Comments

On the Flight 93 election article — 270 Comments

1. “Yet fear of a Trump presidency ultimately seemed to outweigh complaints over Clinton for many undecided voters in the room. “I think about the day after the election, if I were to wake up … how am I going to feel,” one woman said, her voice registering concern. “If he’s president, I’m going to feel scared. [It’ll be] the great unknown. If she’s president, it’ll be like well, here we go again, business as usual. I think I could live with that better than the alternative.”” – Frank Luntz on his most recent focus group.
   http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/clinton-trust-sexism/500489/

2. Sorry NEO, but totally OT (I don’t have time to read this post, but wanted to put this were it will be seen):

   I’m 90% positive that the book The Dark Continent was recommended by someone on this blog. I’ve started reading it and it’s great. It almost ties directly into what we are going through now in terms of the social impact of this election – namely the arguments swirling around ‘will America survive’ that have been swirling around in the comments on the blog over the last couple of months.

   If anything, it makes me more at ease about what we’re going through. Not that I’m optimistic though.

3. Neo:

   Excellent points. I agree that to be blunt the Flight 93 article is BS on stilts. But it made the Trump supporters feel good about their struggle.

   Sometimes “Prince Charming” has his own motives, much to the dismay of the damsel.

4. I have a different take. I don’t believe the conservative doom-and-gloomers any more than the liberal doom-and-gloomers, and for exactly the same reason: I’ve heard it all before. It’s just an attempt to stampede the herd into voting for their candidate. Don’t panic!

5. Flight 93 article, like much of the argumentation in “support” of trump is an overwrought case against clinton.

   Voting dem again two or three more elections after this, and we will be like Chicago / Illinois, another two more after that Detroit.
   Not a good spot to be in. But, this election (i.e. the exact next four years) all is lost if it is a dem, is WAY over blown. It is a Gramscian march, not a 400 yard dash.

   Indeed, one has to ignore a LOT about trump, and a LOT of possibilities that his campaigning points to, including how leftist he really seems to be in policy, and how he might well leave a significantly expanded government, and troublingly expanded executive in place (ripe for the next dem to abuse), to say he is anywhere near a “clearly better” alternative.

6. My only consoling thought about djt as POTUS is that he is clueless about so much he might be all tiny thumbs. BTW, I read the Flight 93 article last week and thought it an overwrought simile. Another stellar stellar eassy from neo.

7. Thanks for the thoroughgoing dissection with the perfect summation: that politics is (still!) downstream of culture. Like every Republican candidate being Hitler, I guess every election for a while will be Flight 93 for the conservatives.

8. I get distracted by our dogs and didn’t read your post Big Maq. and agree there is much to be overwrought about if one is a trumpian.

9. “I have a different take. I don’t believe the conservative doom-and-gloomers any more than the liberal doom-and-gloomers, and for exactly the same reason: I’ve heard it all before. It’s just an attempt to stampede the herd into voting for their candidate. Don’t panic!” – Wolly Bully

   Right. Heard very similar arguments in 2008 and 2012 wrt obama and the left, yet, here we are. Not better, by any means.

   What seems much more realistic is what we see in Canada, UK, France, Switzerland, etc.

   These countries are several years (if not a generation or so) down the Gramscian path. Terrible – no. Desirable – no.

   Lost forever, NO!

   Only true if folks give up hope, and won’t bother to engage and try to convince others, believing people uniformly behave in voting blocs and cannot change.

10. It’s a high-pressure sales tactic; the kind that a used car salesman makes. Andrew Klavan nailed it almost a year ago.

    I have no doubt that many Trump voters believe it, but that doesn’t make it true.

11. I don’t know how many times I have pointed out online that argument by analogy has little value, certainly it is miles from deductive certainty. Certainly analogies can sometimes aid in explaining something. But some people think that because they can create an analogy, they have a logical truth in their hands.

    The Flight 93 analogy is a RHETORICAL device intended to persuade. Of all the analogies one might come up with for this election, I cannot imagine one that relies more on the extreme case the flight represented. The people on that flight understood that there was no chance that they would survive the flight, and they chose to die with nobility. We, today, do not know we will die after the election, and we do not know what the aftermath will be. This is where the creator of the Flight 93 argument departs from the honest. The things being compared are not the same. There is no certainty that disaster will follow not voting for Trump.

    I think Publius chose Flight 93 for his argument because it was such a powerful one in which the passengers showed strength that most of us can only hope we would have. How could we not admire that? From that it does not follow that we must vote for Trump (although I plan to).

    I’m sorry if this sounds so elementary. Sometimes I feel like screaming it.

12. neo-neocon wrote:

    “Actually, if many of the readers here and on many other blogs I read regularly are at all representative, they feel such a sense of urgency and danger to this country that they feel it may be too LATE to avoid the cliff; that we may be already in free fall. But even more importantly, they just don’t (for the most part) think that Donald Trump will stop that fall or change that trajectory; au contraire. They think he is both a symptom of liberty’s death throes and an instrument for hastening its death just as much as Hillary Clinton is, or perhaps even more (just a different kind of death).

    Excellent point.

    I am in the camp that believes that most of the 17 Republican candidates at least would cause a pause in that trajectory, and that Trump (among my least favorites of the 17) is a member of the group that would bring about such pause.

    That pause would provide a further chance for conservatives to affect culture.

13. Great comment, Stubbs.

14. Oh,

    CLINTON DELENDA EST!

15. As mentioned in an earlier comment, one has to ignore a LOT about trump to conclude he is “clearly better” than clinton. I didn’t think about the possibility of constructing their own “trump”…

    “For Trump supporters, where Trump left off on an issue in the way they liked is the Trump they have in their head. He’s run nearly the entire gamut of positions, that supporters are spoiled for choice in what kind of “build your own Trump” they can craft in their minds. And the belief is that when or if he gets elected, all those flip-flops, reversals, and pivots will melt away and reveal the Trump they were supporting all along.

    Trump is whoever his individual supporters need him to be.

    The truth is, even Trump’s most ardent supporters have to accept this because even they aren’t sure what his positions are. No policy posted on his website can be trusted, and every position he declares may have a shelf life of a few hours. What choice do they have but to Build-a-Trump?” – Observation by Brandon Morse – Every Republican Is Voting for a Different Trump
    http://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2016/09/16/donald-trump-whoever-need-personally/

16. “CLINTON DELENDA EST”

    Oh! (Not so) Secret alt-r handshake.

17. First, his limited use of the Flight 93 metaphor was to frame his simple argument that a Hillary victory represents certain death while a Trump one represents possible survival.

    To then criticize him for not extending the metaphor in support of arguments he neither agrees with nor makes seems remarkably odd and not a valid criticism of his use of this particular metaphor or the use of any metaphor by anyone else regarding any other argument.
    Most subjects are open to any number of uses of metaphor, but I have to admit I never considered criticizing someone for not using it in the way someone who disagrees with it would as a valid complaint or even marginally logical or persuasive.

    You didn’t start off too convincingly and became less so with the next line of reasoning and assertions.
    I have read innumerable comments by rank and file conservatives and conservative leaders who oppose Trump that the country can withstand 4 to 8 years of a Hillary presidency. Indeed, that has to be the premise advanced since if they didn’t believe that, the rationale for opposing Trump would lead directly to Publius’s Flight 93 metaphor.
    Red State, The Federalist, National Review, The Weekly Standard and others are not exactly some tiny core of people without influence. Nor are the thousands of readers and commenters many of whom advance the precise argument above, that 8 years of Hillary is survivable.
    Publius’s point is those who refuse to vote for Trump [not sure how that is different from a nevertrumper] or who undermine him are helping Hillary and in so doing have demonstrated that in fact they feel no sense of urgency.

    I was a Cruz, Perry and Walker supporter and considered Trump about the last of my choices. But he is the nominee and regardless of what anyone thinks of his character [no person’s character is better known and more abysmal than his opponent], if we’re faced with the choice of one candidate advancing relatively conservative principles and another advancing radical leftwing policies and has proven she will pursue them, then whether we are over the cliff or approaching it there is only one rational course.
    Whatever Trump’s traits, consistency is not one of them. Consequently, those asserting they know he will not pursue any conservative policies and would be as bad or worse than the most corrupt, venal, mendacious and incompetent candidate any major party has nominated are asserting a certainty which is in fact merely an unknowable conjecture against what really is an absolute certainty; the unmitigated disaster a Hillary presidency would be.

    The greatest flaw in your critique however is ignoring what is one of his central points, perhaps the most central one; illegal and legal immigration and the pernicious effects they have had and will continue to have until the nation as a whole is like California: a permanent, overwhelmingly one party Democrat entity with a Republican rump party whining from the sidelines.
    The infant cultural transformation leading to a revived politics of reason you wish for will be strangled in its crib by a president Hillary and the go along to get along Republican congress when she proposes amnesty and does nothing to end the flood of new Democrats being bribed across the border by their delighted patrons.
    Will Trump absolutely end that phenomenon? Maybe, maybe not, but the fact is he is our only short term shot at it.

    Which brings me to my last critique of your critique. Publius makes clear Trump is in some ways the most liberal GOP candidate since Dewey. He advocates Trump as the only short term method we have of preventing the coup de grace of a Hillary presidency. He is under no illusions Trump is a long term solution to our problems but has certain attributes which would be useful going forward and gives us a little breathing room so that the chance for long term solution at least survives for another four to eight years.
    I can not disagree for no better reason than any rational conservative cannot in good faith describe a way in which our constitutional rights and self governance survive a combination of eight more years of uncontrolled immigration and the decades of destruction a Hillary packed SCOTUS would without doubt inflict on what is left of the American Experiment.

18. Stubbs invokes (well, and properly, I would say): “they chose to die with nobility”, referring to the attacking passengers on Flight 93.

    There is another element at work amongst these passengers on Flight 93 which may bear another sort of emphasis. Not merely did these good people decide to risk their lives and possibly die with nobility in an attack upon their captors, but decided as well to kill their captors with nobility if they could or if the need arose as their attack to reclaim control of the aircraft proceeded. Ordinary gently folk do not generally find themselves purposed to kill others, no matter whatever sort of others we may intend.

    Publius Decius Mus doesn’t propose killing as a remedy for this grave political crisis he asserts to exist. In this respect, I’m reminded of Glenn Reynold’s frequent saying at Instapundit regarding the AnthopogenicGlobalClimateWarming proponents, such as Al Gore or his Hollywood chums, who all while running about stirring trouble for the simple people, never restrict their own high fossil fuel consuming lives for an instant. Reynolds will often say he’ll pay the claims of crisis more regard when the claimers begin to conduct themselves on par with their claims. Until that time, the claimers can go pound sand.

19. Stubbs says,

    “The Flight 93 analogy is a RHETORICAL device …”

    Ira Says:
    September 17th, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    Great comment, Stubbs.

    BrianB Says:

    To then criticize him for not extending the metaphor in support of arguments he neither agrees with nor makes seems remarkably odd and not a valid criticism of his use of this particular metaphor or the use of any metaphor by anyone else regarding any other argument.”

    What they said …

20. Big Maq: I suppose at some point in your life you did learn that while all Quakers might be pacifists, not all pacifists are Quakers.

21. This discussion made me think of this article from last week — Move the federal government out of Washington — which left me wondering if it would work to slow down the Gramscian march or just spread its entrenchment. Couple of excerpts:

    No, not the White House nor the Congress, but the rest of the federal government, namely the Cabinet departments and large agencies that have grown up around the Beltway, should move and disperse. There is really no compelling reason that federal agencies and departments remain in Washington, D.C., and many good reasons why they should be relocated across the United States over time. …

    Not only would a geographically distributed federal government be better insulated from terrorist attacks and natural catastrophes, but its work force would be much more representative of our nation’s people, regional differences, and cultures.

    Unshackled from the confines of the Beltway, our work force would no longer be captive to the insularity of the elites traveling the eastern Acela corridor. Instead, federal employees would interact — in everyday settings, whether in churches, fairs, soccer fields or community meetings — with their constituents, rather than as often happens in Washington, only with themselves.

22. Publius’ article was one giant straw man argument. Imputing positions to people who don’t hold them, holding people responsible for things they didn’t do.

    Again, this comes from the echo chamber nature of the alt-right. They can’t even name the conservatives in Congress.

    I worry some times that Trump is one huge con job established by McConnell to attack conservatives, the only people who are interested in cutting government.

23. –Not only would a geographically distributed federal government be better insulated from terrorist attacks and natural catastrophes–

    Is that a feature or a bug. 🙂

24. I once thought that Clinton might be a strong candidate, who could step in to the current apparatus of the Obama administration and power on. There is now a decent chance that she is anything but strong, and a Clinton presidency could be a regency, with a low-energy executive and lower levels acting more autonomously. I hope for neither, but I just wanted to moot a possibility. There’s (much) more than one way to hazardously fly a plane of state.

25. I must admit that I don’t care very much one way or the other about how Publius uses the flight 93 metaphor. I’m glad that Neo had the time and patience to examine it and make appropriate comments but in the end the logic in the article doesn’t matter. There is no avoiding the issue, we have to choose between Trump or Clinton.

    Here’s what I do know. The Muslims have been at war with Western Civilization for about 1,400 years. Egypt, North Africa, the majority of the Middle East were once Christian countries. Initially after the Muslims invaded all those countries were predominantly Christian. The Muslims slowly strangled Christianity through constant persecution, murder, pogroms, sex slavery, and jihad.

    Hilary has every intention of importing as many millions of Muslims into our country as she possibly can. Although all Muslims are not terrorists they all share the same contempt for non-Muslims and their rights that ISIS exhibits, they just express their contempt in different ways. While Western Leftists glibly declare that ISIS is not Islamic, the scholars at the most prestigious theological university in the Sunni world, Al- Hazar University, refuse to support that claim. They know that ISIS is filed with pious Muslims who can justify everything they do from the Koran and Hadiths. Muslim contempt for non-Muslims is so deeply entrenched into the Koran and Hadiths that no devout Muslim can avoid it. By importing millions of those people who will when the opportunity arises impose Sharia law on the rest of us our fate is sealed just as certainly as the fate of the passengers on flight 93 was sealed.

    Those things I know. Some people expect Europe to be Islamicized within the next 20 to 30 years unless Europe makes drastic changes. If Hilary wins the Islamiziation of the USA will accelerate drastically with massive Muslim immigration and speech codes which protect Islam from criticism. The slide into Islam will be irreversible within a few years, long before Sharia is officially imposed.

26. Thanks this piece Neo. For some reason I’m presently unable to see the other comments (maybe because I’m on my iPhone?) but as I read both of the Flight 93 opinion pieces, Publius’s purposes are to emphasize the seriousness of the existential ‘fix’ the Republic is in (and he freely acknowledges that the name he’s given his ‘call to arms’ is hyperbolic and not intended to be perfect as a metaphor) and to plead the case for those of us who know in our bones that we face a terrible (but clear) binary choice.

    I think his targets in both pieces are some of the ‘purist’ conservative pundits who seem to be doing their best to persuade their readers (and loyal followers) to either not vote in the presidential contest, or vote for HRC, or ‘vote their consciences’ (whatever that means to each individual).

    I particularly enjoyed the “Restatement” he published this past week, in which he zeroes in on the monstrously intrusive, ungovernable Administrative State that now rules over our lives without any oversight or restraint.

    I find his words to be inspirational, but maybe that’s just me. I’m a born and bred southerner with a soft spot in my heart for the Jacksonian streak in American culture.

    Thanks again for your thoughts and analysis of these pieces.

27. Trumpsters don’t seem to realize that Trump is as much of a top-down guy as most Dems. The people who he will supervise as president will figure out ways to flatter him without changing much.

    I am a bottom-up person who thinks that people like Charles Murray and Yuval Levin are right in their analyses of our cultural problems. Like Levin I believe things can only be changed by lots of little bottom-up changes. Of course, big changes in national policies are needed, but unless they are supported by showing those at the bottom end of society that they will have more power and a more satisfying life by trying to solve local problems locally, there will simply be a backlash against heartless Reps in 4 years.

    I’ve been back in the states for almost 4 weeks now, and in that time I’ve observed a lot. I’ll write more about my observations when I’m back home.

28. One other thing I forgot to mention: If Hillary is elected, she will have a strong opposition to her policies. I see that even younger women aren’t happy with her. If Trump wins, will the Trumpsters go along with his every wish or will they stand up to him? Will he push for Ivanka’s maternity leave or will he have to listen to other viewpoints?

    Are the Trumpsters really willing to study issues or do they just want to get back to watching reality TV? Too many people who are now advertising themselves as conservative really seem to want to stomp their feet rather than figuring our good arguments to win over the middle.

29. What expat said.

    It’s also not going to be pretty if/when a Pres. Trump turns against his supporters. Anyone who can actually think and say that POWs are not war heroes because he only likes people who don’t get captured is quite capable of being very nasty toward his supporters once elected. And, of course, of doing the exact opposite of listening to them re their concerns.

30. “Thanks FOR this piece.” Sheesh, sorry for my iphone-assisted typo(s?).
    Back home now (on a real computer and) can read the comments. Good thread and glad to see that everyone’s being civil!

31. Great post by neo and even better comments.

    I line up with Brian B here, “First, his limited use of the Flight 93 metaphor was to frame his simple argument that a Hillary victory represents certain death while a Trump one represents possible survival.”

    And has been noted, Hillary floods the country with more illegals and works a de facto legalization of the current illegals.

    Hillary is both lawless and a criminal and we have many examples. She will violate the constitution in order to increase her power. She will act in her official capacity to make money for herself. Iran, Russia, China and North Korea will all challenge her and she has extremely poor judgment. We get hosed. Iran will have nukes in three years.

    But the biggest problem is she is immune from impeachment. There aren’t enough Dems in the Senate to convict her on impeachment even if there was video evidence. Queen.

    That being said, she’s finished. The deleted emails get leaked and even the NYT will abandon her.

32. Trump’s big selling point is that he’s not Hillary. I doubt very much that his supporters will turn on him if he betrays them. That would mean admitting they were wrong.

33. Matt_SE

    No matter what Trump does, it would have been worse with Hillary. That is the party line that is already well established. No argument can stand against such reasonable logic. /S

34. @ OM:

    Didn’t you hear? If Hillary is elected WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

35. Whether the Russian roulette analogy fits or not, is there any uncertainty that Hillary intends to advance the Left’s agenda as far as possible? Is there any chance that Trump may be less destructive? If so, a small chance beats no chance at all.

    In Publius’ Flight 93 analogy; I take the plane to be the country and Americans the passengers. Hillary and the Left are at the controls and Trump is struggling to take control. But whether he can even fly the airplane and whether he is sincere or not is less relevant than the fact that Hillary and the Left will crash the plane in as destructive a manner as possible.

    Maybe Trump will crash the plane but Hillary will crash the plane.

    “they think that perhaps Trump will take it to a place that will cause even more casualties and more suffering than Hillary would.” neo

    Then they are arguing that a Castro is preferable to a Pinochet…

    “One of the paradoxes–there are so many–of conservative thought over the last decade at least is the unwillingness even to entertain the possibility that America and the West are on a trajectory toward something very bad…” Publius

    “WTF??” Because I barely recognize what he’s talking about, and I spend a lot of time–a lot of time–interacting with conservatives both on this blog and elsewhere.” neo

    Publius rightly asks that if conservatives accept it to be true that “America and the West are on a trajectory toward something very bad…” Then how is it NOT a contradiction to assert that “eight years of Obama can be followed by eight more of Hillary”?

    What logical basis is there to assume that a restoration of our cherished ideals will be possible?

    The basis for that wishful thinking is exactly what Publius points out, “The stakes can’t be that high because they are never that high–except perhaps in the pages of Gibbon. Conservative intellectuals will insist that there has been no “end of history” and that all human outcomes are still possible.” It’s denial plain and simple.

    Which begs the question Publius asks, do you believe “that we are headed off a cliff.”?

    Publius asserts that, “it’s quite obvious that conservatives don’t believe any such thing, that they feel no such sense of urgency, of an immediate necessity to change course and avoid the cliff.”

    “Oh, there’s definitely a group like that… But as far as I can see, the main adherents to that point of view is a small group of pundits” neo

    The conservative pundits arguing in support of voting for Trump are a far smaller group than those arguing against him. But it’s not just pundits. Far fewer celebrities support him than oppose him. Among the Congressmen who do claim to support Trump as the nominee, the vast majority are either silent or offer tepid support in defending Trump from plainly biased criticism.

    So clearly they believe that there will be life after Obama and Hillary, which confirms that they believe that America is not headed over a cliff…

    ““open borders”(Ted Cruz?? No! Fiorina? No) and “endless, pointless, winless war.” Also, the Iraq war was a success by 2011, and only Obama’s abandonment made it a “failure.”

    Do you remember Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck handing out teddy bears at the border? Fiorina didn’t support open borders but one or two candidates opposing open borders is hardly a majority, so arguably the point stands that most GOP candidates did not vigorously oppose open borders.

    Bush stabilized the Iraq war in our favor, to win it would have required staying and acting as the power behind the ‘strong man’ because in Muslim majority societies, it’s a binary choice, rule by Islamist theology or a strong man.

    “One of the Journal of American Greatness’s deeper arguments was that only in a corrupt republic, in corrupt times, could a Trump rise. It is therefore puzzling that those most horrified by Trump are the least willing to consider the possibility that the republic is dying. That possibility, apparently, seems to them so preposterous that no refutation is necessary.”

    Where is the evidence that the republic is NOT dying? And if it is dying, then what shall follow? The Left’s path leads to Castro. Trump’s path may lead to Pinochet. Or he may accomplish some good. But fear of the possibility/probability of a Pinochet path results in going down the Left’s path.

    “the Gramscian march of the left through institutions such as education, the press, religion, TV, film. .. it’s not only a problem, it’s the problem.” neo

    Not quite. The Gramscian March has engineered a population so divorced from morality and common sense… as to elect Obama twice and to now give us the choice of a Trump or Hillary. And that is why, when demographic realities are considered, our near approach to the cliff’s edge is a near certainty.

    Which makes Publius’s main point; “Only three questions matter. First, how bad are things really? Second, what do we do right now? Third, what should we do for the long term?”

    How bad are things really?
    Hail Mary pass time.

