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GOP politicians: no good choices this time around — 126 Comments

1. The only good reason I can think of to vote for Trump is to irk Obama. I’m sure he would dislike being succeeded by Trump. Don’t know if that is a good enough reason, but Obama deserves it.

2. The Choice: Vote for Trump or against Hill or Bern (or a Dem to be named later), or accept a Dem president. (Other consequences also to be named later.)
   I’m embracing the power of AND before the first comma.

3. Neo:
   Would you consider voting for Biden if he were brought in to replace Hillary? I might find myself tempted to do that. If he were to run with Warren, though, all bets would be off.
   I don’t like or admire Biden, but he’s part of a universe I find familiar. Hillary is a criminal and I just can’t swallow Trump.

4. Trump on energy in ND was really good. People don’t realize how we could be a massive energy exporter. Cheap nat gas and oil changes everything. Green is a giant drag on our economy.

   Of all the candidates I met, Marco is the most likable. He knows defense cold. He would be great at Defense or State if not VP.

   Hillary would be such a disaster as President – in so many ways – that it isn’t a close call for me.

5. During the whole primary process, I’ve found almost nothing to disagree with in Neo’s posts — whether they were about Trump or someone else. Can’t disagree with this one either.

   Oh joy, all I have is an even more negative addition.

   As it became clear that Trump would be the nominee, I started to get the distinct feeling that this isn’t an aberration. Instead, it looks like the part of a trend. Argentina has Peronism; we’ll get Trumpism: celebrity-culture populist authoritarians.

   All speculation based on pessimism and anxiety? I hope so. My record as soothsayer is poor.

6. Neo:
   “Unless a very organized third-party campaign by a very strong alternative candidate begin to catch fire today (or preferably many months ago) …”

   A 3rd party run is realistic, more feasible now than before in my memory. It’s doable.

   But at minimum, just to enter the arena with a chance, the campaign would need to be sufficiently activist to play to win against the varsity Democrat-front Left and ‘jayvee’ but insurgent (the inherently stronger activist position) Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right.

   The chief obstacle to a “very organized third-party campaign” is not the opponents, the American people, nor the situation, but that the campaign’s 1st reliance would be on the same non-activists who have consistently failed fitness tests versus Left activists and now the ‘jayvee’ alt-Right insurgency.

   Even now, displaced conservatives have yet to show any competitive ability, or even mindset, to compete for real in the arena against Left activists and now alt-Right insurgents.

   Another critical aspect of the dilemma is that, more than the presidential election, displaced conservatives need the 3rd party campaign as the means to create a long-view social activist movement that’s capable of guarding against their own political obsolescence and launching a viable insurgency.

   Anyone now rationalizing they can wait out Trump and restore the conservative ‘movement’ from within the GOP without a real competitive social activist movement is just rationalizing a meek surrender. The Trump-front alt-Right activists who’ve displaced conservatives will give no more charity to the vanquished than their role models, Left activists, have given to liberals.

   It’s now or never. Compete or submit. Competing means a full activist, 3rd party run that win or lose in the presidential election, sets up a social activist movement that competes for real.

7. mizpants:

   Probably not.

   But at the moment I’ve got my hands full with the Hillary vs. Trump decision, so I’m not thinking much about Biden. As I’ve said many times, I strongly believe the nominee will be Hillary.

8. I think what really makes me sick to my stomach is to see people like Ace all of a sudden coming down hard on people who don’t support Trump. I used to really respect Ace, and think highly of what he wrote. He seemed to be someone of principal. I’ve come to see him for what he always was, a shill for the Republican party. Each election cycle I’ve watched him scream about Romney and McCain, and then ultimately preach about how party matters more than principals. I’m disgusted by the fact that so many are falling in line behind someone as flawed as Trump. (You’re not included in this group Neo) I knew that it was coming, I just didn’t think it would make me so ill.

9. This discussion is exactly about what I have kept thinking about for months now.

   I have been disgusted by my somewhat favorite candidates who jumped on the Trump bandwagon. Christy really disgusted me, because he was so quick to do it and because Trump made Christy look pathetic on camera. Then Perry did it. I had even sent Perry a contribution, so he really disappointed me. As I started to read this post, I was ready to be disgusted again, by Rubio. But, by the end of this post my respect for was even elevated a bit. He was my favorite candidate all along because he really understood foreign policy and his polling showed him most able to win the general election. I hope Cruz and Fiorina keep their distance, now.

   I live in very blue California. At this moment I see no chance for the Democrat to not carry the state. Therefore, I should not vote for anyone for president. That will send a message, in a tiny way, that no candidate was acceptable. Also, if Trump is destined to be defeated, I would rather it be by a landslide so that he AND HIS EAGER FOLLOWERS would be thoroughly discouraged and discredited. Then, our anti-progressive movement would have to reinvent itself.

   I welcome comments on this blue-state voting strategy. If I lived in a solidly red state, I probably would not vote for either, either.

   If I lived in a swing state, I would have an as now unresolved dilemma: to vote for the devil I know well or the unpredictable devil who might be not so bad or far more horrible. I recognize that if the Democrats win, including many down-ticket races, our republic could be irreparably destroyed.

10. I can’t recall anyone here being more anti-Rubio than myself. However his words and position on this issue lead me to conclude that he is not nearly the political opportunist that I had previously thought. I can only now surmise that he was first, terribly naive and then, pridefully stubborn in his continued support for the gang of eight legislation. (Yes neo, you nailed it 🙂 )

    IMO, given the political realities, Rubio is taking exactly the correct position.

    And, again IMO, neo’s tentative and very reluctant support for Trump is logically inescapable.

    Sam L,

    I for one am less than clear on what your preference may be.

    mizpants,

    You might reflect upon the demonstrable fact that Biden has been as loyal to Obama as he could wish. I can only recall one time when he offered any criticism of Obama at all and that was a rumor.

    If Hillary ‘drops out’ and Biden is drafted and he does choose Warren as his VP, it will be IMO, prima facie evidence that Biden fully plans to continue Obama’s agenda.

11. Mixpants, you did not ask me, but I consider Biden a nightmare, just a bit less frightening than HRC. He is a congenital, mean spirited liar. He is a buffoon, and walking, talking gaffe machine. He is an embarrassment as VP. I shudder to think of him as President. Never.

    HRC and Biden are known quantities of very little, but toxic substance. Trump is a cypher to a certain extent, although the indicators we have are not cause for optimism. We are in a bad situation.\

12. I meant to finish the previous by saying I will roll the dice with Trump, regardless of who the Dems put forward. Remember the Supreme Court.

13. Alan F,

    4 years ago I was living in Ca. and had done so since 1976, so I’m familiar with the mindset of the state; conservative interior – populous liberal coast.

    IMO, not voting for any Presidential candidate does NOT ‘send a message’ because unfortunately no one is listening nor cares. If you vote for any 3rd party candidate your labeled by everyone else as a quack, so voting for Trump is the only way to register disapproval of the democrat agenda.

    And, I wouldn’t be so certain that Trump could not possibly pull off an upset and take California in Nov. All it would take is a few more attacks like in San Bernardino..

14. Hillary is evil. I really think that. I have to vote against her.

15. As far as the Rubio thing, thanks for setting the record straight Neo.

    I’m still pondering the idea of how much damage a Trump presidency would do to the party, and how much damage a Hillary presidency would do to the Dem party. I also wonder how willing people might be to embrace conservative principals after four years of a Clinton presidency, as opposed to how much destruction Trump would do to conservative principals as a Republican president. I’m thinking about how willingly people embraced the Democratic agenda after Nixon’s presidency, especially with regard to his landslide victory in ’72, and how willingly people embraced Obama after Bush’s presidency. I also think about the fact that if Trump wins he’ll be the nominee again in 2020, but if he loses, we might have a better shot in 2020 of having a good candidate. I don’t really see this as a black and white Hillary-Trump choice. There are implications far beyond it. It angers me, that in America, where I have so many choices on almost everything in my life, my only two options for POTUS are Trump and Clinton. I just think we can do better. We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t elect a decent president? (trying to throw a little humor in this for the old fogeys among us.)

