Biden’s Valley Forge speech, the Democrats, and mirror politics
Guess what? The gloves are off!:
This time it’s personal. On Friday Joe Biden tore into his predecessor Donald Trump as never before. He brimmed with anger, disdain and contempt.
“As never before”? If you’ve been hiding under a rock, perhaps.
Here’s more of how the Guardian writer describes yesterday’s Valley Forge speech by Biden. Do people really buy this “grandfather” “predisposed to give people the benefit of the doubt” business about Biden? Hard to believe, but I suppose some do:
… Biden spoke the name “Trump” more than 40 times in less than an hour as he warned that his likely 2024 opponent would sacrifice American democracy to put himself in power. The 81-year-old president generally seems like a grandfatherly figure predisposed to give people the benefit of the doubt, which makes his detestation of Trump all the more striking.
Here’s the text of the speech, which the White House site titles “Defending the Sacred Cause of American Democracy.” And if you’re really a glutton for punishment, here’s the video.
More quotes from the Guardian article on the speech:
Against a backdrop of 11 American flags and four faux Roman columns, Biden went on: “The guy who claims law and order sows lawlessness and disorder.” Trump is planning a full-scale campaign of revenge and retribution, he said, and promised to be a dictator on day one.
Trump has threatened to terminate the US constitution, impose the death penalty on military leaders who defied him and referred to dead soldiers as “suckers” and “losers”. Biden looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. He was worked up and had to steel himself.
He mused: “Sometimes I’m really happy the Irish in me can’t be seen.” …
Democrats are often criticised for pulling their punches and refusing to fight dirty as Republicans do. For as long as Trump has been on the political scene, they have wrestled with the question of whether to rise above him or roll in the dirt with him. …
… [F]or now, one thing is clear. The gloves are off …
Good to know that the Russiagate hoax, the bogus impeachments, the spying on Trump, the multiple lawfare prosecutions of dubious legal reasoning, the Floyd summer demonstrations and riots, the “Hitler” accusations, the muzzling and blocking of Trump, the coverup of the Hunter laptop, the attempts to keep Trump’s name off the ballot in many states, and all the rest, were accomplished with the gloves on.
It is astonishing that anyone would buy the absolute bilge Biden and his speechwriters are dishing out. But they will.
So what does the phrase “mirror politics” mean in the title of this post? It’s something I came across last night, when I was doing some research on the absolutely horrific Rwandan genocide of 1994. In the Wiki article, it described the following as having occurred in Rwanda a couple of years prior to the genocide (to refresh your memory, the vast majority of those murdered were Tutsi, plus some Hutu who weren’t quite murderous enough in eliminating their fellow countrymen who happened to be Tutsi):
To make the economic, social and political conflict look more like an ethnic conflict, the [Hutu] President’s entourage, including the army, launched propaganda campaigns to fabricate events of ethnic crisis caused by the Tutsi and the RPF. The process was described as “mirror politics”, also known as “accusation in a mirror” whereby a person accuses others of what the person himself/herself actually wants to do.
We see that a lot here. Not genocide, but “accusation in a mirror.” Wiki defines that in this way:
Accusation in a mirror (AiM) (also called mirror politics, mirror propaganda, mirror image propaganda, or a mirror argument) is a technique where one falsely attributes to one’s adversaries the intentions that one has for oneself and/or the actions that one is in the process of enacting. …
… The name was used by an anonymous Rwandan propagandist in Note Relative à la Propagande d’Expansion et de Recrutement. Drawing on the ideas of Joseph Goebbels and Vladimir Lenin, he instructed colleagues to “impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do.” By invoking collective self-defense, propaganda is used to justify genocide, just as self-defense is a defense for individual homicide. Susan Benesch remarked that while dehumanization “makes genocide seem acceptable”, accusation in a mirror makes it seem necessary.
The tactic is similar to a “false anticipatory tu quoque” (a logical fallacy which charges the opponent with hypocrisy). … The weakness of the strategy is that it reveals the perpetrator’s intentions, perhaps before it can be carried out.
Actually, the Democrats have already revealed their intentions through actions and proposed actions. Genocide isn’t necessarily part of it, however – although they seemed quite happy with plenty of rioting, property damage, and a few murders in 2020. Cancellation, censorship, lawfare, and leftist power are enough for the present, although they wouldn’t be disturbed by a Trump assassination either.
January 6 is a good day to view a Tucker Carlson interview with US Rep Clay Higgins:
Ep. 61 This the smartest, best informed account of what actually happened on January 6th.
Perhaps what is most astonishing about Biden’s demagoguery is his ability to engage in it with a straight face. Clearly, he long ago buried any vestige of conscience with which he was born. I also suspect that it takes a degree of psychopathy to pull it off successfully. I would attribute that quality to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as well.
Truly, a rogues gallery.
This Administration calls you a radical for praying the Rosary, will raid your home for being pro-life, will jail you for a meme, and labels the opposition political party as an enemy.
Excellent analysis of the rancorous, deceitful speech by Biden. I have never been so angry at a politician as I was as I watched it.
I agree with Geoffrey B. – Biden has to be a sociopath to deliver that bilge with a straight face.
IMO, we’re in for a very nasty election season. And, as Neo mentions, assassination could play a part. Biden certainly is appealing to all the crazies.
Cheap, tacky staging, and a pitifully small audience of sycophants clapping on demand.
“The gloves coming off” means making the same charges and smears but saying “Trump” more than 40 times, rather than “the previous guy.”
I don’t see Biden as a grandfatherly figure willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. He’s a insecure man who challenges people to push-up contests, boasts about having a higher IQ than they do, and invites them to have a punch up behind the gym after school.
The creepy whispering and shouting was also very much in evidence today.
100% political projection. Nothing more. Whenever a Democrat accuses a Republican (Trump in particular) of anything authoritarian, dictatorial, illegal, immoral, etc…you can be sure of the following:
Democrats are doing the exact things in their accusations. Or, they are planning to do so. Or they’re annoyed they hadn’t already done so.
Few people care what this blathering demented, corrupt figurehead incoherently shouts into the ether. But we do now know what the Democrat campaign strategy will be:
1. Trump is a Nazi who must be destroyed (in the unlikely event, Trump is not the nominee, whoever is will be portrayed the same way)
2. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion.
And that’s it. They have nothing else. They are bankrupt morally and intellectually. Alas, they are anything but bankrupt financially.
Shame it didn’t happen today in VF as we had a bit of snow.
Read transcript last night and it was what I expected, lies and demagoguery.
Agree Geoffrey he long ago lost if he ever had the embarrassment of getting caught in a lie, the Democrats Propaganda Ministry has covered him for decades.
like thanos says of the collector ‘for you it must be like breathing’ when asked why would he lie,
they sentenced someone for 10 years for holding pepper spray, meanwhile the judicial watch lawsuit has michael byrd clearly lying, saying he was underfire when he murdered ashli babbitt,
They tell us that Trump is a demagogue, and then offer this as if it were normal.
All this is going on, and yet a few are convinced and concerned that The Great Orange Whale is the problem.
“Democrats are often criticised for pulling their punches and refusing to fight dirty as Republicans do.”
Can you imagine yourself saying that with a straight face, or writing it with a steady hand?
This is going to be a very tough year. I am frankly scared of what the Dems will do just to “normal” people let alone Trump and his close supporters.
Power!!
The Democrats will stop at nothing to make sure Trump does not win a second term. They will do anything, including assassination. I don’t know anything for sure, it is just that they see him as an existential threat to their power and financial well being. This is why they are working so hard to demonize and dehumanize him and his supporters.
I keep running into the theory that much of Trump’s current strength (and subsequent overwhelming of the GOP field) is due to the clear Banana Republic persecution of Trump, which even some Dems recognize.
I once thought DeSantis stood an even chance for the nomination, but unless Trump has a heart attack, God forbid, he is carrying the flag in 2024.
I know that Biden said at least one true thing in that speech, if America is winning it’s not because of Joe Biden.
Attended the funerals of Capitol Police who died because of J6? The ones who committed suicide?
Fascism is always falling on the Republicans, but landing on the Democrats.
I said 1 Jan this will be a rough year, if Marxists don’t get their way it will be Hell, if they do might be worse
Stuff works until it doesn’t.
We’re wired to overreach.
The Dems may have and I think they have.
So remind us, who’s actually minding the store?
“White House Wasn’t Aware For Days That Defense Secretary Austin Was Hospitalized”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-house-wasnt-aware-days-defense-secretary-austin-was-hospitalized
(I guess this fall under the “current” definition of “Need-To-Know basis”….
OTOH, is it True? Or is it CNN?….)
January 6, 2021
A Day that will Live in Hyperbole
Nothiing to see here, folks, not really.
