Mr. Trump regrets
There’s been a lot of praise for a prepared speech Donald Trump gave last night in North Carolina that emphasized his role as a voice for the common man/woman against a corrupt elite. That’s a good approach, I think, in terms of tactics, because that’s how his supporters see him—whether he used to be in league with that corrupt elite or not. Trump is many things, but one of them is most definitely a voice, and I mean that in a non-sarcastic way, although I may sound sarcastic.
One thing I’ve always understand is Trump’s appeal, because long long ago I noticed the anger in the populace, and particularly on the right, on which Trump has built that appeal. And his especially harsh, abrasive, nasty, but incisive hard-hitting voice has been very satisfying for a lot of people to finally hear.
One of the things many people find significant about Trump’s NC speech last night was that he issued a very rare expression of “regret” (I wouldn’t call it an apology, although some do) that went like this:
Sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that…
And believe it or not I regret it. And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake is for us to be consumed by these issues, but one thing I can promise you is this. I will always tell you the truth.
Before I get into my impression of those statements, I want to add that some people have suggested I should stop harping on Trump, just as some people suggested for years that I wrote too often about Obama. Some have also suggested I write more about Hillary Clinton. But I write about what interests me most, and usually what interests me is something I need to figure out, something I need to learn, not something I already know. Obama was that, Trump is that, and Hillary is not. I also have written about 100 posts on Hillary, so she’s not exactly an untapped subject on this blog. There’s also an almost complete consensus about her on the part of my readers, so why bother? I don’t even think any of the neverTrumpers who comment on this blog (there are only a few, by the way) have any intention of voting for her, or are unaware of how dreadful she is. Everybody gets it.
I have written many times that I have no problem with anyone voting for Trump. Nor am I trying to talk you out of voting for him. What I am trying to do is point out who he is as I see it, and what we may be getting into. I’m not interested in illusions and hopes, although I certainly hope (and have said so many times) that if Trump is elected he’s a much better person and would be a much better president than I think he is or than I think he would be. But I think it’s important to know—as best we can—who he actually is.
So it’s in that spirit that I say that this quoted “apology” is one of the biggest hunks of garbage I’ve ever heard. And no, that’s not because I come to it with an anti-Trump mindset—I’m applying objective criteria I would apply (and have applied) to any apology.
The first problem is that, as with all of Trump’s scripted speeches, the words are not his, although we can be virtually certain that he approved of them. This is true of most politicians’ speeches, but with Trump the gap between his written and extemporaneous words is the size of the Grand Canyon. We can be assured that, as with most people, the words uttered from his own mouth without an intermediary penning them for him are the words that best express his thoughts and best reflect the quality of his mind and his emotional makeup.
But even if we accept the words he spoke in this speech as coming from Trump and not from his speechwriters, there are problems with them, big problems. Let’s take it from the top:
Sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues…
No, Trump’s defamatory and otherwise nasty remarks were not just in the heat of debate, nor were they remarks dealing with a multitude of issues (unless you consider each person he defamed to be a separate “issue”). The remarks were not for the most part about the issues at all. They were usually spoken in avoidance of some ongoing debate on issues; they were sidesteps to distract from the issues and go for the personal and the jugular, including families rather than merely the candidates themselves. They typically involved people’s appearance and other personal qualities (such as disabilities), or vicious and over-the-top name-calling (recall his slurs towards Ben Carson, to take just one example) and were on a first-grade schoolyard level. These sorts of remarks were not just uttered from Trump’s mouth in the heat of the moment, nor were they a one-off event, they were repeated and repeated and repeated and Tweeted and re-Tweeted by Trump himself, with malice aforethought, in blood both hot and cold. Note, also, that at no point does Trump specifically mention a single one of those remarks or words that he regrets; he leaves it hazy and up to the listener to fill in the blanks with his/her imagination and/or memory.
…you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that…
Props to Trump there for using the word “I.”
And believe it or not I regret it.
Oh, he probably regrets it, all right, if he thinks it has hurt him in the election. Otherwise, forgive me if I question the depth of Trump’s regret—because, having studied his life, I have noticed that vicious insults have been his most favorite public tool ever since he was a relatively young man. This is not something new; this is a deep and ingrained characterological trait of his. I believe he thinks it has been very effective and has stood him in good stead for most of his life, and he has no intention of giving it up.
And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain.
May have? A weasel construction.
Too much is at stake is for us to be consumed by these issues…
Who is this “us,” kimosabe? And if so, why have you allowed your campaign to be consumed by them for a year? Because you think they have worked to get you where you are.
…but one thing I can promise you is this. I will always tell you the truth.
That would be novel, because I don’t think it’s necessary to demonstrate that telling the truth is not something for which Trump is known.
Let me reiterate: vote for Trump if you wish and if you think it’s best. I completely understand (and sometimes fall prey to) the “Trump is not Hillary, so one must vote for him” argument. It may indeed be a very valid one. But don’t let him piss on your leg and call it rain. I refuse to sugar-coat who and what Trump is—or what Hillary is, for that matter—and I suggest you not do so, either.
[NOTE: The title of this post is a reference to this very odd song.]
This is why NeverTrump exists: even his moments of candor are lies.
Neo you are absolutely correct that Donald the “Insult Tycoon” is the real thing. His only real negotiating tactic is to throw slurs and insults at his partners/buyers/investors to make them pay almost anything to be rid of him. This is effective because most people would not think of doing this. And this includes 90% of people in NYC from cabdrivers to boilermakers. I’ve heard more people who are at least leaning towards voting Trump, apologize for his way of speaking.
This is the number one tool in his primary campaign and also the number one thing 75% of voters dislike.
I see it as progress by Trump. So what if it was somewhat insincere? Because in that same speech Trump ticked off a number of items that Hillary has NOT apologized for. That’s the point. That’s the contrast!
Hillary, “I want to apologize to my fellow Americans for using a private email server so I could run my bribery scheme. I particularly regret the death of the Iranian nuke scientist who defected. Our enemies got his name and other info by hacking into my email. He’s now dead.”
“I also apologize to Mrs. Smith for lying to her face. It was also a stupid mistake by me not to order F-15’s to buzz the our consulate in Bangazhi and failing to send a rescue operation. Chris Stephens was my friend and my idiocy cost him his life. The check’s in the mail Stephens family. I’ve got millions!”
“And I’m really sorry to the people of Libya and Syria. Your countries have been in a civil war for years now and if I as half as smart and talented as the press would have you believe, hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive and millions would be in their homes. I particularly apologize to that little Syrian boy featured in that video the other day.”
Cornhead:
Progress in what? Campaigning effectively in the general, perhaps.
Otherwise, it’s just a con. And he’s already good at that.
In the statements following those you quote, Trump basically says that his insults were the truth that had to be said. Not only does he not apologize, he implies that everyone else “can’t handle the truth” and he is the only one that speaks it. The guy is a piece of work as are his speech writers.
BTW, speaking of Trump, interesting article by Amanda Carpenter on the Alt-Right. She thinks they started with the birther movement hence their affinity for Trump who was their spokesman during its heyday.
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/08/how-to-explain-the-alt-right-to-friends
Choose the Conman or choose the Alinskyite. It’s that simple because that’s the bottom line.
As a person who has never supported Trump as a candidate (last time or this time) however at the very beginning this time, I was thankful for the change in openness in which illegal immigration was being addressed in the public square; I appreciate your clear, well-thought out examinations of the man and his behavior. I have stated a number of times that I am voting for him, in hopes that a hostile press, public and re-emergent Congress/Supreme Court will arise if he were to take office. For me it is a foregone conclusion that those things will not factor into a Clinton presidency. I also would hope that SC justices nominated by Trump would be superior to those HRC would install. That said, because I am a person who chooses to face reality, I will never make excuses for him, or act as though he is “presidential” as we have historically understood it. But living in times where “presidential” has now encompassed actions that would have been impeachable under any other (non-Democrat!) circumstances, we are operating on a different platform. So I’m gambling for the Republic to function as the Founders intended (however minuscule the chance). Neo, you have been fair and insightful in your assessments and that is the reason that you are the blog I read (the number of which have whittled down over the years to only 3).
Sharon – good words. This has become the only blog I read – it’s the only one of perhaps 3 or 4 I had on tap before the Trumpnado started that hasn’t turned into a TrumpTrain depot or a place where the host spends most of his/her time just trolling for clicks.
Neo’s thoughtful, fair and well-written posts are a breath of fresh air. And though the comments thread can get a little heated, it remains for the most part very civil.
May neo-neocons tribe prosper and multiply.
Neo
Progress is softening his image. Progress toward winning. Progress towards likability.
Coming in second here doesn’t count.
I think of this as an athletic contest and the other side cheats. At Creighton, we always were at a disadvantage because of our high academic standards post Kevin Ross. So we had to play harder and smarter to win. And then we get POY Doug McDermott by a fluke. We play Baylor to get to the Sweet Sixteen. We play about our worst game of the year and lose.
Here Trump has more than 40 minutes to get this right and win this contest. He can adjust. Lots if things he can control. And I don’t expect Hillary to start bombing threes. She’s playing defense. Trump is on offense.
I am not a troll, I have been reading your Neo-neocon site for over a decade with appreciation. This year I have been in disagreement with a lot of your Trump postings but kind of like a car wreck I have been coming back time and time again.
I guess enough is enough, the passive aggressive stance of saying it is fine for those of us who support Trump to vote for him and then posting a novella about your feelings which are, at this time 180 degrees from mine and then seeing the same folks chiming in day after day with their disgust and rancor seems to annoy me.
So, ‘all you all’ have a good time circling your wagons and not voting for Trump while you dislike Hillary and vote anyway you wish because I am out of here.
Think I will check back in December when things settle down and see if I enjoy reading your postings once more. Bye, and you all take care now.
Mr Unpresidential was just more presidential than Bush, Obama, and Hillary…
HE HELPS THE FLOODED…
‘WE KNEW YOU’D BE HERE!’
THANKS FIRST RESPONDERS…
UNLOADS SUPPLIES FROM TRUCK…
DRIVES THROUGH HARD-HIT NEIGHBORHOODS…
CLINTON PHONES IT IN…
surprise…
funny thing about the job.. it doesnt require any of the things you elitists think it does… which is funny… because so man presidents are remembered in ways that erased those same kinds of things!!!
OldTexan seems to have it right…
OldTexan:
I’m sorry that you see this as “passive-aggressive.”
Let me say there’s nothing passive about it AND nothing aggressive about it.
As I said in the post, I am compelled to tell the truth as I see it. Trump is who he is. Why should I not say what I see? Do you really think that telling the truth as I see it is an “aggressive” act? I don’t. And it’s certainly not a “passive” one.
I didn’t start this blog to toe a party line or blindly support a party nominee. I didn’t even do that when I was a Democrat—that’s what got me to the political place I (surprisingly) found myself.
I started this blog to describe what I see, to puzzle out what I see, to write it down for others to read and ponder, and for them to freely (although respectfully) express their own point of view, be it dissenting or agreeing.
Probably a lot more than a day late and a dollar short on Trump’s part. He’s probably just trying to mitigate the yugeness of his loss in Nov. With one field office in the critical state of FL and hardly any ads up it’s hard to argue he’s running a serious campaign.
Geoffrey Britain:
Actually, both Hillary and Trump are cons, and both are Alinskyites, so I don’t think the choice is anywhere near “as simple as that.”
Cornhead:
I agree that it’s progress in the tactical sense.
I just don’t think it will matter. But people seem to have short attention spans, so perhaps it will.
Love the fact that Trump visited the flooding victims in LA. Obama doesn’t care and is too lazy. Hillary doesn’t want any interaction with REAL voters. Too risky. Ever time I saw her, she was very limited in meeting people and NO questions.
To follow up on what Art posted concerning Trump’s visit to Louisiana actions not words!
Yeah, he’s boorish in his comments and says things that sets people off. But as of today where are Clinton and Obama and where is Trump? Yes, it’s good politics, but who now looks like the snobbish elite?…let them eat cake from their flooded kitchens is the message from Her Royal Majesty, and the ONE renting a multi million dollar mansion hobnobbing with the New England and Hollywood upper crust.
(Don’t forget to say it) Neo has been very good lately.
Sometimes I check in on leftist sites I avoid, just to see what they are doing. Today I checked “Talking Points Memo” and saw this:
“08.19.2016 – 10:28 AM EDT
Thanks A Lot, Paul!!!
Okay, I was up pretty late last night working on a post about Manafort, Ukraine, efforts to launder pilfered money out of Ukraine and into US real estate. But it’s all pretty incendiary and I was trying to piece it all together and figured … you know, I need to sleep on this and go over it again in the morning. Now, alas, probably seeming a lot less prescient and ahead of the news since we just heard a few minutes ago that Manafort has resigned from the Trump campaign. So thanks, dude. Thanks a lot. You could have waited a few more hours.
– Josh Marshall”
neo,
Yes, they are both cons and a viable argument can be made that Trump’s use of Alinskyite tactics makes him one as well. But to leave it there is to ignore that while Trump is among many other negative things, a crony capitalist… he is NOT a marxist/progressive. Nor does he want to fundamentally transform America. That is such a profoundly important difference as to make any other similarities pale into insignificance. And it is to that which I was referring when assigning the label of ‘Alinskyite’ to Hillary alone.
Geoffrey Britain:
Well, it’s you who wrote that it was as simple as con vs. Alinsyite.
It’s not.
“Alinskyite” is a process, not an end. Now you are bringing “ends” into it, which makes it much less “simple.” Hillary’s ends are leftist, Trump’s are question mark. Alinsky’s ends were also leftist, but his “rules” were methods rather than ends, and either right or left could follow them.
You rather closely track with me OldTex …but I’d suggest you can change your main focus over to the blog’s cultural side, and just let some of the political overtly crap (IMHO) stuff slide for the duration, and it might help your BP.
Come for the politics. Stay for the dance. 🙂
Just don’t use “dance” as pun (this time lol).
When I rigidly know I’m not gonna say anything “no matter what” – in a perhaps
feeblefebrile recognition that in this agreement is entirely impossible, and that the result of rational intentions share similarity with the search for, ah, hen’s teeth – a certain self-imposed silence has at least meant that I can stay current and reasonably poised with the last remaining still-mostly-rational blog**, and yet not pop up a blood vessel.I daresay, it lowers the antipathy index. Towards people whose scribblings I ordinarily like and respect.
After all, most of the commenters here I feel I (too?) know pretty well, and quite enjoy riffing (or sparring or agreeing) with on the odd occasion. And if I tend to think some of ’em are missing the point (as it were), after a decade I’m pretty damn sure that they’re at least intelligent, and, well, “this too will pass”.
Or something.
And after all, I have no other place to go (or I’d want to go). In the VR sense, at least.
In non-virtual world, I give friends a pass in the same way.
And that’s not necessarily allowing “…someone to piss on your leg and call it rain” woot.
…since adoption, the practice has been working for me, at least.
Otherwise, I’ll at least note your reappearance in December lol.
**…no offence Neo.
Choose the Conman or choose the Alinskyite. It’s that simple because that’s the bottom line.
Binary Choice is a Game Theory paradigm. Real life is more complicated.
I like the Neuro-Linguistic Programming proverb: You don’t have a choice until you have at least three separate options at hand.
It seems Trump defenders have only one option available in these discussions — to flog the Binary Choice as hard as possible while ignoring objections.
brdavis9:
No offense taken.
How could I be offended at being called “mostly rational”?
Although I think you could eliminate the word “mostly” 🙂 .
Over at PJMedia Roger Kimball, who all but swore on his grandmother’s grave Trump couldn’t win the nomination, is now ballyhooing Trump’s speech as proof that “Trump is running to win!”
Well, it is an improvement. It’s proof that his advisors have sat on Trump hard or that the precipitous drop in the polls got even Trump’s attention he could LOSE and thus become a LOSER — what passes for a moral standard in Trump’s universe.
Other than that I share neo’s jaundiced view of Trump’s “apology” and his declaration that he “will always tell [us] the truth,” which is up there with Hillary’s similar assurances.
Trump is 70 years old. He has specialized in taking the low road. Can he learn new tricks? Can he really turn off his vicious trash-mouth tactics? If he goes Obama and sticks with the teleprompter and “uh…uh…uh” self-editing when speaking off-the-cuff, will he be effective?
I have my doubts Trump can do it or if he does that it will play. But it is interesting and has lifted my cousin’s spirits that Trump might turn this around.
neo,
As you well know, Alinsky’s methods were entirely to achieve a purposeful end. Hillary’s ends are leftist, i.e. marxist/progressive. Trump’s ends are partially unknown, in that we know he does not favor marxist/progressive ends because the man’s self-worth is entirely invested in capitalism and ‘winning’ at it.
It is either the corrupt marxist/progressive or the corrupt crony capitalist and come Nov. we will all have to choose and that difference makes it that simple. Add to that, the forces that stand ready to assist them and the choice is even clearer.
Geoffrey Britain:
Yes, as I wrote, Alinsky was a leftist. But he wrote a book that described methods that could be used by anyone unscrupulous and interested in power. Same for Machiavelli.
The problem with being on the right—conservative, I mean—is that the right is at least as much about means as ends. That’s their blessing and their doom. It’s why “Eric’s” cries for more activism are difficult for people on the right to transfer to action.
Trump’s aims are very unclear. That’s not just sophistry on my part. We don’t know whether he’s sincere about his aims that we agree with, because he continually contradicts himself and backtracks. His means, however, are mostly abominable, and have been for most of his life (defamation, lies, paying for favors, cheating wives). He shows no respect—none—for the Constitution or for liberty, or for freedom of speech. He has an impulsive and pugnacious temperament. He knows nothing about international relations and has said some very frightening things regarding that subject. He supports some leftist causes. He is not necessarily just a “corrupt crony capitalist” as you say. That is another simplification of yours.
huxley,
Believe it or not, I don’t like the binary choice any more than you do. Now barring a game changing event, are you insisting that anyone else has a probable chance of being elected?
If not, you have just confirmed that when it comes to who will be President, the choice is a binary one. And, whether you admit it or not changes that reality not in the least.
brdavis9–I was just thinking of you today and figured it was exactly as you describe. When I read OldTexan’s comment, I thought the same thing–Neo dishes out a lot more than politics and those posts can be avoided, if need be, for a season.
huxley–A commenter at Ace pointed out that the choice is not binary but the outcome is. I think that is an important distinction.
neo,
Yes, Alinsky’s methods can be used by anyone unscrupulous and interested in power. The difference between Hillary’s leftism and Trump’s authoritarian capitalist bent is what they would do with that power.
Trump wants to be in charge, alpha male ego is his defining characteristic. Hillary is a leftist ideologue. There simply is no doubt as to who is the greater threat to liberty and the survival of the republic, when the forces that stand ready to assist them are entered into the equation.
I’ve simplified it to that because it’s the most relevant factor.
Ok. You are a reasonable and reasoning guy. Have you got a more probable way of keeping Hillary out of the White House?
Because if you do, I’d like to hear it.
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign has sent out a fundraising email arguing the website Breitbart News has no “right to exist,” and suggests that if elected, the website will be shut down entirely.
“We’ve had a conservative media in this country for a while,” says the email, sent Thursday and signed by deputy communications director Christina Reynolds. “I don’t always like what they have to say, but I respect their role and their right to exist Reynolds’ acknowledgment that the regular conservative media has a “right to exist,” though, is used to contrast it with Breitbart, which apparently has no such right.
GB: You seem to think you’ve got a winning chess position and wherever I turn I will be crushed in the iron grip of your logic.
If the game is to list the possible winners in 2016, that would be IMO Hillary, Trump, Pence, Johnson, and a few even lower probabilities, with Hillary as the 9:1 favorite.
If the game is to list the Deomcrat and the Republican candidates in that list that would be Hillary and Trump with Hillary the 9:1 favorite.
If the game is for me to choose my optimal course of action between ends, means, the various futures that seem likely and my personal and moral preferences, I can easily think of a dozen ways to go.
But basically I think, barring events, Hilllary has this sewn up and being adamant that Trump will be the losing Republican (Binary Choice!) strikes me as a silly exercise.
Geoffrey Britain:
You really have little idea what Trump would do if given the power.
He’s never had anything but money power. He is a liar and a conman, and hungry for power, with no respect for the constitution.
He also is very amenable to some leftist aims. What’s more, he’s a loose cannon in international affairs, very very much so, which is one of people’s biggest fears about him.
We’ve been all over this ground many times before. Your saying something is so, or obvious, or simple, does not make it so, or obvious, or simple.
We have repeatedly seen what the most reluctant potential Trump voters have predicted will certainly happen if Hillary gets into office.
