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politics and politicians Title: National Review on Trump and abortion [by popular request] And just like that, the Republican presidential contest has veered into Todd Akin territory. In a taped Wisconsin townhall with MSNBC voters, set to air Wednesday evening, Donald Trump says that, if abortion becomes illegal in the United States, the mother involved should be subject “some form of punishment.” Here’s the video: Let me start here, for form’s sake: There is a valid philosophical question here. If you carry out the logic of the pro-life position, what should it entail, legally? As it happens, several leading abortion opponents addressed this question here at National Review in a 2007 symposium. If you’re looking for substantive considerations of this question, give it a read. But while people are sure to spill gallons of ink on that question, thanks to Trump, it’s irrelevant — because Trump doesn’t mean what he said. Donald Trump has no considered opinion about what should happen in the hypothetical situation in which abortion is completely outlawed. He’s never given it a moment’s thought. Read the transcript of his exchange with Matthews. He’s not substantively “right” or “wrong.” He’s utterly and completely incoherent. And it’s utterly and completely infuriating. In one minute and thirty-two seconds, Donald Trump has managed to apparently validate every far-flung accusation of retributive, bloodthirsty woman-hating that abortion opponents have tried to fend off for 40-plus years. In ninety seconds, Trump gave Democrats a political millstone that they will cinch around the neck of every pro-life politician for the rest of this election season. Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW, Emily’s List have all already issued breathless statements. Hillary Clinton has sent out a tweet with her personal “—H” signature. It doesn’t matter that, one hour later, Trump out-and-out reversed himself. They got their soundbite, and it will be played on loop, to the ululations and I-told-you-sos of Cecile Richards and Sally Kohn and the rest, for years. But is anyone surprised? This is what Trump does — and it’s the reason conservatives, real, genuine, sincere, life- and liberty-loving conservatives, should not simply be exasperated with Trump; they should be furious with him. They should be enraged with every single one of the endorsers who has facilitated this man’s rise. They should be incensed with every pundit and talking-head who has aided and abetted and excused him. Because this has been the pattern for months now. Donald Trump makes some idiotic comment about a subject he’s never considered — torture, Islam, the First Amendment, health care, women, &c. — and then real conservatives, who have actually rubbed two brain cells together thinking about these subjects, have to spend the next day, or week, or month, putting out the fire, assuring everyone that, no, conservatives don’t actually think like this. It’s exhausting, it’s absurd, and it should end. Donald Trump’s statements are not intended to be “true” or “false”; they’re not intended to represent what he actually believes, because he doesn’t believe anything. He doesn’t intend his proposals as serious ideas, to be debated and refined and maybe even executed. His utterances are placeholders. They’re strictly intended to fill space in this interview, or at that rally. Self-contradiction doesn’t matter. If one argument is blown up, he’ll switch to another. This is how a cult of personality works. The statements are irrelevant; the only thing that matters is the speaker. If Trump says the sky is orange, there’s no point trying to convince him it’s blue. So we should stop trying. Stop trying to convince Trump supporters that he’s contradicting himself. Stop trying to show that Trump’s solutions won’t work. Stop treating Trump’s policies as serious contributions to the hopper of policy ideas — because they’re not. It’s time for a blackout. We are at a point where the only appropriate response to Trump’s ramblings is ostracism. He’s not a reasonable person with whom you can have a rational discussion, and we should treat him accordingly. Whenever Donald Trump says anything — even if it has the patina of a reasonable, coherent thought — the response of every genuine right-winger should be: “I don’t care what Donald Trump says. He is an affront to rational thought and reasonable, thoughtful, humane discourse. I’m not going to waste time responding to any word that comes from his mouth. Period.” He — and every one of his bottom-feeding surrogates, and his media minions, and his army of Twitter eggs — should be ignored. They should be boxed out of public discourse, with prejudice. Donald Trump has done incalculable damage to virtually every cause for which the conservative moment has fought for the last 60 years. It’s not enough to say he’s wrong. He should be exiled from public life. The Left will never do that; Trump’s success is theirs. This must be the work of whatever conscientious conservatives remain, and it has to start now. I agree with Quin Hillyer. Donald Trump’s comments on abortion — first advocating punishing women who abort then backtracking hours later — were indeed a “mess.” They played into the hands of abortion advocates in every way — helping caricature pro-lifers as “anti-woman” and raising the specter of back-alley abortions. So far, Trump’s pro-life conversion has mainly served to make Planned Parenthood look good (he can’t stop praising the nation’s largest abortion provider) and the pro-life movement look bad. He simply has no idea how to talk about arguably the most sensitive issue in politics. Get ready for a slow-motion pro-life train wreck if Trump’s the nominee. Supporting life is about more than merely checking off a box. A Republican nominee faces far tougher questions about abortion than Democrats ever do. It’s unfair. It’s ridiculous. It’s also a foreseeable and predictable fact of life. Even serving temporarily as the nation’s most prominent