With polls showing Donald Trump the likely winner of most of the Super Tuesday primary contests, a lot of shocked conservatives are starting to come to grips with a question they never thought they’d be forced to ask: Is the likely Republican presidential candidate more palatable than the choice of the Democrats? Though the animus that Hillary Clinton generates among conservatives and Republicans is deeply felt, the answer coming from many of them is that he is no better. That’s what has motivated a variety of leading Republicans to say in the last few days that they will not support Trump under any circumstances.
Into that breach has stepped respected conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt to argue that those who despise Trump are not thinking straight. Hewitt has some standing to speak dispassionately about the frontrunner. Trump chose to publicly abuse Hewitt at last week’s debate for having the effrontery to ask him to make good on a promise about releasing his taxes that he made on his show. But Hewitt has a thick skin and instead of calling out Trump for his flip-flops, he makes an argument for why, despite his manifest shortcomings, his election would be a net gain for conservatives when compared to the alternative.
Hewitt puts forward six reasons for backing Trump. They consist of 1 & 2) the names of two conservative jurists that he thinks Trump will nominate to the Supreme Court; 3) Trump’s pledge to back the cause of religious liberty; 4) His prowess as a “builder” will enable him to make good on a promise to rebuild the U.S. Navy; 5) The leaders of Russia and China will fear him. 6) Trump’s daughter Ivanka will serve as his “Svengali” and perform the same role Valerie Jarrett has played in the Obama administration only with a better “sense of America’s role in the world.”
I’m not sure if Hewitt’s support will do much to convince Republicans to back their party’s likely nominee or even to win him some favor with the candidate. But nevertheless, Hewitt’s reasons deserve consideration if for no other reason they are the strongest arguments on behalf of Trump that I’ve heard from a sensible conservative.
Let’s state up front that if you believe that Trump can be trusted to nominate conservatives to the court, keep his promises on religious liberty, rebuild the Navy, pursue foreign policies that will defend U.S. interests and allies then perhaps Hewitt’s arguments have merit. But as with so much else about Trump, there seems little reason to believe that he can be trusted to stick to any of the positions he’s taking now.
As he’s demonstrated over his long public career in business and entertainment, Trump is not a man of principle. He is a genius at marketing and a master manipulator of the media. But his conservative principles are, at best, newly minted.
As a man that has bragged about his willingness and even a desire to change to suit the circumstances, it is far easier to see his newfound devotion to conservatism as a bargaining chip that he can and will discard, as he likes.
On Supreme Court appointments, Trump may have spoken favorably of two conservatives to Hewitt, but he is also a man who has little regard for constitutional principles. On topics as diverse as eminent domain and libel law, Trump still seems to view the law as a tool to be manipulated or exploited as it suits his interests of the moment. In other words, Trump is still thinking like the robber baron entrepreneur that he has always been, not a defender of conservative ideas or the constitution.
Flexibility is a good trait in a businessman. But politics is about more than deals. Compromise is essential to progress but without firm principles guiding the politician as to where the line in the sand must be drawn, the result is mere opportunism. On religious liberty, a debate that has centered on the attempts of the Obama administration to impose its will on individuals and faith organizations, it’s difficult to believe that someone who believes in socialized medicine, the ObamaCare individual mandate and supports planned parenthood, as Trump does, is also going to stand firm on this topic.
As for the Navy, a rebuilt fleet does fit nicely with the “make America great again” mantra that he spouts, but, like everything else about Trump, this may be another negotiable position. It’s not clear how he will pay for an enlarged Navy any more than the border wall that supposedly will be financed by Mexico. When pressed on specifics, especially on the country’s fiscal health, Trump actually sounds very much like a conventional liberal/centrist politician opposing entitlement reform. All of which is to say that Hewitt’s faith in his devotion to the Navy has no more of a foundation than any other Trump stand. Trump has no real policy positions, merely attitudes that suit his rhetorical stance of nationalism. Anyone that thinks they know what Trump will do is merely guessing. Hewitt is entitled to do that as much as the rest of us, but he gives no reason other than wishful thinking to back up his bet.
As for the contention that authoritarians like Vladimir Putin will fear him, there is something to be said for having an American president that is regarded as less pliable than Barack Obama has been. But as much as foreign leaders may regard him as a wild card, Trump has also signaled that he will not be any more of an obstacle to Russian ambitions than Obama has been. Compared to Trump, who applauded Russian intervention in Syria and defended Putin against charges of human rights abuses, Hillary Clinton sounds positively Reaganesque in her willingness to oppose the nation that Mitt Romney correctly labeled as America’s leading geostrategic rival.
The problem is not with having a tough sounding president. That would be helpful in many instances. But a president that knows as little about foreign policy as Trump would be a liability no matter whether he was quiet or loud. Trump’s truculence on trade sounds good to primary voters, but it is a recipe for unwanted conflicts that will likely distract the country from more serious threats to U.S. security. Though his fans think his talk about a wall and hostility to Muslims is a substitute for a coherent worldview, it is not.
Even worse, when Putin and the Chinese hear Trump blathering about his neutrality between Israel and the Palestinians and his ambition to make a peace deal that is impossible under the current circumstances, they don’t hear strength. They correctly understand that the person making such statements is just a different version of Obama, whose foreign policy hubris was, though different sounding, very similar in substance. They will see someone that can’t be relied upon to back U.S. allies and who will be, for all of his boasts about his bargaining prowess, an easy mark.
As for Hewitt’s last argument about the brilliance of Ivanka Trump, I have no real idea whether he’s right about her. Neither does anyone else. But even if she is as amazing as he claims, do conservatives really want to gamble the country’s future on a theory about a potential Svengali with no political experience or record of her own guiding another political novice? As flimsy as Hewitt’s other arguments may be, this one sounds just plain crazy.
If many on the right are saying that they can’t back Trump, it’s because they see no real difference between him and Clinton other than a rhetorical truculence about immigrants that is almost certainly not going to be translated into action. Trump is no more likely to be able to round up 12 million illegals and then deport them before letting some back in than he is to flap his arms and fly to the moon.
To acknowledge the case against Trump is not an argument for Clinton. A third term of Obama in the form of a Hillary Clinton administration would be a disaster for those who care about conservative ideas and the American future. Yet if Super Tuesday plays out as another Trump triumph, then, as Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse noted, the choice facing Americans will be between “two fundamentally dishonest New York liberals.” I don’t know if that means we will have a repeat of 1860 with four parties competing for the presidency as he predicts. But if the two major party nominees are Trump and Clinton, principled conservatives won’t have a good reason to back the former other than dislike for the Democrats and vestigial loyalty to a Republican party that has been hijacked by a fraudulent populist.