    What do we do right now?
    Elect someone willing to break the narrative’s ‘rules’ because… “Law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so, when it violates the right of an individual.” for “When Injustice becomes Law, Resistance becomes Duty” Thomas Jefferson

    What should we do for the long term?
    Change the operative paradigm. Disband and defund federal departments. Pull out of the cesspool known as the UN. Call for an Article V convention. In a constitutional manner, use executive orders to attack the Left’s corruption. Enforce the laws on the books. Shut down the sanctuary cities. End Muslim migration. Prosecute employers of illegals. Rinse and repeat.

36. OM Saysat 9:22 pm

    “No matter what Trump does, it would have been worse with Hillary. That is the party line that is already well established. No argument can stand against such reasonable logic. /S”

    Unless one understands the Trumpsters argument to be that it would be impossible for Trump to do worse than Hillary under any possible circumstances, I’d say their argument is quite reasonable. In view of Hillary’s terrible track record, Trump would have to be very bad indeed to do more damage than her. I’m not sure which rule of logic they are supposed to be violating.

37. Cruz ’24!

38. Big Maq,

    “If she’s president, it’ll be like well, here we go again, business as usual. I think I could live with that better than the alternative.” Frank Luntz commenter

    “There’s a sucker born every minute” PT Barnum

    “It is a Gramscian march, not a 400 yard dash.”

    Marches have an end point. Paradigm changes have a tipping point.

    “one has to ignore a LOT about trump… to say he is anywhere near a “clearly better” alternative.”

    Not the “clearly better” alternative. The only alternative that avoids the Hillary ‘alternative’. Despite the literal mountain of evidence, you cling to the position that we can ignore demographic realities and survive another 8 years because “Things-Are-Really-Bad–But-Not-So-Bad-that-We-Have-to-Consider-Anything-Really-Different!” Publius

    [I] “Heard very similar arguments in 2008 and 2012 wrt obama and the left, yet, here we are. Not better, by any means.”

    Your logic; since it didn’t happen under Obama… it can’t happen under Hillary.

    “What seems much more realistic is what we see in Canada, UK, France, Switzerland, etc. These countries are several years (if not a generation or so) down the Gramscian path. Terrible — no. Desirable — no.”

    Except for Switzerland (not an EU member) all are appeasing their Muslims and allowing more in… London’s new Muslim Mayor is an apologist for Islam and Calais ring any bells? The EU moving to create a greater United Federal States of Europe run by unelected bureaucrats, who’ve been issuing thousands of draconian regulations while pushing for the creation of a ‘European’ army… raising any faint alarms?

    “Only true if folks give up hope, and won’t bother to engage and try to convince others, believing people uniformly behave in voting blocs and cannot change.”

    It’s not that they can’t change, it’s that they refuse to face reality. What’s your track record in turning liberals into a conservative POV? How many people change their world view? You’re denying human nature and whistling past the graveyard.

39. Those who know the future (with absolute certainty) must find those who don’t most irritating. Oh, I forget the “knowers” have told the others many times. 🙂

    How’s this for an impossible rule: “Unless one understands the Trumpsters argument to be that it would be impossible for Trump to do worse than Hillary under any possible circumstances….”

    Constrain the argument to what is “possible” and what is “impossible” in the future and you are on easy street.

40. GB:

    “Except for Switzerland (not an EU member) all are appeasing their Muslims and allowing more in… ”

    You seem to have forgotten those barbed wire fences that Macedonia and Hungary have erected. Funny thing how memory serves, or not. I don’t think “all” means what you say it means.

41. OM Says:

    “Constrain the argument to what is “possible” and what is “impossible” in the future and you are on easy street.”

    The argument I was commenting on was that the Trumpsters are somehow being illogical. I’m not sure which rules of logic they are violating when they claim that Hillary is so bad that it is highly unlikely that Trump will be as bad.

42. Mus

43. Djt is a progressive and wants to join Teddy on Mount Rushmore. It is not a matter of charging the cockpit. Djt has already hijacked the gop airliner and crash it in the next yuge new deal. Post the donald apocalyspe a new movement must rise from the ashes. I changed my registration weeks ago. I want a new party that won’t make me feel sick.

44. Wooly Bully @ 4:19 pm,

    The fable of the little dutch boy and the dike comes to mind.

    Matt_SE

    “It’s a high-pressure sales tactic; … I have no doubt that many Trump voters believe it, but that doesn’t make it true.”

    None of us are clairvoyants, of course we may be mistaken. What if we are not?

    Extend to us what you demand from us, a sincerely held difference in opinion.

    Stubbs,

    “We, today, do not know we will die after the election, and we do not know what the aftermath will be.”

    True we do not KNOW. However, we do know that individual liberty under the Left is always subsumed to the good of the collective. We do know what they believe for they proclaim it from every venue. We do know of the inherent flaws in their philosophy and where that leads. We do know of America’s decline and moral dissolution. We do know and see the demographic trends and where mathematically they lead.

    If all of that does not lead to a high probability that cannot be ignored, then I can only conclude that willful blindness is in play.

    Matt_SE @ 5:54 pm,

    “Publius’ article was one giant straw man argument. Imputing positions to people who don’t hold them, holding people responsible for things they didn’t do.

    Again, this comes from the echo chamber nature of the alt-right. They can’t even name the conservatives in Congress.”

    Calling it a strawman argument doesn’t demonstrate it to be one. He imputes positions to some conservatives because logically to argue that we can survive another 8 years, implicitly states that things are not that bad.

    Once again, please state the actual conservatives in Congress.

    BillR,

    I believe that to be a probability given Hillary’s health.

    expat,

    The people at the bottom will never choose self-reliance, they are far too comfortable in their victimhood.

    “If Hillary is elected, she will have a strong opposition to her policies.”

    I’ll be happily surprised should that occur, as I expect the opposite.

    Should he win, I expect the Trumpsters to go along with him no matter what he proposes. They’re looking for a savior.

    “Didn’t you hear? If Hillary is elected WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!” Matt_SE

    Not at all! Just start to prepare yourself to live on your knees in a politically correct State. Stand up and they’ll crush you. Legally of course. IRS, hate speech laws through UN treaties, etc. etc. As for private property, remember you didn’t build that. As “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one” – Spock

45. OM,

    I stand corrected. Eastern Europe is indeed resisting the onslaught. FWIW, the error was unintentional.

46. GB,

    To paraphrase: we do not know but. That is your argument. Ok, BUT it is a rather weak argument IMO. What we do know about djt is he has a history as a NYC progressive, now he is all over the compass spinning in his own magnetic field until elected (if) and then he can go full boogie. You have doubts, I am certain. I may be wrong, but you too. What is obvious to me is either choice leads to the same place with one being 100% awful and the other being 99.5%.

    Yes, we know hrc is awful on progressive estrogen, but you seem fail to see djt is awful on progressive testosterone.

47. Brian B:

    How strange that you think my problem with Publius is that he didn’t extend a metaphor. I really don’t know how you could read this piece and come up with the idea that I thought not extending a metaphor was the important thing.

    Publius used a metapor, and I took the same metaphor and showed not just why the metaphor was inappropriate, but why his entire piece ignored what’s really going on with people who don’t want to vote for Trump. It’s the latter that’s important, not the metaphor.

    To be as clear and direct as I can be about it:

    Yes, it’s a bad metaphor—but since he wanted to use the metaphor to convince the reader of something, I extended the same metaphor to show what was wrong with the thought behind it. The innapropriate metaphor was the smallest problem here. The bigger problems—and the ones my post tackled and pointed out—are with the error in thought behind the metaphor and many other parts of the essay as well. The problem is with the point the author is trying to make, with his evaluation of Trump vis a vis the other candidates (Hillary and/or the 16 GOP candidates), and with his discussion of what the GOP members of Congress have done. Errors of fact and errors of judgment are much more important than errors of analogy (which also exist in the essay).

48. Geoffrey Britain:

    You write:

    Whether the Russian roulette analogy fits or not, is there any uncertainty that Hillary intends to advance the Left’s agenda as far as possible? Is there any chance that Trump may be less destructive? If so, a small chance beats no chance at all.

    You are ignoring something. It’s something people who disagree with you have stated many many times. It’s also the same thing Publius ignores in his essay. It is that your argument stops at the halfway point. The part you are ignoring is this: is there any chance that Trump may be MORE destructive? The answer those who disagree with you give is “Yes, quite a good chance.”

    Again, I understand you don’t agree with them. Or perhaps you’d say “Yes, but the chance is so small as to be infinitesimal.” Or perhaps you would say “Yes, there is a chance, but as I weigh the entire picture I think the chances are better that he’d be better than Hillary as opposed to worse.”

    People who are against Trump evaluate the chances differently. But it’s a judgment call. There is nothing obvious about any of this. You don’t know. They don’t know.

49. Big Maq:

    That Brandon Morse quote is basically saying much the same thing about Trump that Obama said about himself in his “blank screen” quote.

50. Geoffrey Britain:

    As for Cruz and his teddy bears, I could not care less. He actually did a lot to prove his bona fides and strength on immigration issues, as you would see if you read quite a few posts I’ve written about him on this blog. What’s more, I could counter with: what about Trump and his criticism of Romney as being mean with his self-deportation? What about Trump’s support of the Gang of 8? What about his support of the dreamers? I’ve written about all those things on this blog; I don’t have time to look them up and link to them again and again and again.

51. Geoffrey Britain Says: “Wooly Bully @ 4:19 pm,
    The fable of the little dutch boy and the dike comes to mind.”

    The fable of the little boy who cried “Wolf!” comes to my mind. And Chicken Little.

52. neo-neoncon says:

    You [Geoffrey Britain] are ignoring something. It’s something people who disagree with you have stated many many times. It’s also the same thing Publius ignores in his essay. It is that your argument stops at the halfway point. The part you are ignoring is this: is there any chance that Trump may be MORE destructive? The answer those who disagree with you give is “Yes, quite a good chance.”

    I think its the people who are willing to live with Hillary as president that are going only part way with their argument. There is every likelihood that Hillary will be bad, very very bad. She’s already proved that with her Benghazi judgement, her scapegoating a video maker, her using her office for pay for play, her destroying email messages in the face of a subpoena, her constant lying. (See, e.g., Cornhead’s comment above.)

    So, there is barely any room for anyone to be worse than Hillary is likely to be. Therefore, the chances that Trump would be more destructive than Hillary actually are infinitesimal.

53. GB,

    There is the dark side and then there is the dark side. Same coin, same dark side of the dark side. Choose djt or hrc joining Teddy on Mount Rushmore. No choice at all. You want to believe there is a slivver of light on the djt dark side. More power to your imagination.

    Me, more primers, bullets, powder, dehydrated food, firewood, in our last stand retreat up north. Going up there next week to buy a few cords for storage and touch bases with old northwoods friends. A country boy can survive.

54. Neo, I like your analysis and quick disposal of the Flight ’93 article, and especially the use of “WTF” which is appropriate when dealing with lame arguments from the alt-right.

55. The problem with the Flight 93 analogy is that on Flight 93, all the passengers were apparently in agreement on what was happening, and what their choices were. The hijacking happened right in front of their eyes. Some of them had learned what had happened in New York. They had solidarity.

    There is no agreement or solidarity in this election.

    A better analogy would be a situation similar to some combination of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 and/or Germanwings Flight 9525. In both of these instances, members of the flight crew themselves appear to have gone off course and deliberately crashed their planes.

    In this scenario, the flight appears to be at first proceeding as usual, but halfway through the flight, one passenger — Mister Dee — has become agitated and started telling the other passengers that the plane is off course and descending at an alarming rate. He declares that the pilot intends to crash the plane, and the only way for the passengers to save themselves is to join him in breaking down the cockpit door, removing the pilot, and allowing HIM to attempt to fly and land the plane, despite the fact that Mister Dee has never flown a plane before.

    The passengers are concerned and alarmed, both by the possibility that something is wrong and by the drastic measures proposed. But Mister Dee is not alone. Other passengers who have flown this flight regularly can confirm that the plane does appear to be off course, and does seem to be flying way closer to the ground than they have ever experienced before. Eventually a point is reached where Mister Dee has successfully convinced half the passengers to join him in storming the cockpit, and together they have nearly broken the door down, to the horror of the other half of the passengers who simply can’t accept that their pilot would ever do such a thing and that Mister Dee is a madman who is going to get them all killed. The unconvinced half of the passengers are now completely and justifiably freaking out.

    The passengers are now divided between those who are utterly convinced that they must break down the cockpit door at all costs and replace the pilot with Mister Dee, and those who are equally convinced that this is all delusional madness, and that the only way to save the plane and their own lives is to stop Mister Dee and his supporters at all costs. Those mountain peaks seem awfully close, but perhaps the pilot has just changed course to avoid bad weather. Maybe so or maybe not, but no matter what happens they’ll all find out soon enough. What do they have to lose? Except for everything?

    And that’s my analogy for where we are at this point in the election. How do the passengers find a common ground? Is there even a common ground? As usual, our Presidential election has come down to trust. Who do you trust more? Or more accurately, who do you trust less? Perhaps the blame for the situation lies with the flight crew, for flying low and off-course and scaring the passengers, but that doesn’t really help the passengers make their decision, does it?

56. Hardly anything short of civil war will stop Gramshians. Even Reagan revolution failed to do this. But conservative cultural revolution and political activism were greatly boosted by Trump campaign, and its consequences will be felt long after election whatever their result will be. I also hope that Trump presidency will be even more destructive: the whole present political edifice must crush and burn before any constructive activity can begin.

57. The fatal illusion of progress on which all religion of Progressivism is founded must be demonstrated as total failure before recovery from Enlightenment madness can begin. Nothing short of total collapse of economy and civil order can accomplish this.

58. Ira Says at 12:21 am:

    “So, there is barely any room for anyone to be worse than Hillary is likely to be. Therefore, the chances that Trump would be more destructive than Hillary actually are infinitesimal.”

    Your point is well stated. I believe Neo is arguing that there were other candidates who would have been much better than Trump, and I agree with her heartily on that score. We are apparently still fighting the primary here and unfortunately the primary is over.

    The problem for everyone is that we have reached the point that we are forced to choose between Hilary and Trump. Knowing how bad Hilary is, between the two the odds are that Trump will be the better president.

    The fact that Hilary has put about a quarter of Americans in her basket of deplorables and has since doubled down on that statement should be enough to convince everyone that she will destroy the country. She has placed sensible people who fear Islam, “Islamophobes” according to her, in her basket of deplorables right along with racists. That is enough for me. Her basket of deplorables – “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic” – is the typical leftist list of thought crimes. There is no reasoning with that type of slander.

    When one examines her statement, what she has actually given us is a list of the lefts victims – their protected classes – who deserve special treatment and who must not ever be criticized under penalty of law. Brown people, homosexuals, foreigners, and Muslims. Please note that Jews are not included in her list of untouchables because if Jews were protected there would be no room for her Muslims since they slander Jews every day in their worship.

    Excluding Jews is not enough since Islam also persecutes homosexuals and women but no problem Islam is now the king of the heap and outranks all the other protected classes so when Muslims persecute women, homosexuals, and brown people that is OK. In addition to Jews who are left unprotected, note that the genocide of Christians in the Middle East and the Yazidis don’t even rate a mention by her since their persecutors are Muslims.

    Islam has declared war on Western Civilization and Hilary is on their side against us. In other words she is a traitor. So what are the chances that Donald Trump will be worse? In my opinion she has set the bar so low that it would be very difficult for him to be worse.

59. Well, this seems like the perfect theme song for this thread:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eqbcFHTtok

60. Interesting thread. Especially interesting is this.

    “is there any chance that Trump may be MORE destructive? The answer those who disagree with you give is “Yes, quite a good chance.”

    The host seems to be preparing herself for submission.

    I pretty much agree with BrianB.

61. It is interesting that those who think Hilary is worse than Trump can list ways in which Hilary will be a disaster. Those who claim that Trump will be worse have not elaborated about the perceived evils which Trump will inflict on the nation which we will avoid with Hilary. In my opinion, until we have that list the discussion is limited to to people emoting.

62. Constitution Day came and went — largely and as usual without much notice: but by God, that Trump and the awful big deal he made of the occasion!

    Right? Just wouldn’t quit talking about the loathsome document for a minute the entire day! Incessantly brought it up in non-sequitur after non-sequitur in every press availability he held. He just wouldn’t shut up about for a single second! What a ghastly performance. On and on about The Federalist Papers, blah blah blah blah blah.

    Please, give it a rest Donald.

    Her Royal Highness, on the other hand — and much to the delight and enjoyment of her onlookers — hadn’t a word to say about paper worship. Words. Just words: so much tripe.

63. Reading suggestion: Robert Gates’s essay in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal. (I put up a search link to it on my site.)

    Gates is quite specific in his criticism of both candidates.

    Gates is another example of a pattern I have noticed: Social issues conservatives tend to think Hillary is obviously worse than Trump; national security conservatives tend to think that Trump is worse than Clinton. For some abortion is the key issue, for others, nuclear war.

    There are exceptions among both groups, of course; for example there are social conservatives who think a president should have a less appalling character than Trump does, but I do think there is that pattern. (And have some sympathy for both groups.)

64. Terminology suggestion: There is considerable disagreement on what to call the followers of Trump; you see Trumpians, Trumpers, Trumpsters, Trumkins, Trumpites, and so on.

    I prefer “Trumpistas”, because it captures the personal nature of his appeal and the hyper-masculine strutting — which always makes me wonder whether the man can actually perform. It is a leadership style that is common in Latin American countries; it isn’t hard to find similarities between Trump and the late Hugo Chavez, for example.

    (Bagehot was right, way back in the 19th century, about the reasons this kind of appeal can be so strong.)

65. I call them “Trumpeters”, “Trumpeteers”–a la, “Mouseketeers”–or “Trump chumps”, depending on how insulting I want to be. I only use these terms for those who are enthusiastic for Trump; if you would hold your nose while voting for him, I wouldn’t consider you a “Trump chump”.

66. Mike K:

67. Mike K:

    “The host seems to be preparing herself for submission.”

    Pretty rude, bro you are a visitor in her “house.”

    One could say you have submitted to a petty caudillo.

68. @ GB:

    Do you remember Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck handing out teddy bears at the border?

    Yes, I do. It was a fine demonstration of Christian compassion and goodness that had ZERO IMPACT on the illegals’ status.
    We can deport them without being dicks about it.

69. P.S. This is an important point, too: it seems that Trumpkins insist on making it painful for illegals. They don’t care about correct policy, what they want is REVENGE.

    That bodes ill for their characters and intentions. But cheerleaders think it sounds like a fine idea to elect to power a bunch of puppy-kickers.
    That won’t work out the way you think it will.

70. Matt_SE:

    That was another low point in the primary; how the Trumpistas ignored Christian compassion to score points (being total dorks) in the attack on Beck and Cruz. More an illustration of Trumpista values IMO.

71. @ GB:

    Your logic; since it didn’t happen under Obama… it can’t happen under Hillary.

    Straw man.
    The word “can’t” is an absolute. It can happen, we just give it a very low probability…like 1% chance. Hillary is not well-liked as Obama, and she doesn’t have the shield of being Black. Some will say Feminism will be used the same way, and I assume they’ll try, but it isn’t as effective and everybody knows it.

    As I said in a previous post, a Democrat’s power comes from likability. If they’re charismatic, the herd will forgive anything. Hillary isn’t.

    Therefore, it is reasonable to assume she will be much less powerful than Obama.

72. Geoffrey Britain Says:

    The fable of the little dutch boy and the dike comes to mind.

    It’s funny you should say that, because I was just thinking about it wrt a Trump presidency: if he 100% solves illegal immigration by spending $5 trillion, the US will collapse from the latter instead of the former.
    If he solves illegal immigration without busting the budget, but then gets America hooked on “free” healthcare, same problem. Disaster will just take a little longer.
    If he solves illegal immigration, doesn’t bust the budget, doesn’t promote governmental dependence, but orders US troops to commit war crimes or nukes somebody…

    Not much point plugging one hole if another springs up.

    The thing about Trump is, his character is rotten. So it’s probable that he’ll do *something* screwy, it’s just a matter of what.

73. Cornhead says: …”I line up with BrianB here…”

    Me too.

    Big Maq says: …”Paradigm changes have a tipping point…”

    Sergey says: “Hardly anything short of civil war will stop Gramshians. Even Reagan revolution failed to do this. But conservative cultural revolution and political activism were greatly boosted by Trump campaign…”

    Dennis says: “…The problem for everyone is that we have reached the point that we are forced to choose between Hilary and Trump. ..”

    I have looked in vain for an in-depth discussion of “strike while the iron is hot.”

    I have been out and “amongst ’em” with potential voters, so I have perhaps a better “feel” for what is happening in this election than those (be careful here) who …let’s see…have not had very much contact with actual potential voters they did not know before this election.

    What I see missing from this discussion – except for Sergey – is someone pointing out that the cats are ready to be herded long enough to vote for Trump.

    For over 50 years I have heard Conservatives moaning that their arguments are falling on deaf ears and that various things are resulting in the gramscian rise. In this election, the fates have handed them a hammer and wonder of wonders a nail ready to be nailed (Hillary).

    Yes, the hammer is not a chrome-plated, 16 oz. Sears Craftsman model with a solid oak handle and a nice canvas carrying case suitable to be strapped onto one’s Conservative carpenter’s apron, I’ll admit that.

    When again will all of these non-voting voters be in the booths and ready to push the Republican button?

    Put on some latex gloves, pick up the slimy, paper mache hammer (read voting handle) and pull it for someone who actually has a chance of winning (mentally go over the list of Republican losers of the past -every one a victim of the Democratic October Surprise that scared the cats – whose votes we need – away from voting).

    The cats are ready to vote. When will they be ready to do so again if this effort fails and adds further to their disenchantment?

74. parker,

    “What is obvious to me is either choice leads to the same place with one being 100% awful and the other being 99.5%.”

    That MAY well be true and of course I may be entirely wrong. But! We do NOT know that will happen. Either to the degree (99.5%) nor even that he will “go full boogie”. Possibilities and assumed probabilities are not certainties. Given that Hillary is a certainty, the choice is a simple one. And yes, that ‘simple choice’ sucks.

75. @ GB:

    Once again, please state the actual conservatives in Congress.

    Let’s keep this short and just name the conservative Senators. GOP Senators who voted both against the Gang of Eight Senate bill AND the Export-Import Bank re-authorization.