16. Oldflyer:

    For SCOTUS alone, a vote for Trump is necessary. I read plenty opinions and the split on key cases is so obvious. People mock Trump on his assertion that Hillary will get rid of the Second Amendment. But she will via SCOTUS. Maybe Heller won’t be expressly over ruled but Kagan and Breyer will cook up a sneaky way to get around Heller.

17. Here’s what I don’t understand: do any of you think the two major parties have served us well in recent cycles?

    Anyone?

    Tell me how great the Republicans or Democrats are. Please.

    Assuming no one can (and if you can I’d love to hear it), how come those of us who aren’t going to vote for Republican or Democrat, at least at the presidential level, get slammed for not doing so? Here’s what it sounds like to me: “these parties suck, these candidates suck, but YOU suck if you don’t vote for them.”

    Seriously, was there ever a better time to form a third party? Yes, we are going to end up with a bad president, either way we go. But I’m now forced to think beyond this cycle. We have to start the turnaround now. It will take years. But even supreme Court justices don’t live forever. We have to create a party that doesn’t suck. That’s more important than this upcoming election. This election is already lost, short of a miracle.

    Quit embracing the suck. Even a protest vote matters and sends a message. Frankly, thats almost all we can do now.

    Otherwise, admit that you’re embracing the suck and will be happy with a succession of ever more corrupt and unconstitutional Hillarys and Donalds for as far as the eye can see. Admit that you’re too cowed and we’re going to just continue making America suck, again and again and again.

    Count me out. I’m not voting for suckage any more.

18. Bill, dittos to everything you said.

19. The MSM undermines Trump at every chance in subtle ways. He made assertions about our oil and gas reserves in his ND speech. Per government records our PROVEN reserves are not what he said. But PROVEN reserves are a defined term per the SEC. He was probably referring to something other than SEC reserves. The PROVEN reserves have been wrong for decades.

    A casual viewer thinks Trump is lying or exaggerating. But the truth is different. His central point, however, is valid. The US has plenty of oil and gas. If we can exploit it, we are way better off as a country.

    I hate the MSM.

20. I can not support djt, even with my single vote in a swing state, unless Iowa looks like a very, very close race. I do not trust him because he has shown me that he has no philosophical compass except the YUGE grandeur of the donald. Everything is up for negotiation; border security, cracking down hard on illegals, gutting ocare, and any other issue that is important to me.

21. I voted for John Anderson. Perot gave us Bill Clinton.

    We are a two party country. No way around it.

22. …that makes him about like 99.99999% of people who run for office

    Yeah, a profile in courage is so yesterday. As Trump would say: Sad!

    What a very great disappointment Rubio has turned out to be.

23. Sure, I know when Hillary is lying — when her lips are moving.

    But to see her standing there saying “the State Dept IG report proves I did nothing wrong,” when it says exactly the opposite, makes me want to vomit. And watching the sycophantic reporter let her get away with it is just as nausea-inducing. Even Andrea Mitchell, chief Dem stooge, is beginning to waver.

    And as more and more revelations about the Clinton Foundation, McAuliffe, the Chinese billionaire, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum, come out, I think the Dem chiefs are finally beginning to worry that she’ll get buried by the Donald.

    That’s why I think the WaPo wants her to be indicted before the convention — so Good Old Uncle Joe can step in.

24. Bill — you have to start in your state, maybe even in your county. If you can get some local candidates elected by the “Not Crazy, Not Stupid Party,” then you can go to the next county, the next state, and so on. Otherwise, like the Tea Party, you just fade into irrelevancy.

25. Whenever I start to worry too much about politics, I always try to remember that I’m not in charge of the world. Every four years the nation turns to me to ask who I think would make the best president, albeit from a limited menu. I think it’s futile to vote one way because if I don’t vote for this guy, this other guy will do this, or such and such will happen down the road, or don’t forget this might happen, etc. Just pick the best person you can. Even if you think they have no chance of winning. “Moral clarity” (as Dennis Prager, ironically a reluctant Trump suporter, puts it) is the best thing. It’s best at this point to get a accurate picture of where the nation stands–however fractured it might be– rather than finessing your vote. And not voting sends no message at all.

26. Ann:

    I have several beefs with Rubio. One is his naivete about the Gang of 8 legislation (and I think it was naivete), the second is his failure to adequately explain what he did re that legislation and why (I’ve read explanations from him that make sense to me, but somehow most people neither heard them nor accept them) and to make amends for it, and the third is his staying in the race too long in 2016.

    I just thought of a fourth—his repeating himself when rattled by Chris Christie in that debate, an exchange I’ve written about at length, and although I don’t find Rubio’s role in it anywhere near as bad as most people thought it was, it still looked bad and was a disappointment.

    That’s it for me.

    This particular position of his seems perfectly fine, and reading his actual words I don’t understand why you’d feel it was so bad. Or maybe that’s not what you’re saying? Maybe you’re speaking in general about his early promise versus where he is now?

27. I was looking for it, and it took until Oldflyer at 3:11 pm to bring up what had been missing up to that point in the comments, to wit: “Remember the Supreme Court.”

    Cornhead goes on to underscore the point at 3:20 pm. It is major and it is key. ‘Nuff said, at least for me.

28. Neo:

    That bit about “policy differences” with Trump — for heaven’s sake, he said Trump was dangerous and couldn’t be trusted with nuclear codes. If nothing else, he insults our intelligence by resorting to such claptrap.

29. Ann:

    Yes, he does have policy differences with Trump.

    Do you really think he ought to add that Trump is an abominable human being, a conman, etc., at this point? There is no point to it anymore if he has decided Hillary is worse and he needs to support Trump. He already said all of that about Trump when it might have mattered, and now the Trump die is cast. If Rubio truly thinks Trump is at least better than Hillary, there is absolutely no need for Rubio to harp on what an abominable person Trump still is. To what purpose? For Rubio to prove to you that his heart is pure?

    It would be martyring himself and the Republican Party, and facilitating Hillary’s election at this point. Why should he do that, if he really thinks she would be worse? Do you really want him to do something so contradictory and destructive—at this point—just to prove what a good and true guy he is?

30. “I’m still pondering the idea of how much damage a Trump presidency would do to the party, and how much damage a Hillary presidency would do to the Dem party.’ Tom

    I expect Trump may well complete the self-destruction of the Republican party. Hillary will destroy the nation. And she’ll get away with it because of the forces she has in support of her. Her choices for SCOTUS alone will ensure that. Add on the massive network of leftist activists, congressional democrat loyalty, the MSM, academia and the 53% who approve of Obama’s job performance and it is a virtual certainty.

    “was there ever a better time to form a third party? Yes, we are going to end up with a bad president, either way we go. But I’m now forced to think beyond this cycle. We have to start the turnaround now. It will take years. But even supreme Court justices don’t live forever. We have to create a party that doesn’t suck. That’s more important than this upcoming election. This election is already lost, short of a miracle.” Bill

    I agree that NOW is the time to start a Constitutional, 3rd party. Elect Trump and that party MAY get the time it needs to mature. Elect Hillary and it will be stillborn. Totalitarians do not tolerate competition.

    “Count me out. I’m not voting for suckage any more.” Bill

    No, currently, you’re voting for Hillary and only willful blindness prevents your recognition and acknowledgement.

    “I do not trust him because he has shown me that he has no philosophical compass except the YUGE grandeur of the donald. Everything is up for negotiation; border security, cracking down hard on illegals, gutting ocare, and any other issue that is important to me.” parker

    Yup. Totally agree. You’d be a fool to trust the man. Tragically, there’s no doubt whatsoever where Hillary leads. Trump may well lead to a destroyed America. Hillary leads to the collective, to the Soviet.