(Would appear that the Democrats are merely “fortifying” “truth”…again…)
Of course Trump has always been the most pleasant campaigner. Polite to his competitors, magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat.
The US Conservatives appear to want Trump as their leader, and I have no idea why, but you cannot be surprised when the whole show starts to follow his tactics.
“Lock her up”……. ring any bells?
By all means stick up for Trump on policy but let’s not pretend this guy plays nicely. And you can’t be surprised when the other side do the same.
This will be a horrible, divisive and damaging election. Whoever wins America will lose.
Short version:
Trump is not a nice man, no he is not.
Ergo, the country must be destroyed.
Related:
A recent book review of a book, long forgotten (for a variety of reasons), that describes PRECISELY why the citizens of Gaza are just like—um, sorry, make that, “far worse off than”— the victims of the Holocaust…
…and also PRECISELY why—BONUS!!!—Trump IS UNEQUIVOCALLY a National Socialist (following the insane ramblings of the “World According to ‘Biden'” and “his” Raving Posse of Liberal Assassins)..
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2024/01/07/cold-crematorium-review-a-holocaust-memoir-worthy-of-primo-levi/
Barry Muslin:
Well in Biden’s defense (over not knowing SecDef Austin was in the hospital): Biden was in the Virgin Islands.
In all seriousness, this is upsetting to the point of being dangerous. I would lay the blame not on Biden, but rather on his national security apparatus, which just showed total incompetence. And (again, seriously) heads should roll after this. Jake Sullivan’s for one, and probably a few others. Don’t hold your breath, though.
BTW, “mirror politics”? Or “looking-glass politics”….?
OK, I get what yer’ sayin’:
Did SecDeaf Austin know that “POTUS” was in the Virgin Islands?
And it’s a good point.
Still, I think we can—we have to—dig a bit deeper than this:
Did “POTUS” know that he (“POTUS”) was in the Virgin Islands?
Did SecDeaf know that he (SecDeaf) was in the hospital?
Where was Milley? What didn’t he know and when didn’t he know it? (And did he make sure to call China and let them in on whatever it was he didn’t know?—Wouldn’t want the Chicoms to get antsy now, would we? To be sure, they probably knew POTUS would be in VI before POTUS did…)
But MOST crucially, “What difference does it make?”(TM)…(since the entity that’s really in charge is not Biden but…”Biden”…).
Milley’s in retirement, Barry! Us’ns gots a new stooge now: https://www.defense.gov/About/Chairman-of-the-Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff/
Bob burned um down brown
I could hear it suchets poirot voice
RE; Jan 6th “Insurrection”
Last night on Tucker Carlson’s show he interviewed Congressman Clay Higgens, who said that, from the evidence gathered so far, a conservative estimate of the number of FBI undercover “assets” involved in Jan 6th was at least 200, the kind of force you’d need to choreograph an operation of this size.
Higgens also said that they had found evidence that, starting about 10 months before Jan 6th, FBI agents provocateurs were inserting themselves into online conversations and into various groups, ginning up support for a January 6th protest at the Capitol, and that while there were many FBI assets in the crowd, before the doors opened there were already FBI assets inside the Capitol, dressed as Trump supporters, and they were the ones guiding the people who–unfamiliar with the confusing layout of the Capitol building–entered into the building, and these assets guided these protestors to places where their actions would make the most impact –like Pilosi’s unmarked office.
Higgens also said that it looks like the FBI also roped a bunch of Capitol Hill and DC police into the action, but he saw no substantial evidence of any involvement by the military in Jan 6th.
Higgens said that the best thing that could happen is for the entirety of the 80,000 hours of video and other evidence to be released, so that the American people could crowdsource an investigation of that material, and find out the truth of what actually happened on that day and the next two days.
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/01/this-is-smartest-best-informed-account-what-actually/
DCL, “at this point, what difference does it make?” A follower of Saint Hillary?
DCL can join CC™ in their own little basket of deplorable analysis.
P.S. Congressman Higgins also pointed out that any criminal referrals would have to be sent to a DOJ which was involved, at it’s highest levels, in these actions and would, thus, never be acted upon, until a new Republican president came into office, and cleaned house at the DOJ and FBI.
Of course Trump has always been the most pleasant campaigner. Polite to his competitors, magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat.
The US Conservatives appear to want Trump as their leader, and I have no idea why, but you cannot be surprised when the whole show starts to follow his tactics.
DCL:
I doubt there are any Trump voters who consider Trump pleasant or gracious. For some, these days, that’s a plus, given the routine viciousness of Democrats, who have been calling Republican candidates. “Hitler,” since Harry Truman.
Your notion that the “”whole show” is following Trump is risible.
Furthermore, many voters like Trump’s policies and thought the country was in better shape while Trump was President.
“Lock her up” was something the crowds came up with. Trump heard it and repeated it, but as it happened, the cases against her were dropped and Trump didn’t lock her up or indict her. Trump was certainly a showman, an entertainer, an insult comic — if you like, a clown or a carnival barker. He wasn’t polite and maybe he didn’t “play nice,” but did he really fight dirty? Trump was positively naive when it came to election shenanigans, and he certainly wasn’t repressive or dictatorial in the way that the present regime is. Trump’s calling CNN “the enemy of the people” may have been objectionable, but it pales in comparison to Biden’s apocalyptic scaremongering. I don’t much care for the things that Trump is saying about DeSantis, but he certainly didn’t originate negative campaigning either.
Is this really the time for feeble whataboutism?
RE: Trump’s manner
If you are in a campaign where your opponents engage in smash mouth politics, you’d better be good at smash mouth politics too, because polite and measured milquetoast politics will just lead to you becoming roadkill, dead and flattened by your opponent’s steamroller.
RE; Nikki Haley on immigrants
Apparently back in 2015 Haley was saying that calling illegal immigrants criminals was “disrespectful” and wrong.*
I understand that, as the child of immigrants herself, she would have a soft spot in her heart for immigrants, but if someone does not go through the normal prescribed legal process to come into this country legally but, instead, deliberately sneaks across one of our borders, that person has deliberately broken our laws, and by that deliberate act, indeed, becomes a “criminal.”
A criminal act, I might add, that will likely be followed by a lot of other criminal acts, as that criminal does things like identity theft, the acquisition/creation of false identification documents like Social Security cards, Driver’s licenses, and other documents, working strictly for cash and not paying taxes, begging, theft, etc., etc. All tactics intended to allow them to survive here in the U.S. but to keep them below the radar, and not get identified as an illegal and arrested and/or deported.
(Fat chance of deportation under the Biden Administration!)
* See https://www.analyzingamerica.org/2024/01/737992/
@DCL
Kindly wipe the bullshit out from in front of your eyes and out of your ears and listen up.
He hasn’t been, which is what this piece of sarcasm is meant to elicit the admission of. There are worse tactics.
Like what you walk headfirst into right after.
Surprisingly, Trump can and has been rather magnanimous in Victory, as even a cursory look at how he reacted to Hillary’s concession shows. Indeed I and others point to that being a flaw that undercut his effectiveness at “draining the swamp.” He also is far more gracious in defeat (real or perceived) and magnanimous in victory than every single Democrat Presidential Candidate and President going back to at least Gore, and at least one Republican from that period (hello McCain).
So a little honesty and Perspective, please?
And here is where I fight the urge to start getting uncivil and instead tell you to do some fucking research for once in your life. “Whole show stagers to follow his tactics”?!?
No US Republican POTUS or candidate in the past quarter century placed a higher premium on bipartisanship or genteel public handling than George W Bush. How did that work out for him? Is your historical memory so crippled and clipped that you do not recall what I do? The BusHitler nonsense and blood libel and assassination porn?
You complain about Lock Her Up, but have you understood how staggeringly corrupt and criminal Hillary Clinton is or how she flaunted the law to run?
You have “no idea” why American conservatives would want Trump as their leader? No kidding, if you are being this blinkered.
A friendly reminder that almost every Republican candidate for President has been smeared as a Nazi since Tom Dewey in 1944. That has only escalated in recent decades. I see textbook eliminationist rhetoric and it is ramping up. Sooner or later this stuff creates a demand for someone who fights, and for all of Trump’s many, many flaws he clearly is that.
“Can’t be surprised when the other side do the same”?
Shut the fuck up and take a look at how Asians are being kept out of Harvard, White people are demonized as literally or practically subhuman, and the left and many eunuchs on the right passed up the opportunity to go after Obama’s corruption, anti-Americanism, and ties to Literal Terrorists.
Until you understand that Trump’s current political prominence and the preferences for him are a reaction to the dismal state and health of political and cultural discourse in the West in general and the US in particular, you have no real competence to opine on this and will frankly make yourself look foolish.
Breaking news from 2004.
What on Earth prompted the SecDef to go into hospital without warning and without informing his boss, the Commander-in-Chief, who was traveling out of country?!
