The religious voter and Trump
Beto O’Rourke got a lot of attention when he suggested that churches opposing gay marriage should lose tax-exempt status:
“There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone … that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.” O’Rourke told a cheering audience. “And so as president, we are going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.”
The most depressing thing isn’t that Beto, the wannabe dictator (who will not be the Democratic nominee in 2020, but who is considered a bona fide candidate) said such a thing, it’s that he said it in front of a “cheering audience.”
And in a related depressing thought, reflect that this guy came close to becoming the senator from Texas in 2016. Of course, he wasn’t saying this sort of thing back then. But doesn’t that make it worse? Lie until you get in power, and then do what you want.
And would he accomplish this by executive order? Perhaps, according to the author of this article, Rod Dreher. Maybe the only thing protecting us from tyranny, in the end, is convention and public intolerance of it, which is fast waning:
There is no reason that the IRS in a Democratic administration could not do that to churches and religious institutions that discriminated against LGBTs. No reason. It’s entirely a matter of executive will…
To be clear, we don’t know how all the Democrat candidates would come down on removing tax-exempt status from dissenting churches and religious organizations. They must be asked, and asked again until we get a clear answer. Personally, though, I have no doubt at all that every single one of them would do this if they thought it wouldn’t cost them too much politically. Christians need to understand that as America secularizes, and as those who still call themselves Christian accept anti-biblical views on LGBT, it will increasingly become possible for a future president to impose this punishment on churches and religious organizations without paying a significant political price.
In the comments section to that Dreher piece, there is a large number of Christain believers saying how much they hate Trump, and that maybe they’ll sit this one out. It’s odd to me under the circumstance the article states. They sound like NeverTrumpers whose main objection seems to be that Trump is crass.
This is typical, for example:
I despise Trump — who he is, how he carries himself and his haphazard leadership. He has done real, lasting damage to this country.
And then someone else asks:
Could I get an example of that, please? I see only slight variations on that claim regularly, but I honestly can’t see what it is people are talking about.
Yes, I mean this in earnest, not as a talking point or some kind of “gotcha” or other political point. I want to understand what you are talking about.
No answer.
Oh, and another depressing thing. A lot of people there are saying “What difference does it make, because I don’t think churches should be tax-exempt anyway.” But that’s a very different issue. One can debate that question, but it has little to do with what Beto said. There is a world of difference between saying that all churches (including mosques, temples, etc.) should not be tax-exempt and saying this or that particular church (or mosque or temple, perhaps) – should lose its tax-exempt status because it is against gay marriage. Isn’t the different obvious?
Another comment:
Sorry, I still cannot vote for Trump. As it stands, I will either leave that box on the ballot blank, or vote third party…I’m no great fan of Pence, either, but as my husband remarked this morning, a rabid gerbil would make a better president than Trump. Trump has made a shambles of the Executive branch and made us a laughingstock among people of good will (not simply the worst of the EU and other Western governments), and is helping to enable the craziness of the Democratic platform. Bill Clinton’s actions that led to his impeachment are completely dwarfed by Trump’s immorality, ineptitude and the bloviating and lies that emanate from his narcissism. Hard times are coming to people of faith no matter who is elected.
The comment thread is loaded with similar general put-downs, seemingly based on some sort of feeling of revulsion towards Trump on a style and personality level.
An answer in the same comments thread:
Narcissism, I’ll definitely grant you… though how that differentiates him from any of the other politicians continues to elude me, save that he doesn’t try to hide it.
Immorality, ditto.
Bloviating, lies… ditto, though on this one, I think he’s a noticeably lesser offender than most in Washington, actually (yes, I’m serious – lying regularly and straight to your face seems to be the basic entry requirement for politicians these days).
And ineptitude… OK, I literally don’t understand this claim from people. Look critically and unemotionally at the guy’s accomplishments, and tell me that “inept”. Not “immoral” or “unethical”, we covered that in the previous points.
Trump has moved the ball on things conservatives have claimed to want for decades that no one else did anything about, and you’re willing to throw that away because he’s not willing to hide the “making of the sausage.”from your view? And at the same time complain about “lying”?
Forget about the man – I wouldn’t want to hang out with him, either. Look at what he’s DOING. Getting the ARABS to work with the Israelis? Getting more concessions from the NorKs than all before him put together? EVERYTHING on the economic front? (Actually go LOOK at the numbers – don’t depend on ANYONE in the media to give the proper feeling about it – it’s everything EVERYONE claims to want, but no one will mention it. Higher income for the lower 80% of households, lower income for the top 20%, literally the best employment numbers for minorities ever recorded, etc, etc.)
But you don’t like his mannerisms? They’re “icky” or something, so let’s throw all of that away? REALLY?
Or am I missing some complaint that doesn’t boil down to “he’s as icky as the other politicians, just more open about it”?
That seems to sum it up to me. Most of the NeverTrumpers are basically saying a combination of “Trump is icky” and “He has cooties.” They don’t want to get his ickiness and his cooties on themselves.
I wonder how many of these never-Trumpers or Christians are better described as ostensible never-Trumpers or ostensible Christians- lefties pretending to be concerned never-Trumpers or concerned Christians.
I know those who speak the same way. Facts don’t matter, or even register.
Are they progressives who want to conceal their views? They seem to gloat that no one can change their minds because it’s their taste and this is superior to the rest of us.
Rod Dreher has really disappointed me with his constant drumbeat on Trump’s unworthiness to . . . I guess be a human being. He posted the other day that he thinks Trump is mentally unfit to be POTUS. He also seems to take at face value partisan pronouncements from Pelosi & Co. I still follow his blog because Dreher is at his best when talks about religious freedom and those kinds of issues. He’s at his worst when he bloviates about Trump. And yes, it comes down to style and manners. Dreher seems to belong to the Milquetoast Club along with Mitt Romney and folks.
Richard Aubrey:
I think they don’t want to get Trump’s cooties on them.
Neo: “Most of the NeverTrumpers are basically saying a combination of “Trump is icky” and “He has cooties.” They don’t want to get his ickiness and his cooties on themselves.”
Yes. Ask them how he has actually affected their lives and they can’t name anything of note. (Most won’t admit it if their taxes are lower.) Just that he is crass and too much an alpha male.
I talked with an old high school classmate of mine yesterday. Widowed and alone, he spends his time observing politics, watching sports, and participating in his church. He watches every Trump rally from start to finish and loves them. As he said to me, “Trump’s a flawed person, but so am I. Who am I to judge his personal traits as long as he is doing good things for the country?” He’s a retired veterinarian who had to struggle for many years to build his practice. He really appreciates that Trump is making it easier for businesses to succeed with less regulation and lower taxes. He opined that most of his church going friends feel pretty much the same. And that’s in blue, blue Washington state. (Of course it’s also Spokane, which is somewhat less progressive.) So, not all Christians loathe Trump.
Yes, inept. Not at all times but certainly many. How is it he picks Bolton, whose stance on foreign affairs was quite known beforehand? And you characterize neverTrumpers very real concerns about his behavior as Trump being “icky”. It’s beneath dignity of the office he holds is what it is. The needless, idiotic parting shots at General Mathis. They couldnt just part ways? Because Trump has done good in many areas we can dismiss that altogether?
On the question of what lasting damage Trump has done, I can offer an answer:
He’s solidified the caricature people have of Republicans and conservatives as crass bumpkins overly concerned with themselves, hateful of people they disagree with, deeply consumed with bizarre conspiracy theories.
The only thing to be grateful for here is that the left comes off as deeply deluded authoritarians, disdainful of people they disagree with, deeply consumed with bizarre conspiracy theories.
Its hard though, I guess, to see through that because Trump has made real accomplishments, many of them great for our side, but I guess thats the way die-hard Obama supporters felt about Obama, because he did so well for their side and ignored his many offenses even though, unlike Trump (and a definite plus for Trump), were often out right illegal.
People who dislike Donald Trump’s behavior have actual reasons to dislike him.
You had said to me you didnt think people on this blog were blind Trump supporters as far as you could tell. Could it be because your opinions resonate so well with them?
Trump is an intuitive pattern-recognizing thinker. Most academics and media types are top-down deductive thinkers, who have to fit everything into the conceptual map that they have learned and adopted. So are a lot of other people.
This factor is behind much of the hostility toward Trump.
I found his “Art of the Deal” difficult and somewhat irritating to read, despite having a strong professional interest in the subject. I’m more of a structured thinker than Trump, but I have enough of the intuitive pattern-recognizing mode to understand what he is doing and its value. Most of the establishment people can’t do that.
The writer Andre Maurois observed that people who are *intelligent* but not at all *creative* tend to latch on to intellectual systems and to apply them much more rigidly than the originators of those systems would have.
I know a couple of serious Christians who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Trump in 2016 because of his past sexual misbehavior. I don’t know what they think for 2020. Trump, for all his flaws, has done more for economic and religious freedom than any recent president. These people won’t vote for Democrats; whether they’ll vote for Trump is something I don’t know.
Reading many of those comments, I think a lot are some variety of paid troll or possibly Bots.
There’s a lot of that kind of Psy-Ops going on by various actors and organizations. There’s a repetition of certain themes that give the trolls away and separates them from the true NeverTrumpers.
I know a lot of Christians who held their nose and voted for Trump. And almost all of them are more than pleased with his presidency so far. The only true NeverTrumpers I know in my daily life are people who, regardless of politics or religion, only consume news from their local paper, local news or CNN/MSNBC. Almost everyone I know has turned their back on the MSM and even their local papers, who just repeat the AP party line.
Oh, and right on cue… Heeeeeeeere’s Harry! He going to tell us all about our blind loyalty again.
Like all NeverTrumpers, they value their social credit (what would their friends think!?) and their class preconceptions far more than they value their country or, given that the Democrats have made no secret of exactly what they think of Christianity for at least the past generation, the faith the NeverTrumpers claim as theirs.
When you read Drehr or any other of their ilk, remember that these are people who would have been fine with President Hillary… as long as it meant that Trump lost, and Trump voters were punished.
