National Review's Rich Lowry Takes on Colleagues David French, Jay Nordlinger, and Jonah Goldberg: "If Trump Told You Not to Jump Off a ******* Bridge, Would You Jump Off The Bridge Just to Spite Him?"

It began with David French's insipid, deranged column claiming that while he opposed the anthem protests, well, after Trump said to stop it, it became "understandable."

His prissy sidekick Jay Nordlinger then decided to up the ante and claim that while he, too, hated the protests -- just hated them! -- he now found them "justifiable," just because Trump had spoken out against them.

Rich Lowry stepped up and bitch-slapped these hysterical bitches. And high time, too.

If Donald Trump Said Don’t Jump Off a F****** Bridge, Would You Do the Opposite?

by RICH LOWRY

I must rise to respectfully object to the pieces by David and Jay on kneeling. They argue that Trump’s crude exhortation to stand during the National Anthem makes the kneelers understandable (David) or sympathetic (Jay). As Jay argues, Trump’s riff changed everything. Kneeling to protest police brutality is a bad idea, but kneeling to give "a big middle finger," as Jay puts it, to the president of the United States is just fine. If your objection to kneeling is merely situational, I would think kneeling to address alleged systemic racism would be a more worthy cause than simply doing it to spite Trump.

But put that aside, because I don’t think disrespecting the flag is warranted in either circumstance, or any foreseeable circumstances...

What’s the limiting principle, by the way, on the do-the-opposite-of-Trump view? What if Trump said, "I hate those dirty anti-fa bastards who, if it were up to me, would be thrown into jail for burning the American flag?" Would we turn around and say burning the flag is a great way for leftists to stick it to the Man?

Jonah Goldberg, being Jonah Goldberg and really having only one idea, has to of course come in and declare "But I really don't like Trump!"

Rich Lowry kind of drops the big one by citing the actual NFL rules on the National Anthem, which specify it must be played before every game, and players must stand for it. So it seems that Trump was... right when he said someone could -- and should -- fine someone for refusing to stand. (Yeah I know he said "fire," but you can begin with a fine. And Trump tends to speak bombastically, if no one's noticed. But they could in fact be fired for repeated violations of the rules.)

We've seen the NFL forbid the making of other political statements -- Dallas Cowboys players were forbidden from wearing black armbands to commemorate the cops killed by the Black Lives Matter shooter; players were fined for wearing special cleats that honored 9/11. (Those fines were waived -- after public controversy about fining a player for honoring 9/11-- but the NFL made the point, and we didn't see those cleats again.)

Now the NFL has suspended its previously enforced rules to allow a disrespectful, anti-american protest of the National Anthem, and just because Trump points this out, NeverTrump cultists Jonah Goldberg, David French, and Jay Nordlinger are now on the #TakeTheKnee side of things?

AllahPundit, a now-unlinkable NeverTrumper, was fond of saying "Trumpism Corrupts."

Indeed it does -- but it seems to have primarily corrupted the NeverTrumpers themselves, who are now taking 180-degree-opposite positions than they used to claim to believe in just because of the happenstance that Trump also took that position.

Oh, and he said "son of a bitch" while saying it. How crude. How common. How vulgar and how scandalous. Let's join Brooke Baldwin in a cry-therapy Puddle Pile.

Nationalism -- which every conservative used to believe in -- is now a species of #Racism, just like the left always claimed, according to these folks corrupted by their hysterical reaction to Trump.

By the way, I don't know how one agitates relentlessly for foreign wars -- which will, inevitably, kill thousands (or tens of thousands) of civilians, whether by collateral damage or indirectly through privation - if you aren't a nationalist believing that Americans prize American lives and American safety more highly than the lives of non-Americans. Not that non-American lives mean nothing-- but that you prioritize Americans' lives and safety more highly, just because they're Americans.

Because, you know, you're supposed to look out for your family first and countrymen second.

That totally new Trumpian anti-conservative idea.

Populism -- Reagan was a populist, and the conservative movement has usually been described as populist overall, a reaction to the constant failures and self-dealing of the claimed "elite" institutions of government, media, and the academy - - is now likewise a dirty thing.

Apparently the left was right all along on that one too -- as Hillary Clinton said, the key message of 1984 is that we are to trust and obey our "elite" thought leaders without question.

I can't wait to see which pieces of core conservative principle these super-principled uncorruptable TruCons repudiate and revile next.

All disrespect intended.

posted by Ace at 12:53 PM

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