    “That’s why I think the WaPo wants her to be indicted before the convention – so Good Old Uncle Joe can step in.” Richard S.

    If she drops out or is disqualified before the convention, doesn’t that automatically make Sanders the nominee? Whereas, if it happens after she’s become the nominee, doesn’t that allow the dems to draft Biden?

    roc scssrs,

    Yes, “Moral clarity” does permit clear evaluation. And where the nation stands is upon the precipice. Trump may blunder us over it. Hillary will gleefully push us over.

31. Nominee djt is a threat to a gop majority in the senate. Even if he wins the general election gop senators up for reelection in bluish states will have a terrible dilemma. If they do not emphatically distance themselves from Trump they will lose their seat. Mark Kirk running in Illinois is a perfect example. So Oldflyer’s SCOTUS card could well be trumped as djt will have no problem negotiating with a democrat senate majority to put a liberal judge on the court.

32. Simple logic here 1) The NYT loathes Trump 2) I loathe the NYT 3) ergo, I will vote for Trump in order to thwart the NYT.

    I’ve voted with even fewer reasons than this in the past.

33. 1996: “Hold your nose and vote Dole!”
    2000: “Hold your nose and vote Bush!”
    2008: “Hold your nose and vote McCain!”
    2012: “Hold you nose and vote Romney!”
    .
    Won’t hold my nose any longer, especially for a Republican Party that hates conservatives more than liberals.

34. Thank you for posting this correction to what others are saying. It is disheartening to see how quickly pundits and compatriots will turn on those who have carried the torch, in this case, Rubio. I regret Marco is not going to be on the ticket this time around, but I certainly hope he remains on the political scene.

35. Geoffrey,

    I said a “tiny message”. If I vote for Trump and he doesn’t come close in California, then that is a “tiny message” of approval of Trump’s effort. I also qualified with “At this moment . . .”. Polling results and further discussion and developments could persuade me to a different position.

    BTW, for me, a strong stand against illegal immigration has been important for decades. I gave Rubio a pass because I thought he was most electable.

36. Choosing between Trump and Clinton is like choosing between Gonorrhea and Syphilis. Both are bad, but I’m pretty sure one is worse than the other.

    I don’t want either. I’m voting for the Libertarian.

37. The current Overton window of acceptable public policy, open borders and no explicit linking of terrorism and Islam, etc., is a window that opens on our destruction. Trump is a vile man, but he’s the only candidate that moves that window. And he won’t tarnish the party – he’s understood to be a one-off. Not a hard choice.

38. I did not like Rubio, he seemed too much an earnestly ambitious professional politician, the sort who no doubt had a campaign manager and an eight-point platform when he ran for sixth-grade student coucil rep – but I don’t understand the “news” that he’s supporting Donald Trump since he, like all the other candidates save Trump, pledged to endorse the ultimate GOP nominee regardless of who that turned out to be. (Trump, of course, only pledged to support the eventual nominee *as long as he was treated fairly by the GOP* and we saw from the whining about how unfair it was of the GOP to follow the rules rather than change the rules to suit Trump just what Trump meant by that pledge – he’ll support the eventual nominee as long as it was Donald Trump.) So why is anybody making a big deal of Rubio for keeping his word, doing exactly what he said he’d do, supporting his party? There has to be some kind of spin there they’re trying to sell.

39. GB,

    The DNC is more devious than the RNC, delegates are not bound on the first ballot or any subsequent ballots. If hrc looks like a mutant, highly contagious poliovirus at convention time, she is toast. Biden/Warren to the rescue.

40. Geoffrey B — you might be right. My thinking is that a Hillary indictment would so shake up the Dems that all of the Clinton supporters and at least some of the Sanders supporters would be fearful enough of the Donald — whom nobody except the most looney Lefties think Bernie could beat — to vote for Uncle Joe, the Sanders people especially if Fakeahontas were named as the Veep.

    I would think they’d want to get that done at the convention so that it would have at least the faé§ade of being democratic.

41. Ann,

    We had a few exchanges concerning Rubio before Florida, and you were totally pro Rubio. I agree with comments that he was very careful in his statement. He did not directly endorse djt, he simply stated hrc was beyond the pale. Come on, cut him some slack. 😉

42. I look at it this way Trump will be impeachable in case of “high crimes or misdemeanors.” Hillary, not so much, since they are an unspoken, but inherent, part of her platform.

    After his SCOTUS list, I will, once again, hold my nose and vote Republican, in this case, for Trump.

43. A commenter mentioned Charles Murray’s discussion of this conundrum. I googled it; well elucidated: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435805/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-why-hillary-is-even-worse-doesnt-cut-it

44. P. J. O’Rourke noted that Clinton is “wrong within normal parameters”. Unfortunately, he drew the wrong inference: that makes Clinton far more dangerous.

    President Clinton would have the full support of the Democrats (including probable majorities in Congress and the Supreme Court), and the media/academic complex for wrong policies. Republicans would oppose, but ineffectually. She could do enormous permanent damage.

    President Trump would encounter ferocious resistance from Democrats, intense scrutiny from the media, and vehement criticism from the academy, but only measured support from Republicans. So he couldn’t do much damage.

45. elHombre,

    Please read my post @4:51. Trump, if elected in November, will likely face a democrat senate majority. Think he will select from the list or negotiate? 😉

46. Somehow we should try to get the message out that the reluctant Trump supporters (not Christie) are the best chance we have to win some battles with the deal maker. I really hate the alt-right demonization of Ryan now because he is reluctant to jump on the bandwagon. I would much rather have people like him and Cruz setting terms for the deals than Pelosi and Schumer. We have to have the numbers to have our voices heard.

    And someone should remind the so-called conservatives who think they can get their way on every issue that that’s not the way our country is set up. Do they really want to conserve our form of government or are they willing to throw it out so they can feel good for the moment? We have to convince majorities that our ideas work best. We have a good chance to do this now with our majorities in the governorships and statehouses. A mind is a terrible thing to change, but when people start seeing that other states do better, we may catch a few who are willing to make the leap. Do people really want more of pee-in-the-street de Blasoio? Do they want o repeat of Venezuela by following Sander’s ideas?

47. I offer two essays from William Vallicella (retired prof. of philosophy) as an opinion from another quarter.

    The link to Vallicella’s site:

    http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/

    The first is “Jeb, The Gentleman” [scroll down to Tuesday, May 24, 5:57 am]

    The second is “Peter Wehner on the Dennis Praeger Argument for Trump.” [scroll down to Friday, May 13, 1:28 pm]

48. Neo, I put this on Ace’s site, but this seems like a good place to repeat it:

    Ace: ” Let me propose, to the stunned silence of the crowd, that maybe conservatism is not at the moment an electorally-winning set of policies, and needs some fine-tuning and even some general rethinking.”

    And of course, you’re right ace. Conservatism will never be an electorally winning set of principles as long as there’s enough illusion of normality that allows for the distribution of Free Sh*t. Only when the Gods of the Copybook Headings actually arrive and begin the terror and slaughter will that illusion vanish.

    And the best way to hasten their arrival is probably to vote for Hillary. Why not? If I was prepared to do that if the GOPe didn’t nominate an actual conservative like Cruz, but someone like Rubio, why wouldn’t I do the same now that they’ve nominated an obvious con artist who’s already repudiating every position he used to sucker the Trumpkins?

49. This is so simple. Even if you think Trump is a lousy choice (as I do), Hillary is worse. Bernie is worse yet. If the Hildebeest goes to jail, they’ll probably try to shove Biden down our throats. Biden is almost as bad as Hillary(or maybe even worse). So Trump is the best we can do. That stinks, after the promising field the GOP started with, but that’s the choice we’ve got. Hold your nose and vote for Trump. It’s not like we haven’t had lousy candidates before.