Beto followed up his rejection of religious liberty with another announcement, this time about supporting the Menstrual Equity Act on National Period Day (which is today, in case y’all didn’t know that’s a thing). From Beto’s tweet: “In detention centers and in prisons, in big cities and small towns, women across America don’t have access to the period products they need. On #NationalPeriodDay, men need to join women in demanding real change—which is why I’m supporting the Menstrual Equity Act.”
https://pjmedia.com/trending/beto-orourke-announces-support-for-menstrual-equity-act-on-nationalperiodday/
At least Beto still apparently identifies as a dude, but he really does need treatment for a bad case of recto-cranial inversion before it becomes terminal.
Harry:
Nope, you’re way off the mark.
Most of the people here detested Trump for a long time, and only slowly and reluctantly came to see that much of what they feared wasn’t true, and that his accomplishments were far more than they expected. So, far from being blind Trump supporters they are reluctant and very surprised Trump supporters. If you go through the older posts (including my own opinions, as well as the comments) and see the slow and incremental changes of opinion, you would stop posting the generic stuff you post here in your own comments mischaracterizing the people here.
I dont know that any of the things Ive brought up are “generic”. There’s a lot more I detest about that guy than I can pull off the top of my head at any one moment, so my comments may come off as generic. If so, I apologize for that.
I can acknowledge Trump has done good without “evolving” my opinion about his character and pretending it shouldnt be an issue with anyone, especially the religious. BTW: Trump has also attracted a lot of evangelicals among the faithful, considering the amount of praise that guy gets on Fox & Friends, which to me is much more weird than religious people expressing dismay at Trump’s behaviour, which one would have expected.
The thing here is: NeverTrumpers have valid points and if it werent for the complete utter despotism of the left, I dont think he’d have one any election whatsoever.
Kate..”I know a couple of serious Christians who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Trump in 2016 because of his past sexual misbehavior.”
I’m wondering how they felt about Bill Clinton?…Teddy Kennedy?….JFK???
Im sure they would have felt the same way Dave. This isnt about whataboutism.
PA Cat on October 19, 2019 at 5:56 pm said:
Beto followed up his rejection of religious liberty with another announcement, this time about supporting the Menstrual Equity Act on National Period Day (which is today, in case y’all didn’t know that’s a thing). From Beto’s tweet: “In detention centers and in prisons, in big cities and small towns, women across America don’t have access to the period products they need. On #NationalPeriodDay, men need to join women in demanding real change—which is why I’m supporting the Menstrual Equity Act.”
Perhaps the chyrons on CNN and elsewhere should be altered from “D-Tex” after Beto’s name to “D-Kotex”.
never trumpers are perfectly willing to allow the ruin of the nation by those they claim to despise over voting for a loudmouth who has been doing a lot of the things they claim they want done. His record so far is far better than I expected, and less gaff filled than expected. Third party or no vote is voting for the opposition. plain and simple. We know he’s a vindictive bastard, but because he is, he has made his goal reversing everything 0bama stood for. We need to be glad he’s a vindictive ass.
Like it or not leaving the Presidential vote slot blank or voting third party (apparently the party of Putin) is a vote for the Democrat selection of choice.
“Icky” is someone who willingly continues to work on Rep Schiff’s staff.
Christians aren’t voting for a pastor, but someone to lead the executive branch. If they sit this one out, then I’ll ignore any future complaints.
Harry…”Im sure they would have felt the same way Dave. This isnt about whataboutism.”
I obviously don’t know the individuals that Kate is referring to, but I do know quite a few people who strongly object to Trump doing things that were done by multiple Democratic Presidents, who they supported and continue to support.
This is indeed about whataboutism: Evidence is that there are a lot of people who object to characteristics/actions of Trump when not objecting to those same things in other politicians…and the question is what specifically is driving the hostility to Trump if it’s not those common characteristics.
Ivory towered elitists were referring to Trump supporters as ‘deplorables’ long before he took office. I couldn’t care much less at this point about whether such shallow prigs see his supporters, or Republicans in general, as bumpkins.
We had eight years of slick and cool in the Oval Office, and numerous late-night talk-show/entertainment appearances, along with juvenile stunts such as mike-drops. We also saw various arms of the federal government weaponized against Obama’s political counterparts and against conservatives in general, to an extent never dared before he took office. And we saw Obama fight furiously for his precious legacy, all the while putting the welfare of those in need of jobs – or in need of less of a pressing thumb on their existing businesses – at the back of the proverbial queue. And more to the point of Neo’s post, we saw genuinely charitable institutions such as Sisters of Mercy relentlessly attacked for wishing to follow their own consciences.
In one scene of 1984’s Amadeus the title character pleads with Emperor Joseph II, “Forgive me, Majesty. I am a vulgar man! But I assure you, my music is not.” Trump is a vulgar president. His support for our capitalist system, for the rights and welfare of legal citizens, and for the constitutional protection granted those of faith are certainly not vulgar. Nor is his behavior 1/10th as vulgar as those who have gone off the deep end over his election. Or maybe they just did a better job of hiding it until then.
Dreher’s an ass in too many ways to count, but he can provoke an interesting discussion. I was once a regular. I was one of two conventionally starboard commenters at his site at the time. (Dreher banned me for taking exception to something said by a protected commenter who uses the handle ‘Siarlys Jenkins’).
The American Conservative was at that time (and, I imagine still) a collecting pool of peculiar sectaries whose avocation was asserting their superiority over people with more conventional views, so most of their verbiage was devoted to critiquing ordinary Republicans. Their comment boards were dominated by a mix of liberals and people whose attitudes were much like those producing the editorial matter (whose views resemble those of perhaps 2% of the voting public). And, of course, Dreher was given to exacerbating the imbalance using as an excuse the sort of humbug Ann Althouse calls ‘civility bulls!!t’. I wouldn’t be too undone by the remarks you see at his site. His comment boards have long had an ample population of flippant sophists and poseurs.
Harry – your examples aren’t very convincing. Dignity of the office is an “ickiness” argument. Being petulant about Mattis is an “ickiness” argument. As to solidifying the stereotype or caricature of Republicans, that sounds like someone who cares too much what foreign newsmen and home-grown condescenders think. They were never going to like him anyway. They will hit you with whatever stick is at hand.
I don’t like Trump and I don’t like his style, but I can make a distinction between that and fitness to govern. I’m not sure you can manage that, as your comments contain a fair bit of implied insult about those who disagree with you.
Whataboutism is how one distinguishes principle from partisanship. Harry’s friends, silent about dem sinners. show the latter.
David Foster: “I’m wondering how they felt about Bill Clinton?…Teddy Kennedy?….JFK???” They probably disapproved of all three, except that one of them was born after JFK’s death, and the other, only five years before. One votes for the Constitution Party as a matter of “principle,” and you can’t get him to understand that his vote is wasted. The other is amenable to reason about it. I’ll ask him, next fall, what he’s going to do. Neither was a supporter of these Democrats.
I think an important part of his statement is being overlooked. He said, “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America, that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.” When he says “anyone” I take him literally—no benefit to any person who doesn’t adhere to the party line on gay marriage, and I’m sure that’s just the beginning of punishing wrong-think.
Beto … Menstrual Equity Act on National Period Day
When I read that, I figured Beto was supporting men who think they are women with tampax. About time! Men can menstruate too. I guess.
Sadly that justice is still a few months off.
Like all NeverTrumpers, they value their social credit (what would their friends think!?)
I suspect that’s a motor for Ross Douthat (who as he slides into middle age appears to manifest anew the sort of capon behavior he seemed to have left behind 10 years ago), but my wager in regard to most of them is that they took categorical stances in 2015 and 2016 that have proven ill-judged, and they’re grasping at any datum which allows them to assert they were right. They’re rather more obtrusive than they would otherwise be because they’re on the patronage of the Democratic-operatives-with-bylines-and-chyrons media or on the patronage of liberal billionaires like Pierre Omidyar (see David Brooks, SE Cupp, Douthat, George Will, David Frum, The Bulwark crew, and (it’s a reasonable inference) those employed at Jonah Goldberg’s new venture). Other’s have berths at philanthropic institutions who have not (and likely will not) see fit to cut them loose (Jonah Goldberg until recently, Max Boot, Mona Charen). Their viewpoint has very little resonance with Republican voters. Astroturf, at this point.
Assistant Village Idiot: ” As to solidifying the stereotype or caricature of Republicans, that sounds like someone who cares too much what foreign newsmen and home-grown condescenders think.”
(Sigh…). Its about caring what the segment of fence-sitting middle of the road non political type people think. You know: The people beyond the loyal base. The people whose votes we’re going to need to get that guy reelected.
Richard Aubrey: “Whataboutism is how one distinguishes principle from partisanship. Harry’s friends, silent about dem sinners. show the latter.”
How does that help you to assume anybody’s stance on anything or assume that religious people who reject Trumps behavior were ever silent on any of the other dems that have been mentioned? Show the former. Elsewise its just whataboutism and unjustified whataboutism at that.
Rod Dreher has really disappointed me with his constant drumbeat on Trump’s unworthiness to . . . I guess be a human being. He posted the other day that he thinks Trump is mentally unfit to be POTUS.
Having read his work fitfully for 18 years, I’d say Dreher’s projecting. The man’s always comported himself like someone held together with psychotropics.
Beto’s a mediocre man who lives in liberal bubbleworld. The troublesome aspect of what he’s proposed hardly occurs to him, and, like Pauline Kael, he knows not a single person who would argue the contrary with him.
Re “the beginning of punishing wrong-think” — Beto’s press secretary has since said that he was not talking about a religious viewpoint but was referring to religious institutions that take discriminatory action. Dreher points out there’s precedent for this, namely, the 1983 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the withdrawal of tax except status for Bob Jones University because it would not allow interracial dating and marriage among its students.
Yesterday Slate had an amusing (to me) article on Beto:
“Beto O’Rourke Is Turning Into a Human Straw Man for Conservatives”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/beto-orourke-tax-exemptions-religious-groups-churches-lgbtq.html
The author’s conceit is that no Democrats truly support Beto’s positions, so when Beto states his positions and conservatives “pounce” on his statements, conservatives are thus using Beto as a straw man.
