“How Trump May Save the Republic,” But Not in the Way Bret Stephens Thinks

I was amused by Bret Stephen’s op-ed in the May 13th edition of The New York Times, “How Trump May Save the Republic.” As Stephen’s puts it: “His views are often malevolent, and his conduct might ultimately prove criminal. But we, too, are protected, for a time, by the enormity of his stupidity.” (Yes, this is the same Bret Stephens who spread his anti-climate change nonsense in a previous op-ed.)

I agree that Trump is no intellectual, but does that make him less dangerous? Trotsky and the intellectuals of the Russian revolution underestimated a mediocre intelligence of Stalin, and paid with their lives. Stalin was brutal and street-smart, two qualities that intellectuals often lack. The mafia kingpin John Gotti was a high school dropout, but street smart enough to have his rival killed and ascend to the top of the Gambino crime family. And that intelligent, Machiavellian Ted Cruz probably still can’t believe he lost the Republican Presidential nomination to the ignorant Donald Trump. I doubt there is a strong connection between education, intelligence and political power, street smarts and ruthlessness probably correlate better—Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale lost to Ronald Reagan, Al Gore and John Kerry to George W. Bush, and Hilary Clinton to Donald Trump.

I will say though that Stephens saved his best insight for last: “Incompetence may protect us—but … only for a while. The blunders may often be self-defeating, but not always. Trump is our president. The enormity of his stupidity, inescapably, is also our own.”

Yet here is another thought—replacing Trump with Pence doesn’t help much, if at all. McConnell and Ryan would push the same no-taxes-on-the-wealthy-no-social-safety-net policies as they do now, but they would look more refined in doing so with Pence in charge. Even if Trump were impeached or worse, that wouldn’t stop the Republicans from pursuing their current agenda. So we may be better off with Trump as the face of the Republican party. That way he remains the physical manifestation of what has been their somewhat hidden agenda since the early 1980s. Perhaps his threatening tweets, collusion with the Russians, weekly golf course vacations, his nepotism and all the rest will finally put a face on today’s Republican party.

So Trump’s ignorance may save us, but not in the way that Stephen’s imagines. It’s not that he won’t help them lower taxes on the rich, he will, it’s that he’ll make them look so shameless and uncouth. I hope I’m right. On the other hand, I’m not optimistic that anything can save us from our forthcoming troubles.