The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a black swan event; it came as a surprise and has had a major effect. Since that election, many books have been written about Trump the man, and about his policies, both pro and con. The authors of this excellent book, Chris Buskirk and Seth Leibsohn, examine something very different but extraordinarily interesting: Why was his election a black swan event in the first place, especially among conservatives?
The book reviews the opposition to Trump from the intellectual and establishment right (the Never-Trumpers), which was often irrational in its frenzy. Yet as the authors support by going to the original sources, Trump was espousing the exact policy proposals for which these same intellectuals had advocated for years or even decades. In the words of the authors, conservative intellectuals “wanted conservative Supreme Court Justices like Neil Gorsuch but not so much that they would support the man who appointed him.”
What happened? And how did so many of these so-called smart people not only get it wrong, but by such a wide margin?
Again, the authors provide good insight. As they argue, and again support, establishment conservativism has seriously lost its way and is now out of touch with middle America. As they put it, establishment conservativism spoke of what was good for conservativism, while Trump spoke of what is good for America.
This is a remarkable point that cuts deep. One of the significant historical differences between the Left and the Right has been that the Left cared more for their ideology than for the people actually affected by the consequences of policies that flowed from it. It would appear that we are now in the unfortunate position that large swaths of the Right has succumbed to these same grotesque priorities.
Added to this is the growing extremism of the Left in enacting its agenda. Establishment conservatives, secure in their positions at think tanks and other sinecures, did not, and to a large extent do not, sense the utter ruthlessness of the Left in pursuit of its goals. The common man, working in traditional employment settings or attending a university while holding opinions other than those of the far Left, have not been so lucky.
This dovetails nicely with the argument that Trump is somehow extreme (e.g. fascist). As was apparent to anyone who cared even one iota about the people in fly-over country, and as the authors again detail, to many Americans, proposals such as deporting illegal aliens or putting a temporary hold on unvetted refugees from countries without functioning governments are not extreme, but are instead common sense corrections to extremist measures that prevented doing so in the first place. The explosion of Leftist violence during the campaign, including but not limited to Antifa’s rise to public attention, has not been evidence of how extreme Trump is that his election would trigger such a reaction, but rather how willing the Left is to resort to violence when its grasp on the instruments of power are faced with opposition.
This book is filled with excellent insights such as these, and more. Not explaining Trump, but the zeitgeist of our culture that led to his victory, the authors have produced an immensely interesting book.
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![American Greatness: How Conservatism Inc. Missed the 2016 Election and What the D.C. Establishment Needs to Learn by [Chris Buskirk, Seth Leibsohn, William J. Bennett]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51naPq2z3TL._SY346_.jpg)
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Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2018
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Honestly, this is a brilliantly written book both in style and in content. Best dissection of the election to date.
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2017Verified Purchase
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Robert Nixon
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Reviewed in Canada on April 14, 2018Verified Purchase
