These could change between now and November.

1. Voting for Gary Johnson, the libertarian camdidate, is obviously right. Both in terms of policy views and temperament/experience, he is clearly the best person on the ballot.

2. The fact that top Republicans are not endorsing Johnson makes me angry.

3. Let’s assume Johnson has no chance. I still will vote for him, but I will hope that Trump wins. If Trump wins, then people on the left will, at least temporarily, be thinking in terms of restraining Presidential power. If Clinton wins, they will be thinking in terms of maximizing Presidential power.

In the Columbia Journalism Review, Bill Wyman writes,

there’s one complicated Media vs. Trump story playing out that’s been overlooked. I speak of the media coverage of the Trump protests that have disrupted many of his appearances and, somewhat regrettably, they leave me having to stand up for Donald Trump. Why? Because the First Amendment does not take sides, not even against pumpkin-haired, nonsense-spewing, bloviating demagogues.

I got into a rare heated discussion with a lefty friend about this a couple of weeks ago. He was reciting the then-current left-wing talking points that the Republican Party was reaping what it has sowed with Trump and Trump was interfering with the right of people to protest. I said that the role of protest varies by context and by type of protest.

The context concerns what alternatives you have. In the case of Trump, you have many alternatives to getting to the face of his supporters and yelling at them. You can vote for someone else, you can contribute to someone else’s campaign, you can express your views about Trump in various media. In a context where you have no right to engage in other forms of political expression, I can be much more sympathetic to staging protests.

If you still choose to exercise voice at a Trump rally rather than rely on the other available alternatives, then I think that the less polite you are the less legitimate your “protest.” You can politely and quietly hold up signs. But it is wrong to scream at his supporters or try to keep Trump from being heard. We do not need to instill a culture of political violence in this country.

I do not think that my friend was persuaded to be less than completely sympathetic with the so-called protesters. So I am glad to see that someone who is disturbed by the Trump phenomenon (as am I) is still willing to criticize the anti-Trump protest phenomenon.

To me, he is a conservative intellectual. As such, he is hated by most intellectuals for being conservative. And he is hated by populists for being establishment.

I empathize with his plight. What are the choices for conservative intellectuals?

1. Try to win back the Trump supporters. This would make conservatism even more alienated from intellectuals. It would replace principled conservatism with divisive class warfare.

2. Try to win over intellectuals to liberaltarianism. I fear that this is an escapist fantasy. The left neither wants nor needs people who value liberty in the classical sense of the term. I am reading Kim R. Holmes’ book on the closing of the liberal mind, which makes this point forcefully.

3. Accept one’s place on an irrelevant fringe of American politics.

I go with number 3. Political environments can change. Maybe things will suddenly get better for conservative intellectuals. Or maybe the opposite.

Have a nice day.

Emmitt Rensin writes,

There is a smug style in American liberalism. It has been growing these past decades. It is a way of conducting politics, predicated on the belief that American life is not divided by moral difference or policy divergence — not really —but by the failure of half the country to know what’s good for them.

If a conservative writer had said this, it would be dog bites man. Instead, I gather that Rensin himself leans left. Hence I quoted it.

Somehow, although this smugness clearly has spawned widespread resentment, 2016 looks as though it will be a golden year for the political left, and a dismal year for conservatives and libertarians. So there is no reason for anyone to feel smug.

Brooks (note, not David) writes,

each of us must aspire to what the Dalai Lama calls “warmheartedness” toward those with whom we disagree. This might sound squishy, but it is actually tough and practical advice. As he has stated, “I defeat my enemies when I make them my friends.” He is not advocating surrender to the views of those with whom we disagree. Liberals should be liberals and conservatives should be conservatives. But our duty is to be respectful, fair and friendly to all, even those with whom we have great differences.

Is there any higher authority?

Joel Kotkin writes,

GOP libertarians want more social freedoms; social conservatives want less. Neocons hunger for war, while most other Republicans, both libertarian and constitutionalist conservatives, reject Bushian interventionism. The rising populist wave now inundating the party and driving the Trump juggernaut both detests, and is detested by, the party’s media, corporate and intellectual establishment.

Apart from the uncharitable “hunger for war” phrase, this seems right. But political trends have a short half-lives nowadays. While I think that the Republican Party will be decimated this fall, I don’t believe that a progressive triumph will prove stable.