50. Neo:
    “What does Klein expect Rubio to do”

    Your rhetorical question gets at the heart of the fundamental competitive fault caused by activism-averse conservatives on the Right: instead of fulfilling their core responsibility for competitive activism, mainstream conservatives by and large have passed the buck on activism to the GOP.

    Democratic officials don’t lead on social issues. Democrats perform their structural role by following the social cultural/political landscaping by Left activists throughout the spectrum who establish the social environmental (pre-)conditions for Democratic officials to do their part.

    The GOP has been trapped by the Right’s failure to compete for real in the arena. The GOP is constrained. Rubio is adjusting within the structural parameters for the GOP, which are basically the same parameters as for the Democrats.

    It’s the Right’s place to counter the Left and alt-Right throughout the arena. The ugliness with Rubio and other Republicans submitting to the Trump phenomenon is compelled by the Right’s failure to shape the social cultural/political landscape for the GOP. The Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right has exploited the gap.

    Apparently, even now, Klein continues to implicitly pass the buck for activism to the GOP and overlook the fundamental failure by conservatives in their core responsibility for competitive activism that’s the rippling cause of the competitive failures by the Right and GOP.

51. re:will cate @5:14 pm
    “I don’t want either. I’m voting for the Libertarian Hillary.”
    Fixed it for you.

52. Bret Baier had a special on Foxnews about the Trump phenomenon. It included many interviews with blue collar workers both men and women as well as many Democratic union members. These people have given up on the economic policies of the country because they have seen no increases in their standards of living for many years. He interviewed some Carrier workers at the plant Carrier is shutting down and moving to Mexico. They are livid about the way things are going. Trump speaks to them. They see him as a man who understands their problems and will actually do something about them. They don’t care if he is boorish, doesn’t understand foreign policy, and flip flops on ideas because they see him as wanting to do something to change the system to one of America first. I was impressed by their passion, their anger, and their loyalty to Trump, the unpolitician.

    I’m not in their position but I do understand it better now. My focus is more on foreign policy, anti-environmentalism, (Yes, I hate the Greens with the same passion as the Trump supporters hate the GOP establishment.) military strategy/force levels, and small government. Those are things Trump’s supporters don’t care about except to put America first, which Obama certainly hasn’t.

    I have a few reasons for voting for Trump even though I find him a most unsatisfactory
    candidate:
    1. Supreme Court Justices. His list of people was outstanding.
    2. Energy policy. We need to become a big exporter, especially of natural gas.
    3. The Second Amendment. He supports it, the Dems (no matter who) do not.
    4. Obamacare. Just going back to what things were like pre Obama would be an improvement. Trump is talking about allowing nationwide competition for health insurance and Health Savings Accounts. All far better than Obamacare.
    5.He is impeachable, if he gets too far out of line.
    6. He will strengthen our military.
    7. He will not force suicidal Rules of Engagement on our troops.

    There are more, but with all his faults, these lead me to the conclusion that I will vote for him as opposed to abstaining, or Third Party. A vote for Hillary is and always has been a no-starter for me.

53. Tom,

    Ace moderated his Trump comments the following day. He made it clear that he still actively dislikes Trump. But the primary is over, and he sees the options as vote for Trump, or vote for Hillary (even if only by inaction at the voting booth). And since he really, really, really doesn’t want Hillary to win, that means casting a vote for Trump.

    He also seems to be of the opinion that some of the #NeverTrump people might really be rabid enough anti-Trump to vote for Hillary in the general election. And, needless to say, that’s a real problem.

54. Eric — I repeat my earlier questions — where do we get the thousands of young conservatives we need to become education majors and take over the public schools? Where do we get the thousands of young conservatives we need to take over the college social science and humanities departments? How do we get them to 1) take such jobs, and 2) keep their mouths shut until they get tenure and/or get into the administrative level?

55. Pardon a short rant:

    No, no, no Trump is not the way. It is highly likely over the next 2 years we will experience a global crash that will make 2008 look like a mere hiccup. Who do you want holding the burning bag of dog caca? Hrc or djt? Or would you choose, given the choice of a time machine put Walker, Fiorina, or Cruz at the helm?

    History is not a straight highway to the leftist utopia. It is cyclical deja vu. We can look in the rearview mirror and see we have been there before.

56. Eric: “It’s the Right’s place to counter the Left and alt-Right throughout the arena.”

    A question was asked on Foxnews two days ago. Why are the Democrat demonstrators at the Trump rallies always so violent and willing to engage the police? (They injured policemen and damaged some police cars in Albuquerque and Anaheim) They are engaging in your activism, which in its very nature is anathema to conservatives. Conservatives value law and order, respect the police, and believe reasonable people can be convinced to do the right thing without violence and force. It is the way the system is supposed to work. When you commit violence, property damage, and show no respect for the law, you are tearing down the very values the American experiment was built on. The only way to combat the hooliganism of the left is to defend law and order in no uncertain terms and to berate the MSM for not reporting about the organizations behind the violence. These protestors are not just angry citizens the way the TEA Party is, they are trained and paid to do what they do. Most average LIVs have no idea about that.

    I will not violate the law, destroy property, or attack police to further the cause of conservatism. That is the opposite of conservatism.

57. I echo Cornhead, except for his John Anderson comment.

58. JJ,

    Trump as nominee will result in all (as is in all) gop senators up for reelection in bluish states losing. That puts the democrats in the majority. Gee whiz, do you think djt as POTUS will not negotiate with a dem majority to put a liberal jurist in Scalia’s empty seat? The big picture is very important; or in trump terms bad and sad.

    Forget the Jim Jones kool-aid left, it is nominal consertatives who are now championing the donald that I loathe. Definitely not people I want watching my back.

59. be reminded that a pres Clinton will continue unabated the influx of 100,000 welfare dependent ME refugees into the country….
    & who can possibly endure years of that grating cackle ???? And those entrances she makes pointing to whomever ???? (Maybe it s one of Bill”s sexual assault victims, I m sure there is one at every campaign stop!)

60. JJ,

    Trump has a history, up until 2015, supporting a ban on ‘assualt weapons’ and other restrictions on the 2nd. So cross that off your list. And the beat goes on. Why does anyone suppose djt will not revert to his past positions on the 2nd, single payer government controlled healthcare,, etc. if elected to POTUS?

    A publicity whore addict does not not change his/her/its stripes; especially when the aphrodisiac of the Oval Office beckons. Not to be belligerent, but you and the reluctant trumpians need to buy a clue.

61. Gee whiz, do you think djt as POTUS will not negotiate with a dem majority to put a liberal jurist in Scalia’s empty seat?

    Seems very likely to me he’ll negotiate because I remember when Trump took issue with Scalia over affirmative action. And also when he said his sister would be a great Supreme Court appointment — the sister Ted Cruz said was “a hard-core pro-abortion liberal judge”.

62. I’m not going to put up with anyone who supported Trump before Indiana. I’m not going to criticize anyone who supports Trump from now on. This is a tough judgment call, and I can’t get too angry at anyone who makes a reasoned decision that I’d disagree with. It’s the people who put us in this situation that I have a problem with.

    A minority of Republicans and a vast majority of Democrats have terrible judgment. They’ve pushed candidates on us either one of whom would make the worst president in the past 50 years. Shame on them. The Republicans managed to steer their ship carefully into an iceberg. They could not have done worse. The Democrats picked the worst of their group, but none of them should have been anywhere near a party’s leadership much less running for President.

    Is a vote for a third party a vote for Clinton? In a sense yes, in a sense no. I’m not going to perform my usual act of bailing out the country from the Democratic choice. They picked this loser; Clinton’s on them. Don’t hold me responsible for that. I’m not going to cast a vote for Trump because I’m not confident he’d be a better President than Clinton. Think about that. There are birds and fish who’d be a better President than Clinton, but the Republicans found someone arguably worse.

