What’s Up with Dinesh D’Souza? Pt. 1
My point is not to attack D’Souza but to look at the larger lessons that can be gained from an examination of his career. I don’t claim any special insight into his thought processes, but his public statements can be parsed quite easily. And my overall reason for writing about him is that he’s still a very influential voice in American politics. I doubt that anyone is unaware of his most recent film, Hillary’s America.
This Takes the Cake.
In the meantime, as discussed on the excellent conservative Federalist Radio Hour, no one has any time for discussing substantive issues. We’re all too caught up in the latest Trump tempest, myself included. Here it is, August 10, and I haven’t posted one thing about the list of issues I want to discuss on this blog: abortion and its association with the so-called “women’s rights” movement, NATO, the nature of religious freedom, the importance of the Supreme Court, the source of conspiracy theories, and (this is a bit self-indulgent, but bear with me) the rise and baffling fall of Dinesh D’Souza. To name the top topics. I’m really interested in all of these subjects, but I keep getting distracted by the latest outrage coming from Trump. And now, I understand, he’s agreed to the three debates. This is going to be so embarrassing of an exhibition that I think we’re all going to have to hide our heads under the sofa pillows.
Two Things That Must Not Happen.
or
2. That the GOP loses its majority in the House of Representatives.
Option #1 is looking less and less likely as the weeks roll on. Option #2 is looking more so.
I strongly encourage you to read the following article, which examines these issues under the microscope of clear-headed conservative thinking. (Also equal-opportunity candidate bashing, just to be clear.)
“It’s Hillary or Trump–What’s a Conservative Supposed to Do?
by David Bahnsen, The Bahnsen Viewpoint, June 29, 2016.
And then, if you are in a state that Clinton pretty much has tied up, and you think you’ll throw up in the voting booth if you pull the lever next to her name, just leave that lever alone. (I’m not planning to do that, as I have said repeatedly, most recently here. But I understand that flesh and blood can take only so much.) Then vote for conservative candidates down the rest of the list. If you are in a state that has any chance at all of going for Trump, though, you need to vote in such a way that you are helping to prevent both of the absolutely unacceptable options listed above. That means voting a split ticket: Clinton for President, conservative (almost certainly Republicans) for everyone else. People aren’t used to split-ticket voting, though, which is why Paul Ryan is worried about option #2.
As I often exhort myself (and believe me, I need to do this more often than I’d like to admit): “Be a grownup.” There are no perfect or even palatable options available to us in this train wreck of an election. We can’t just disengage. We can’t blindly vote on the side of our party. We must choose, with our eyes wide open.
Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.
Now he’s echoing Trump’s idea that the election will be “rigged.” Last week, on the strongly-conservative pro-Trump site Breitbart, Stone says the following:
I think he’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath. The government will be shut down if they attempt to steal this and swear Hillary in. No, we will not stand for it. We will not stand for it.
Note, again, that this quotation is from a pro-Trump website. There would be no reason for the interviewer to spin or misquote Stone’s words. He means what he says. (How you can have a “bloodbath” and not have violence is beyond me.)
So, as I said in an earlier post, the election is only rigged according to Trump and his campaign when his poll numbers start going down. He will not accept defeat graciously. But, as I have also said before, I believe that the vast, vast majority of the American people are too intelligent to be fooled by this blatant attempt to manipulate and intimidate them.
Is It a Moral Choice to Refuse to Vote?
A reader over on Facebook pointed me in the direction of a post on Douglas Wilson’s blog, a site I have visited a number of times. Wilson is a prominent Reformed evangelical writer, pastor and teacher, a founder of New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and the pastor of Christ Church. I have a great deal of respect for Wilson, so I was quite interested in what he had to say. What was he going to do? Well, after reading his post twice I can say that he finds the two candidates equally repellent and so he’s not voting for either one. As he says, “And if I am going to be in that opposition (whether against Trump’s authoritarianism or Hillary’s despotism), I want to go into that opposition with my garments clean. I do not intend to have the yard signs of my coming adversary in my garage.
A Voice of Passion and Reason
My Predictions Are Coming True . . .
Once Trump becomes President the Republican Party will be effectively dead. No truly conservative, decent candidate will ever be able to win if he or she runs as a Republican. The party of Lincoln and of Reagan will have been destroyed by its own members, not by any outside forces. It will have to be rebuilt and revivified from the ground up, an almost impossible task, or a new conservative party will have to rise to take its place, a process that would take years. In the meantime, there will be no meaningful debate in American politics, as there will be only one side with any credibility. The election of Donald Trump will have done exactly the opposite of what his supporters think it will do.
Don’t Mistake My Position.
Does Trump Really Have a “Great Temperament” . . .
“There Is Something Very Wrong with Donald Trump” The Washington Post, Robert Kagan, Aug. 1, 2016
“What Trump Should Have Said about Khizr Khan’s Slain Son“ The Federalist, Susan Kristol, Aug. 2, 2016.
“Donald Trump Should Celebrate the Khan Family, Not Attack Them” The Federalist, M. G. Oprea, Aug. 2, 2016
”Is Donald Trump a Russian Quisling?” The Federalist, Robert Zubrin, Aug. 2, 2016