more.

As we speak, DeSantis is gearing up for an ambitious legislative session that is slated to deliver expansions of school choice, the Parental Rights in Education law against LGBT indoctrination, and E-Verify to the private sector; banning forced deduction of union dues from paychecks, legalizing concealed carry, tort reform, strengthening private citizens’ ability to sue media outlets for defamation, beefing up the Office of Election Crimes and Security, allowing tenure reviews of faculty in public academia, banning abortion once a baby has a heartbeat, a Digital Bill of Rights ranging from data privacy to online censorship to child exploitation, protecting doctors who dissent from the federal health bureaucracy, and legislatively codifying various aforementioned reforms that currently exist as executive actions. [NOTE: this section may be continually updated as more wins accumulate.]

Name a current or recent elected Republican who has pursued or delivered a more comprehensive conservative agenda. Go ahead. I’ll wait. 

Leadership in a Time of Corona

Even if DeSantis hadn’t prioritized tackling so many problems of grave concern to conservatives, his response to the COVID-19 outbreak alone arguably would have been enough to secure his standing as the best executive-branch leader in America. As Daniel Horowitz summarized in May 2020:

They said DeSantis was killing his state’s people by not issuing a stay-at home order early enough and never issuing a full lockdown against church services and other activities. Then, on May 4, he decided to end even the tepid lockdown. Last in, first out. What are the results?

Despite the fact that Florida is the haven for those most susceptible to the virus, the elderly, the state’s numbers beat almost every comparable state […]

While it wasn’t as cool and heroic as locking up every healthy person with near-zero risk in their homes, DeSantis quietly barred hospitals from sending COVID-positive patients to nursing homes – the exact opposite of what Cuomo and many Democrat governors did. He also used the National Guard to secure nursing homes rather than to spy on people.

The results?

In New Jersey, 51 senior care residents out of every 100,000 people died. In New York, nearly 27 per 100,000 have died. Even in smaller and younger Colorado, more than 10 nursing home residents have died per capita. In Florida? Just 3.5 per 100,000. In the state of “God’s waiting room,” just .008% of the population died of COVID-19.

DeSantis was even pressured by the White House to go along with the flat-earth lockdown science. But he understood that the threat of the virus is limited to a known population and that outdoor transmission is negligible. So he put his resources where they were needed.

Florida’s COVID numbers were so impressive that, as Horowitz notes, leftists were reduced to falsely accusing DeSantis of cooking the books to explain them away. In March 2021, even the Associated Press admitted that California’s vastly more restrictive policies didn’t save more lives than Florida’s targeted, freedom-friendly approach, despite Florida’s large elderly population. On top of the health outcomes, DeSantis’s leadership saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and spared his state the large-scale destruction of businesses that plagued the rest of the country (despite Florida’s tourism industry being particularly vulnerable to the fear of travel that gripped the rest of the country).

Along the way, DeSantis defended the rights and choices of Floridians from the COVID maniacs, undaunted by the wailing of the media: standing against school closings, vaccine passports, mask mandates, and local lockdowns; pardoning those persecuted by rogue localities, suing the Biden administration over its ban on the cruise ship industry, and embracing therapeutics such as hydroxychloroquine and monoclonal antibodies.

Admittedly, DeSantis was initially supportive of the Trump administration’s rushed COVID vaccines (albeit focused on prioritizing them for the elderly, who faced the greatest risk from COVID itself and for whom vaccination therefore seemed the most reasonable at the time). Fortunately, as the data against them has grown clearer, he has gotten on the right side of the issue, including calling out their ineffectiveness, recommending against them, and even petitioning for a grand jury investigation of their manufacturers.

The COVID-19 pandemic—more specifically, the resulting panic and exploitation thereof—was one of the biggest tests of leadership in a generation. More so than any other sitting governor (despite what you may have heard about South Dakota’s Kristi Noem) or former president, DeSantis aced it.

