The reviled candidate represents an ‘authentic American voice’ — writes F.H. Buckley
Originally published in the Spring-Summer 2016 edition of The Dorchester Review, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 103-104.
Image from flickr, 2016
CANADIANS SEEM puzzled by the improbable rise of Donald Trump, and I find that puzzling indeed. Trump is, I should have thought, the very picture of what an American is, in the eyes of Canadians. He is Sam Slick of Slicksville, the Clockmaker of Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s 1836 satire, as much an American as Don Harron’s Charlie Farquharson was a Canadian. He is, like the Beach Boys or Muhammad Ali, a person who could only be an American.
That, I think, explains his popularity in America. At a time when the country has descended into mediocrity on cross-country rankings of economic liberty, the rule of law, freedom from corruption and economic mobility, when the president has cosied up to every one of the country’s enemies and been repaid with their contempt, the slogan “Make America Great Again” appeals to many Americans. Trump is John Wayne’s Big Jake. “I thought you was dead,” says the outlaw. “Not hardly,” says Jake.
That’s an authentic American voice, brash, exuberant, not always polite. Indeed, seldom polite, in the case of Trump. The funny thing is that, the less polite he is, the more Americans seem to like him. It’s not that Americans are by nature impolite, but only that after years of decline, and after being told that they’re bigots who cling to their guns and religion by the elites, they’re ready to flip the bird.
With “Make America Great Again,” Trump could not have chosen a slogan more offensive to the elites, right and left. The suggestion that there might be something admirable about the country outrages the progressive Left. Trump’s slogan also proclaims a proud nationalism, and that bothers the country’s elites. I was on “The Blaze” with Dana Loesch a few weeks back, and she invited me to dump on nationalism, and by extension Donald Trump. I didn’t want to go there, and in any event I don’t think nationalism is per se evil. It is intolerant and illiberal and plays to people’s dark instincts — in Russia. In a pretty decent country like the U.S. there’s nothing much wrong with it. In a wholly decent Canada, in a country that fetishizes decency, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with nationalism.
In championing American nationalism, Trump is taking on the deep libertarianism of the Republican Party, the feeling that a Mexican life counts for as much as the life of a native American. Maybe so, but that doesn’t require open borders. A country is entitled to prefer its citizens to those of other countries, and if it doesn’t you can expect it to treat both poorly. From an excessive concern for America’s illegals, it’s a short step to showing contempt for America’s natives, as National Review’s Kevin Williamson does. He’s not alone. Recall the conservative leaders who despise Trump’s followers. George Will calls them “invertebrates,” while John Hood describes them as “a motley crew of simpletons, bigots and cynical manipulators.” Or think of Mitt Romney’s distinction between the 53% of Americans who are givers and the 47% who are “takers” and schnorrers at the banquet feast.
Poor America, so far from God and so close to Mexico. Canadians don’t have that problem, but not because they believe in open borders. Instead, Canadians are far quicker than Americans to deport illegals. Much more than the Americans, Canadian immigration policies are conservative and nationalistic, and that only permits Canadians to adopt a liberal refugee policy for Syrians. One wouldn’t want it any other way.
Open borders are also popular with the U.S. business community, especially the U.S. Chamber of Commerce whose donors want cheap, Mexican labour. What’s different between America and Canada is the power of U.S. special interests. In the eyes of historian J.G.A. Pocock, the array of campaign contributors and lobbyists in America form “the greatest empire of patronage and influence the world has known.” American politics is “dedicated to the principle that politics cannot work unless politicians do things for their friends and their friends know where to find them.”
The American conservative elite doesn’t get it. They think that politics is a matter of the perfect set of policies, of Mitt Romney’s 59-point plan for economic growth, which no one read. They worry about entitlement reform, they have neat ideas about privatizing Social Security. They combine an unwavering fidelity to principles with an indifference to people. And with all their perfect principles they miss the deeper problem, identified by Pocock, of crony capitalism in a country that has betrayed the American Dream of economic and social mobility. They don’t get it, but Trump does, as do his supporters.