I’m sure that Chairman Xi would love to know… in the unlikely case that he doesn’t know exactly why already!
Well, retirement can’t be easy.
What does one do?
Work on one’s golf swing? Get that putting down once and for all?
Start a new hobby? Raise orchids? Build picture frames?
Decide you’re going to lose a few pounds and become a power-walking fiend?
Or will it be pilates? Tai-chi?
Breathe deep and rediscover nature?
Buy a camper and go on a cross-country trip?
Reacquaint oneself with the grandkids?
Get in touch with your pals from time to time? Chew the fat? Because no one understands military life except others in the military…so you may not really want to talk with ’em but you may need to.
Or hey, shoot the breeze with your pals in Beijing? Why not? You made an impact on THOSE guys……and smile wanly as you remember the good ole days when you really mattered…
Ah…nostalgia….
No, retirement can’t be at all easy…
@Huxley, permit me a quibble:
“Furthermore, many voters like Trump’s policies and thought the country was in better shape while Trump was President.”
The country was objectively in better shape while Trump was President than it is under Joe Biden.
Hillarys a criminal probably a traitor so needs must
Do i like some things he says not always
Do i despise what these bastards are doing to this country absolutely not
Speaking of scandals, forget about not really being enthusiastic about telling anyone you’re having a medical procedure—if that in fact was the cause of the Secretary’s, um, reticence (hey, one can perfectly understand not wanting to advertise a prostatectomy)—Powerline blog reminds us, since we can be so forgetful at times, what the REAL SCANDAL is…
Hint: it just so happens to be a not-so-golden oldie (published, wouldn’t you know it, just under a month BEFORE Hamas’s October 7 attack)…
Here goes….!
“Biden has a secret, illegal deal with Iran that gives mullahs everything they want”—
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2023/09/12/biden-has-a-secret-illegal-deal-with-iran-that-gives-mullahs-everything-they-want/
It’s a rather useful recounting of events that may well help one answer such apparent mystifications as:
1. Why did “Biden” so quickly and absolutely deny any “indication of Iranian involvement” in Oct. 7?
2. Why has “Biden” been so “patient” with the Houthis?
3. Why has “Biden” been so “understanding” of Hezbullah (and the need to support “Lebanon’s” “Military”)—essentially ignoring Hezbullah’s attacks on Israel’s north while warning about Israeli “ESCALATION” when Israel decides to fight back?
4. Why has Iran been so APPARENTLY antagonistic and threatening to the US. (One might just want to ask the same about Putin’s threats! But that would take us a bit off topic…or would it?)
5. Why is “Biden” so willing to make it appear as though it supports Israel’s efforts to eradicate Hamas? (This might be just the place to insert the old “Nothing says ‘I FIRMLY SUPPORT ISRAEL’ like hearting Iran with Billions upon Billions of dollars!”)
6. Why, with all the frenzied marches attacking Jews and Jewish-owned businesses, while threatening Israel’s existence, has “Biden” been so concerned with combatting “Islamophobia”….
7. Why has “Biden” been so adamantly supportive of the policies that have gutted American universities (and education, generally—remember CONTEXT)?
8. Why does Robert Malley have such a cushy position at one of America’s premier universities? (And why, for that matter, is the “Biden” administration infested with Pro-Iranian apparatchiks?)
9. Etc. (I’m sure there are many more….)
Yep, the REAL SCANDAL…
The country was objectively in better shape while Trump was President than it is under Joe Biden.
steve walsh:
Quibble away!
I agree, but when debating a point, I try to focus on a limited, distinct area — in this case DCL’s question, perhaps disingenuous, of why conservatives might want to vote for Trump.
I didn’t want to get into the weeds of debating whether the US was objectively better under Trump.
What has become of SecDef Austin, you may ask? And here’s your answer, courtesy of The Kinks!: https://youtu.be/LemG0cvc4oU?si=NVCnjB_HcdTc8l2F
I didn’t want to get into the weeds of debating whether the US was objectively better under Trump.
I don’t mind. No wars, no inflation, gas at $2 or less, beginning peace in the Middle East. China finally being called on their cheating in trade policy.
Mike K
Unfortunately a good number of Americans make their voting decisions emotionally like Concerned Conservative. If voting was done rationally Trump would be in his second term and peace would reign o’er the land.
Mike K:
O halcyon days…
Something of interest by Roger Simon, describing the significant internal migration from Blue states to Red states, which is something he actually did (moving from California to Tennessee).
“Oscar-nominated screenwriter says American refugees are being pushed out of blue states to red ones”—
https://justthenews.com/events/woscar-nominated-screenwriter-says-american-refugees-are-being-pushed-out-blue-states-red
not a coincidence
https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/01/06/more-far-left-activists-team-up-to-keep-trump-off-the-ballot-this-time-in-illinois/
Barry M-
Re internal migration. Per uhaul.com, renting a basic truck from CA to TX is ~$3000. Reverse direction between same 2 places is ~$1800.
Supply and demand, not just a suggestion. It’s the law.
“A friendly reminder that almost every Republican candidate for President has been smeared as a Nazi since Tom Dewey in 1944.”
Though the smear against lower-level candidates goes back even further. IIRC, Amity Schlaes cited an accusation that a particular Republican was a Nazi clear back in 1934. Unfortunately, I can’t remember who the target was, or which office he was running for.
…significant internal migration from Blue states to Red states,
Barry Meislin:
Introduced by Ilya Kuryakin (David MacCallum)! I never noticed how well Eric Burdon sang.
_____________________________
We gotta get outta this place
If it’s the last thing we ever do
We gotta get outta this place
‘Cause girl, there’s a better life for me and you
–The Animals, “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place (Live, 1965)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTsRFZ75abQ
Watching a replay of this morning’s Meet the Press, I was struck by how pervasive the use of adjectives like “completely false” in front of Republican positions has become. And of course this ONLY happens to Republican statements and positions.
I wonder if we will see this reaction among the press grow so strident that it will impact their credibility, in much the same way that the multiple lawfare attacks on Trump have backfired and impacted the public’s faith in our legal system?!
Are we seeing the media surging in panic to follow the DOJ on a path to self-immolation?! I hope so!
well I don’t watch meet the depressed, as Rush calls it, for the agita,
Stefanik apparently raised some hackles,
“It is astonishing that anyone would buy the absolute bilge Biden and his speechwriters are dishing out. But they will.” [Neo]
As George Carlin reminded us years ago:
T:
A problem is that being smart, as in getting-into-Harvard smart, is little defense or perhaps even a weakness in the face of stupidity.
Most of the smart people I know are pretty stupid from where I stand these days.
It seems like there ought to be a fallacy titled “Appeal to One’s Innate Superiority” but I can’t find it in my copy of “The Critical Thinking Handbook.”
Yes, I have one.
As George Carlin reminded us years ago:
==
What he remined us was that he had an inflated understanding of his own intelligence and was inviting his audience to share that inflated understanding – of him and of them.
==
The vast majority of people in this country take care of themselves just fine. The stupidity you see is usually in reference to people’s time horizons and sense of propriety. The former is correlated with ‘g’, but the latter is not.
Dementia Hitler! With Fake fears of Trump, noting what Dems actually do, while believing in the Fake Insurrection, supported by the Fake News media.
See #DementiaHitler on X.
yes carlin would go in for the 1619 DEI foolishness and he would be marching for Gaza, as to the rightness of Vietnam, well it was carried out poorly, his rant against golf clubs, well to each their own,
Re: George Carlin
Carlin was a contrarian. Carlin would be like Bill Maher today.
He would be smart enough not to swallow everything Woke. He would kick that wisdom in the teeth to show he was his own man, but he would also circle back to the nest for comfort and to kick conservatives even harder because home is where the heart lies.
maybe one or two things, long after we’ve figured out
https://twitter.com/hahussain/status/1744057994571067714
another credentialed idiot,
@junior
To be fair at least some of them probably were pro-Nazi, since pro-Nazi, Pro-Fascist, and pro-Communist sentiment was way more widespread among both parties and a lot of the Third Parties than anybody cared to admit even a couple years later. But Thomas Dewey was absolutely not one of them, very much the opposite.
Stuff like that is a major reason why I have come to view Truman much more dimly than I once did.
Re: Truman
Turtler:
You would have preferred Henry Wallace? 🙂
There’s a bullet we missed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944_Democratic_Party_vice_presidential_candidate_selection
Gerald nye who gave alger hiss his first job on his congressional staff but the rest is neglible
Maher wanted ‘democracy’ if it took a recession too bad if it took a million dead well thats not much a reach. Is it
He gave a million to obama in 2012 his in king contribution is magnitude of that
Regarding Carlin:
His famous rif on environmemtalist extremism is viewed as wise and prescient; discomforting the current dogma of AGW.
