Sunday, October 30, 2016

A POPULIST-NATIONALIST RIGHT? NO,THANKS!

William Kristol decides to wave the flag of #Never Trump in defiance. In the November 7th edition of the Weekly Standard he takes on Pat Buchanan who recently wrote about the weaknesses of liberal democracy. Kristol has to set up the boogie man of the nanny-state--security net sure but no smothering blanket. But the piece is a decent defense of liberal democracy and against Trump. We don't need the ethnic populism and right-wing nationalism of Europe. 

Kristol is aiming for the audience of Republicans who treasure the American tradition of conservatism which Kristol sees as preserving liberal democracy. 

In the New York Times Ross Douhat did his usual gymnastics about why Clinton is better than Trump because of all the things Kristol says in his piece.

Where these people will go after this election is anyone's guess. But we owe them some respect. Robert Kagan was the first on the right to raise the question of Trump's fascism. Jennifer Rubin has had a series of blistering anti-Trump op-eds from a #Never Trump perspective. And Michael Gerson has blasted the hypocrisy of the religious right embracing this monster. 

Theirs is a lonely place.

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