Whew! That was convoluted. Still with me?
The author fails to note that when Beto says his outrageous things, Democrats clap or fail to counter.
I believe what the author really means is Beto is the liberal id unbound and speaking truths liberals are not ready to admit just yet, because it is politically inconvenient, if not suicidal.
Beto is 2019’s “Bulworth.” That’s the film (still worth watching) in which Warren Beatty plays a wishy-washy Democrat who in a time of desperation resorts to such “truths” and becomes a national sensation.
Seems to me that the choice is pretty clear–either a President Trump who may be a rough vulgarian but who is much more for traditional American values, a man who will fight to preserve and extend them, or some acolyte of the foreign creed of Socialism (Communism in thin disguise), who thinks that the American people are for sale to the highest bidder, a Socialist/Communist who wants to give away other people’s money, until American is America no longer, but much more like Venezuela, all the while crushing all dissent and opposition using the power of the state.
Thus, it seems to me like there really is no choice if you want to “live long and prosper.”
Ironically in 2013 Slate ran a piece about Obama “going Bulworth” based on a NYT article.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/05/obama-bulworth-president-said-to-talk-privately-of-going-bulworth-in-second-term.html
Obama did “loosen up” in his second term, after he lost the House in 2012 and the Senate in 2014. “I’ve got a phone and a pen!”
I wonder if Obama had played a more careful hand after 2014 whether Trump would have won in 2016.
Re “the beginning of punishing wrong-think” — Beto’s press secretary has since said that he was not talking about a religious viewpoint but was referring to religious institutions that take discriminatory action.
I have news for you, Ann. Every institution with a discrete institutional mission discriminates in its hiring and in the clientele it serves. No exceptions. What Betoid is saying is that everyone’s institutional mission is properly vetted by tax collectors working on behalf of the Democratic Party and the social sectors for which the Democratic Party is a vehicle. It’s an asinine position to take in a free society, but didn’t stop you from falling for it.
As an evangelical non-liturgical Christian, I had serious concerns about Trump n the primaries. I had no choice in the general. I voted Trump.
I am thrilled with the results.
Beyond that, I am convinced that Trump has experienced a spiritual conversion, i.e. is born again.
As such, I give him a pass on past behavior and though I cringe at his tweets, etc, I see him as someone who God is using.
I think these “christians’ that cannot see this in him are probably more main-stream left leaning “christians”, cool with LGBQTP, abortion and socialism.
Just a guess.
Thanks for linking to Rod Dreher, who I read often because I respect his clear vision of the problems as we move to a post-Christian society.
He wrote The Benedict Option, which argues that Christians need to prepare for a Godless anti-Christian world, and focus more energy on becoming more Christian, so as to have a stronger Christian faith to share.
When I met him in Bratislava, he was charming and enthralled with the Underground Church, like that my wife’s family participated in. Where the real stronger believers worshipped together and strengthened their beliefs.
He hates Trump. With a passion. Even a blinding passion. I can hardly read it. On his blog, I’ve occasionally written comments, and recently complained to him about his own irrational Trump-hate. Recently Rod wrote on #MAGA Mottramism
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/maga-mottramism-trump/
“Mottramism” to describe all-in Catholics like the writer Mark Shea, who fell all over themselves to absolve John Paul II of any fault whatsoever in the Catholic abuse scandal.
I wrote a comment, which can be found by Disqus
https://disqus.com/by/TomGrey/
” I see you as hysterical about it. Even when I agree on not liking Trump’s Erdogan letter, especially not in style. What are the results?
If you are hysterical about the danger from Trump, maybe you’re hysterical about the danger from the anti-Christians. Try Paul M. on Powerline for a more calm critique of Trump, and not so many Dem media Fake News folk whose faux-outrage you seem to be infected with.
Thanks for great insights about the modern spiritual problems.”
Neo gives fair critique.
Rod gives great links and insights, but too long in writing (like me), tho also very interesting (I’m jealous). On Trump, Rod is not fair. Perhaps he’s also not fair about the Church, but I see his fear as far more actualized.
Beyond that, I am convinced that Trump has experienced a spiritual conversion, i.e. is born again.
Edward R Bonderenka: I wonder that too. I doubt Trump has gone the full boat — weekly Bible study and a WWJD bracelet — but I think something happened to him after he was elected.
I don’t believe Trump thought he would win. However, when he did, my thought is it hit him hard and he realized it wasn’t a game and he had better straighten up and play at a level he had never played before.
Or maybe I never understood Trump. That’s possible, I suppose, but I don’t think all the crummy things I read about him were untrue.
Harry. You would recall your friends’ open disgust. Instead. you have to presume they kept quiet about it.
A few thoughts…. Robert Francis O‘Rourke is a punk. Trump is the great unmasker. People who find Trump disgusting, crude, and lacking moral fiber must have amnesia dating back to JFK. Results matter, not preening as a gentle man or woman, not having conventional wisdom which is no wisdom at all.
Richard Aubrey, what are you talking about? You sound as deranged as any leftist Ive had the displeasure of conversing with.
[Dreher] hates Trump. With a passion. Even a blinding passion. I can hardly read it
Tom Grey: I’ll take your word for it. I only read Dreher when Instapundit links to him. On those occasions Dreher seems to go out of his way to be defend Trump, albeit with reservations, and his Christian supporters.
I have a Catholic friend who often speaks of the Benedict Option. I can see America changing such that Christians are marginalized and Christianity is driven out of the public square. I have my issues with Christianity, but overall the results don’t look good.
BTW, how do you like Disqus? I’ve thought of getting a Disqus account and commenting on more blogs, but I’m concerned about being “outed” or followed around and attacked. There are only 5000 Americans with my surname.
There’s a lot more I detest about that guy than I can pull off the top of my head at any one moment, so my comments may come off as generic. If so, I apologize for that.<
We know and you deserve what you get.
My wife works with Trauma and Stress relief work as I do. She has many Liberals as clients. And they poured in after Trump was elected in complete hysteria. Not exaggerating. They were in meltdown and are still highly triggered by him, often openly comparing him to their horrible fathers. The major common denominator is BAD/ANGRY/STRONG DADDY. I suspect the beta males and women with Daddy issues are all triggered by his confidence, arrogance, and outright power which is very threatening to their delicate nervous systems.
Huxley,
I know you didn’t ask me butI deleted my disqus account a few months back when I found that many of my comments in response to left leaning comments always magically disappeared into the limbo of moderation. And it didn’t matter what site it happened at. Instapundit, Rotten Tomatoes (I’m definitely a movie guy).
It’s definitely a converged, as they say, entity. And therefore risky.
Losing their Pro-Choice quasi-religion (“ethics”), selective, opportunistic, politically congruent (“=”).
The Chambers (e.g. abortion chambers, diversity rackets, affirmative discrimination, anti-nativism, social justice adventurism, quasi-scientific prophecies) should lose their tax-exempt status.
Why stop with transgender/homosexual couplets? It should be civil unions for all consenting adults. #NoJudgments #NoLabels Separation of Chamber and State.
For that matter, why exclude children? The progressives target adolescent and prepubescent children for transgender conversion therapy,including: indoctrination, [medical] corruption, and sexualization at ever progressive ages, as well as adults that dissent from the consensus through abortion (“cancel”) culture.
The liberal (i.e. divergent) license exploited by the Chamber and diverse sects should be revoked.
…many of my comments in response to left leaning comments always magically disappeared into the limbo of moderation. And it didn’t matter what site it happened at. Instapundit, Rotten Tomatoes (I’m definitely a movie guy).
Fractal Rabbit: Good to hear from you! That’s good info.
Also, never ran into “converged entity” before … but I like it.
The witch hunts and warlock trials over more than 12 trimesters have been motivated by the imperative to deny scrutiny of extra-constitutional acts, Obama spying, Clinton colluding, Biden obstructing, [anti] fascism, journolistic judgments and trials, social platform steering, liberal license, social justice adventurism (e.g. extra-judicial trials, summary judgments, catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform, abortion fields, redistributive change), progressive price schemes, abortion chambers and clinical cannibalism under the planned parenthood umbrella, diversity (i.e. color judgment) breeds adversity, Jew… White privilege, etc. That said, beware overlapping and converging special and peculiar interests.
n.n: I enjoy your comments. They are like reading abstracts from an academic journal from another planet. Don’t stop.
Harry
This charge has been leveled at leading Republicans in various forms for decades and decades. How many times, for example, did Demos inform us that Reagan was an ignorant witch-hunting bigot who was going to start World War 3? Like about non-stop for 8 years. Regan was adept at dealing with such insults, but most Republican politicians have not been so adept. Turning the other cheek at such insults has not been productive. Trump,to his credit, fights back.
As a former Democrat, I am not going to jump through hoops when Democrats accuse me of being ……. Fill in the words.
Huxley, Disqus will treat pedantic comments as spam. Too many links to show you aren’t making things up= spam. Naked links are treated better than embedded links, in my experience. Taking too long to write comments= spam. Sometimes blockquotes will get you spammed. If you make more than one edit within,shall we say, less than an hour after you initially make the comment. you run the risk of being spammed.
On occasion, I have been able to get in touch with the blog owner to find out why my comment got Disqus-spammed. The reply invariably was that they had no idea why. One told me she hated Disqus.
A further point is that while Disqus will tell you that they will check up on your comment to decide if it is spam or not spam, Disqus will NEVER take a comment out of the spam folder. Blog owners may take it out if you personally contact them.
A further point is that if you are copying and pasting into a comment, copy and paste from Notepad. Otherwise you will spend a lot of time in taking out unnecessary spaces.
I have occasionally found out that comments will remain for several hours before they are sent to the spam filter.
If you are making a long comment, my suggestion is to write it out, and use Notepad to copy/paste it into Disqus.
Sometimes, a spammed comment will get through if you cut out a link or copy/paste instead of spending the time to write it out.
I have nothing for contempt for Disqus.