    That list contains 26 GOP Senators, but also a few whom I know aren’t conservative ( I assume this is due to strategic voting). These RINOs will have asterisks next to their names:

    Senator Jeff Sessions

    Senator Richard Shelby

    Senator Dan Sullivan

    Senator John Boozman

    Senator Tom Cotton

    Senator Cory Gardner

    Senator David Perdue

    Senator Mike Crapo

    Senator Jim Risch

    Senator Mitch McConnell **********************

    Senator Rand Paul

    Senator Bill Cassidy

    Senator Dave Vitter

    Senator Steve Daines

    Senator Deb Fischer

    Senator Ben Sasse

    Senator Thom Tillis

    Senator Jim Inhofe

    Senator James Lankford

    Senator Pat Toomey

    Senator John Thune

    Senator John Cornyn ***

    Senator Ted Cruz

    Senator Mike Lee

    Senator Shelley Moore Capito

    Senator John Barrasso

    There’s your list of conservatives, at a first approximation. I assume the actual list is smaller than that.

76. neo,

    “The part you are ignoring is this: is there any chance that Trump may be MORE destructive? The answer those who disagree with you give is “Yes, quite a good chance.”

    I assure you I haven’t ignored it. In fact, I have given long thought to their argument. Instead, I have discounted it. I have done so because even if a probability, it is NOT a certainty and Hillary is a ‘cast in iron’ certainty.

    So they are arguing that what ‘might/probably will be’ even worse… should have greater weight in the decision making process than what Hillary will bring (IMO given demographic realities) i.e. the effective end of individual liberty and the unrestrained domination of the collective.

    And, they are ignoring the fact that in refusing to vote for Trump because they are ‘certain’ he will be even worse, they effectively condemn the nation to a slower but just as certain death.

    That perception rests upon two assumptions; things-are-really-not-that-bad (Publius) and their ‘certainty’ that Trump will behave as they fear.

    Which BTW, ties in well with the Russian roulette analogy. In that analogy, Trump’s revolver may have bullets in every chamber but one, making the probability of suicide a near certainty. On the other hand, Hillary is a 12 gauge shotgun placed a foot from your head. Certainty VS near certainty. Thus the Hail Mary pass analogy…

77. @ Ira, et. al.:

    So, there is barely any room for anyone to be worse than Hillary is likely to be. Therefore, the chances that Trump would be more destructive than Hillary actually are infinitesimal.

    You’re missing another part of the problem:
    It’s possible for Trump to be better than Hillary, but still destroy the opposition to Democrats by not being GOOD ENOUGH.

    GWB was better than Gore, but not good enough to prevent the election of Obama. Obama was elected on a wave of anti-Bushism. Some of it was deserved.

78. neo-neocon @ 12:01 am,

    Well said, I yield the point. BTW, despite the teddy bear episode, my support for Cruz remained and even now, remains.

    Wooly Bully @ 12:04 am,

    Point taken, time will tell which fable reality chooses.

    parker,

    “You want to believe there is a slivver of light on the djt dark side.”

    You mistake recognizing that there MAY be a sliver of light on the djt dark side with ‘wanting to believe’. There simply is NO sliver of light on the hrc dark side. Certainty VS the possibility “a sliver of light” leaves no other choice.

    As you know, I fully support your preparations. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome” because the first casualty in war is your ‘plan’.

    jms,

    Interesting and on the face of it, a better analogy.

79. Ira:

    If you think there’s almost no room for Trump to be worse than Hillary, then you lack imagination.

    You (or even I) may not think he would be worse. But there are many ways in which he could be worse, and I’ve written posts that mention, describe, and give some evidence for them.

80. A few thoughts

    First, the Flight 93 analogy, or general “The country is OVER if HRC is elected” is hyperbolic propaganda. It’s just like the oft-repeated “We don’t know what he’ll do, but we KNOW FOR CERTAIN what she’ll do”. I don’t know where these originated but I see them everywhere. It’s propaganda, both designed to scare people into voting for someone they don’t want to vote for. Often times they are prefaced with the “I didn’t support him, I supported Cruz or [whoever] but . . .”

    Oh, to have some Trump voters who believe his words and support his policies whole-heartedly. I won’t vote for him. but this having it both ways stuff . . .

    Secondly, one attractive thing about HRC (about the only thing – I’m not voting for her, btw) is that she is an AWFUL politician. In a normal election season she would have no chance of winning. In a normal election where she did win, she’d still have a likely Republican congress intact and not be able to get a lot done. Does anyone really think she has 1/20th of B. Clinton’s or Obama’s ability to sway the masses to their side? Unfortunately, in this election, she still has a good chance of winning and even a decent chance of having a lot of Republicans lose their seats, giving her a blue Congress, depending on if DJT starts arguing that America never landed on the moon or that GWB personally pushed the button exploding the bombs planted in the World Trade Center or says “F you San Diego” or whatever. Could happen (I still think he’ll probably win, because that’s the way my 2016 has gone).

    He’s demonstrated a fairly frightening ability to sway the masses through propaganda, demagoguery, Pepe-the-frog white supremacist signaling from some of his loyal alt-right sycophants, etc. I hate to admit it but Scott Adams was probably right. So he may have the ability to get his way better than HRC has to get hers. His way won’t, by the way, be the policy stances his supporters have bought hook line and sinker as they change. The only consistency about Trump is a) his loyalty to his family and his businesses b) his disdain for women (unless they are young and hot and on the Trump train) c) his unmitigated admiration for strength and success in people like Putin, etc. d) pretty significant ignorance of the Constitution and the way our government works, and e) his winking, plausibly deniable encouragement of alt-right racism

    So that’s what I think we should expect from a Trump presidency. He will do whatever he can to enrich his family and his businesses, he will continue to mistreat women verbally, except for the Trump-train hotties, he will emulate what he admires most in dictatorial leaders around the world while expanding his own power as much as possible regardless of what the Constitution says, and continue to empower Alt-right goons as long as they help him out. Many of them will end up in positions of power in our government.

    With HRC, the conservative movement (those who believe in limited government, personal responsibility, opportunity, etc) has a decent chance of being an effective loyal opposition (because she will be a pretty ineffective President). With Trump the conservative movement will be marginalized (while ironically also being blamed for his misdeeds). Good luck with all that.

    Yes, I do. It was a fine demonstration of Christian compassion and goodness that had ZERO IMPACT on the illegals’ status.
    We can deport them without being dicks about it.

    Matt_SE – well said.

81. Dennis Says:

    It is interesting that those who think Hilary is worse than Trump can list ways in which Hilary will be a disaster. Those who claim that Trump will be worse have not elaborated about the perceived evils which Trump will inflict on the nation which we will avoid with Hilary. In my opinion, until we have that list the discussion is limited to to people emoting.

    Here, buddy. Let me help you out with that:
    Trump is a man of low character, lack of self-control, petty vindictiveness, and kooky conspiracy theories. When all restraint is removed from him while occupying the White House, these negative traits will be given free rein.

    Any Trump backers who are horrified by whatever it is Trump is doing will self-censor. If they admit they were had, it will make them look like rubes.
    So right off the bat, you can count the death of truth as a result of Trump’s election. (no conservatives/GOP will make excuses for Hillary, by contrast)

    In fact, we’re already seeing it now. Trump proposes welfare expansion and supposedly small government conservatives are making excuses for it. “Oh, maybe he doesn’t really mean it. Oh, we’ll be able to convince him to drop this once in office.”

    There are denials about the nature and influence of the alt-right on his campaign. As I’ve said about every other movement, if the extremists can’t be controlled by the moderates, then the moderates are useless.

    In a nutshell, the danger of a Trump presidency is that he drags the nation leftward because IT IS A REPUBLICAN DOING THE DRAGGING.
    We’ll all wake up one day and discover that we’ve triumphed over ourselves. We finally love Big Brother.

    And that’s not even touching on the objective horribleness of whatever actions he takes…

82. Geoffrey Britain:

    You write:

    I assure you I haven’t ignored [the argument that Trump could be worse than Hillary]. In fact, I have given long thought to their argument. Instead, I have discounted it. I have done so because even if a probability, it is NOT a certainty and Hillary is a ‘cast in iron’ certainty.

    But I didn’t mean you ignored the argument in your own mind. I don’t read your mind. I meant (and I think this should have been obvious, but if not I’m making it obvious right now) that you ignored it when you argued for your own point of view here. It is not persuasive to ignore the point of view of those you are arguing against and trying to persuade—that is, to simply “discount” their reasoning and arguments because in your mind “the science is settled.”

    That’s the same as ignoring it in the debate sense. That’s what I’m talking about.

    I will try one more time to explain to you the logic of those who disagree with you.

    You write:

    So they are arguing that what ‘might/probably will be’ even worse… should have greater weight in the decision making process than what Hillary will bring (IMO given demographic realities) i.e. the effective end of individual liberty and the unrestrained domination of the collective.

    They believe that it is not 100% certain that Hillary will bring “the effective end of individual liberty.” They also believe there is a very good chance that Trump would do the same (I’ve written posts about this and I’m not going to take the time to find and link them right now)—probably a lesser chance, but not an insignificant chance at all. And they believe the chances of Trump leading to some sort of international crisis that is devastating is much greater, and that such a crisis could be catastrophic in nature. So they’re crunching a completely different set of numbers/possibilities/probabilities than you are.

    Of course you don’t agree with them. They don’t agree with you. They don’t agree with your premises and you don’t agree with theirs. They have good reasons to believe what they believe; it’s not some sort of frivolous madness. No one know if you are right or if they are right.

    You make a host of assumptions about what is obvious. It’s not obvious and true just because you think it is. Those who disagree are neither stupid nor imperceptive. But do you ever wonder why almost nothing you say here on this particular topic is persuasive? It’s because you discount the arguments to the contrary rather than engaging them and tackling them, you are condescending to them, and you state your opinions as though they are self-evident truths.

83. OM Says:

    That was another low point in the primary; how the Trumpistas ignored Christian compassion to score points (being total dorks) in the attack on Beck and Cruz. More an illustration of Trumpista values IMO.

    And then I’ve seen a few of the more rabid shitwits call people “Beckian-Cruzian cultists” for displaying Christian virtues. This is a worrisome part of Trumpism: the abandonment of decency.
    Once you start dehumanizing people, I think we know where that leads.

84. notherbob2 Says:

    I have looked in vain for an in-depth discussion of “strike while the iron is hot.”

    Better to do nothing than doing the wrong thing.

85. “national security conservatives tend to think that Trump is worse than Clinton.” Jim Miller

    I’m greatly interested in the ‘big picture’, consider myself a national security conservative and recognize that Trump MAY lead us into conflict. Hillary will, just as Obama has done, avoid conflict through surrender. The bad guys avoid fighting the strong, they prey upon the weak.

    Matt_SE,

    “It was a fine demonstration of Christian compassion and goodness that had ZERO IMPACT on the illegals’ status.
    We can deport them without being dicks about it.”

    I partially agree. It was a mistaken demonstration of Christian compassion and goodness because they didn’t simultaneously say, “but they still have to go”. I’m a strong advocate of creating the conditions that lead to self-deportation. No jobs + no benefits = self-deportation.

    “we just give it a very low probability…like 1% chance. Hillary is not well-liked as Obama, and she doesn’t have the shield of being Black.”

    That statement is a clear indication of a failure to identify the enemy. Hillary is a figurehead. The enemy is the Left’s ideology. Which is why, given demographic realities and the current state of the Left’s Gramscian March through and entrenchment within America’s major and most influential Institutions… assigning it a 1% (!) chance of reaching a tipping point is sheer willful blindness.

    “The thing about Trump is, his character is rotten. So it’s probable that he’ll do *something* screwy, it’s just a matter of what.”

    Perhaps you’re right. Whereas Hillary’s rotten character… with NO ‘possibility’ of being less destructive, is the ‘better’ choice?

    notherbob2,

    Reality is driving voters toward Trump. Yesterday’s knife attack in a mall upon eight people by an “Allah Akbar!” (my god is greater than yours) screaming monster. Saturday night’s dumpster bomb in NYC injuring 29 and the bomb in the trash can intended to wound at the marine charity walk will do far more to persuade than any rhetoric we might offer.

    Hillary questioned by the press, started by calling it a bombing and then, criticized Trump for calling it a bombing. Illness that leads to incompetence + denial of an increasing reality is a deadly combination for self-defeat in a politician.

86. neo-neocon Says:
    September 18th, 2016 at 2:00 pm
    Ira:

    If you think there’s almost no room for Trump to be worse than Hillary, then you lack imagination.

    You (or even I) may not think he would be worse. But there are many ways in which he could be worse, and I’ve written posts that mention, describe, and give some evidence for them.

    I have read most of those posts, and commented with respect to some.

    I believe that the speculations about how bad Trump might be would work just as well with Hillary’s name substituted for Trump’s, and with more actual evidence supporting the likelihood that those speculations apply better to Hillary.

87. Dennis:

    Read my posts about Trump and you will find plenty of possibilities for that list.

    I suggest this, this, this, this, this, and this, for starters.

88. Geoffrey Britain:

    You might want to refresh your memory by reading the posts in my comment to Dennis right above this one, too.

89. Mike K:

    How you get “submission” out of anything I wrote is a complete and utter puzzlement.

    Just stating it doesn’t make it so.

90. @ neo-neocon:

    The imminent dhimmitude of the West is part of the alt-right fantasy world. I think that’s what he was referring to.

91. Ira:

    You have your opinion, other people have theirs, and many people believe (with good cause) that Trump would be worse than she, particularly on foreign policy.

    Besides, your answer that Hillary could be as bad does not answer the point I was making, which is that you had said there was almost no room for Trump to be worse than Hillary. There’s plenty of room. You just don’t believe he would be worse. The fact that Hillary might be as bad or even worse in all those areas is irrelevant.

92. ‘politics is downstream from culture’

    And what is culture downstream from? That is the key.

93. Matt_SE says: “Better to do nothing than doing the wrong thing.”

    Really? It is a nice slogan, but when applied to this circumstance? Try applying it when your auto is going off a cliff.

    Let us hope that many Democrats agree with you and stay home on election day.

    Of course, the issue in this election is: If we do the wrong thing (whatever that turns out to be) which wrong thing is the most correctable?

    Us Supreme Court

    Talk about one’s fantasy world.

    Actually, it is the combination of the dominoes that the Democrats have stacked up in the Federal court system with the capper being a compliant Supreme Court that is frightening. Hello Europe

    Good luck coming back from that.

94. notherbob2 Says:

    Matt_SE says: “Better to do nothing than doing the wrong thing.”

    Really? It is a nice slogan, but when applied to this circumstance? Try applying it when your auto is going off a cliff.

    The problem with your analogy, as we keep returning to, is that it postulates a situation where disaster is already a certainty. Indeed, at that point it doesn’t matter what you do.

    Come to think of it, maybe you’ve hit on the perfect analogy for this election:
    “Election 2016: it doesn’t matter what you do, we’re screwed either way.”

    Not the message you were going for?

95. Culture is downstream from Immanuel Kant, who in turn is downstream from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, et alia, thereafter into the mists of the metaphysicians and dogmatists.

96. notherbob2 Says:

    Of course, the issue in this election is: If we do the wrong thing (whatever that turns out to be) which wrong thing is the most correctable?

    Us Supreme Court

    The death of conservatism for the next 40 years.

    I guess it depends on your viewpoint but then, Trumpkins are usually the first to declare their hatred of conservatives. I suppose they don’t care what happens to our movement.

97. Matt_SE,

    Thanks for providing that list. I agree that the Senators are sufficient, since they are frequently the final hurdle in the passage of legislation that a President favors. I also applaud your recognition that not all of those Senators are reliable conservatives in their votes.

    Speaking of reliability, Conservative Review has issued the following ratings:
    Senator Shelley Moore Capito F31%, Senator Thom Tillis F38%, Senator Mitch McConnell F42%, Senator Cory Gardner F44%, Senator John Cornyn F44%, Senator John Thune F46%, Senator Bill Cassidy F50%, Senator John Barrasso F52%, Senator Dan Sullivan F56%, Senator Deb Fischer F57%, Senator John Boozman F58%…

    Those 11 Senators vote less than 60% of the time in support of conservative legislation. So your list of 26 conservatives is reduced to 15. Leaving more often than not 85 Senators in support of Hillary. She’ll get everything they can get through the House and her SCOTUS picks will have enough support.

    In contrast, Rand Paul gets a 94% rating, Jeff Sessions a 78% rating and “radical roots” Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary’s VP pick gets a 0%(!) conservative rating. If Hillary is elected, her illness makes probable that Kaine will become President.

98. neo-neocon Says at 2:30 pm
    Dennis:

    “Read my posts about Trump and you will find plenty of possibilities for that list.”

    My challenge was to find something which Trump will do which is WORSE than what Hilary has done or will almost certainly do.

    1. Censor the press? What about the film maker who was Hilary’s scapegoat for the Bengazhi attack, whom she promised to punish, and who and was subsequently jailed? Libel laws are civil matters whereas Hilary brought the criminal “justice” system down on that poor fellow.

    2. Neo’s post on Daniel Greenfield’s article. Good post but doesn’t seem to address the point. Obama and Hilary have both shown that they will not be constrained by the constitution and the Democrat party has shown that they don’t care. The IRS has already been weaponized by the Democrats for political purposes against conservatives.

    3. Trump’s ad hominem attacks on people who get in his way. Hillary is a master at that tactic. Ask the women who Bill used and abused sexually. Ask the film maker who she blamed for Benghazi. Ask those of us whom she has placed in the basket of deplorables.

    4. Defense. In my opinion this is a non-started. I’m not sure how anyone could be worse for our national defense than Obama and Hilary have been. A nuclear armed Iran? Millions of unvetted Muslim immigrants from Syria which will probably include thousands of ISIS sympathizers?

    Those are all good points Neo but Hillary’s performance on those fronts doesn’t much room to do worse and that was my original challenge.

99. Bill,

    “The country is OVER if HRC is elected” is hyperbolic propaganda. It’s just like the oft-repeated “We don’t know what he’ll do, but we KNOW FOR CERTAIN what she’ll do”… It’s propaganda, both designed to scare people into voting for someone they don’t want to vote for. Often times they are prefaced with the “I didn’t support him, I supported Cruz or [whoever] but…”

    Please extend to those of us who advance that belief, the same sincerity you expect of us. It is NOT propaganda designed to create fear. It is an honestly held POV that has a massive amount of evidence to support it (see below). That you discount it changes the reality not in the least.

    “He’s demonstrated a fairly frightening ability to sway the masses through propaganda, demagoguery, Pepe-the-frog white supremacist signaling from some of his loyal alt-right sycophants, etc.”

    Reacting to massive illegal immigration, a fourfold increase in Muslim migration, open trade policies that favor the export of manufacturing jobs, transgendered bathrooms that encourage pedophiles to target public bathrooms, the trashing of America in our schools, media and even Congress, the insanity in our colleges and the judicial forcing of the LGBT agenda down our throats is NOT being swayed through propaganda and demagoguery. You have it exactly backwards, people are not adopting Trump’s POV, they support someone throwing political correctness out the window.

    “With HRC, the conservative movement (those who believe in limited government, personal responsibility, opportunity, etc) has a decent chance of being an effective loyal opposition (because she will be a pretty ineffective President).”

    15 Senators (see 3:24 comment) does not make for an effective loyal opposition. If she lives, Hillary’s ineffectiveness will be irrelevant to the IRS abuses, EPA abuses, Congressional democrats pushing legislation, pursuit of UN treaties and other ‘agreements’ that eviscerate the Constitution like TPP. Hillary’s ineffectiveness will not stop the continued massive illegal immigration and one million Muslim ‘refugees’ she has promised to bring here. Much less a mass media that continues to indoctrinate Americans into leftist memes and narratives.

100. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/09/16/utah-hispanic-activist-who-criticized-trumps-mexican-rapist-comments-arrested-for-raping-illegal-immigrant/

     Not sure how to frame this story. My point is: look how we have become. This story seems to be factual. On the basis of facts, who cares about one particular rape case? How would it have been reported in 1965 (or many other random years)? What would it have “meant”?

     I suggest that it doesn’t mean any more today than it would have then. On that basis I claim that I am still sane and discerning.

     Yes, I get that it is ripe for framing as a discussion of hypocrisy. Oh, and there are minor points about Democrats, protestors, the gravity of a Trump remark being hyperbolized, etc. too, but … I see it more as a chance to check one’s sanity in these difficult times.

101. Matt_SE,

     “Trump is a man of low character, lack of self-control, petty vindictiveness, and kooky conspiracy theories.”

     Hillary’s low character is demonstrably worse. Remember Benghazi? Her tirades are famous among insiders. Pettiness defines her and she invented “right-wing conspiracy” theories.

     “In a nutshell, the danger of a Trump presidency is that he drags the nation leftward because IT IS A REPUBLICAN DOING THE DRAGGING.”

     That’s entirely possible, perhaps even probable. So your solution is to go with the guaranteed move to the left…

102. As we’ve been saying:
     Hillary is a threat to the conservative body, Trump is a threat to the conservative soul.
     Also GB, do you not remember that Trump supported the trannie rights side in the NC incident? Or has the convenient amnesia already set in?

103. The debate today is one of the best ones going, since people are making arguments, refutations, and rebuttals with well-reasoned comments and (wow!) actual evidence (or links thereto).

     What none of us have is the Magic Ball that will tells us both (a) what events the next President will have to deal with (no one told GWB that 9/11 was for-sure coming on his watch); and (b) how either Hillary or Donald will deal with it — all we have are various-levels-of-educated guesses.

     So let’s keep threshing it out until we can somehow separate some wheat kernels from the chaff.

     The counts against Clinton, BTW, have a new entry:
     http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/09/credit-card-fraud-hillary-edition.php

     FWIW, John Hinderaker of PowerLine is now predicting a Trump victory, although he is not a Trump supporter.
     http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/09/electoral-college-math-and-why-i-think-trump-will-win.php

     PS I started to write “Hillary or Trump” and realized that that formulation really IS an expression of sexism; bad on me.

     PPS I bought a real Magic 8 Ball last week and plan to take it into the voting booth with me. At this point, the odds of it getting the decision right look as high as any other method.

     PPSS Actually, I will do what I always do: study the issues as much as I can, and pray non-stop while I fill out the ballot. YMMV.

104. notherbob2 Says:

     https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/09/16/utah-hispanic-activist-who-criticized-trumps-mexican-rapist-comments-arrested-for-raping-illegal-immigrant/

     Conservative Treehouse?
     WHAT HAVE THEY CONSERVED?!?

105. Geoffrey Britain Says:

     “In a nutshell, the danger of a Trump presidency is that he drags the nation leftward because IT IS A REPUBLICAN DOING THE DRAGGING.”