    And that’s the thing: either of these two candidates is arguably worse, arguably better. It’s a fair argument. It’s not one I’m going to condemn anyone for making. I am going to question the judgment of people who act like one of these is a good choice, though.

63. If you do not pay attention to the details, the public record, or question the flavor of the kool-aid…. well you can fill in the blanks…. trumpians, clintonistas, bernieans.

    I am sovereign when it comes to me and/or mine. I am the patricarch and pcognize no authority that denies my sovereinty over me and mine. I am free and my kith and ken are free. We answer to know one. Subvert the rule of law, you become the enemy.

64. Nick,

    But I am allowed to ridicule their idiotic reluctant vote for djt. I promise to be relentless when Biden/Warren take the oath of office. Fools and their folly.

65. In victory, Trump would bring the Senate with him.

    That’s just the way it works. cf 1980 — the Senate shocker.

    The idea that IN VICTORY Trump loses down slate races has no precedent in modern American political history.

    Should he be defeated — yup — figure on lots of down slate defeats.

    &&&&

    The insane policies of the last seven years have caused MANY Democrats to question their party.

    The nomination — by fix — WWF style — is causing many Democrats to question their party.

    %%%

    The Fall campaign will be brutally negative, brutally ugly.

    There are only 2 choices on offer. Period.

    The votes that count are those in the swing states… not mine.

    By the time California is in play, Hillary has lost in a blow-out.

    &&&&&

    For some reason folks keep forgetting that Hillary has PLENTY of dirt on Barry Soetoro.

    So he’s VERY limited in what he can do — if he does not want his politics to be reversed at full throttle.

    Like Adolf, he always puts his racist agenda first.

    Biden and Warren are unlikely to carry on the bad work.

    Whereas, HRCGS is a ‘lock’ to stay on her ballistic path: the rage war on old White guys.

    Guys just like her foul alcoholic father… one tic that she shares with Hitler and Stalin. ( a raging boozing father, that is )

66. Maybe I’m being too generous toward the people who will vote for Trump in November. This isn’t like Bush versus Kerry, where there was an obvious correct and incorrect answer. This one’s a stumper. This is like a gross-out “would you rather” game. In a healthier society these two would have been exiled years ago. If someone finds these two stuck to the bottom of their shoe, they’re not going to say “which one’s worse?”, they’re going to scrape them off. And if I’m being too generous to those who find Clinton worse, well, maybe we all need to take the first step and admit that our system has a problem.

67. I kinda think of Trump as the 3rd party candidate. Parties one and two have merged, and Trump is the third.

68. parker, I understand your position. I also understand how it’s easy to envision scenarios where Trump negotiates right into more progressivism. But we know for sure HRC will continue down the Obama yellow brick road.

    It is a gamble for any conservative to vote for Trump. You are independent and secure. You will survive HRC. The blue collar Trump supporters won’t. Trump is their main chance and they don’t care that he is weak on many, many areas of knowledge and not a true conservative. It is an organic movement that I have been straining to understand. Those blue collar voters are the ones, not us, who put Trump in position to be President. We are now stuck with a that awful choice. Unless something changes between now and November my inclination is to take the chance and stand with the blue collar, salt of the earth people.

    That said, I can fully understand anyone who says they can never support Trump. My preference would be the same except that I cannot abide HRC/Bubba or Biden/Fauxcahontas.
    My vote is against them more than for Trump.

69. Make a list of all the candidates for president in the general election. You can even include the third, fourth etc. party candidates. I expect that Sanders followers will try to run a write-in campaign for him, so even write-ins. Put at the top of your list the one you dislike the most. Of the remaining put next the one you dislike the most until you work your way down to the one you feel the least dislike for. That’s who you vote “for.” Hold your nose and mark that ballot.

    You don’t have to vote “for” someone, you can vote “against” the others. If you feel that way, and the one you chose wins, write that winner, and their party leadership and tell them that you voted “for” that candidate only because everyone else seemed worse, and next presidential election you will be looking for, and doubtless supporting someone, anyone who challenges the new president in the primaries.

70. “Blue collar” includes a lot more people than the blue collar white males to whom Trump most appeals.

71. “No, currently, you’re voting for Hillary and only willful blindness prevents your recognition and acknowledgement.”

    If I vote for candidate C, it hurts both Trump and Hillary exactly the same. Unless you just assume that people like me will blindly vote Republican because Republican. That somehow my vote was stamped with an R automatically. It’s a terrible argument. Convince me that Trump is even qualified for the office.

    I’m a conservative. I’m not a purist, but I’ve got my limits.

    Im sick of hearing the argument that a vote not for Trump is a vote for Hillary.. But I know I’ll be hearing it for the next six months so what can I do. But the fallacy is you assume Trump will be better than Hillary. I don’t know why anyone thinks that. He’ll be a mess and the MSM will make sure that conservatives (not just Republicans) own that mess.

72. “I don’t know why anyone thinks that. He’ll be a mess . . . .” [Bill @ 12:00am]

    And you know that how? Judging from campaign rhetoric? It sounds to me more like the gut speaking than the intellect.

    What Hillary will do is pretty much a certainty, at least to anyone who has been paying attention fore the last 20 years.

    Trump may be a mess, but he still has the potential to surprise us all. Remember, one does not become a successful businessman at the level of DJT without smarts, skill and ability. The question is how will he use those traits if elected. Obama claims world leaders are rattled by Trump. I say “good!” Keep them guessing; keep them off base. Unlike Obama’s posturing with strong anti-American talk and no action when the chips are down; a foreign policy from a man who is a walking, talking international joke.

    The bottom line is we just do not know how a President Trump will perform; and for all your professed surety, neither do you.

73. And from Rod Dreher (via Instapundit:

    “Donald Trump and Milo Yiannopoulos are provocateurs, no question. But they are proving something important about the militant left: that it is often racist against whites, and has no intention of allowing any opinions other than its own to be voiced in the public square. And whether in the streets or in a university lecture hall, it will use violence to impose its will. . . . Trump is a vulgar, crass, alpha-male brute. But he doesn’t care what SJWs and liberals say about him. He fights, and sometimes fights as dirty as they do. That’s not nothing.

74. LOL.

    I think we had this exact same conversation a few weeks ago.

    …with just about the same results.

    Everyone is stark raving crazy right now …

    …except for you and me.

    …and honestly, I’m starting to have my doubts about you.

75. I honestly don’t know what I will do. I was a #NeverTrump” but not sure I can actually stomach Hillary Clinton’s policies. I hate to reward Donald Trump for the ugliness he perpetrated in the campaign, against everyone but particularly against the candidate I thought was best – Ted Cruz. However, that’s done and now we need to move on. He does stand for some things that I can get behind like a strong border, lower taxes for corporations to incentivize them to stick around — lower taxes for everyone. He says he wants to crush ISIS but I am not entirely sure what that exactly means… in his case.

    I think it will depend a lot on who he chooses for his VP. Someone who is smart, principled and who can steer him sanely and exert a positive influence. Maybe a Cheney type of VP, a strong VP, not a Biden VP.

76. I’ve been supporting Republican candidates since before I was able to cast a vote because the platform of limited government, strong national defense and fiscal responsibility have always resonated with me. I have not yet had the opportunity to vote for the perfect candidate on these three points and I won’t this election either. But I will vote for Trump because on these points he is much closer to where I’d like to be than the alternatives. I would also encourage the anti Trump folks to go find Trumps info on line and read it instead of basing their understanding on what someone else has said about Trump, in the same way Neo wrote about checking Rubio’s actual words leading to this post. Can he change his position tomorrow? sure. Could we be wrong? sure. It’s happened before and will again, but at least with Trump we have a chance of seeing more of what we’d like to see vs Hillary where we know we won’t!

