ELECTION 2016
A WARNING AGAINST TRUMP, AFTER MEETING HIM
Exclusive: Joshua Charles points to history's lessons about dangers of 'strong men'
I recently met Donald Trump in a private meeting with other conservative leaders. My conclusions:
All he talked about to this sophisticated, educated and successful group of people was how well he was doing in the polls. There was not one piece of substance. Even when asked deeper questions, all he did was redirect it to popular red-meat talking points (for the “right” at least).
Even more disturbing? These people, many of whom I count as friends, were eating it up.
I left experiencing two feelings: deep concern and vindication of what I have been saying for years – in many ways, the conservative movement has been just as corrupted by our degraded culture as anyone else, it just doesn’t realize it, because it assumes that its positions on political issues is all it needs to be counted righteous.
Many of these people are Christians and count the founders as their heroes.
And yet they cheer on a man who in many ways represents the antithesis of both.
Deeply disturbing. At this point it is not a wake-up call for me. I’ve seen this for years. But I was truly hoping, against all evidence, that I would see something different from these leaders.
And from the vast majority of them, I didn’t.
I truly hate that I have to say this, but being correct in giving such gloomy prognostications really sucks from time to time.
The conservative movement, to the extent it even is a movement, needs a revival of its own.
There is much to be concerned about. There is much to be worried about. There is much upon which we may rationally conclude we have reasons to fear.
But fear is stifling. It hinders the mind with its own self-forged chains of passion, unable to control the distorting effects it unleashes. Fear is the stumbling block to action in the face of crisis, when action based on wise and virtuous principles is most necessary.
And fear is what has led good people to support horrible men, to fall for those whose great claim to loyalty is that they will “get things done.”
If we are truly conservatives, however, we must be students of human nature and history, both of which teach us just how shallow such promises are, and that the disregarding of character, of wisdom, of knowledge, of virtue, in favor of the apparent pragmatism of the moment, is what has historically brought every people to their ruin, or to the brink of it.
And that’s exactly why we need a conservative revival among conservatives themselves: a return to the great minds that have informed our great tradition – not the loudmouths who spew the party lines and give us exactly what we want to hear, but the great minds of history whose honesty and probity required of them a keenness of analysis of the perils of their own time of such quality and prescience that it continues to inform us of the perils of our own – particularly the perils we ourselves create.
And there are few historical lessons as clear as those of the dangers of “strong men” arising in times of crisis when the passions have so utterly overcome the reasoning powers of men.
May we, those who claim to respect, love and learn from history, actually heed its lessons before history, in her unsparing wrath, decides the lesson needs to be re-taught.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/a-warning-against-trump-after-meeting-him/#W5OhxXqie7MCzY6Z.99
No comments:
Post a Comment