His other riffs on obscenity, drugs, and stoggy morality? Crickets.
Dead men tell no tales. He said what sold. There is a market, the self assured smug, in every generation.
@huxley
No I would not have, and I am well aware of Wallace’s follies, lies, and incompetence.
However, I would have ultimately preferred someone who was less corrupt, tied to the KKK and big government, prone to “subtle” demonization of his domestic enemies, and hypocritical. Unfortunately that would probably mean changing history more drastically to remove or downplay the Imperial FDR, who I note was also the man that elected Wallace to the point where we narrowly dodged that.
https://www.econlib.org/the-truman-fabrication/
Truman was far from the worst President we’ve had and far better than Wallace would have been, but I do believe he has been over-lionized and whitewashed. One does not have to be in favor of Wallace or someone worse to recognize that.
Speaking of Truman, I am amazed every time I recall that he had not been briefed on the Atomic Bomb when he suddenly (but surely not without some premonition) became President! “Bucket of warm spit” indeed!
I’ll bet Truman didn’t regret not having to make the decision to send a million allied troops to their deaths in an invasion of Japan proper, and probably even more Japanese.
My Army dad was selected to stay behind in occupied Germany but he didn’t mind… he had figured out that his “lucky” friends weren’t going home like they thought – they were going to Japan!
@Ray Van Dune
Agreed, and I think his judgement regarding the Bomb and Japan speaks well of him and is certainly among his highlights, and one of the cases where “the buck” really did “stop here” (which was less common than his myth would have us believe). I am divided on if he was the right man for the right time, but he was the right man for at least some decisions. Though I do believe Dewey would have been at least comparable and possibly better, even if that is theoretical on multiple levels given Donk supremacy at the time. Especially since my own late Grandfather had just joined the Rangers in 1945 and was gearing up to go in the hard way.
Still, he and Roosevelt digging up some of Old Woodrow’s demonology and using it casts an ugly and long shadow over American politics, including now.
The Left is losing!
RE: UFOs, Lawyer Danny Sheehan’s powers of Discernment and his Judgement.
.
Just out today is a livestream interview with Danny Sheehan on Dr. Jeffrey Mislove’s Youtube channel “New Thinking Allowed.”*
During this interview, about what Sheehan thinks is going to happen with the UFO Phenomenon in the next few years, Sheehan very confidently said that former President Trump was going to lose the upcoming election, this because his support would drastically decline after all sorts of revelations would come out of the various trials he was going to be subject to, and that Biden would win his second term.
Sheehan then went on to talk about possible developments regarding the UFO Phenomenon during that second Biden term, as if absolutely nothing was wrong with Biden, and that Biden lasting and effectively governing through a second four year term was a foregone conclusion.
Sheehan has quite obviously drunk the Leftist Kool Aid, if he thinks that the increasingly demented, confused, and shambling wreck that is Biden will convince voters to elect him in the downward spiraling economic, domestic, foreign, racial, immigration, crime, public safety, and political climate which he and his policies have created (if, as the time gets closer to the election Biden is, indeed, actually going to be the actual Democrat candidate).
So, do the deep delusions of Sheehan’s political prognostications invalidate and call into question what he says about the UFO Phenomenon, and what the future developments might be in that area?
Moreover, towards the latter part of this interview Sheehan also waded deep into “Woo” territory, saying that perhaps the greatest development in the coming year will be that—it appears, to prepare the human race to better qualify for some sort of entry into a Galactic Federation—all of our religious authorities—our Churches, Synagogues, Temples, and secret esoteric societies–would have to reveal and to educate the public on their esoteric teachings and practices, in order to bring to the people of Earth–the “Human Family”–the reality that each human being is more than they think they are, and that we each have many innate but uncultivated Psi powers–things like telepathy, telekinesis, remote viewing, and many others–which would make us better candidates to joint a Galactic Federation (which presumably is composed of and contains entities which are much more highly evolved than us humans in our present state).
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vtAk8WVhHM
I told you hes a wacko
“Only” 27 replies here. Neo, you should post on X. Love your blog but your columns should get more exposure. Assuming you are not required to expose your true identity.
Bat shit crazy. But it sells (clicks and eyeballs), and spoon benders too?
Unicorns
From the “In the Best of Hands” File (updated):
“Report: Austin’s deputy didn’t know of his hospitalization;
“Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks assumed Austin’s duties without knowing he had been hospitalized, according to CNN.”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/383228
It’s not as though the country really needs a functioning Secretary of Defense (SoD?)….
File under: SoD Off.
Actually, maybe “mirror politics” is merely warmed-over “rabbit-hole” politics.
– – – – – – – –
Anyway, here’s an appreciation of Bill Ackman (now that the powers-that-be have decided in their wisdom to ambush his wife)…
https://twitter.com/RobertMSterling/status/1743710188954083456
H/T Powerline blog.
Sounds like a real powerhouse…but if so, why in tarnation is he a Democrat???
(I mean, where’s he been over the past 1.5 decades, and more?)
“O brave new world”?…etc., etc., etc….
+ Bonus:
Harvard scholarship on proud display…
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2024/01/07/wtf-1844/
Speaking of “Brave New World”…here’s a real bombshell of a—Huh?? WOW!!—treat I just happened to stumble upon.
Absolutely gobsmacking…
“Christine Granville: The Polish aristocrat who was Churchill’s favourite spy”—
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-67298675
H/T Blazingcatfur blog.
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2024/01/07/christine-granville-the-polish-aristocrat-who-was-churchills-favourite-spy/
‘“Only” 27 replies here.’
Actually, it was over 70 when you wrote that. This will likely be 79. Something has been making comments disappear, and then reappear a while later. I suspect you saw it in action.
Democrats and their media poodles.
Lying.
Again.
Surprise!
“Internal Secret Service records undercut another key J6 committee Democrat narrative;
“Contradicting an oft-repeated narrative, the Secret Service plan for January 6 did not include a stop at the Capitol, Secret Service documents show.”—
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/internal-secret-service-records-undercut-another-key-j6-committee-democrat
To be compared with Miranda Devine’s masterpiece of utter disgust….
“Joe Biden certainly knows how to wield his ‘power’ — to transform the country for the worse”—
https://nypost.com/2024/01/07/opinion/joe-biden-certainly-knows-how-to-wield-his-power-to-transform-the-country-for-the-worse/
“Disgusting” would be far too kind….
The problem is that we’ve entered a political doom loop. We’re all mostly ensconced in our own idegological ghettos, with an entire ecosystem of news sources to tell us exactly what we want to hear. We can all rationalize away the flaws on our own side of the political divide by keeping our focus on the clear flaws on the other side. All the while, the real flaws on the other side make fantasy-land conspiracy theories about the other side seem more plausible, so we believe those too.
The left (and a lot of independents) look at Trump and see a candidate who really did call for the suspending of the Constitution, really did rile up a mob that stormed the Capital, really did use a crackpot legal theory to try to stop certification of the 2020 election, and really did recently claim that he would be a dictator, albeit “only for a day.” (And spare me the, “it was only a joke” defense. There are some things that no serious public servant should joke about. “Oh no undecided voters, our candidate isn’t actually going to try to become a dictator, he was just joking.” – Yeah. Good luck with that.) Anyway, beginning the analysis from that perspective makes a lot of the hyperbolic claims made by Biden and the left look very plausible. That’s why Biden is doing this. It works. It worked in 2020. It worked in 2022. It will likely work again in 2024.
I think the same goes for the right, except that we don’t have the media on our ideological side. It’s not difficult to cite mutiple examples of tyranny from the Biden administration. It’s not difficult to cite multiple examples of just rank buffoonary from the Biden administration. (See the incident with the Sec. Def. earlier this month.) It’s not difficult to point out that Biden is clearly not up to the job and it is frightenting that someone other than the elected president is running the country because the elected president clearly isn’t capable. And so on.
So we focus on this, and ignore the manifest weaknesses and unfitness of our own candidate and the rank unpopularity of things like “stop the steal” and advocating for the J6 defendants.
The left makes the same mistakes, but there are two differences. First, Biden’s abuses are a matter of ideology and are about how the government should be run. Trump’s abuses are about the the integrity of the system itself. There is something viscerally wrong about trying to stay in power (or take power) after losing an election, and I think people outside of the right ideological bubble understand that. Ask the recently re-elected “not-Governor” of Georgia about it. The second difference is that, outside of the Supreme Court, practically every institution in the country has been captured by the ideological left. The right’s message just isn’t going to get out in the same way as the left’s. And frankly, I don’t know if even the left’s machine could pull off electing a candidate who previously tried to “suspend the constitution” and otherwise behaved like Trump did after 2020. (Once again, see Abrahams, Stacey, and her behavior wasn’t nearly as repulsive as Trump’s.) I do know that it is profoundly unlikely that the right will be able to do so.