She will continue the practice or using the IRS against conservative individuals and groups. She will continue to undermine the rule of law in this country. She will appoint leftist judges. She will never sign any law that repeals – if such a legislative result is even possible after an election she wins – any part of the freedom destroying and constitutional atrocity of the individual shared responsibility mandate. She will continue to squeeze and war against Christian churches. She will almost certainly fail to do any better on the border than Obama, and she will almost certainly not stray from the pattern of lies and duplicity that have informed and shaped her entire political career.
Referring to no one in particular, I’d like to know exactly what the Never-Trumpers themselves expect to see out of a Clinton Administration and how quickly after 4 to 8 more years of constitutional subversion and the undermining and legal system assaults on the citizenry, they assert this can all be turned around, and we get our lost freedoms back.
Because I’d very much like to be reassured that there is in fact life after harakiri, and just how that little trick is to be performed.
DNW:
I believe that the neverTrumpers would say that they expect Trump to do everything on your Hillary list except the “war against Christian churches” part.
They also expect him to make even worse and more dangerous decisions on the international scene.
And they expect him to do all those things as a Republican.
Speaking of missing commas
“Referring to no one in particular, I’d like to know exactly what the Never-Trumpers themselves expect to see out of a Clinton Administration (,) and how quickly after 4 to 8 more years of constitutional subversion (,) and the undermining (,) and legal system assaults on the citizenry, they assert this can all be turned around, and we get our lost freedoms back.”
Neo: You think that Trump is a closet Marxist?
Anyway, gotta go.
Later … or tomorrow if possible.
DNW:
I don’t think he’s a closet Marxist. He doesn’t have a coherent enough philosophy to be a Marxist.
Actually, I don’t think Hillary is a closet Marxist, I think she is a leftist and socialist (except for the crony capitalist part) like Obama, and not particularly “closet” at all.
I know that Trump has made many many many statements that show he is interested in wielding power, has no respect for individual liberty, believes in universal healthcare (before he revised that a bit recently), is against freedom of speech if it harms Donald Trump, and is very very much for the government power of eminent domain. He also believes in big government, not small. Some of his leftist economic idea can be found here. His attacks on Pamela Geller showed his devotion to PC speech when it suits him.
Or this stuff, or this.
It doesn’t seem to matter how often you tell the AlwaysTrumpers that you think a Clinton victory will be dismal, even catastrophic, they never seem to remember.
All they’ve got is the syllogism:
It’s a binary choice between Hillary and Trump.
The only thing that matters is Hillary will be really, really terrible.
Therefore you must vote for Trump.
QED.
If you interrrupt an AlwaysTrumper they just go back to the top of the list and start pushing at you again.
GB: you wrote: “Add to that, the forces that stand ready to assist them (Trump/Hillary) and the choice is even clearer.”
No it’s not.
The forces that are assisting Trump are the alt-right forces. They scare the cr@p out of me.
Not kidding. Not speaking of all of them, surely, but there is a critical mass of anti-semitic, white-supremacist motivation and rhetoric on the alt-right side. And the social media hordes of alt-right commenters (none I’ve seen here, btw) are the worst people in the world.
We’re in a tight spot, either way. But for me, personally, I don’t want the alt-right anywhere near the reigns of power.
… And here’s where you ask me if I want the Marxist left with the reigns of power then?
NO.
But at the minimum it’s a devil-I-know vs devil I don’t conundrum.
I don’t know where the alt-right will take this country but I don’t want to go there. And that will be the end of the conservative movement, or at least I won’t be able to self-identify as one, because that would mean identifying with that pack of angry whackos.
No.
“This year I have been in disagreement with a lot of your Trump postings but kind of like a car wreck I have been coming back time and time again…. I guess enough is enough, the passive aggressive stance … are, at this time 180 degrees from mine“ – OldTexan
I’ve dropped from some blogs, but not for those kinds of reasons.
Those many other blogs just became troll fests within an echo chamber of like opinion / stances.
Essentially, comments on those blogs were largely just a series of 1-2 line put downs, and other forms of attack designed to suppress any serious discussion.
It is easy to find blogs / media we can agree with. However, the great lesson from 2012, and in spades in 2016 is that our “conservative” media has not been serving us well. We are on our own to figure out what “reality” is, as they clearly have their own interest in what they tell us.
If we leave our sources to only those that are comfortable and agreeable, or are telling us only what we want to hear, that is our loss, and how we, collectively, get steered into a ditch.
.
Being of minority opinion here, very much appreciate the forum to challenge the “simpleness”, or “obviousness”, etc. that many here are claiming of the choices before us.
There are a whole bundle of assumptions packed underneath that, and, perhaps, there is something irrefutably compelling amongst those that will change my mind.
After all, I (and probably most / all here in the minority) definitely don’t want clinton either.
But, someone needs to articulate it, and I cannot (as nobody should) just accept their “word” on it being so “obvious”.
Would rather that you choose to stay and make your case, than go off with the complaint that the views don’t reflect yours.
Free world (for now), up to you, if you choose to accept this mission or not.
” neo-neocon Says:
August 19th, 2016 at 5:19 pm
DNW:
I don’t think he’s a closet Marxist. He doesn’t have a coherent enough philosophy to be a Marxist.
Actually, I don’t think Hillary is a closet Marxist, I think she is a leftist and socialist (except for the crony capitalist part) like Obama, and not particularly “closet” at all.
I know that Trump has made many many many statements that show he is interested in wielding power, has no respect for individual liberty, believes in universal healthcare (before he revised that a bit recently), is against freedom of speech if it harms Donald Trump, and is very very much for the government power of eminent domain. He also believes in big government, not small. Some of his leftist economic idea can be found here. His attacks on Pamela Geller showed his devotion to PC speech when it suits him.
Or this stuff, or this.”
OK noted. Was already supposed to be out of here. Later
“I believe that the neverTrumpers would say that they expect Trump to do everything on your Hillary list except the “war against Christian churches” part.” – Neo
Probably a fair assessment.
““Referring to no one in particular, I’d like to know exactly what the Never-Trumpers themselves expect to see out of a Clinton Administration (,) and how quickly after 4 to 8 more years of constitutional subversion (,) and the undermining (,) and legal system assaults on the citizenry, they assert this can all be turned around, and we get our lost freedoms back.”” – DNW
“Assert when this can be turned around” – You are asking for an impossibility to prove.
And you didn’t respond to Neo’s point above, which is to say that you don’t really know what trump will do, but he gives every indication he would do as much as you list for clinton, and perhaps is much more dangerous on international affairs (not to mention GB’s assertion that trump will be full authoritarian, as if that is a good thing).
When you are standing on the proposition that trump is “better”, you ought to address the uncertainty and risk around his entire package. On what grounds can you possibly assume he is going to do anything you postulate in particular?
DNW: “Because I’d very much like to be reassured that there is in fact life after harakiri, and just how that little trick is to be performed.”
One scenario that I have seen mentioned is that Hillary wins and the economy tanks. At that point who is going to get the blame? Obama, the Democrats, and Hillary will be unable to escape the charge that their policies don’t work. With real economic suffering occurring, it could be an opportunity for the conservatives, if they are up to it.
No one wants to see this scenario, but it has a statistical chance of happening. If anyone has been watching the stock market and corporate earnings, they know that earnings have been trending down yet the market keeps making new highs. Additionally, government economic statistics are showing that we may be in a recession right now. I believe the powers that be (the Wall Street banks, or George Soros, or ?) are manipulating the market. With the advent of computer automated trading programs manipulation has become easier than it ever was. It doesn’t take much volume of buying to trick the computers into jumping in and buying more stock, which keeps the averages up. Also, the Federal Reserve is propping things up as they continue with low interest rates. All this has a suspicious look that the government and Wall Street are trying to keep up the appearance of a robust economy so that Hillary can run on Obama’s record. They may be able to keep the balls in the air quite a bit longer, but eventually, just like the mortgage security crisis, it is going to become apparent that the vlue isn’t there o support such high stock prices. That’s when it could all come tumbling down.
All the furor over Trump’s personality has diverted people’s attention away from subjects that should be on our radars.
The obverse of this is the idea that Trump wins and then everything goes south. That would damage Trump and the alt-Right. Unless, of course, Trump managed to use the right policies to quickly stop the bleeding and get the economy growing again.
Neo, bravo! An apology contains contrition, not just regret. In Christian belief it means you are remorseful and vow to make up for the shameful act. As you pointed out, Trump’s “apology” was nothing of the kind. To the extent that he’s trying to pull off this sham of excuse making, it turns my stomach.
The Other Chuck:
Let me add that it’s very rare to get a real apology from any politician—or from any person, for that matter.
But this from Trump doesn’t even come close.
J.J.:
Discussing Trump’s personality is not a diversion at all.
It is part and parcel of who he is and what we might be able to expect him to do or to try to do, whether we can trust his intentions or his acumen.
It is one of the most important points in evaluating any president, or anyone for that matter. In Trump’s case it is especially important, because he makes many promises and yet (unlike Hillary) has NO political record at all (except for financial donations, a history in which he’s given more money over time to the left than the right).
In other words, if you are looking at someone’s promises, whether that person is a con artist is probably even more important than what those promises might be.
Bill,
I think the alt-right/trump relationship is a matter of convenience. No one influences djt’s decisions except perhaps his children.
Neo, referring to the Never Trump expectations of him: “They also expect him to make even worse and more dangerous decisions on the international scene.”
That is quite a statement. In comparison to Obama and Hillary? Worse foreign policy decisions?
Does Putin say and do aggressive things on the international stage? Why yes, yes, he does. And what has it gotten him? Well he now has a piece of Georgia, all of Crimea, and some of eastern Ukraine. He’s inserted Russia back into the ME. Does he have a robust economy, a super-power military, or military alliances with any other countries. The answer is no. He is taking advantage of the timidness of Obama and the European Union. Putin is not going to chance nuclear war but he doesn’t have to worry about that because it’s off the table with Obama and the EU. Putin is a school yard bully who is in actuality quite weak. His economy is in the tank, his military is not world class, and he has no military alliances with other countries. But he has out smarted and out bluffed Obama and Hillary at every turn. He now has to worry about American natural gas being exported to Europe and supplanting Russian natural gas, which has been the life blood of his economy. In relation to Russia we hold all the cards, but we don’t know how to play them.
Then there is the issue of radical Islamic terrorism. Have Obama’s policies made any progress there? Will Hillary follow the same meandering, unfocused, feckless policies? I think we know the answer to that.
Now, Trump might not be any better, but I don’t worry about him being any worse unless he just runs up the white flag of surrender the day after he’s inaugurated.
Trump is a blowhard butthead. For starters. But he’s not Hillary and he won’t have the media covering for him.
And federal agencies which would do an IRS on Hillary’s enemies might balk at doing the same for him.
Lousy choice, but, imo, no choice at all.
Imagine every important federal agency, or every agency, staffed by Lois Lerner clones.
Neo-neocon:
You’re absolutely correct about Trump.
However, there is almost a 100% chance that Hillary Clinton will be bad for America.
The chances that Trump will be bad for America are much less.
Americans have a duty to prevent Hillary Clinton from being president, and right now voting for Trump is the best chance of accomplishing that.
CLINTON DELENDA EST!
Ira
I hear the same thing over and over again; djt is not hrc. Well, duh. I will not regurgitate the the donald’s past leftist positions. I will not rehash his behavior on the campaign trail up to the convention or his doubling down on his smears post convention. I simply, binary choice, do not believe a single word he says.
huxley,
Logic isn’t an intellectual ‘possession’. It’s not ‘my’ logic. Either it’s coherent or it’s not. And you offered no other rebuttal than, ‘that’s not so’. Argue with the logic’s premise, dispute the extending support that leads to the conclusion. Show how the conclusion is inconsistent with the premise and extending logic chain… otherwise you’ve indicated an inability to do so.
Ira:
That argument doesn’t hold water either, as I discussed at some length here.
Soon I will be following it up with a general post (not specifically about Trump, although it will touch on Trump) about how much power a US president has to make nuclear decisions.
J.J.:
See this and this, as well as this.
It takes very little imagination to imagine how Donald Trump could be worse than Clinton on foreign policy.
Plus, there is the issue of instability and unpredictability and untrustworthiness, which is highly important on the foreign policy scene.
neo,
I’ve never claimed to know much of anything about Trump. I only stated my belief that he’s not a marxist. You agree he’s not a marxist.
We all know that Hillary seeks to further the Left’s agenda.
As for Trump, your own words suffice; “You really have little idea what Trump would do if given the power.”
Yes we know he’s an authoritarian. We know he’s “a liar and a conman, and hungry for power, with no respect for the constitution”, which BTW perfectly describes most politicians. That’s not an excuse but it does lend perspective.
“He also is very amenable to some leftist aims.”
I’ve agreed with that before, now how does that compare with Hillary’s leftist aims?
“he’s a loose cannon in international affairs”
Yes he is, which again begs the question, how does that compare with Hillary’s continuation of Obama’s foreign policies? Which are the Left’s and George Soros’ policies… Look around at the state of the world, if Obama has brought us this far, how much further can his anointed successor take us?
Trump will probably be a disaster. Hillary will certainly be a catastrophe because of the forces behind her. No way does the alt-r have the funding, institutional power and activists as does the Left. And that’s why it’s a simple choice. All the rest, as important as it is, is IMO a distraction from that critical point.
GB,
You continue to engage in begging the question while ignoring every logical argument thrown your way, while claiming iron-clad logical purity for yourself.
Small expample: is HRC a leftist or a far more dangerous Marxist? There is a big difference.
If you have actual evidence that Hillary plans on converting our economic system so that the govenrnment owns the means of production, please produce it. Otherwise your premise that HRC is a Marxist (rather than a socialist) and an authoritarian/fascist is better than a Marxist is based on sand.
“See this and this, as well as this.
It takes very little imagination to imagine how Donald Trump could be worse than Clinton on foreign policy.” neo
You realize you just disagreed with Thomas Sowell and then cited the National Review and NYT?
Sowell’s analogy rests upon the assertion that the Left’s aims and goals are a certainty and given what they’ve accomplished so far, their ability to realize their aims and goals cannot be discounted.
Whereas, “You really have little idea what Trump would do if given the power.” which is why the Russian Roulette analogy does fit. As whether its 1 in 6 or even 5 in 6… there’s at least some chance compared to the Left.
NATO’s only purpose is to act as a trip wire that guarantees nuclear war if Russia invades because tactical nukes would be the only way to stop a full scale Russian tank invasion. The brutal truth is that Europe is no longer worth saving, no longer worth American lives because any society that won’t protect its women and children has no future. They’re just delaying their submission.
Those 50 national security experts are a joke. Proven by their tepid silence about Obama and Hillary. No 50 national security experts could be found to sign a letter against them. Proven by their refusal to assign responsibility for Islamic terrorism to its source, Islam. Proven by their tepid silence about the Chinese naval buildup.
“The brutal truth is that Europe is no longer worth saving, no longer worth American lives because any society that won’t protect its women and children has no future. They’re just delaying their submission.”
And Russia will, of course, stop at the Atlantic ocean after rolling up Europe, satisfied and with no need of further conquest.
Your statement above is why Trump has to be stopped.
“Small example: is HRC a leftist or a far more dangerous Marxist? There is a big difference.” Bill
She’s a marxist who pretends to be a progressive. She’s as radically subversive as Bill Ayers and seeks to fundamentally transform America from within, using its own standards and principles to do so. I don’t buy for a minute that she’s simply a corrupt, greedy woman.
I can only offer her actions and those she associates with as evidence of that conclusion. I can only offer the argument that socialism must, by its very nature and unsustainability, evolve into communism. I can only offer the evidence right before your eyes.
Bill,
IMO, Putin’s ambitions do not extend across the Atlantic.
You actually think that Clinton would enter into a nuclear war to save Europe?
But I don’t think it likely that Putin will ever invade past Eastern Europe. He wants nothing to do with the millions of Muslims pouring into Western Europe.
One topic where I agree with trump’s rhetoric is NATO, as I don’t believe him border security. But, NATO is a hollow edifice. NATO is totally dependent on the USA. Western Europe is not pulling itd weight. It was the same 70 years ago.
“I can only offer the argument that socialism must, by its very nature and unsustainability, evolve into communism.”
What evidence? There are lots of socialistic governments on earth right now. How many Marxist governments are there?
Countries like China, Vietnam, etc are actually becoming more capitalistic over time. Once the Castros pass, I expect the same from Cuba, which is currently frozen in time in the 1950s.
You haven’t proven anything.
“I can only offer the evidence right before your eyes
*sigh*
I like you Geoffry Britain, truly. You’re smart, obviously, a good writer, etc. But you go too far with the apocalyptics and *constantly* dismissing other’s premises as illogical or against what is “right before our eyes”, without really offering a refutation. Everything is, evidently, just self-evident.
To both you and Parker – I didn’t say NATO was awesome. I said that we can’t just let Russia roll over Europe, or Eastern Europe. For multiple reasons. One is – people are not abstractions.
Have you ever been to Ukraine? I have. I have dear friends there. And the people-groups there have been through hell, in their past, at the hands of Russia. (look up Stalin’s deportation of the Tatars sometime).
I realize that we can’t police everything, everywhere, but binary/all-or-nothing thinking isn’t just an election phenomenon. Trump is “negotiating” publicly about things he obviously doesn’t understand. Everything’s a game to him. Russia is on the make right now for hegemony. Dismissals and weak assurances that Trump won’t trip over his hair and get his thumb stuck up his tuckus as he tries to deal with his good friend Vlad don’t help much.
HRC will be pretty bad too (although I don’t believe as bad or as dangerous as him). We’re in a tight spot.
Stupid parties…
Geoffrey Britain wrote, “As whether its 1 in 6 or even 5 in 6… there’s at least some chance compared to the Left.”
I think Geoffrey’s observation and logic are correct.
Neo-neocon, while I do understand the revulsion Trump causes you, I am shocked (as in genuinely surprised, and not “shocked, shocked,” which has the opposite meaning) that Hillary Clinton does not cause you to recoil in much greater disgust. I say this in great earnest, as I am increasingly distressed at the looming prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency.
This gets me to another favorite trope of Trump’s supporters (and often times conservatives in general).
We’re against the “elites”. I share that sentiment, in many ways,when it’s interpreted as being against being ruled and dominated by those who don’t understand us here in flyover country and demean our values, our lifestyles, etc.
But in another way, I want the elites in positions of decision-making. When you get your eyes operated on, would you like someone with a community college degree in Kinesiology or someone with a medical degree from a good medical school and lots of years of experience working on eyes? (the “elite”)
I want the elite.
When it comes to foreign policy, I want people who *actually understand* what’s going on in the world making the decisions. I want people who have a clear understanding of the cause-and-effect of actions on the world stage and who understand other cultures, diplomacy, nuance, international negotiation, incentives, alliances, HISTORY, etc.
The last thing I want to do is put our foreign policy into the hands of a NYC real estate guy who supposedly “hires the best people” though the evidence for that in his campaign staff is sorely lacking. He could get us all killed.
“I am increasingly distressed at the looming prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency.”
Well, I’m basically expecting Trump to win, just because that’s the way this awful year has gone. But if the current polls/trends hold and he doesn’t, it just means we should have been way smarter as Republicans (I’m not one anymore) and nominated someone who could beat Hillary.
We took a flyer on this guy, recklessly. We get the government that we deserve. Hopefully we’ll get another chance in the future and will be wiser for this.
Bill, I suspect that few, if any, of the commenters here are for Trump because they are against elites. I bet most of the Trump over Hillary commenters are against public officials who are corrupt.
Ira,
True, but it doesn’t change this
“The last thing I want to do is put our foreign policy into the hands of a NYC real estate guy who supposedly “hires the best people” though the evidence for that in his campaign staff is sorely lacking. He could get us all killed.”
Bill,
I understand that you view the evidence as indicating that Trump is more likely to push the nuclear button than is Hillary. To me the evidence points to Hillary as being more likely to do so. Each of us speculating in this regard.
On the other hand, we know Hillary as a public official was corrupt. (As a public official she also was a liar, a scapegoater and inept.)
CLINTON DELENDA EST.
Ira
Geoffrey Britain:
A number of months ago you and I had an exchange about voting for Trump in which you said there was only one possible reason to not vote for him, which was if a serious breakdown of our economy or other catastrophe was to occur no matter who was elected. In that event it would be better to have the blame fall on Hillary and the Democrats.
Reading your many posts justifying a Trump vote, it is clear that you believe we are teetering on the edge if not already in free fall. You’ve listed the many things most of us here know to be true, from economic strangulation to cultural disintegration and moral decline, and placed the blame squarely where it belongs – on the left. Knowing how far along we are on the way to ruin, you believe our last chance to slow it down if not stop it, is to take a chance on this wild card of a con man. Have I misstated your position?
Bill,
Socialism is unsustainable. It rejects key aspects of human nature and natural, economic principles that govern how economies operate. To maintain the illusion of sustainability, socialist systems are forced to gradually increase their control. Which is why incrementally, all behavior, speech and thought is gradually declared to be either forbidden or mandatory. It’s been happening in Europe for years and now with Muslim migrants rampant lawlessness, protests are being suppressed with jail sentences across Western Europe.