     That’s entirely possible, perhaps even probable. So your solution is to go with the guaranteed move to the left…

     My solution is the possibility that Hillary will be opposed, and the CERTAINTY that Trump won’t be.
     Yeah…I like this prediction business!

106. Dennis:

     Oh, your challenge is to show what Trump WILL DO?

     That is absurd. No one knows what Trump will do. I have shown possibilities. What Hillary will do is a possibility, too. Not just what she will try to do, but what she will be able to do.

     Yes, Trump has shown a much greater propensity to censor the press than Hillary has. I gave you two posts where I explain that in some detail, re “opening up” the laws. He is unashamed of it and brags about it. He has also sued people who (in his opinion) say mean things about him, and he has lost several of those suits (those are just the ones I know about; for all I know, he’s lost ALL of them). One of his aims in those suits is to silence his opponents (and discourage other opponents) because he’s got the deep pockets and can go on and on and on with the suits, and they have very limited resources. So far he has used what power he has, since he hasn’t held office (yet!): the power of the purse, the power of his big mouth and celebrity, the power of insult, and his influence with local public officials re zoning laws and the like. You may doubt that he would expand those techniques if given the power of the highest office in the land, but I think on the contrary it is very very likely, if you look at his history.

     Hillary has complained when she gets bad coverage, but except for the Benghazi filmmaker thing—which was an act of the Obama administration, and Clinton acted as an agent of that administration—she hasn’t done much more than that to silence speech. Yes, she cooperated with the filmmaker persecution fully and was an agent of it, but it did not originate with her as far as we know, it originated with Obama et al, and I wouldn’t have expected her to have resigned over it. It is not her particular pattern of operation when she has been acting on her own. However, it is Trump, acting on his own and not as the agent of anyone, who talks so much about suppressing the press and free speech. It seems to come straight from him.

     What’s more, Trump’s ad hominem attacks on people who get in his way are FAR more numerous and pervasive, FAR more blatant, and have been going on for his entire life. They include lawsuit after lawsuit, public insult after public insult, and other pressure tactics (I have described some of this in previous posts, as well, such as the ones about his Scotland lawsuits and the woman in Atlantic City). I cannot overemphasize that although Hillary has done some of this, Trump is many magnitudes worse on this score.

     I didn’t just say “defense,” either, I said foreign policy, and Trump is FAR more of a loose cannon there than Hillary. What he said about NATO, and in the shotgun post I go into his nuclear ignorance and people’s fears about his nuclear arrogance. I don’t have time to write the same things over and over again, but if you actually read my posts you’ll see the basis for my criticism of Trump, and it is far greater in breadth and depth than you are discussing here.

107. I’m still processing some of the arguments, but here is one that I firmly believe to be true:
     Geoffrey Britain Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 2:24 pm

     “Hillary is a figurehead. The enemy is the Left’s ideology.”

     The Democrats got stuck with Clinton because they didn’t develop a back-plan, but any national Dem will serve them just as well as President, because they work as a team, and it doesn’t really matter who is QB so long as the agenda is moved forward — some, like Obama, are able to do it faster than others.

     Individual high-level elites (however you want to define that term) are supporting Hillary because they have already paid her to grease the chutes for them.

108. AesopFan:

     If I do vote for Trump, one of the main reasons would be that Hillary is part of the left and will enable it further.

     I actually think that is the single strongest argument against her. However, Trump is somewhat leftist in many of his beliefs. But he is not in league with them as she is.

109. If Trump turns out to be a stealth leftist, not only will his supporters be exposed as rubes, but they’ll also be responsible for leading millions of nose-holders astray.

     Wow. That’s a lot of pressure.

110. jms Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 1:54 am
     “The problem with the Flight 93 analogy is that on Flight 93, all the passengers were apparently in agreement on what was happening, and what their choices were. The hijacking happened right in front of their eyes. Some of them had learned what had happened in New York. They had solidarity.

     There is no agreement or solidarity in this election.

     A better analogy would be a situation similar to some combination of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 and/or Germanwings Flight 9525. In both of these instances, members of the flight crew themselves appear to have gone off course and deliberately crashed their planes.
     …
     And that’s my analogy for where we are at this point in the election. How do the passengers find a common ground? Is there even a common ground? As usual, our Presidential election has come down to trust. Who do you trust more? Or more accurately, who do you trust less? Perhaps the blame for the situation lies with the flight crew, for flying low and off-course and scaring the passengers, but that doesn’t really help the passengers make their decision, does it?”
     * * * *
     This is a metaphor extended to a parable which gives a good rhetorical view of the problem, but still doesn’t identify a definitive answer.

     The scenario, like reality, is one in which we don’t know with certainty that the plane will crash: we only have various estimates of a potential probability function that it will (or will not), and no one can know which estimate was correct until after the experiment has been run — at which time, it may be too late (plane crashes don’t get many do-overs).

     And who can credibly plant a marker to say “this is the point at which we judge the experiment to have run its course” — ascribing causes to events with multiple long-passed antecedent contributions is a popular parlor-game in DC.

     In the end, if the plane crashes, does it really matter any longer who caused it or why? And if it doesn’t, who gets the credit? — other than as a case-study for the future, and we don’t have a good track record (as a nation) for learning from the past.

     Plan for the worst, hope for the best, and don’t allow politics to grind away your integrity or compassion.

111. AesopFan Says:

     In the end, if the plane crashes, does it really matter any longer who caused it or why?

     The GOPe conducted the infamous “autopsy” of their failure in 2012. Their conclusion was that we needed more minority outreach, including wide open borders.

     If you learn the wrong lessons from your failures, it matters.

112. Matt_SE Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 4:06 pm
     Geoffrey Britain Says:
     ”
     “In a nutshell, the danger of a Trump presidency is that he drags the nation leftward because IT IS A REPUBLICAN DOING THE DRAGGING.”

     That’s entirely possible, perhaps even probable. So your solution is to go with the guaranteed move to the left…”

     My solution is the possibility that Hillary will be opposed, and the CERTAINTY that Trump won’t be.
     Yeah…I like this prediction business!
     * * *
     There is the possibility that Hillary will be opposed by … some Republicans in Congress and most conservative media voices with about as much effectiveness as they opposed Obama .. and the certainty (??) that Trump won’t .. considering the degree of opposition he’s already aroused in Congress and the conservative press, that’s not a guaranteed certainty at all.

     Turn it around:
     There is the certainty that Donald* will be opposed by … all of the Dems in Congress, most of the Republicans, and the vast majority of the media.. and the certainty that Hillary won’t.. be opposed by any of them.

     (* see my earlier comment; any speculations on why people so often say “Hillary and Trump” rather than either “Hillary and Donald” or “Clinton and Trump” other than conditioned reflexes?)

113. neo-neocon Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 4:20 pm
     AesopFan:

     If I do vote for Trump, one of the main reasons would be that Hillary is part of the left and will enable it further.

     I actually think that is the single strongest argument against her. However, Trump is somewhat leftist in many of his beliefs. But he is not in league with them as she is.

     * * *
     This is my reaction as well. Trump agrees with the Democrats on some issues, but Clinton is working for and with the Left as a whole, and they are deliberately destroying everything that was good about America.

114. Matt_SE Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 4:36 pm

     —
     you left off my qualifier:
     “other than as a case-study for the future, and we don’t have a good track record (as a nation) for learning from the past.”
     —
     As you say, “If you learn the wrong lessons from your failures, it matters.”

115. AesopFan Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 4:01 pm
     ***
     PS I started to write “Hillary or Trump” and realized that that formulation really IS an expression of sexism; bad on me.

     I think it’s to distinguish her from Bill, as opposed to being sexist. Her own website,
     https://www.hillaryclinton.com
     refers to her as “Hillary,” and her campaign logo is an “H.”

     neo-neocon Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 4:20 pm
     AesopFan:

     If I do vote for Trump, one of the main reasons would be that Hillary is part of the left and will enable it further.

     I actually think that is the single strongest argument against her. However, Trump is somewhat leftist in many of his beliefs. But he is not in league with them as she is.

     There it is!

     And,

     Clinton Delenda Est!

116. If everyone here asserting that the plane has a high probability of crashing with Trump but will absolutely crash with Hillary really believed it, they wouldn’t be getting on the plane at all. Would you get on a plane that had “only” a 95%/75% or even 50% chance of crashing?

     No, they’d be overwhelming their party, the GOP with protests and activism to get a better nominee. That’s why, GB, I’m calling it propaganda. If we were really in a flight 93 situation we’d be acting differently than many of you are acting.

     I’m not suggesting that you don’t believe, sincerely, that HRC is an existential threat and Trump will do better. I’m saying the line of argumentation (“HRC is an existential death sentence and Trump will do better and we have no other choices so pick a lane”) is not accurately reflecting our situation.

     We all have other choices. I plan to act on my other choices. We need to get rid of the current two party system (since they have both failed the country this time around) and the only way to do that is to spend the only currency most of us have – our votes -elsewhere.

     Not saying 2016 will end differently if we do so. As Jonah Goldberg has said, no matter what happens this will end in tears. But we have to start somewhere.

     Eric – you on the thread? Give us an activism plan 🙂

117. @ AesopFan:

     I just predicted the future with absolute certainty, sir. The debate is over, the science is settled.

118. AesopFan: [Clinton and the left] are deliberately destroying everything that was good about America.

     Welcome to my world. I agree, but also agree strongly that Trumpism is equally destroying what is good about America,

119. Hard to read when there is so much tail-chasing going on. Yes, I did it too.

120. neo,

     I’m pretty confident that the record will demonstrate that perhaps more than any other commenter, I have addressed the specific points in their arguments numerous times.

     It’s distressing that my perception of the truth of the matter is the exact opposite, that it is those who disagree with me who frequently do not specifically address my points. Such as Hillary’s support for illegal immigration guaranteeing a future democrat stranglehold on the Presidency. And, what a million more Muslim migrants will bring. Those are factual, near certainties with Hillary, yet are dismissed as secondary to the fear that Trump ‘might’ get us into a nuclear war. When I point something like that out, I’m accused of being condescending?

     “You make a host of assumptions about what is obvious. It’s not obvious and true just because you think it is. Those who disagree are neither stupid nor imperceptive.”

     Of course it’s not true just because I think so. If those assertions are true its because factual reality makes them true. Demonstrate that my premises are flawed and I’ll happily reevaluate them because I deeply wish that, things-are-not-that-bad.

     Nor have I ever accused anyone here of stupidity. Imperceptive yes, based upon what I argue (with specifics) to be flawed premises on their part.

     “do you ever wonder why almost nothing you say here on this particular topic is persuasive?”

     A ‘failure’ to persuade Bill, OM, Matt_SE and Big Maq and yourself does not equate to almost nothing I say being persuasive. There are at least an equal number of people here who have expressed agreement with my POV. Do you disagree that unchecked illegal immigration will lead to a one-party State? Do you disagree that one million Muslim ‘refugees’ represents a threat to national security? Do you disagree that Hillary and the Left hold those goals?

     “It’s because you discount the arguments to the contrary rather than engaging them and tackling them”

     That is so untrue that I hardly know where to begin. I have repeatedly done so but just like you, I don’t have time to repetitively state the same unrebutted points over and over.

     “You are condescending to them”

     It is not I that has expressed condescension but they and a fair reading of our comments demonstrates that. OM’s comments literally drip with condescension about and to me. Bill just accused me of engaging in propaganda to instill fear to get my way. Big Maq and Matt_SE have repeatedly made comments that indicate less than ethical motivations to those who disagree with them.

     I have been consistently respectful of them personally, while arguing forcefully with specifics. Even in the face of OM’s insults I have responded with restraint. That is not engaging in condescension. And it’s insulting to suggest otherwise.

     I have often and quickly apologized and admitted error to many here (how many times to you alone?), I recently perceived Bill to have made a snide comment and when he assured me that was not his intention, I took him at his word and immediately apologized.

     People who engage in condescension do not apologize or admit to error, instead they ignore it. With the exception of parker, I cannot recall that ever being returned.

     You state your opinions as though they are self-evident truths.”

     I state my opinions with specifics, logic and reason that extends from my premises in support of those opinions. That is not claiming them to be self-evident truths and I quickly and frequently agree that they are my opinions.

     I will not apologize for holding strong viewpoints in order not to appear ‘condescending’, while others evidently more favorably viewed, get away with what I am now, quite frankly being falsely accused of… and no, my denying that I’m guilty of condescension is not proof of being condescending.

     If someone honestly holds the perception that I am being condescending, I can only assure them that I do not view anyone here with contempt (the mother of condescension). Not even OM, though he has mightily challenged my patience… 😉

121. “I’ve seen a few of the more rabid shitwits call people “Beckian-Cruzian cultists” for displaying Christian virtues. This is a worrisome part of Trumpism: the abandonment of decency.
     Once you start dehumanizing people, I think we know where that leads.” Matt_SE

     Ah, the irony. Why, Matt could be accused of condescension. Whether he intended it or not.

     BTW, I agree that Cruz and Beck were displaying Christian virtues. Perhaps their failure to state that the recipients of that Christian charity still had to leave… prompted that animosity?

122. Neo said:
     “That is absurd. No one knows what Trump will do. I have shown possibilities.”

     My bad. My wording was clumsy. I meant to say “My challenge is to point out what you think Trump might do which is worse that what Hilary has done already and has promised to continue doing in the future.

     “Yes, Trump has shown a much greater propensity to censor the press than Hillary has.”

     I’m much less concerned about opening up the courts for civil suits by individuals than about hate speech laws which are enforced by the government with possible criminal penalties. The Obama administration which she has praised and whose policies she has promised to continue has already weaponized the IRS to suppress the free speech of individuals the government doesn’t like.

     “I didn’t just say “defense,” either, I said foreign policy, and Trump is FAR more of a loose cannon there than Hillary.”

     I agree that Trump appears to be a loose cannon at times. That would be a disaster if Trump gets us into a confrontation with a nuclear power. So far Putin and Trump seem to respect each other and will probably be OK. I am more concerned about how Trump will get along with the leaders in China. If Hilary continues the Obama agenda as she has promised, Iran will soon have nuclear weapons and a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is highly probable. This means that the danger of nuclear was possibly in the near future has become much more probable.

     “…I don’t have time to write the same things over and over again,…”

     I get it. End of discussion.

123. Geoffrey Britain says:
     ***
     [Quoting neo-neocon]“do you ever wonder why almost nothing you say here on this particular topic is persuasive?”

     A ‘failure’ to persuade Bill, OM, Matt_SE and Big Maq and yourself does not equate to almost nothing I say being persuasive. There are at least an equal number of people here who have expressed agreement with my POV.
     ***
     [Quoting neo-neocon]“You are condescending to them”

     It is not I that has expressed condescension but they and a fair reading of our comments demonstrates that. OM’s comments literally drip with condescension about and to me. Bill just accused me of engaging in propaganda to instill fear to get my way. Big Maq and Matt_SE have repeatedly made comments that indicate less than ethical motivations to those who disagree with them.

     Exactly.
     It would be interesting to get an objective referee in here to determine which side has been more disrespectful of the other.

124. Matt_SE,

     “Hillary is a threat to the conservative body, Trump is a threat to the conservative soul.”

     What is a threat to one is a threat to the other. I agree that Trump is a potential threat and may be a definite threat. Is there reasonable doubt with Hillary?

     I keep coming back to certainty VS uncertainly as the determining metric. Can you demonstrate that to be false?

     “Also GB, do you not remember that Trump supported the trannie rights side in the NC incident? Or has the convenient amnesia already set in?”

     I just missed it and I certainly disagree with him. It’s a threat to individual members and part of the left’s societal attack. Unfortunately, much larger more pressing issues supersede it.

125. Bill just accused me of engaging in propaganda to instill fear to get my way

     GB – I don’t know if this helps, but my intention was to convey that you and *many* others here are repeating propaganda, not originating it. Maybe that’s a distinction without a difference. I am sorry if that’s offensive.

     I’m not the first one to suggest the Flight 93 analogy and similar analogies is hyperbolic propaganda because it seems on its face to be an attempt at scaring people into voting for candidate B by asserting that candidate A will be a complete disaster, rather than extolling the wisdom. high character and leadership skills of candidate B (how come it’s so rare to find a true all-in Trump fan, at least on this site?).

     In other words, where I get off the train (no pun intended) is when it’s suggested that only a willfully blind fool can’t see that HRC is absolutely going to be worse than DJT. That’s why I argued above that I don’t believe Hillary is that politically skilled at getting her way and will be a weak president (thus NOT able to do everything we fear), but Trump has some kind of magic beans that seems to work on large swaths of the population (which is why I think he’s going to win – even though I don’t understand it at all).

     Maybe I’m a fool for not buying the apocalyptic predictions of an HRC presidency (wait! Don’t answer that! 🙂 ) – maybe I’m wrong. But I also am not making arguments such as “Trump will absolutely get us into a nuclear war”, even though I probably think that’s more possible than you do. People here are arguing about loaded guns to our heads, planes crashing into mountains, the end of the Republic, etc. How can we have a reasonable conversation in the light of all the Armageddon?

126. “I’ve seen a few of the more rabid shitwits call people “Beckian-Cruzian cultists” for displaying Christian virtues. This is a worrisome part of Trumpism: the abandonment of decency.
     Once you start dehumanizing people, I think we know where that leads.” Matt_SE

     Yes, I’ve engaged in name-calling myself, and I should probably stop that. OTOH, I’m under no obligation to treat seriously people who argue in bad faith.
     “Beckian-Cruzian cultists,” as if decency were now something to be avoided like the Branch Davidians.

     For a bunch of people who extoll the virtues of Western society, these people seem to hold certain parts of it in contempt. Reminds me of the left, actually.

127. Ira:

     I doubt you would think I’m an objective referee. But I actually think I am pretty objective in terms of perhaps not the arguments themselves but the emotional tenor of the arguments of the commenters here. I don’t really have a dog in that particular race. My opinion, over a great deal of observation (I try to read all of the comments if only to skim them), is that Geoffrey Britain is more condescending than the others, at least on this particular topic (Trump versus Hillary). And he’s more consistently condescending, too.

128. Geoffrey Britain Says:

     I keep coming back to certainty VS uncertainly as the determining metric. Can you demonstrate that to be false?
     Is it possible to prove something in the future?

     “Also GB, do you not remember that Trump supported the trannie rights side in the NC incident? Or has the convenient amnesia already set in?”

     I just missed it and I certainly disagree with him. It’s a threat to individual members and part of the left’s societal attack. Unfortunately, much larger more pressing issues supersede it.

     There are 7 or 10 things Trump stands for, according to one of your previous posts. You’ve now written off one of them. The question is: how many more betrayals will there have to be before you stop carrying his water?

     I’m guessing there will be several more instances of “Unfortunately, much larger more pressing issues supersede it” before this is over.

129. Geoffrey Britain:

     We are never going to agree on this—or even on what has happened between you and the other commenters here. It is also impossible (or would take a year) to go back and track every single exchange between you and the others on the topic of Trump vs. Hillary. This discussion has been going on hot and heavy for a long long time. So there’s a difference of opinion that will not be solved.

     But YOUR word was “discount.” Not mine. I was just quoting you.

     Also, I don’t think there’s a person here who’s not aware of the immigration dangers with Hillary (and Obama before her, of course). It’s been discussed so many times on this blog I can’t begin to count them. The reason it’s not brought up over and over again recently is that pretty much everyone agrees.

     What they disagree on is how to weigh that in the entire picture, considering the many dangers Trump also represents (some of them potentially worse than those with Hillary, particularly on foreign policy). In addition, quite a few Trump opponents believe that his policies on immigration are so much hot air, that he has contradicted himself many times, that he has no intention of being much different than she, and/or that he will not be able to build a wall even if he wanted to do so. That’s been discussed on this blog, too, although perhaps not recently. It’s all part of the mix and the balancing act when evaluating and weighing Trump vs. Hillary.

     Just as an example, I wonder what he will do about this and also this.

130. AesopFan:

     No, there is not a certainty that Trump will be opposed by those people. Throwing around the word “certainty” is not a good idea. See this.

131. neo-neocon Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 6:32 pm
     Ira:
     I doubt you would think I’m an objective referee. But I actually think I am pretty objective in terms of perhaps not the arguments themselves but the emotional tenor of the arguments of the commenters here. I don’t really have a dog in that particular race. My opinion, over a great deal of observation (I try to read all of the comments if only to skim them), is that Geoffrey Britain is more condescending than the others, at least on this particular topic (Trump versus Hillary). And he’s more consistently condescending, too.

     Ira [bragging]: I’ve been commended for being able to compartmentalize my personal feelings and be objective, and for knowing when I’m not capable of being objective.

     In reviewing this thread, I acknowledge that I’m probably not objective in weighing the disrespect tossed about. To the best of my abilities, however, it seems that those who seem to be in the NeverTrump camp have been more disrespectful, more often than those of us recognizing that having Trump as president rather than Hillary will be much more likely to give our Republic a chance of surviving as a nation of laws. My quote of Geoffrey Britain in a comment above highlights this: “OM’s comments literally drip with condescension about and to me. Bill just accused me of engaging in propaganda to instill fear to get my way. Big Maq and Matt_SE have repeatedly made comments that indicate less than ethical motivations to those who disagree with them.”

     However, I’m reminded of a comment by a leftwing (though ardently pro-Israel) friend about members of an email group (all men, 4 leftists and 4 conservatives) in the following (it’s a paraphrase but very close to an exact quote):

     I cannot say that any of you conservatives have behaved in a gentlemanly fashion in our email communications because, despite your polite communications, you take positions that I find offensive.

132. Geoffrey Britain Says:
     “BTW, I agree that Cruz and Beck were displaying Christian virtues. Perhaps their failure to state that the recipients of that Christian charity still had to leave… prompted that animosity?”
     Cut it out, GB. If Cruz had said exactly what you want, the alt-right would have simply “revised” those words out, as they did with everything good about Cruz, to make it easier to justify their pathological hatred of him for the mortal sin of nearly toppling their cult leader.

     To all those out there trying to rationalize that we all need to enthusiastically get behind the blowhard, give it up already. As I’ve said here before, if we live in a state that’s in play at all, I’d bet everyone here who’s thoroughly appalled and disgusted by Trump will pull the lever for him, precisely because we know how dangerous another Marxist would be.

     But don’t for one second think you can persuade us to like it.