77. Conservatives stayed home in 2012 because Romney was a spoon when we needed a shovel. And from the looks of things they may stay home in 2016 because Trump is a shovel and they weren’t prepared for shovels by definition being alpha male assholes.

78. Michael K, why should we read Trump’s info online? He didn’t write it. He doesn’t take it seriously. He won’t use it as a basis for governance. And not simply the way “all politicians do”. He’s shown that he’ll campaign on an issue and mid-rally change his position on it.

79. “Michael K, why should we read Trump’s info online? He didn’t write it. He doesn’t take it seriously. He won’t use it as a basis for governance. And not simply the way “all politicians do”. He’s shown that he’ll campaign on an issue and mid-rally change his position on it.”

    Well said, Nick.

    To those of you urging us to vote for Trump because there’s “a chance” that he might turn out OK . . . I don’t like betting the family farm on snake-oil salesmen. And that’s what he is

    I don’t like bullies and liars, and that’s what he is.

    Everyone’s always complaining about our political system, but none of you are going to do anything about it. You’ll just keep robotically voting for A or B in your binary political world. And nothing will EVER get better.

    This is not wisdom. It’s national suicide. It won’t get fixed next cycle because next cycle when the choice is between Hillary getting re-elected and Kanye West (does anyone really think, now, that that couldn’t happen?) you’ll be telling me to vote for one or the other because there’s “a chance” they won’t be as bad as we think.

    Stop it. We keep feeding these parties, we keep rewarding them for nominating the worst candidates ever, we’re going to get more of the same. Guaranteed.

80. “Michael K, why should we read Trump’s info online? He didn’t write it. He doesn’t take it seriously. He won’t use it as a basis for governance.” [Nick @ 9:05]

    And you know that how?

81. “To those of you urging us to vote for Trump because there’s “a chance” that he might turn out OK . . . I don’t like betting the family farm on snake-oil salesmen.: [Bill @ 9:28am]

    But you’re comfortable betting the family farm on the certainty of a Clinton administration that would sell it down the river?

82. This entire discussion, myself included, demonstrates the truth of Robert Heinlein’s (?) observation that we are not rational beings, we are rationalizing beings.

83. And yet again, Jack Shafer (Politico) via Instapundit (28:50 am):

    Trump consistency about being inconsistent seems almost calculated to destroy the accountability that comes with being interviewed.

    [snip]

    By rejecting the authority of the press to judge him, Trump has debilitated if not destroyed the power of the interview, befuddling a press corps that still believes it can bring him down with one more gotcha, one more “Pinocchio”, one more “Pants On Fire” from the fact-checkers. Trump is laughing at them now.

    I find it amazing that we just can’t stop talking about him nationwide.

    As SteveH noted above (@8:43), we want a shovel, but we don’t want thaaat shovel.

84. ” Everyone’s always complaining about our political system, but none of you are going to do anything about it. You’ll just keep robotically voting for A or B in your binary political world. And nothing will EVER get better.”
    Bill

    This is like twilight zone stuff. Things will get better after we’re a guaranteed third world hell hole?

85. To support SteveH’s comment @ 10:09, once again from Instapundit, (sorry!) in an interview of a 22 yr old Trump supporter by Connor Friedersdorf (posted there at 8:30 am):

    This is a war over how dialogue in America will be shaped. If Hillary wins, we’re going to see a further tightening of PC culture. But if Trump wins? If Trump wins, we will have a president that overwhelmingly rejects PC rhetoric. Even better, we will show that more than half the country rejects this insane PC regime,

    Yet another opinion to add to the dialogue.

86. T: “And you know that how?”

    Because, as I stated in the last sentence of the post, “He’s shown that he’ll campaign on an issue and mid-rally change his position on it.”

    T: “But you’re comfortable betting the family farm on the certainty of a Clinton administration that would sell it down the river?”

    No one’s comfortable about this. But yeah, there’s a mean-and-variance thing going on. Neither candidate’s positions are good. They’re both terrible, really. But with Trump, there’s a greater range of possibilities. Let’s say that one doctor is going to perform an orchidectomy on you, and another is gong to perform 0, 1, or 2 orchidectomies on you. On average, they’re identical. But that variance matters.

87. Nick,

    As I see it, some possibilities in one case (you even admit a greater variance), vs. virtually no possibilities in the other, and you would support the slimmer chance.

    Respectfully, your example of orchiectomies is bizarre (or alternatively not very well explained). They are not elective surgeries (pun intended).

88. oops, forgot.

    Nick,

    as to “Because, as I stated in the last sentence of the post, “He’s shown that he’ll campaign on an issue and mid-rally change his position on it.”

    Quelle horreur! A person in the political limelight, and in a campaign no less, that will change his position on it? I suggest reading the Jack Shafer excerpt at Inatapundit.:

    Trump consistency about being inconsistent seems almost calculated to destroy the accountability that comes with being interviewed.

89. T:

    Sir Humpty Trumpty lies to everyone at any time.

    He’s shown it to be a fact, “a feature not a bug,” in his approach to life. I didn’t care about him until 8 months ago but it didn’t take that long to figure him out; and not by going through advanced analysis, just noting what he has said over time.

    Lot’s of folks here write eloquently, but want to ignore essentials about Trump, hoping, maybe that his lying will only destroy or set back the left.

    Uncharted seas with Captain Wrong Way Peachfuz at the helm, yeah, that’s the ticket.

    A New York City dude leading the country into the wilderness without a map or compass.

90. OM,

    . . . or maybe just without the map and compass that you want/expect/would like him to use.

    You speak as though Trump is a dunderhead. I repeat my point that no one reaches the level of business success that Trump has achieved without smarts, skills and the willingness to use them. How he would use them on behalf of the country is an open question.

    You have just reminded me of the C.S. Lewis quote which, I think, typifies this upcoming election:

    Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons [i.e. Trump] than under omnipotent moral busybodies [e.g. Hillary Clinton]. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.

    (BTW I had completely forgotten about Wrongway Peachfuzz. Thanks for dredging up a funny and long-forgotten memory.)

91. Some humor, November 9th is not tomorrow and we can whistle happy tunes until then.

    http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2016/05/28/died-dead-frank-caliendo-mixes-viral-video-parody-trump-impression-video/

    T:

    Not a dunderhead, fundamentally dishonest. He doesn’t need no stinking map or compass, he has all the best people with him, Donner Party writ large/

92. OM,

    “Fundamentally dishonest” unlike any other politician?

93. T – I think that Donald Trump could do more damage than Hillary Clinton as President. He could also do less. Both would do damage to the country in different ways. If you want to choose one over the other, well, that’s what this election is about. I don’t see it as an obvious choice either way though.

    Foreign policy – They’re both likely to be hawkish and thin-skinned. She would be more swayed by the influence of her party toward pacifism. She’ll be more likely to keep trade deals.

    Fiscal policy – He doesn’t understand it at all. She’ll continue on the same course we’ve been on.

    Domestic policy – He’ll appoint some better judges up and down the system. He’ll violate the Constitution. She will too, but more like Obama has on the margins.

94. T – Trump is a kind of dishonest that’s different from anything we’ve seen before. He lies in service of politics, not ideology. It’s not “the ends justify the means”. It’s directionless lying just to score points. There is no end, just means.

95. Nick,

    I don’t disagree. IMO if Trump were elected, the real question would be who he choses for his cabinet. In my experience there are really two types of CEOs; those who surround themselves with “yes wo/men” and those who rely on their advisors for real information.

    In government, Obama would be an example of the former. Will Trump be an example of the latter? I don’t know, but from what I have seen and heard about him, I believe he could be.

    We know who we will get with Hillary Clinton; Steve Blumenthal, Huma Abedin and John Kerry.

96. Nick,

    ” There is no end, just means.”