Societal systems operate across generations, there were no ‘hate crime’ laws in Western Europe in the 60’s, now they’re ubiquitous. And those laws are being enforced ever more stringently as Europe’s social welfare system’s sustainability is increasingly strained by economic and social pressures.
But don’t take my word for it, just consider that both George Orwell and Ludwig von Mises made compelling arguments for how and why socialism inescapably leads to tyranny.
There are no unalienable rights in Vietnam. China’s very aggressive actions in the South China Sea and it’s ludicrously false territorial claims put the lie to it becoming more capitalistic. There are no human rights in China.
Agreed, people are not abstractions. It’s also true that you can’t save people from themselves. They have to help themselves and Western Europe is committing civilizational suicide.
Here’s what some either don’t get or are ignoring. Appeasement is for the criminally inclined, an invitation to aggression, to be seen as prey. Obama has consistently appeased, Hillary will consistently appease. Given their transnational, multicultural, post modernist ‘philosophy’, no other alternative exists for them. That is a guarantee of war because it invites it.
Just look to China, she wouldn’t be acting as she is if she didn’t strongly sense weakness. Trump may get us into a war but it won’t be because he appeased our enemies. Hillary or her democrat successor will get us into a war as surely as Chamberlain, representative of long pacifism, led Britain into WWII.
In trying to avoid the chance of war, you ensure it.
GB:
If you believe we are that close to the end of the American dream, I guess my real question is why you think this one man, a very very flawed man, will be able to stop it? Maybe having lived most of my life in what is now the Peoples State of California, having seen great (Reagan) and not so great governors (Schwarzenegger), I realize that it would take someone possessing intellectual courage as well as the highest moral integrity, to even begin to turn this around. Trump isn’t that man.
Geoffrey Britain:
Socialism is far from ideal, but with various types of tweaking, the type of socialism that exists in Europe has been sustainable, although probably not over the long haul (depending on how you define long haul). Over the long haul, we are drifting in that direction, too. And who knows whether democracy will ultimately be sustainable (long haul)? At any rate, we’re talking about the next four years, and whether Hillary Clinton is a Communist (Marxist) or not.
As for “hate crimes” (and criminalizing “hate speech”) in Europe, Europe has almost no tradition of free speech as we have here. The idea of “hate crimes” in Europe came as a direct result of the horrors of WWII, which they experienced to a far far greater extent than we did.
In this country, we are going in that direction even without socialism. And Donald Trump is no champion of free speech; au contraire. He wants to do away with Times vs. Sullivan and make it libelous to lie about Donald Trump (not about Ted Cruz, however).
I for one would appreciate “Ex Pat’s” input to this comment thread especially regarding Europe. I find GB cavalier and short sighted appeasement to the Russian Federation odd. Almost willful blindness the history of the 20th century; how many American civilians died or were displaced during the wars of the 20th century? Europeans probably don’t view the world with an American perspective, they must be blind too.
But a Trump position must be defended. Carry on GB.
OM:
See my comment right above yours.
TOC,
You’ve correctly stated that I see no alternative to voting for Trump.
On my previous rationale, which I do remember, on certain collapse being better laid at the feet of the Left… I’ve been persuaded otherwise by our gracious host’s argument, that the MSM will deceive the public into accepting that it is the right’s doing… no matter how straightforward the Left’s responsibility.
In such a case, we will have nothing to offer but “blood, sweat and tears”, while the Left will offer the promise of a life raft. And, with 94 million Americans out of work, 47% paying no income taxes and an ever deeper entitlement mentality, I think it likely that the majority will buy into it.
Bill:
Please see my post on the “elites.” The term is a leftist one.
TOC,
No, Trump is not that man. Since he will not get the congressional support needed, I see no way for him to deliver on his promises in a Constitutionally lawful manner. So he will either flail about ineffectively or greatly enlarge upon Obama’s unconstitutional actions. I expect the latter, which is why I have compared him to a Caesar.
So why vote for Trump? Simply because history demonstrates a greater chance for recovery after a Franco or Pinochet than after a Castro or Chavez. No offense but it’s the ideology, stupid.
Geoffrey Britain:
You write:
You left this part out: neither is Hillary a Marxist.
You write:
But Trump has said many things that indicate he wishes to further that agenda, as well. I agree, however, not as many, which is Trump’s one plus over her.
However, I’ve also said Trump is a loose cannon in foreign affairs, and I linked to a very long post of mine about that in which I describe why the Russian roulette analogy does not fit and why he could be worse in that respect. You also write that the Russian roulette analogy does fit, because of the uncertainty with Trump, completely and utterly ignoring my very lengthy explanation in that post of why it does not fit.
You also write what is perhaps the most extraordinary statement in your remarks here:
I guess I should say my mea culpas at not agreeing with your preferred Authority and using your non-preferred authorities to back me up. I want to make something very very clear, something that should have been clear to you if you’ve ever read the story of my political change, which is that: I’m not interested in agreeing with someone because I usually agree with them, or disagreeing with someone because I often disagree with them. If I had operated the way you suggest I should, I would never, never ever, have undergone my political change in the first place. I was able to change because I followed what seemed to be the truth wherever it emanated from, if it was persuasive, logical, well-documented, and fact-based.
I often agree with Sowell, and I respect his intelligence. But you know what? That doesn’t mean I don’t have disagreements with him, and in that linked post I described a big disagreement I have with him and my reasoning behind it. That was the first post I linked to in this comment of mine, the one you’re referencing.
So, I don’t care if it’s Sowell’s opinion, Joe Schmo’s opinion, George Bush’s opinion (back when I was a liberal, I sometimes agreed with him), or even Donald Trump’s opinion (I agree with him on some things, too), if I think it is logical and makes sense I will agree and if not I will disagree. I call them as I see them, and the argument from authority is of no interest to me.
As for the next article I cited in that comment, the one from National Review, since when has the National Review been so discredited in your eyes as to not be a source one could link to? Let me guess—might it have been since NR came out against Trump in the primaries? I happen to agree with a great deal in that periodical—including much of what is in that editorial—although far from everything, of course.
That NY Times article you criticized as a link, the third one I linked in that comment, was an article about the fact that 50 GOP security analysts had signed a letter:
So what, exactly, are you disputing about this article? Do you think the Times is lying, and that they didn’t sign it? Do you think they are being misquoted? Do you think they are not GOP security analysts, many of whom served under Bush? Do you think they are Hillary Clinton fans?
I cited both the NR piece and that piece in the Times in response to this comment by J.J.. He could not even seem to imagine how anyone could think that Trump could be worse in foreign policy than Hillary Clinton. I gave my opinion on how by linking to this post of mine. I gave National Review’s opinion by linking to their editorial, which was to illustrate to J.J. their reasoning on how Trump could be worse than Hillary (just as an example of how someone might think that, not because I agree with every single word). And I gave the NY Times link about the 50 GOP security analysts not to show the opinion of the NY Times, but to show the opinion of the 50 GOP security analysts that Trump could be worse than Hillary in terms of international security.
G.B @ 8:13pm:
Well put.
We all know how bad Hillary is. She’s a known quantity and not worth dissecting. But do we really know all the details about how corrupt she is? She and Bubba have been fairly adept at covering their tracks with the help of the MSM. Unlike Trump whose life is mostly an open book. All his bad deals, all his failures, all his peccadilloes, all his bad manners, etc. are pretty much on view and what little hasn’t been trotted out by the MSM is probably not worth knowing. I have taken the measure of the man and find him deeply flawed and certainly not who I would vote for unless the alternative was Hillary. I may yet change my mind and vote for Gary Johnson, but I have not been convinced that Trump isn’t worth taking a chance on.
Here’s a recent tidbit about Hill/Bill: “At no time did the U.S. State Department ever say to Bill Clinton that any of his unbelievably lucrative speaking gigs represented a conflict of interest — even if there was reason to believe a foreign government or entities closely allied with a foreign government were paying. Recall the State Department praising the progress of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan as the president’s ally invited Bill Clinton to give two speeches in exchange for $1.4 million dollars. The State Department’s generous assessment of Jonathan’s human rights record stopped after the last speaking gig for Clinton.”
Well, isn’t that interesting?
Much more for those who want to see behind the Clinton curtain at:
http://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=28223
Clinton Cash DELENDA EST!
neo,
“Has been” are the key words regarding Europe’s social welfare state’s sustainablity. Birth rate demographics and a dependence on immigrants unwilling to assimilate doom Europe’s social welfare states. And that doesn’t even consider socialism’s inherent need to control with tyranny as the resultant end-state.
Yes, we certainly are heading in that direction and pure democracy is also unsustainable. Which of course is why we have a constitutional republic, “only suitable for a moral and religious people”.
Transnationalism and “hate speech” laws are both reactions to the horrors of WWII. Experience is a great teacher, if we draw the right lessons from it, Europe’s intelligentsia did not.
The Left is driving this country deeper into socialism. All part of the March through the Institutions.
No, Donald Trump is not a supporter of free speech. Few are, when speech consists of lies. Free speech, to actually work, depends upon the majority of people being sincere in their differences. When the insincere control the levers of power, free speech becomes a forum for spreading societal dissolution.
Geoffrey Britain:
You keep arguing as though you know the future of Europe. You do not. In fact, I can see that they might start retreating somewhat from socialism if they continue to have more economic problems, as long as they retain democracy. So far they have. So far they do not look to be going in the direction of Marxism. So far that particular type of transition has no occurred—European-style socialism to Marxist communism—although it was your initial prediction.
And you also implied that hate crime (and I assume you also meant hate speech) laws in Europe were the result of socialism, and that they did not exist in the 60s. They are not from socialism; they are from WWII, and they did exist in the 60s.
I am in agreement that socialism leads to more societal control and less liberty. But Europe began with a very very different view of liberty to begin with than we have in this country. I am in agreement that a Hillary Clinton presidency threatens liberty. But I also think that a Donald Trump presidency is a very grave threat to liberty. He is at least as ruthless as she, and by my reading more so.
Nor is he going to be impeached and convicted, no matter what he does. If you believe that he would be, you have much more faith in the GOP than I do, because it would need the GOP to cooperate in the conviction.
GB:
“You keep arguing as though you know the future of Europe. You do not.” Even Sweden is backing off from the social welfare policies. How could that be as such things only go in one direction?
Consider this:
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain
It’s those unknown unknowns …
If…
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,…
The wisdom of Kipling.
Geoffrey Britain:
I’m not sure if you are referring to yourself, but you wrote that “few” are supporters of free speech, “when speech consists of lies.”
Well then, if you’re correct, I guess very few people support free speech. And that includes Donald Trump—so what the hey, right?
Hey, let’s repeal the First Amendment, then! And perhaps we should make Geoffrey Britain and Donald Trump the arbiter of what’s a lie and what isn’t.
Look, I hate lies. But lies about public officials are protected speech absent actual knowledge of falsehood, and there’s a reason for it:
Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps most people are—like Donald Trump—controlling totalitarians at heart.
Perhaps that’s why we need the Bill of Rights.
Nor is he going to be impeached and convicted, no matter what he does.
Really? Why not? I actually think Congressional Republicans have a lot to gain by removing a President Trump.
First off, if Trump serves out his term and is terrible, the Republicans get the blame and take the hit in 2020. Removal would greatly mitigate that. Second, Pence has to be much better.
Those two things alone would be yuge benefits.
In addition, the Democrats would be all for it, so it would actually be possible.
Pedant Warning
at least without evidence that the false statements either were made recklessly or with knowledge of their falsity.
Well, that’s not a lie, then. If you don’t at some level know your statements are false, then you are merely wrong. Lying is knowing you are not telling the truth.
All clear!
neo,
I left out “neither is Hillary is a Marxist” because I was only speaking of your agreement with me that Trump is not a Marxist. I think Hillary is a closet Marxist, you disagree, fine but at that point I wasn’t speaking to that point, so why would I include it?
Yes, you did link to your post in which you disagreed with Sowell’s analogy, which BTW I originally provided, so I remember it well. I didn’t ignore your reasoning, I simply disagreed with you then and when I explained why I think that Sowell’s analogy is valid, it was also an indirect response to your reasoning.
Sorry, I started to become disappointed with National Review long before their assault upon Trump. And I find their analysis of Trump highly flawed.
I questioned your citing of the NYT article both for its consistent reputation for agenda journalism and for the substance of the article. And like you, I could care less as to the ‘authority’ of 50 GOP national security ‘experts’ whose credibility is trashed for the reasons I gave; as well as, experts who have never disputed George Bush’s repeated insistence that, “Islam is a religion of peace”. Experts who have never renounced Bush’s disproven concept of nation building.
No, they are not Hillary Clinton fans, they are fans of the GOP’s politically correct thinking, which brought in during Bush’s term it’s own share of covert Muslim Brotherhood advisers.
I highly value you ‘calling them as you see them’ and have never doubted that you extend the same courtesy to your readers.
Who are these new Republicans you speak of? Most seem all to willing to go along and get along with Sen. McConnell and other “leaders.” Why would they oppose his Trumpyness and the new improved Trump media, aka, “Big Trumpbart, now 24/7/365!”
And their go along get along helped give the country the current choice of DJT or HRC, for all you binary types.
I think the Russian roulette analogy is flawed, as neo’s post points out. However, the idea that with Clinton we face certainty and with Trump we face uncertainty is I think true.
So far, commenters here have focused on uncertainty as to the degree of awfulness Trump represents. However, Trump could also be better than we all expect. The uncertainty goes both ways: good and bad.
It’s possible that Trump will be about as bad as Clinton in many ways, such as promoting big government and expanding our current imperial presidency even further, as she will, but then be much better on things like immigration and religious freedom. So, with Clinton you would get 0 and Trump you would get 2. You wanted 10 and would have accepted 7, so Trump falls far short of our compromised desires, but 2 is still greater than 0.
All that said, I’m not encouraging anyone to vote for Trump. I probably will. I do think we have somewhat better chances with him than Clinton, and my conscience allows me to make that call.
Your consciences are different. You’re going to have to live with them, so you should vote them. I am not asking anyone else to vote MY conscience.
An increasingly greater concern I’m having is, can we live with each other?
For all of the animosity the pro- and anti-Trump people seem to have for each other right now, we probably agree on a lot of policy issues. I don’t know if that’s 80/20 or 70/30 or whatever, but probably a whole lot more than we agree with the Progressives on.
We are headed for tragedy, no matter which candidate wins. It would only compound it if this election created lasting divisions between us.
In talking about elites, I think it’s useful to draw the distinction a little finer.
I am all for elites when it comes to skill and ability. I love the Special Forces and SEALS taking out the bad guys. When I get surgery, I want an elite surgeon. I like learning history from the best.
But I am against elitism, the idea that some real or alleged elite should make my life decisions for me.
I don’t care how elite a surgeon is, he should never have the power to force me to shut up and not speak my mind, or to stop me from assembling with other peaceful citizens, or take my right to bear arms away.
I think that makes the distinction clearer.
The Other Chuck: … I guess my real question is why you think this one man, a very very flawed man, will be able to stop it?
I can’t answer for GB, but for me, I don’t think one person can. Even if we put the best possible candidate in office, one person couldn’t do it.
We are looking at a generational effort. Politics is secondary. We must retake the culture, then politics will follow.
So, in this election between two wretched candidates, I’m not voting for a messiah — there isn’t one available among all of our candidates. No, far from it. I’m voting for the candidate who I think will do less damage for us to repair.
I see it more in terms of a car crash. Do you want to crash at 30 mph, or 45 mph?
Thomas Doubting – well said.
For what it’s worth, I often go hammer and tongs in these threads but I want to emphasize that I feel a kinship and affection for the regular commenters here. The instalanche a couple of days ago brought in some tough customers, but they soon departed.
So, I hope I always argue with respect and keep to the issues, rather than making it personal. But I’m sure I fail there, and for that I apologize.
Two quick notes (since neo very skillfully said most of what I would want to say). I think we need to be fair to both sides and quit doubling down. HRC is a socialist/leftist and that’s really bad. Most of us can agree on that. But having intuitive feelings that she’s a closet Marxist is unfair and really diverts from reality. Unless she’s ever argued for Government control of the means of production, and we have the link or documentation, I don’t want to go there.
Plus, since the late 80s Marxism has been on a definite downhill slide.
And, yes, socialism does lead to tyranny (or at least further on the tyranny spectrum). I agree with that. But I don’t consider generally tyranny to be “Marxism”. Marxism is something very specific. a specific kind of tyranny. I may be nitpicking here.
That brings me to the reason why many of these arguments are unpersuasive. Even some Trump supporters here see a good chance of a Trump presidency resulting in tyranny. So I get to pick from D-Tyranny or R-(really alt-right)-Tyranny. Saying the D-Tyranny will be worse because it’s “Marxist” without showing how doesn’t help me determine which is bad. I’m not a big fan of communism, fascism, and all the other population-control isms that plague the world.
Finally – Trump better on religious freedom? Are you kidding me? Look, I am a Christian, I follow Jesus, but religious freedom, if it’s to be freedom, has to extend to other religions too, not just my favored one. He’s floated ideas about deporting Muslims and having a religious (not just terrorism) test for immigrants.
Sounds good, eh? But you’ll be amazed when we strip the rights from one religion how quickly the rights of our own religion appear on the chopping block.
I’m a big believer in religious freedom, freedom of conscience, etc. Trump appears to have about the same understanding of religious freedom as he has of freedom of speech.
OK now to bed. Good conversation all.
neo,
Pointing out societal dynamics is not predicting the future. I’m highly doubtful that Europe can retreat from socialism, it’s aging population lacks the wherewithal to do so. More young immigrants are on welfare than are not. And that’s just the economics.
The transition from socialism to Marxism happens gradually and bit by bit, like boiling a frog. There are plenty of stories that demonstrate the gradual erosion of liberty and freedom in Europe’s socialist states. On the surface, for those who go along to get along… everything seems fine. But repeatedly speak out against the State’s cherished memes… and it’s a different story. Yes, Europe does not have our free speech traditions and that makes them fertile ground for gradual, ever increasing restrictions on opposing political correctness.
I am not arguing as to which of the two is the more ruthless. I am arguing as to who is the more ideological, which gives persistance in direction and whose supporting forces are the more organized, widespread, well funded and stronger.
I have faith that the GOP will always do what they believe to be in their best interest and if circumstance dictates the perception that Trump is particularly vulnerable, the jackets will pull him down like a wounded wildebeast. Pence would make a fine, relatively easy to manipulate Presé¬dent. He’s their insurance policy that after a Pres. Trump, sanity i.e. the status quo, will return.
OM,
That is the rub. Seeing others clearly is easy compared to what we don’t wish to see in ourselves.
neo,
I was speaking of human nature. It’s terribly difficult to hear a knowingly told lie that results in “free as a bird, guilty as hell”.
Free speech among the well intentioned is about honest disagreement. Free speech when used by the dishonest is a weapon. That is not an argument in support of censorship. Nor an argument of what free speech should consist or how it might be restricted. It’s just an observation.
“Politically, the human race divides between those who wish to control others and those, who have no such desire.” R. A. Heinlein
Thomas Doubting,
Thank you for contributing greatly (IMO) to the conversation. Please continue to do so.
Maybe the horse will sing
To begin, a brief story illustrative of our current political dilemma:
Of course you see the point: while we might like to think we’re the guy with the pipe …we’re not. We’re the walker.
So, the guy with the pipe? – He’s not us. Do NOT get confused about who you are.
You’re not a smartass hick sucking wacky-tobaky in some nameless rural environ with the faint sound of a banjo playing a familiar tune off in the distance (this tune, I believe).
Because you my friend, need to find your way to Tipperary.
US electoral politics is generally (not always, but almost always) binary at the general election level in outcome.
One of the two main parties will be victorious.
Someone wins.
It will be only one of the two someones representing one of the two major political parties.
Or – as Keith Richards says whenever another musician dies – “There can be only one” (too obscure? – riff based on Highlander 1986).
It’s not worth arguing the point as far as “not” (i.e., not binary). So up front, don’t bother. I will not be provoked on that point lol (I will think you’re being too clever by half if you have some silly facile argument, still won’t be provoked, but will then also think you’re dispensable to the discussion, and thus imminently ignorable …and yeah, I’m talking to you Jonah Goldberg …btw, I don’t believe in unicorns, either: just sayin’).
Don’t be the guy with the pipe.
Onward fellow walkers, on to Tipperary. Rah!
First Axiom. “Bad” will be shorthand for all the minutia of the myriad variations of the Platonic ideal for “bad”. IOW: don’t try to confuse the argument with various subtleties over distinctions without a difference …and dismissively dismissed.
First Argument
On the one hand, Hillary C. Considered sui generis we all know she’s bad (again: it’s not worth arguing the point).