Ann:
The 1983 Bob Jones University case does not establish such a precedent. “The Court made clear, however, that its holding dealt ‘only with religious schools—not with churches or other purely religious institutions.'”
Huxley or was it Harry, who accused me as something personally lacking or vaguely idiotic. But curiously you him her xer it never replieded. Eithier one or the other, wny not? So just tell me where I was deplorable?
Harry, I’m seconding Gringo’s observation just above. Your critique of Trump boils down to either “he’s icky” as Neo’s post says, or “he makes us look bad.” The problem is, my political memory does indeed go back as far as Reagan, and I can extrapolate to Nixon at least based on what I remember my parents saying, and in EVERY case Republican presidents were termed “idiots,” “crass,” “vulgar,” “brainless,” “undisciplined,” “toddlers throwing tantrums”… There is no alternative view. There is no case in modern times when a Republican president was considered to be a *statesman* – at least not during his term or terms of office.
Sometimes they (or failed Republican candidates) achieve “statesman” status when an even more “reprehensible” (which you can read as “threatening to my candidate’s bid for power”) Republican comes along and the former Republican pres or candidate says something unflattering about him (so far not her). But there is no more space in Democrats’ minds (if there ever was – winners write the histories, and Lincoln did win) for the log-cabin-dwelling, rolled-up-sleeves, plain-speaking, bard-of-the-backwoods Republican. All Republicans are deplorable now, before they speak a word.
So… your critique rings just as hollow as Neo’s post suggests.
My paraphrase of a biblical preposition,”Those that bless Israel I will bless, and those that curse Israel I will curse.” My particular Christian belief includes agreeing with this proposition. In fact, if you call yourself a Christian and you reject this proposition, that calls into question your understanding of Christianity. To me, as a Christian, one of his most significant actions is moving the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. No other president would take the political risk of offending Islamic countries. The sanctity of Jerusalem is at the very heart of Israel as a nation. Again, if you’re a Christian and you don’t understand the significance you’re just not paying attention.
1. I’ll suggest that Trump’s cooties worry many people because they already don’t have room enough for their own. SNARK! she added gaily.
2. I think (and here I’m quite serious) that we should all make it a habit to follow parker’s example, in which he writes
Best not to strengthen public belief in Robert Francis’s hip masque of homeboy Hispanic ancestry.
3. David Foster, interesting comment on October 19, 2019 at 5:35 pm about “top-down deductive thinkers” vs. “intuitive pattern-recognizing thinkers.”
I think there’s some of both in me, too. Maybe in most people? Probably human intelligence requires a bit of both, but then again the top-down deductive type who overdoes it can end up quite authoritarian (or you may say “bossy”!).
I’m going to put this out as a data point. I don’t want to argue about it, just want to make it clear that my views exist, they’re very similar to Dreher’s, and they’re not a result of media manipulation, desire to make a show before the elite, or anything of that sort. Nobody much cares what I think about politics, and I don’t much care what other people think about mine. What I think of Trump is based on Trump himself.
I’m a serious Christian–I don’t say a good one, but it’s the lens through which I view the world and evaluate what I see. I’m also a political conservative, and my Christianity has a lot to do with that. I almost always vote Republican. I live in a very very red state, so I have the luxury of voting third-party or abstaining, knowing that the Republican is going to win.
I think there are very good grounds for believing that Trump is a little crazy. And that is based not on what anyone has said about him but on listening to him. Before he ran for president I was barely aware of his existence–he was just some celebrity of no interest to me. When he became a serious contender, I started listening to him. And although I could see his appeal I also said to my wife, ca August 2015 when we heard him give a speech, “He’s a nut.”
And despite the good things he’s done–three cheers for judges–I still think he has a screw loose, and that worries me. But, like Dreher, I may very well vote for him next year. There’s absolutely no way I’ll vote for any of the Democrats who are running. If the attempt to circumvent the electoral college actually seems to be a possibility I’ll crawl over cut glass to vote for Trump. That I would say that in spite of my reservations (to put it mildly) about him says a lot about my view of the general lay of the land. The Democrats are anti-Christian, purely and simply. But a lot of people are averse to Trump for perfectly legitimate reasons.
Trump is 9 years older than me and has been a public figure all of my adult life. So imagine my shock when he appeared on stage to accept victory on election night with a genuinely humbled* mien. Not sure about Trump having a spiritual conversion but I think he definitely feels ‘the hand of the Lord laid upon him’.
Rod Dreher. This is the “Christian” who rushed to condemn the Covington Catholic boys. What a tool.
Icky. And cooties. So right, Neo. Superficial self-congratulatory snobbism. What do they think this is – high school? When the history of the USA’s breakup is written this vanity and the harm it has done should have a chapter all it’s own. There is a reason pride is a sin.
*’Humbled’ – but not ‘Penitent’. I don’t think we’ll ever see penitent out of the Donald!
Mac,
You can’t to just to put it “out” and expect no response to hurt your seemingly delicate self sense of preciousness. I think the non PC response if sissy.
I guess these are the Christian equivalents of Jews who claim to support Israel but won’t vote for Trump over a Democratic party that has become increasingly hostile to Israel.
Harry. You said your friends were equally disgusted with Clinton. Nobody believes that. I know you have to say that. But, whatever one thinks of Trump’ s sexual history, there’s no equivalent of Juanita Broaderick trying to gat somebody’s attention.
Mac – I hear you; I don’t now and never have *liked* Trump, and I think he has some deficits as a person that brought about this feeling in me, despite my barely being able to pick him out of a lineup before his election. But those deficits seem to add up to “icky” when I take them out and look at them. I don’t like what he does with his hair. I don’t like his rhetorical style a lot of the time. I don’t like his name-calling (though I DO like his willingness to push back, even fight back, against those who call *him* and, by extension or sometimes directly, his supporters names). I don’t like what his relationship history suggests about his, oh, take your pick – morals, values, attention span.
But none of these things is disqualifying. And my beef with the impeachment crowd (who spontaneously formed into a mob just about Jan. 25, 2017) is that they *start* with “icky” and then go looking – endlessly! – for the mask of disqualification, rather than engaging with him as duly elected president.
Now, of course I wouldn’t want to learn that the person I voted for, even though one hand was firmly clamped to my nose when I did it, was disqualified for his office. But if it happened, I would accept it. I have also, a number of times, voted for people I *did* like and really want to see win, and they lost – and I’ve accepted that too. The other side seems to lack this capacity. What’s wrong with New York, to coin a phrase?
Seems rather simple, to quote Voltaire’s viewpoint, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
Sure, Trump might not be the best possible, mild-mannered, prim and proper President, but his heart is in the right place, he is a fighter, and he is far and away better than the Democrat alternatives, or some imagined “perfect” President, who might look and talk the part, but who withers under criticism, and who can’t actually get anything of significance done.
I wish the liberals would just belly up to the bar, put the bottle on the counter, pour it straight up and gulp it down.
We already had Obama’s harassment of pro-Israel Jewish organizations. Yang wants to outlaw circumcision. Many of their beloved Scandinavian countries outlaw kosher slaughter.
Someone should ask these bastards if/when/how they would outlaw Judaism.
Since we are “putting out data points” I will say that Trump seems to me to be a guy who made his money, some of it like PT Barnum ( A sucker is born every minute) who decided that the country was going to hell and maybe he could do something about it. It has cost him and his children a fortune. I have read several biographies by people who know him well. The best is by Conrad Black who has written several excellent biographies and who, incidentally, has been the subject of hatred and persecution for political reasons. Trump is very alone, even now, in a sea of self interested “Faithless Agents,” who have run the government for their own profit or career advantages.
I don’t know, with the level of successful vote fraud in 2018, if he will win the election. It’s hard for me to accept that serious Christians can’t see this. Maybe the fictional Christians seen in the movie “High Noon.”
Mac, I tried to hear, but are you really saying something other than “icky”?
I really wish I could go back to meet my US friends who had bad things to say about Trump and rephrase their complaints … “So you mean you don’t like him because he’s icky?”
Mac, compare with Jamie, who is honest about “icky”: hair, rhetorical style, name-calling (noting it’s mostly part of his fight back), and finally, relationships.
He married 3 different, lovely women, and cheated on each them. Seemingly multiple times. Probably not as much cheating, total, as Pres. Bill Clinton, who was enabled in his cheating by his lying, ambitious wife. Maybe not as much, but more in the open.
Mac, you are believing that Trump is a little crazy.
Your lack of ANY specifics make me think that you’re on the verge of being dishonest with yourself.
You think the Erdogan letter was crazy? Or just very different, and probably more effective, than every other professional politician.
You think firing Mattis was crazy? Or just very different, and possibly more effective for the purposes of pulling US troops out of wars, than most pols.
Maybe you think stopping Endless Wars is crazy? Yet Rod D. claims to be anti-Iraq war, and his main website is heavily anti-war Reps, and anti-military industrial complex.
Whenever Rod has gone to some length at why Trump is crazy bad, I read Rod’s critique, but then disagree on how terrible it is that Trump has that idea. Sometimes I even agree with Rod (I didn’t like Trump’s treatment of the Kurds), but the arguments aren’t fair, aren’t rational.
So please give a few specifics, and be clear why it’s more than just “icky”. I think the vast majority of college educated (/indoctrinated) folks have too much unrecognized “Trump is icky”.
It probably would help to quote an entire Trump tweet, or tweet thread, to get what Trump is actually “saying” in his tweets. Too often the Dem media take out a phrase and then add “explanation” about what he means, which is NOT what he actually said.
Parker (or rather parker, I guess): as I intimated in my comment, I don’t care what you think.
Rod Dreher. This is the “Christian” who rushed to condemn the Covington Catholic boys. What a tool.
I wouldn’t doubt Dreher is a Christian. He’s also an emotions-based writer, quite reactive and given to making ill-considered statements he has to retract. And his default reaction is to curry-favor with the liberals on his comment boards. His other-directed qualities and his default assumption that liberals (and screwballs like Daniel Larison) are the arbiters of value is why he has no audience among authentic conservatives (as opposed to the spurious sort among The American Conservative‘s contributors and readers).