A Full-Spectrum, Non-Establishment Conservative

The above already paints a reasonably broad cross-section of DeSantis’s conservatism, from fiscal to social to liberty issues. Still, it’s worth noting some highlights from his pre-gubernatorial career, which show he’s also rock-solid on issues beyond what he’s had to deal with as a state governor, and that he’s long been on the right side of the divide between the Republican Party’s leadership and its grassroots.

An inaugural member of the House Freedom Caucus, Congressman DeSantis introduced legislation to empower states to ban investment in Iran, ban post-government lobbying by scores of ex-government officials, force members of Congress to use the same health care plans Congress would force on the public, ensure Americans could keep their pre-Obamacare health plans, prohibit recognition of and foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority unless and until it truly reformed (including but not limited to allowing free elections, recognizing Israel’s right to exist, ending its boycotts of Israel, ending its promotion of and support for terrorism, and dismantling Hamas), force the Justice Department to answer to Congress for failure to enforce federal law, and ban foreign aid to countries that receive Guantanamo Bay detainees only to let them to return to the battlefield.

While in Congress, DeSantis also cosponsored and/or voted for the full range of conservative priorities, including the REINS Act, Kate’s Law, right to work, concealed carry reciprocity, defunding Planned Parenthood, reforming the Veterans Administration, withholding funding from the United Nations’ “Human Rights” Council and climate agenda, and letting states opt out of No Child Left Behind, as well as backing enough tax and spending cuts to earn the title of “Taxpayer Super Hero” from Citizens Against Government Waste.

Additionally, during his House tenure DeSantis distinguished himself as willing to call out establishment GOP leaders such as Trump’s onetime friend and ally Paul Ryan for ducking the fights that needed to be fought. In April 2016, DeSantis was among the Republicans pushing to impeach IRS commissioner John Koskinen over the agency’s targeting of conservative Americans for political persecution.

“I think what’s holding it back, I think the leadership is worried about being criticized by inside the Beltway media and stuff,” DeSantis told Breitbart at the time. “We are going to try to force the issue potentially in a way that at least people have to go on the record […] I think the American people are so sick of, you know, government imposes all these rules on them and if they run afoul to it there are consequences, yet, the people in positions of power, they are never held accountable and that just cannot last.”

DeSantis was also among the conservatives who recognized that the House GOP’s Ryan-backed first stab at an Obamacare replacement wasn’t good enough because it, as he said, “retain[ed] the core features of Obamacare.” Trump, by contrast, attacked the DeSantis wing of the party for holding out for a better bill, because Trump just wanted to sign something he could take credit for. Patient attention to detail: what a concept!

He Fights! …Competently

Some of Trump’s greatest strengths, we were told, were his ability to stick it to the Left rhetorically, his talent for channeling and reflecting the perennially-neglected feelings of the GOP base, his knack for speaking bluntly in a way that was both entertaining and free of the faux civility that defines most of the stuffed-shirt Republicans in national office. And that was all true, as far as it went…it just didn’t go far enough to win a second term, #BuildTheWall, #DrainTheSwamp, #StopTheSteal, #LockHerUp, or get Congress to go along with any of the other legislative objectives we elected him for.

There are two basic reasons for that: because lacking a filter can be a double-edged sword, leaving one just as likely to say stupid, self-damaging things as to speak harsh truths; and because talking a good game is no substitute for the principles, knowledge, and skills needed to translate words into action.

Fortunately, here too DeSantis runs circles around Trump. In public appearances he regularly displays a clear, conversational style that makes the issues easy to understand, reveals a strong command of the facts, forcefully frames the stakes and identifies the guilty parties in our current debates, and eviscerates fake news more effectively than Trump ever did…and all without making a fool of himself, generating distractions from the objective, or sparking endless inane arguments about taking him “seriously versus literally”:

Whereas Trump impotently blustered about media outlets’ ratings while repeatedly giving prestigious liberal reporters in-depth interviews, DeSantis effectively conveys how little respect the corporate media really deserves, from treating conservative and alternative outlets as the legitimate press while branding dishonest mainstream outlets as smear merchants to be shunned. 