So: agreement.
Hillary C = bad
Ergo
Hillary C.Second Argument
On the other hand, Donald T. Considered sui generis some of us think he’s inarguably bad, some of us think he’s probably bad, some of us think he’s not bad.
So: disagreement.
Donald T = ?
Ergo, conundrum!
Well, for perhaps 25-48% of you (based upon hypothetical tallies that I just made up in my mind bwahaha).
(The remaining percentage – also known as The Enlightened – may safely ignore the rest of this comment.)
What can we do? Is a workable solution not to be found?
Why no. Not necessarily, as it turns out.
Ladies and gentleman, without further ado, I present to you, in the center ring: The Solution (and not so coincidentally, using another little allegorical fable).
Maybe the horse will sing.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum!
Re: NATO
If the issue is the funding, aside from some misconceptions or lack of clarity about “contributions”, we ought to ask if the alternative (ultimately, pulling out of NATO if all members don’t “contribute” what we believe is their “fair share”) is really “better” or “cheaper”. I doubt it is.
Please read a fuller response here…
http://neoneocon.com/2016/08/06/trump-clinton-obama-chaos-is-the-new-normal/#comment-1510867
“Politically, the human race divides between those who wish to control others and those, who have no such desire.” R. A. Heinlein
Astounding profundity. surely he belongs in the pantheon of those with deep knowledge of humanity! /S
Or maybe he was just a author of science fiction who didn’t start his own religion (“Stranger in a Strange Land”)?
Please continue to comment.
Insight from Richard Fernandez
https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2016/08/20/the-end-of-the-memory-hole/
“Blockchain is offered only as an example of the disruptive technologies affecting the world. There is other innovations that are shaking things up and no reason to think that the forces which have taken jobs from workers in Detroit will not also take power from bureaucrats in Washington.”
This may be why “… government is growing without getting any stronger and why catastrophes do not have always have the expected effects.”
WRT HRC and DJT ” Each should be evaluated on their ability to understand change, not to stop it.”
Heinlein – not so much.
“‘Nor is he going to be impeached and convicted, no matter what he does.’ – Neo
Really? Why not? I actually think Congressional Republicans have a lot to gain by removing a President Trump.” – Doubt T
If it were simply a “lot to gain” motivation, there was that in spades for the GOP to begin impeaching obama. They didn’t.
If, at this point, trump were to prove resilient enough to come back and win, most assuredly that would be with plenty of support within the GOP.
If the GOP haven’t stopped him thus far with all the red flags, a win would be a powerful innoculator for trump – retaining power is a much greater motivator for many elected officials – trump’s support would be galvanized.
Frankly, trump would likely shovel out “deals” with enough to retain their loyalty, much the same as he brags about doing with politicians in the past.
The party leaders would undoubtedly work hard to squelch any dissent, not much different from how they squelched any potential change in convention rules.
At this point, to believe that the GOP would somehow have the renewed wherewithal to stop trump, is to place one’s bet on the roulette ball landing on “36”, rather low odds (and that may still be way too high). IOW, a hope and a prayer, as the precedence before our eyes shows us just how likely that is.
I still haven’t gotten over the weirdness of people who are voting for Trump touting the benefits of impeaching him later or of him only becoming a Pinochet versus a Stalin.
I don’t think a candidate can win when most of his support is – could I call this “unenthusiastic”?
Hold-your-nose candidates don’t win, generally. However, in this election year, the weirdest in my lifetime, we have TWO hold-your-nose candidates, so the big lout might actually pull it off.
He’ll have to do it without my vote.
“So, with Clinton you would get 0 and Trump you would get 2. You wanted 10 and would have accepted 7, so Trump falls far short of our compromised desires, but 2 is still greater than 0.” – Doubt T
Oh G0d, if only we could have a basis for believing that trump is a compromise for a “2” vs “0”!
The flaw in that analogy is that you limit yourself to “0” for trump (i.e. equivalent to clinton). For all we know (and that is not much re: what trump would really do), he could be a “-11” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xgx4k83zzc
If trump were consistently and credibly arguing as a “2”, it might be a “no-brainer”. That, in the last 12+ months, he has been rather mutable, and has said or taken positions that are rather extreme, makes trump rather unpredictable.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/4079/klavan-im-angry-and-so-im-voting-donald-trump-andrew-klavan
So, taking a point and even assuming it is an “average” of trump’s positions would tell us little, given how wide the distribution of possibilities are (a single sigma standard deviation embraces rather horrid possibilities).
trump’s distribution curve of outcomes notionally looks more like the green one – a fat tail curve – vs the more predictable blue curve for clinton.
https://www.pimco.com/-/media/global-assets/resources/education/pimco_understanding_tail_risk_img1_jul2015_640x358_38424.ashx?la=en-us&hash=A8D593EBE5589163CFADB8ED0FD379D9FA492078
“I see it more in terms of a car crash. Do you want to crash at 30 mph, or 45 mph?” – Doubt T
See my above comment.
Hard to make the case that trump is the 30 mph in that analogy.
The problem with America is that people allow the Authorities to override their conscience. That’s the root of all this talk by the Alternative Right about Cruz and the conscience line. It’s not like people didn’t talk about voting one’s conscience during the primary, before the RNC had speakers out.
As for the GOP in the Senate, if they are truly as stupid as people think, so much that Trum is better than them, then they aren’t going to make the wise decision of impeaching a Republican either. Especially not once the Alternative Right seizes power. People underestimate the power of the Left’s infrastructure. The same way they underestimated the Alt Right’s infrastructure, which backed Trum, a no “crash and burn candidate” supposedly.
Matt_SE Says:
August 19th, 2016 at 2:35 pm
This is why NeverTrump exists: even his moments of candor are lies.
Many of them were in the neverCruz and neverPalin camp, don’t forget that.
Bill: “HRC is a socialist/leftist and that’s really bad. Most of us can agree on that. But having intuitive feelings that she’s a closet Marxist is unfair and really diverts from reality. Unless she’s ever argued for Government control of the means of production, and we have the link or documentation, I don’t want to go there.”
What is the difference between kingdoms, theocracies, fascist states, communist states, or socialist states? The answer is: The name and the degree of statism. All are statist entities in which the state is the arbiter of human activity – economic, cultural, and religious. A statist enterprise does not derive its power from the consent of the citizens. A statist entity derives its power from, usually, the barrel of a gun or, sometimes, from a powerful elite who have managed to convince enough people that it is their right to determine how others will live.
We should all be opposed to statism in all its many forms. The progressives use that name as a cover for their true identity, which is not really Marxism, but actually close to the Fascism of Germany and Italy where industry was held in private hands but was essentially controlled by the government through regulations, special dispensations, taxes, and bribery. (See Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism.”) In this system, a larger group at the top prospers, but the great majority of citizens have no real power over their destinies. (Do you see any resemblance to what is transpiring here?) We aren’t there yet, but that is the destination for which the progressives have bought a ticket and are striving mightily. Hillary is just their next horse to ride after Obama. While Obama has been intent upon doing social justice work to further erode our liberties and bringing the U.S to heal on the international scene, Hillary will be more intent on using the power of crony capitalism to enrich herself and those capitalists who play ball with her brand of Fascism. (Remember those Goldman Sachs speeches?) Free speech, the right to bear arms, real free enterprise, defending ourselves from radical Islamic terror, and our international standing as an exceptional nation will all suffer under her brand of Liberal Fascism. She will be intent on controlling the culture, the economy, and religion from the lofty perch of the presidency. She doesn’t have to be a closet Marxist to be a dangerous person as president. The hard core progressives like Soros (George and son, Jonathan), John Podesta, Thomas Steyer, Tammy Baldwin, Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Richard Durbin, Al Franken, Cory Booker, Mazie Hirono, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Jack Reed, Elizabeth Warren, etc. are all in her corner. She is not just some aging, hapless liar.
@brdavis – Come on! Sorry, but that is one of the cr@ppiest “arguments” here.
There are a lot of words and dismissive attitude, without actually arguing anything.
.
“I will not be provoked on that point lol (I will think you’re being too clever by half if you have some silly facile argument… The remaining percentage — also known as The Enlightened — may safely ignore the rest of this comment… without further ado, I present to you, in the center ring: The Solution”
If we didn’t know better, it surely seems to be a form of “peacocking”.
At best, it was an exercise in absurdity, dressed up as an “argument”.
“brdavis9 Says:
August 20th, 2016 at 4:42 am
Maybe the horse will sing
An excellent post. Done at 4:42 am. Perhaps substance supported? No matter; it was well stated.
I see we’re one man down already …duly noted. Dismissively dismissed.
Axiom 2: Never punch below your weight class.
@JJ – good points, but what we cannot forget there appears (judging by various statements from trump) potentially much overlap trump has with clinton, and both are sure to drive bigger government, further centralization of power towards the executive branch.
IOW there is not much to be gained with trump, if the objective is to slow down the leftist march. The result might well be an acceleration beyond what clinton could even be able to achieve.
J.J.:
Trump has made many many remarks that brand him as a statist also.
Bill, I was thinking about our society when I wrote about permanent divisions. Neoneocon and the commenters here are far more civil and intelligent than a lot of places. You’ve built a good community.
GB, thank you. That’s very kind of you.
Big Maq, TD is fine, Mr. Doubting if you want to be formal. 🙂 But my friends call me Tom. That works too, unless there’s already a Tom here.
Doubt T makes me sound like a rapper. Maybe I could open for Ice-T? Or claim kinship with Mr. T?
@brdavis – “One man down…” – yep, trolling.
Dude, you can continue down that path if you like. Your call. Just proves the point.
Anyway, there are other blogs that may be more to your liking, if you cannot handle making your case in plain language, to stand on its own merits.
Ymarsakar:
I don’t remember many of them in 2008 saying they wouldn’t vote for McCain because of Palin. So how could they be neverPalin? If by neverPalin you mean they didn’t want Palin nominated for president, so what? I didn’t want her to be nominated, either, but I almost certainly would have voted for her against Hillary Clinton.
Same for Cruz. They didn’t want him to be nominated. But only a few (Dole, I recall) said they wouldn’t vote for him if nominated, and since he was never nominated, we don’t know how many would have been neverCruz.
“Big Maq, TD is fine, Mr. Doubting if you want to be formal. 🙂 But my friends call me Tom. That works too, unless there’s already a Tom here.
Doubt T makes me sound like a rapper. Maybe I could open for Ice-T? Or claim kinship with Mr. T?” – TD
Gosh, I must be dyslexic. Thanks for pointing it out. It was not intentional.
JJ,
I completely agree., and I’m a big fan of Jonah Goldberg and have read LF.
Your point aligns with mine, actually. Statism is bad, we don’t have to invent wild predictions of HRC putting us in gulags.
Trump is a statist too. More on the crony capitalist side but it’s all bad. He has expressed strong support for government run health insurance and limiting free speech
Let’s not reward statist with our votes. We aren’t sheep.
Bill,
On religious freedom, I haven’t heard of Trump proposing to deport American Muslims. That would certainly be a violation of religious freedom and something I would strenuously oppose.
I also oppose a blanket ban on Muslim immigration, but I do think we need to be more careful with Muslim immigration than with other demographics, which last I checked was Trump’s actual proposal.
Another issue that came up where Trump was accused of proposing a religious test was his comment about admitting Christians. I thought the attacks on that were off-base. Christians and members of other minority faiths in the Middle East are being victims of ethnic cleansing. Our refugee laws actually do include this test; religious persecution is a valid reason to give someone refugee status and let them in.
Do you know why there are so few religious minorities among the Syrian refugees? Because when Christians, Yazidis, etc., show up at the UN-run refugee camps, Muslim gangs in the camps attack them. Europe and the US only take refugees from the UN camps, so there is actually a de facto religious test already: Only Muslims get in.
However, none of this reflects on religious liberty per se. That is a domestic issue. There is no right to immigrate to the US; refusing someone as an immigrant for religious reasons would be discrimination, but it’s not a violation of religious freedom. Again, I oppose an outright religious test, but support greater scrutiny for some demographics, and religion should be a factor in that.
Anyway, I don’t actually know whether Trump would be better on religious liberty or not. I was just using it as an example. However, Clinton is hostile to religious liberty. I haven’t heard anything suggesting Trump is also hostile to it, so it seemed like a reasonable example.
Thomas Doubting:
I believe that was his original proposal, or that if they left the country they wouldn’t be allowed back. Something of that sort (don’t have time to look it up now). But then he walked it back, like almost everything he says.
brdavis9, that’s a good post. Maybe the horse will sing!
Bill: I still haven’t gotten over the weirdness of people who are voting for Trump touting the benefits of impeaching him later or of him only becoming a Pinochet versus a Stalin.
Tell me about it! Imagine being one of those people and you’ll understand my utter, complete disgust and frequent sense of disorientation at this election. Last summer not only the Republican but the Conservative chances seemed wonderful. We had a surfeit of good candidates! And now …
Thomas Doubting:
I like your style, posting your views and interpretations, without being overbearing hyperbolic or strident.
Big Maq, no worries. I thought it was funny.
If it were simply a “lot to gain” motivation, there was that in spades for the GOP to begin impeaching obama. They didn’t.
They were never, ever going to impeach the first black president. That just wasn’t going to happen in any possible universe.
If the GOP haven’t stopped him thus far with all the red flags, a win would be a powerful innoculator for trump …
There was no real way for the GOP to stop him, was there? He won the primaries. There was really nothing they could do without simply throwing out the democratic process at the convention.
Also, I don’t think a win would inoculate him. I think it’s easy for all of us to imagine Trump making a huge mistake in office that a majority of Americans condemn. That’s all it would take and the GOP could finish the term with President Pence.
Big Maq: The flaw in that analogy is that you limit yourself to “0” for trump (i.e. equivalent to clinton). For all we know (and that is not much re: what trump would really do), he could be a “-11”
You’re right. I was pointing out that everyone was using a negative scale and how that was wrong, and then I imposed an equally flawed positive scale. Can I blame the wine?
Still, I think the idea that Trump could be better than expected is a valid point. Let’s put Clinton at the center of our curve as a baseline and the scale goes from -5 to +5. She’s 0. I would say that Trump could be anything from -2 to +2.
When we throw these dice, we don’t know what’s going to happen. He might be worse, he might be better. We shouldn’t forget the possibility that he might be better.
“That’s all it would take and the GOP could finish the term with President Pence.”
Impeachment will be a horrific process. I’d like to pre-impeach him by not electing him.
The damage all this is doing to the cause of conservatism is extraordinary. I grew up in an age when young people were shedding leftism and embracing small-government/rule of law conservatism. But we were Reagan kids.
I know a ton of millenials. A large portion of them are not very political, but the ones that are seem to be almost 100% repulsed by Trump. Of the ones I’ve heard express support for Trump it’s usually kind of tepid and based on low-information. All of this is anecdotal, of course, but I think polls bear it out. We may be losing a generation.
It’s not too late. Not a vote that counts has been cast. But because Binary thinking and “pick a lane” thinking dominates, the lemmings will probably have this one. Over the cliff we go!
The Simpsons of course were prescient: Go ahead, throw your vote awaaaay!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAT_BuJAI70
Neo, I don’t remember him saying that specifically, but I do remember the media saying that about what he said. The media have consistently interpreted what Trump actually said in the worst possible ways. I think we’re all familiar with this phenomenon. I could be wrong, though.
OM, thanks. I got this way by being overbearing and strident for many years on other blogs and forums and then realizing I was having crappy, angry conversations that were all heat and no light. It was stressful. I’m trying not to do that anymore.
I’m really enjoying all the folks here. You all have good discussions.
Bill, I have the same concern. What would you see as an optimal outcome here? Who wins the election, and what happens after that?
Well, I need to get to my to-do list for today. I’ll check back in later.
“Also, I don’t think a win would inoculate him. I think it’s easy for all of us to imagine Trump making a huge mistake in office that a majority of Americans condemn. That’s all it would take and the GOP could finish the term with President Pence.” – TD
Would have thought that prior to this election cycle.
Very doubtful this is anywhere close to a likely outcome when push comes to shove.
.
“Still, I think the idea that Trump could be better than expected is a valid point. Let’s put Clinton at the center of our curve as a baseline and the scale goes from -5 to +5. She’s 0. I would say that Trump could be anything from -2 to +2.”
Yes, a positive outcome re: trump is a possibility. But what is the risk?
Furthermore, most here have argued that clinton is VERY predictable. Thus, they’d rather “take a chance” on that positive possibility than have the assured outcome they see with clinton.
You are proposing something very different – that clinton is remarkably LESS predictable than trump (10 point gap vs 4 points – in range of possibilities).
Just doesn’t seem plausible whatsoever wrt the inconsistent rhetoric and history from trump vs the long, consistent history we have with clinton.
trump represents heavy “fat tail” risks to the point that some here even argue that trump WILL be authoritarian.
Several more details on this here…
http://neoneocon.com/2016/08/04/the-shotgun-election/#comment-1498714
“I’d like to pre-impeach him by not electing him.” – Bill
Excellent way of describing it.
It is clear that if one is relying on some impeachment process as a prophylactic against the downside possibilities with trump, that there is an implied acknowledgement of more than significant risk of those possibilities.
Better not to go down that path to begin with.
So let’s do something positive and see how this games out. Instead of rehashing the same old same old, let’s take up the assertions of the Never-Trumpers. And then ask them to explain exactly where it all leads.
They say, for instance:
– The choice that confronts us is not a binary choice.
Therefore in response, we naturally ask the non-binary choice man to show us the path to victory over Hillary that does not involve her main opponent. You have an electoral strategy that puts Gary Johnson in the White House? What is it? Show us the math.
So far … crickets.
Or did they perhaps have instead some non-electoral strategy they were alluding to, yet were too shy to state outright?:
Do they mean to propose that you hunker down for 4 years and then emerge from the caves … if they have not smoked you out?
Do they mean: Fight a rear guard action in congress which somehow could not just as well or better be fought against potential Trumpian overreach?
Do they mean: Fall on your sword and die gloriously for a kinder gentler conservativism … because “Principle!” ?
We have been informed repeatedly that when it comes to a ~Hillary result, it is not just a matter of either Trump or Hillary.
Or maybe that is not what we have been informed. No one has clearly said what this non-binary choice is, since Big Maq was asked to chart out a path to victory for Gary Johnson … if that is in fact what he was proposing by the term “non-binary” choice and the mention of Johnson’s name.
– What do the Never-Trumpers actually predict to see with Hillary?
Do they expect there will be no more Marxists infiltrated into Administration positions?
Do they expect a Republican congress, if there is one, to better resist the destruction of the rule of law and the subversion of the polity then they did under Obama?
Our host is a priori convinced that even if Trump is elected with a Republican congress, that any attempt by the legislative branch to exercise restraint would be hopeless. It looks then as if Neo has concluded:
– If Obama, and a Republican majority congress, then no effective legislative oversight and control. Demonstrated.
– If Hillary, and a Republican majority congress, then no effective legislative oversight and control. Expected.
– If Trump, and a majority Republican congress then still no effective legislative oversight and control. Predicted.
The result – if you accept this scenario regarding Trump and Congress – is that Constitutional government has already gone by the wayside, and we are wasting our time even discussing “political” solutions: because we know a priori that no possible constitutional brake or recovery is possible.
What then are we trying to do … salvage grandma’s Social Security check because preserving the system means so much to so many even if we become, as we have become with the individual shared responsibility mandate, thralls to the autogenous dysfunctions of others?
Is this where we are at? Elect Hillary because it doesn’t matter anyway and Trump is a vulgar, closet-racist ?
Is this where the minds of some people here are at?
– So let’s see too how the, “We can recover from Hillary just as well” scenario is supposed to work.
I have asked those who insinuate it is an acceptable model for a description of how this model actually works.
So far, one person who was not actually flogging the model, suggested that the proponents of this idea might mean that an economic catastrophe during a Clinton administration might, maybe, in some way, if it happened, work out for the best.
Of course it might not, too. And as we have seen in many instances when welfare state models have been brought to near ruin by objective circumstances, the left just doubles down, and you have to kill them to get them to back off. Unless you have a big uncle looming somewhere in the background.
But generally it works the same way the crisis brought on in the medical world by emergency room treatment laws, and the swamping of hospital systems by behaviorally induced illness cases, and illegal aliens, and insane indigents: We get more and worse in the way of the individual shared responsibility provision, where my insurance goes up because you are a goddamned drunk or denizen of gay bath houses.
So exactly what is the plan to turn a Hillary victory lemon into delicious lemonade?
Seems to me that electing Trump if we have to, and then holding his feet to the fire, by impeachment if needed, is a more realistic plan.
But if you have an alternative and can lay it out, please do.
Certainly, you don’t have to vote for Trump. I would not suggest that you do. This is still America after all … sorta.
But if you assert that there is a non-binary election choice, then say just how that path to victory is achieved by the numbers.