pro-life advocate (or at least playing a pro-life advocate on television) would do immense damage to the cause. Hillary Clinton is a weather vane on many, many issues. On abortion, however, she is a rock-solid zealot, and she has her arguments down cold. The media backs her on this issue unconditionally. The thought that Trump may debate her on life should be chilling to every pro-life activist in America. He not only doesn’t know what he’s talking about, when push comes to shove, I daresay that he’s on her side. As is his wont, Donald Trump stirred up a ruckus today when he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that women who procure illegal abortions should somehow be “punished” by legal authorities. As obnoxious as the statement was to every serious person both pro-life and pro-choice, it may not have been the worst part of his answer. While trying to explain his position (or trying to make up a position as he went along), Trump also stepped into this thicket (as reported by the Daily Mail): “Matthews asked him how he would go about banning abortions. ‘You go back to a position like they had,’ he replied, ‘where they would perhaps go to illegal places, but we have to ban it.’” Scrutinize that for a moment. If that doesn’t play into the hands of the anti-life movement, nothing does. This is a wink-wink/nudge-nudge to the idea that illegal abortion mills or perhaps even back alleys are to be accepted as alternatives to legal abortions — rather than that, say, adoptions should be promoted, along with community support for pre-natal care and both pre- and post-natal counseling. Trump’s statement carries the sense of the widespread existence of speakeasies during Prohibition, as if abortion is something to be officially “banned” but culturally still condoned, like imbibing alcohol. Of course, Trump late this afternoon walked back his statement, saying he would punish only the abortionist, not the woman who procures the abortion. But the fact that he struggled with the question in the first place, and then took so many hours to recant, is deeply offensive to caring pro-lifers. And the very idea that he would volunteer the idea of going “to illegal places,” in the context of punishing women who get caught, was effectively an outrageous invitation to use just such illegal places. What a mess. Is it just me, or has there been some notable distancing going on over the past week between Donald Trump’s usually reliable cheerleaders in the conservative media and their guy? Some of Trump’s biggest promoters suddenly seem far less enthusiastic about their candidate, and shockingly, a few even appear to be testing the waters for a public withdrawal of support. Author and commentator Ann Coulter — who just a few months ago famously demonstrated her commitment to Trump by tweeting that she’d back him even if he performed abortions in the White House — has finally expressed some embarrassment at his conduct. “I’m a little testy with our man right now,” Coulter told Milo Yiannopoulos (a fellow Trump supporter) on his radio show a few days ago. “Our candidate is mental! Do you realize our candidate is mental? It’s like constantly having to bail out your 16-year-old son from prison.” Coulter was referring to Trump’s derogatory, highly-publicized retweet about Heidi Cruz’s looks. Coulter added, “This is the worst thing that he has done. Everything else I could probably defend.” That’s a pretty interesting statement, considering that prior to the Heidi Cruz tweet, Trump had mocked American POWs for their capture, ridiculed a reporter for his physical disability, mused about a journalist’s menstrual cycle and trashed her on the Internet for over six months (all because she asked him a question he didn’t like), disparaged Carly Fiorina’s face, said George W. Bush “lied” about Iraq having WMDs, compared Ben Carson to a child molester, and portrayed World War II internment camps as a good idea. Those remarks merely scratch the surface of Trump’s large array of disgraceful statements, all of which Coulter could “probably defend.” It’s hard to fathom how she could possibly view the Cruz tweet as being the worst incident of the bunch, or a bridge too far. I don’t think she really believes that. I think something has changed. Fox News’s Andrea Tantaros had been an adamant defender and champion of all things Trump for quite some time, both on-air and on Twitter. She seemed to take personal offense to National Review’s “Against Trump” issue, and has at times lashed out at the magazine’s writers (which has included the leveling of false charges). Tantaros has taken subtle and not-so-subtle shots at her Fox News colleagues for being critical of Trump — her advocacy for the GOP front-runner has been so glaring that even Bill O’Reilly has called her out on it. Last week, however, Tantaros unexpectedly knocked Trump on Twitter, lumping his corrosive behavior in with that of President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Cruz, and declared that the United States “has no good options” in leaders. Since then, her Twitter feed has been virtually empty of both praise for Trump and condemnations of GOP “elites” — a term she had been using quite regularly to define Trump critics. Something has changed. Breitbart columnist John Nolte, who has garnered a lot attention this election cycle with his aggressive defenses of Trump, is suddenly conflicted as well. You might recall that Nolte made waves back in December when he proudly declared that Trump’s often-derided assertion that he watched “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrate the 9/11 attacks on TV had been “100% vindicated.” Nolte’s “proof” came in the form of a local news report describing an eye-witness account of less than a dozen Muslim celebrators — who Trump couldn’t possibly have seen on TV because they weren’t captured on camera. Still, Nolte felt it appropriate to actually apologize to Trump for having doubted the candidate’s “thousands” claim. It was an embarrassing display, but fairly representative of Nolte’s accommodating