Not everyone who opposes Trump does so from the same position or perspective; a picture that depicts his opponents only as Democrats and liberals is a pinched – and false – illustration. There are yet Republicans (and independents of no major party) who have and always will oppose Trump. Republicans (and this libertarian) who implacably oppose Trump have often declared themselves Never Trump (styled as #NeverTrump on Twitter).
Veteran Republican consultant Rick Wilson is one of the founders of the Never Trump movement. He’s not a liberal or a Democrat; on the contrary, he had years of success advising candidates who won against liberals and Democrats. But Wilson had the right and sensible conviction – from the start – that Trump was wrong from his party, wrong for America, and indeed wrong for any conception of a just and democratic order.
Everything Trump Touches Dies is Wilson’s insightful, lively, insider’s perspective on how the GOP got Trump, with a cast of operatives and officials who either appeased or actively supported him. The book is a New York Times #1 bestseller for good reason. (Its subtitle is ‘A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever,’ to which I would observe that Wilson does and Trump is.)
Wilson writes in a sharp, polemical style (a style enjoyable to read and well-suited to someone who advises on political messaging).
I’ll share a few of Wilson’s observations, but just a few; I enjoyed Everything Trump Touches Dies, and urge you to pick up a copy. (It’s available at Amazon in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audiobook formats.)
Rick Wilson is a key destination on Twitter, and if you’re not yet following him, visit @TheRickWilson and you’ll be all set.
Everything Trump Touches Dies: Highly recommended.
Excerpts following —
On Rationalizing Trump:
Stage 4. Magical Rationalization. When all else fails, it’s time to go for the magical thinking defenses of Trump. “You just don’t get him, man.” “He’s a dealmaker, not a politician.” “Trump’s got this.” “He’s playing 47-dimensional quantum chess, RINO.” “So much winning!” It’s a living, breathing embodiment of the Emperor’s New Clothes, except his followers never get to the crux of the parable.
They race to frame Trump’s absurdities into some kind of explicable fact pattern, to find some secret, subtle strategy where none exists. The idea that Trump always has some deeply considered game plan, some rationale for every action, some hidden endgame in mind is, of course, ludicrous, but it doesn’t stop this defense from being run through the Trump-friendly media channels on the far right on an almost daily basis. Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times wrote a fabulous piece about the ultimate Trump conspiracy. “The Conspiracy Theory That Says Trump Is a Genius” beautifully captures this odd element of the Trump cult’s magical rationalization. His supporters believe in their hearts that Trump is a deep thinker, a master planner, a strategist nonpareil. This late-stage element of defending Trump is wearing increasingly thin. Reality is, as they say, a heartless bitch.
On Reince Priebus:
Priebus wasn’t Patient Zero for the Everything Trump Touches Dies effect, but he was the first of the DC political folks to go. For the Washington establishment, losing Reince hardly seemed like a loss at all; he’d been unable to deliver the certainty, structure, and compliance they desired. It was a sign in the age of Trump of Washington’s along-for-the-ride powerlessness that he sank without a trace and to few signs of regret from the people who counted on him to impose sanity on the Bedlam of 1600 Pennsylvania.
After departing the White House, Priebus returned to his law firm, started cooperating with the Mueller investigation, and slowly, painfully tried to reframe history. The Kenosha Ninja tried to cast himself as the hero of the piece, as all men do in retellings of their story. “No president has ever had to deal with so much so fast: a special counsel and an investigation into Russia and then subpoenas immediately, the media insanity—not to mention we were pushing out executive orders at record pace and trying to repeal and replace Obamacare right out of the gate,” he said.
Oh, is that what it was, Reince? Self-delusion runs deep, and the desire to rewrite history is always with public men and women. Perhaps — and work with me here — Reince might have had a scintilla of self-awareness and a little self-deprecating appreciation for the fact that Donald Trump’s entire portfolio of problems weren’t some externality or deus ex swamp. Donald Trump created them, full stop.
On Paul Ryan:
Paul Ryan was like a man created in a laboratory to sell conservatism and the Republican Party to the American people in the post-Obama era. Then he embraced and enabled Donald Trump.
….
Ryan wanted something, and he sacrificed his reputation to get it. More than life itself, Paul Ryan wanted a massive corporate tax cut and a sweeping set of entitlement reforms. His calculation had little to do with Trump, and everything to do with those two dreams. Like many men who see only one path to historical consequence, the Devil knows the one thing they desire above all else. The idea that Trump was the only way he’d achieve his goals corrupted Paul Ryan. The Speaker passed his tax bill, only to discover that it wasn’t the economic or political miracle he had imagined.
On the Trump tax bill:
The tax bill, combined with the ludicrously overblown 2018 budget, left Ryan lost and clearly miserable. Both were masterworks of gigantic government giveaways, unfunded spending, massive debt and deficits, and a catalogue of crony capitalist freebies that would have Hayek spinning in his grave.
On Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes:
It’s impossible to overstate the power of Ailes in shaping the conservative media ecosystem. He wasn’t just a singular genius in creating television; he understood it had replaced many of the other institutions that once mediated American politics. Roger wasn’t the first warrior in the long-running conservative enterprise to push back on the perception of a hostile, liberal media, but he was by any standard its most successful general.8 He found a market that was underserved and created a product that became a multibillion-dollar powerhouse on our political landscape.
….
Ailes and Murdoch weren’t about to compromise shareholder value for something as inconsequential as the White House. They rode the wave, deciding to profit from the nation’s loss. The audience of the largest cable news network in the nation generated more than $1 billion in profit in 2016, and nothing was going to stand in the way of that.
….
Once Fox was put in service to Trump, the game was over for the other Republican candidates. The House That Rupert Built would under Ailes and his successors become Trump TV, providing him with instant, fawning coverage, 24/7 live shots, and a well-watched evening lineup that shouted itself hoarse in support of The Donald. It was an in-kind political contribution worth billions. Who cared whether they believed a word of it? Their audience took it, as the kids say, both seriously and literally.