And if you think Clinton will not be so bad as to preclude gaining back the freedom ground that has been lost under Obama, and will be further lost under Clinton, say how it is to be done: you know, in the area of jurists, and the importation of populations to add to the existing Democrat voting client and dependency class, and the further destruction of the rule of law. Please, tell us, using something other than pendulum of history platitudes, how all this will be achieved.
However, and for those who like to hang on papier-mé¢ché crosses of their own manufacture, or think that preserving a gentle “society” is more important than preserving the republic, they need not reply. Because they really don’t have anything germane, or real, to say on this topic.
Big Maq, we’ll just have to disagree on impeachment. I haven’t seen any good reason advanced why it wouldn’t be possible.
You are proposing something very different — that clinton is remarkably LESS predictable than trump (10 point gap vs 4 points — in range of possibilities).
What? I assigned Clinton exactly 0 on the scale, which is a range of 1 possibility. I gave Trump -2 to +2, which is 5 possibilities. How does that make Clinton less predictable?
@TD – then I guess I didn’t correctly understand the +/-5 part. Okay. My bad.
Not disagreeing on the possibility that impeachment could happen. Only disagreeing on how likely it is given what we have seen in recent years, and this election cycle.
Definitely not something to hang our hat on to sell the case for trump, and counter the risk that choice is associated with.
Well, I think the chances of removal for Trump would actually be better than at any time since Clinton.
With Obama, there was no chance of removal for two reasons. One, as I’ve pointed out, is that Congress was never going to remove the first black president. However, the Republicans never had the numbers to remove him anyway, and the Democrats were not going to help.
With Trump, you could actually get bipartisan support for his removal. He has no loyalty to the party, and they have none to him. And, as I’ve mentioned, the Republicans could easily benefit by his removal.
Hillary, on the other hand, will have the same protections as Obama: She’ll be the first woman president, and the Democrats will never support her removal in any case.
Another point is that the media will cover for a President Clinton, but they’ll be all over anything a President Trump did that was remotely suspicious, so it’s more likely that the public would turn against him than her.
But you’re right that it’s not a great selling point. As Bill and others have pointed out: “Vote for Trump! We can impeach him!” is hardly a rallying cry. It is just one factor I consider.
If by neverPalin you mean they didn’t want Palin nominated for president, so what?
Palin was and is a populist, and as a result several GOP E and Federal reserve or Chamber of Congress related factions wanted to nullify her.
Same for when the GOp stomped on the Tea Party, and by extension Cruz. They don’t actually fight as hard against Leftists or Democrats, most likely because they’re taking orders from the same head hierarchy.
What the Alt Right wants to do is paint their opponents and the reluctant independent factions, as being NeverTrump. Thus they can all group their enemies into one faction, and then their counter and anti propaganda tricks will have an easier target.
They are transitioning from the “Lying Ted” phase of mentality, to a mentality more geared towards dominating the weak minds of America, in the general election. Thus they have to connect the sins of the Left to their GOp allies/enemies, and thus by extension, connect or conflate it with a twitter movement on NeverTrump. Since it is a twitter movement, the organization and member list does not exist, per say. So they will convince people that the “enemy” is part of one movement, and without the proof to disprove it, they don’t have to counter it with a propaganda art.
Alinsky and the Art of Propaganda are old hats by now, although still new to people who woke up yester year.
Most of the propaganda the Left uses to brainwash their own voters, works surprisingly well for everybody else, depending on the organization, hierarchy, and context. I’m sure there were reasons why Leftist antics were never adopted by Republicans, but after this year, I don’t think people will refrain from “Marxist Activism” quite so much. They will not be capable of resisting the lure of Power and Wealth, provided by dominating the capital of evil, DC, in America.
That does not guarantee they will even survive to get to DC of course.
Neoneocon and the commenters here are far more civil and intelligent than a lot of places. You’ve built a good community.
Consider the strength of the internet baronies created by the Alt Right sub cultures and communities. They didn’t become so ruthless or cutting with their verbal and written remarks, because they were born yesterday. No, an entire culture and online community, supports that.
Even before 2006, the PUA network was up and running, for example, and that is only one of the older factions that form the new label called the Alt Right. Or what I like to call the Anti Left Coalition. There’s not much that unites the anti Left Coalition, except hate and fear of the Left.
When Leftists would come to conservative blogs and taunt people there as “living in an echo chamber”, that was a psychological attack designed to destroy the Right’s budding baronies. Without those baronies, the Left could easily seize control of the US land as well as the US cyberspace.
DNW Says:
August 20th, 2016 at 1:42 pm
An American population too afraid to fight a war, doesn’t deserve freedom handed out from DC, even if DC was handing out real freedom.
By limiting the solution to elections, people have already given up, and cover up their actions with excuses and rationalizations.
If the Leftist alliance is truly tyrannical and totalitarian, there is only one solution in existence, and that solution has little to nothing to do with who gets elected to DC.
“Show us the math… So far … crickets.” – DNW
No crickets. This question has been answered.
Yours is an argument from the perspective of the “acceptability” of either trump or clinton.
There is no alternative path if you and so many others continue to hold that either of those two are acceptable. It becomes self fulfilling to all who behave by those assumptions / paradigm.
Like a rat on a wheel, there is only one “logical” choice, and that is to keep going in the same direction.
You want proof that if you step off that wheel that everyone else will do the same.
Nobody can satisfy your need for such proof, just as nobody can say that a specific molecule of snow will be the one to start the avalanche. Yet, no avalanche occurs if no molecule ever changes.
What I do know is that a d*mn rotten choice to stop another d*mn rotten choice is really no choice at all.
What I do know is that both candidates have historically high net negatives. So, there IS profound dissatisfaction on both sides.
Perhaps they all see that BOTH have risen beyond the threshold of acceptability.
This opens the door to other possibilities, but only if they are willing to take that step.
You may not like this explanation, but the fact is, if you DON’T find trump acceptable, you DO have a choice.
Just a point here, and then I am off for the day.
It is not nitpicking, since the Marxist v socialist nits of distinction implied by the framework, do not really exist except in the politically calculated rhetoric of 1960’s era progressive apologists.
Thus, the above commenter seems, if I am reading him right, to be suggesting that there is a distinction between a more moderate “socialism” and a more strident “Marxism”, and that Marxism is the equivalent of realized communism.
Perhaps it has something to do with the old “distinctions” we were fed in junior high school and the like, wherein “socialism” was defined as welfare state semi-market socialism featuring public ownership of all utilities, of riparian and ultimately mineral rights, of mass communication and mass transit infrastructure.
But, you could own a highly taxed business.
Again, it’s the stuff we were fed by our draft dodging junior high school teachers before we went on to actually study the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, or even to read the Communist Manifesto in its entirety.
Marxism, is in fact or effect, an ostensibly anti-metaphysical system of metaphysics: a system of interpretation of reality (sometimes termed materialist); and a sometimes implied, sometimes declared, human anthropology.
I would suggest, as I have before, that any who are perplexed by some of these issues read through … and carefully:
Marx: “On the Jewish Question”; “Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right”; and, Marx’s writing on the nature of man as a “species-being”, on alienation, and on the formation of his “essence” from the standpoint of the mode of production.
That should give you some idea of what “Marxism” really is.
I was not making an argument in the comment you are responding to.
I was asking the “non-binary” folks to show the electoral path they had in mind, or to point out what they meant to imply by “non-binary” choice if they did not have an electoral path charted out.
To observe that Gary Johnson who may be lucky to grab 5 to 10 electoral college votes, would get more, if more people just voted for him, is not a plan.
Well, I guess you just gotta believe. And once you do, good things – if you consider Johnson’s election and his views on immigration and drugs to be good things – will follow.
I’m not asking you to step off anywhere. I am inviting you to demonstrate that you actually have an idea of how your “non-binary” choice will result in a Clinton loss.
You don’t have to attack me to do that. You just have to show you have an actual idea of how your idea would actually pan out.
I’m not asking for proof. I’m asking if you even have a road map.
That shouldn’t perturb you; if you actually had any substantive notion of how it would work.
@TD – There is always great reluctance to go the impeachment route, with good reason – it is complex and is very difficult to make a case (just ask Kenneth Starr).
Recall that much talk was given by the majority Dem Congress (supported by MSM) to impeaching GWB – it certainly needs more than that to make a go of it.
IDK the history of its use, but it seems, in our living history, more often than not, impeachment initiatives have not had the results intended, and arguably had the opposite effect.
.
You are essentially arguing that there might be marginally less reluctance than during obama’s term or a clinton “first woman” term. I see the merits to that, and how the MSM would play it, but must balance that against what the GOP would look like under a trump presidency. We thought we understood where they stood, but that clearly has changed.
Further down that point, I don’t see where the likelihood at success increases, given how much of GOP leadership, and “conservative” media have turned so very pro-trump (presumably not on ideological grounds). If they are not concerned now with trump, what does it take to change their minds later on?
Very similar to the question posed a few times in these comments sections – what is the limiting principle wrt trump? How far is too far? I don’t think we know.
This cycle, given what has happened, we need much greater caution about assumptions like these (the protective value of impeachment) than we might have had in years past.
DNW,
As Big Maq pointed out, the issue at hand is the begging-the-question premise “Hillary is obviously worse than Trump and must be stopped at all costs”. Not everyone here accepts that.
I am non-Binary in one specific way: I see political parties as producers of a specific product (candidates) and it galls me that we are going to pay them (with votes/power) for these candidates. Hardly any of you want to vote for DJT, but you’ve been propagandized that you must, and you’re passing on that propaganda. I’m impervious to Trump blackmail.
Now, to emphasize: I KNOW THAT THE THIRD PARTY WON’T WIN, UNLESS SOMETHING AMAZING/HORRIBLE HAPPENS BETWEEN NOW AND NOVEMBER. (Sorry for shouting, I just wanted to make that clear).
But here’s the kicker. I think Hillary will be a terrible president. But (I’m going to put this in caps and just own it)…
I WOULD RATHER SEE HRC AS PRESIDENT THAN DJT.
Let that sink in, then listen to my reasons.
– as everyone has said, he is more unpredictable than her. She will be Obama’s third term. I think she’s a terrible politician and will not be as “successful” as he has been. But even if she’s just like him, I think we can survive four more years of Obama. It’s terrible, but we won’t be dead (or “emerging from caves”) in four years. Under Trump there are very fat “tails” on the probability distribution. The horribles could be anything.
– I think Trump will kill the conservative movement, which is more important than this one election. If he loses, he’s just set it back a few cycles. We can recover. If he wins, it’s dead. To be replaced by …
– The Alt-Right. The Alt-Right scares the cr@p out of me. I’m seriously thinking early 1930s Germany when I see that crowd. I can’t align with them.
– I think voting is very important, and that political parties don’t last forever unless we persist in binary thinking. Remember the Whigs? Trump has killed the GOP (I am no longer Republican) – maybe something good will rise from the ashes.
– The disasters of the next four years will be owned by the Democrats, not Republicans. That’s a good thing.
– The Democrat bench is remarkably thin (HRC and the old grouchy communist were all they had this year). The Conservative (not necessarily Republican) bench is well-stocked. I am thinking beyond this election. It ended in disaster the minute Trump was nominated. Perhaps a real leader will emerge to lead a conservative resurgence. That person will have to be tough as nails to survive.
– Finally, I accept the fact that Trump could be a good president, maybe even a great one. See the point above about unpredictability. The fat tails are on both sides. But let’s face facts: we’re all talking in probabilities. The reason this conversation is so hard is some of you insist on talking in certainties. But we really don’t know. My analysis tells me there is a much higher probability of Trump being a really, really bad president and as a conservative I don’t want to “own” that. But if he’s elected (I kind of expect him to be, believe it or not) I will pray for him and pray he surprises me. But can we agree that none of us can see the future? It’s just probabilities.
– Character matters. It matters a lot to me. I get tired of being ridiculed for having principles. Both HRC and DJT have cr@p character. So I’m not voting for either one.
– Finally – I live in a deep red state. So my choice is easier. If he can’t win my state she’s winning 48-50 states this election and none of this matters.
There you have it. Given the awful choices, I an in a “Trump must be stopped at all costs”, even if that cost is a Hillary presidency.
Now excuse me. I need to go put on a flack jacket and hunker down . . .
I forgot to add: I think there is value to voting third party, if for nothing else I think a substantial third party vote may rob the winner of a popular-vote majority, meaning the mandate will be less. And I’d like to scare the cr@p out of both the major parties. They need to feel the wrath of the electorate for what they’ve done this time around.
Of course, if DJT doesn’t recover lots of ground she’ll win in a landslide and “MANDATE” will be a word we all get sick of hearing.
“I’m not asking for proof. I’m asking if you even have a road map.” – DNW
Aside from insults, Of Course! you are asking for some kind of proof. You call it a “road map”, but then the next immediate question will be to show how one point leads to the next. Turtles all the way down.
We are in uncharted territory, with BOTH major party candidates with historic net negatives.
Do you want to stop clinton, so bad, that anything in opposition is okay?
If so, how will any other “roadmap” showing you clinton losing to your satisfaction.
If people TRULY think BOTH are unacceptable, there are choices available.
Undoubtedly, it is in the interest of trump or clinton supporters to argue that the binary paradigm represents all the “real” choices there are.
The point is, if enough people move toward what they would truly find “acceptable” (in numbers the polls suggest) there is a possible path to derail clinton AND trump rather than being stuck in a “Mexican Standoff” that the binary paradigm imposes.
It is not merely “belief”, but clear headed understanding that choosing one destructive force is not the antidote to another.
Where we really differ is in what that limit of acceptable is. Asking about roadmaps steers the discussion away from that.
“The reason this conversation is so hard is some of you insist on talking in certainties. But we really don’t know. My analysis tells me there is a much higher probability of Trump being a really, really bad president” – Bill
Yep. There would be no discussion if trump were credibly consistent and disciplined – we’d all be much clearer on where he stands and what it’d mean for us.
Yes, the Donald has made some statist remarks. Yet what he is pushing since he went on teleprompter is non-statist. So, he at least has become acquainted with the conservative ideas we love. Hillary, on the other hand, has NO policies that aren’t statist. In addition, she is backed by the hard core progs I mentioned earlier. Speaking of which, there ahs just been a dump of documents that show a lot about George Soros’ activities that support the Dems and Hillary. Another big black mark in Hillary’s column. See it here: Hacked Soros Documents Reveal Some Big Dark Money Surprises.
Clinton Cash DELENDA EST.
Sorry, here’s the link:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/08/19/hacked-soros-documents-reveal-some-big-dark-money-surprises/
@JJ – Yes, I did comment somewheres around here that trump has indeed made some “good” (all relative, and, yes, teleprompter to boot) speeches.
But, the bar trump has set for himself from his last 12+ months is rather high to regain any credibility he needs to win over enough folks.
I remain skeptical.
.
Well, that PJMedia story is less about Clinton than it is about leftist activism.
How much of that is “nefarious” vs free exercise of their rights? IDK.
I ask because the left makes similar hay with Koch donations, etc. I’d advocate for funding of similar types of causes on our side.
Big Maq, here’s the type of thing Soros has done:
1. Influenced the Supreme Court to open the immigration floodgates.
2. Funded anti-Israel initiatives.
3. Funded the Black Lives Matter movement.
4.Funded a $200,000 smear campaign against conservative activists such as Pamela Geller, Frank Gaffney, and Robert Spencer. The project also intended to “research and track” David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, Cliff May, and even Liz Cheney.
The Koch brothers spend most of their money on election campaigns and combating AGW propaganda. The Kochs are the kind of Republicans who play by the rules and would be called RINOs by most hard core conservatives.
Soros is not doing anything overtly illegal but he is using his vast fortune to promote, in very aggressive ways, the agenda that is aimed at taking our freedom away from us. I see quite a difference between him and the Kochs. Soros has given about $33 billion to leftist causes in the last ten years. He may be just another left wing financier to you. To me he is the closest thing to a real life Ernst Stavro Blofeld type villain I can think of. That fortune is squarely behind Hillary.
You know how Hitler got into power? Fear of communists.
There’s an example for you of how BOTH choices can be disastrous, and don’t give me any of that Godwin’s Law crap. We are now uncomfortably close to the same circumstances.
Matt_SE:
It has finally been said, and the GL crap will soon reign down from “above,” but there are other examples too: Franco, Pinochet. But I’m sure those don’t apply either…./S Hyperbole is only allowed to be used in work one way. /S!
Hyperbole is only allowed to be used one way (when speaking of the left, not of the alt-right). /S!
Bill, thanks for your explanation. That makes sense.
So, what are our non-binary options? I think we’ve beat the Trump issue into the ground. I’m more interested in what other options are out there.
D-Tom – I need to research the other choices. I don’t think most of them are much good. What a depressing election season.
JJ – I’m not here to defend Soros, but you wrote:
“Soros has given about $33 billion to leftist causes in the last ten years.”
That is an amazing amount of money and I find it hard to believe. Do you have a link? If you had said 33 *million* I’d think that more believable. A quick google says he’s worth around 24 billion.
I’m being nitpicky, I know.
I am a rule of law guy, though. Is what he’s doing illegal? I can’t blame the left for doing whatever they can do within the law to win elections and sway public opinion, just as I would want the conservative side to push as hard as they can within the law.
The left complains about the Koch brothers and demonizes them. If they are within the law those who believe in freedom should leave them alone. The conservative reaction to Soros shouldn’t be demonization unless he’s breaking the law, and if not, perhaps push for better laws but not ones that violate the First Amendment.
Our options are binary because certain parties WORK to make it so. That is the GOP establishment’s FIRST recourse: to eliminate all the respectable challengers so that voters are left with candidates only slightly better than the Dems.
That’s how McCain will be re-nominated this year (so I’m told by people in the know), while being heavily disliked by Arizonans.
That’s how hardcore Trumpkins have been trying to convince us to vote for the clown. As I keep telling them, they picked a hell of a year to try adopting the GOPe’s tactics. The resistance they’re experiencing is in part a reaction to these same tactics voters are sick of.
@OM and MattSE – I’ve been trying to not go all out and claim trump would be authoritarian, but GB is making the case well.
I rather think it a risk and not unreasonable to claim it is one, given several of his statements and behavior.
And, especially, with how some of his supporters talk – not so much the extreme ones, they have no credibility, but the ones like Bill Bennett who wrote several books on conservative “morality”, yet is admonishing folks for having qualms about supporting trump – hardly sounding “reluctant” at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP_SdjD5ms
.
Don’t want to relitigate all the issues with trump, but suffice to say that aside from the extreme risks, there are already serious risks inherent in his positions (IF he actually means to follow through on them – but who really knows!) that may have populist appeal, but, if he dares follows through with them to the extent he is leading his supporters believe, they are sure to cause major disruption in a way that will very harmful to / for America.
Add the volatile personality defects and questionable motives, and he doesn’t have to be authoritarian to do serious irreparable damage.
.
We never get to those kinds of discussions because folks cannot get past addressing what is the limit of their support for opposing clinton. If the possibility of being authoritarian is acceptable, then the rest must be irrelevant.
And, yes, the reason why the binary argument is not bringing folks back into the fold this cycle is that trump is just that far away from the territory that the GOP once occupied. With trump as the head, what GOP used to mean in opposition to the Dems and clinton, is no longer the reality.
.
Many don’t have a lot positive to go on with trump and are justifiably wary. It becomes less convincing to say that there are only two possible choices with all the affect that it is “obvious” which is “better”, when the reality is that it is not so “obvious” at all!
Making the case rest on the notion that there is no choice to stop clinton is a last resort case, because the positive case for “why trump?” has many holes in it.
If those of us who are conservatives are having a hard time being convinced by these arguments, how the h*ll does one think trump will swing voters who are neither firmly conservative nor firmly liberal to vote for him?
.
trump started this week, but it remains to be seen if he can keep it consistent and credible – a lot depends on his unscripted speeches, and reactions, as THAT is where we get some indication of where his mind is at.
Maybe a solid three months with some detail behind it that he can explain extemporaneously, can convince enough.
Like I said somewhere else in this blog, I am skeptical.
Anyone who thinks the Republic can emerge from a Hillary presidency unscathed, or scathed but recoverable, lives in cloud-cuckoo land. The damage wrought by Hussein and the Leftists is quite grave and we can tolerate more of that?
I don’t think so.
Sobering up after a big twelve-year drunk does nothing to undo the damage done while drunk. It is hard to go back and fix the damage, especially when all Federal judges have lifetime appointments, and Civil Service rules protect and shelter the Leftists that make up a majority of Federal bureaucracy.
But the Hillary damage will give us bloggers much to chatter about…in a totally futile fashion.
Believe it or not, I don’t like the binary choice any more than you do. Now barring a game changing event, are you insisting that anyone else has a probable chance of being elected?
If not, you have just confirmed that when it comes to who will be President, the choice is a binary one. And, whether you admit it or not changes that reality not in the least.