So is Biden’s speech mirror politics? Arguably, but I don’t think that’s why he’s running this campaign. He’s running this campaign because, just as with his 2020 basement campaign, his handlers have a much keener sense of the state of play than Trump. They know this will work. They’re probably right.
Seriously
https://twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1744187417861456294
You accepted this shambling corrupt traitorous husk so did mccarthy and mcconnell who are destroying this country in 100 different ways thats the difference
Purging our military shattering the border jailing patriots
And, indeed, Joseph Vissarionovich had “a much keener sense of the state of play than” Lev Davidovich…
And along comes Miguel cervantes to prove my point. His defense of Trump? “Look at how awful Biden is!” Well, that along with the ad hominem that I somehow “accepted” Biden.
(Aside – It ain’t me babe. I held my nose and voted for Trump in 2020. I might even do so again this year, on the theory that if we’re going to have a corrupt, incompetent, aspiring tyrant either way, I might prefer to have one whose policies I like better. Not that it’ll matter, though. I think it is profoundly unlikely that Trump will win.)
When Lloyd Austin could be in the hospital for over two weeks without anyone knowing, and Pete Buttigieg could be on paternity leave without anyone caring, it’s not a matter of “patience” and “understanding.”
From the Biden Team’s own point of view, the fact that nobody’s awake and in control hasn’t worked out so badly. They’ve gotten what they wanted, though it hasn’t been at all good for the country.
__________
Biden likes to see himself as an optimistic guy. “We’re the United States of America! We can do anything if we put our minds to it!” But now he’s running a very negative campaign with a very dark view of the country and its future. I’d say it’s darker than Trump’s . Trump says that the country has been poorly run, but implies that with the right leadership we can bring it back and make things work again. Biden just seems to be offering repression and the prospect of civil war. The end result of that will be what? Preservation of the current state of things, which most of the country is dissatisfied with and may regard as a disaster. I guess if you are going to vote for Biden you have to believe that he is Saving Our Democracy, because otherwise he doesn’t have that much to offer.
“We’re the United States of America! We can do anything if we put our minds to it!” puts me in mind of Lyndon Johnson — or maybe of George W. Bush. It’s the same hubris. The same mindless belief that we are more powerful and less fragile than we really are, though this time it’s belied by just how negative Biden’s vision of the country and its future really is. Still, that line does attract attention. Biden’s policies may or may not be Obama’s policies, but if they are he’s carrying them out with a different spirit and a different rhetoric. Biden has brought us Jimmy Carter’s malaise, but with a greater arrogance and hunger for power than Carter had.
Trump’s “corruption” was a matter of zealous prosecutors making crimes out of common practices that aren’t illegal and weren’t prosecuted before. His “incompetence” was the difficulty he shared with other world leaders in dealing with what was thought to be a catastrophic once in a century biological disaster — and the difficulty he had dealing with officials who were opposed to what he was doing and leaking everything to the media. His “aspiring tyranny” has been manufactured by the Democrats and the media, though he certainly did give them some juicy quotes to work with.
Abraxas – A lot of the allegations of corruption against Trump are matters of overzealous prosecutors. Some are not, however. If Trump received millions of dollars in business from foreign governments while he was President, that’s not OK. I don’t see a problem with it if he disgorged the profits to the government as Don Jr. says he did. But did he? I don’t think we just take Don Jr.’s word for it. It shouldnt’ be difficult to show the documentation. Ridiculousness of the NY civil “fraud” case aside, we do know that Trump tends to be, shall we say, creative with accounting. Did he actually make payments to the treasury? If so, did he correctly account for the foreign spending? It’s important. And, so far, we’re just being asked to trust them.
It’s also corrupt to use the implied threat of withholding congressionally-appropriated aid money to lean on an ally to investigate your political opponents. It’s ridiculous to call that impeachable, but neither was it a “perfect phone call.”
Trump’s incompetence goes beyond Covid. He lost on his census question issue because his appointees couldn’t shoot straight and had internal memos saying one thing while they told the court another. Sally Yates is a disgrace, but issuing his travel ban before he had his own AG in place was silly, and incompetent. Continuing to publicly comment on cases that were being considered by the Justice Department was silly and incompetent (and added significant fodder to his opponent’s complaints). I could go on.
Regarding “asipring tyrant,” it’s not just about Trump’s loose lips. Attempting to stay in power after losing an election is the act of a tyrant. Sorry. As “goofed” up as the 2020 election was, Trump didn’t have evidence that he was the rightful winner. Nearly three and a half years later, there still isn’t evidence establishing that Trump was the rightful winner. (Distinguish “evidence that something was fishy” from “evidence demonstrating that Trump actually won.” There’s plenty of the former and none of the later.)
Anyway, there you go. Trump is an incompetent, corrupt, aspiring tyrant. FWIW, I don’t believe he would succeed in making himself a tyrant (See the part about incompetence). “But he’s our incompetent, corrupt, aspiring tyrant and if you don’t vote for him, you’re “accepting” the other guy’s incompetent, corrupt, aspiring tyrant!” That’s not exactly a great way to quell dissent in your own party.
“Lock her up”
Clinton was clearly in violation of laws on handling classified material. The facts publicly available provide proof if what was released about them are true.
Her handling of the information on her private server suggest she was engaging in a pay for play scam, and there is a lot of other evidence that suggests this.
Prosecuting her would be legitimate.
Bauxite on January 8, 2024 at 2:58 pm said:
Abraxas – A lot of the allegations of corruption against Trump are matters of overzealous prosecutors. Some are not, however.
So far there’s nothing indicating they have anything real on Trump. The closest thing is the classified document thing, but given the context of the last 7+ years it would be wrong to prosecute Trump on the classified docs even if the charge was legit. Which it probably isn’t.
Regarding “asipring tyrant,” it’s not just about Trump’s loose lips. Attempting to stay in power after losing an election is the act of a tyrant. Sorry. As “goofed” up as the 2020 election was, Trump didn’t have evidence that he was the rightful winner. Nearly three and a half years later, there still isn’t evidence establishing that Trump was the rightful winner. (Distinguish “evidence that something was fishy” from “evidence demonstrating that Trump actually won.” There’s plenty of the former and none of the later.)
But he didn’t do anything tyrannical to stay in power. He wanted the results reviewed, which AG Barr wasn’t interested in doing. There was no real investigation. As such there is no evidence demonstrating Biden won, either.
@Bauxite
Part 1
The dishonesty, sophistry, ignorance, and transparently bad faith you resort to has been grating for many a month, but it seems to be reaching a fever pitch.
That’s only one problem, and in many ways it is far from the root cause. It is a bit like telling the first responders to Chernobyl “the problem is that you have widespread cancer” when that is a symptom caused by the reactor sending out an appreciable fraction of the sun’s radiation straight through them. The long march of the left through the institutions (taking full advantage of the growing weight of the Statutory Legal System and the growth of the administrative state) coupled with their monopolization over entire vectors of media may not be the root cause of our problems, but they are at least a much, much more core set of reasons to why we are here than ghettoization and polarization (which are if anything natural outgrowths of the aforementioned).
That’s not the main problem we’re dealing with, because we saw this pop up several times before in American history, especially the Jeffersonian Age, the 19th century and to a lesser degree around the Great Depression. None of these were GOOD, far from it, but they were survivable in large part because the state was a lot smaller, a lot less invasive, a lot less centralized, and a lot less bankrupt, and you had a much more robust and competitive series of news sources and local government. That allowed the “Laboratories of Democracy” to continue ticking along and ultimately helped brew backlashes against things such as the FDR-Truman Dem Monopoly or the Ohio Dynasty Republican Dominance on power.
That’s a lot less likely now both because of the extreme politicization, but also the increasingly authoritarian repudiation of the US’s founding tenets by the Left and their attempts to criminalize dissent and delegate more power that should belong to the constitutional organs to unaccountable administrative bodies, while also using their message dominance to squelch hostile reporting. And increasingly demonize the opposition.
All of that means that another period of Democrat dominance probably does not merely herald a return to internal disruption, authoritarian politics, and low level violence but a threat to freedom on the local level.
I agree, and you raise a good point, Which makes it all the more ironic that YOU are the one raising this point, and will probably completely ignore applying it to yourself.
Spare me the “She was wearing a short skirt” horseshit.
The left and a lot of independents still think George W Bush “stole” the 2000 election from Albert Gore, lied in order to invade Iraq for its oil, and was a fascist. In large part due to remorseless, relentless spinning and lies as well as Bush’s own failings (of which there many). That points to a core problem separate from and more fundamental than the flaws of any one Republican President, including Trump. Which of course you ignore because it doesn’t fit your agenda.
