Thursday, September 24, 2015

TRUMP AND LOWRY ARE REDUCING MODERN CONSERVATISM TO ITS TRUE ESSENCE

It's embarrassing to watch the slapfight taking place on the right at this moment. Donald Trump, as you know, is boycotting Fox News again. In response, National Review's Rich Lowry -- yeah, the guy who experienced "starbursts" on first glimpsing Sarah Palin -- took to Megyn Kelly's show last night and tried to issue a dominance challenge to Trump:
Rich Lowry told Megyn Kelly that the reason Trump is going after Carly Fiorina is that ‘she cut his balls off with the precision of a surgeon‘ in the last debate and thus she has become a much bigger target for Trump to take aim at.
Via Mediaite, here's the video (originally posted by Trumpite Jim Hoft):



A Twitter fight ensued, in which Trump urged government action against Lowry:



Right-wingers mocked Trump for advocating big government and for misunderstanding the FCC's powers:



(I wonder how many of these conservatives were silent when, under their then-hero George W. Bush, the FCC went to war against broadcasters whose programming included "fleeting expletives." Under pressure from social conservatives, the commission threatened large fines for single instances of four-letter words on the air. But that was the era of post-9/11 Bush, so I guess it was cool.)

Lowry continued to needle Trump:



Lowry also labored mightily to make the moment go viral, retweeting a series of anti-Trump posts and promoting the hashtag #NoBallsTrump, which as I write this, is not trending.



This is what conservatism is right now. It's primarily about feeling insulted, disrespected, and emasculated. It's a turf battle. The immigration issue, for the right, is less about abstract disgust with people of other ethnicities than it is about outrage that people of other ethnicities are venturing onto our turf. Right-wingers are angry about Islamicist terrorism, but they also hate peaceful Muslims because peaceful Muslims are trying to take the practices of a different religion onto our turf. Gun laws? Not on our turf.

Trump has distilled modern conservatism to its essence, and that's why he's been leading in the polls for months: conservatism isn't about issues, it's about anger at anyone who even fleetingly sets foot on your lawn. It's about being enough of a man to tell people you don't like that they need to get the hell off your lawn -- whether or not you'd actually do anything if they didn't, and whether or not you even have any idea what would be an appropriate response to a lawn violation. The anger is all. The supposed manliness is all.

So now Trump and Lowry are having a swordfight. Am I wrong to hope that we never have a winner?
Posted by Steve M. at 7:43 AM 0 Comments
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)