He married 3 different, lovely women, and cheated on each them. Seemingly multiple times. Probably not as much cheating, total, as Pres. Bill Clinton, who was enabled in his cheating by his lying, ambitious wife. Maybe not as much, but more in the open.
I don’t think Marla Maples qualifies as ‘lovely’. Melania is lovely. You might call Ivana lovely, but ‘admirable’ might be a more precise word.
His betrayal of Ivana in 1989 is well-established. Other contentions in regard to his adulteries tend to be non-specific or disputed.
Trumps support is extremely high in the religious Jewish community,
not so much among chaser essing intermarried Schiff types
The “Trump is icky” explanation does seem to hold for some of the anti-Trump conservative crowd. In more genteel terms, after reading a David French (IIRC) anti-Trump defense, I described it as valuing “Personality over Policy.”
That does seem to get to the gist of their complaint. I think my wife nailed part of Trump’s personality: he talks like a blue-collar New York City type. She grew up in that millieu and at times shares those traits, so her observations have support.
Two particular traits that I think others don’t understand: (1) the use of hyperbole (it is never cold in the house, it’s “freezing”), and (2) the refusal to admit wrong (one may modify one’s actions or do something to atone, but will never admit to being wrong except, perhaps, in a passive-aggressive manner).
Yes Trump is crude and rude, but as far as his behaviour is not acceptable of the office of the President? This is not reflective of history. Presidents are not Saints. Carter was a honest, smart, and kind President and a decent person in his real life. He also was eaten alive while in office. People loved FDR who cheated on his wife. Clinton has been legitimately accused of rape and perverted behaviour towards a number of women. The Kennedy’s, John, Robert and Ted, accomplished great things, but were very naughty.
The real issue is that these people in Washington have been elected to a prestigious office to serve the Citizens of this Country. They are ‘hired’ for a job! Even though some treat their job like a kingdom, they are not kings and queens.
I think that even though Trump has faced gale force winds in his presidency, he has done a decent ‘job’!
Would you have preferred HRC with her recent attacks on a Major in the Army, an indigenous woman, Democrat and Congresswoman running for President? Now her behaviour is disgusting, rude, crude, unbelievable, and not appropriate for her position as a former First Lady and Secretary of State.
The Kennedy’s, John, Robert and Ted, accomplished great things,
What, exactly? John Kennedy had a creditable service record and made some good calls in office (see the Cuban missile crisis). Robert was known as a crusader contra labor racketeering. How much of that consisted of actual accomplishment and how much was PR? As for Ted, recall the comment of one Raymond Shamie, his Republican opponent in 1982, who noted that EMK was most associated in the public mind with national health insurance. “His bill never got out of subcommittee, and he was chairman of the subcommittee.”
JHCorcoran said:
“The Kennedy’s, John, Robert and Ted, accomplished great things, but were very naughty.”
Ted? Great things? Like swimming, in the Tidal Channel division?
I’m of a mind, with regards to the Cult of Kennedy, that the Kennedy family’s great accomplishments are open to debate. But when it comes to Ted, I mean, come on. And wasn’t he the Original Gangsta when it came to Russian Interference?
Sorry. The ‘Lion of the Senate’, even dead, and the hagiographic lens through which the Kennedy clan is viewed pushes my damned buttons.
Yes Trump is crude and rude, but as far as his behaviour is not acceptable of the office of the President?
In a different period, you wouldn’t want Trump there. You had ample choices from among men with passable manners. We don’t live in that period, we live in our own time. Evangelicals, like anyone else, make satisficing decisions among available choices. That’s a banal observation, but it’s not difficult to locate members of the intelligentsia who do not understand that or who profess for effect to not understand it.
The circumstances faced by evangelicals (and old-school Catholics, while we’re at it) are as follows: the legal establishment, the education establishment, the media, and the Democratic Party have it in for them. So do the useless capons who run most religious denominations. Their own organizations are in our time commonly run by poseurs (David Gushee, John Fea) and goofs (Russell Moore). Their behavior is going to have as its objects avoiding certain disagreeable phenomena, not advancing their own views in the society at large. Anyone who has been watching knows that the Republican establishment pockets their votes then sells them out. Trump hasn’t done that yet, and doesn’t care about the good opinion of people who are enemies of the evangelical subculture. This isn’t that difficult.
I remember listening to a liberal talk show savagely criticize Richard Nixon on the day of Nixon’s funeral. I think it was Alan Colmes but I could be wrong, having been so long ago now. Anyway, I remember thinking “This guy had been hating Nixon his entire adult life and will go on hating Nixon until his own death. Why can’t he let it go for this one day and recognize Nixon may have been a miserable human being but he was still a fellow human being?”
Then I had an epiphany. This liberal had probably spent his entire life defining himself in opposition to Nixon. His sense of self-worth was based at least in part on this formula:
1. Nixon is bad.
2. I hate Nixon.
3. Therefore, I am good.
The obvious reverse of that formula, of course, means that ANYTHING which makes Nixon less bad makes that guy less good.
That is what is going on with Trump. He’s punctured the narcissistic bubble of self-regard a lot of white professionals surround themselves with. They don’t actually do much about prejudice or injustice or inequality besides mouth the politically correct rhetoric about such things. Then along comes Trump and he just tramples on all these social cues and unwritten rules about what it means to be a “good person” and they lose their damn minds. And while Rod Dreher lives a bit more like a Trump supporter today, he still desperately wants to think of himself as part of that class of college educated, white, urban professionals.
And yes, this anti-Trump hysteria is a white thing. There’s plenty of black folk and Latino folk and other minority folk who dislike and even despise Trump but #TheResistance is a thing of white professionals and those who aspire to be part of that class.
Mike
Tom Grey: ‘are you really saying something other than “icky”?’
A fair question, but yes, I am. I’m saying that I think there are reasonable objective grounds to believe that he is…well, the best way to express it that I can think of is the old formula: “Not right in the head.” Not flat-out crazy, but unstable and dysfunctional to a degree. A degree that is cause for concern in a president. Like I said, I don’t really want to argue the point, and even if I did I don’t have time.
I’m just saying that people who are not liberals or NeverTrump conservatives can and do come to that conclusion in the same way I did, by listening to and observing Trump himself. I don’t take anything I read about him in the mainstream press at face value, so it’s not that. And maybe I’m wrong; I hope so.
When Trump won, I said “If he appoints good judges and doesn’t get us into a nuclear war, I’ll consider it a win.” So far so good.
“Not flat-out crazy, but unstable and dysfunctional to a degree.”
Let’s put aside the fact that Donald Trump has not only been massively successful in his life but has recovered from massive failures to be that successful. Let’s just focus on the fact that Trump has been President now for over 2 1/2 years and has faced a level and intensity of opposition that not only have none of us ever seen before but which I’m not sure any U.S. President has faced outside of Abraham Lincoln. Given that…has Donald Trump performed as President better or worse than you expected on November 7, 2016?
If you say “worse,” I’m going to call you a liar.
But if what you’re saying it that Donald Trump doesn’t act the way you act or the way you expect important people to act, all I can do is point out that Steve Jobs, George S. Patton, Albert Einstein, Ulysses S. Grant, Pablo Picasso, and a host of other great and famous folks were “not right in the head” as well.
And by the way, the “normal” alternative to Donald Trump just said a sitting Congresswoman and member of the U.S. military was being “groomed” by Russia to run a third-party campaign in order to hand the 202 election to Donald Trump. That’s who all the “normal” people told us to vote for in 2016.
Mike
Mbunge said:
“Let’s put aside the fact that Donald Trump has not only been massively successful in his life but has recovered from massive failures to be that successful. Let’s just focus on the fact that Trump has been President now for over 2 1/2 years and has faced a level and intensity of opposition that not only have none of us ever seen before but which I’m not sure any U.S. President has faced outside of Abraham Lincoln. Given that…has Donald Trump performed as President better or worse than you expected on November 7, 2016?
If you say “worse,” I’m going to call you a liar.”
That’s very well put.
I wonder how many of these “Trump is icky” people are one-source info people? Like my uncle who watches MSNBC and thinks he’s getting solid information. And he won’t even listen to his brother or anyone else who expresses a non-congruent viewpoint. These people seem to be thoroughly brainwashed, stockholmed, whatever – who could even get through their mental armor? How would one go about doing that?
“Beto O’Rourke got a lot of attention . . . ”
That is what it is – a cry for attention. In a Democratic field filled with so many mediocre candidates just how do they stand out?
I haven’t heard any ideas that have gotten my attention; at least not in a good way. So, I am wondering if the reason so many of the Democratic candidates are coming across as nuts is maybe they think if they say something outlandish they will get a lot of attention?
“The Kennedy’s, John, Robert and Ted, accomplished great things,”
like causing the Vietnam War by killing Diem?
Ho, LBJ and Nixon all agreed that the stupidest thing we ever did in Vietnam was killing Diem
yeah great job.
Karma’s a bitch
Do the people that think like this count as a religion?
besides.. we are now finding out why in the past, women were discouraged from politics… really…
Activists behind National Period Day say that “period poverty” is an issue plaguing the country. They assess that “1 in 4 women struggle to afford period products due to a lack of income.” They also believe “period stigma” is making menstruation a “taboo topic,” despite the emergence of the Women’s March movement, which resulted in Ashley Judd’s infamous “Nasty Woman” speech in the nation’s capital in 2017.
in ALL the milinea of the patriarchy, we never had national penis love day
nor did we ever really really keep the codpiece as much as tissue stuffers did later with the over the shoulder boulder holder..
Just be glad that Chelsea Clinton thinks that the country sucks..
Why can’t he let it go for this one day and recognize Nixon may have been a miserable human being but he was still a fellow human being?”