     He ran the slimiest, dirtiest, nastiest campaign of character assassination against Cruz, a solid conservative of great intellect, character, honor and integrity, and his family as well, that I’ve ever seen in my long life, rivaled only by what happened to Palin.

     And Trump was supposedly on our side.

133. GB:

     You have repeatedly protested that you were a Cruz supporter and view Trump a necessary but regretful choice. But then today you fall into the Beck and Cruz handing out teddy bears at the border to defend Trump on immigration. It is a fact that Trump’s current proposed “policy” is essentially the same as those he smeared. This makes me question your judgement.

     You backed off on the teddy bear smear when Matt-SE called you out. Sorry man that’s what you did. So your protestations are unconvincing.

     Many people may agree with you here. At other sites few would agree with you, so what is that supposed to show?

     If you went to Trumpbart most would agree with you there I assume. I don’t give them any clicks. You can report back on your survey of those commenters regarding your thoughts and missives. /s 🙂

     Patience indeed, is needed; Neo is blessed with it, me, not so much.

134. In the end, I suspect Trump will win. Hillary will be most vulnerable at the end of the process, where she has to appear publicly for the debates. If she’s already slumping, that’s not good for her.

     Then Trump will have to govern.

     I have the idea that there will be no obvious betrayal; just that when you look back on the next four years, nothing will seem to have gotten done.

     It’ll be a great mystery, eagerly overlooked by Trump’s supporters.

135. Ira:

     I am not talking about just this thread, by the way, or even this thread at all.

     I’m talking about the last three or four months, or six months, or however long this particular discussion has been going on. Many many many exchanges here, pretty much on a daily basis.

136. Matt_SE @ 4:06 pm,

     “My solution is the possibility that Hillary will be opposed, and the CERTAINTY that Trump won’t be.
     Yeah…I like this prediction business!”

     On the unfounded assumption that you’re not being facetious… How realistic is there that any opposition to Hillary will be effective? Given how ineffective opposition has been to Obama and given that there are only 15 current Senators who vote more than 60% of the time, against compromises that democrats will support?

     What factual basis is there to the assertion that Trump would not be opposed? Will democrat opposition evaporate? Will the at best tepid support of Ryan and McConnell inexplicably strengthen?

137. “If Trump turns out to be a stealth leftist, not only will his supporters be exposed as rubes, but they’ll also be responsible for leading millions of nose-holders astray.

     Wow. That’s a lot of pressure.” Matt_SE

     NO, “fool me once, shame on you”. If Trump turns out to be a stealth leftist, only if we reelect him will it be shame on me. Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 do not bear the responsibility that those who voted for him in 2012 bear.

     An honest opinion, whose premise may be wrong but that appeared compelling at the time is not leading others astray. We are each responsible for our choices.

138. Geoffrey Britain Says:

     On the unfounded assumption that you’re not being facetious…
     Nah, I was being facetious.

139. P.S. I do like that we’ve counted (approximately) the number of conservative GOP members in the Senate, though. It makes very clear that when the alt-right criticizes CONSERVATIVES for not stopping the left, they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

     10-to-15 Senators cannot enact an agenda if they’re being opposed by the other 85.

140. Bill,

     “If everyone here asserting that the plane has a high probability of crashing with Trump but will absolutely crash with Hillary really believed it, they wouldn’t be getting on the plane at all. Would you get on a plane that had “only” a 95%/75% or even 50% chance of crashing?

     No, they’d be overwhelming their party, the GOP with protests and activism to get a better nominee.”

     The plane is America, how exactly do we refuse to board ‘the plane’? And, even if we have the resources to do so, where should we flee to? It’s not a case of boarding a plane, it’s a case of being stuck on the plane in mid flight.

     How effective has Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions been with all the advantages they possess as Senators in getting the GOP to reform itself? Both have worked tirelessly to effect change. Cruz and Sessions are now persona non grata with the GOPe. How responsive has the GOPe been with it’s base’s concerns?

     “I’m saying the line of argumentation (“HRC is an existential death sentence and Trump will do better and we have no other choices so pick a lane”) is not accurately reflecting our situation.”

     Are you arguing that neither Hillary or Trump will be elected?

     “We all have other choices. I plan to act on my other choices. We need to get rid of the current two party system (since they have both failed the country this time around) and the only way to do that is to spend the only currency most of us have — our votes -elsewhere.”

     We all have choices in regard to out personal lives.

     Do we have the time needed to form a viable third party, capable of winning the Presidency is we spend our votes elsewhere and, as a result the Left continues to hold the Presidency? SCOTUS alone will not settle the fight?

     “no matter what happens this will end in tears”

     Given the dynamics at play, how can it be otherwise?

141. There seems to be an implicit assumption that all who say “vote for Trump” now will support him after the election. That is not true of all Republican politicians who have endorsed him nor should it be assumed for anyone else.

     As for Hillary, the most obvious future possible non-supporters (behind the Trump supporters) are the NeverTrump people, closely followed by the “Trump scares me” folks, the Sanders supporters and finally the other reluctant Hillary voters.

     Pretty tough to handicap, really. No, media, I did not just recommend attacking and disfiguring anyone and making them unable to walk, I meant handicap as in horse race judging. As a Trump supporter I need to make my comments clear.

142. “I just predicted the future with absolute certainty, sir. The debate is over, the science is settled.” Matt_SE

     Speaking strictly for myself, I do not imagine that I know the future with absolute certainty and I apologize if I have inadvertently given that impression. I am saying the odds greatly favor one course of action NOT because that path is more certain but because the intentionality and resources of the other path are so certain based in repeated statements, actions utterly consistent with those statements and an overwhelming history that supports the seriousness of their intentions.

143. geokstr,

     I agree that no matter what Cruz said, many in the alt-r would have twisted it. Nevertheless, neither Cruz nor Beck expressed that sentiment, which gave credence to the criticism.

     Who here is trying to rationalize that we all need to enthusiastically get behind the admitted blowhard, or to persuade you to like it? I sure don’t like it. I just see it as a necessity to avoid a greater calamity and see it as a greater calamity because of the leftist ideology of the other side and of where they stand in their advancement toward their goals.

     I entirely agree as to Cruz, as fine a dedicated Constitutionalist as I can recall and entirely agree as to the nasty, dirty campaign Trump ran.

144. OM,

     I’m still a Cruz supporter and my intent was not to ‘defend’ Trump in pointing out the teddy bears episode. I mentioned it in response to neo arguing with Publius’ assertion that only Trump was serious about illegal immigration. I only partially agree with Publius, Cruz is certainly serious about it but he is committed to working within a hopelessly corrupt system that has worked to block him at every turn.

     Trump’s rhetoric has overturned the Left’s memes on illegal immigration in a way that Cruz’s erudite speeches in the Senate could never do. The same with Muslim migration, though it distresses me to see him clumsily ‘modifying’ both to get votes and defuse criticism.

     I think that’s what Publius is getting at, that insisting on bringing a knife to what is supposed to be a ‘knife fight’ i.e. one where “politics stops at the water’s edge” when the other side invariably brings guns is a formula for defeat. Publius is saying how many times and ways does that have to happen before we accept that limiting the fight to erudite speeches in the Senate and reasoned articles on the internet is in effect, accepting defeat?

     Mentioning Cruz and Beck going to the border and handing out teddy bears, while refraining from taking a hard line on illegal criminal behavior is not engaging ‘in a smear’. It is pointing out the insufficiency of a well intentioned effort. And agreeing with Matt that it was a well intentioned effort is not ‘backing down’. Other that is, than in your fevered 😉 imagination.

     I was responding to neo’s assertion that my reasoning here has been singularly ineffective, not asserting popularity.

     They say patience is a virtue. You’re certainly making me exercise it. BTW, has it ever occurred to you that your interpretations of what I state may not be accurate? You certainly haven’t even hinted at that even being a possibility.

     “It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.” … Karl Popper

145. Figure this out for me, it may not be not your argument but give it a try:

     From GB:

     “How effective has Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions been with all the advantages they possess as Senators in getting the GOP to reform itself? Both have worked tirelessly to effect change. Cruz and Sessions are now persona non grata with the GOPe. How responsive has the GOPe been with it’s base’s concerns?”

     And now the GOPe is behind Trump, as is the alt-right, and the “reluctants.” Even “as fine a dedicated Constitutionalist” as Cruz (or Lee or Paul) will have little chance of restraining a rouge Trump (a petty caudillo, aka, Caesar-Lite). The country is screwed, eh? But we have no other choice so lie back and think of “England.” But the problem will be the GOPe, and the “fine dedicated Consitutionalists” who won’t be capable of restraining him (when he gets assistance from the Democrats). Inconceivable! Who indeed will be responsible?

     The scenario doesn’t lead me to the polls to vote for either Hillary or Trump.

146. Matt_SE,

     “I have the idea that there will be no obvious betrayal; just that when you look back on the next four years, nothing will seem to have gotten done.”

     Very possible I think but it is being a bit optimistic, yes?

     I suspected that you were being facetious but thought I’d give you the benefit of the doubt.

     “10-to-15 Senators cannot enact an agenda if they’re being opposed by the other 85.”

     True, which also supports the contention that the GOPe is guilty of collaboration.

147. “I was responding to neo’s assertion that my reasoning here has been singularly ineffective, not asserting popularity.” – spin

148. @ GB:

     The plane is America, how exactly do we refuse to board ‘the plane’?

     If the plane is America, then where is my luggage? Also, I want some complimentary peanuts and a pillow. And the in-flight movie is terrible.

149. Certainty, Probability, And Predictions: Like Lord Melbourne, I am less certain about everything than many others are about some things.

     But I still think we can make predictions, and attach probabilities to them. Here, for instance, is the January 2009 prediction I made about Obama’s presidency. I think it has been reasonably accurate, but you can read it, and decide for yourself.

     If I were to make a similar prediction for either Clinton or Trump, I would be similarly negative, though not apocalyptic. The Trump prediction would be harder to do, since he is the least transparent presidential candidate of modern times, perhaps the least ever. (I would love to know if, as it appears, he does not read serious magazines, and has read no book, other than his own, in decades.)

     But still, some things are obvious: We know, for example, that he would choose many people with character failings to work for him, since that is what he has always done. And others we can make reasonable guesses at, in spite of his efforts at concealment.

     For those who are making apocalyptic predictions, let me remind you of this handy rule of thumb, often applied in science: Extreme claims require extreme evidence.

     For politicians, the best evidence is almost always what they’ve done. If you think, for instance, that a President Hillary Clinton will destroy the United States, you should show us how she did so when she was “co-president” back in the ’90s.

     Finally, a gentle reminder about the trap we all fall into from time to time: confirmation bias. We look for evidence that supports our theories, and reject evidence that contradicts them — instead of testing our theories against the evidence. I try hard to avoid that trap, and am painfully aware that I do not always succeed in doing so.

     (Now I have to go and write a post or two of my own.)

150. An intereview with the Flight 93 author with some interesting points is at:

     http://amgreatness.com/2016/09/17/an-interview-with-decius/

     A couple of clips;

     “Trump did something no one else has done in a long time. He broke through the taboo on talking about immigration, trade and economic policy in ways not reflective of Davos-class, administrative state ideology. And he won on those issues.

     All the other “conservatives” who’ve run in the past 20 years either opposed Trump’s take on those questions or ran from them or ignored them. But Trump comes along and succeeds and we’re supposed to reject him because he doesn’t have a sufficient command of political theory? Come on.

     Trump, perhaps because he is of an older generation, is just patriotic in an unapologetic way. He wants us to win even if that means someone else loses. To the narrative, that’s a blasphemy. We can’t prefer ourselves over others! What about “equality”? Trump just does not get why preferring America is a problem.

     Again, I don’t think he’s thought about equality in a theoretical way, but neither has he been corrupted by perversions which say that it’s immoral and illegitimate to prefer fellow citizens over foreigners. That thought literally does not occur to him and when the Left tries to bludgeon him with it he instinctively reacts and says, “That’s insane.” And when the intellectuals say, “How dare you! We know better than you! You must say X, Y and Z and never A, B or C,” he just laughs at them.

     Second, I speculate that on some level he remembers how the government used to work and is supposed to work, recognizes that it doesn’t work that way now, and wants to get back to that. Because when it worked correctly we were, in his parlance, “winning.” And he likes that. It’s not a theoretical defense of constitutionalism. But again I find it laughable that we’re all supposed to reject Trump and support the election of a corrupt Progressive-Left administrative state apparatchik because Trump never took constitutional law from a Federalist Society professor. And, oh by the way, how have all those Federalist Society judges worked out for us? John Roberts, anyone?”

151. neo-neocon Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 6:48 pm
     AesopFan:

     No, there is not a certainty that Trump will be opposed by those people. Throwing around the word “certainty” is not a good idea. See this.

     * * *
     No disagreement with you; I was just turning Matt’s maxim around to show that his assertion of certainty could be in error.

     “My solution is the possibility that Hillary will be opposed, and the CERTAINTY that Trump won’t be.
     Yeah…I like this prediction business!”

152. OM,

     “now the GOPe is behind Trump, as is the alt-right, and the “reluctants.”

     As an antidote to 8 more years of a democrat administration dedicated to completing the fundamental transformation of America into a one party State, yes.

     But where is the GOPe’s enthusiastic support for Trump? Evidence please.

     I’ve started to educate myself on the alt-r, it is a real concern. If yet mostly potential, it is there.

     Trump’s support from us ‘reluctants’ only extends to the election. After that, actions will speak louder than words. In fact, arguably that will be the time to start to build a third party because the GOPe is not going quietly away.

     If Trump acts as you/we fear, and constitutional barriers prove insufficient, ultimately it will be the military who settles the matter. If Trump gets out of control, he will not use the subtle machinations of the left. Slowly boiling the frog is not his M.O.

     Whereas that is exactly what the Left has and is doing to us. Until of course it is too late and then the mask will be ripped off. Deplorables after all, have a shelf life. Don’t consider yourself a deplorable? Ah, but they do…

153. “AG: Finally, what do you say to people who claim that Trump is just a false prophet, whipping up the masses with promises of things he cannot deliver?

     What difference, at this point, does it make? What have you got to lose? Can’t you see that Hillary is certain death for constitutionalism and conservatism?”

     http://amgreatness.com/2016/09/17/an-interview-with-decius/

154. Vanderleun:

     Yes, I’ve already read that interview, too.

     Loaded with the same poor reasoning and misstatements of fact. I already have a draft of a post on it.

     As I said, I may end up voting for Trump. But it won’t be because of the likes of Publius, I can assure you of that. It will be in spite of him.

155. Within two weeks it will be obvious that Hillary can’t win. There is nothing that will make her polls go up. When that happens her campaign will collapse.

     There will be a move to Johnson/Weld that will make it seem that they can pass 34% and win. Many Obama states will go for them.

     They may actually win, but are almost certain to at least place second. things are truly changing. Hillary will take the Democrats down for a generation if not forever.

     In 2018 the Libertarians will run a full legislative slate and win a substantial number. A new direction is essential, and it is going to happen.

156. OM,

     Labeling it spin does not make it so. But it is facile dismissal without reasoned rebuttal.

     Matt_SE,

     Unfortunately, the complimentary peanuts and a pillow needed to be diverted to illegals and refugees… come on have a heart. And the in-flight movie would have been a recent release but that too went to a ‘greater need’… get with the program man!

     Jim Miller,

     “Extreme claims require extreme evidence.”

     Indeed. Would the trajectory of America since Reagan suffice?

     “Finally, a gentle reminder about the trap we all fall into from time to time: confirmation bias.”

     Yup, let me be the first to admit that it gets me too.

     Vanderleun,

     There are valid reasons for judging Trump to be unqualified for the Presidency. That said, political correctness does not reside solely on the right. I happen to think that there is a possibility that Publius is right about Trump but there is no proof of that, only circumstantial evidence and that can easily be interpreted otherwise.

157. Geoffrey Britain:

     I wonder—I really, truly wonder—whether you bother to research many things, or whether you just take what you read at face value. I don’t mean that in a harsh way or even an especially critical way; after all, we all have time and energy limitations.

     But I do wonder. For example, you write (at (9:06 PM) that you are starting to educate yourself on the alt-right. People here have been talking about the alt-right with alarm for about a half a year on this blog, and so have other people. That’s a long time. My first in-depth post on the subject was in April, here.

     The other reason I’m bringing this up is that you write:

     Mentioning Cruz and Beck going to the border and handing out teddy bears, while refraining from taking a hard line on illegal criminal behavior is not engaging ‘in a smear’. It is pointing out the insufficiency of a well intentioned effort.

     Where are you getting your information? Breitbart? Conservative Treehouse? Read this for a fuller picture of what happened. See also this.

     And of course the effort was insufficient. No one—least of all Cruz and Beck—were suggesting it was sufficient, nor was it all that Cruz ever did about illegal immigration.

158. Richard Illyes,

     I don’t see how anyone can bet that Hillary’s health may not sink her. But at this point it’s wishful thinking to assert it to be a certainty.

     “Hillary will take the Democrats down for a generation if not forever.”

     I can’t agree. Their support and resources are far too strong. More basically, the reality of human nature argues against it.

     “In 2018 the Libertarians will run a full legislative slate and win a substantial number.”

     A third party may do that but it won’t be today’s Libertarian party. Have you read their platform?

159. I voted for Cruz in the primary. I’m voting for Trump. I like his platform. If he gets out of control, which I doubt will happen, there are numerous opposing forces to hold him in check. That is not true for Hillary.

     If Hillary collapses, the Democrats are likely to run Obama/Biden, which, after the hoo-hah dies down, is a winning ticket.

160. And SCOTUS!

161. If Hillary collapses, the Democrats are likely to run Obama/Biden

     ? Obama can’t run again . . .

     Vanderleun – Asserting that Trump will be a good leader even though he has a lot of ignorance about how the government is actually supposed to work is a common assertion from Trump supporters. Not a bug, but a feature. But it always strikes me as off – look, Trump might have genius hidden in there somewhere but he’s an expert at just a few things, chief among them selling himself and also making deals for his Casinos and other business interests. I’m not saying either of those are nothing (he’s quite good at the first and evidently pretty good to adequate at the second depending on who you talk to). But while America isn’t a plane about to smash into a mountain, regardless of what some people on this thread think, it’s also not a Casino.

     In no other major business do the stakeholders cheer at such lack of qualifications. The MLB isn’t going to hire a Commissioner of Baseball who doesn’t understand the differences between the American and National leagues. The NFL isn’t going to hire someone who doesn’t know football. Apple isn’t going to hire someone with no technological experience.

     Trump has surprised a lot of people in the last year and a half. But it’s a reach to think he’s going to automatically be good at something he’s never done (held elective executive office) and has demonstrated that he doesn’t really understand.

162. What difference, at this point, does it make? What have you got to lose? Can’t you see that Hillary is certain death for constitutionalism and conservatism?”

     We must elect Hugo Chavez! How bad could he be?!?

163. Richard Illyes Says:

     Hillary will take the Democrats down for a generation if not forever.

     Um, no. Just no.
     Democrats will be down for no more than 4 years. They will brush Hillary under the rug, just like they do with all their embarrassments. Remember: this is the party of slavery. How are they even still a thing?

164. GB: I think we have a case here of “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” No point in playing Bull in the Ring with those who don’t (or can’t) accept your premises. For me (and I’m sure others here) the choice is clear and the decision that must be made – unpleasant as it is to be forced to have to make by our corrupted and damaged two-party system — is straightforward: Either take a reluctant chance on Trump or “vote one’s conscience” for someone other than Trump (or no one), thereby resigning oneself to the certainty of having to endure the tender mercies of the DNC/MSM/Aministrative State/Clinton, Inc. Left for at least 4 more years. While the Washington Generals play on…

165. Neo:

     I was pretty sure you would correct assertions regarding “teddy bear gate.” (/jk)

     “”Mentioning Cruz and Beck going to the border and handing out teddy bears, while refraining from taking a hard line on illegal criminal behavior is not engaging ‘in a smear’. It is pointing out the insufficiency of a well intentioned effort.” – GB

     “Where are you getting your information? Breitbart? Conservative Treehouse?” – Neo

     I lack the patience (and tact, as well) at times when responding to such misinformation.

     “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Mark Twain.

     Now how fast and in what direction exaggeration or unintended inaccuracy travels, that is another matter?

166. The question of Trump per se is irrelevant to me now. The die is cast and there’s nothing I’m going to do about it. But I note that people like Publius will be emboldened by a Trump victory; Publius, who strung together a self-serving propaganda piece to justify his hopes and dreams.
     People such as him will not be circumspect about a Trump victory.

167. 166 comments, and the anti-Trumps appear stuck on stupid, from the ones I have read.
     The country has been tilting Left, and to begin the long effort at reversal means gradual weaning, nothing more.

     I know we will be doomed under Hillary, as we have been grievously wounded by Obama. If for no other reason than Hillary will not be president except in name. Kaine and Dem minions will continue to do as the minions (see L. Lynch, Koskinen, Jeh Johnson) have been doing.

     The Democrats persist as the Party of Evil. For me it is simple, but I am probably ignorant and un-nuanced.

168. neo,

     I remember reading that post and having the impression that you too were just starting to get a handle on the alt-r. Comments like, “I reiterate that I don’t think anyone actually knows who the alt-right really is, because what we see is the tip of the iceberg.” led me to that impression along with “I’ve had to react to things in real time, often with very incomplete information. The alt-right is one of those things.”

     You followed with, “I’ve found that I’ve had to go with my gut time and again, and that my gut has demonstrated a rather good track record. It’s not a compelling argument to say “my gut tells me something very bad about a lot of these people.” But my gut has become a far more perceptive instrument than it used to be, and I’ve come to really trust it, particularly in sensing something I’ll call “tone” and in understanding what it represents.” which led me to think that it was a suspicion that would probably turn out to be so but might not. Since then, I can’t recall you offering any further evidence, only assertions.

     So I took a wait and see attitude. Pardon me for being six months behind you. This very recently opened my eyes to there being further evidence in support of your assertions. I stumbled across it about a week ago having missed it when it was first published. To reprimand me for not being up to speed seems more than a bit harsh. I’ll try to do better, perhaps you’ll give me a second chance?

     I get my information from a variety of sources (about 45 blogs and news aggregators) and read between the lines, trusting my gut as do you. No, I do not read them all every day, so I can easily miss an article or piece of information. Drudge for instance frequently drops stories.