    I disagree entirely. There is a most definite “end”; to win the nomination, to win the national election.

97. Nick,

    Also, “Trump is a kind of dishonest that’s different from anything we’ve seen before.”

    And that is a problem because everything that conservatives have been doing has worked so well on the national level?

    Make no mistake about it, even though Trump is running as a Republican, I have no illusion about his “conservatiim”, but, I have no patience left with the Democrat-Lite party who would convince me that their method of imposing a liberal state is better than a Democtrat-Party imposed liberal state.

    I, personally, am willing to take the chance that Trump will shake things up. I’m done justifying or supporting “more of the same” from the “conservative” establishment.

98. T;

    I think he is lying about “shaking things up” except that which will benefit him and his.

    Fundamentally dishonest.

99. “This is like twilight zone stuff. Things will get better after we’re a guaranteed third world hell hole?”

    Everyone seems to be able to predict the future so well.

    “But you’re comfortable betting the family farm on the certainty of a Clinton administration that would sell it down the river?”

    No, I’m not. This whole election sucks. But you’re missing my point (really two points):

    1. It is not self-evident that Trump will be better than Hillary. I want a boring President. We don’t need uncertainty, we don’t need Trump’s bull in a china shop governance. We don’t need another narcissist in office. We don’t need someone who doesn’t even understand the constitution. We don’t need someone who is thinned skin. We don’t need the continuance of a CULT of personality. We don’t need an authoritarian/strong man. We don’t need a commander in chief who’s for reckless nuclear proliferation and destabilization, who doesn’t understand the military, and thinks he can order them to commit war crimes. For gosh sakes, do we really want a President who communicates and interacts with others on a fifth grade level? Trump will not change when he’s in office. He will surround himself with the same caliber of people he has now (yes-men and syncophants).

    We can counter Hillary. The loyal opposition can do everything they can to strengthen the conservative contrast and oppose her. If Trump wins, “we” own the disaster.

    2. I’ve had Trump supporters on this blog tell me that we’re going to lose the Republic no matter what but to vote for him anyway because “there’s a chance” it will take longer with him at the helm.

    If you keep rewarding behavior, you get more of it. We need a new class of politicians. We need new parties. We need to break the binary. There’s no better time than now (because we can’t rewind the tape and start earlier).

    I get it, I get it – if I don’t vote for Trump and others like me don’t vote for him he might not win. What I’m saying is that I don’t think that’s a bad thing. “There’s a chance” (to use your formulations) that Hillary will be less bad. There’s even a chance – fading fast, of course – that someone else might be President. Heck, I’d take Joe Biden over both of the people we have now. It’s a sign of how bad things have gotten that I just wrote that last sentence.

    I’m just hoping we survive. I think there’s at least an equal chance with Trump versus Hillary that we won’t. But if we don’t under Trump, “we” (conservatives, which ironically he isn’t) will own it forever.

    I’m #neverTrump. I respect those who disagree. Just quit acting like I’m uninformed and don’t realize the self-evident truth that “there’s a chance” he will be better than Hillary. They will both be disasters. I don’t like it, but there it is.

100. Michael K Says:
     “I would also encourage the anti Trump folks to go find Trumps info on line and read it instead of basing their understanding on what someone else has said about Trump…”
     I’d feel a lot more confident doing that if there was even a scintilla of evidence that Trump reads “Trumps info on line”. Every time he’s asked about specific policies and positions as shown on his own website, he displays ignorance of them, when he isn’t totally contradicting them. On issues in general, he is incoherent and incomprehensible and quickly reverts to the bloviating sloganeering he’s famous for.

     What his website says was written entirely by others. So was this wondrous list of SCOTUS nominees. He probably never heard of most of them and I doubt he could tell you anything about them or why they should be nominated.

101. Wow, Bill. Do I have a split personality, who believes the same things I do and writes better? I wish I’d written that last post of yours.

     T says that maybe this kind of lying is a better strategy, since everything else we’ve tried has failed. It’s not true that we’ve always failed. But even if it were true, we don’t fix our problem by lying. By becoming Democrats. Hate-filled, dishonest societal saboteurs.

102. OM,

     “I think he is lying about ‘shaking things up’ except that which will benefit him and his.”

     That is certainly one of the possibilities. We do know that is definitely true, however, with regard to Hillary Clinton (from her own past performance).

     My argument all along is that, even if you are correct, Trump may have coattails that the country can ride. We know from her past performance that Hillary certainly does not.

     Rather than the least of two evils, I see Trump v. Hillary as worst described as slim chances and none. Under such circumstances, I’ll go with the slim chance. I realize that others may not.

103. “We can counter Hillary. The loyal opposition can do everything they can to strengthen the conservative contrast and oppose her.” [Bill @ 112:01]

     Right, just like the “loyal opposition” opposed Obama. The loyal opposition is proven to be a party of ball-less and feckless quislings. Don’t hold your breath.

104. ” But even if it were true, we don’t fix our problem by lying. By becoming Democrats. Hate-filled, dishonest societal saboteurs.”
     Nick

     The past nice mannered acquiescence to The lefts agenda by republicans has been the equivalent of bringing a knife to a gun fight. We the decent people didn’t choose this war for our country’s soul with its anything goes no holds barred rules of engagement. But we’re in it for all the marbles and we darn sure better recognize we are.

     This contemporary notion that good Americans don’t lie, cheat, steal or manipulate when in such battles is major misunderstanding of who we came from. Our ancestors didn’t defeat the greatest empire on earth by being obsessed with holding the moral high ground. They were damn ruthless toward anyone threatening their liberty. As they had to be.

105. second your comment T
     @loyal opposition….. what a joke !
     you think they will come out with a *peep* & be
     tarred as *sexist* against the exalted Lady Pres???
     Trump is worthy of everybody’s vote so we can get rid of that PC MILLSTONE, we ve been enduring for 30 or more years !!!!!

106. SteveH,

     Well written. I agree. This is not a debating society. As you (IMO) correctly state this is a war. If you fight a war, fight to win or don’t fight at all.

     Many on the other side of that argument say they wish to keep “the moral high ground.” IMO, Democrat-Lite is no moral high ground, and Dem Lite is what the GOP establishment has evinced itself to be.

     One of the criticisms of Trump is that he would “remake the Republican party.” Remake Dem-Lite? Where’s the problem here? (I know, we must be careful what we wish for).

107. T:

     Trump doesn’t seem to be able to verbally explain the information on his website in coherent fashion. He doesn’t usually refer to it, and sometimes when he does he gets it wrong or contradicts it. This is very disturbing. I don’t have time to find the links right now, but I’ve written about the phenomenon several times before. It has caused many people (me included) to conclude that it’s most likely he’s not very familiar with the details of his own written policy proposals. They are almost certainly written by others, as well, but you’d expect more familiarity with them than he sometimes displays.

108. We have to lie in order to win? Nonsense. We have to fight in order to win. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. We have to persuade in order to win. You lose the ability to persuade once the listener stops trusting you. When the truth is on your side, you don’t have to lie to persuade.

     Beyond that, if we’re liars, then winning is meaningless. Or maybe the word I should be quibbling over is “we”. You’re talking like one of them.

109. Neo I bet Trump doesn’t know how many rooms are in his latest hotel or how many Hispanics it employs either. Hes the CEO in charge of the bigger picture has to do a lot of delegating. And hes doing very well with that bigger picture.

     I sometimes felt a little uncomfortable with candidates like Cruz and Rubio being able to rattle off endless minutia on policy matters.

110. StevenH:

     Of course Trump doesn’t know every small detail of every hotel (although I actually would wager he does know some of those details about his own businesses). Do you really think that policy statements of a presidential candidate are mere minutia? I certainly don’t.

