The American Spectator was one of the first conservative magazines I subscribed to when I had my conversion experience in the 1980s. Part of its appeal for me was that it was, at that time, still published in the college town, Bloomington, Indiana, where it was founded. That's about forty miles, over the hills of southern Indiana, from where I live. It's a lot like college towns have been for the last 50-plus years: a hip music scene, good dining scene, film series in abundance, and lots of left-of-center public policy and cultural influence. As I got to know the story of TAS's founding - in 1967, by a group of grad students who were clearly going against the grain - I was fascinated. Due to the friendships founding editor R. Emmett Tyrell had formed, visitors to the magazine's offices included people ranging from Daniel Patrick Moynihan to P.J O'Rourke.
TAS took the tone of witty irreverence that had been one of National Review's charms one step further. The zany artwork that accompanied such monthly departments as The Great American Saloon Series and The Continuing Crisis was half the fun of getting each new issue.
TAS moved to Washington and underwent some ownership changes. Tyrell remained at the editorial helm, but he, too, seemed to have absorbed some of the Beltway ethos. Gone were the floridly acerbic edges to much of his writing. The impact of being nearer the seat of national power became discernible.
Other magazines, and then websites, came along and provided the freshness that had to some degree gone out of TAS. I didn't keep up with TAS on a regular basis as I once had.
That became more the case after Tyrell became a full-throated Trump supporter. I didn't need to check in on one more of those on a regular basis.
But he has now come out with a very public expression of disillusionment that bears noting:
I was the first editor-in-chief of an intellectual review to support President Donald Trump. Possibly, I was the first editor to do so. Yet now, after a thorough review of last week's bruising events, I most emphatically condemn his reckless rhetoric, and I affirm that I can no longer support him. If anything, I should have done so earlier. Too much wreckage has accumulated around him. Too many reputations have been destroyed by him. One of the most admirable virtues in politics is loyalty. I know who has been loyal to Donald. Whom has he been loyal to?
In his first years in office, he surprised even me with his policy choices. There were tax reductions that put me in mind of Ronald Reagan. There was his unparalleled deregulatory campaign that proved how easy it is to revive an economy and to bring employment back to historic heights. There were the courts: the Supreme Court with three splendid appointments, and the appellate courts with 54 appointments. There was the Jerusalem embassy and, for the first time ever, the possibility of peace among the Arabs and the Israelis. There was criminal justice reform, opportunity zones and the withdrawal from the Paris climate accords. All of this achieved while he was being hounded by spurious charges of collusion, espionage and the idiotic "dossier" that Hillary vouchsafed us. Has anyone been prosecuted? I, too, was very angry, but not mad.
Tyrell is starting to fully consider how abusive Trump has been to a lot of people who could have been a great help to a president who had any sense:
Donald was an amazing man, but now his legacy is endangered, and the man who endangered it is Donald Trump. He never took advice from anyone, and he went through many first-rate advisers. He treated staff horribly, men such as Jeff Sessions, Mick Mulvaney and Mark Meadows. He had the best vice president that I have seen in my lifetime. For a while, he treated Mike Pence with dignity. When it came down to last week -- Washington's Hell Week -- he treated the vice president as shabbily as he treated everyone else.
Then came Georgia. As with his inscrutable COVID-19 circus, he talked too much. His final speech to the Georgia voters might have been delivered in Chinese. I could make no sense of it, and the average Georgian, too, was confused. According to Donald, they were to vote for the two Republican candidates, though they were not to trust the voting apparatus of the state or even the state's Republican leadership -- very puzzling, very demoralizing.
And then he makes plain where he is going:
. . . as for me, I know that I am finished with Donald Trump. He is not the engaging man I met years ago in Trump Tower. He is not the natural campaigner I had at our yearly dinner in 2013.
Actually, he is, Bob. I'll chalk your formulation up to your natural graciousness and enjoyment of social settings among people you're eager to see as kindred spirits. (I've attended receptions in both Indianapolis and Washington at which I had glancing face time with Tyrell, and he clearly relishes such networking environments.)
In any event, welcome back to Earth, Bob. Keep your train of thought going. It will lead to some uncomfortable places, particularly the conclusion that the whole enterprise of supporting the Very Stable Genius was not worth it, judges and deregulation notwithstanding.
But you'll feel like a more authentic human being for having pursued it.
Trying to keep Trumpist zeal going at this late date is spiritually corrosive. The remaining throne-sniffers will at some point have their moment of reckoning.
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