Add it all up, and you have a rare political talent capable of turning a razor-thin victory into a nearly-twenty-point landslide reelection in the most populous swing state in the nation, complete with inroads among historically Democrat-supporting areas and ethnic groups—all while selling undiluted conservatism. It would be political malpractice of the highest order not to apply that talent nationally.

His Own Man 

One of the most important differences between DeSantis and Trump can be found within an especially-lame attempted hit published by Politico in May 2021:

RON DESANTIS is looking ahead to reelection next year and quite possibly a 2024 bid for president — but he’s left behind a trail of former disgruntled staffers and has no long-standing political machine to mount a national campaign, DeSantis vets say.

We talked to a dozen or so onetime aides and consultants to the Florida governor, and they all said the same thing: DeSantis treats staff like expendable widgets. He largely relies on a brain trust of two: himself and his wife, CASEY DESANTIS, a former local TV journalist. Beyond that there are few, if any, “DeSantis people,” as far as political pros are concerned.

Yes, DeSantis recently hired highly regarded operative PHIL COX. But there’s no savant that he’s been through the trenches with, like a KARL ROVE or DAVID AXELROD — let alone an army of loyalists. That’s probably not fatal to his White House prospects, but it can’t help.

To the Swamp, few things are more horrifying than insufficient regard for themselves. But to those not easily cowed by the complaints of disgruntled staffers (who are naturally going to dislike a boss who doesn’t hang on their every word), there’s a different takeaway here:

Wait, so DeSantis accomplished all of the above without consultants or pollsters having to tell him what to do?

His stellar record isn’t the result of a PowerPoint presentation or taking direction from handlers. It comes from his own values and instincts, from not just listening to conservatives’ concerns but understanding them on a personal level because he shares them. From caring enough about problems to figure out solutions. This, perhaps more so than anything else, explains why he’s a cut above most Republicans and offers genuine assurance that his decision-making will continue to be generally solid.

After Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, one might have reasonably expected political insiders to have learned that rejection of their swampiest priorities and tendencies was what their constituents wanted. But one of the biggest ironies of the era is that not even Trump learned this from Trump. Despite having certain stylistic instincts and perhaps an insight or two about the base that served him well, on policy his advisers constantly led him around by the nose, to disastrous effect.

Ron DeSantis obviously does not have that problem.

Cautions and Caveats

None of the above is to suggest DeSantis is flawless, and it’s essential that his supporters remain clear-eyed about his missteps, which so far have been rare but do exist. 

Last year he signed an extension of a COVID-related medical liability shield that yours truly criticized at the time, and while fears of unintended consequences seem not to have materialized and its potential downsides seem to be negated by his many other positive COVID actions, his office never gave a straight answer to critics’ concerns—perhaps because they felt they could get away with ignoring them.

More recently, he gave Tucker Carlson a position statement on the Russian invasion of Ukraine that, while careful to avoid disavowing any defensive aid to Ukraine or U.S. interest in the conflict, strongly implied a reversal of the clear-eyed understanding of Russia’s ambitions and the importance of checking its aggression that DeSantis articulated while in Congress, replete with gratuitous lines that he surely knows are nonsense but he apparently felt were necessary to appease the frothing quasi-isolationist voices that currently dominate conservative media.

As a pure matter of policy substance, I remain confident that DeSantis would execute a prudent, Reaganite foreign policy in line with his congressional record if he becomes president, and that his answer to Carlson was a mere political calculation to help him through the GOP presidential primary. But therein lies the problem.

It was a rare instance of DeSantis following rather than leading, and in one fell swoop, it confirmed that, at least to some extent, he is willing to put political calculation above principled authenticity in his public statements. That he is not above pandering, and that he fears the isolationist bloc enough to recklessly give his opponents an opening to credibly accuse him of flip-flopping, in the process undermining the air of unshakable, confident conservative principle that is so integral to his political identity—all to satiate a faction that will most likely stay mostly with Trump anyway, while potentially shaking the confidence of more serious-minded voters (and donors) hungry for new blood.