     Details are very very important with policy, particularly regarding the law of unintended consequences that often flows from inattention to details. But I’m not just talking about policy details with Trump, he has gotten larger things wrong about several of his own policies and what’s more, cannot speak intelligently in general about a lot of them. This failure to speak intelligently about that is not mere semantics, either, as with GW Bush at times or Palin. This is a real unwillingness and/or inability to say much at all about them, a tendency to bob and weave and change the subject.

     The entire picture is very disturbing.

     It is also disturbing that you say write, “I sometimes felt a little uncomfortable with candidates like Cruz and Rubio being able to rattle off endless minutia on policy matters.” What makes you uncomfortable about that? Seriously, why would that make you uncomfortable? I find it reassuring when a candidate is familiar with the issues. Do they seem too wonky to you? I want them to be wonky. I want them to pay attention to it all. I want them to be intelligent and conversant with all aspects of a situation, and with all aspects of the possible solutions.

     I really am puzzled by what you wrote there. And yet I realize that it’s a very real phenomenon, and certainly not limited to you.

111. IMO if Trump were elected, the real question would be who he choses for his cabinet. In my experience there are really two types of CEOs; those who surround themselves with “yes wo/men” and those who rely on their advisors for real information.

     Rely on advisors? It is to laugh. When asked back in March who he turns to for foreign policy advice, Trump said: “I’m speaking to myself, number one, because I have a very good brain”.

112. In StevenH’s defense: Most candidates are exposed to a slew of proposals. Equally intelligent, equally well-intentioned experts take differing views and write papers about them. No one knows what the real impacts of the proposals would be. The candidate chooses one and runs on it. If he wins, Congress will talk to the same experts and choose one of the policies on its own, or more likely three of them, two of which are contradictory. Money will be allocated and spent, no one will know if the policy worked or not, and the new agency will demand more money. Does it really matter which of those competing policies the candidate mouths at the debate?

     That was my defense of StevenH. In my view, it matters a lot. A public figure who isn’t interested in the differing proposals doesn’t have the right temperament for the job. And in Trump’s case, these aren’t little details, like what marginal tax rate would you set for what brackets. These are things like whether to bomb civilians, or defaulting on the national debt. A casual reader of blogs like this one would understand these policies better than Trump seems to. And you can claim to be a great deal-maker all you want, if you don’t know what you’re negotiating you’re going to make a lousy deal.

113. Neo I’m not sure policy specifics arent overated. Its like those hokey mission statements so many companys feel compelled to regurgitate on their websites. Do they make you feel like you know the company any better after you read it? I think its mostly focus grouped pie in the sky bs.

     My point about Cruz’s minutia is that in my experience good leadership rarely comes from someone like that. Its why companies will hire a good track record ceo even if he doesnt have much knowledge in their particular business.

114. “My point about Cruz’s minutia is that in my experience good leadership rarely comes from someone like that. Its why companies will hire a good track record ceo even if he doesnt have much knowledge in their particular business.”

     I’d still prefer a ceo who has long experience in the industry. I may not be looking at the examples you are but I think most companies try to find someone who has some experience in their industry. I agree we don’t want a chief executive who is quibbling over the white house tennis court schedules, etc., but is it too much for him/her to have a consistent policy direction (preferably one heavily biased toward limited government and economic growth)?

     We’re about to elect someone to the highest executive office on earth who’s never held a governmental executive position – never had to work with a legislature or been under constitutional constraints in a little-r republican system. He also doesn’t seem to understand how the government he’s about to take the reigns of is supposed to work and has given no sign that he won’t be as bad or worse than his predecessor when it comes to executive abuse of power.

     We’re also going to give him his own military, which he has enthusiastically indicated he will use to commit war crimes. This doesn’t seem like a good hiring decision to me.

115. Now you know how many of us felt about Bush, McCain and Romney.

116. T:

     It’s not a state of war yet, it is still politics. It isn’t civil war yet either. We haven’t gotten to Bosnia/Serbia/…. the Balkans in the 1980’s or Latin America (Nicaragua, El Salvador), or Syria ….

     “There is a lot of ruin in a nation…”

117. Bill Whittle is focussed on “President Failure,” but if this doesn’t explain why I will take the great risk necessary to do my bit to deny Shrillary the Presidency.

     6 1/2 minutes.

     https*://*www.*you**tube.com*/watch?v=UjK7MsWrffM

     Copy and paste the fake URL into the address bar, and then simply delete the asterisks.

118. PhilDayton:

     No, Trump is nothing whatsoever like Bush, McCain, or Romney, and the objections are different in kind.

     I wrote a blog post on the subject, here.

119. Er. “If this doesn’t explain … , nothing ever will.”

     Sorry. :>(

120. Maybe the politicians weren’t just not perfect and lacking of rectitude and martyrdom, maybe they were just feckless liars.

     That’s certainly the way it looks to me an independent who had to vote Republican as the best choice for a long, long time.

     As a voter, tell me what you will do,,,,, now do it!

121. I am with the others here that while Trump, like Obama, may be a master at getting people to vote for him, he also appears to be every bit as bad as obama in terms of knowledge of policy and gov, and respect for constitutional limits to prez power. One thing more, for all thos who say he may not be worse than hillary, and we should take a chance. A bad repub prez will do much more damage than a bad dem prez, because the repubs and conservatives get blamed for it (even though many real conservatives did not want trump we will be the ones blamed for him anyway). The repub party particularly conservatives, would lose numerous other elections, like 2006-2008.

122. Pingback:Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove

123. Mr. Whittle’s video shows better than I can why Shrillary shouldn’t be allowed within 10 light-years of the White House.

     As always, the Heffalumps will be blamed for whatever goes wrong, or for whatever can be sold as having gone wrong even if it didn’t, regardless. It doesn’t matter who’s in the Oval Office at the time.

     So that’s no reason to do your bit to help Shrill, or Bernie, or Joe & the Indian Princess to attain the Oval Office.

     It’s not a Party thing.

     And then there is the very large matter of the Supreme Court. If ever there was a time to try to get someone who will nominate Justices who actually intend to try to go by the Constitution, this is surely it.

124. Folks, it’s not Hillary who’s bad (although she is).

     It’s Democrats who are bad.

     Democrats in power always empowers leftists. And leftists, when in control of the levers of government, use it to enact their agenda.

     And leftism is evil.

     Therefore, a person who votes for Hillary, or Biden, or Sanders, or Warren, or whomever the Democrats offer for consideration, is voting in favor of increased leftist activism by the Supreme Court, increased leftist control over the educational system, increased leftist dominance of news media and entertainment media, and the importation of more leftists from outside our borders with the intention of making them into leftist voters.

     The most effective way to avoid that is to vote for whomever is most likely to defeat the Democrat, even if that person is actually to the left of whomever the Democrats are running. Because when it comes to how the levers of power are pulled in D.C., party affiliation matters.

     And Trump isn’t to the left of Clinton, or even Biden, so far as we can tell. (Since his campaign statements are never literally sincere, but only represent a appeal to the emotions of certain sets of voters approximated into language, it’s hard to know for sure.)

     So vote for the ignorant blowhard whose words are utterly unmeant.

     Seriously! I’m going to.

     Because at this point the U.S. has already endured a ten-year-long slow-motion car-crash of leftism. And at this point, it’s all about halting the ongoing damage and stabilizing the patient.

125. Cornflour said 2 days ago, “Argentina has Peronism; we’ll get Trumpism: celebrity-culture populist authoritarians.”
     I disagree. We have had Obama-ism for 8 years.

     Trump is just jumping on the same stylistic train: “I rule, you obey.” Used to be called the Imperial Presidency before Obama came along and really really made it Imperial in the face of Boehner-McConnell-Ryan cowardice.

     But Trump will get more things right than the evil contemporary Democrats ever will.

     As individual voters, we are back to choosing the Lesser of Two Evils, and it has been that choice for a long time now.

     So voting for The Donald will not be hard to do.

126. The only thing people should vote for is their conscience.

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