The Failures of Anti-Trumpism
David Brooks laments.
Over the past year, those of us in the anti-Trump camp have churned out billions of words critiquing the president.
The point of this work is to expose the harm President Trump is doing, weaken his support and prevent him from doing worse.
And by that standard, the anti-Trump movement is a failure.
We have persuaded no one.
Trump’s approval rating is around 40 percent, which is basically unchanged from where it’s been all along.
We have not hindered him.
Trump has more power than he did a year ago, not less.
With more mainstream figures like H. R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn gone, the administration is growing more nationalist, not less.
We have not dislodged him.
For all the hype, the Mueller investigation looks less and less likely to fundamentally alter the course of the administration.
We have not contained him.
Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party is complete.
Eighty-nine percent of Republicans now have a positive impression of the man.
According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 59 percent of Republicans consider themselves more a supporter of Trump than of the Republican Party.
On trade, immigration, entitlement reform, spending, foreign policy, race relations and personal morality, this is Trump’s party, not Reagan’s or anyone else’s.
A lot of us never-Trumpers assumed momentum would be on our side as his scandals and incompetences mounted.
It hasn’t turned out that way.
I almost never meet a Trump supporter who has become disillusioned.
I often meet Republicans who were once ambivalent but who have now joined the Trump train.
The surest evidence of Trump’s dominance is on the campaign trail.
As The Times’s Jonathan Martin reported, many Republicans, including Ted Cruz, are making the argument that if Democrats take over Congress, they will impeach the president.
In other words, far from ignoring Trump, these Republicans are making defending him the center of their campaigns.
And so on.
No comments:
Post a Comment