Managing Expectations and the Citizen-Candidate Relationship

As alarmed and disappointed as this observer was by DeSantis’s unforced blunder on the issue, his overall legeder remains incredibly lopsided. Of course he is clearly still the best candidate currently available to us and would be a tremendous president. But there is a silver lining to seeing a promising candidate get a screw-up out of the way early. It reminds us that our politicians, even the best ones we ultimately embrace, are not demigods or superheroes (as Trump so desperately wants to be seen as) to be worshiped and unconditionally defended, but fallible humans to be supported, used, and worked with but also to be constantly scrutinized with realistic expectations and occasionally chastised to steer in better directions.

It’s okay to admit that our picks are still capable of mistakes, even big ones. One of the reasons Trump never improved was because his fans and allies never forced him to; instead talk radio fed him and his fans a steady diet of adulation signaling that his performance was good enough and that there was always an excuse for his failures. If conservative media had been more ruthlessly demanding instead of giving in to sycophancy, Trump would probably be halfway through his second term right now and DeSantis would have even smoother sailing to the 2024 nomination. It would be an ironic tragedy if, in our zeal to replace Trump, we allowed the same thing to happen to the best (and only) real alternative to him.

This is a lesson the conservative movement desperately needs to re-learn. It was right and necessary to support Trump in the last two general elections (as it will be again if, God forbid, we’re stupid enough to nominate him once more), but that doesn’t mean his ascent didn’t carry serious costs. One is his narcissistic desire to return to the White House despite being a massive electoral liability; another is his army of crackpot fanboys and grifter apologists that spend every day making the discourse on the Right dumber, uglier, more subservient, and less conservative.

A not-insignificant portion of the Right is being habituated to a conception of the individual’s relationship with his elected representatives that is antithetical to the American Founding’s conception of officeholders as servants of fixed principles ultimately accountable to the people, rather than idols served by the people. Now is the time to destroy this trend before it destroys us.

In Conclusion

By every honest, objective standard, Ron DeSantis is smarter, more moral, more disciplined, more eloquent, more conservative, more appealing to more voters, and more effective than Donald Trump. He also matches all the other hypothetical 2024 Republican contenders in character, competence, and communication ability, and exceeds all of them in results. On top of his substantial merits, he is also our only realistic option for finally breaking the Trumpian stranglehold on the conservative movement.

Not since Ronald Reagan has the choice been this clear. 

Vote accordingly.

Advertisement

Sanity vs. Sickness: the Conservative Movement’s Dueling Reactions to Putin’s War on Ukraine

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The confusion and bitterness that have entangled conservatives over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are the inevitable consequences of a festering problem I’ve been watching and dreading for a decade now: a long train of mistaken foreign policy decisions—and equally mistaken reactions to those decisions—that the American Right has never properly adjudicated.

There is a widespread consensus (with which I concur) that George W. Bush made a series of extremely costly and tragic mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, but our movement never really had a sober, nuanced accounting of what those mistakes were and were not. Instead, in the absence of serious Republican leadership, the predominantly (and understandably) emotional reaction to those years of excessive bloodshed for seemingly little return grew and hardened over the years into an overcorrection in the opposite direction, taking the form of a false choice: we either bomb and invade and nation-build everywhere, or we withdraw America from the world and steer clear of any foreign conflict.

For some on the Right (mostly its populist, paleoconservative, or “New Right/post-liberal” factions), a disposition toward the latter extreme has made washing their hands of conflict so important, even in cases where nobody of consequence is seriously pushing for American military intervention, that they have adopted logical and sometimes even moral contortions to sustain it. From the uncritical recitation of Kremlin justifications for the invasion, to the presumption that Vladimir Putin is somehow more trustworthy or less objectionable than Volodymyr Zelensky, to the idea of some correlation between American concern for the outcome and negligence toward our domestic problems (an ironic flip side to Joe Biden’s attempts to scapegoat the conflict for the crushing gas prices his own policies have caused), to the simply obscene notion that a murderous KGB thug like Putin is some kind of Christian bulwark against wokeness, post-hoc rationalization is the only explanation I can think of for why anyone not actually devoted to the Kremlin would twist themselves into these knots.

