Good line, but grossly unfair to Mr. Trump, because--as we know--the Rebuplican Party is a joke.
But seriously, why haven't you heard any of the commentariat note that the weakness of the Rebuplican presidential field (something that has been mentioned) is directly related to the party's intellectual bankruptcy? The mix of fallacy, foolishness and outright lies that pass for thought on the Right must be toxic to any serious political debate. Oh, a few of the Rebuplican leaders--I'm thinking of Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan--can sound sensible when producing a sound bite or a set speech. But as Paul Krugman has shown in his columns, what passes for reasoning quickly crumbles when challenged by real knowledge and thought that is not constrained by "conservative" cant.
To make this argument, I ought to be able to show a plausible Rebuplican candidate who is not running, because he or she cannot stomach--or surmount--the bunkum that the party now celebrates. I cannot do so, but I think that is because the anti-intellectualism of the Right has so hollowed out its intellectual basis that there is nothing left.
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What intelligent Republican would run given the current mental state of their almost-rabid primary-voting electorate? Who one in their right mind would steer that far to the right in order to pander to these innuendo, rumor, and conspiracy-driven yahoos who flock to the polls and vote without thought or information? And that brings us to your point: there is no sane Republican running.
The Republican Party is in dire need of a modern day Bill Buckley. And not just to shake the cobwebs of their debilitating intellectual inertia, but to realistically find a viable way forward - as opposed to nurturing the alienating ideologies that are driving the party to the brink of irrelevancy. David Brooks is far too impressed with himself to hold any serious sway over the idea-starved faction of the party (these people are still looking to Karl Rove and his dry-erase board for ideas – good luck with that!). David Frum, though more thoughtful, tends to be too reactionary; George Will is displaying symptoms congruous with the onset of dementia; John Derbyshire is far too cranky (but funny); whereas P.J. O’Rourke is far too funny which makes him seem less brilliant than he actually is; Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam are smart guys, but not Buckley-smart.
Jonah Goldberg? Rich Lowry? Dinesh D’Souza? Thomas Sowell? Amity Shlaes? Peggy Noonan for Christ’s Sake? Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D? These are a motley bunch of quasi-intellectual also-rans on their best days, and indefensible crackpots on their worst. To follow the logical progression of this list would inevitably lead us to the O’Reillys, Morrises, Limbaughs, Becks, and so on of this world down the rabbit hole into the deepest depths of absurdity. In other words, they got nuthin’.
We on the left have an over-abundance of original thinkers and prolific, engaging writers. There are far too many to list here – Eagleton, Judt, Harvey, Zinn, and Chomsky come immediately to mind - but one who rises to the top in a leftist Buckley vein is Christopher Hitchens. The right should be openly begging to have an intellect as sharp, erudite, concise, and insightful as this (and indeed, thought they had him in 2003, but alas, Iraq was all he had in common with the right-wing riff-raff), but instead they long for the next fabricated piece of piffle “proving” that Obama is a secret Muslim/Kenyan/Marxist/Nazi/communist/fascist/socialist tyrant intent on destroying America and taking away everybody’s guns. And this is why it is unlikely that any kind of true intellect will emerge.
Clearly, you are too damned smart for this page!
No, I'm not. And what I possess is less intelligence than it is simple awareness.
Sometimes I feel compelled to augment your posts slightly because politically and economically, you and I are on the same page.
When I'm the one taking the depositions and you're the one laying the tile, then you can accuse me of being too smart for this page.
As the reader other than Chris and me can tell, we go back a ways.
As the reader other than Chris and me can tell, we go back a ways.
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