coverage of Trump over the past several months. Remarkably, Nolte appears interested in putting those days behind him. Early Tuesday, Nolte criticized Trump’s temperament on Twitter — “If Trump had just a bit of self-control he’d already be the nominee” — adding: “He seems to enjoy playing with fire more than actually winning.” Three hours later, Nolte expanded on his suggested disappointment, tweeting, “Trump’s erratic moods make McCain look like the Sphinx. Been on fence between him & Cruz but am growing tired of waiting for him to GROW.” The stark about-face — and the laughable notion that he’s been “on the fence” between Trump and Cruz — earned Nolte an enormous amount of Twitter heckling from those who’ve been paying attention to his work since last summer. Even so, Nolte seems eager to abruptly put some distance between himself and Trump, and one has to wonder why. Something has changed. Controversial radio host and Trump aficionado, Michael Savage, who has looked past all of the candidate’s flaws for months, decided that he’s so upset over Trump’s possible link to the National Enquirer story on Ted Cruz’s alleged affairs, that he might just withdraw his support (Savage and Trump reconciled Monday in a fawning interview). Even the Drudge Report is now displaying headlines critical ofTrump, which is something we haven’t seen much of in quite a while. Something has changed, but what? Is it the collective realization that the worst possible candidate to put up against Hillary Clinton is now just a stone’s throw away from actually winning the Republican nomination, and that they helped bring the effort to fruition? Is the thought of a landslide loss — at the hands of the man they compromised their principles to legitimize — causing them to worry about their professional longevity? (After all, Dick Morris certainly paid a price for his grossly awry analysis back in 2012.) Maybe they’ve become exhausted with defending the indefensible, and no longer feel they can keep putting forth the effort at this point in the contest. Maybe they’ve realized that the fan-following they’ve accumulated is composed of some awfully unsavory folks. Maybe some behind-the-scenes relationships with Trump have somehow been damaged. What’s clear is that the one person who hasn’t changed his behavior is Donald J. Trump himself. He’s just as poor of a candidate as he’s always been. He’s just as flawed — just as vulgar, immature, and controversial. He’s every bit as lost on policy and shallow on solutions. Trump hasn’t taken some unexpected, ideological turn, or crossed new boundaries of indecency that he hadn’t already crossed. He’s the same guy he’s always been — a liberal-leaning showman who somehow won the devotion of many in the conservative media-entertainment complex. And yet, he’s just now become toxic or at least embarrassing to some of them. I imagine the real explanation of why is probably a pretty interesting one. Poster Comment: A member of the forum indicated how much they missed seeing National Review articles so I collected these recent ones. I had seen one other yesterday at their site but otherwise had not visited NRO since 3/13 to read an article and prior to that on 1/4/16. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 37.
#25. To: TooConservative, misterwhite, Roscoe, Vicomte13 (#0)
Good stuff! "In the tradition of legislating on abortion, a certain distinction was made out of prudence: On the one hand there may a young, unmarried woman, who finds herself pregnant, with the father of the child not standing with her. Abandoned by the man, and detached from her family, she may feel the burden of the crisis bearing on her alone, with the prospect of life-altering changes. On the other hand, there is the man trained in surgery, the professional who knows exactly what he is doing — he knows that he is destroying a human life, either by poisoning a child or dismembering it. And in perfect coolness and detachment, and at a nice price, he makes the killing of the innocent his office-work. Certain women may indeed be guilty of a callous willingness to destroy a child for the sake of their own self- interest. But the law makes a prudent, tempered choice when it makes the abortionist the target of its censure and brings solely upon him the weight of the punishment. [...] "Contrary to the pervasive myth that women were prosecuted for abortion before Roe, consistent state abortion policy for a century before Roe was not to prosecute women. Abortionists were the exclusive target of the law. That was based on three policy judgments: the point of abortion law is effective enforcement against abortionists, the woman is the second victim of abortion, and prosecuting women is counterproductive to the goal of effective enforcement of the law against abortionists. In fact, the irony is that in nearly all of the reported court cases explicitly addressing the issue of whether a woman was an accomplice to her abortion, it was the abortionist (not the prosecutor) who pushed the courts to treat the woman as an accomplice, for the obvious purpose of undermining the state’s criminal case against the abortionist (including the abortionist Ruth Barnett when Oregon last prosecuted her in 1968)."
Whoa! THIS is the point in time that we're presented with the problem and have to make a decision? After numerous horrible decisions have already been made by this individual, NOW we're asked, "How can we help this poor, troubled girl?" Let's rewind. How about if we help by telling this young, unmarried woman not to have sex until she gets married? This way, she won't "find herself" mysteriously pregnant. Also, the man is less likely to leave. We can help by telling her the location of Planned Parenthood where she can obtain free contraception and advice on how not to "find yourself" pregnant. Or infected by some disease. Isn't that better than waiting until she's pregnant and "helping her" by murdering her unborn child?
That calling a a Trump the reckoning love
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