Because Nixon wasn’t a miserable human being. He had issues which came to be glaringly manifest when he occupied an executive position, something he hadn’t done prior to age 55. However, his mundane life was agreeable enough. Judith Viorst, Woodward-and-Bernstein (in a more circumspect way), Fawn Brodie, Seymour Hersh, and others grasped at straws in an attempt to build a case that he was a miserable human being, but the manifest reality of his domestic life belies that. He had a 50+ year marriage, had the affection and loyalty of his daughters, he was congenial with his sons-in-law, he had the affection of his grandchildren, he had no history of intramural family squabbles with his own relatives or his wife’s relatives, and he had scant history of broken friendships or detraction delivered by people who were close to him. Unlike with most people, familiarity with Richard Nixon did not breed contempt (as a rule). The people who got closest to him were the people who thought the most highly of him. He had few friends, but the friendships he had (Bebe Rebozo, Robert Abplanalp, and Walter Annenberg) were solid. However, we live in a stupid age where people who are undemonstrative and somewhat ill-at-ease are denigrated; you can read Woodward-and-Bernstein and see what that looks like.
Mbunge: “if what you’re saying it that Donald Trump doesn’t act the way you act or the way you expect important people to act…” It isn’t. What I’m saying is what I said. It seems clear enough.
“What I’m saying is what I said. It seems clear enough.”
No, it isn’t. This reminds me of some anti-Trumpers who complain that people are no longer capable of being persuaded nowadays. But that’s not true. This place is proof that some folks have been persuaded to be more supportive of Trump. The problem is anti-Trumpers are frustrated they can’t persuade people to abandon their support for Trump but refuse to consider that their arguments are weak.
We’ve just seen the entire American media and political establishment spend TWO YEARS obsessed with a kooky conspiracy theory about Donald Trump being in league with Vladimir Putin. We’ve just seen a good chunk of the world media and political establishment parade a teenager with Asperger syndrome around as though she were a legitimate authority on climate science and global environmental and economic policy.
So when you single out Donald Trump as being “crazy” and “dysfunctional”…I genuinely do not know what you mean, other than you think he’s “icky.”
Mike
Somehow makes me think that the tactic of targeted, inexpensive online propaganda might have other uses than creating an echo chamber to pass the Iran deal.
What I’m saying is what I said.
What you said was “A fair question, but yes, I am. I’m saying that I think there are reasonable objective grounds to believe that he is…well, the best way to express it that I can think of is the old formula: “Not right in the head.” Not flat-out crazy, but unstable and dysfunctional to a degree. A degree that is cause for concern in a president. Like I said, I don’t really want to argue the point, and even if I did I don’t have time”
Leaving the rest of us puzzled as to what these ‘reasonable objective grounds’ might be.
MBunge
That can’t be! After all, Harry has told us that the Republican side of the aisle is where we find those obsessed with “bizarre conspiracy theories.” 🙂
Mac:
Actually, many people here don’t see “reasonable, objective grounds” to think Trump isn’t “right in the head.” Unusual, yes; he’s a different kind of thinker with an unconventional approach. But I certainly have not seen anything he’s done or said as president to make me question whether he’s “right in the head.” Most of things that have made people think that way – such as his claim that he was “wiretapped” – have turned out to be spot on, although one might quibble with the terminology because it’s not technically a wiretap.
So if you want people to understand, you would need to cite the specific evidence you’re talking about.
Harry,
I didn’t even vote for Trump. I voted for Gary Johnson just because I could not bring myself to vote for him. He is most of the negative things that people say, “Crass”, “boorish”, etc. Personally, I cringe while reading most of his tweets.
However, while not a “fan”, I am a convert. Why? He is actually doing everything he promised, including some of things I didn’t and don’t like. He is the first president I can remember since Reagan that has actually followed through on their campaign promises.
So, as long as he keeps working to “drain the swamp”, I am on board… even when it gets ugly.
Like Neo said, Mac.
Not all the evidence, nor most, but something specific.
Like maybe he appoints good judges and doesn’t get us into a nuclear war
Oh wait, you DID get specific — for a Trump win.
Where’s any specifics for a Trump “not right in the head”?
What’s the first specific thing that you remember Trump saying which makes you think he’s crazy? (Biggest inauguration audience? Mexico will pay for the Wall? I love all the people? Letter to Turkey “we can make a deal”?)
Really. I’m really interested in some specifics you think about. It’s likely I’ll agree Trump was wrong or exaggerating or being “too vicious”.
(We came here for an argument.
OH, I’m sorry, this is abuse. Argument is down the hall…)
CBI, you hit the nail on the head. The hyperbole. The unwillingness to admit fault – in fact, the tendency to double down when questioned. These are *specifically* the things about Trump’s speech patterns that bug me so much. Thank you for the articulation!
I wonder if there’s any chance that these and similar characteristics of Trump and his interactions with others, things that come down to “dialect,” may make some people so uncomfortable that they take them as a sign of mental instability.
I’m serious. When I first met my husband’s family, I thought they were certifiable. They could go from laughing at each other’s jokes to calling one another unrepeatable names in the space of about two sentences. It took me some months to realize that they weren’t crazy – they just had a VERY different manner than I was used to. And – being blatantly classist here – I will add that his family was all blue collar, with my husband the first college graduate; my family is all college educated, even the women, going back three generations at least. So my upbringing was characterized by – I’ll say “reserve,” and his, by a rather fearless emotional openness. Because I love him, I tried hard to understand them, and it worked pretty well. Maybe, for me, because I voted for Trump – because of that skin I have in the game – I’m willing to try harder to understand the meaning behind the irritating and unsettling manner.
Where’s any specifics for a Trump “not right in the head”?
His comments on RB Cruz were very odd. The President doesn’t have the filter ordinary people do (much less ordinary politicians). Someone else might have mused over that picture (the man in it is a similar type to the young RB Cruz) but not made a public statement.
I don’t know if this is germane.
I “get” Trump.
He often says something off the wall on stage that strikes him as funny.
I do that too. It’s not what most people do, because as someone said: “filters”, but it is candid.
The guy is transparent.
Maybe if someone thinks he’s “not right in the head”, they see something in him (I’m not sure “projection” fits here) that they are concerned about in their self.
Neo et al.: The point I was trying to make is that there are some people–I and a fair number of my acquaintances are representative–who are Christian, conservative, not NeverTrumpers, etc., who came to the conclusion that Trump is a flake based on what Trump himself said and did. It wasn’t because we were brainwashed by the MSM, which we all despise. It wasn’t “based on some sort of feeling of revulsion towards Trump on a style and personality level.” It was listening to him talk, as I first did in August (I think) 2015, and thinking “This guy is either a nut or a shameless liar.”
That’s what I mean when I say “reasonable, objective grounds”–that it was not based on mere feelings, was not the result of brainwashing, inattention, desire to look good to our peers among the elite (ha!–none of us is within light years of elite opinion makers), or anything except Trump himself. I realize that Trump fans disagree with the conclusion, and that’s fine–as I said I don’t have either the time or the inclination to debate that. The point I’m insisting on is, so to speak, “meta” in relation to that–that our view, right or wrong, isn’t simple personal dislike.
And by the way as far as I know not a single one of the people I’m thinking of, including myself, voted for Hillary, or will vote for the Democrat in 2020. The alternative to Trump still looks worse than Trump, but that doesn’t mean Trump looks good. I think it’s entirely possible that the victory represented by Trump will be Pyrrhic. Time will tell.
I’ve been blogging for fifteen years. My name on this post links to the blog. I don’t write about politics all that much, but anyone who’s interested can read what I’ve had to say on that subject at this link, most recent posts first:
https://www.lightondarkwater.com/politics/
Trump may not be particularly or showily “religious,” but I wonder if any of those who consider themselves “religious” buy the phony piety of politicians like Pilosi or Butigeg as being superior?
To quote from Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice,”
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
Question:
How convinced are we that the NeverTrump commenters in blogs — whoever it is that says all these unfounded or disproportionate charges — are real humans giving their real opinions?
Their perspective on Trump doesn’t seem to make sense, even from their own perspective and in conjunction with their own declared policy interests.
Given that, is it possible that some large percentage of them are bots or sock-puppets? Are they an attempt to astroturf an anti-Trump preference cascade?
How can we know?
“It wasn’t because we were brainwashed by the MSM”
Can you be sure? A huge amount of the “information” we get about Trump is filtered by the MSM, even if we think we are not following it. It gets repeated and becomes “conventional wisdom” within days if not hours.
>I don’t have either the time or the inclination to debate that.
And nobody’s asking you to debate it. They’re just pointing out that you’re using that strawman misrepresentation of the challenges to your assertions of “reasonable, objective grounds” as a cover for not providing any examples of such, let alone evidence supporting them.
>The point I’m insisting on is, so to speak, “meta” in relation to that–that our view, right or wrong, isn’t simple personal dislike.
And the counter-point they keep blocking you with is that no matter how “meta” you want to keep things when it suits you, your position is based on a claim of “reasonable, objective grounds”.
As long as you don’t repudiate that assertion, you don’t get to unilaterally change the conversation level to a “meta” position where you just suddenly! like magic! don’t have to back things up.
You said “reasonable, objective grounds”. What are they? If you’re not going to identify them, then the ‘reasonable, objective’ conclusion is that they’re neither reasonable nor objective, and on some level you know it, but nevertheless, like a juvenile, you’re still unwilling to retract an overstatement you should never have made ITFP.
VDH, American Greatness: “Why Do They Hate Him So?”
Ok, one last shot at getting my point across. I have a fairly negative view of Trump, notwithstanding that I think the Democratic alternatives are worse. And way back in my first comment I said “What I think of Trump is based on Trump himself.” That is my point. That my reservations about Trump come from observing what the man himself says and does, not on a general impression of “ickiness,” reading what others say about him, desire to curry favor with liberals, etc.
I repeat: what I think about Trump is based on Trump himself, the man himself, as revealed by his own words and actions.
It seems that the more I try to elaborate on that point, the more I obscure it, so I’m going to make myself leave it at that.
Of course many (all?) of you disagree with my negative view of Trump. Fine. That’s the part I keep saying I’m not interested in arguing about. I could be wrong about him. You could be wrong, too. For the sake of the country I hope I *am* wrong.