Made all the more damning because you are quick to resort to what can be generously called overstatements, and are more likely bald lies.
“really did rile up a mob that stormed the Capital,”
Then prove it, Bauxite, like you demand we do with voter fraud while dismissing or downplaying recorded facts like wards of Milwaukee turning in results in excess of 100% of the vote. Considering the Left had a full blue ribbon witch hunt on live television to try and prove this and ultimately could not close the deal. But I’m suuuure you can.
In spite of how you were unaware of things like Saddam Hussein’s patronage of Al Qaeda until I quite literally shoved the documents in a link and shoved that link in your face, at which point you proceeded to try and spin and minimize to the extent you even bothered addressing it at all.
You also don’t seem to understand a very basic fact that even the Prog goon H.L. Mecknen.
Even if every single strawman you made about Trump were correct, it would NOT be a reason to justify skimping on due process. It would not justify turning the other cheek as the left treated many January 6th Political Prisoners (because that is what they are, because no crime they could have possibly committed would justify the nakedly inhumane, politicized, and unconstitutional manner of their detention for the best part of these past four years)., You make a big deal about Trump being “tyrannical” but that is ACTUAL tyrannical behavior, much like the abuse of the judiciary for politicized spying and a host of others.
My stance is quite simple. I will support the most conservative constitutionalist that has a possible chance of winning, whoever that may be, including Trump. I can take or leave Trump as the nominee. But if Trump is an actual criminal, then the evidence should be presented and he should be punished according to Constitutional Law. Full stop. Until that happens, I will defend him. And even after that should happen, IF it should happen, I will defend him against what I view as nakedly hypocritical, corrupt, and tyrannical charges and abuses.
Precisely because if a regime is allowed to abuse Orange Man in violation of said Constitutional Law, it will not take much of a genius to realize they will go after others. Something you conveniently downplay or ignore whenever Trump comes up.
The alligator is coming. It’s hungry. How many people do you intend to let it feast on in the hopes it will not inevitably eat you last?
And no, to pre-empt possible strawmen and put forth an argument in the absurdity: you do not get to hold yourself to be the very wisest among us by arguing “but that stupid person/those stupid people did stupid things and flung themselves into the mouth of the Progressive Alligator!” That is completely missing the point. The Progressive Alligator will take easy meals where it can get them, but it ultimately does not care about how Wise or Stupid, Brilliant or Dumb, or Moral or Immoral you are. It will not care that you are a Concerned Conservative (TM), just that you are a Conservative.
The fact that I have to explain this is jarring.
And if you begin the analysis from that perspective, you wind up conceding so much of the battlespace to the Left that you will be unable to counter them effectively. It is STAGGERING how widespread many leftist myths and “hyperbolic claims” are primarily because they are not countered effectively. Which is why you have to fight. We can quibble about the manner with which to fight, or how the effective strategies are, but if you give them an inch they will take more than a mile.
It works in large part because it is not countered effectively. Even when it DOESN’T work right away it tends to win in the long run. One thing I have criticized Trump for is adopting some of the left’s myths when it is politically convenient (or if he simply doesn’t know better) like on Iraq.
How many people can explain the 2000 Florida Presidential Election results accurately?
Ok, and how many of those people are in what we would consider John or Jane Q Public? Let alone those with Ds on their party registrations?
How many people know that the Philippines Persona Non Grata’d a bunch of Iraqi diplomats sent by Saddam because of their connections to Moro Jihadists sworn to Osama Bin Laden?
Hell, how many can define Fascism correctly?
This is not an explicitly new problem. The Haymarket Terror attack and ensuing Trials had much of their scholarship be based on the propaganda work of the anarchist accused until people actually began looking through the primary source documents of the trial. This was about a trial in the 1880s and “scholarship” lasting more than a century.
One difference is, the “ideological ghetto” on the Right in the US is a hell of a lot less suffocating because it is less absolute and more permeable, in large part because we do not have the news media on our side. So we tend to get at least some of their world view and actions by osmosis from their outlets or from those we know who have drunk the Flavor Aid.
Moreover, the right by and large accepts the concept of an objective and objectively knowable reality. The “Truth Based Community” on the Left increasingly does not due to the ravages of the more radical postmodernists.
Ah yes, the “Both sidesism.” As if Trump appealing for a peaceful, law abiding demonstration in the capitol is equal to several of said demonstrators being Gulag’d for literal years.
But you have a point in this, alas while predictably (and by design) avoiding another one: It is not difficult to cite multiple examples of tyrannical, corrupt, incompetent, anti-American, and corrosive actions by the Biden Administration and Obama, it is however incredibly difficult to FREELY ARTICULATE said arguments and evidence, in large part due to the increasingly official censorship and demonization the left employs both outside of government and in it, and also the conformity that Neo has spoken of often in her “A Mind is a Difficult Thing to Change” series. All aided and abetted by a pliant, corrupt, and politicized media and many other institutions.
This means that even if your both sidesism was so fitting, the left’s abuses and tyranny would cause far more damage than the right’s, at least at this moment in the US, because the left’s have the backing of the media, vast parts of the US bureaucracy, and a climate of reductionist, post-modernist The Ends Justify The Means, There Are No Bad Strategies Only Bad Targets mindsets.
Where do I start with this masterclass?
Firstly: Something does not stop being right or even necessary to do just because it is unpopular. Tammany Hall was usually much more popular than attempts to rein it in (and outright abolishing it was all but unthinkable for most of its history, which I note is still well over a third of our country’s independent history). That did not mean allowing it to poison our politics both on the state and a national level did not have horrible consequences we still live with today.
Though frankly compared to the New Left, Tammany Hall looks downright benign or at least much less of a threat to our freedoms and the country as a whole.
Secondly: You speak blithely of the unpopularity of defending the January 6th defendants and of “Stop the Steal” as if you expect to never have your vote be overridden by corrupt Democrat ballot stuffing (or shredding) and never expect to be placed in the dock on trial for liberty or prosperity on trumped up (hurr) charges. How craven.
Thirdly: Many of us “ignore” the “manifest weakness and unfitness of our own candidate” both because we disagree about how manifest said things are (as I know you know given the sparring you’ve done), but also as a simple matter of prioritization. Your nose is less likely to itch when you have your foot caught in a bear trap. We care less about the “manifest unfitness and weakness” of Trump because we can see not only how Biden’s unfitness and weakness (and those of most other Dems) exceeds his, but also because of the DIRE THREAT they pose due to their anti-American policies, tyrannical attitudes, and actual repressiveness.
This holds true even in cases where Trump shares blame with the Left like the COVID lockdowns. How many people died because of leftist pushing of the infected into nursing homes and others? You mock people for emphasizing that Biden is Worse, but THAT IS A PERFECTLY COGENT AND LOGICAL REASON TO SUPPORT AND DEFEND TRUMP, especially if one believes that he would be better than the alternative(s).
Let us preserve the American Republic for a few more years from downright satanic enemies of Western Civilization before we prioritize yet more sparring over how fit or unfit a given Republican or Conservative pol is. And I have made that clear to many Ever Trumpers demonizing DeSantis and others, so you do not get to honestly accuse me of hypocrisy in Trump’s favor on this case.
Indeed, even among those Republican or Conservative/”Conservative” pols I actively dislike such as MTG, Romney, and Haley, all of whom I have criticized quite sharply, I prioritize the mud fights against them much less than I do emphasizing the basic threat of the Left’s unconstitutional power grabs and usurpations BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE THE PRIMARY THREATS LIE, and indeed those threats are MUCH more fundamental and important than arguments over mere fitness or weakness for office because they go to the heart of the constitutionality of that office.
Fourthly: I find it richly ironic that you focus on the ignoring weaknesses and unfitness in our own candidate when you have caught doing the same both to the left and to candidates you prefer, and also ignoring strengths or achievements of those you dislike such as Trump. I have not been in denial about Trump being a deeply flawed human who made a number of bungles and mistakes, and I have talked about a fair number of them.
You have proven less than capable of leveling up to that. Indeed, I still remember acutely how you tried to aggressively gaslight me and anyone else reading your writing about what the meaning of “Get Out the Vote” is and who was more successful.
In summary, there are and remain far more important things in this election than mere unpopularity. If you do not understand that (as it is blindingly obvious that YOU DO NOT from what you write further down), you are even more unfit to comment on this than Trump is to run, and that’s BEFORE I get into your tendency to regurgitate enemy propaganda without critical examination and your historical and legal ignorance (as I will detail later).
If anything it makes even more egregious mistakes, as well as outright abuses.
Oh, what manifest bullshit this is.
To anybody deigning to read this drivel, yes, you read that right. That is quite literally Bauxite trying to convince us that Trump’s “abuses” are worse than those of Biden and co, as you can see by rhetorical sleight of hand.