     The info you provided, which I was unaware of (I confess to not reading every link you provide, though I do try) does put a different slant on things. But avoids one important point. It matters little what the truth is if you can’t get the truth out there and those clarifying pieces you provided did not receive wide dispersion. So count me another victim of a illiberal press.

     I’ve previously agreed, even on this thread, that Cruz’s bonifides on illegal immigration are solid, so I fail to see the point of, “nor was it all that Cruz ever did about illegal immigration”.

     My point wasn’t that Cruz hasn’t been firm on illegal immigration, it was that erudite speeches in the Senate were not getting the job done and only Trump had managed to, in Publius’ words, “break through the megaphone”.

     Given the cultural and political threat that millions of illegal immigrants represent, ‘getting the job done’ presents itself as a rather high priority. That’s not meant to excuse Trump’s failings but rather an attempt to keep a balanced perspective. To use a football metaphor, I’m trying to keep my eye on the ball.

169. It’s a baseball idiom.

     “It is commonly used in (and originates from) the game of baseball, to imply that players need to watch where the ball is at all times.”

     http://www.idiomreference.com/define/keep-your-eye-on-the-ball

170. carl in atlanta,
     I know, “somebody stop me!”

     OM,

     I’m relying on you, neo and others to limit how far my “unintended inaccuracies” can travel. I promise to do the same for you.

171. Yes, I thought of that OM just after I posted. Tiredness can make fools of us all and I’ve been at this for many hours, playing “Bull in the Ring”. Time to stop. Goodnight all.

172. Frog:

     Do you really think anyone will be likely to read what you say if you lead off by calling them “stuck on stupid”?

173. Many comments. Of which I’ve only read a third or so.

     It saddens me that this campaign and election cycle has driven a wedge into the Republican Party and especially between conservatives. It used to be a pleasure to come to Neo’s place and read informative conservative opinion about issues that we are all interested in.

     Unfortunately, now we are trying to convince one another that Trump is a dangerous authoritarian or that, even with his flaws, he’s our only hope to slow the trend to the left. The arguments are pretty well known by all who read and comment here. No one seems to be changing their opinions, no matter what new arguments, allegories, analogies, metaphors, etc. are brought forward. To either side of the argument, seemingly nothing can change their views. In a way, it gives insight into how the left and the right can be so firmly set in their ideas and opinions.

     If this argument was taking place on the progressive side, I would be cheering. And that is why it saddens me. Conservative thought and ideas have had a tough time making any headway since the days of FDR. This disagreement does not help the cause.

     In spite of all the polls that show Trump closing the gap, the election is almost surely going to be won by Hillary. She has the money, the ground game (Many votes and voters will be “found.” 110% of a precinct votes Democrat? No problem. It happens. 🙂 ), the black community, the Latino community, her gender (How many women are voting for her just because of that? I know many.), the MSM, and a fair percentage of the GOP e behind her. If she doesn’t win, it will be against all conventional wisdom about what it takes to win the Presidency. For those who are afraid of Trump, I say, “Relax, he’s almost surely not going to win.”

     For those who, like me, are afraid of Hillary, I say, “Buy more ammo, silver coins, non-perishable food, and make plans for more government oversight of everything you do.”

     No matter who you vote for at the top of the ticket, please vote for Republicans for Congress. It can’t hurt and might actually help in the long run.

174. J.J.:

     I understand what you’re saying. But I have a somewhat different point of view.

     Things are very rough on the right at this point. Compared to the turmoil on a lot of blogs, it’s pretty mild here. People aren’t going to change their minds for the most part because they have thought about this long and hard, and have arrived at their points of view through no small amount of heavy thinking. It has been a tragic year for the right after nearly 8 very difficult years of the Obama administration, and people are frazzled, frightened, and desperate.

     These next seven weeks till the election are going to be very very stressful, for obvious reasons. People come here not just to argue with each other or even to convince each other of something (although they’d certainly love to convince each other!), but to reflect, vent, and express themselves among people who don’t always agree with them but at least are interested in talking in a (relatively) civil manner about this stuff.

     I think that has some value, too.

175. GB,

     Sometimes it is better to just back off.Sometimes it is best to take several deep breathes. I type this as someone who respects you.

     Frog,

     Gimme a fucking break.Doomed? You may be doomed, me and mine are not. Tell us all what you and yours have prepped for dooms day…. I suspect absolutely nothing beyond a few days of water and MREs. Come on cough it up. Spouting off about doom day should mean you are prepped. Are you and yours? You don’t have to be specific, just a general idea. Just tell me about cartridges and toilet paper. 😉

176. Vanderboychild is so much altright blah blah trumpian horde bs. I once gave him credit for what I do not remember, he she it is down mymemory hole. Starve them out with silence

177. I finally read the Flight 93 essay. There isn’t much left to say about it, but I’ll add my two cents anyway.
     First, there’s nothing here Trump supporters haven’t been saying for the past year and it isn’t said very well. I don’t understand all the fuss about this essay.
     Second, the Flight 93 reference is a non sequitur. The author originally uses it to make the “devil you don’t know ” case we’ve been hearing since Trump wrapped up the nomination back in May. But a few paragraphs down he’s saying that Trump was the only good choice from the beginning of the primaries.
     Finally, the argument that traditional conservatism has failed, therefore only Trump can save us is illogical. Why did it fail? How are Trump’s ideas the only way to fix it? And why do you think he will do what he says he will?

178. A. Lincoln (1838): Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois

179. “If so, a small chance beats no chance at all. “ – GB

     Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

     You COMPLETELY ignore the downside risk of trump.

     This is an overwhelming common problem in the for trump argument, and comes about, in large part, because of the overwrought case against clinton “I know we will be doomed under Hillary,” (Frog). There becomes no defining limit in opposition to clinton. trump becomes “acceptable”.

180. Wow, I’ve never seen an article here with 180 comments.
     Guess you’ve struck a nerve Neo.
     I didn’t read his 1st article as critically as you did. But then IO’m not a classical liberal in my view of the world. If the author generates more people to get out and vote for Trump, I say good.
     Although you probably know this, he published a follow-up to the first article
     http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/restatement-on-flight-93/
     Although I disagree with you on some points,i.e we can recover from Hildabeast presidency , I appreciate your thoughts. In time I’ll try and wade through the comments but right now I have work to do to keep this Govt in taxes.

     BrianB Says:
     September 17th, 2016 at 5:27 pm
     Thanks for a thoughtful and well expressed comment. I agree 🙂

181. Neo:
     I value brevity, which is an uncommon value here.
     “Stuck on stupid” is a phrase coined by Gen. Honore, who was in charge of restoring civil order in New Orleans after Katrina. It has other applications. It is in three words what J.J. posted at greater length @11:41pm.

     As to parker, I have heard quite enough of his off-grid doomsday prep. His strategy cannot apply to more than 1% of us. When I say we are doomed if Hillary wins, I mean the further loss of the Constitution. Parker can self-load his own deer-killing ammo all he wants, but that’s not going to remedy ANYTHING.

     My point about Trump weaning the nation away from PC insanity seems neglected.

     See Furchgott-Roth, who is not a cabbagehead:
     http://reaction.life/trump-right-choice-america/

182. “You COMPLETELY ignore the downside risk of trump.” Big Maq

     No. You COMPLETELY ignore the qualifiers.

     “Is there any chance that Trump may be less destructive? If so, a small chance beats no chance at all.” GB

     Thank you for providing an excellent example of ‘selective’ interpretation.

183. “Spouting off about doom day should mean you are prepped” – parker

     Now that is a very good point.

     Just how “prepped” are these folks who are predicting such doom and gloom at the prospect of clinton for four years?

     IOW, are they putting their money where their mouth is?

184. “He does not have the character required in the presidency. In particular, he does not have the humility that the position requires. I am not the only, or even the first, person to suggest that Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” might be an appropriate theme song for him. Since a president is almost always surrounded by flatterers, he should have more humility than most of us do. Enough, for instance, to reject all the comparisons to Lincoln, rather than encouraging them.” – Jim Miller
     http://www.seanet.com/~jimxc/Politics/January2009_3.html#jrm6978

     Jim, we’ve seen this very much, and certainly have learned even more about obama’s related weaknesses (e.g. his inability to work with his opponents in Congress). He seemed/seems more about show.

     trump seems even less able to abide by his advisors, less able to reach out and bring people together, and even more about show.

     This is not to say that clinton doesn’t have some vanity, but it seems different in its quality.

185. The problem problem with such “qualified” statements:

     “Is there any chance that Trump may be less destructive? If so, a small chance beats no chance at all.” GB

     We live in the real world where probabilities and risks are present for everything; 100% of now living people will eventually die. Using the “any” risk and some undefined small risk (acceptable risk, small chance) against an undefined but unacceptable is not an honest argument. But you keep making it. Carry on.

186. baltimoron Says:

     I don’t understand all the fuss about this essay.
     Second, the Flight 93 reference is a non sequitur. The author originally uses it to make the “devil you don’t know ” case we’ve been hearing since Trump wrapped up the nomination back in May. But a few paragraphs down he’s saying that Trump was the only good choice from the beginning of the primaries.

     This is why we’re commenting on it:
     It has been held up as some sort of Cicero-like principled manifesto, when in reality it is a poorly-written, illogical piece of crap.
     The disjunction between those views illustrates something about the character of the movement. The character of the movement gives you hints about how they’ll act in the future.

187. 186 messages? That’ll teach me to stay off the blogs over the weekend. (Truth be told, I don’t regret my decision. Nice weekend.)

     My problem with the article is that while Publius had legitimate concerns from a conservative perspective, he didn’t have legitimate conservative solutions. Now, granted, it’d be nice if government stopped causing and exacerbating moral problems. But the idea that moral problems are to be solved by the federal government strikes me as being antithetical to conservatism. This ties into the “politics is downstream of culture” thinking. We fix culture, government will get better.

     Sorry if I’m repeating an idea that someone upthread already posted. I only read a little of the thread.

188. ” Perhaps the proper analogy would go something like: Hillary Clinton has the loaded shotgun pointed at everyone in the nation, whereas Trump may have the shotgun pointed at everyone in the world, and we don’t have a clue what the chances of that are.” << from the earlier Aug. Neo post.

     And then, Neo, in your idea about (your and?) some conservatives against Trump thinking:
     " Trump and Hillary are battling it out in the cockpit as hijackers and that each will crash the plane …, but that they’ll take it to somewhat different places to crash it."

     Later you amplify the nuclear threat of an "Great Game/ RealPolitik" ignoramus like Trump with his hand on the button.

     The USA is approaching the brink; you are right and Publius very wrong about the many conservative Rep voters who feel this, who know it to be true. Altho he seems to have a good point that famous Rep #NeverTrumps do, implicitly, believe we can survive 4 years of Hillary.

     Like many, I feel electing Hillary will take the US over the brink — the loaded shotgun going off (in slo-mo, like the Russian takeover of Eastern Ukraine).

     But I don't have nuclear nor plane crashing fears about the recently Progressive egomaniac Trump. A (R) Pres Trump would NOT be able to lead too far from some R-D compromise, except on building a Wall even w/o any Dem votes, if the Reps keep Congress (likely if he wins).
     Building a Wall, excluding most (all???) unvetted Muslims, stopping (reducing) the flow of illegals, these are the best actions anybody could do to save the USA.

     Yes, I don't know what else Trump will do, tho the SCOTUS list looks good, but the constraints on him are NOT the same as the constraints on Hillary.
     The DOJ, the IRS, the FBI, the Supreme Court, all are willing and able to ignore or change the law to suit the anti-Constitutional Left. They will cover for Hillary, not constrain.

     The analogies fail because Pres. Hillary has far more power, due to lack of constraints, than Pres. Trump, even if Trump wants to use as much or more power.

     Only if Hillary gets elected will the Pres. be able to crash the US plane. If Trump gets elected he'll be driving a big, bad, bumper car — maybe a Hummer, but at most just bumping.

     I don't believe (Dilbert writer) Scott Adams' praise of Trump, but he might win a landslide if he (unlikely) avoids any big gaffes. Getting Brietbart help seems to have helped a lot.

     Trump & his ego plus Reps in Congress, perhaps the last hope to avoid the shotgun at the nation, to avoid the plane crash. The only real hope in this election.

189. “[F]ix culture” is a mightily peculiar turn of phrase. Not to say Trumpian by that, not at all.

     Whatever “it” is, culture (and I certainly confess I have little idea), it seems to me that in no way does the thing “culture” (is it a thing?) appear alike to another thing, as for instance say, a faucet.

     I can fix a leaky faucet for example with the application of a replacement washer.

     Culture may bear a bit more reflective — and not reflexive, indeed much less reflexive — thinking on our part. Hence the suggestion upthread that we look first to Kant as a source.

190. Bill Says:
     September 18th, 2016 at 2:06 pm

     A few thoughts

     First, the Flight 93 analogy, or general “The country is OVER if HRC is elected” is hyperbolic propaganda…”

     It won’t be over. It will be More Obamacare style servitude atrocities i.e., the legally enforced servitude spelled out by the individual shared responsibility mandate …( but No problema! ) More Lois Lerner type lawlessness and administrative persecution of those who try to exercise their traditional rights and liberties … but “we” whoever the hell that “we” supposedly refers to, will survive!

     What a joke.

     No one I know or would take seriously is saying that the legal entity titled The United States of America is immediately over if Clinton is elected. In fact, many critics of Clinton, including myself, have taken great pains to point out that the intolerable transformation of the polity into a social solidarity redistributionist managerial state will continue apace: with the same name, and for a time certainly, the same borders.

     It just will no longer as such be a “nation” or legal regime – or social arrangement – worth preserving or tolerating or morally respecting: in the sense that the beneficiaries of it, say with Obamacare, and the work of Lois Lerner’s IRS goons, deserve our continued moral or political “solidarity”. They, per definition no longer qualify as moral fellows and peers in the pursuit and maintenance liberty, anymore than any other Leninist goons did or do.

     GB thought I was using a rhetorically exaggerated question when I referred to the possibly of one’s merely shrugging upon noticing scenarios such as the corrupt Harry Reid or Bart Stupak (of Obamacare fame) beaten to the pavement in public by the redounding effects of their own politics, or say Wasserman Schultz dragged by her hair down main street by the very Jihadists she was responsible for allowing into the country, or Lois Lerner persecuted by the more Bolshevik faction of her own party unto death.

     I was not.

     These people though they do not have to, nonetheless insist on making themselves an existential threat to free people. They do it through their unapologetic, deliberate, ceaseless and no-boundaries appropriative projects aimed at creating an intolerable state of social dependency and centrally directed life affairs. They do it by knowingly subverting the law in order to achieve the collectivizing effect they seek.

     Watching them then, (if ever so fortunate) smash themselves into a brick wall, or reap a North Korean harvest which they have themselves sown, presents little in the way of any real moral problem.

     They are not pitiable benighted, they are adversarial apostates from the faith of freedom.

     And the hyperventilating consciences of pseudo-Christian masochists and closet communitarians, count for absolutely nothing when weighed in the scales against the preservation of freedom. Freedom, is only thing that makes this particular polity know as the United States of America, and the mutual interest social compact it used to assume, worth preserving.

     When mutual interest is gone, there is nothing left to preserve.

     And, the essential predicate of freedom is what we have already lost under Obamacare and a slew of earlier progressive measures.

     When exactly, after 4 to 8 more years of lawlessness under Hillary, will the promised new dawn of election result driven liberty arrive, and Obamacare and its assumptions go away?

     No answer here from the tribe of it Aint So Bad.

     You demand too much in asking for that, they cry.

     I get the feeling the Hillary-is-a-less-bad-alternative types figure “Better a princeps of the left”, than the risk of clown Trump, of possible impeachment efforts, of Gaia forbid! a government shutdown and social chaos. ‘Cause with Queen Hillary, I’ll still have my bowl of Federal gruel …’

191. Neo,

     One of the main points in Decius’ essay is the vindictiveness on the part of the HRC people once they ascend to offices in regulatory and law enforcement agencies. This is not really addressed in your commentary, Neo, but I think it deserves a special airing.

     Snuffing out all dissent, even just raising some issues and in private, is one of the factors that has driven the EU countries to their parlous states. As many have pointed out, Trump has been responsible for expanding the scope of dialogue on a number of issues, especially immigration. Until just the past few months there has been no such option in the EU and still there is no political representation for that viewpoint outside of Wilders and a few others, almost all of whom are under some sort of legal sanction. The EU considers Robert Spencer more of threat than Qaradawi or Tariq Ramadan.

     Already, there have been a few articles by some academics calling for an end to any civility wrt us (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/10/harvard-professor-start-treating-christians-nazis/). We have seen what a sub-rosa program of repression looks like at IRS and other agencies. We all know someone who has lost professional opportunities due to narrative enforcement.

     Imagine if what has occurred over the past 8 years represents the floor for such narrative enforcement behavior. The red terror now in force in universities would move to society at large.

     Only slightly OT, there are ongoing threads in social media among Millennials that openly discuss how much to punish Granny and Gramps based on their rejection of certain recently revised sexual and behavioral norms.

192. Dennis has consistently made a number of good comments, as have others.

     His observation “My challenge was to find something which Trump will do which is WORSE than what Hilary has done or will almost certainly do.” still stands.

     And it still comes down to a certainty of left-solidarity-state-fascism and a continued loss of freedom on the Clinton hand, versus a role of the dice with Trump on the other: Expecting that with Republicans in a strong position to offer inside checks, and with Democrats in an adversarial position from the get-go, there is some likelihood of limits on his behavior: whereas with Clinton, there is as democrats have amply demonstrated, none.
     And no one disputes that with regards to Clinton, as yet.

     Now, the absolute anti-Trumpers don’t accept this slightly hopeful scenario.

     They think they have reason to believe the entire Congress can be rolled by Trump, that no men of character so as would make enough of a difference remain in the legislative branch, that Trump is a closet Democrat liberal-fascist, and a racist to boot.

     If they are correct in this assessment, then the social compact game is already over; and those with any sense will be making plans to rearrange their social relations now, rather than later.

193. DNW,

     The repression element is perhaps the most important one. Almost everything else can be reversed using constitutional methods.

     As we can see in Europe today, they are quickly reaching the point where the only forum for dissent to occur may be civil war.

     Depending on how he does in international negotiations, perhaps we can draft Keifer Sutherland to be SoS. He gets his turn in the Oval this week (Jack Bauer meets Putin). He can shoot foreign leaders in the leg if they negotiate in bad faith.

194. Pretty hard to prove a negative even if you write 1000s of words in one comment. Opinions all. Some angrier and more strident.

195. ““You COMPLETELY ignore the downside risk of trump.” Big Maq

     No. You COMPLETELY ignore the qualifiers.

     “Is there any chance that Trump may be less destructive? If so, a small chance beats no chance at all.” GB

     Thank you for providing an excellent example of ‘selective’ interpretation.” – GB response to BM

     Wrong again.
     .

     “Is there any chance that Trump may be less destructive?”

     Some “qualifier”. That is hardly a reference to how far that destruction could reasonably go. It makes light, to put it mildly, of that downside, when the conclusion is…

     “If so, a small chance beats no chance at all.”
     .

     I’m not alone in that understanding of what you wrote.

     I see that Neo makes the same point I essentially made (but I hadn’t reached that far by the time I responded, even after having written the immediate above) …

     “your argument stops at the halfway point. The part you are ignoring is this: is there any chance that Trump may be MORE destructive? The answer those who disagree with you give is “Yes, quite a good chance.”” – Neo responding to GB’s “small chance beats no chance at all”
     http://neoneocon.com/2016/09/17/on-the-flight-93-election-article/#comment-1692823

     So I’m unintentionally rewalking the same ground already covered.
     .

     Yes, you do follow up with…

     “Maybe Trump will crash the plane but Hillary will crash the plane. ”

     Again, it is an overwrought argument wrt clinton. This is an election about the NEXT four years. To analogize a certainty of a “plane crash” with clinton is to articulate that our country will be annihilated in the next four year term.

     If one truly believes this rhetoric, then what the h*ll are they doing commenting on a blog?
     .

     I, for one, don’t think either of the extremes are likely.

     clinton will be four more years of the G-march, and we evolve more towards the European model. Not terrible, but not in any way good for those who value conservative principles, to say nothing of the character of the one who will lead it – unacceptable.

     But, the trouble with trump is the disturbing lack of clarity on just what the h*ll he would do.

     However, the utter lack of concern on that lack of clarity on those who argue pro trump (which is almost entirely a “not clinton” argument) is distressing.

     trump seems very likely to deliver a continuation of that very same G-march (big government, extending executive powers, cronyism – use of government for personal gain), and any good he may do may well be overwhelmed by the damage he seems he likely to also do – internationally, economically, politically, and culturally.

     There are so many possibilities down this path (e.g. destabilizing trade war with China / Mexico / Canada, renewed and aggressive revanchism upon renegotiation of NATO – to name two examples, and not mentioning the “nuclear button” issue), we must count something in this regard as a certainty.

     Then there is the wildcard on authoritarianism – we have no idea what really motivates him, and he seems prepared to publicly go to places most normal people wouldn’t dare with way too many cheering this on.

     Again, this all comes from the many things (oft times opposing) that trump himself has said and done during his campaign.

     At the end, he is unlikely to leave the country in a better position, anywhere safer from the next leftist POTUS, and might well do more for the left than clinton could ever do, to speed up their G-march.

     If the argument is then, we will have another day to fight the leftists. Not sure that is any different than the next four with clinton.

     If we have a democracy (even if it is no better or worse than the western European nations who are far ahead of us on the G-march we so fear), we still have the opportunity to right our course as a nation.
     .

     So, we trade a likely possibility of major downside with trump, and strong possibility of (within minor +/-) being no better than clinton on balance, for a very slim possibility of upside with him.
     .

     Of course, if there are no limits to opposing clinton, then the above makes no sense as there is no standard to go by. It becomes “better” that we fall into the grips of an authoritarian because it is far worse to have four years of clinton, as we can “survive” the authoritarian.

     After all, if it is clinton, that plane will surely crash, and all is lost.

     Better to have a sliver of hope than no hope at all!

     Gasp! Woe is the world!

     The Constitution is useless to abide by!

     We need a strongman to save us! /s
     .

     Overwrought – don’t buy it – heard the same in 2008, 2012.

196. donkatsu:

     Actually, I addressed the issue in this comment.

     Trump has been vindictive towards people for his entire adult life, on a scale that Hillary can only dream of. Money and fame has enabled him to do quite a bit along those lines, but the power of the presidency (which he’s never had before; unlike Hillary, he’s never even held public office) will give him a vast canvas on which to work.