The moral relativism associated with that last contortion deserves special focus. As sick as American culture and corrupt as the federal government currently are, morally there’s still no contest between us and the Kremlin, from their rigged elections, to the laundry list of political enemies Putin has had killed, to their persecution of Baptists and Evangelicals, to their torture of Jehovah’s Witnesses (on top of Putin’s support for legal abortion and the rampancy of Russia’s surrogacy industry). While the American Democrat Party is absolutely evil, and I have no doubt they would emulate the Kremlin a lot more if they could get away with it (we’ve seen signs of that in their abuse of the Justice Department and support of vote fraud, for starters), the fact remains that they have yet to even attempt to cross most of the lines that Putin not only crossed a long time ago, but can no longer see in the rearview mirror—not out of the goodness of their hearts, mind you, but because our people and institutions, deeply flawed though they are, still would make those things much, much harder to get away with here.

The “Christian Putin” meme seems to mostly originate with his regime’s hardline stance against homosexuality. But even there we should be very careful — pandering to prominent social mores is one of tyrants’ classic tools to stay on a population’s good side. And while I don’t presume to have complete knowledge of everything Putin has done on the issue, given his broader human rights record it would be beyond foolish to trust him to model proper Christian treatment of people in sin, and monumentally irresponsible to give the public the slightest impression that he might be a model for what conservatives would do if we had our way. When an evil, murderous tyrant supposedly uses a few good values for his own ends, he ultimately undermines those values by wrongly associating them with evil, murder, and tyranny in the eyes of onlookers in the rest of the world.

Further, I’m sorry to say, the rise of much of the above has correlated with, and no doubt been informed substantially by, a deterioration of far too many conservatives’ ability to discern the credibility of claims or the trustworthiness of sources, a forgetting of Chesterton’s advice that the purpose of an open mind is to eventually close it on something solid. Far too many minds (at least online) have instead closed on a Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, Alex Jones-style view of the world filled with conspiracy theories in which world events are dictated by shadowy globalist cabals and bloodthirsty defense contractors, narratives that are right at home alongside the Code Pink/Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky talking points and historical revisionism of the Bush years.

Unlike David French, I’m not about to pretend this reflexive contrarianism came from nowhere (or that it applies to unrelated issues on which the contrarians happen to be correct, but I digress). Nothing fuels contrarianism more than the chronic refusal of establishmentarians to admit or correct any of their mistakes, which drives people to look elsewhere for guidance—and sometimes find it in figures who merely trade one form of awfulness for another. But the fact that establishmentarians provoked the initial distrust doesn’t excuse contrarians for blindly trusting their new friends and thought leaders. You’re still functioning human beings with the ability and responsibility to apply morality, evidence, and common sense to the stories you’re told. Act like it.

That applies tenfold for anyone in the public eye. It is of the utmost importance that conservatives in government, punditry, journalism, or advocacy not give the slightest indulgence to crackpots, conspiracy theorists, or demagogues, especially at a time when crying “misinformation” is one of our enemies’ most potent weapons. It would be the height of political malpractice to give leftists an opening to legitimately apply the label to us, to give either current followers or persuadable newcomers a reason to distrust us, or to lead followers astray by giving excessive credit to a crank like Paul, Buchanan, or Jones for something they might coincidentally get right, inadvertently leading the uninitiated to be less skeptical of the mountain of things they don’t.

If there’s any silver lining to this grotesque situation, it’s that the pro-Putin sentiment is, near as I can tell, all-but nonexistent among Republicans in Congress, except for the occasional idiot freshman House gadfly (this lack of elected support, naturally, has provoked all sorts of ranting on social media about the “neocon” boogeyman). Of course, aside from a few radio hosts like Dennis Prager and Mark Levin, there’s also no real concerted effort to stand up to this poison, untangle the years of confusion and negligence that led up to it, and reassert a sane, conservative approach to foreign policy.

Sadly, history suggests that paradigm shifts in how we approach the world beyond our borders tend not to come unless forced by dramatic tragedies. I pray that is not the case this time.