Now to examine what is wrong with this.
You try to convince us that Biden’s abuses are merely “about ideology and how the government should be run” as opposed to “the integrity of the system itself.” This is offensively wrong hogwash for multiple reasons.
A: Biden’s abuses in person have been about a myriad of reasons and towards a myriad of goals (and probably by a myriad of actors), many differing in severity and not all of them being tied to ideology. Biden’s long track record of venal corruption and attempts to flatter his ego and reputation are extensive and well known, with our host talking about them. This ranges from the petty (such as smearing the other person in the fatal accident that killed his wife as a drunk driver when he was not, or refusing to recognize his illegitimate grandchild) to the corrosive.
To believe that Biden is more of a leftist ideologue than Barack Obama is delusional, but even Obama pointedly avoided pulling out of Afghanistan, let alone in as nightmarish a fashion as what happened. As Neo pointed out, that has Biden’s personal fingerprints all over it.
B: Biden’s abuses ALSO go to the integrity of the system as a whole in addition to ideology and how it was run. Censorship about electoral malfeasance and fraud, persecution of political prisoners in worse ways than we treated the 9/11 masterminds we captured, and enabling of politically connected rioters and domestic terrorists all strike at the integrity of the American System far more than anything The Great Orange Satan did.
Paging Al Gore in 2000. Or Stacy Abrams (who is the best argument for your sweetheart Governor Kemp after the latter’s failures and backbiting) for that matter. Which should underline to anybody who is not utterly deluded the lengths by which the Left will go to take and stay in power after losing an election.
There’s something viscerally wrong with you resorting to leftist agitprop in lieu of evidence to demonize your political opponents.
I think people outside the right ideological bubble would be outraged and disgusted at the voter fraud and voter “irregularities” we have already proven took place and got the left to admit, to say nothing of the much wider “Unproven” cases (again such as multiple jurisdictions turning in 100%+ voter turnout).
And I guarantee that those with consciences would be outraged and disgusted at things such as how the DC Police and the Left lied about Officer Sicknick’s death in order to demonize us, and also how widely they have arrested and how poorly they have treated both real and alleged Jan 6th Participants.
The issue is, NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THOSE THINGS precisely BECAUSE of the Left’s narrative control and how pliant many on the Left, Center, and supposed Right have been. That includes you. Had the parties been switched, this would have been prime Hollywood Propaganda material played back with more regularity than Bush and Trump Assassination Fetish Material, much like the McCarthy Era myths.
“Oh but da parties aren’t switched!” you say, “The Dems have the advantage and we just have to acknowledge and adjust to that!”
To which I say: how the heck do you think they got and maintain that advantage, ya genius? If you don’t have a plan for undermining the Left’s narrative control and Trueing the Vote, you are adjusting decks on the Titanic. Period.
By all means, let us. And in the meantime we’ll discuss things such as Abrams and Kemp’s track record.
Again, how the hell do you think THAT happened, and why do you think the Left has been more successful in weaponizing its control over the institutions (which I note are often FAR feebler and more dependent than they look from the outside) than we have been?
You cite these points but never clarify how.
Which is the issue.
You don’t need to ask, because we have the examples of Wilson, FDR, Obama, and (supposedly) Biden. How many people in New York City do you figure would be entirely happy knowing that Biden treated people like literal grandmothers (remember: Freeze, Personalize, Trumpet) worse for January 6th than any US Administration treated the Blind Sheikh?
(That in no way means that they would become MAGA converts, and I imagine many of them would justify or accept it, but how many even of those would find it disgusting or angering, and might be less eager to come to the ballots?)
This goes back to the root cause of Leftist unanimity and the difficulty of getting evidence out, which as Mark Steyn and others pointed out is largely by design from the Left and how they prefer to cancel the debate rather than have it.
AND IT’S MADE ALL THE WORSE BY PEOPLE REGURGITATING THEIR PROPAGANDA WITHOUT CHECKING IT WHEN IT IS CONVENIENT FOR THEM.
According to who, Kemosabe?
I have plenty of issues with Trump’s handling of the 2020 election and its aftermath, mostly on grounds of practicality, but he did not behave “tyrannically” as you claim. Unlike the people you implicitly try to argue are the lesser evil, who have violated basic fundamentals such as attorney-client privilege, freedom of conscience, and freedom of the press as well as the sanctity of the vote.
You can argue about how far any of those went. You can even argue their effects. But not that they do it.
Which brings us to the issue of why. You want to dumb this down into “Orange Man Bad, Orange Man Unfit, Orange Man Weak.” While simultaneously lauding Romney, who ultimately lost his run and much more clearly.
I argue that is largely a sidebar or side issue. Trump’s personal strengths and weaknesses exist, but they are nowhere near as important, either for the Republic as a whole or explaining the weaknesses of the Republican Party and American Conservativism.
They don’t know this will work (none of us do), they do however assume so. And one of the major and cogent reasons they believe it will work is because they have narrative control, can get away with peddling utter libel and defamation as fact, and can count on the near lockstep uniformity of much of the major press and political institutions but also the intellectual and moral cowardice of many that claim to be on the Middle of the Road or even on the Right, including you.
Mercifully, they tend to overreach, overextend, and overplay their hands in ways that aggravate and enrage the Middle of the Road and even give many on their side pause, while engaging in purity spirals and infighting over spoils. The ballot pulls are one sign of trouble in the Leftist Groupthink, as are the attempts to support Hamas. That provides the ability to either size or make opportunities to hammer them.
One of those being their disgusting and “dubiously legal” at best treatments of Trump, those around him, and January 6th members. Andrew Weissmann should be a household name of infamy, and indeed on the Right he increasingly is. Because he represents both the past and the future of the Left’s particular brand of politics, which in addition to corroding the very integrity of the US as a whole and being tyrannical are also repellent on a personal level.
*Sigh* I’ve disagreed with miguel in the past and will do so again, in many ways spiritedly, but he has you pegged here.
Firstly: He didn’t “prove your point.” Indeed he pointed out many of the intentional blindsides of it.
Secondly: You’re COMPLETELY ignoring the fact that that is a perfectly valid defense of Trump. “Look at how awful Biden is!” IS NOT a trivial point, NOR is it besides the subject of this discussion.
Thirdly: Unlike you, Miguel actually discussed – in a very brief – way how things like the Leftist dominance of the institutions happened, and points out this should not be taken as a
Ah yes, more namecalling and dishonesty. Well, two can play that game.
Let me make things very clear, you goddamn ignoramus. Ad Hominems are not a matter of name calling. They CAN be that and indeed they are one of the most common forms of it, of course, but that is not what they are in their essence.
But by all means, do not believe me.
https://www.scribbr.com/fallacies/ad-hominem-fallacy/
Also note the link goes on to mention when ad hominem arguments are not fallacious.
https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/logical-fallacies/logical-fallacies-ad-hominem/
So a couple of things.
Firstly: Pointing out that you have accepted Biden, his handlers, and much of his narrative isn’t an ad hominem, fallacy or not, especially when we can point to you quite literally regurgitating much of his narrative, lies and falsehoods you really should have known better about included. Ergo your attempts to deflect from what miguel said by alleging an ad hominem is, in and of itself, an ad hominem fallacy.
Secondly: While I have employed ad hominems in this response and other dealings with you, you gaslighting sleaze, I do not do so fallaciously. I studiously address your points (such as they are) to a fault, am not afraid of conceding when and where I think they are valid and to what extent, and laying out where you are wrong or even wrong and acting in bad faith.
Thirdly: You are quite prone to ad hominems yourself, including fallacious ones, such as implying or outright stating that those that disagree with your claims (which in some cases are not merely false but outright gaslighting, such as the claim that Romney was better at GOTV than Trump, which is OBJECTIVELY false and which you had to torture the definition of virtually every relevant term to claim) is unwell, irrational, living in a bubble, dishonest, or some combination of them.
This would be a hell of a lot more convincing if we didn’t have clear evidence in front of us where you are reiterating Biden regime talking points about Trump’s “tyranny”, “riling up a mob”, and so forth (one might be inclined to add “Without Evidence” given how even the Select Star Court for January 6th could not find that he riled up the mob to storm the capitol).
@Bauxite
Part 2
Which is nice but hardly an exoneration of your behavior now.
Oh, you MIGHT do so again this year. How generous!
The Republic bleeds out from Anarcho-Tyranny. The Biden government practices unconstitutional and anti-constitutional measures that dwarf anything Trump has even been “credibly” alleged to have done, including by you. We have political prisoners being held in inhumane conditions without recourse to proper counsel or treatment, under measures that are utterly discordant with any justification the government has given for such holding (I am not claiming all of them are 100% Innocent Lambs, though I think they are entitled to that presumption pending a FAIR trial. I AM however going to say that if the government’s justification for holding someone is – at best – unlawful trespass in a public government building, stealing something, and/or assault and battery – it is Inhumane, Absurd, Cruel, Brutal, and Illegal to hold them in conditions worse than that of the 9/11 Terrorist Godfathers like the Blind Sheikh, as well as dangerous to our rights as American citizens).