GB: As Sharon points out, there is a difference between choice and outcome. In our two-party system, the most probable outcome of course is a Democrat or Republican President. This is so obvious as to be tautologous.
However, as far as this particular election goes and as I have stated, IMO Hillary has it sewn up. Trump has a better chance than Pence or Johnson or whoever, but it’s not a difference that make a difference, barring events. So in this particular election in my judgment there is only one probable outcome.
Now if you want to tune your meaning of “probable” so that it includes Trump but excludes everyone else then declare victory, have at it, but I’m not impressed.
In any event my real point is whoever the D and R candidates may be, my personal choice is not limited to pulling one lever or the other. And my reasons for voting for someone on the ballot, not voting for anyone, voting only for down-ballot candidates or whatever can cover a huge amount of ground.
All of this you seem unwilling to acknowledge in your quest to force the Binary Choice, then force the decision that Trump futures must be a better chance than Hillary futures, and then force those on the right to vote Trump.
I’m sure you’re convinced by your reasoning. Vote for Trump with my blessing. But I am not convinced and I have my own way of looking at this, thank you very much.
Anyone who doesn’t agree with Frog is delusional because, Frog says so. That’s powerful. Heard it before, but you will say it again.
This isn’t the McDonald’s Senior’s Club morning kaffeeklatsch, and this isn’t about you. The only one that hands out welcome cards is Neo.
That said, now that you have stated your opinion as forthrightly as you have, there is nothing left to reason about; as you have logically implied that you would prefer the known official malfeasance and governmental and social subversion of Hillary, as well as the ensuing deformations it is sure to perpetuate, and likely cause for decades to come, to the possible problems of a Trump administration.
But yeah, since this isn’t the hot stove league … nothing further to discuss.
OM:
Thanks for your kind words, though it is remarkable how you either do not get or miss the point. Which is why I keep repeating mine, to which you offer no counter.
Snark is not a winning tactic.
Well, it is always possible that it is not your “having principles” per se that is being “ridiculed”, but rather that the particular principles you appear to embrace, are looked at by others and held, to be mysterious, incoherent, inapplicable, or in contempt.
Now, I don’t believe that I have ridiculed your principles; because I cannot even say that I know what your principles are, or what they supposedly condition in the way of moral goods.
But maybe you mean something different by “principles”, than I do when I use the word.
If someone were to ask me to lay out SharonW’s stated reasoning, data, and calculations as to future effect, or Geoff’s, or yours, or Cornhead’s – I could do it.
They cite known instances of Clinton’s malfeasance in office, a long history of criminal acts, a career of political subversion, an ideology that is essentially reflective of a Marxist metaphysics and anthropology, and the critical point we are at when it comes to the preservation of our legal system.
These are all facts referring to acts which have already worked their destructive effects, and which will continue to wreak havoc on the rule of law, on our political system and on our way of life if Clinton is elected to follow eight years of Obama’s virtual lawlessness. The Never-Trumpers, do not even seem to deny this.
What they do assert, is that Trump is just as bad because he is a big government guy: and one type of big government is as bad as another and so let the borders open and the laws fall, because the effect is all the same – or something.
And when you ask them regarding the supposed non-binary alternative term they have floated, to describe just exactly what the term supposedly encapsulates, and what the non-binary plan is for getting from point A to a non-Hillary B conclusion, the accusation follows that you are looking for proof, and have not expanded your mind enough to see the alternatives which are there … though to name them is apparently too much to expect.
Oh, and did I mention that I am not getting the love I expected from the rest of you?
Frankly, I have no idea as to how to punch through that kind of mental fog, that miasma of either self-lauding emotionalism, or rhetorical obfuscation and misdirection. Nor, can I imagine what objective end it is supposedly in aid of.
I’d really like to hear what the non-binary plan of attack is, and how it figures to work … at all. We can worry about proof later.
If that is not too much to ask.
Bill: “That is an amazing amount of money and I find it hard to believe. Do you have a link? If you had said 33 *million* I’d think that more believable. A quick google says he’s worth around 24 billion.”
That figure was from an e-mail I received that may have overstated the amount. It had no links for verification. I probably should have not passed it on as factual. 🙁
In researching I discovered that it is very hard to nail down the totals because he gives so much to so many different causes and a lot of it is not in public records. You have to go over the tax returns of the various organizations to get good estimates of his giving. Election records are much clearer and open.
He financed the Ferguson protests to the tune of $33 million.
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/called-it-billionaire-george-soros-funded-the-highly-organized-ferguson-protests-to-the-tune-of-33-million_012015
According to a 2010 article he spent $7 billion to support “human rights” through his Open Society Initiative. “— Soros has given away over $7 billion to “support human rights, freedom of expression, and access to public health and education in 70 countries.”
Source: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/47856/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link
The above article is exhaustive about Soros, his history, his beliefs, and many causes. Unfortunately, it is six years old and does not attempt to total up the donations he has made to his many causes.
He finances Black Lives Matter, the Center For American Progress, the Tides Foundation, Moveon.org, and many others. Exactly how much he has given these organizations is not clear and I can’t find any research that has the figures.
Here’s a quote about his giving in the 2004 election: “Soros gave $3 million to the Center for American Progress, $2.5 million to MoveOn.org, and $20 million[78] to America Coming Together. These groups worked to support Democrats in the 2004 election.” He stated during the 2004 lection that he would give his entire fortune away if it meant the defeat of George W. Bush.
He has given: “Up to $425 million donated annually to all causes.”
Source: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/47856/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link
Taking that figure and extrapolating back over the last 16 years gives us:
$425,000,000 X 16 = $6.8 billion
There is no quick and easy way to total it all up. It was stated in that one article that he had given $7 billion to human rights causes, etc. up to 2010. Trying to decipher it all, it appears that it is certainly in excess of $7 billion for the last 16 years. Not $33 billion, but still real money and all to causes that want to increase government and decrease freedom. No other left or right wing financier even comes close.
DNW,
You didn’t read my post if you still think I’m being unclear or am delusional. I spelled it out as clearly as I could. You just don’t want to hear it. You and others like you nominated a terrible candidate and are trying to shame and ridicule people like me into voting for him. I’ve stated my reasons why I won’t and keep getting the Trumpkin response that the only explanation is I’m either stupid, delusional, or crazy.
About my principles.- you mocked me about them up thread or on some other thread and demanded to know what they were. I laid them all out as clearly as i could and you, as far as I can trell, never read my post or ignored it.
Learn to argue better.
Frog:
“Snark is not a winning tactic.”
I’m not trying to win you over to convince you of your “errors.” I understand your point of view and opinion, so maybe you can convince others. The counter arguments to Trump and the risks associated with Trump have been clearly presented by many individuals, you do not accept those. And BTW neither do GB, Cornhead, or DNW although you differ in degree and emphasis of your opinions, which aren’t facts or truths just because you hold them dearly.
Saying anyone who doesn’t agree with the conclusions that your line of thought or assumptions leads to as “living in cloud coo coo land” tends to be off putting.
You don’t like snark or sarcism. I don’t like hectoring.
OM and Frog:
One might say that the “cloud coo coo land” remark is in itself a mite snarky.
Another thing (just to nitpick here) I believe it would be “cloud cuckoo” land, not “cloud coo coo.” The phrase is actually a literary reference to something from the play “The Birds” by Aristophenes, believe it or not:
The Wiki article then goes on to tell of many instances of the phrase’s use in politics by people such as Thatcher, Gingrich, Henry Wallace, and Paul Krugman, plus some artistic references to it.
Actually, what happened with Trump’s remark about not letting Muslims into the country was rather typical of the sort of thing that happens quite often with Trump. He made an extreme and categorical statement that alarmed people, and when asked about it his spokesperson doubled down on it. In the resulting furor, Trump then walked it back:
So, as so often happens, he said a thing that was very general and seemed extreme, in order to appeal to his more extreme supporters, and then his spokesperson reassured them that he meant the most extreme version of the statement. After that, he said no, he hadn’t meant the most extreme version. So he has it both ways, as usual.
I wrote several posts on the subject at the time: this and this, for example. Here’s another article on the subject.
You guys are still here?
Another thing (just to nitpick here) I believe it would be “cloud cuckoo” land, not “cloud coo coo.”
Now I don’t feel nearly as bad about my earlier pedantic antics. Although, neo’s information is a lot more interesting than the nitpicking I did.
Yeah, neo, Trump does a lot of that. Who knows what we’re supposed to make of it? It’s something that worries me.
Also, I agree with Bill that the alt-right is frightening. They are the one thing that strongly tempts me to vote 3rd party. The nuclear weapons issue is worrisome as well.
And Trump has a lot of other flaws that I believe he shares with Clinton.
J.J. Says:
“Big Maq, here’s the type of thing Soros has done:…:
JJ, you forgot:
– funded the Occupy groups
– funded ACORN and its virulent spawn
– gave millions to MediaMatters, the 501(c)(3/4) that illegally serves as the Marxists’ oppo research tool without IRS objection
– created and funded the Secretary of State project to elect Marxists to the top state position essentially responsible for “counting the vote” in purple states, including Minnesota, where the SOS Soros got elected was instrumental in multiple recounts that only found Marxist votes until Al Franken won by 200 votes in 2008. Without Franken, ObamaCare only has 59 votes and the course of history is changed.
Read all about the reams of inter-connected radical anti-American, Communist, Socialist and racialist organizations he funds here: GUIDE TO THE GEORGE SOROS NETWORK
Who wrote “cloud coo coo”, Neo? Not I.
My main problem with Trump is his underhanded tactics during the primaries. By overlooking that (sweeping it under the rug, actually), supporters are abetting bad behavior.
That’s the best way to ensure you’ll get more of it.
I have doubts whether Trump can get elected, but I have more serious doubts that if elected he can govern well. Unprincipled con men do not suddenly govern like philosopher kings. They govern like unprincipled con men.
Is “cloud coo coo land” newbonics? No, I should have copy and pasted the phrase, although I knew a bit about its usage. I’ve seen it used in a nonpolitical way also; in reference to the Fairy Castes of Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria.
http://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/read/articles/castles-of-mad-king-ludwig-ii
On a more current level and in this context the alt-right or even some lesser Trump supporters would like the “cloud cuckoo land” phrase since it contains “cuck” of that endearing slur “cuckservative.”
Frog:
“Sayin” anyone who doesn’t agree with your support for Trump as living in “cloud cuckoo land” is snarky.
As I said above I should copy and paste your (and GB’s) text at all times in the future, just to be precise.
Frog:
Oops! That’ll teach me not to trust quotes!
I was going by “OM’s” quote of you. I see now that the spelling error was actually OM’s.
Anyway, I like it: “coo, coo,” the sound a dove makes.
geokstr, thanks for adding that info about Soros.
Someone with good investigative abilities ought to write a book about the old villain. Something that ties all his anti-American activities and funding of such groups. Something on the order of “Clinton Cash.”
Many here seem very upset by Donald Trump (And I get it. He’s a very flawed candidate.), and can’t seem to be nearly as upset at Hillary and her big-money, anti-American supporters. Maybe it is that Hillary, while a deeply committed progressive and wrong on nearly everything, is to some, wrong within the “normal”parameters they are used to, While Trump is wrong outside those “normal” parameters. It is quite a study in human nature and perception. I would aver that there is a psychology PHD thesis in studying and writing about the vicissitudes of the Republican mind and how attitudes toward Trump v Clinton has resulted in major scrums within the Republican party.
I have tried to create an analogy to the military and war. Here it is: In the case of the Democrat army, many of their soldiers don’t like their commander (Hillary). However, they recognize that their real enemy is not their commander (Hillary), but the Republican army. Thus, they will ignore their dislike and follow their commander (Hillary), which insures their victory. On the other side, many of the Republican army don’t care for their commander (Trump). But instead of recognizing the true enemy, those who don’t like their commander decide to go AWOL, which insures victory for the Democrat army. Okay, show me where it’s wrong.
J.J., I think one issue might be that conservatives are principled and honorable. To go against their own principles and do something dishonorable would break their own community apart. This is something I’ve heard several times: Trump will destroy the conservative movement.
So, to modify your analogy, imagine the Hillary supporters see that she’s a flawed commander, but she’s advancing their cause. Meanwhile, the NeverTrump brigade believes Trump is leading them into a suicidal “Charge of the Light Brigade” situation. Therefore, it makes sense to abandon their commander, regroup elsewhere, and get back into the fight when they actually stand a chance of winning.
I dunno. NeverTrump Brigade, how’d I do?
I also think another flaw might be that a lot of Bernie-supporting Democrats are going to vote for Stein.
J.J.
It’s wrong because it assumes that only Hillary is the enemy. Trump is destroying a party and movement that I think is necessary. So I have two “ememies”. Trump and Hillary.
It always comes down to this basic disagreement. To many of you there’s no comparison between the two. HRC is obviously the worst, and everyone should be able to see that . To some of us Trump seems as bad or even wrose than her, and in addition he’s taken over what we thought was our conservative party and threatens to make it unrecognizable and run by alt-right thugs.
I think of it this way. In WWII France was conquered by the Nazis and a puppet government (vischy) was put in place. Trump seems to me to be a non-conservative who is actually helping Hillary get elected. So if I’m AWOL it’s because I’m in the loyal resistance.
Tom-D, I think you nailed it.
J.J.:
I think Thomas Doubting has explained it pretty well in his comment right above this one.
But I would add the following. You write:
There are two things VERY wrong with your statement.
The first is that Trump is not a “very flawed” candidate. He is flawed so deeply that he cannot even be trusted as a candidate. All candidates are flawed. Some are very flawed. He goes beyond that—and I mean as a candidate representing the Republican Party or any party.
The second thing wrong with your statement was when you wrote that “many here” “can’t seem to be nearly as upset at Hillary and her big-money, anti-American supporters.” Please name one of those people who are not “nearly as upset” at Hillary as they are about Trump. I cannot recall one such person, much less “many here.”
The commenters here are either equally upset or more upset with Hillary than with Trump, but upset in completely different ways. It is a question of comparing apple upsets and orange upsets. The difficulty of comparing is profound. You may not see it that way; in fact, apparently it’s not a problem for you. But I don’t see why would minimize, or fail to credit, the depth and profundity of the dilemma faced by those who find Hillary totally and completely unacceptable and Trump totally and completely unacceptable, in different ways. Because that’s the situation for “many people,” and I think they’ve been quite clear and quite articulate about the fact that they are AT LEAST as upset at Hillary as at Trump.
Neo, it seems you’ve been writing about this for some time and I’ve missed a number of good posts. If it wouldn’t take much time, could you link a post or three (or whatever number) that lay out the basic situation as you see it? Particularly comparing the choice of HRC and DJT?
Bill, it aids in achieving object clarity when one quotes. If achieving clarity is one’s aim.
For example, I not only read the post I quoted, I quoted you stating that you would prefer Hillary to Donald Trump.
I did not vote for Donald Trump. I supported Cruz and supported him in particular and for very specific reasons when others were still considering Christie, or Rubio or others as candidates more closely matching their personal views.
Nonsense. it is a simple fact that it was a likely inference that in this year of bad choices you preferred Hillary to Trump. Now you have come out and stated it in categorical and unequivocal terms.
The reasons you have given include … well, let’s let you speak for yourself:
So your “reasoning” goes thus: 1, We can survive four more [or more] years of known bad quality and predictable bad quantity of traditional Clinton-style and Obama-like political malfeasance and constitutional subversion; 2, Trump is unpredictable and might do anything; 3, If Trump is elected it will somehow kill the conservative movement, which is the most important thing to be preserved; 4, If Trump loses, then “it”, presumably “the conservative movement”, will only be set back one or a few cycles … meaning another 4 to 8 or more years. (Of course the rule of law will continue to deteriorate for another decade as well … but, what the hell ); 5, something about the “alt-right” which you find scary and Nazi-like and connect with Trump; 6, voting is important and nothing lasts forever (apparently a brighter dawn awaits just 4 years or a few decades ahead); 7, as a bonus, Hillary will get the historical blame when the negligence of the past 8 years comes home to really roost and allows, say for example, North Korea to nuke L.A.; or, the wave of Muslim immigration to facilitate even grander acts of terrorism. (I guess we learned our lesson with Bush, and that it is better to have a unmitigated disaster, rather than an ameliorated one wherein the efforts of the man who steps into the breach eventually go unappreciated).
There are other reasons which could be enumerated too, but I suspect that there is no need to do so.
What we see here, is that in contrast to those who have cited the empirical and historical facts and fallout of Obama’s failure to enforce immigration law; of Hillary’s life-long scheming and official malfeasance; of Soros’ funding of her allies’ attempts at subverting the political integrity of this polity; of Obama’s and Hillary’s embrace of so-called “positive” rights and the upending of the idea of individual freedom into a duty to the collective; of the the Lois Lerner style strategy and the promise and certainty of more; of the payments of tribute to enemies … In response to all this, you cite a fear of Nazis, and an expectation, or hope, that after another 4 or 8 years more of a war waged against not only the rule of law, but against the cultural values of which the rule of law is a manifestation, then conservatism, having thus been saved from destruction by Trump will re-emerge in victory.
And the details of how this is to come about? Something about a pendulum, maybe?
No one so far as I have seen has called you crazy, or stupid. Or so far as I have seen has even called you “delusional”, in so many words. But you do seem to have a tendency to cite your hopes and your fears rather than what has in fact been politically experienced and noted thus far.
Perhaps I need to add more dreamy hopes and fears to my rhetorical arsenal. All those classical rhetoric and logic and political science and history of law courses, seem to have availed me nothing when it comes to exchanging with you.
If I have any further comments on your remarks, I’ll try to do better in that regard and to be more sensitive to your feelings as well.
And just to be clear: I don’t care who you personally vote for. You volunteered the reasons, and I am just looking at them.
That would be my guess. They grant that she is a self-aggrandizing schemer, the she cannot be trusted whether it is as to mere technical competence or moral sensibilities and intentions, that she is pathological liar, that she will use the organs of governance to attack them in their daily and political lives, that she will conspire with foreigners to undermine constitutional governance as we have known it and replace it with the rule of anointed experts and an imposed religion of humanity for the masses … and they figure that that can be survived.
Then contemplate all those who died because of that piece of psychologically needy, moral-garbage Lyndon Johnson. I personally cannot vouch for Goldwater – being a child at the time – and I doubt that the historical record is clear enough or the record objective enough to tell us how the alternative to the Devil We Knew (who got into the Senate on the basis of election fraud and enriched himself off public licenses), would have worked out. My guess is that plenty of people back then, to quote a leftist I engaged on the Obamacare issue put it re health care choice loss: “… don’t want that much freedom anyway”.
But we do know how emotion based voting for the Devil We Knew, did in fact turn out. And we have been on an intermittent road to political and associative hell, since.
I just don’t get conservative NeverTrumpers.
First: Let me note that I would bet a quarter of my net worth that NONE of the regular commenters on neoneon.com had Trump as one of his or her top 5 choices among the 17 candidates for the Republican nomination.
Second: We conservatives lost. A non-conservative (and perhaps a non-Republican) won the Republican nomination despite the fact that long time quality Republicans such as Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and George Pataki were avaiable.
Third: For those of you who contend that Trump would be authoritarian (as if Hillary would not be), seem to be ignoring the fact that a heretofore compliant Congress and media are much more likely to resist and scrutinize authoritarian attempts by Trump than authoritarian attempts by Hillary.
Fourth: As stated by Scott Johnson at powerlineblog.com (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/08/the-ultimate-clinton-scandal.php):
Fifth: As bad, authoritarian, pathological or whatever else Trump may be, Hillary is clearly far worse, and we well become even less a nation of laws (see the travesty at King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. ___ (2015) where the phrase “established by the State” was written out of the Affordable Care Act in order to preserve the UNLAWFUL actions of the Obama administration.
Sixth: Cleary at this point in time, the best chance for avoiding a Hillary Clinton presidency is electing Trump.
CLINTON DELENDA EST.
“What we see here, is that in contrast to those who have cited the empirical and historical facts… (Bill) you do seem to have a tendency to cite your hopes and your fears rather than what has in fact been politically experienced and noted thus far.” – DNW
Come on!
You essentially debate Bill with the “historical” evidence of clinton and obama’s malfeasance, then discount Bill’s “fears” wrt trump because, Bill cannot point to any “politically experienced” facts to back up his claimed fears.
Essentially, by implication, you are requiring trump to have held office for Bill’s fears to have any basis to draw from? An impossible standard, that is, and a rhetorical misdirection.
Of course, it is just another dressed up “not clinton” argument, as it doesn’t bother to attempt to address the concerns wrt trump.
.
Once again, the question to you is… just what is your limiting principle in stopping clinton? What is a step too far?