A Belated Reply to Ramesh Ponnuru on Kavanaugh and Roe

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Ramesh Ponnuru has responded to my column last week at LifeSite, in which I take issue with his defense of Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony regarding Roe v. Wade. I appreciate the opportunity for a serious exchange on the subject; hopefully we can clarify some of the Right’s thinking on a tradition that’s caused so much trouble.

Ponnuru accurately summarizes my position; I think he can be fairly summarized as believing nominees shouldn’t commit to overruling specific precedents, but should be more willing to discuss a precedent’s strengths or flaws (from which senators and voters would obviously be able to draw more useful inferences).

Certainly, I agree that it would be improper for a judge to promise, for instance, “I’ll always rule however the National Right to Life Committee wants me to.” I also recognize the legitimacy of certain qualifiers, such as noting that a case involving abortion in some way doesn’t necessarily mean Roe’s legitimacy will be the question it hinges on.

Beyond that, though, I have never heard a persuasive reason why it would be improper for a nominee to commit to ruling certain ways on known legal questions. If a precedent is in fact illicit, I’ve never gotten a good answer why it’s wrong in principle to make reasonably sure that a nominee would overturn it.

Obviously, I can see potential danger in a judge agreeing to deliver a particular outcome in exchange for an appointment, but a bad ruling is hardly mitigated just because its signatories honestly believe in it. So shouldn’t the legitimacy of a pre-confirmation commitment depend entirely on whether the judgment being committed to is correct?

It seems perfectly straightforward to me that a judge’s explanation for his position would demonstrate to fair-minded observers whether it’s rooted in illicit partisanship or defensible legal philosophy, regardless of what conversations he and the president might have had beforehand as to whether they’re on the same page.

It also seems to me that consistently applying the no-commitment principle would take us to some pretty absurd places. Is anyone who’s ever openly criticized Roe, like William Pryor or Michael McConnell, automatically disqualified from joining SCOTUS? Sitting justices who’ve previously declared themselves for or against Roe in majority or dissenting opinions also have a “commitment” on the record that will telegraph their disposition in future abortion cases; how is that meaningfully different?

What’s the limiting principle to the no-commitment rule, and what do the above questions say about the rule’s merits for judicial nominees?

Finally, I’d like to make clear that despite my reservations about nominating Kavanaugh in the first place, I fully support confirming him in light of the Left’s vile campaign to destroy him.

It’s all-but inconceivable that withdrawing him at this stage would lead to confirming anyone better, his powerful testimony calling out “the Left” by name for its “calculated and orchestrated political hit” gives me some hope that he’s more of a movement conservative than he let on during the first round, and most importantly, the Left’s tactics of demonization and intimidation cannot be rewarded.

New at LifeSite: Our GOP Congressional Leaders Are Lousy on Life

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , ,

Here’s my latest piece, highlighting some of the details NRLC and SBA List left out of their statements slobbering all over Paul Ryan:

Over the years, Ryan voted for and presided over multiple budget resolutions that continued the more than $500 million Planned Parenthood receives from taxpayers annually. Pro-life leaders called onthe GOP to make defunding Planned Parenthood “non-negotiable” in budgets passed under Barack Obama, but Ryan defended not doing so on the grounds that “in divided government, no one gets exactly what they want.”

Last month, Ryan said that supporting the most recent budget was necessary to fund the military. But critics like Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY, argue that under Ryan, the House forbade lawmakers from voting on amendments concerning Planned Parenthood or any other conservative objections to the bill.

“A more complete betrayal of the electorate I have not witnessed,” Massie tweeted.

Moreover, while Ryan’s House passed several pro-life measures, only the one letting states defund Planned Parenthood ever became law.

There’s a lot more at LifeSiteNews. And here’s a snippet of my piece from earlier this week detailing how ostensible Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (for all intents and purposes, Chuck Schumer is really calling the shots) continues to let Democrats slow-walk judicial nominees, in the hopes of delaying as many as they can until Donald Trump no longer has a GOP Senate majority to confirm them:

An October 10 memo signed by more than one hundred conservative leaders, including Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, former Attorney General Edwin Meese, and Tea Party Patriot’s Jenny Beth Martin, blames part of the problem on the McConnell Senate’s “continued insistence on working no more than 2 ½ days a week – arriving on Monday evening for a handful of votes, and departing, on average, by 2:30 p.m. each Thursday afternoon.”