     Or do people think it’s okay because they think the Trump crocodile will eat them last, or that it will only get their enemies?

197. donkatsu Says:
     September 19th, 2016 at 12:29 pm

     DNW,

     The repression element is perhaps the most important one. Almost everything else can be reversed using constitutional methods.

     Well, yes, “may” – in the sense of being legislatively allowable – be in principle theoretically reversed.

     Given the judicial putsch situation Scalia referred to, one wonders what that “can” would actually mean down the road; perhaps even now. The “progressive” left does not seem to view their version of change to be amenable to equally valid negating or alternative change.

     As we can see in Europe today, they are quickly reaching the point where the only forum for dissent to occur may be civil war.

     I don’t have enough insight into European politics to sort the hyperbole (if there is any) in the reports from there, from the actual situation.

     What I do know is that the fundamental legal and moral (socio-philosophical) predicate of our association has been under assault for generations, and is now, driven by the incessant efforts of the left, breaking down completely; with articles such as you have highlighted illustrating the case.

     Is there any doubt that modern liberals have completely rejected the concept of natural rights (the concept upon which this polity was based) and replaced that theory of ordinate law with fiat law issued by an elite and which as “law” is merely based upon their dreams for the future, and the convenience which it affords them in their managerial and administrative roles and conceits?

     Paying close attention to only what you explicitly stated, in Europe it does seem that there are numerous limits on what may be lawfully stated; and that attempts to express even simple facts are repressed by governments in coalition with certain news outlets. One sees complaints by bloggers out of Sweden to this effect.

     What alternative that leaves people who are being dispossessed of their homes and liberty as a result of deliberate government policy, I cannot easily imagine.

198. Neo,
     The difference is Trump would find it difficult to snap his fingers and get his minions in the bureaucracy to press their thumbs on your windpipe. Hillary will not even have to ask. Like the Latvian and Croatian SS, the federal bureaucracy knows what to do with “those people” and doesn’t need German commanders.

199. DNW at 11:48 AM today:

     Preach it brother!

     To all:
     Apropos of some of the the friction we’ve seen on this thread (which, and Neo noted, has been relatively civil) see this over at Hot Air: GOP friendships strained in the era of Trump

200. donkatsu:

     There is absolutely no reason to imagine that Trump couldn’t get plenty of people to do his bidding. He always has; he’s very very practiced at it. And with the power of the presidency, almost all things are possible.

     You—like so many of Trump’s supporters—lack imagination as well as knowledge about Trump. But that doesn’t stop a lot of people from making categorical statements about him in an effort to soothe and reassure those who are legitimately very, very concerned.

     Sorry, no dice.

201. “Apropos of some of the the friction we’ve seen on this thread (which, and Neo noted, has been relatively civil) see this over at Hot Air: GOP friendships strained in the era of Trump” – carl ATL

     Don’t listen to Mark Levin any more, but wonder if he has anything good to say about Sean Hannity. They used to be very buddy-buddy.

     IRL most folks that are trump supporters I encounter are very much “reluctant”. They hardly make the kinds of overwrought, flight 93, pro trump arguments here and are rather respectful that one can conclude neither trump nor clinton are worth voting for.

202. Neo,

     Before you stoop to generalize pejoratively about someone you have never met, consider that the IRS would not even agree to carry out punitive audits in the 1960s/70s for Nixon; they are not more amenable to attacking Democrats now than they were then. Trump will face profound resistance in the federal bureaucracy and the MSM will rediscover reporting rather than rewriting Democrat press releases.

     I have no doubt that Trump may attack, but he will find most of his initiatives in that regard blunted by the career feds. Hillary on the other hand . . .

     Funny you should use the same line the proprietess of an Amsterdam sex shop used back in my callow (1970s) youth. As I gazed about the wares on offer and mumbled “unbelievable” to my stoned companion, she said “if you find ziss unbelievable perhaps it is because you lack imagination.”

203. Big_Maq:

     Regarding Mark Levin and Sean Hannity. Levin says nothing about Hannity’s antics and Trumpism. Ben Shapiro has roasted Hannity quite a bit.

204. “The difference is Trump would find it difficult to snap his fingers and get his minions in the bureaucracy to press” – donka

     Sorry, that is a foolish assumption, if you are willing to risk major downside based on it.

     Why wouldn’t a bureaucracy be happy to expand their power, when trump gives them the opportunity to?

     Why couldn’t trump fire or sideline those who wouldn’t cooperate?

     Many experiments have shown that many (most?) people will bend to do things that even they find offensive if someone in authority tells them to. Why should we expect the vast federal bureaucracy to all individually behave counter to this?

205. Dennis said,

     My challenge is to point out what you think Trump might do which is worse that what Hilary has done already and has promised to continue doing in the future.

     I said,

     When exactly, after 4 to 8 more years of lawlessness under Hillary, will the promised new dawn of election result driven liberty arrive, and Obamacare and its assumptions go away?

     So Hillary-Aint-So-Bad conservatives, what’s your plan and time frame? Other than the usual, sun gonna rise tomorrow even if we are serfs, predictions.

206. @OM – thanks! hannity is worth roasting. he’s one of those who was all about the principle, until he wasn’t.

     he was one of the first to fall in line. limbaugh still pretends he is on the fence, and “objective” (as I can tell from the odd article of his that pops up at places like RCP).

     hannity used to quote Ayn Rand and even did a guest appearance in a recent movie based on her book.

     Seems incredible now, looking back at all that.

207. “what’s your plan and time frame” – DNW

     WTHey kind of question is that? You want a plan delivered to you?

     Okay, give me your address and credit card number for $9.99 plus s&h and I will send one to you. /s

     How about you get involved and help formulate that plan?

     We all need to more involved. As Eric calls it, being “activist”.

     That has been the biggest source of our problem as “conservatives”. Maybe we voted, but that was it for most.

     We left it to others to set the agenda, identify and work the “plan”, and, surprise!, we are not happy with what we now see.

     Of course, you are welcome to attempt to shortcut that process with your own favorite strongman. But, don’t be too surprised if it doesn’t work out to be anything like you foresaw.

208. “neo-neocon Says:
     September 19th, 2016 at 1:15 pm

     donkatsu:

     There is absolutely no reason to imagine that Trump couldn’t get plenty of people to do his bidding. He always has; he’s very very practiced at it. And with the power of the presidency, almost all things are possible.”

     The question is whether he could roll the legislative as completely as you have previously suggested and whether the left and the courts would collude with him in that effort.

     You, assert it is a certainty on par with Hillary’s known malfeasance and constitutional subversion.

     If you are right, and that is true and the case, then the republic is already gone, and the fellow citizen game is over; and all those vague, no details rear-guard patchwork efforts promised for the future, are not worth the candle they would cost during the wait for the dawn of nevermore.

     What game are we supposed playing in the meantime, and why?

     If many of one’s friends are morally worthless Leninists or co-opted nose in the trough, ‘I like some welfare state stuff’ “conservatives”, then it is time to get new friends and social partners.

     Unless that is, you feel you have some self-sacrificial duty to enable those who persecute your children and make social life nothing but eternally obnoxious and unrewarding, not to say thoroughly degraded, corrupt. and even [for the metaphysically minded] diabolical.

     But fortunately, not every conservative is a feedbag conservative, and no classical liberal would think twice about tossing aside a sham for the real thing.

209. Big Mac, Do Not Write,
     Well, you got the pork part without the fried cutlet by cutting off my alias.

     Of course, I do not know that Hillary will have thousands of wiling executioners and Trump will not with 100% certainty. However, the passive resistance to the Republicans in the civil service and the SES has proved so strong over the years that Trump would be foolish to make a big push. Nixon only wanted to subject a handful of opponents to punitive audits.

     Trump will also be opposed by his own party; and when was the last time any Democrat was bothered by this sort of thing if ordered by a D executive?

     And as far as firing or sidelining malingering feds, if Trump can do that then he really needs to renegotiate our sovereign debt as well. Not bloody likely, IMHO.

     I know there are studies that show that anyone will torture and oppress, but my personal experience tells me otherwise. He is not taking individuals into a room by themselves, telling them to press the button and shock someone. He is working with a very social organization that is overwhelmingly uniform in its political tilt. The EPA is not going to be investigating wetlands on Ted Turner’s ranch or illegal lawn fertilizers in Silicon Valley.

210. donkatsu:

     Yes, you’ve smoked me out, I confess: I was the proprietress of that Amsterdam sex shop.

     My past has caught up with me: busted!

     I’m plenty old enough to remember Nixon and the IRS. The world has changed almost entirely since then; it is far more corrupt, and civil servants are far more corrupt. Plus, as much as Nixon played tough, he was nowhere near as willing to throw his weight around as Trump is.

     There is little doubt that IRS bureaucrats lean much more to the Democratic side than the Republican, however. No question. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t be persuaded, tempted, threatened, or forced to work for President Trump, who would have many many tools in his kit.

     That’s what I (like that madam) meant by saying you lack imagination.

     As for Republicans not cooperating with Trump, please see this.

211. DNW Says:

     I get the feeling the Hillary-is-a-less-bad-alternative types figure “Better a princeps of the left”, than the risk of clown Trump, of possible impeachment efforts, of Gaia forbid! a government shutdown and social chaos. ‘Cause with Queen Hillary, I’ll still have my bowl of Federal gruel …’

     Here we go again: critics of Trump are paid shills or corrupt parasites. Because nobody could have any other reason to be concerned…

     For people who complain about not being listened to, you sure have trouble listening to others.

212. donkatsu Says:

     One of the main points in Decius’ essay is the vindictiveness on the part of the HRC people once they ascend to offices in regulatory and law enforcement agencies.

     Good thing Trump isn’t vindictive like that, huh? Or the alt-right either; they’re a bunch of well-balanced, reasonable, responsible citizens, yup.

213. DNW Says:

     Dennis has consistently made a number of good comments, as have others.

     His observation “My challenge was to find something which Trump will do which is WORSE than what Hilary has done or will almost certainly do.” still stands.

     1) Order US troops to commit war crimes. He said he’d do it in a debate. We all saw it.
     Hillary has never said anything unhinged in that particular way.
     2) Nuke ISIS. While maybe initially popular in the US, I’m pretty sure there would be severe international repercussions to that.
     Hillary has never hinted she’d do that to anybody.
     3) Start a trade war with China. Sure, Trump doesn’t say he wants that explicitly, but if his actions inspire retaliation from them, whose fault is that?

214. DNW Says:

     They think they have reason to believe the entire Congress can be rolled by Trump, that no men of character so as would make enough of a difference remain in the legislative branch, that Trump is a closet Democrat liberal-fascist, and a racist to boot.

     Let me get this straight:
     On the one hand, the reason we have Trump is because of the betrayal of the base by McConnell and company (Congress has been the party leaders for the last 8 years, like it or not).
     On the other hand, these people who sold us out are going to rise up and do the right thing wrt Trump overreach?

     Do you have the slightest idea of how corrupt people think?

215. “Overwrought — don’t buy it — heard the same in 2008”

     Light firecracker, open own mouth, and insert.

     Yeah, didn’t turn out so bad eh? Obamacare was even passed. Ah, when was it exactly? Well, I’ll quote the first thing a search shows:

     “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, was passed in the senate on December 24, 2009, and passed in the house on March 21, 2010. It was signed into law by President Obama on March 23rd, 2010 and upheld in the supreme court on June 28, 2012.”

     Which gives us the “individual shared responsibility” mandate, or as it otherwise in known; “The youth servitude act for enabling drunks and type II diabetics provision”

     Then we have,

     “Beginning in March 2010, the IRS more closely scrutinized certain organizations applying for tax-exempt status under sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code by focusing on groups with certain words in their names. In May 2010, some employees of the “Determinations Unit” of the Cincinnati office of the IRS, which is tasked with reviewing applications pertaining to tax-exempt status, began developing a spreadsheet that became known as the “Be On the Look Out” list.

     The list, first distributed in August 2010, suggested intensive scrutiny of applicants with names related to a number of political causes, including names related to the Tea Party movement and other conservative causes.”

     Wiki

     And … the judicial putsch Scalia referred to …

     But no, no. Predictions of fundamentally disastrous and sociopolitical predicate annulling change? Never occurred!

     After all, Social Security checks are still going out on time.

216. @ DNW:

     What surprises me is how the Secret State Thought Police haven’t tracked you down yet. I hear those FEMA camps are pretty rough.
     Also, I’m impressed that they’ve bothered to still hold elections, seeing as how the state has completely taken over and crushed its enemies.

     No hope at all. We’re already done.

     LOL

217. ” Matt_SE Says:
     September 19th, 2016 at 2:57 pm

     @ DNW:

     What surprises me is how the Secret State Thought Police haven’t tracked you down yet. I hear those FEMA camps are pretty rough.
     Also, I’m impressed that they’ve bothered to still hold elections, seeing as how the state has completely taken over and crushed its enemies.

     No hope at all. We’re already done.

     LOL”

     Good. I already granted you a dispensation from reading my comments. You should have taken advantage of it when offered.

     Would have saved us all a lot of tedium.

218. Neo! Not again…?

     LOL

219. Bill:
     “Eric — you on the thread? Give us an activism plan”

     Asked …

     Neo:
     “(hi, Eric! see just about any of his comments on this blog)”

     … and answered.

     Nick
     “My problem with the article is that while Publius had legitimate concerns from a conservative perspective, he didn’t have legitimate conservative solutions.”

     Yep – Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right.

     While the content is different, tailored for a different audience, the template is re-purposed. The rhetorical tack to displace conservatives and usurp the GOP in the Publius article is the basic MO the Left has applied to displace liberals and usurp the Dems. It’s a proven method.

     Neo:
     “[I object to characterization of OIF as] “endless, pointless, winless war.” … One can argue about whether the Iraq war was worth it and whether it should have been begun…”

     On top of the methodological template the alt-Right shares with the Left, consider the shared provenance of the ostensibly diametric Democrat-front Left and Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right indicated by their shared root narrative of US intervention.

     “[W]hether the Iraq war was worth it and whether it should have been begun” (Neo) is a subjective consideration. However, that debate is corrupted at its premise level by the demonstrably false narrative of the Iraq intervention that’s assumed by Publius.

     To fairly consider whether OIF was worth it and whether it should have been begun, the prerequisite is setting the record straight that nearly all the US case versus Saddam is in fact substantiated and correcting the prevailing false narrative that’s assumed by Publius.

     The truth is the Saddam regime, according to UNMOVIC did not disarm as mandated by UNSCR 687 in Iraq’s “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441), according to ISG was rearming in breach of UNSCR 687, according to UNCHR ruled with “widespread terror” in breach of UNSCR 688, according to IPP threatened its neighbors in breach of UNSCR 949 et al, and was a “regional and global terrorism” (IPP) leader, including jihadists, including the al Qaeda network, in breach of UNSCR 687.

     Each of Saddam’s violations of the Gulf War ceasefire per UNSCRs 687, 688, and 949 was evaluated to “threaten international peace and security in the region” (UNSCR 688). Switching off the Gulf War ceasefire enforcement required “full and immediate compliance by Iraq without conditions or restrictions with its obligations under resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions” (UNSCR 1441).

     Once Saddam declined his “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441) with the UNMOVIC finding of “about 100 unresolved disarmament issues”, the alternative to OIF was compromising the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” (UNSCR 1441) to free an unreconstructed Saddam who was categorically noncompliant with the Gulf War measures that were purpose-designed to satisfy “the need to be assured of Iraq’s peaceful intentions [and] … to secure peace and security in the area” (UNSCR 687).

     Which is to say, whereas one’s view of whether OIF was worth it or whether it should have been begun is necessarily subjective, according to the law, policy, precedent, and facts that defined the operative enforcement procedure for the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” (UNSCR 1441), President Bush’s decision for OIF demonstrably was correct. OIF
     s legal-factual basis is a straightforward fact pattern.

     Neo:
     “Also, the Iraq war was a success by 2011, and only Obama’s abandonment made it a “failure.””

     Correct. See Vice President Biden and the UN Security Council’s official assessment in December 2010 of Iraq’s progressing peace:
     http://www.un.org/press/en/2010/sc10118.doc.htm

     And see my answer to “Was Operation Iraqi Freedom a strategic blunder or a strategic victory?”.

     Geoffrey Britain:
     “Bush stabilized the Iraq war in our favor, to win it would have required staying and acting as the power behind the ‘strong man’ because in Muslim majority societies, it’s a binary choice, rule by Islamist theology or a strong man.”

     That’s not unique to Muslim majority societies. Until Obama deviated course with a radical premature disengagement of the peace operations with Iraq, the American ‘strong man’ at foundation of the OIF peace operations was consistent with the same American ‘strong man’ at foundation of the still ongoing post-WW2 peace operations with non-Muslim majority societies.

220. DNW is the new improved tedium. twice as long winded, with more even more self assurance. The little puce pill.

221. Oops. Fixes:

     Once Saddam declined his “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441) with the UNMOVIC finding of “about 100 unresolved disarmament issues”, the alternative to OIF was compromising the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” (UNSCR 1441) to free an unreconstructed Saddam who was categorically noncompliant with the Gulf War [ceasefire] measures that were purpose-designed to satisfy “the need to be assured of Iraq’s peaceful intentions [and] … to secure peace and security in the area” (UNSCR 687).
     …
     OIF[‘]s legal-factual basis is a straightforward fact pattern.

222. @ DNW:

     Would have saved us all a lot of tedium.
     At least I keep my posts short.

223. Neo:
     “I certainly don’t see a hunger for more of the same in many of those sixteen GOP candidates.”

     Strategically, post-Saddam Iraq was keystone and OIF was pivotal. Had Obama stayed the course like Eisenhower stayed the course, the OIF peace ops could and should have marked the ‘end of the beginning’ of the War on Terror.

     In that sense, there’s no hunger for “more of the same” with the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and WW2 – to pick out our most popular wars – either. But until Obama’s course deviation with Iraq, there also was no hunger – except among America’s competitors – for the US to regressively throw away the subsequent peace on our terms built upon the foundational dominance we earned at high cost in the activist arena of those wars.

     That being said, GOP voices have advocated for humanitarian measures with the Syria crisis that speak to the US-led Gulf War ceasefire enforcement of the UNSCR 688 humanitarian mandates with Iraq. The benefits and shortcomings of the northern safe zone and both no fly zones with Iraq preceded OIF. UNSCR 688 was part of OIF’s legal-factual basis.

224. Matt-SE:
     I think you’re a bit hard on the Trump supporyers in your response to my post.
     My take is that if a Cicero-like oratory to give the Trump movement an intellectual foundation didn’t exist, it was necessary to invent one. Stupid, yes; but also human.
     I will join you in saying the essay is an illogical piece of crap.

225. “Yeah, didn’t turn out so bad eh? Obamacare was even passed.” – DNW

     Crap. Who said it was a good thing?

     We are far, very far, from an “all is lost” scenario that you ascribe to, even if clinton gets elected.
     .

     “The question is whether he could roll the legislative as completely as you have previously suggested and whether the left and the courts would collude with him in that effort.

     You, assert it is a certainty on par with Hillary’s known malfeasance and constitutional subversion.

     If you are right, and that is true and the case, then the republic is already gone, and the fellow citizen game is over; “ – DNW response to Neo

     If this wasn’t implicitly acknowledging some probability of (likelihood? given the level of concern raised) grave problems with trump, IDK what is.
     .

     Debates here seem to vacillate around various points of outcomes, not mutually exclusive…

     A) If we boil it down to an “all is lost” as in the country gets annihilated within the next FOUR years, my money is on that being orders of magnitude more likely with trump, given his temperament, lack of (nor interest in) knowledge of what he will preside over, lack of thought about / ability to speak to the details of policies and their implication, and lack of a governing philosophy. The “nuclear button” issue falls here, but is not the only example.
     .

     B) If we are comparing who will leave us with a more “leftist” government, not so sure trump is any better than clinton.

     For example – Our debt will certainly be huge (new entitlements plus no change in existing ones, major wall and illegal immigration deportation initiatives, big military buildup, obamacare replacement with single payer medicine), unless he unilaterally defaults on it (i.e. “negotiates” repayment) – anyone think past the first order effects of doing this? Are those effects leading more towards or away from leftism?

     Another example, trade and jobs. How much government interference is required to “renegotiate” trade deals to ensure “fairness” in trade, and to “repatriate” those “lost” jobs? On the surface and looking beyond first order effects, is this more leftism or less?

     There are several more examples, but this should suffice.
     .

     C) If we are discussing who will leave the office of president with more tools and avenues to continue the leftward G-march, my money is on trump, who seems more willing to aggressively pursue extreme positions, seems to not recognize boundaries – even legal ones for POTUS, who has no indicated philosophical, moral, or personal limits to his expansion of government programs, and executive powers, and is hardly reliable for SCOTUS appointments (even if he does pick from his list for Scalia replacement – what about Dem opposition? what about other Justices?).

     We can argue that clinton is also likely to do so, but the key is that trump may well leave behind the means for an accelerated leftward G-march, the likes clinton could only dream of, just from his own strength of will.

     If trump proves unpopular, it will likely be a dem replacing him in 2020. If the above holds, that makes the danger of a G-march even worse. What credibility will GOP arguments against it have then?
     .

     D) And we haven’t talked about the possibility of authoritarianism, given the new, never before exercised, power in trump’s hands.

     Between bill c and obama past behavior, along with hillary’s own as wife, senator and SecState, it seems we are not likely to see her go full authoritarian, least not to the extent that seems possible with trump, just from his shear and open aggressiveness. Corrupt, yes, likely as much as trump.

     Still, I think (wish?) this to be unlikely altogether, for either candidate.
     .

     We can debate about how much “better” trump can be on SOME aspects, the likelihood of that, and how much that is, but, overall, it just seems like we risk a lot to get hardly anything in return. Just a “hope” that increasingly looks to be an elusive mirage.

226. Sorry, should have put a tedium alert in front of my post /j

227. Neo: ” People come here not just to argue with each other or even to convince each other of something (although they’d certainly love to convince each other!), but to reflect, vent, and express themselves among people who don’t always agree with them but at least are interested in talking in a (relatively) civil.”

     I had not grasped that angle. Now that you have spelled it out, I get it. Group therapy at Neo’s. And the price is right! There is no doubt that the debate has motivated many people to dig deep into their psyches and wrestle with their inner demons. May it help prepare us all for what is to come.