Commenters, like GB, are up front about expecting trump to be authoritarian. Many of the rest arguing that we essentially have no choice but to support trump either just assume that Congress and SCOTUS will stop trump from the extremes (implying / admitting the worst possibility actually exists), or ignore the issue altogether, with bob and weave arguments like above.
@ira …I’ve been a regular-to-semi-reg’ (depends upon my spare time & interest) commenter on neo’s since almost her first post, and Trump was my number 3 (after Scott, and after Ted) …so I wouldn’t bet the farm like that at all lol.
See previous in this thread for confirmation, heh.
**I used to be “davisbr” if you wanna check exactly how long I’ve been around to be included as “a regular”
**which was also why I laughed out loud when BM suggested I was a troll: bad call, that BM.
“Sixth: Cleary at this point in time, the best chance for avoiding a Hillary Clinton presidency is electing Trump.
CLINTON DELENDA EST.” – Ira
Sums up the argument Ira made.
And, again, no limiting principle…
” As bad, authoritarian, pathological or whatever else Trump may be, Hillary is clearly far worse”
All is good in opposition to clinton. After all, secret alt-r handshake, “clinton delenda est”!
Sixth: Cleary at this point in time, the best chance for avoiding a Hillary Clinton presidency is electing Trump.
If we are going to toss around a word like “clearly” as though it were indisputable, it seems to me that “clearly” Trump is going to lose and we need to consider that instead of insisting on a dooned Charge of the Light Brigade to drag Trump somehow across the finish line.
I would argue the best way to prevent Hillary from winning is to persaude Trump to step down and let Mike Pence run for president.
Why isn’t the Clinton Delenda Est camp considering this?
So much of this discussion boils down to predictions and as Yogi Berra said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
The other problem I find with the pro-Trump-vote camp is the constant “If you don’t vote for Trump, it’s a vote for Hillary” fallacy.
No, those two are not equivalent. If I vote for Hillary, Trump needs two votes to catch up and get ahead. If I don’t vote for either, Trump’s position stays the same and one vote puts him ahead.
During the sh*tstorm of legal atrocities we have been subject to, I had virtually forgotten about that one.
There, we see, the moronic utterance of a T.V. Personality regarding the law, come to life in the Supreme Court. Taking a cue from people who criticized Biblical Fundamentalists, she expressed amazement at those who took the law “literally”.
Yes my friends, the doctrine of metaphorical interpretation and equivocal language in the assignation of attributes has migrated from biblical criticism to statutes passed by men.
The law apparently means nothing until the courts explain when and where a word has a particular sense and reference and when and where the same word ostensibly used in the same way is to be construed as possessing a different referent and meaning – so as to better effect the end the court decides the statue ought to have effected had the justices been the original legislators they wish themselves to be.
We are now in the twilight zone of discourse which Bill Clinton – the miscreant husband of the miscreant currently seeking the Executive office – invited us into when he noted that guilt or innocence all depends on what the meaning of is, is.
Then there’s the moral issue, if one cares about that sort of thing. If I vote for Trump, I am responsible for Trump and whatever damage he causes in a way I am not if I abstain.
Yes, there are sins of omission, as Catholic theology puts it — being responsible for what one does not do, as well as what one does. However:
In general, according to St. Thomas [Aquinas], the sin of omission consisting as it does in a leaving out of good is less grievous than a sin of commission which involves a positive taking up with evil.
I no longer consider myself a Catholic, but I think Thomas got this right.
Furthermore Trump is only a good in the sense of being a lesser evil than Hillary. As Neo and others have said, sorting out the future evil of Trump versus the future evil of Hillary is not as cut-and-dried as pro-Trumpers insist.
Big Maq:
On the subject of a lack of a limiting principle, see this.
DNW:
You didn’t call Bill crazy or stupid, but what do you think it means when you take someone’s (Bill’s) sincere, logical, and well-thought out comment—a comment with which you happen to disagree—and refer to its reasoning as “reasoning” with scare quotes?
If his reasoning is mere “reasoning” to you, are you calling him crazy or stupid or both?
You also write to Bill that he “cites his hopes and fears rather than what has in fact been politically experienced and noted thus far.” What an odd strawman argument (strawman may not be the right term, but irrelevant might do), and that is because (as opposed to Hillary), Trump has no political record except that of a supporter.
And as such, there is no way to deny that, over time, Trump has supported many liberal causes and Hillary Clinton herself. That’s an incontrovertible fact. You can explain or rationalize it away by buying Trump’s own explanation—which is that he was buying Clinton’s favor—but in fact there was no quid pro quo that I’ve ever seen demonstrated, and they were very buddy-buddy for years. Plus, he paid lots of lip service to liberal causes. His biggest hallmark is that he is a loose cannon politically. But other than financial support and blah-blah-blah, and membership in both political parties over time, and self-promotion, we have no political experience of Trump.
That is not a recommendation. Political office tells us something about a person.
Now, you can believe in your own hopes about Trump. But I don’t think there’s any reason for you to occupy a high horse and say that those who oppose him are operating on hopes and fears and you are not. With Trump, everyone is.
There are lots of tyrants in history who never occupied political office before, you know. In fact, come to think of it, it might be the majority of tyrants.
No, I am pointing to the certainty of continued Clinton malfeasance and subversion of the polity and the rule of law.
I am requiring nothing of Trump, though that is probably not what you meant to say. I am, as many other before have stated, saying that we get a certainty of illegality and subversion with Clinton, against a projection of some such – if the party and the Congress and the Court allow – with Trump.
It is a calculation based on what is demonstrably known versus what is uncertain.
I bracketed the term “reasoning” with quotes, because although I trust that his assertions and evaluations are in fact his motivations, and that his motivations are his “reasons”, I do not consider his evaluations to be based on sound proportioning, demonstrated history and precedent, realistic weighting of relative outcomes, sound inference, or thorough analysis of implications.
DNW:
But that’s not what people ordinarily mean when they write “reasoning” in quotes. “Reasoning” in quotes ordinarily means it’s fake reasoning, not reasoning, illogical reasoning—not just that they disagree with the premises or the conclusions or assumptions.
Whatever you now say you meant—and even if that’s in fact exactly what you meant—Bill would have reason (“reason”?) to think you were insulting him. Reacting to his well-reasoned comments by putting the word “reasoning” in quotes means you didn’t think he demonstrated reasoning, logic, etc.. Simply put, it’s an insult rather than a disagreement.
Also please take another look at my comment above yours. I added quite a bit to it.
I think pro-Trumpers have decent reasons for their position, but not the slam-dunk, everyone-must-agree arguments they seem to believe.
Curious how “Vote your conscience” is as controversial on the right as “All lives matter” on the left.
Neo,
I am not trying to disparage Bill. Nor am I ridiculing him.
You say he has sincere beliefs which he has expressed in a heartfelt way. I don’t doubt that.
I don’t doubt his probity, as regards his feelings, either.
You say however his conclusions are well reasoned. That, I do doubt: if by well reasoned, anything more is meant than an honest explanation of how he explains his own position to himself.
I have nothing against Bill; except perhaps, and meant in the mildest of ways, that he seems to care a little about what other people think of his work.
When I said that this was your blog, and not the McDonald’s Senior Morning kaffeeklatsch, I meant that to be reassuring to him; i.e., that he need not consider the reactions he got as reflecting some measure of acceptance.
We start figuring like that, and we are all lost to reason.
There is no in-crowd here: just you and your blog. No club to join, no test to pass, no membership or guarantee, and nothing to get het up about.
Except being trolled, maybe. LOL
No, of course. And yes, I did mean it was illogical and defective reasoning. I am merely conceding that his stated objections, are in fact “his reasons” as he construes them, and granting that they are sincere concerns of his. Not that the premises are sound, which I reject, nor that the hopeful conclusions he suggests follow in any evidential way from his postulates.
Geez, isn’t that a rather sensitive reaction?
Ok. Then I have to do some real work, or my secretary will fire me.
DNW: FWIW for me you come off as pretty condescending to Bill and you possess a higher opinion of your reasoning than I credit.
DNW:
You don’t think it’s an insult to call a person’s reasoning defective and illogical when it is not, and when you merely disagree with it?
You think reacting to that and calling it out is being too sensitive? I don’t.
It’s not a big deal. Of all the things people say or write on blogs, it’s far far far from the worst. But I’ve noticed a tone in a lot of people who defend Trump, even those who were not originally Trump supporters but have only come to it reluctantly, and that is this approach which doesn’t just disagree with those with whom they differ, but must insult and put down those people and say they aren’t making sense.
And yet the Trump-detractors very often make sense (Bill certainly did) and are being logical. Disagree with them if you must (I myself am still not sure what I will do about my vote). But they are every bit as logical as you, and often more logical. And their reasoning is reasoning, not “reasoning.”
Well, if you say that that is the way it comes off to you, who am I to doubt your description of your own subjective reaction?
It is probably true that I have not made the usual gestures of respect towards his remarks which a sense of common purpose might generally involve. I am not sure why …
Though I did respect the fact he laid his cards on the table, if not the fact that he thought he would have to hunker down in reaction. We are not beating disobedient dogs here.
No, you probably do not credit me with the same powers of reasoning and analysis with which I – may mistakenly – credit myself.
Sure. But not if it is. Ok … I really really have to break off for now.
1. Among the several points made in my August 22nd, 2016 at 12:21 pm comment is this:
Why do you not address that point, BM?
2. I do not understand your reference, BM, to “no limiting principle,” particularly in the context of the entirety of my August 22nd, 2016 at 12:21 pm comment.
3. BM, what is the “limiting principle” put forth by conservative NeverTrumpers who prefer no-Trump even if that guarantees a Hillary victory?
4. What, if any currently exist, are practicable alternatives to the Trump candidacy in order to defeat Hillary?
5. Thanks, BM, for the “secret alt-r handshake” reference. As, Saul Alinsky recommended,” “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” and “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Well played, BM.
DNW:
So, you still think Bill’s reasoning was defective.
But your saying his reasoning is defective—when I see both of you as merely disagreeing, and that if anyone had the logical high ground in that discussion it was Bill—indicates to me that it is you who are acting more from emotion here.
” neo-neocon Says:
August 22nd, 2016 at 3:29 pm
Yes. I do not think that his grounds for categorically preferring the historically demonstrable harm which Hillary will certainly as a matter of proven course do to the republic, to the fears he has of what Trump might try to do, and if trying, is in addition allowed to accomplish by his own party, The Congress as a whole, and the Court, is inductively persuasive.
In fact I have not been able to find the grounds for this belief of his, apart from his past references to greater national calamities and human catastrophes which the polity has undergone, while still retaining the same title, if, a rather radically altered constitutional premise.
Furthermore, although Bill has reassuringly referenced its likelihood several times, I see no evidence which he has presented to indicate that his faith a rule of law rebound after 12 to 16 years of subversion, is based on any recent facts or trends, or on anything else than a hope of some kind.
There is no high ground in logic: only soundness in premiss and argument, univocality and proper distribution of terms, and validity of inferential form and conclusion.
This, therefore, indicates to me that when you use the term “logic” you are referring to something that is rather different from what I am referring to; and in your use refers not to probability, nor to necessary entailment, but to emotionally sufficient personal grounds.
And when it comes to that, it is all in the eye of the beholder.
DNW:
Your comment makes no sense to me.
Lots of people have described in great detail exactly why they think Trump could be worse than Hillary, and they are being very logical. I certainly described that in many of my posts, too, such as this one.
With a loose cannon president (and there is plenty of evidence that Trump is both temperamentally and politically a loose cannon), there is a very logical argument to be made that such a person would be a more dangerous president than someone predictably leftist like Hillary. Again, you don’t have to agree, but the people making those claims are logical.
And I know very well what logic is, and what logical arguments are. They do not rest on emotion. I really have come to believe that on this score, however, emotion is clouding your own logic and your own ability to credit the logic of those who disagree with you and don’t see it your way.
I have just reread a few comments, trying to puzzle out the difficulties some seem to have with understanding what I have said. And now, in one reference Neo has made, and which has been stated in similar terms by BigMaq, I see one of the issues: the particular referent.
In writing, it is tedious in the extreme to avoid all pronouns, though I consciously try reduce the number since I have the habit of using them too freely.
Here is an example of a reaction I simply shrugged off as a fundamentally incoherent rhetorical move, not realizing it represented a deep misunderstanding of what I was asserting and arguing:
Neo says,
Thus what is suggested here is that I am referring to Trump’s history and setting up some kind of reciprocal standard of evaluation to which both parties are to be subjected: invoking a speciously constructed direct comparison.
But that is not the point of noting demonstrable historical facts with regard to Hillary, and the conclusion to be drawn as demonstrable in at least her case.
I don’t need to know anything about Trump’s case in order to draw conclusions regarding Hillary’s behavior in office.
I need solely to refer to what Hillary has actually done. And to what, based on her known ideology, and demonstrated lack of moral scruples, and her past malfeasance, she has a virtual certainty to repeat and do.
We also know on the basis of past performance, the Democrat Party’s habit, or program, of granting their candidates unlimited leeway in the name of ideological and social dominance.
It is a moral certainty, based on past performance, and the current ideological construction of the party, that virtually no Democrat would ever convict an impeached Democrat president. Whereas, 5 Republicans not in lockstep voted “not guilty” in the Clinton impeachment, and Nixon was driven from office by the announced threat of Republicans turning on him, yet no Democrats voted “Guilty” in the Clinton case.
There is naturally no information on Trump’s public office ethics because he has held none; and I made and make no suggestion that one may infer that on such a negative basis, we go on to form a positive conclusion that he will perform more honorably than Hillary will certainly fail to do.
That, would be illogical: tantamount to drawing an affirmative conclusion from a negative premiss.
Since the cases are unlike in data, they therefore subject to different bases of evaluation: each outcome to be judged according to the preconditions which are known.
In the instance of Hillary, she is a known verminous quantity in public life.
In the case of Trump, since there is no direct evidence as to what he would do, extrapolation insofar as it can be argued the method is valid – and it must be argued rather than merely asserted – must take its place. And that argument seems to hinge on various characterological assumptions equally or more applicable to Hillary, and using business practice as a proxy for future public service patterns.
Furthermore, although it has been historically demonstrated that Democrats will not vote to remove a Democrat president from office, or place any meaningful check on his behavior, there have been repeated and effective instances to the contrary, of Republicans standing up to their administrations and the leadership of their own party. One hardly need cite the Nixon resignation or the Cruz speech of September 2015 in this regard.
We have historical evidence, some of it very recent, of what Republicans honorably do when the Constitution is undermined by Executive illegalities and even leadership overreach or mispractice.
We have a solid history of Hillary’s engaging in such activities, and of the Democrat party’s dishonorable institutional aversion to doing anything serious about such illegalities.
It is up to the Never-Trump voters, (if they wish to do more than warm themselves by the fires of their own indignation) to provide evidence that Trump will wreak greater lasting havoc on the system of constitutional government, and with less opposition from both parties, than Hillary would do, and receive.
DNW:
That evidence has been provided, in many posts and comments, and you have rejected it.
So it really hinges on what conclusions someone draws from the same evidence.
No one here—and by the way, very very few people here arguing against Trump are actually neverTrumpers, they are just not sure what they will do, and it depends on the circumstances that emerge by November—is disagreeing about the serious terribleness of Hillary Clinton’s record, either. They disagree on two things about her, as far as I can tell: whether she is a Marxist or not (and how very far to the left she is), and what the consequences of 4 years of her as president would be. The much bigger disagreement comes with Trump: what terribleness is HE capable of, what 4 years of him would mean, whether Republicans would be inclined to stop him (and I have made a case for the idea that they would not—this is most definitely not Nixon’s GOP, by the way, and I hope you’re not suggesting it is), etc.etc..
Since we’re at the nits level …again …Argument
Maybe this helps?
This could go either way of course (I simply cannot resist, hah).
🙂
…otherwise offered without further comment, in a spirit of helpful clarity.
Neo, Bill, Tom D., I’ve had duty calling me away from the computer for the last 18 hours. I’m just now getting to your comments.
I do agree that Republicans tend to be more individualistic and honorable. The Dems tend to be much more tribal and communal.
When I said that people seem to dislike Hillary less than Trump, it truly seems that way to me. For any conservative or even RINO to consider voting for Hillary, Johnson, or Stein as opposed to voting for Trump just doesn’t compute for me. I have read all your posts about Trump, I have done research on my own, and have started watching his speeches and town halls. My perception is that he is flawed but in a totally different way than Hillary. He has made money and created jobs. Yes, he has sharp elbows and an outsized ego. That doesn’t bother me. He knows what it takes to build things and he understands the tradesmen that he employs. He can be overbearing and unfeeling when pursuing a deal. We don’t like that, but there are many, many CEOs that fit that mold. Bill Gates was a real hard nose CEO. One of the reasons Micro Soft is so thoroughly hated in the tech world.
Hillary is a globalist, with no regard for those who work for her or even for the citizens of this country. She pays lip service to those things, but she and Bill have, since 2000 been selling influence and padding their pockets courtesy of the tax laws and her government offices. Neither has held a private sector job, created a private enterprise job, or done anything except be on the take, all the while going from “flat broke” to multi millionaires in 16 years. People get upset when they are robbed at gunpoint, but don’t get nearly as upset when the money stolen from them is tax money. It just isn’t the same on the outrage scale. That’s why grifters like them so seldom get what they deserve, which is hard time behind bars.
Since we are deep in the throes of a huge leap to the left with out of control spending, out of control borders, a declining military, a politicized IRS, and a dangerous/feckless foreign policy (To mention the most obvious items) and the country hasn’t imploded, it is easier to deal with the prospect of more of that than it is to deal with the unknown of electing a frightening (at least to some) man like Trump. At least that’s the way it seems to me. I don’t love Trump, but I am less afraid of him than I am of Hillary. And so it goes.
The induction/ deduction distinction is useful since to merely consider it is to acknowledge that these are inductive inferences framed as probabilities; and “probabilities” in an older sense of the word than statistical or even a priori probabilities, but in terms of something along the lines of “probable” in the old sense of authoritatively informed or gained through long experience.
Despite the possible appearance or formulation of categorical statements concerning this or that act or trait, and the possibility of offering categorical arguments in which these attributes appear as predicates, these are not the kinds of deductive arguments that can tell us whether Trump will be an order of magnitude better administrator than Hillary; just whether we are electing a known criminal versus a suspect one to office.
And there, valid versus invalid may come into play, as well as unsound premiss, and faulty form.
But that said you are right to imply that Trump is not a deck of cards of four suits, and we cannot predict what will come up next after all the spades have been played.
Likewise with Hillary, we have only inference by enumeration of past instances or some supposed constant psychological concomitance to go on, a rather primitive form of inference for our purposes.
But, since we are arguing predictions and not trying to ferret out causes, I can’t say offhand that there is a better way.
We can sort them on this or that attribute deductively. I don’t image we can predict their behavior as if they were a projectile, the same way.
You may have something definite in mind, and if you do, I’d like to hear of it.
@DMW:
Naw. I got nothin’ else (I ref’d it on the observation that a bunch of people are framing inductions as deductions, arguing to conclusions and subsequently getting their panties all in a twist when “the other side” can’t accept the validity of the their “incisive conclusions” …and for just cause: who could/would logically accept an inductive conclusion as deductive “proof” …and I don’t think peeps get the diff’).
I [earlier] offered a syllogism (in only half-jest) which was purely deductive (it’s a syllogism for chrissakes: and NOT about Trump, but about agreement …the proper response would have been to laugh, or target the weak points of the syllogism itself if you wanted to go all serious on what should have obviously been accepted as rhetoric), and promptly got categorized as a troll and invited to live elsewhere (LOL: no problem, BM, I have a thick skin …and it was still funny: after all, who knows, maybe the horse will sing hahaha) …but that’s “as it goes” this season, sigh.
As for @Bill, I thought it was kind of refreshing to hear the bald-faced “I WOULD RATHER SEE HRC AS PRESIDENT THAN DJT” shouted right out loud in the open …I mean, I don’t agree: so what! …because hey: Opinion! …and I can agree with that (as a totally, thoroughly valid response/retort, if – FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, BILL – almost unbelievably short-sighted …and as it seems to me, rather widely shared by – FROM MY PERSPECTIVE – otherwise generally lucid and sane denizens of the here ’bouts).
I mean, I don’t understand how [supporting] DT can be more polarizing than [voting for] HRC (well, amongst the Conservative Literati at least), but I recognize the evidence of my eyes.
IMO, we’re all basing this [i.e., disagreement] on pure emotion.
Except for you and me.
And I wonder about you.
