07-27-2016, 06:44 AM
Here's what the late William F. Buckley said of Donald Trump sixteen years ago:
http://www.redstate.com/jaycaruso/2016/0...-accurate/
This is a right-wing site. It cites an obscure magazine called Cigar Aficionado, the sort of place where one rarely sees political discussion or has it tucked neatly away under a discussion of "I really enjoy these cigars". Donald Trump would have been seen as a sick joke in 2000; Bill Buckley may have had some qualms about George W. Bush becoming President, but not too many to choose him over Al Gore.
William F. Buckley is no longer with us, so we can read into what he said or wrote whatever we like. I doubt that he would concur that Barack Obama is an above-average President, but even so most of the disdain for the current President is ideological. Stopping the economic hemorrhaging of the two most dangerous meltdowns of the American economy in the last century is a Great Deed of a President, something to which business acumen is of slight significance.
Of course it is up to Americans to reject demagoguery wherever it appears, under whatever partisan identity it it takes as a cloak. When the Obama-era bull market comes to an end we are going to need solutions, and not scapegoats. Demagogues are the bane of democracy. Just look at Venezuela, which the demagogue Hugo Chavez snookered.
Quote:Look for the narcissist. The most obvious target in today’s lineup is, of course, Donald Trump. When he looks at a glass, he is mesmerized by its reflection. If Donald Trump were shaped a little differently, he would compete for Miss America. But whatever the depths of self-enchantment, the demagogue has to say something. So what does Trump say? That he is a successful businessman and that that is what America needs in the Oval Office. There is some plausibility in this, though not much. The greatest deeds of American Presidents — midwifing the new republic; freeing the slaves; harnessing the energies and vision needed to win the Cold War — had little to do with a bottom line.
....
In the final analysis, just as the king might look down with terminal disdain upon a courtier whose hypocrisy repelled him, so we have no substitute for relying on the voter to exercise a quiet veto when it becomes more necessary to discourage cynical demagogy, than to advance free health for the kids. That can come later, in another venue; the resistance to a corrupting demagogy should take first priority.
....
So what else can Trump offer us? Well to begin with, a self-financed campaign. Does it follow that all who finance their own campaigns are narcissists? At this writing Steve Forbes has spent $63 million in pursuit of the Republican nomination. Forbes is an evangelist, not an exhibitionist. In his long and sober private career, Steve Forbes never bought a casino, and if he had done so, he would not have called it Forbes’s Funhouse. His motivations are discernibly selfless. . .
http://www.redstate.com/jaycaruso/2016/0...-accurate/
This is a right-wing site. It cites an obscure magazine called Cigar Aficionado, the sort of place where one rarely sees political discussion or has it tucked neatly away under a discussion of "I really enjoy these cigars". Donald Trump would have been seen as a sick joke in 2000; Bill Buckley may have had some qualms about George W. Bush becoming President, but not too many to choose him over Al Gore.
William F. Buckley is no longer with us, so we can read into what he said or wrote whatever we like. I doubt that he would concur that Barack Obama is an above-average President, but even so most of the disdain for the current President is ideological. Stopping the economic hemorrhaging of the two most dangerous meltdowns of the American economy in the last century is a Great Deed of a President, something to which business acumen is of slight significance.
Of course it is up to Americans to reject demagoguery wherever it appears, under whatever partisan identity it it takes as a cloak. When the Obama-era bull market comes to an end we are going to need solutions, and not scapegoats. Demagogues are the bane of democracy. Just look at Venezuela, which the demagogue Hugo Chavez snookered.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.