George Will is widely viewed as the dean of conservative opinion writers. He has been writing a regular column for The Washington Post for years, extolling conservative ideas and manners.
But he is repulsed by Donald Trump. Will does not like Trump’s policies, his crudeness, his vile behavior, his incivility, nor his lack of knowledge. I agree with him about that. Conservativism can’t be represented by people who have no ideas other than hatred’s, nor should they be represented by people lacking dignity.
Needless to say, Will doesn’t like the candidates who style themselves to be as vulgar as Trump.
In this column, he excoriates Kari Lake, who is running against Congressman Ruben Gallego for Kyrsten Sinema’s Senate seat in Arizona, and businessman Bernie Moreno, who is running for Senate in Ohio. Will doesn’t want the Republicans to lose control of the Senate but as I read him, he would rather lose the Senate than see these two vulgarians elected.
He writes:
PHOENIX — From Herbert Hoover’s “a chicken for every pot” (1928) to Ronald Reagan’s “It’s morning again in America” (1984), some campaign slogans have been humdingers. The slogan of Republican Kari Lake’s Senate campaign could be: “Oh, never mind.”
Here in Arizona and in Ohio, GOP Senate candidates force conservatives to choose between awful outcomes: the consequences of losing the Senate, or the disappearance of the conservative party.
Running for Arizona’s governorship in 2022, Lake practiced the kamikaze politics of subtraction. Today, she says she was joking when she told John McCain voters — they elected him to two House and six Senate terms — to “get the hell out” of a GOP event. McCain voters were not amused. She lost, then mimicked her hero, saying that her election was stolen. Courts disagreed.
Today, she seems intermittently aware that many Arizonans are weary of her high-decibel imitation of Donald Trump’s sour, self-absorbed, backward-looking, fact-free, sore-loser, endless grievance tour. So, she sometimes seems to say of her protracted harping on 2022: Oh, never mind.
In Ohio, Bernie Moreno is running against Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.
Bernie Moreno once called Trump a “maniac” and a “lunatic” akin to “a car accident that makes you sick.” He scoffed at Trump’s claims of election fraud and called the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters “morons” and “criminals.” But Trump, like a marsupial, has tucked Moreno into his pouch, and the amazingly malleable Moreno calls (as does Lake) the Jan. 6 defendants “political prisoners” and says the 2020 election was “stolen,” Joe Biden should be impeached and Trump is swell.
Moreno, who projects the Trumpkins’ chest-thumping faux toughness, disdains bipartisanship. Evidently, he plans to advance his agenda with 60 Republican votes. There have not been 60 Republican senators since 1910…
The nation no longer has a reliably conservative party of sound ideas and good manners. If conservatism is again to be ascendant in their party, Republicans must stop electing the likes of Lake and Moreno. They would join other chips-off-the-orange-block in a Senate caucus increasingly characterized by members who have anti-conservative agendas, from industrial policy (government allocation of capital, which is socialism) to isolationism. And whose unconservative temperaments celebrate coarseness as an indicator of political authenticity and treat performative poses as substitutes for governance.
Gallego and Brown are mistaken about much, but they are not repulsive. Conservatives can refute them and, by persuading electoral majorities, repeal or modify progressive mischief. The new breed of anti-conservative Republicans think persuasion, and the patience of politics, is for “squishes,” a favorite epithet of proudly loutish Trumpkins, who, like Lake and Moreno, seem to think the lungs are the location of wisdom.
The current version of Moreno says: About my talk regarding the maniac, lunatic, sickening-car-accident Trump? Oh, never mind. Moreno and Lake are useful, if only as indexes of today’s political squalor. Neither, however, should be a senator.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This blog’s host provides opinions about any and every issue and she has written positively about the DEI mindset that controls academia and most other large institutions. Does Diane Ravitch support the enforcement of ideological conformity? Here is her chance to break with her new tribe and oppose DEI mind control. Will she do it?
https://www.thecrimson.com/column/council-on-academic-freedom-at-harvard/article/2024/4/2/kennedy-abandon-dei-statements/
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No, she won’t.
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Diane can speak for herself but I think she’s a lot less predictable than you may think.
My own view is in complete harmony with Kennedy’s. Mandatory DEI statements, and any screening of potential faculty by commitment to anti-racist principles, should be put in the dustbin.
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Victor Newman, I do not support the enforcement of ideological conformity. I challenge you to find any example of my doing so. Deal with facts. Provide evidence for your claims. Otherwise you are just mouthing your opinion, fact-free.
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Do you agree with what Randall Kennedy wrote recently in the Harvard Crimson? The wokesters who control academia favor enforcement of ideological conformity.