(A joke: I cannot not [joke] this season …I’m not taking the Two Bad Clowns Election seriously …even when it is …well, probably …I s’pose. – Partly that’s because I “won” the instant the GOP was – unexpectedly! – down to Cruz and Trump, and was [seemingly] seeing the Whig Moment play out before my eyes …and yes, of course I understand the complexities of “creative destruction” and accept the ominous “you might not be happy with what you get”/”sow the wind, reap the whirlwind” gloomyguts downers. I’m a proud member of the “let it burn” contingent. So trust me, I’m diving into the “may you live in interesting times” outcome of the primary, and understand fully the consequences of the unknown. Don’t care. Let ‘er rip. And about damn time. My hope – I mean, other than my hope that maybe the horse will sing – is that out of the ashes, the phoenix will arise renewed. Cheers!)
Also (more seriously). I don’t accept that he’s a bad guy per se at all (let alone the 2nd coming of Hitler or the Antichrist Himself …jeezus: some perspective people). Whether in comparison to HRC or no. In my book, he’s already accomplished the mission tho’. (Well, maybe. Started it, at least.)
Can he win? Dunno. Hope so.
If for no other reason than the possibility I might get a chance to maybe hear a horse sing.
Badabing!
I think you might be beating a dead horse there, brdavis9.
Anyway, one aspect of the HRC v. DJT divide that might be interesting to explore is how the two sides view the current state of the nation. I would guess that DJT supporters tend to think it is worse than the Never-DJT side. But I don’t know.
There are a number of reasons I am willing to vote for DJT, and one of them is I think the nation really is on the brink of being unrecoverable. It is quite possibly too late already. So, I think I’m willing to take bigger risks.
I’d be interested to know how the rest of you see the current state of the nation. Are the Never Trump folks more optimistic about the current state of the nation than the Trump supporters?
Tom D.: “I’d be interested to know how the rest of you see the current state of the nation.”
I’m a#Hate Trump but see him as the lesser of two evils.
How do I see the state of the nation? I don’t have time to write a book so I will just list several points where things are going south:
1.Numberof people in the work force.
2. Number of people on food stamps.
3. Slowing corporate profit growth.
4. Over regulation of the wealth creating industries. (Farming, mining, fishing, oil & gas production, manufacturing, electric power production, timber/lumber production, commercial construction – to name the most important in no particular order.)
5. Uncontrolled borders.
6. Increasing intimidation of free speech.
7. A weakening military infiltrated by social justice warriors and lawyers who devise ruinous ROEs.
8. A politicized Federal bureaucracy – especially the IRS and EPA.
9. A green mafia intent on making fighting Climate Change and Agenda 21 the law of the land.
10. A Federal government infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood agents who have made it politically incorrect to say “radical Islamic terror” anywhere in the government.
11. A manipulated stock market and ruinous Federal Reserve policies of low interest rates and Qualitative Easing.
12. An academic world that has become the major vector for producing citizens with a bent toward socialism.
13. Tension between blacks and other races that is as explosive as it was in the late 60s and early 70s.
14. Massive national debt that has no hope of being repaid unless the wealth creating industries are unburdened from onerous regulation.
15. A medical system that is trending quickly toward the military medicine model, which can be good, but is mostly mediocre with rapidly increasing costs.
16. A foreign relations position where our allies don’t, trust us and our enemies don’t fear us.
I could go on, but I guess you get the picture I see. We are slowly becoming a mediocre nation that does nothing as well as we used to. IMO, hard times are coming. What is unknown is when they will arrive.
As for my personal situation, I’m long retired. Unless the nation’s banks collapse I have enough in my nut to last the next ten or fewer years that I may live. My personal; situation could suffer if Hillary decides to come after middle class retirees with a few bucks saved up ala Cypress. I live in a rural area that could be quite self sufficient in the bad times. Let’s hope it doesn’t approach the calamity of Venezuela. With Hillary, it might because she and the progs will double down on their statist policies. Trump has Stephen Moore (co-author of “The War on Energy.”) as one of his economic advisers. He might make some good economic decisions.
@TD
LOL. Well met. And “touche”.
We’re all (almost? – naw: “all” fer sure) in the “not optimistic” category. Both the Trumpie’s and the #NT’s.
The big disagreement isn’t over being more optimistic, at all, heh.
It’s whether HRC or DT will accelerate The General Decline the quickest.
On this, we’re HRC pessimists, or DT pessimists.
In some cases we’re both (no neithers that I’m aware of tho’, so there is that).
And if someone does sound optimistic? – Yep. Troll.
…it wasn’t always like this. Post primary, generally we come to an eventual truce, make peace as best we can (with the party choice) and settle in and fret about the outcome like the good little GOP soldiers we’re expected to be.
Then we lose (we usually expect to lose: after all, we’re pessimists), and four years later go through the whole thing again.
Except this year.
This time the whole shebang blew up.
No one knows what the hell to do about The Donald (even the ones who are sure what to do – mostly cock-sure, and hence obnoxious …well, to someone – are flummoxed about ‘im).
So.
We’re unsettled (i.e., a post
partumprimary funk).Totally out of our usual discomfort zone.
And mad as irate vicious little wasps who build nests under the deck stairs to the lower yard that an audacious human has had the effrontery to think they can walk down (like the monstrous descendants of baboons have regularly done for the past four years …yeah: recent experience talking there …ouch btw …took two weeks for the swelling and itching to abate).
Ain’t it all just grand?!?
The fractures amongst the erudite are plain and plainly disconcerting to the Crew.
Helluva thing, The Donald conquering the Inept Party. Helluva thing.
In the case of Trump, since there is no direct evidence as to what he would do, extrapolation insofar as it can be argued the method is valid — and it must be argued rather than merely asserted — must take its place. – DNW
My gosh. You DO realize that applies as much to the positive attributes you assign to trump as the negative attributes others are making that you are dismissing?
Why do you evidently give more credence to the upside possibility?
.
The core issue is that NOBODY KNOWS for certain.
So, it becomes a probability estimation, based on understanding, as best we can, the likelihood and range of possibilities.
We must glean from:
– what trump has said, past and present;
– his history of behavior;
– how he reacts to criticisms;
– how well he articulates a deep understanding of the issues;
– how deeply he can explain his plans / policies;
– etc.
These all demonstrate a WIDE range of possibilities…
MUCH WIDER than the so very predictable clinton.
.
That:
– his reactions are personal and petty,
– he is so mutable on even the smallest of things,
– he is comfortable to rhetorically play with themes of authoritarianism, racism, and white identity politics,
– he has, on several occasions, implied that he is not beholding to the Constitution, nor the boundaries of executive power
– etc.
All this point to a potentially HUGE downside risk.
.
DNW and gang may choose not to recognize it, instead saying we have nothing to point to to “prove it”.
But, neither do they to any of the upside!
And THAT is precisely the point!
trump has said and done enough things that red flag some major downsides such that unpredictability on this scale IS ITSELF a HUGE risk.
.
A significant part of quantifying this risk has to do with the value one puts on the outcomes.
Downside / upside in whose eyes?
If one finds it “acceptable” that trump could be authoritarian, perhaps even Hitler incarnate, then the possibility is not much of a downside “risk” to them, is it?
.
Hence the question of limiting principles!
If we understand what is “acceptable” vs a step too far, then we can understand that scale.
DNW and gang pushing trump by saying it is “obvious” are ignoring all this, and ignoring a key question in understanding where they really stand to explain their position.
.
For the rest of us who find an “unacceptableness” to much of the downside, we are expected to trade this level of risk off for what possible upside? –
– “not clinton”? That only carries the ball so far.
– very little, if any conservative policy implementation?
– Still likely to get even bigger government
– Still likely to get a significantly expanded executive powers?
Does this even sound like we are “stopping” much?
So the “not clinton” argument essentially gets nullified by anyone who thinks…
– drastically smaller government,
– strong limits on the executive branch,
– conservative policy
– etc
… are the way to put this country back on track.
.
Reminder: It is not just us, but some other portion of the electorate that also sees this (downside risk and uncertainty)
To win, trump must credibly convince them (if not us) that he has a much stronger upside potential and that the downside is near nonexistent.
He has a lot of self inflicted ground to make up.
Sigh. Perfect. And perfectly illustrative.
We’re all whistling past the wind, than, aren’t we.
It’s which position is “blessed” with the two-sided curse of Cassandra that’s at the heart of the dysfunctional discussion on probable outcomes that goes nowhere.
Alas, poor OldTex, I knew him Horatio.
So. Whom will have the satisfaction of saying “I told you so” when …
There.
Have I covered all the likely and probable scenarios to everyone’s satisfaction?
There’s one shot at hope, and the rest is turtles all the way down.
Feel good now?
I meant to say …”There’s one shot at hope, and maybe the horse will sing…” etc.
…because I’m all about the meme.
Sheesh.
…I mean seriously, what good is a comment if it hasn’t included at least one “sheesh”.
Well, finally … “Hitler”!
I just dragged the thread for the term “obvious” since I did not recognize it. It looks as though I never used it.
Perhaps you meant to imply in coupling the phrase “DNW and gang” and the quoted word “obvious”, that we were being ironic with some other verbiage, and saying in effect that it was not in fact obvious.
But this use of yours would be at odds with the critical tone you employ.
Or perhaps you placed the term “obvious” in quotes, because when you said “DNW and gang pushing trump by saying it is ‘obvious’ …” you meant to make clear to the reader that I had not really used that term, and that you had just made it up … say, in line with and evidenced by, your past practice of making statements up and then placing them in quotes.
But signaling a made-up phrase or term without some indication that it was made-up, and doing so when there was no need to do so if you had a substantive assertion regarding my psychological outlook which you thought you could readily defend, makes no sense at all.
So, 1, it seems, as though using the quotation marks to bracket some terminology as we used it, as ironical, fails through your own construction.
And 2, as it is demonstrable that as I used no such term in an non-ironic context, or any other at all, the quotation marks could not be signaling that you were representing an actual statement which I had made.
In fact, I have gone back some 10 days, and have not found any instance in which I used the word obvious. Though Neo used it several times. Perhaps you were quoting or “paraphrasing” her? Naw …
Thus, 3, the last possibility which is indicated by your known past practice confronts us.
That is, that you just made up a quote as either a blatantly false quote which you wished to pass off as real, or as one of your pointless, unannounced, and so-called paraphrases; delivered that way because you felt it made for better rhetoric than would your simply making what you believed to be a defensible assertion upon your own authority as to what others said, or believed.
Don’t you think it is time to stop that kind of behavior?
Of course, if BigMaq’s search does show my use of the term “obvious” either ironically or literally, in reference to what should be apparent to others regarding Trump, I will be pleased to offer a correction.
And I use the term “pleased” un-ironically, since I would hate to think that BigMaq is doing what I suspect him of doing and seem to have found him doing, and I would be relieved to find that the fault was with my reading, or my computer search function, or its use, rather than with his continuing rhetorical practices.
…and my last word in the thread (yeah, double post, because I’m so smugly pleased with myself for thinking of this …and BJ never gets old, right …ed: stop that!, it’s crass)
Billy Joel. You May Be Right
J.J.’s list at August 23rd, 2016 at 12:21 am of serious problems is an excellent start. (J.J. himself or herself states it’s only a partial list.)
I would put this at the top of the list: America is much less a nation of laws than it was 8 years ago.
2. It appears to me that for some people Trump has hit a raw nerve. See, for example, what neo-neocon wrote (emphasis added by me):
So, with Hillary, we would suffer consequences, Trump will visit us with terribleness.
3. There has been a charge here that some us who will vote for Trump may accept Trump even if he became a Hitler. My question in this regard is this: On what basis does anyone believe that Hillary is less authoritarian than Trump?
CLINTON DELENDA EST!
Ah crap. Irresistable obsession to the thread that just won’t die. I lied: not “last” after all.
Well, or we’re more a nation of Chicago style “law” than we were then?
Which reaches to the Supremes (there’s some damn reason for the Roberts decision: which sure as hell wasn’t constitutional jurisprudence).
But yeah.
We can recover from a lot. But how to recover from a weaponized Court, DOJ, IRA, and other myriad unnamed alphabet bureaucracies in the federal soup.
No idea.
And with AI imminent upon us, I think some of yez have no idea of the efficacy of the pin-point hurt that can be sublimely focused upon the
fed’sDemocrat’s wrath.Let it burn …all of it.
@DNW – re: “obvious” – In quotes, it is a paraphrase of the message that comes through from you and some others. IMHO, it is a fair reading.
Just one example…
“trying to puzzle out the difficulties some seem to have with understanding what I have said”
I won’t go back to find yet more quotes, as that is rather recent, and instructive enough.
Then you have a long way around a point that sounds “professorial” and throw in words that connote as much along those same lines (“obvious”). For instance, instead of just saying you “disagree”, you say that one’s argument is “defective” with some long explanation.
“Yes. I do not think that his grounds for categorically preferring the historically demonstrable harm which Hillary will certainly as a matter of proven course do to the republic, to the fears he has of what Trump might try to do, and if trying, is in addition allowed to accomplish by his own party, The Congress as a whole, and the Court, is inductively persuasive.”
Prose in this fashion is often a red flag for one trying to obfuscate rather than be clear. But, that is a separate point.
We cannot directly read your intention, as all we have to go with is your words. However, you seem to know well how to use words and what affect they may have beyond just a literal reading.
.
Another observation: You’ve bypassed the questions and points posed to you. In this case, instead, you choose to focus on a technicality of the use of a word.
Here they are again, for your convenience:
Why do you evidently give more credence to the upside possibility of trump, given your argument against the validity to the downside possibility?
What are the limits to your opposition to clinton? How far is too far?
What is the positive case for trump? Beyond stopping “clinton”, does this really stop the much feared leftward march? What principles must trump deliver on to make that so?
There has to be some basis for you being a “reluctant” trump supporter, after all.
Other than the first, these are questions and points that have been posed to you several times in different forms.
Ira:
What an odd misinterpretation of what I wrote. Talk about truncated quotes!!
I said that people DISAGREE about two things with Hillary, and then I listed them. One of the things they don’t disagree about—one of the things they agree about (and I’ve written this time and time and time again), is that she is terrible.
My whole quote went like this:
Note that first sentence and read it carefully: it says that no one here is disagreeing about the serious terribleness of Hillary Clinton’s record.
That is a given. They disagree on Trump, but not on Hillary. So how on earth do you transform that into the idea that I’m saying that “with Hillary, we would suffer consequences, Trump will visit us with terribleness” ? I not only said everyone agreed that Hillary has been terrible (she, unlike Trump, has a known political record in that record), but I said that they disagree on how much terribleness he is even capable of. Note that what a person is capable of is not necessarily what that person will actually do.
I admit to truncating the quote. Yet, I think I captured the message that would be received by many, if not most, readers of the entire comment. That message being that for those conservatives declining to vote, or having trouble voting, for Trump, one reason is that they fear terribleness from a Trump presidency and merely consequences from a Hillary presidency. I think you agree that acknowledging that someone has a terrible record is not the same as saying you expect terribleness from someone in the future.
On a related note, I asked and yet received no answer to this query:
On what basis does anyone believe that Hillary is less authoritarian than Trump?
Actually, on what basis does anyone believe that any bad expectations relating to Trump would not be worse with Hillary?
Ira:
Well, then you must believe that most readers can’t comprehend English. Because what I wrote was clear, and it was the opposite of the way you were presenting it.
Well, I’ve just gone from agreeing with you 97% of the time to 96.44% of the time.
Ira:
Acceptable 🙂 .
Big Maq Says:
August 23rd, 2016 at 12:50 pm
Your humble opinion is worth no more in this regard than is your fake quote.
You do not quote your own reading of another man’s text: you assert it and then prepare to defend if you think you have grounds.
You clearly don’t know the differences and practices involved in honestly offering paraphrases, quotes, and summaries; the last of which you must be prepared defend on your own responsibility and not mask with the pseudo-authority of fake quotation marks.
That, or you do know and just don’t care about the ethics of what you are doing, and deliberately adorn the results of your own surmises with quotation marks in order to impart to them some supposed objectivity and authority they do not possess.
That is when you are not busy insinuating, others are promoting Hitler for president.
You have a bad character Maq.
@DNW – more avoidance of the key points.
I am upfront in my take away from what you have written. I also think how others have responded to similar shows that it is not pure imagination.
I’m not going to quote all the instances and make a full blown case of it, as it is a minor point in the overall scheme of things.
Take offense if you want. Call me bad character if you want. I come by the interpretation honestly, and am comfortable with what I see. Change your wording and approach if you think it so terrible that I (we?) are somehow misinterpreting this aspect.
.
I don’t think trump would be a “Hitler” (though not outside the realm of possibilities).
No insinuation whatsoever (who is liberally interpreting things, now), but, yes, a deliberately provocative, familiar, and horrible stake in the ground for you to address.
It is from a question to you re: how far are you willing to go in opposition to clinton?
If Hitler is too far, then what is your limit?
I don’t know what that is. You tell me.
Realize that continuing to avoid answering these key questions put to you is not helping in any clarity of your logic.
So, BM, who is more likely to be a Hitler, Hillary or Trump, and on what do you base your opinion?
J.J., yeah, that’s quite a list, and I pretty much see it that way as well, plus some, as you say. I don’t know about the stock market being manipulated one way or the other. I haven’t paid much attention to that.
brdavis9, I think your comment about pessimism is pretty much right on. Alas.
Ira, I agree that the US is much less a nation of laws than we were 8 years ago. I’m afraid it’s going to get worse, too.
I guess what I was driving at was, I think the US is near a tipping point from which the republic will not be able to recover. I don’t know if we’re ahead of or behind that point; it might already be too late for any remedy at all. Or, maybe it’s just ahead.
I think the US government is becoming a just another corrupt system where your freedom depends more on your political friends than the rule of law. I’ve never seen or heard of a nation getting out of that, and I don’t think any honest political movement will be able to do anything about it, not conservatives or any one else.
I think Hillary is utterly corrupt and, if we aren’t already past the tipping point, she’ll drive toward it with all the gusto of a Nascar pro.
Trump, no one really knows what he will do. Yes, that’s dangerous. But, if we are not already past the tipping point, he’s the only hope we have in the presidency. It’s slim: It depends on him being better than HRC. But it’s a hope.
On the other hand, if we are already past the tipping point, then it won’t really matter that much who the president is. We’re already lost. It’ll be corrupt administration X or corrupt administration Y from here on.
So, while Bill thinks Trump will destroy the conservative movement and he wants to save it to be effective later, I think an HRC presidency will likely end any ability for an honest band of citizens like that to have any real effect on the system. If we’re not already past that point.
That’s what I meant by optimistic: Bill and others who share his view believe we will be able to recover no matter what HRC does.
I think it may well be too late for that already, but if it isn’t, HRC will push us hard that direction.
And, by “But, if we are not already past the tipping point, he’s the only hope we have in the presidency”, I didn’t mean to rule out all hope. However, that hope will be found in other quarters than the White House.
You might be right, but I don’t really want to consider what means it may be necessary for those other quarters, and here I mean extra-governmental quarters (not the Congress which Neo for example has ruled out as hopeless as a check of last resort) to eventually deploy.
The thing that conservatives and libertarian leaning types tend to naturally forget ( since they assume a fundamental like-mindedness on the part of others) is how radically different are the theoretical values foundations and anthropology of the hard-left. And this is a presuppositional framework which has pretty much been absorbed into the outlook of everyday American liberals.
The left as we all know also never halts at any given point as if satisfied; and always continues to press, with the aim of constantly narrowing the alternative social structures and civil society institutional resources available to those who don’t share their vision of a politically directed evolution – of man as he is now, into another kind of man. It’s just the next programmatic step found in the basic Marxist playbook for those who have bothered to read the source materials. But even we tend to overlook it at times.
As they view – and proudly admit that they view – the traditional distinctions between the civil/social and the political as a false distinction, and as their program of anthropological readjustment and directed “evolution” goes right down to the conceptual level of the nuclear family and sexual identity, it would be foolish for us to imagine that they would recognize or would even pause at this or that ostensibly private boundary.
And indeed, as you would probably be the first to observe, the historical thrust of modern liberalism in American politics is capable of being properly described as a long-term assault in the name of some “collective”, on the notion and legitimacy of the private and exclusionary, and all of its recourses (I meant that and not “resources”), and manifestations.
This is an actual existential conflict, albeit one worked out in slow motion and relatively non-violent terms at the moment. If that is, you don’t consider what Lois Lerner was doing in directing the power of government bureaus against lawful citizens because of their traditional political views, right on the edge of violence, itself.
“So, BM, who is more likely to be a Hitler, Hillary or Trump, and on what do you base your opinion?” – Ira
I don’t see either likely to be a Hitler, nor Stalin, nor some other dictator. Is it possible, yes, but unlikely.
That said, BOTH have passed my threshold for acceptability as candidates for POTUS. Both have major character flaws, both are probably going to take us in similar leftist direction with some rather awful/damaging policies, ultimately expanding government, expanding presidential powers, and altering or ignoring the Constitution.
trump’s mutability adds uncertainty to this all. trump’s temperament adds volatility to that uncertainty. If it were to persist beyond election time, the existence of that uncertainty and volatility itself would have a detrimental affect on the country.