No country for Ethan Edwards, men han var manden til tiden, manden der hentede den bortførte datter hjem, om familien ville det eller ej. Og manden til tiden kan ikke indeholdes i tidens samfund.

Det er svært at være konservativ Never-Trumper i disse dage, så Jonah Goldberg, manden der skrev klassiskeren Liberal Fascism, har det svært. Som året rinder ud og Trumps førsteårsrapport får flotte karakterer, er det blevet stadigt mere sørgeligt at læse Goldbergs stadigt mere omvendte rationaliseringer for, hvorfor han og hans ligesindede alligevel ikke tog radikalt fejl. Det er som at følge salige Tøger Seidenfaden argumentere for, at Salman Rushdie-sagen var materielt forskellig fra Muhammed-sagen ved kvaliteten af det kunstneriske udtryk. Trist, for Seidenfaden har æstetik intet at sige i et principielt spørgsmål som ytringsfrihed, og således endte den engang vægtige og begavede debattør tragisk sit liv, mens han komisk afviklede sit renomme.

Jeg håber Goldberg har mange år i sig endnu, men så længe han forsvarer det ganske ultimative udsagn #NeverTrump, der kun kan retfærdiggøres på antagelsen om en nært forstående katastrofe, glider også han udi i komikken. I et indlæg på National Reviews for at par uger siden trækkes smilet frem; “Refusing to Be Reflexively Anti-Trump Isn’t Selling Out“. Allerede i overskriften er det blevet en ‘refleks’ for Goldberg at lade en stråmand holde sammen på positionen. John Nolte nævner da også hoverende Goldberg som den første i sin hvem-sagde-hvad svada på Breitbart og gennemgår, hvorledes Trump ikke blot ikke har været en katastrofe, men en bragende succes, med skattereform, nedkæmpelse af ISIS og økonomisk vækst som et par af de centrale præstationer

And now, just one year into Trump’s presidency, #NeverTrump has once again been exposed for who they truly are — bitter, dishonest saboteurs more interested in their lofty place at the trough than the future of their own country.

All these bitter clingers have left now is to further degrade outlets such as the once-necessary National Review, a once-cherished laboratory of vibrant conservative ideas and thought, which is now a hangout for sore losers to keep rewriting the same column over and over and over again about how pure and virtuous they are, as they scold the rest of us for fighting for and sticking with a president who has delivered in ways they told us was not even within the realm of possibility.

Goldbergs forsøg på at rationalisere sig fri af dette intellektuelle morrads er endnu mere sørgeligt i al sin smålighed. “Who Deserves Credit for the Trump Administration’s Accomplishments” spørger han igen på National Review og tilføjer “There’s little evidence that Trump has actually involved himself in the process of governing”. Dette er “det større spørgsmål” for Goldberg: hvem kan egentlig tage æren for succesen, der nu bliver erkendt – omend bagvendt

If the president deserves credit for the defeat of Islamic State, it’s because he let “the generals” do their thing. On the other hand, credit (or blame) for recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris accord on climate change certainly goes to him.

In general, it seems to me that Trump’s success (such as it is) is less attributable to sudden mastery of the issues than to staying out of the way of rank-and-file Republican policymakers, activists, and bureaucrats.

For instance, the task of selecting judicial appointees, starting with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, has largely been outsourced to the Federalist Society.

Men igen, ingen katastrofe, ingen grund til #NeverTrump, den slemme mand viste sig at have en ‘hands off’ tilgang – og virkeligheden så, at det var godt. Goldbergs observation er alligevel ganske interessant, Trump er, hvad Reagan betegnede som “the big picure guy” og hans stab er hans “detail men”. Dette er en glimrende ledelse, hvor man uddelegerer opgaveløsninger til dem, der har forstand dertil. Alternativet er at lade sig nedsynke i politiske petitesser at sin egen forfængelighed. Det gjorde Obama, og ingen af hans resultater ser ud til at overleve, baseret som de var, ikke på kyndighed og kompromis, men på hans ‘pen and phone’.

Det er synd for Goldberg, at han ikke læser sit eget tidsskrift, for heri skrev Victor Davis Hanson at æstetikere som Goldberg, har brug for at tage en dyb indånding og indrømme “that sometimes past mellifluous appeasement is more dangerous than present flamboyant deterrence”. Alting har en tid, minder Hanson om og modstiller en række store og mindre store amerikanske lederes temperamenter, mellem de sindige som Eisenhower og de koleriske som Patton. Hanson medgiver at det nok er en fordel at have begge sider inkorporeret i sin personlighed, som Lincoln og Reagan, men…

Nonetheless, the mercurial and uncouth style enjoys an ambiguous role in American cultural, political, and military history. It is an ancient crux perhaps captured from Homer to John Ford as the essence of the tragic hero, whose very excesses are precisely what both saves others and dooms himself.

The most creative artists always remind us of the role of irony and paradox — that great things can come from sometimes less than great men, that what appears dangerous is actually what is safe, what should seem good in theory proves awful in fact, what is supposedly proven beyond a doubt only all the more proves groupthink to be asininity.

Outsiders who do not fit — and perhaps should not fit in civilization’s status quo — are sometimes the only ones who can save it from itself. They possess uncivilized talents that are as critical in crises as they can become bothersome if not dangerous in calm.

In March 1945, we were lucky to have a Curtis Le May. In 1968, we laughed at our now Dr. Strangelovian running mate of George Wallace, an easily caricatured but nonetheless authentic American hero who had saved both the B-29 program and the Strategic Air Command.

So the public is always confused by the loud and rambunctious style. It usually prefers predictable competence to unpredictable singularity — at least until realization hits that the accustomed and status quo cannot continue.

Og ligeledes på National Review, bed Michael Barone mærke i, at flere Trump kritikere, efterhånden er ved at få øjnene op for, at Trumps politik ikke skal bedømmes på, hvad der var situationen for 70 år siden, men af virkeligheden

A revived Europe has turned sluggish, while low-wage nations in Asia, Latin America, and even Africa are open for investment. First Japan and then China, and now others, will be moving up as competitors.

America has proved competitive at the top levels. But a country whose labor force is always going to include many low-skilled workers may have some continuing interest in incentivizing low-skilled employment. That’s not Cowen’s view or mine, but it’s apparently Trump’s. Maybe it’s not just dismissible as crazy ranting.

Something similar may be said for Trump’s foreign policy, considered as a perhaps unstable amalgam of his soberly drafted National Security Strategy and his sometimes impulsive tweets.

Trump sees Iran as a clear enemy and Israel as a strong friend and looks with favor on the de facto, publicly unacknowledged alliance of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab states. Left on the back burner are the long-moribund Israeli–Palestinian negotiations, once considered the key to solving every regional problem.

Drokles blogger på www.monokultur.dk