And some seem to think I cannot possibly be both truthful and sincere in saying that I’m judging Trump on Trump. In that respect you’re arguing like leftists, and responding is useless.
“It was listening to him talk, as I first did in August (I think) 2015, and thinking “This guy is either a nut or a shameless liar.””
Wait…you listen to a guy speak ONCE, immediately decide he’s a “nut or a shameless liar” and you think that’s reasonable and objective? That behavior actually indicates the exact opposite. It indicates an emotional, non-rational reaction.
And let’s be clear, there are perfectly legitimate reasons to dislike/disapprove of Donald Trump. We’re not discussing those. We’re talking about the casual allegations of incompetence, mental instability, being a Russian agent, the refusal to acknowledge substantive accomplishments, and the general hysteria of anti-Trump criticism which are clearly NOT based on anything reasonable or objective.
Mike
“the general hysteria of anti-Trump criticism which are clearly NOT based on anything reasonable or objective.”
A lot of this is simply the dark pleasure of being part of an in-group attacking a socially-approved victim.
From Goethe’ Faust:
How readily I used to blame
Some poor young soul that came to shame!
Never found sharp enough words like pins
To stick into other people’s sins
Black as it seemed, I tarred it to boot
Pretty similar.
And never black enough to suit
Mac:
Do you have a reading comprehension problem? More than a few on this blog have stated that they don’t like President Trump as a person or like his style but appreciate and applaud his actions and many of his policies, Did you miss all that?
It appears you are a blockhead, but a confident blockhead, and probably another concern troll.
Can we agree that it is possible to dislike someone on a personal level yet judge that person’s deeds fairly? That’s what it comes down to.
We are not a DT Love-In group, but we are tired of the outrageous and manifestly dishonest attacks on Trump – and on anyone who dares to defend him – by people who seem to be literally unmoored from reality. You have every right to disapprove of Trump’s actual policies and actions, and of Trump himself as a human being, but in an environment in which we’re seeing hysterical lunacy, completely bereft of logic or facts, you have to understand when we demand tangible reality to debate upon.
I won’t go out into Fantasyland to debate dumb little Millennials who couldn’t tell you when WWII occurred, or name its major belligerents and what side they were on, who think Trump is “literally Hitler.” I’m not going into Fantasyland for NeverTrumpers either.
Mac, to address your “[a]nd some seem to think I cannot possibly be both truthful and sincere in saying that I’m judging Trump on Trump” I say I do believe you, have from the start, what’s more, so much so I’m captivated to know precisely what it was he said to trigger your honest response (gisting) that “He’s koo-koo”.
Most especially I want to know or learn from you because I haven’t had exactly that “screw loose” sense of him myself, even where his many odd behaviors are so peculiar to me.
I give an example . . . for instance, his intense litigiousness (on either side, suing and being sued) is utterly foreign to me — something I account to those who have vast wealth to bestow upon armies of lawyers, a condition us plain folk can’t imagine, let alone practice.
But where this behavior is odd to me (since I think much of it voluntary in one way or another) it isn’t accountably kooky or nuts. And right there is where I desire the concrete examples I trust you have, yet have so far been reluctant to reveal. I mean, perhaps I’ll agree with you, perhaps not, but without the phenomenon laid plainly before me . . . I got nuttin’ to judge from, one way, or the other way. It’s the meat that fills the pie, not the shell.
Invest in ovens and crematoria
Just one other thing. I’d challenge Mac to go back and read what he’s written. Is he describing a calm, considered, intellectual analysis of Trump? No. His own words detail a visceral, emotional reaction to the man and it is a reaction that has been proven partly, but significantly, to be incorrect. Not entirely wrong, mind you, but meaningfully inaccurate.
Mac is utterly unwilling to acknowledge that error or to correct it, which is my great concern. The rise of Donald Trump is proof positive of a great many things gone wrong in our political culture. Yet far from learning any lessons from this, the reaction to Trump has largely been to double- and even triple-down on what’s wrong. For pity’s sake, we’ve now got liberals in America looking to the C.I.A. as a beacon of honor and integrity in the world. THE C.I.A.!
Mike
Lie until you get in power, and then do what you want.
Isn’t this true of most politicians? Some more, some less, but I’d say one of the more significant things about Trump is that he has at least attempted to do much of what he claimed before being elected. He’s been stopped more often than not, and yes, in some cases, I’d suspect he fully expected he’d be stopped… but he tried, and that’s a lot more than most of those bastards ever do…
:-/
Not to suggest any defense of Beto, who is an unsufferable moron who should be denied access to any political office, elected, appointed, or lottery-winner, above dogcatcher, and probably even that. He probably couldn’t catch a dog if it were strapped to the roof of Romney’s car.
there is a large number of Christian believers saying how much they hate Trump, and that maybe they’ll sit this one out.
Neo, there is an array of Christians-in-Name-Only who are basically liberal idiots. …and anyone who rejects the Bible’s pretty clear rejection of homosexuality is a posdef CINO — a Christian can very much choose how to approach LGBT issues, but in the end, they cannot “approve” of it. I personally class it as a largely personal option with few victims other than the individuals, barring the loudmouth ram-it-down-your-throat extremists who already hate Christians to a degree that their chickensh** hearts won’t go after the vastly more dangerous and homophobic Islam for a moment.
The CINOs don’t need to be Never-Trumpers (which suggests a GOP affiliation).
So they were never going to be a loss, anyway. Or they are RINOs, who, being essentially liberals, have no issue with lying about their plans.
I don’t understand the supposed dainty squeamishness of what are supposed to be religious people complaining about Trump. Politicians have never been mistaken for saints and the other side appears to be fixing to outlaw religious practice, among other freedoms, in the name of freedom.
Astroturfing by concern trolls feels likely. Is there really a widespread longing for the old days of being persecuted and thrown to the lions? Who knows. Maybe they have learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, to paraphrase Dr, Strangelove.
sdferr, thank you for your relevant and rational response. 🙂
‘I’m captivated to know precisely what it was he said to trigger your honest response (gisting) that “He’s koo-koo”.’ That’s a fair request. The reason I don’t do it is that it would take a *lot* of time and I have way too much work to do. It’s not any one thing, and I’d have to spend a lot of time tracking down sources etc. I’m sure it would require at least a thousand words, and I’d make it a post on my own blog, not a comment on someone else’s.
Also, and maybe more important, at this point the question is irrelevant to my own voting. Unless something changes really dramatically, I’ll either vote for Trump next year or, **IF I’M SURE** that it won’t affect the outcome, vote third party. That “if” was a pretty sure thing in 2016, possibly less so in 2020, due to those scurrilous attempts to manipulate the electoral college.
It occurs to me that Obama may be revered as a saint. And, hilariously, now Trump is reviled as satan.
“It’s not any one thing, and I’d have to spend a lot of time tracking down sources etc. I’m sure it would require at least a thousand words”
If it takes you that much time and that many words to explain why someone is “unstable and dysfunctional” and why you immediately declared him “a nut” after listening to him, you’re not describing a rational, thoughtful analysis. You’re describing a non-rational gut reaction which you are now trying to retroactively pretend is something else.
Mike
More evidence that maybe women should stay out of politics
tongue firmly planted in cheek
Via Daily Mail:
The maker of Always sanitary pads has given in to claims of discrimination by transgender men and removed the ‘Venus’ symbol of the female sex from the wrapping.
Outraged women are now boycotting the leading brand after the decision by makers Procter & Gamble (P&G) to kowtow to trans activists who were born female and still use sanitary products.
just to be clear
Proclaims feminist Julie Bindel:
“We’re now moving towards the total elimination of women’s biology.”
oh hail Lilith… oh hail whomever…
[does this mean women have prostates and all those cases that turned on them not having them can go free from prison?]
OBloodyHell:
No, I don’t see it as true of most politicians. Some, for sure. And others do lie about this or that, or at least change their minds (for real) while in office. Or other pressures arise, as with George Bush I’s “read my lips” or the changes that 9/11 wrought in his son as president
Obama was the first president I can recall who lied in a fundamental sense about who he was and what he intended. Or rather, if he didn’t lie (and I believe that he did lie), he used generalities (“hope and change”) to mask what he intended, which was far more leftist than he let on. He also lied very directly about his attitude on gay marriage rather than undergoing a change of mind. Obama was the the first Alinskyite president, in other words. And he showed the way for the Big Lie, although apparently the Overton window has now shifted enough that people like AOC don’t think they have to lie anymore (unless, of course, she has even worse planned than she’s already said).
LOL
Like some pack-traveling adolescent, they value inclusion more than their own freedom.
They cannot stand the thought of being thought gauche. If the pack ostracizes, not just jibes at the, them how will they live? And since they don’t know enough science or math or even logic and philosophy to effectively fight back against the mouthpieces of the spirit of the age, they are reduced to pleading for tolerance because … ‘the Constitution and our values, blah blah blah’.
Yes that’s right, another case of citing scripture in order to prove God exists to an atheist. Can’t we all just get …. whine … get along?
This is what happens when men produce nothing but opinions for a living. No houses or medical instrumentation to point to as the result of their life efforts, no machine tools or dies and molds or transfer lines, no paved streets, no power generation stations or combustion turbines driving aircraft.
So upon would their self confidence and independence be built?
They are completely dependent on the opinions of others for their well-being, and their life strategy is predicated on their acceptance and internalization of it.
God, or Gaia, or someone, spare us from piously weak-limbed conservatives. They do as much, if not more, harm than good.
Mac, thanks for a link to your blog. I think I’ll add it to my (already too long) list of blogs. I was looking over some of your posts to see what you have specific. On your post about the Dem mob meltdown, you said two important things:
a) when the Dems hate, they say it’s actually righteous anger, to themselves — since they define themselves as the party against hate. They can’t be the party of hate.
b) against the mob Part of the secret power of a mob is a truth of human nature that we would all prefer not to see: it feels good to hate. Really good. There’s a kind of ecstasy in surrendering to it. There is a lot of hate in our politics now. There is plenty of it on the right, but there is at least as much on the left. And many or most of those on the left are unable to see it, even when, in cases like this, it is on striking public display.
