Schadenfreude

I seldom post here about partisan politics and have been somewhat reluctant to post about our recent election. But I will. I am politically conservative in the traditional sense of the term. I identify with most of the views expressed in publications like National Review, The Dispatch, or the editorial page at The Wall Street Journal. I agree with what has been known as Fusionism with its three principles of social conservatism, a strong national defense, and free markets. I have usually voted for Republican candidates because they usually were most likely to advance conservative policies. The best President in my lifetime was Reagan. I was never comfortable with Trump, either his character or his commitment to anything that could properly be considered conservative. His use of the Presidency for financial gain was another reason. I was not surprised by last Tuesday's results. I feel much the same as Jonah Goldberg in "I Was Right About the New Right." He is in an "I told you so" frame of mind:

.... I think it’s worth surveying the damage. I don’t just mean the electoral carnage, which is the political equivalent of the Dresden firebombing. Whether or not the GOP goes the way of the Whigs or simply limps along as a rump party for a generation now depends almost entirely on whether or not the Democrats blow the opportunity Trump and his enablers handed them on Tuesday. Which is to say, for good or ill, the GOP has a chance.

But not with Trump and Trumpism. In our system, there are only two ways to make it out of the wilderness: if the other “side” massively screws up and/or if your side has a better argument and better ideas. It usually requires a good deal of both.

And that’s where the real damage has been done. The new right has waged a relentless war on the accumulated wisdom that essentially defines American conservatism in pursuit of power. Whether it was the nationalists, postliberals, populists, or careerist climbers, as a group they saw—accurately—that the rules, dogmas, sentiments, and principles defining conservatism were impediments to their agendas. And so they sought to delegitimize them. ....

.... Not everything Trump did was bad. For example, his Supreme Court appointees—to his lasting regret—are excellent jurists. I am glad he killed Qassem Suleimani, pulled out of the Paris Accords, etc. The branch of Never Trumpism that can brook no nuance or concessions always struck me as the mirror image of Always Trumpism.

But it’s worth pointing out that many—most—of the good decisions Trump made, he made because those hated “Zombie Reaganite” conservatives midwifed them. The conservative legal movement, Mitch McConnell, et.al., carried the ball to the 1-yard line for him. His first term economic successes were the fruit of Paul Ryan and his colleagues handing him something to sign. In his second term, the Trump voluptuaries insisted that the gatekeepers and grown-ups were the problem. “Let be Trump be Trump” was the order of the day. Let us submit to the rule of Trump’s instincts that passed for wise political judgment. ....

I am torn about the election results. On the one hand, I am very angry about the damage done. Because I am an actual conservative, I would much rather the GOP be poised to be a new majority party, if the GOP could be a sane, principled, responsible political party in the tradition of Lincoln, Coolidge, Eisenhower, and Reagan. That is clearly not an option for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, I’m modestly hopeful. If the Democrats were going to win the House and Senate at all, I think it’s arguable that a big win of this scale is better than a narrow one. I would rather have a Democratic Party that has the option to marginalize the Abdul El-Sayeds and democratic socialist types. Democrats in Congress won’t need their votes, so if they choose to follow their lead, it will be a clarifyingly ideological choice, not one dictated by the demands of a narrow majority. And that will offer a path back, hopefully for sane Republicans. ....

...[W]hile I was writing this, Trump appointed Stephen Miller, the single figure most responsible for the coalition’s destruction other than Trump himself, to be his new chief of staff. A more idiotic choice I cannot fathom.

I’ve been saying for more than a decade that this experiment will end badly. I think I’ve already been vindicated on that score, but with Trump and Miller driving what’s left of the Trump train for the next two years, I am confident that there’s more vindication to come. (more, but probably behind a paywall)

Jonah Goldberg, "I Was Right About the New Right," The Dispatch, Nov. 6, 2026.