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Victor, I don’t believe in imposing ideological conformity on anyone. Not on me. Not on you. I believe in thinking for yourself. I don’t believe in censorship or book banning.
Before you insult me again, please provide evidence to support your accusations.
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I read the Kennedy article. He does not explain why he thinks favoring diversity and including groups of people who have been historically excluded is such a bad idea. Why do you think being fair to others is so evil? Why would we make academia safe for a person who wants to argue that 9 does not belong to the set of real numbers? Why would we make academia safe for the person who wants to argue that s subset of humanity does not deserve to be treated seriously?
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This is about more than being fair. For some faculty positions at some schools (UC Berkeley is one), prospective faculty are required to submit statements describing how their work will contribute to diversity. Low scores are given to people who say, for example, that all people should be treated equally regardless of race.
https://reason.com/2020/02/03/university-of-california-diversity-initiative-berkeley/
https://ofew.berkeley.edu/academic-recruitment/contributions-deib/sample-rubric-assessing-candidate-contributions-diversity?mod=article_inline
It’s an ideological litmus test. If I’m applying for a position as an English Lit and my focus is medieval literature, it shouldn’t matter whether I “clearly formulate new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion at Berkeley and within my field, through my research, teaching, and/or service.”
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I agree that faculty should not have to endorse any ideology other than a commitment to pursue the truth. Beliefs can be debated. Science and anti-science are not on the same footing.
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it would be, I think, a shame if that prospective Medieval Lit professor did not have an interest in sexism and the portrayal of women and male/female relations in the literature of the Middle Ages, for that literature is a rich mine of such material. Check out, for example, the recurring Patient Griselda theme. And the misogyny of the retellings of the story of Adam and Eve. Fascinating stuff! The demonization of female sexuality by the Church cast quite a pall over 1,500 years of history throughout the period (and up to and including today), and the cult of the Virgin Mary and free love ideas of the Cathars and other heretical groups like the Brethren of the Free Spirit, combined with the Persian love poetry brought back to Europe by the Crusaders, helped create the sexually fraught concepts of Chivalry and Courtly Love, which had such impact on Medieval Lit–the portrayals of women through the Madonna or Whore lens. A Medievalist not interested in this stuff is like a would-be Shakespeare professor not interested in plays.
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And that prospective candidate for a position as professor of Medieval Literature would be wildly unqualified for the job if he or she were not intimately familiar with the “Othering,” aka the “Orientalizing,” of everything not European and Roman Catholic Christian by European writers, in the vernacular and Latin and Greek languages of the time, an othering that had such dramatic consequences as one Pope declaring all non-Christian lands for the taking by Christians and another dividing the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and the Crown of Castile. There is a continuous line from the monstrous folk in outer regions in Ancient Greek and Roman mythology, Herodotus’s History, Lucian of Samosata’s A True Story, and so on to the extraordinarily fanciful fabulae of the Middle Ages, including accounts of fabulous creatures and peoples in bestiaries and traveler’s tales (e.g., the Arimaspians, or one-eyed people; the Blemmyae, or headless people; the Cynocephali, or dogmen; the Hecatoncheires, or fifty-headed, hundred-handed people; the Machlyes, people who were one sex on one side of their bodies and another on the other side; and the Sciapods, or one-legged people).
And what is “other,” those bizarre, monstrous, foreign creatures, can be destroyed. In many minds of the time, whatever was non-European and non-Christian was by definition Satanic.
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It’s an ideological litmus test. If I’m applying for a position as an English Lit and my focus is medieval literature, it shouldn’t matter whether I “clearly formulate new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion at Berkeley and within my field, through my research, teaching, and/or service.”
I would not endorse any litmus test, FLERP, but I think your idea it shouldn’t matter whether you advance equity and inclusion in your field, research or teaching is a quite limited view of the work of an educator.
Let me pause while I climb atop my soapbox.
I believe that the mission of the university in a democracy is more than to prepare young people for work or for their personal enrichment, but to enable the growth and development of our society as a whole. Education isn’t a commodity, it’s a public good.
Let’s imagine you’ve a Latina freshman in one of your classes who has grown up listening to oral histories as told by her great-grandmother. She sees parallels between the heroic stories of medieval days and is intrigued to learn more. Surely, you’d want to foster and further her interest? Many students who are first generation college attendees feel that maybe they don’t belong; a prof who takes a personal interest dispels that notion and advances inclusion.
One task teachers routinely carry out, though it’s not in their job descriptions, is to mentor younger colleagues, who may not share our culture, race or ideas. They’ll replace us one day, and hopefully surpass us. In higher ed, that would seem to me to be the role of an advisor in a graduate program. A student who brings a different lens and set of experiences than yours might of course expand research in the field of medieval lit, building on your own contributions while also expanding equity.
