I've seen a lot of praise for this Kevin Williamson piece on Trump and the GOP. I obviously agree with the "Trump is bad" sentiment, which accounts for its popularity among Never Trumpers. However....

There are a couple massive flaws worth highlighting, because they're characteristic of the poisons that inhabit even many species of anti-Trump conservatism.
The first his Williamson's whitewashing of William F. Buckley's support for white supremacy:
Williamson justifies Buckley's support for disenfranchising blacks on the grounds that Buckley also wanted to disenfranchise "unqualified" whites.

But that was not on the table. What was on the table was measures to equalize voting for blacks and whites. Buckley opposed them.
And while his view "evolved," that means that he gave up on restoring de jure segregation after he lost his fight to preserve it.

His principle didn't change.
How do we know? When faced with the same question in South Africa two decades later, Buckley made the same choice! https://t.co/0fwlsodmPx
Buckley's reasons for supporting Aparthied in South Africa in the 80s were identical to his reasons for supporting it in the South in the 60s: black people were inferior, white people therefore entitled to rule.
The second tic worth noting is Williamson's contempt for democracy:
This is a very NR belief. The NR version of it lionizes elites, who are entitled to rule by dint of their superior intelligence and cultivation.

It's a creepy Buckley view his heirs still cling to.
One can believe in the need for elites to supply expertise, and also for elected representatives to use independent judgment. But when you're to the point of using democracy as a hate term, you've crossed into a disturbing place -- as evidenced by the uses Buckley put that notion
and the Buckleyite contempt for democracy helped open the door for Trump's attacks on democracy. They're difficult to disentangle in practice: both forms of belief that certain kinds of white people are entitled to minority rule.

More from Politics

I think a plausible explanation is that whatever Corbyn says or does, his critics will denounce - no matter how much hypocrisy it necessitates.


Corbyn opposes the exploitation of foreign sweatshop-workers - Labour MPs complain he's like Nigel

He speaks up in defence of migrants - Labour MPs whinge that he's not listening to the public's very real concerns about immigration:

He's wrong to prioritise Labour Party members over the public:

He's wrong to prioritise the public over Labour Party
Handy guide for Dominic Raab and other Brexiteers, and for anyone keen to replace our EU trade with trade with the rest of the world on WTO terms...


You can't magic away the vast distances involved. Clue: we fly in only 1/192th of our trade compared to the amount that arrives via sea


But even if you invented a teleporter tomorrow, WTO terms are so bad, so stacked against us, that a no-deal Brexit will be a total economic disaster


And while the Brexiteers fantasise, real jobs are being lost, investments are drying up, companies are moving assets to the EU27 or redomiciling. All already happened and happening right now, not in some mythical


Of course, there are many, many myths that Brexiteers perpetuate that are total fiction. You've seen a couple of them already. The thread below busts a whole lot
How the CIA gets the media to lie to you

https://t.co/vsTrS43Fft


https://t.co/rUTYg42PYH


https://t.co/1r0MbPv8wG


War on democracy - installing US-puppet dictators in Latin America in order to control their economies
#Guatemala #Arbenz #RedScare

Propaganda, "harmless bombing" and a CIA terror campaign


CIA war on Nicaragua

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