What a long winded screed you wrote!

They’re something of a specialty or mine, so get used to them if you intend to hang around.

Because hang around I will, and one reason my words have weight – including with our host – is because they are rarely said in a knee jerk fashion or without consideration and research.

I will never forgive Donald J. Trump for injecting himself into winnable elections that the Republican Party should have won.

Except as others have correctly noted while you were spewing your screeds, Trump helped pull many candidates across the finish line. Moreover, the Red Waves have underperformed on a massive level across the spectrum, even when candidates who were not dedicated Trumpists or even anti-Trumpists ran.

But blathering about how people like Herschel Walker and Mehmet Oz were weak candidates (and I agree the latter is) is a nice, lazy, dishonest shortcut to avoid looking at things like endemic corruption in Philadelphia and Atlantic as well as how anti-Trumpists have routinely put their own petty grudges above the health of the party or America SS a whole, as shown by the last several Alaskan Goat Rodeos.

You also don’t seem to understand that Trump was a reaction to that habitual shoving in the back by some of the more radical members of the “GOPE” like McCain.

If you cannot honestly evaluate Trump’s boons – and I know you haven’t because you get a hell of a lot objectively wrong – then you cannot honestly evaluate his flaws or mistakes, or which I will happily admit there are Many.

Considering how awful the country has been in under Joe Biden we should have had a Red Wave but it turned into a de facto Democratic victory.

And considering how awful Biden was back in 2016 and how ineffectual the Democrats were, we should have had a red wave. Even with Trump.

And the kicker is, the statistical evidence says we did and would have without blatantly unethical and dishonest behavior by strong Democrat political machines in bellwether urban areas.

And this is before we get into the proven corruption, malfeasance, and misconduct of the Leftists in the deep state and many high power media outlets. Which I KNOW you are aware of given the comment you made on the Twitter Files thread. Nor was this anything new.

Bill Whittle pointed out about a decade ago that some of the left wing talking heads had talked about how John Kerry benefitted from a 20-30 percent headwind from biased media coverage:

Blaming Trump of all people as being THE main factor for this is aggressively dishonest and ignorant.

So what kind of major malfunction or cognitive dissonance allows you to read and absorb the Twitter Files in one ear and have them pour out the other in favor of Blaming Trump?

The idea that we would have a glorious GOP era if only for Trump isn’t analysis. It is superstition. And it actively ignores how even Establishment GOO and Nevertrump Republicans lost out in 2020 and 2022.

I do not have a man crush on Trump

Nice strawman. Unfortunately most of us defending Trump do not have a “man crush” on him.

We’re just not stupid and ignorant enough to
Blame him for the likes of Maricopa and Atlanta to the exclusion of almost everything else.

and just about any thinking person knows that he is an anvil around the neck of the G.O.P.

And how would you know what “any thinking person knows” when your actions and fallacies underline that you do not qualify as such?

Trump had many problems, and his brand has only gotten more toxic and polarizing after the 2022 elections, but it neither was always that, nor was it particularly the cause.

Look back at the Hunter Biden “Russian Disinformation” and get back to me.

Nice try with the cancel culture but it will not work.

I’m not sure what I’m more irritated about.

The fact that you conflate calling out your ignorant, dishonest bullshit and telling you to either man up or get out is “Cancel Culture”…

Or you think this is the result of me “attempting.”

There’s a reason many of my comments run into multi parts, precisely because I value precision and in depth fisking.

I would be just as happy to ignore you as you should be in ignoring me.

Firstly: you haven’t shown the slightest indication you have been happy about anything since you have come on this blog and stunk up the place. So this is unconvincing.

And secondly: dishonesty and smears irritate me.

They irritate me even when they targeted Literal Hitler (hence why I spend ages smacking people around for accusing him of the Katyn Massacre), and that doesn’t apply less to Cheeto Hitler. So “ignoring” it gives me no happiness.

You have shown yourself to be aggressively dishonest and quite inept. And as long as you continue acting such, I will call you out for it.

I don’t see DeSantis trying to be “nice.” I see him trying – and succeeding – in being very smart about what he does and says. He manages to be hardhitting, conservative, clear, and fearless, as well as very careful not to put his foot in it. He’s also organized and politically savvy, and was very good at helping other conservative politicians in Florida.

Also young.

If he is the nominee, DeSantis has my vote … so far.

I see too many critics treating Trump’s policy advancements as insignificant … and giving the GOP careerists a pass on their lack of performance in this regard … as they seek to distance themselves from Trump. They are throwing out the baby of liberty with the bathwater of mean Tweets, IMO … and potentially undermining the resolve of good candidates like DeSantis to prioritize our rights over “nice”.

They are focused upon winning the electoral battle, but they are losing the war for our rights … as though our institutions will still secure our rights when they are focused on every “common good” but those rights,

Walker and DeSantis seem very different to me. Very. Walker stood firm on a couple of issues in Wisconsin, but DeSantis is far more bold and far more smart.

As I said, trust can always be betrayed. But so far DeSantis has been more impressive.

I also don’t see Trump’s critics finding fault with his policies, except for the NeverTrumpers.

Conslutants get paid by winning – not by the quality of governance between elections. And the careerists are too often willing to listen to them and settle for the placeholder of “not a Democrat”.

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BrooklynBoy: until the careerists answer for three decades of placeholding, your criticism of Trump will always ring hollow. Had they been doing their jobs – even it meant being Not Nice to their opponents when our rights were on the line – Trump would likely have never entered politics, much less been elected.

I hope you are right about DeSantis.

Knee-jerk criticism of Trump … without the context of what he did in terms of policy as President vs. what the GOP careerists did NOT do since 1989 … is setting the stage for the careerists to return to their impotent status quo … they will point at the criticism of Trump and with a grand “harumph” will say “we told you to listen to us”.

And the Progressives will get to continue ratcheting this society Leftward, because we are unwilling to value our rights, more than “nice”.

Criticism of Trump is not “trashing” him. One of my main criticisms of him is that he can no longer appeal even to a lot of his old supporters, and he’s not gaining any new ones. I believe he would be heartily defeated if he ran again.

Meanwhile, DeSantis has given zero indication of going the way you suggest he might. So far he has earned my trust with his courage and his consistency. Trust is conditional for a politician, of course, and it can always be broken. But I see no reason to distrust him at this point. And I see his appeal as potentially broad.