I’ll concede that this all sounds rather idealistic! But teachers who haven’t burned out find that idealism can carry them through a long career.
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It’s an ideological litmus test. If I’m applying for a position as an English Lit and my focus is medieval literature, it shouldn’t matter whether I “clearly formulate new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion at Berkeley and within my field, through my research, teaching, and/or service.”
I would not endorse any litmus test, FLERP, but I think your idea it shouldn’t matter whether you advance equity and inclusion in your field, research or teaching is a quite limited view of the work of an educator.
Let me pause while I climb atop my soapbox.
I believe that the mission of the university in a democracy is more than to prepare young people for work or for their personal enrichment, but to enable the growth and development of our society as a whole. Education isn’t a commodity, it’s a public good.
Let’s imagine you’ve a Latina freshman in one of your classes who has grown up listening to oral histories as told by her great-grandmother. She sees parallels between the heroic stories of medieval days and is intrigued to learn more. Surely, you’d want to foster and further her interest? Many students who are first generation college attendees feel that maybe they don’t belong; a prof who takes a personal interest dispels that notion and advances inclusion.
One task teachers routinely carry out, though it’s not in their job descriptions, is to mentor younger colleagues, who may not share our culture, race or ideas. They’ll replace us one day, and hopefully surpass us. In higher ed, that would seem to me to be the role of an advisor in a graduate program. A student who brings a different lens and set of experiences than yours might of course expand research in the field of medieval lit, building on your own contributions while also expanding equity.
I’ll concede that this all sounds rather idealistic! But teachers who haven’t burned out find that idealism can carry them through a long career.
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Well said, Roy. I believe in the value of diversity, equity and inclusion but I don’t see any reason to make people sign loyalty oaths.
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Victor, if you had actually read Diane’s books, you would know that she is a great champion of freedom of thought and expression. Your characterization of her is simply utterly wrong. It’s like arguing that Jesus was a Capitalist or that Monday is Thursday.
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Yes. Will is a true “conservative.” I wish we teachers could have done a better job of teaching about the political spectrum. Most of the people described as “conservatives” today are not that. They do not wish to “conserve” anything–except maybe power for themselves and folks like them. A true conservative wants to retain, protect–conserve–the best in our nation. For instance, when Social Security was proposed it was “liberal,” or “progressive,” or even “socialistic.” But that system has worked very well for millions of Americans and has strengthened our nation and our economy. So a conservative today would want to save it, to keep it, conserve it, because it works and helps millions without hurting anyone.
Now a “liberal” might focus on improving Social Security, or adding to the benefits. A “reactionary” might want to cut it or end it. A “radical” could go either way: End it or double it, etc.
Many of the politicians and pundits today, labeled as “conservatives,” are really reactionaries, and should be labeled as such.
When I taught high school kids about this stuff, I sometimes used George Will’s columns–opposite Jesse Jackson’s–to give students good examples of responsible advocacy from different, but responsible points of view.
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Huh, by that definition, I’m probably a “conservative.” These days most people seem more interested in dismantling or re-making institutions rather than preserving them.
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Jack: I like your attempt to define the word “conservative “ within the context of modern political ideas. Modern political operatives are very conscious of how they are affecting the body politic. As such, extremist political leaders have claimed to move ideas in one direction or another.
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I have not forgotten that George Will was one of the vulgarians who supported the breathtakingly illegal Second Iraq War in which defenseless retreating troops were slaughtered en masse, depleted uranium bombs were dropped on civilian populations, and both civilian infrastructure and cultural monuments were targeted based on
WMD THAT DID NOT EXIST.
Not exactly what I would call responsible advocacy. But conservatives do this. They support atrocities. Then their support goes down the memory hole.
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Before that war, almost every western intelligence agency believed that the Saddam Hussein regime did have WMD. Many Democratic politicians supported that war. In hindsight they were wrong, but that fact does not discredit every other belief that they had/have they they derived in good faith. Your caricature of all conservatives is typical of your shallow, ultra-partisan writing.
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I, for one, did not think there was credible evidence that Saddam Hussein (the thug WE put in power in Iraq) had WMD. Will was a war monger. And yes, there were war mongers on the Democratic side of the aisle as well. Horrific. The Second Iraq War was a violation of fundamental international law. I saw it as bs from the very beginning. Many others did, too. So, are you saying that we were wrong?
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I was one in the herd that believed there were WMD in Iraq. I thought Powell’s presentation to the UN was credible and assumed the information it was based on was accurate.