Here again, you say there is plenty of hate on the right. But your example is hate from Dems against the right.
I think there are plenty of “unknown”, not-on-Wiki people who can be interviewed and express right-based hate against Dems. But these are not “public figures”. All the public figure hate I see, including Trump (where I don’t see hate so much as mockery of Fake News, for instance), all the hate examples are from Dems.
Lots of folks claim there’s plenty of hate on the right, and presume hate from Trump, but without specific examples. Or, with twisted examples (like Charlottesville)
We are often seeing specific examples of hate from the Trump critics (Trump-haters), with examples, like Rod’s Trump-hate, again, on the Turkey letter.
My son also thinks Trump is a jerk on this issue, and often. And he too, wants to deny that it’s because he thinks Trump is icky — yet hasn’t really come up with good criticisms.
Obama said “You can keep your doctor”. That was a lie, and Obama knew it when he said it … AND, when Obamacare was passed, it turned out to be a lie.
All who criticized Obama about this were right. That’s an example of a good criticism.
I haven’t seen, and don’t know of, but am truly interested in finding such “good criticisms” of Trump. Him cheating on wives and divorcing twice seems, true, strong, and is the one good criticism I know of, and use against him. (Tho at least all of his kids were born to women he was married to when they were born.)
Here in Slovakia, we have a party (new from 2016) called “We Are Family” (Sme Rodina). It’s led by a rich guy, Kollar, with 10 kids from 9 different women he never married. So sad that many Christians like the idea of a “family party”.
As a devout Catholic (returned to the faith 20 years ago) who spent 10 years with the evangelicals, my perspective is that in both Christian communities there is a contingent of people that believe they are the poster-child of Christianity and that their success in reeling people into the faith will be by way of being loving, forgiving, hip, cool, smart, successful…basically fill in the blank with any of the adjectives that are esteemed by the world or behaviors understood to be required by Christ’s commands, “do not judge” etc etc. I am amazed at the number of evangelicals that have gone on record (people I knew personally) to embrace homosexual marriage. Among Catholics I don’t know any personally though of course they are out there. In Neo’s post and in many of the comments the fact has been stated that Trump is deemed vulgar, coarse, foolish and so on. This most certainly is driving their hatred and contempt. Wanting to align themselves with the “popular kids” (sorry, I can’t help myself) accounts for so much of it. As a Catholic familiar with the bible and the reality of what Jesus, his followers and many, many saints endured in terms of public hatred, contempt, shame, brutality and death, I can’t help but wonder how a person believes they will stand for the gospel when they can’t even abide being disliked or misunderstood, as are we (my family) as Trump supporters. Trump himself is a great example of courage to withstand public abuse. Let the chips fall where they will. I know this is nothing compared to what has been suffered down through the ages and not so long ago the suffering and death caused by the Communists and Nazis of Europe. I think we are a very immature culture, a large number of the last few generations not having paid any of the true sacrifice that accounts for our success and prosperity, so it isn’t properly valued or protected.
Here’s where we can appreciate Mac’s position, when he says, “Unless something changes really dramatically, I’ll either vote for Trump next year or, **IF I’M SURE** that it won’t affect the outcome, vote third party. That “if” was a pretty sure thing in 2016, possibly less so in 2020, due to those scurrilous attempts to manipulate the electoral college.” I am hoping that my conservative Christian friends who have large reservations about Trump’s personality will make the same decision.
As to Trump’s religious status, I have no idea if he’s had a religious conversion experience. These do not usually change one’s whole personality, by the way. In my church’s liturgy, we pray weekly for the president by name. We did the same thing for Obama for eight years. I never saw any sign that Obama had opened his heart and mind in response to my prayers. As to Trump, I don’t know that, either, but I do know that he has tried to keep policy promises he made, which is more than many, perhaps most, politicians do.
Mac, the concern troll, gives arguments for not voting for President Trump in 2020. Are you also a blockhead who hasn’t seen what the Democrats have been up to since 2016 and what they are proposing currently? Mac’s “Trump is icky” is way past 11. Just come out of the closet Mac and identify as a Democrat. Your fan dance isn’t convincing.
Tom Grey, glad you found the blog interesting. You said:
“I think there are plenty of “unknown”, not-on-Wiki people who can be interviewed and express right-based hate against Dems. But these are not “public figures”. All the public figure hate I see, including Trump (where I don’t see hate so much as mockery of Fake News, for instance), all the hate examples are from Dems.”
I think that’s absolutely right, and important. I don’t personally know any public figures of either party, but I think the syndrome is pretty much true down at the everyday-people level. It’s not just that I hear more hate from the liberals I know, but that they seem to be utterly unaware that they are in fact hateful. Or, if they are not in fact hating (giving them the benefit of the doubt), that they sure do come across that way. I did a blog post about that some time ago, maybe as much as ten years, and it’s only gotten worse. A few times I’ve tried to tell them how they come across to those who don’t agree, and they just do not see it at all. In their eyes I think (conjecture) they’re just telling the truth. If they call you a bigot, it’s not hate, it’s because you are one (in their eyes, obviously).
It’s pretty simple: Mac and the other “Christian believers” are just seminar callers, repeating talking points they hope will dissuade conservatives from supporting the president.
>The reason I don’t do it is that it would take a *lot* of time and I have way too much work to do. It’s not any one thing, and I’d have to spend a lot of time tracking down sources etc.
And the reasonable, objective determination that this is just a face-saving rationalization is because of the amount of time and words you’ve already spent avoiding the presentation of any examples of any kind at all.
So by your own behavior it’s not a credible excuse. If you had the spare time and energy to strawman others and repeat yourself as many times as you have in this thread, you had the spare time and energy to provide just a couple of examples of your “reasonable, objective” evidence.
Mac, I’ve also stopped in at your blog as a result of this thread and will visit again. I look forward to hearing more, and when I’m not so wearily consumed with politics, especially to hearing more of your thoughts on living in America as a religious person.
I’m trying to sort out my *feelings,* versus my *observations,* about Trump. There is a nonzero possibility that one of my *feelings* that stands in opposition to my general dislike of the man (also a feeling, and not one that, so far, I’ve let get in the way of my approval of his attempts to keep campaign promises and his surprisingly conservative actions) is my sense that he’s acting at times out of a realization that he has nothing to lose.
People talk about his “tarnished brand.” Good Lord, how does it get more “tarnished” than being a national laughingstock for your *hair*? Or for your little verbal stinger (“Yeh FIRED!”)? He’s rich, he’s got a thriving family that can exist independent of the goodwill of their socioeconomic peers, he’s failed multiple times and come back from it so there’s no more stigma or pain that failure can cause him, those socioeconomic peers already think he’s a buffoon… He’s *free,* in the same way that Jubal Harshaw was free in “Stranger in a Strange Land” – free not to give a flying whatever. I want to be that free, darn it. But I’m not,
at least in part through my own squeamishness about being thought ill of by *my* peers, so maybe his radical personal freedom is a proxy for what I want but don’t yet have. Maybe it lets me see through my distaste of some of his personal characteristics to observe his actions a little more objectively.
Heck, I dunno. Maybe he’s just a puzzle wrapped in an enigma and all that.
Electing a Democrat to he president is akin to playing russian roullete with a fully loaded firearm. I voted for trump in 2016 because though he too has a gun, I thought it might have just one or two bullets. I thought he was destructive, but their was less of a chance that our republic would be destroyed. Now it is 2020 and I’m convinced that his gun is filled entirely with blanks, and their will be no hesitation voting for him this time.
There were many people here who liked Trum but wouldn’t like Ymar’s behavior which was like 10% of Trum, directed towards them. The reason why people don’t like Trum is because they are afraid of Trum’s behavior being directed towards them. Look up Rosie O-Donnel.
I found it interesting to say the least, that my most vociferous critics were criticizing me for the same traits that they admired in Trum. It just depends on whose ox is being gored.
Umm…those commenters who are criticizing Trump don’t sound like Conservatives or religious people.
My advice is not to listen too much to comments – don’t let them influence you; and just advertise your views and let others react to you.
For example, if you look at the comment history of the “Sorry, I still cannot vote for Trump,” he’s claiming to be a middle school teacher who advocates transgenderism for his-her students.
“…there is no single way to be a boy or a girl.”
“I think this is true, and I think it was easier, in spite of what could be seen as more rigid roles in mid-20th century culture, for children maturing before the Sexual Revolution and such an openly sex-saturated culture. There was more time for them to be children. However, there are so many cultural messages given, including those given by proponents of teaching the highlighted curriculum, that are contrary to this statement. I always point to advertising and the messages presented therein, both explicit and implicit. No matter what the inclusive political message may be, there is simply no escaping the stereotypes, even among those messengers. The inclusive folks are pressuring the kids just as much as those who pressure with stereotypes. No wonder so many children who may already arrive at puberty with difficulties that range from “normal growing pains” to deep wounds are plunged into further confusion.
I work part time as a substitute teacher in middle school and high school, and have encountered a few students who believe they’re trans. So far they have all been girls who cut their hair short and dress more “boyishly”. Observing the middle schoolers particularly, it is clear to me that they are simply trying to carve out some space and time to mature, in order to be less stressed with regard to gender stereotypes and pressure to be overtly sexual.”
And on and on and on…
This person is sick. And I really hope he-she is lying about being a school teacher for young kids. These are the kinds of “people” (Assuming they’re not bots or trolls or plain frauds) you are thinking of bringing “into the tent” (when you should be excluding them).
So it’s no wonder. He-she doesn’t mind American Church’s losing their tax-exempt status over LGBT; he probably advocates it the same way Beto does – and he’s doing it under false pretenses.
This is why Church’s which purposely exclude LGBT are the only ones to survive. Why do you think the sexual abuse int he Catholic Church occurred? Do you honestly think sodomozing boys is something a “straight”, normal priest would do? Furthermore, he claims to be an Orthodox Christian – and he’s clearly lying, based simply on the way he references bible and speaks mostly in ridiculous general terms of “Scripture”.