President Donald Trump has identified real problems, but he’s abusing his power in trying to correct them.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about being a conservative critic of Trumpism is that you often start by agreeing with Trumpworld about ends while disagreeing about means.
This pleases nobody. The left, broadly speaking, considers the ends as illegitimate as the means, and the pro-Trump right thinks that if you’re against the means you really don’t desire the ends. I’m against the abuse of power, even for my own “side.”
For instance, I’ve argued for decades that liberal media bias is real and a problem. I think you can exaggerate the problem, particularly these days. But, yes, the MAGA crowd is right that much of the “legacy” media is often reflexively hostile to Republicans. But that doesn’t mean I support the way Trump’s Federal Communications Commission is bullying various media organizations for being critical of Trump.
Or consider Harvard. If you read its own report on antisemitism at the university, it’s hard to disagree with many of the administration’s criticisms. Harvard has been intolerant of internal dissent, and its educational philosophy has been absurdly left-wing. For instance, a mandatory class for students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education deployed a grotesque chart titled “The Pyramid of White Supremacy” equating free trade agreements with “slavery” and “colorblindness” with “racial profiling.”