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Read Tenet’s book, At the Center of the Storm. It’s truly eye-opening. He tells the story about how the Bush administration cooked the intelligence. Tenet is no left-winger. I thought the whole thing smelled to high heaven. I didn’t believe a word of it.
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Yeah, I was definitely wrong.
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Tenet says that the only WMD found in Iraq were barrels of chemical weapons that THE U.S. gave to Iraq when Hussein was our pal and that the U.S. called in an airstrike on the facility where these were stored to destroy the evidence, including the labels in English on the barrels.
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George Will’s cheerleading for going into Iraq the second time helped make that happen. It led to genocide and destruction of irreplaceable cultural monuments.
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Go read George Tenet’s autobiography. Our own CIA thought that the WMDs thing was bullshit. Tenet makes that quite clear.
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The Shrub maladministration railroaded this over the wishes of the CIA.
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Social Security? Conservatives opposed it. Ronald Reagan called it, many times, a Communist program. Medicare? Conservatives opposed it. A living minimum wage? Conservatives oppose it. National healthcare and dental care and vision care such as is enjoyed by the citizens of the happiest countries in the world? Conservatives oppose it. There is one thing they don’t oppose, though, and that is big tax breaks for billionaire donors to Conservatives.
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To Will’s credit, he later saw that the support for the Second Iraq War was a terrible blunder.
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Same thing happened with all the jerks who supported the Vietnam War. No apologies afterward, with the exception of McNamara, but all of them wrote as though they thought it was a terrible idea all along. This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
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There were lots of cheerleaders for what became a senseless bloodbath and was, I thought, CLEARLY GOING TO BE ONE from the beginning. The whole thing was in complete violation of the most fundamental international law, of the U.N. charter, which makes the territory of member states inviolable except in very specific, extreme circumstances that DID NOT, in this case, exist at the time.
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when we went into Afghanistan, I was often asked what I thought of it by students who were concerned about their siblings and cousins who were going there. I told them war was a terrible thing that always had consequences that no one considered, and that we should not enter into any war without a clear plan for ending it.
When we went into Iraq, I added that going to war without international support was a very bad idea, but I hoped their relatives would be safe.
In retrospect, I feel vindicated. Extricating our military from involvement in the Middle East has proven problematic at best.
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The First Iraq War was legal. The second was not. The first was to repel an invader who had violated the territorial sovereignty of a UN member state. The second was a violation of the territorial sovereignty of a UN member state. WHY TF IS THIS NOT CLEAR TO PEOPLE? Perhaps we should have a semester of basic international law in freaking high school. It’s ridiculous that people do not understand matters this basic.
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I have always thought that Will was a good writer. I like his interest in baseball and his comments on that subject. I even sympathize with his traditionalism to an extent, being very traditional myself.
Still, most of his positions fail to take into account the forty year failure of neoliberalism. Will, like most modern conservatives, subscribed to the myth of trickle down. This undermines most of his opinions, and explains why he was not solidly for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Anyone who accepted Trump after his trip down the stairs to accuse immigrants of crimes when he launched his 2016 campaign is suspect.
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Every prominent person makes some good choices and some bad choices. Candidate Barack Obama gave us the impression that he would support someone like Linda Darling Hammond for Education Secretary, yet he gave us Arne Duncan.
As someone who has devoted a tremendous amount of time and energy on reducing childhood lead exposure, I am extremely grateful to George Will for his efforts in this area. My recollection is that his efforts were productive. One example is his September 16, 1982 column, “The Poison Poor Children Breathe”.
Interestingly, the phase out of leaded gasoline started because of catalytic converters to reduce smog. It was a wonderful unintended consequence when blood lead levels dropped as the use of leaded gasoline progressed.
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Hammond collaborated with the Common Core crowd by working on the “Smarter” “Balanced” tests. That she could not see that the new question formats were crap and that the “standards” were untestable–neither speaks highly of her.
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Also, edTPA.
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YES!!! And EdTPA is truly evil.
Being a collaborator can be extremely lucrative.
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In other news, the rich in America continue their war on everyone else living in the country:
Jon Stewart Skewers AI Industry for Salivating Over Replacing Jobs (futurism.com)
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Jon Stewart On The False Promises of AI | The Daily Show (youtube.com)
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Diane, George Will also is busily chiding Arizona for failing at school choice. Funny, he never mentions just how much vouchers are costing taxpayers, or that nearly all vouchers go to families who’ve never been enrolled in public schools.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/03/arizona-school-choice-thriving/
And as to DEI, U Texas at Austin is purging faculty who’ve been tainted with the label, thanks to the reactionary SB 17 law.
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Christine,
I saw both stories. I find it interesting that George Will can’t stomach Trump. Will’s views on school choice have not changed for decades although we now know it’s a failure.
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