228. What’s interesting to me about the assertion that Trump won’t continue the weaponization of the IRS (won’t be able to because he’s an R) versus what HRC will do, is the assumption that he won’t be able to because he’d be going after a protected class – Liberals and Democrats.

     Who says? If I were Jonah Goldberg, for instance (one of my heroes, btw – great conservative thinker, a fantastic writer and man of principle) – I’d be bracing to be audited like crazy if Trump wins. Goldberg has been #neverTrump from the beginning, and Trump lackeys like Hannity are already threatening him (albeit vaguely) with repercussions.

     Think the current IRS, perhaps now headed by some alt-right goon from Trumpbart (or maybe by Hannity itself – with DJT anything’s possible) would mind going after a bunch of conservatives that didn’t fall in line? Obama already set the precedent for that.

     I don’t think Trump’s principles are going to keep him from doing taking the Obama way and putting it on steroids, because his main principle, demonstrated over and over, is the desire to crush, humiliate, and destroy anyone who stands against him. He’s used lawsuits and public insults mostly in the past. The vast machinery of the IRS and other federal agencies probably looks pretty tasty to him right now.

     I’m never Trump but insignificant. The ones who have a national audience should be prepared for the assault if Trump wins.

     Trump supporters – disagree with me? Does this seem implausible to you?

229. Bill:

     It is extremely plausible. I’ve been saying it in one way or another for about a year.

     Whether it will happen I don’t know, but I have very little doubt that (a) Trump would dearly love to do it; and (b) he adheres to no principles that would stop him.

     It’s what I meant when I said in this comment: “Or do people think it’s okay because they think the Trump crocodile will eat them last, or that it will only get their enemies?”

230. baltimoron Says:

     My take is that if a Cicero-like oratory to give the Trump movement an intellectual foundation didn’t exist, it was necessary to invent one. Stupid, yes; but also human.
     I will join you in saying the essay is an illogical piece of crap.

     Yes, every movement needs an intellectual base. The problem comes when your base is made out of lies, straw men, misunderstandings of human nature, etc.

     On that topic, I’ve found another slightly less viral addition to the Flight 93 manifesto:
     The Intellectual Yet Idiot
     https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577#.q8jve6d5l

     Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a probability theorist of some sort, famous in financial circles for theories on “black swan” events. I note that his article delves into some of the same jargon the alt-right uses (“Scientism”).

     I’ve seen this type of pseudo-intellectualizing before. It was all over Vox Day’s site, just as it was all over Mein Kampf (not to compare them in all aspects, just these). It’s the well-known phenomenon of the coffee klatch communist, spouting bromides while wearing a chic beret. It is the junior poli sci student, lecturing his elders about how to fix the world.

     These people are looking to rationalize the conclusions they’ve already come to.

231. I forgot to mention this earlier:

     Publius:
     “If your answer–Continetti’s, Douthat’s, Salam’s, and so many others’–is for conservatism to keep doing what it’s been doing …”

     The description that comes to mind for them is dilettante. But Publius personalizing on them strikes me as a strawman since they’re commentators. He’s criticizing them for acting within their vocation; in other words, their job is dilettante. They’re not political operatives.

     Bill:
     “Does this seem implausible to you?”

     The alt Right and Left are sides of the same dys-civic coin.

232. Eric Says:

     He’s criticizing them for acting within their vocation; in other words, their job is dilettante. They’re not political operatives.

     I said the same thing, essentially.

233. Matt_SE,

     I wouldn’t be surprised if Publius was revealed to have been a leftist propagandist during the Bush administration. Same tricks of the trade.

234. Wow, lots of babble. Vote your conscience and leave off attacking those that disagree with your opinion. We all have opinions and beliefs. We all also have an opening to our personal alimentary canal. SHEESH.

235. neo-neocon Says:
     September 19th, 2016 at 5:59 pm
     ***
     . . . I have very little doubt that (a) Trump would dearly love to do it; and (b) he adheres to no principles that would stop him.

     It’s what I meant when I said in this comment: “Or do people think it’s okay because they think the Trump crocodile will eat them last, or that it will only get their enemies?”

     Do you, neo-neocon, believe that Hillary adheres to any principle that would stop her from doing any of the things you fear Trump would do?

236. Neo, I knew I should not have come back to check the thread. LOL

     I see that,

     Big Maq Says:
     September 19th, 2016 at 5:31 pm

     “Yeah, didn’t turn out so bad eh? Obamacare was even passed.” — DNW

     Crap. Who said it was a good thing?

     We are far, very far, from an “all is lost” scenario that you ascribe to, even if clinton gets elected.”

     No one accused you of saying it was a good thing. Therefore the profession of innocent bewilderment at an accusation never made, is pointless.

     Nor did I say that the country would cease to exist, Maq. I stipulated it would.

     Nor that “all is lost” whatever that supposedly means.

     I said that the further ruin of the rule of law would make generalized social solidarity pointless and profitless, and more counterproductive than it already is.

     Why don’t you instead try replying to what was actually stated in the context in which it was presented?

     The context mentioned, was found in a response to your pooh poohing those predictions of further sociopolitically disastrous consequences which would certainly result from a further 4 to 8 years of leftist entrenchment.

     Thus:

     You: “Overwrought — don’t buy it — heard the same in 2008”

     Me to Maq: ” Light firecracker, open own mouth, and insert.

     Yeah, didn’t turn out so bad eh? Obamacare was even passed. Ah, when was it exactly? Well, I’ll quote the first thing a search shows:

     “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, was passed in the senate on December 24, 2009, and passed in the house on March 21, 2010. It was signed into law by President Obama on March 23rd, 2010 and upheld in the supreme court on June 28, 2012.”

     ”

     The timeline Maq. Your sniffing dismissal of consequences, soon followed by those very consequences.

     What this illustrated then, was that your blithe hanky-waving attitude did prove out as no good in response to the pending events of 2008. Because many of the most egregious and extreme of the acts which have now seriously undermined the rule of law, and the historical predicate of our association, demonstrably occurred soon after.

     Your dismissal of the severity of the likely consequences to law was obviously misplaced then; and, it is fair to say, that your similar attitude this time is likely to be worth no more now as the ratcheting is poised to continue and worsen.

     And with that, very temperate, and very modulated response, I think I will take that little break from all this.

237. Come back when you catch your breath.

238. Matt_SE:
     These people are looking to rationalize the conclusions they’ve already come to.
     That’s it in a nut shell. Not to pick on GB alone, but no matter what argument you throw at him including ones he’s previously adhered to, he will wiggle out of it to support his current view. He once said he thought the only rational reason to allow HRC a de facto win would be if the country is already headed to ruination with or without her election. Now he admits the country is heading over the cliff, but somehow the election of Trump will stop it. No, not quite right, there is the ever remote very, very slim chance that Trump might possibly, cross my fingers and hope to die, stop it. Somehow. Maybe. Anyway, let’s give the con artist the benefit of the doubt, roll the dice, and see what happens. Never in million does he allow himself to think that a nut case with a teenager’s emotional development might start a nuclear war. What he knows is that Hillary is evil. Must stop Hillary. Obsessive compulsive on steroids.

239. The Other Chuck Says:
     September 19th, 2016 at 11:11 pm
     ***
     What he [GB] knows is that Hillary is evil.

     She isn’t?

     I repeat the query I made to neo-neocon:

     Does Hillary adhere to any principle that would stop her from doing any of the things you fear Trump would do?

240. @ Ira:

     Does Hillary adhere to any principle that would stop her from doing any of the things you fear Trump would do?

     Hillary has no interest in doing many of the things Trump has suggested he’d do. For a narcissist, that’s as ironclad a guarantee as you’ll ever get.

241. Ira, most if not all of us agree that Hillary and her policies are wrong, and yes she is personally an evil wench. As has been pointed out many times we are presented with two unacceptable choices in the major party candidates.

242. “The timeline Maq. Your sniffing dismissal of consequences, soon followed by those very consequences.”

     Not sniffing, nor a dismissal of the consequences and you know that!

     You are one who ascribes to the flight 93 argument, or do you think that is just the bs that it is?
     .

     We heard similar arguments on how the country would “collapse” under obama – in two election cycles.

     We also heard in 2012 that Romney was a RINO!!!! and how there was no real difference between him and obama.

     This was the messaging from the “conservative” media then, and many commenters went much further.

     The fact was BOTH sentiments were hyperbole.
     .

     OF bloody course there were consequences to electing obama, but they were not anywhere close to the hyperbolic descriptions.

     Of bloody course there would be consequences to electing clinton. If she is elected, the (similar flight 93) hyperbolic case has the same probability of happening – not bloody likely.
     .

     You are trying to drive this argument down a line about something that it is not.

     Nobody is dismissing the notion that electing clinton won’t have serious negative consequences.

     If Obamacare is your example of a worst case scenario – that fits much more closely to the Europeanization direction – a continuation of the G-march. Hardly a flight 93 case!

     (Sniff!) /sj

243. And the Food Fight goes on between the Titanic passengers while the water rises to the portholes. 🙂
     Sometime when I’m on the Govt. teet I’ll go back and read all these comments instead of just skimming them.
     I’m still of the opinion while voting for Trump is like playing Russian Roulette with between 1 and 5 bullets, voting for Hillary is like using a loaded shotgun instead of a revolver.
     And as for those that claim the US will still be there no matter what. The colosseum remains where it has always been but the empire of Rome has changed somewhat. Similar scenario in my opinion. 🙂

244. (quick test comment – one didn’t go)

245. Please look at Venezuela. The ruination of a previously good capitalistic country because of socialism — big gov’t being “too nice”.

     It’s far from “too late”, in theory, for the US. But with current snowflake college students & Bernie supporters promoting socialism that Clinton now also advocates, there were many steps taken by Obama and more would be taken by Clinton. It’s unlikely that the EU will survive with capitalism longer economically than the US, but the eurozone is in trouble and more crises are coming – with elites whose failures have caused the problems asking for more power.

     The “hate speech demonization” of Christians will continue and increase under Clinton.

     The “thought police” are already out in media with successful PC witch hunts; these will increase with Clinton.

     It’s Clinton AND more Dems in Congress, vs Trump AND more Reps.

     Here’s a risk weighted Clinton (like a bank CD) vs Trump (like an entreprenuer) discussion by Scott Adams:

     I continue to be more afraid of Iran getting nukes, or N. Korea getting better missiles and using them, than of Trump having his finger on the nuke button.

     I don’t know how he’d be, but I strongly disagree with Big Maq’s analysis that he’s likely to be worse in many ways than Hillary.

     It’s already been a huuuuuugely long campaign — still it remains so uncertain yet, thanks to Obama’s & Dems many many failures & crimes, it feels so hugely important.

     The US is much closer to the abyss — and insofar as Flight 93 makes people think more about it, it has been a successful thought provoker.

     Was the 1850s pre-Civil War a bit like this? There were 4 major Presidential nominees in 1860…
     America survived, but hundreds of thousands of Americans didn’t. Even without nukes.

246. ““Or do people think it’s okay because they think the Trump crocodile will eat them last, or that it will only get their enemies?”” – Neo

     A very clever version of the Martin Niemé¶ller poem.

     Shorter, and visually more compelling.

247. Matt_SE Says:
     September 20th, 2016 at 2:31 am
     @ Ira:

     Does Hillary adhere to any principle that would stop her from doing any of the things you fear Trump would do?

     Hillary has no interest in doing many of the things Trump has suggested he’d do. For a narcissist, that’s as ironclad a guarantee as you’ll ever get.

     Yeah, like appointing conservative justices, taking care of veterans, and building up our military.

248. “insofar as Flight 93 makes people think more about it, it has been a successful thought provoker.” – Tom G

     Don’t disagree with that effect. But the value of it is in its own merits. Neo has covered many good points of contention / weakness in that article.

     Comparisons to the Wiemar and even to certain aspects of Hitler are very thought provoking too.
     http://neoneocon.com/2016/09/15/the-hitler-comparison/

     These seem to have more correct and relevant with them, than weakness, in comparison to that flight 93 case. But, many just cannot get past the “Nazi” reference, and invoke “Godwin’s Law” to dismiss.

249. Victor Davis Hanson at NRO has some observations and advice today for the #NeverTrumpers:

     NeverNeverTrump

     Please read it. Very few people would call VDH a fool.

     It may be discomforting for some conservatives to vote for the Republican party’s duly nominated candidate, but as this Manichean two-person race ends, it is now becoming suicidal not to.

250. “appointing conservative justices” – Ira

     You may choose to believe trump on this, but there is enough out there from trump’s own mouth to highly doubt this.

     The sheer act of forcing him to come up with a list, alone, is evidence of the shakiness of that assumption.

     The best case is he might appoint someone from his list to replace Scalia.

     If he runs into trouble doing so, all bets are off.

     Beyond that one justice, all bets are off.

     trump has nearly been on every side of every issue that to zero in steadfastly on one position he staked out at some point in time is more wishful thinking than a solid commitment from the candidate.

251. Carl in Atlanta:

     Much as I respect VDH I and others don’t agree with voting for Trump. Sorry about that.

252. Ira Says:

     …and building up our military.
     …before he orders them to commit war crimes. FIFY

253. carl in atlanta Says:

     Victor Davis Hanson at NRO has some observations and advice today for the #NeverTrumpers:

     Isn’t it funny how “sellouts” like VDH are now sages when they support Trump? I have another interpretation: VDH was a sellout before, and he’s a sellout now. He’s just sold out to Trump instead of the GOPe.

     See how flexible the principles of Trumpkins are?

     Or are we gonna have to dig up articles where VDH criticized Trump and rub them in the Trumpkins’ faces?

254. Regardless of whether you despise all of the presidential candidates or not, you are going to vote for someone or not.

     Let’s see now what each of us currently plans to do.

     I currently plan to vote for Trump.

255. Ira:

     To respond to your question at 12:35 AM—

     Ira:

     Do you understand the meaning of the term “loose cannon”? The feeling among many people is that Trump is a loose cannon. Hillary is not.

     I’ve written many posts with some of the details. A great deal of the trepidation about Trump involves the general area of foreign policy, but is not limited to that.

     As far as your most recent comment goes, I’m relatively sure that not everyone is going to vote for anyone.

256. I wrote “you are going to vote for someone or not.” I thought that would be understood as voting for H, T, J, S, a write-in or no one (as in “not” voting for someone).

     So, if the election were held today, I would vote for Trump.

     What about the rest of you, including those of you who currently fear the loose cannon or fear the one aimed at our hearts?

257. Ira:

     That’s nice to know how you say you will vote. Do I care? No, you have your reasons. My vote is mine to decide.

258. VDH:
     “In farming, I learned there is no good harvest, only each year one that’s 51 percent preferable to the alternative, which in 2016 is a likely 16-year Obama-Clinton hailstorm. It may be discomforting for some conservatives to vote for the Republican party’s duly nominated candidate, but as this Manichean two-person race ends, it is now becoming suicidal not to.”

     Yeats:
     “The best lack all conviction, while the worst were full of passionate intensity.”

259. “Much as I respect VDH I and others don’t agree with voting for Trump. Sorry about that.” – OM

     I don’t like VDH’s writing much. In one word, I would describe it as “parroting”.

     Not long ago I said as much…

     “There are several “pundits” who try to straddle the line (e.g. Victor David Hansen) who seem to be trying to align themselves with the angry masses, acting as some “objective observer” giving “voice” to those concerns.

     But, they never really comes to the table with whether it is right or wrong, or have something to contribute on what needs to happen to navigate out of the mess.”
     http://neoneocon.com/2016/08/04/the-shotgun-election/#comment-1499064

     Early on I thought he was a trump apologist and was not surprised whatsoever that he says he will vote trump.

260. While he’s certainly a respected historian, I have long found VDH to be unreadable. He can’t write concisely or clearly. I once started reading his book on the pelopponesian war and found it unbearably repetitive.

     His political columns read like a series of comparisons (Republicans are accused of doing A but Democrats do B and C! And Republicans are criticism for doing D but look how Obama does E and F!). Yawn…

     He’s adopted the same line of thinking that many on this thread have adopted – that not voting for Trump is “suicidal”. I happen to believe the opposite: winning the election doesn’t guarantee victory – just ask Democrats after the Carter presidency. I think it’s suicidal – not existentially but certainly for a political party – to jettison the core of your principles to elect someone who represents a very nasty turn to the very soul of your party because you might win, but on the morning after what have you won?

     On a side note – the Conventional wsdom of “reluctant” Trump supporters has shifted over time from “yes, almost any of the other Repunlican candidates would do better against Hillary than Trump but he’s what we got” to “none of them could possibly have beaten her and Trump’s the best candidate we could have gotten”. Because a dishonorable candidate is the only kind that can win anymorem

     Can’t believe I’m still commenting on this thread 🙂 I should probably give it a rest.

261. Bill:

     I haven’t checked for sure, but I think this thread has set a neo-neocon record for comments.

     There have been others in the 200+ range, though.

262. “I think it’s suicidal — not existentially but certainly for a political party — to jettison the core of your principles to elect someone who represents a very nasty turn to the very soul of your party because you might win, but on the morning after what have you won?” – Bill

     Right. At this point, we can probably expect that the GOP and all those in the “conservative” media, who had, rather early on, fallen in line behind trump, have since lost any credibility regarding representing any set of consistent values whatsoever, other than “WINNING!!!”.
     .

     “the Conventional wisdom of “reluctant” Trump supporters has shifted over time … to “none of (the other GOP candidates) could possibly have beaten her … Because a dishonorable candidate is the only kind that can win anymore “

     Have noticed a shift of sorts along these lines. It does fit with the notion that there is no longer a “Constitutional means” of righting course of this country.

263. Half of the VDH columns are what I call his “Greek chorus potboilers”, wherein he regurgitates a laundry list of progressive or Obama failures. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it, lest they be forgotten. I’d rate the one referenced to be in that category.

264. Bill Says:

     On a side note — the Conventional wsdom of “reluctant” Trump supporters has shifted over time from “yes, almost any of the other Repunlican candidates would do better against Hillary than Trump but he’s what we got” to “none of them could possibly have beaten her and Trump’s the best candidate we could have gotten”. Because a dishonorable candidate is the only kind that can win any more

     And this is what makes me think Trump supporters will never hold him accountable if he screws them. They’re already revising history and the election isn’t even over.

     Soon, it’ll be “America has always supported Trump. Dear Leader always has the People in his heart.”

265. Interesting article here:
     http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/09/emails-show-what-hillary-has-in-mind-for-israel.php

     Paul Mirengoff concludes:

     Shouldn’t the neo-conservatives/Reagan interventionists who plan to vote for Hillary Clinton rethink their stance?

     ***

     . . . Boteach’s piece [at http://observer.com/2016/02/hillarys-email-trail-of-troubling-anti-israel-conversations/%5Dis built on quotations from emails. Unless he’s inventing the content, the only bias I detect is Boteach’s strong sense that the ideas [about shaming Israelis and encouraging Palestinian protests] presented to Clinton by her trusted advisers were outrageous. I share that bias.

     We can be confident that Trump won’t receive advice like this from [son-in-law Jared] Kushner, an Orthodox Jew with strong ties to Israel, and I doubt he’ll receive, much less entertain it from any other trusted adviser.

266. When VDH sticks to his home turf and writes about the decline of California he’s fine to read, but when he ventures into partisan politics not so much. Unless he’s recently changed party affiliation and I missed it, he is a life long Democrat of the Scoop Jackson school of foreign policy and the Edmund G. Brown wing of huge government infrastructure projects like freeways and dams. That he would end up endorsing Donald Trump makes perfect sense.

267. Who here is trying to rationalize that we all need to enthusiastically get behind the admitted blowhard, or to persuade you to like it?-GB

     There was that comment from the 9/11 Flight 93 Sep 8 thread. Guy from Boston wrote something about “get over it” you people’s disgust at Trum’s character.

     Paul in Boston Says:
     September 7th, 2016 at 5:55 pm

     It’s generally a rejection that people have a valid reason or right to dislike or refuse to Trum based on Trum’s New York “values”. What I like to call a 70 year old Democrat.

     HRC is in a similar boat, also being in New York, only because she wanted that seat though.

     It saddens me that this campaign and election cycle has driven a wedge into the Republican Party and especially between conservatives. It used to be a pleasure to come to Neo’s place and read informative conservative opinion about issues that we are all interested in.-JJ

     For me it is almost the opposite. Coming to read the news or blogs from 2007-2012 was painful beyond belief for me. Why? Because people went along to get along with the Hussein Regime, with the Leftist alliance, as the country was destroyed. They should have hated every Leftist and even every Democrat, every commenter that came here spouting Leftist propaganda nd SJW rhetoric. They should have, but didn’t.

     So after 2013, when people’s frustrations came to a hot peak due to the collapse of the Tea Party under IRS strategic bombardment and sabotage, then people became angry and full of hate. Which is necessary, but unfortunately for humans, they are often incapable of controlling their emotions.

     So now those emotions control conservatives and Republicans, and as a result some of them join the Alt Right and also as a result some of them join the Never Trump camp. All because of emotions, while telling themselves it is because of “hard thinking”.

     Humans don’t really “think” about much of anything, especially for the double think capable high IQ sorts.

     The humans, the 3%, capable of thinking over their own emotions, are rare. And which is why I use my time to read what they write and also reply. Those who are controlled by their emotions, are little more useful than zombies to me.

     So yes, the conflict this year and before, may be draining on folks. But to me, it is far better than the “Get Along, to Go Along” attitude people had about the Hussein Regime before. So maybe it was a few years too late. Oh well. Can’t choose miracles.

     At least if humans are going to fall off a cliff on this train called America, they should be clearly and rationally aware of what is happening to them. At least they can pay Flight 93 that much homage and honor, at least.

268. To Matt, VDH was usually considered a sage even before 2008.

     As for his politics, it’s probably more like Glenn Reynolds. The Iraq war did more than just come up with Counter Insurgency that reformed the US military’s outdated fear of Vietnam. It also slightly changed the Republican GOP coalition.

     Foreign policy hawks and libertarian pro liberty pushers, became more transparent as allies, than merely “liberal social policies or free economies”.

269. Steve D asks a great question:

     And what is culture downstream from? That is the key.

     The answer is 1. Metaphysics, the nature of reality, 2. Epistemology, the study of what constitutes knowledge, and 3. Ethics, what is the good?

270. Invaluable blog post ! For what it’s worth , if your company wants a SEC Form 144 (SEC 1147) , my business partner encountered a template form here https://goo.gl/LGJiA8

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>