Even under the 30-hour rule, the leaders add, McConnell could “easily make this painful for them by forcing continuous session overnight and through the weekend.” They estimate this would enable the Senate to confirm up to five nominees per week even with the added hours of debate.

On a related note, the insipid myth that McConnell is the real hero in getting Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court continues to make the rounds, even among people who should know better like Matt Walsh:

Harvard Republican Club Wants Hillary Clinton to Be President

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

They don’t say so, of course. In fact, the name Hillary Clinton doesn’t appear anywhere in their announcement that they won’t endorse Donald Trump. But that’s the inescapable conclusion of their sanctimonious, tunnel-vision screed.

“[F]or the first time in 128 years, we, the oldest College Republicans chapter in the nation, will not be endorsing the Republican nominee,” they declare…a decision so well thought out, with the consequences of the election’s outcome so carefully weighed, that not once do they mention who will become president if the Republican nominee does not. Continue reading →

Last Night, Ted Cruz Told Conservatives That Saving America Is Optional

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , ,

Ted Cruz is by far the best candidate I’ve ever had the opportunity to vote for…and still, he let me down last night. He let his country down last night.

I know Donald Trump’s moral, intellectual, and philosophical deficiencies by heart. I was #NeverTrump for a few days after he secured the nomination. But a few days was all it took for me to confront, process, and admit two realities: first, that on every issue, the wrong things Trump may do are negated by the wrong things Hillary Clinton will do; and more importantly, that we may not have the opportunity to reverse Clinton’s actions in a term or two, because she will stack the Supreme Court for decades to come and grant amnesty to enough future Democrat voters to prevent conservatives from winning another presidency or Congressional majority in our lifetimes.

Ted Cruz understands this, because he himself has referenced both: Continue reading →

Awful #NeverTrump Arguments, Part 1: Steve Deace

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

The intense disgust Donald Trump inspires in most conservatives is unquestionably valid, seeing that he’s a loathsome, unqualified buffoon who ruined the best chance we’ve had since 1984 to put a truly worthy movement conservative, Ted Cruz, in the White House. The emotional difficulty of looking past his offenses and weaknesses is understandable, and there are legitimate concerns about Trump’s fitness for office, chances against Hillary Clinton, and representation of the Republican Party.

However, it’s increasingly apparent that Trump Derangement Syndrome has so consumed most of the #NeverTrump movement that they’ve lost the ability to objectively evaluate both Trump’s weaknesses and the consequences of another Clinton presidency. Not only are opposing arguments ignored without serious consideration, many NeverTrumpers hurl indignation and condescension at any suggestion there are opposing arguments. Ugly though it sounds, it’s hard not to conclude that some have decided that the future of their country is less important than projecting their self-image as morally and ideologically purer than the rest of us.

It’s time to start calling out this arrogant negligence. The following is the first in a series of posts calling out the shoddy logic and irresponsible flippancy dominating #NeverTrump arguments. To be clear, not everyone we’ll discuss is guilty of all the sins described above, but all display a distinct lack of seriousness unworthy of the future generations who will suffer if they get their way and Hillary wins. Continue reading →

National Disgrace Marco Rubio Wants to Inflict Himself on America Again

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , ,

The one silver lining to this disaster of an election was supposed to be that at least we’d be getting rid of Marco Rubio. Unfortunately, Rubio has just decided he wants to stay in the Senate after all.

If the Right really held honor at a premium, the very possibility would have been met with such a unanimous hail of incredulity and disgust that Rubio never would have considered it (then again, if that were the case his presidential ambitions never would have gotten past a momentary delusion of grandeur).

Rubio ran for Senate claiming to be an anti-amnesty candidate, then when he got there he repeatedly lied to the country on behalf of the Gang of 8 amnesty bill. That left the GOP base even more distrustful they could trust anybody in elected office, giving Donald Trump his opening to gain a real foothold with the electorate. Not once has Rubio taken responsibility for his dishonesty.

Then, when he ran for president, he repeatedly lied about Ted Cruz, the only plausible alternative to Trump. Finally, he ensured Trump’s victory by helping to split the conservative vote and screw over Cruz’s delegate prospects long after it was clear he wasn’t going to become the nominee…and yet, after all he did to both Cruz and the country, Rubio has the gall to ask Cruz to help his new vanity campaign?

You have no honor, Mr. Rubio. The country cannot trust you. For the incalculable harm you’ve done to your country, the only way you could regain a sliver of your honor would be to acknowledge you don’t belong anywhere near public office.

Why is Truth Obvious to Conservative Readers but Not Conservative Pundits?

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

It’s really remarkable, in a depressing sort of way, how many of the comments on articles at leading conservative websites are consistently more insightful than the articles themselves. Today’s example comes from Dan McLaughlin’s recent National Review piece on how #NeverTrump needn’t have been inevitable — not because the people who knew better had numerous opportunities to prevent Trump’s rise, mind you, but because Trump could have been someone he’s not.

Thank God commenter Patrick could see the obvious:

Flip it around: NeverTrump needn’t have been inevitable if mainstream Republicanism, including other major presidential candidates, had recognized the same important issues that Trump and Santorum realized and championed them in a more mainstream way than Trump is capable of doing.

In retrospect (except that retrospect was actually spect to millions of us a year ago) NeverTrump could have been avoided and Trump could have been stopped just by, as Ann Coulter forcefully prescribed last summer, “Taking his issues away from him and beating him with them.” But 14 Trump rivals ignored or mostly protested his policies. Cruz followed along timidly in his wake, doing nothing to make Trump voters prefer his half measures to Trump’s full ones. Santorum himself had always been leading the way on working class conservatism, but he was damaged goods having been caricatured as a religious obsessive with no other interests, and few Republcians were even aware of what he stood for.

As for Ryan, McConnell, the RW pundits, think tanks and donors, they were Trump’s best allies in assuring voters that they wouldn’t dream of adopting any of Trump’s policies. They went on record as giving him a monopoly on populist conservatism. And the voters believed them.

In putting the onus on Trump, you’re assuming this 70 year-old dog is capable of learning new tricks. That’s not realistic. He’s been an erratic, bombastic blowhard and gadfly his entire life. The solution never was for Donald Trump to become someone he’s not. It was for someone who’s not Donald Trump to start standing up for ordinary Americans instead of Wall Street and other special interests. That didn’t happen, so Trump won by default, the two sweetest words in the English language.

I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that comment is the single best thing I’ve read on the Internet in a month.

Sadly, instead of starting the Right’s long-overdue housecleaning to make sure we never wind up in a mess like this again, so many of the people whose shortsightedness forced us into this ugly choice are instead devoting all their energy to increasingly-implausible fantasies about convention revolts and third candidates that will correct none of our root problems and instead give Hillary the opportunity she needs to make us all irrelevant by turning the Supreme Court solidly against our freedoms and amnestying enough new Democrat voters to keep control for generations.

Sigh.

New at American Clarion – Trump Won Because Conservatives Let Him

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

Now that we’re stuck with the ugly choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, we’re long overdue for a chat about just how easily this mess could have been avoided. Shocking though it may be that such a cartoonishly unqualified and un-conservative figure could sweep the Republican nomination, it was inevitable that the mistakes and blind spots that establishmentarians and conservatives allowed to fester for years would eventually blow up in our faces.

Most agree on the first cause: feckless Republican leaders, whose record of surrender has made their base desperate for someone to take a wrecking ball to Capitol Hill, and doubtful that anyone from within the party could suffice. So when Trump swept in sounding like that someone—and making immigration, the issue on which party and base are most divided, his centerpiece—of course he forged an emotional bond impervious to subsequent reviews of his record.

It’s not Trump’s fault nobody stepped in to fill that demand first—even Ted Cruz, who fought the establishment from day one, underestimated the stridency he needed to project, or how moves like his poison pill amendments to the Gang of 8 bill would backfire.

Read the rest at American Clarion.