Rioters explicitly calling for the destruction of Western Civilization block traffic, pillage locations, and in many cases are escalating to calls for violence or even mass murder and are generally being treated with kid gloves. They are aided and abetted both by permissive or even criminally complicit government officials in many jurisdiction and by credentialed “intellectuals” claiming this is all well and proper.
The left is escalating to using textbook eliminationist rhetoric against us (and yes Bauxite, THAT INCLUDES YOU), and its treatment of the vulnerable shows that this is no idle banter or nonexistent threat. The ability to criticize is increasingly being curtailed both officially and unofficially, as many patriots with military service can attest. Our government is in the hands of a capable of kakistocratic crooks, anti-American radicals, and amoral careerists. We are taxed more heavily than Boston was under military occupation by the British Crown, and usually for less recourse. Attempts to make sure our elections fit the basic standards for integrity, transparency, and authenticity we hold other countries to are ignored or outright demonized, not just by the left but also by useful idiots claiming elsewhere, much like the “Insurrection” and “tyranny” narrative gets parroted by people like you.
And Bauxite CONDESCENDS to say he “might” vote for Trump in opposition to this, after having previously stated he would likely stay home and that we should stop complaining about things like vote fraud or the Jan 6th Mistreatment because it isn’t “popular” outside of a right wing thought bubble (nevermind how even if that’s true, it is due to aggressive demonization and propaganda by the left)?
Truly Bauxite wishes to show how they are among the Very Best, Most Enlightened of people. Please Clap.
How about no?
As many people far better than either of us have pointed out, this is an information and narrative war. Voting is necessary, but it is nowhere near sufficient. Which is why your demands that we accept your demonization, mocking, gaslighting, and other follies in exchange for your POTENTIAL vote (leaving aside the issue of how that gets cancelled out by it being “misplaced” or countered with a fraudulent, dishonestly exploited, or illegal vote of the kind Neo pointed out it is hard to deal with) while you parrot the enemy’s propaganda and demand we take you seriously is disgraceful in a way merely criticizing Trump (even harshly or IN MY JUDGEMENT unfairly) is not.
If you are at the point of castigating those of us tired of this nonsense as apologists for a corrupt tyrant as you allege Trump is with “Source: Trust me Bro” or “Source: Trust Biden’s Handlers, Bro”), you might as well quit while you are behind.
Then we need to start asking ourselves what Republican or conservative could win, and the answers are almost certainly worse than either of us hope for, or that you think so. It takes a particularly naive person to believe that Nikki Haley is likely to perform better than Trump in spite of having virtually no base left after her gaffes, failures, and issues with achievement.
Honestly that is putting it mildly. And frankly I believe both you and Abraxas are downplaying it by simply calling the likes of political hatchet men with a Beriaesque “Show me the Man” mindset and merely calling them “overzealous prosecutors.” Tom Dewey or Draco the Athenian may well have qualified as “Overzealous Prosecutors”, but we are dealing with downright corrupt, tyrannical hacks.
Then let us kindly discuss the ones that are not, in detail.
Depends. Leaving aside Trump’s claims to have divested from his commercial interests while running (which seems to have been plausible enough that the Powers that Be could not find significant evidence even with the might of the Federal Government), there’s a lot more leeway than you’d care to admit. Which admittedly shouldn’t be surprising given how the first Presidents of the US were generally Plantation Barons in an agricultural export economy and so would REGULARLY make lots of money from foreign actors including governments during their Presidency, even nonwithstanding their estate.
My concerns are A: where such money is not gained through RELATIVELY normal commercial dealings, B: Where it is directly detrimental to the interests of the American Republic, the American people, and said President’s domestic political opponents, and C: Where it can be indicated this had undue influence on American Government policy (whether or not I necessarily AGREE with that influence or not).
This is also why I tend to err on the side of caution in charges like this, precisely because they tend to be wooly and hard to prove. And yes, that includes political actors other than Trump, including Biden.
<blockquote. I don’t see a problem with it if he disgorged the profits to the government as Don Jr. says he did. But did he?
Ask the IRS and the people who have doubtless been investigating this every which way to Sunday. It is their job to present evidence of such things, and unlike with Biden and Obama most of their leadership clearly have incentives and motive to do exactly that.
I have more pressing problems than such hypotheticals, and I submit most people here do too.
Agreed, but see above.
PS: This means we should take the word of Biden and co? Especially given things like the Shokin firing?
Then have the IRS etc. al. prove this was not the case or the documentation was forged.
I have better things to do like consider how to deal with a possible collapse of Western Civilization and freedom, while my domestic political opponents not merely call me a Nazi (ironically while resembling the NSDAP far more than I ever have) but talk about disenfranchising me, and my supposed political colleagues like you lean into that when you think it serves your purpose.
No, No let us not set the NY Civil Fraud Case Aside, precisely because it represents part and parcel of systematic abuse for political purpsoe.
Because accounting is by definition a creative field in a maddeningly complex background, in which even without any fraudulent intent or corruption things get messy. THERE IS A GODDAMN REASON WE ARE SUPPOSED TO OPERATE UNDER THE THEORY OF INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. And those actually involved in accounting will attest to how muddy, subjective, and inherently adversarial that is, and by extension how AUDITING of said accounting is.
Larry Correia – who I submit is probably more accomplished and knowledgeable in general than both of us combined will be in a dozen lifetimes, and particularly on this field – DOES. And he posted this piece two years ago, and while you can pooh pooh him as a Deplorable Trump Supporter you do NOT get to claim he is insulated in the right wing thought bubble or ignorant on this field.
https://monsterhunternation.com/2020/09/28/no-you-idiots-thats-not-how-taxes-work-an-accountants-guide-to-why-you-are-a-gullible-moron/
*Snip*
That hasn’t happened yet, in spite of the left’s efforts and no small amount of those supposedly in the center and right being amiable to that.
The Left fucking leaked Trump’s Taxes to the public after the government audited him year in and year out, and they still haven’t been able to substantiate charges against him.
https://monsterhunternation.com/2021/09/27/people-really-dont-understand-how-audits-work-and-the-media-likes-it-that-way/
Let’s leave aside the fact that Trump’s pledge to pay earnings to the Treasury was voluntary, and not something done by those exalted as paragons of reason and honesty as Harry Truman (President who quite literally defrauded Congress and the Republic) or George Washington, and so Trump would have plenty of legal right to up to a point say “I am altering the deal” and renege on that without it being corrupt (Unethical? A betrayal of a promise? Worth shunting him for? Yes. But there’s a difference between those and criminality.)
(And on that note we’re going to cover how you like conflating them when it suits your purpose).
If Trump is not compliant with his pledge or has been taking undue payments from foreign governments, the Treasury has been under Donk Control for at least 3 years, if not longer. Ditto the IRS. If they have evidence of that, then let their Satanic Auditors provide it, and THEN we can go over that evidence to make sure it isn’t as much bullshit as the disinformatsiya that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian fake. Until those things happen, neither you nor I have much reason to take this seriously, ESPECIALLY when we have way more pressing threats to deal with.
Which is why I will not humor this kind of nonsense navel gazing “prove you are innocent” bull pucky, especially against someone who for whatever his MANY flaws was a reasonably upstanding citizen under the microscope for decades.
But at least while facetious, hypothetical to a deranged degree, and flipping the burden of proof, there is at least grounds to sympathize with that doubt.
There is not when it comes to a lot of the tripe you say next.
No, NO IT IS NOT.
Because you see, while Larry Correia’s area of expertise is finances and writing, my area of RELATIVE expertise is history and American Constitutional Law. And even I know enough to recognize this is bullshit. Moreover, if you put things into a fraction of their context it becomes VERY CLEAR why this is bullshit.
Firstly: It is not corrupt or illegal to use the implied or even explicit threat of withholding congressionally apportioned money to lean on an ally. This is done decades in and decades out for all kinds of reasons. While Congress is delegated the power to declare war, make binding treaties, and deliberate on foreign policy the day to day affairs of Foreign Diplomacy and State are purviews of the Executive Branch, with appointments made by the President under the oversight of Congress. Presidents can and do use Congressionally earmarked funds for allies or co-belligerents or others for all kinds of pressure such as pushing for elections or to clamp down on or encourage military policy for our allies, and indeed this is largely intentional .
Diplomacy is an ugly horse trading game that calls for no small amount of arm twisting and leverage, and the Founders recognized this (after all, how the heck would they NOT given their own problems in dealing with the French, Spanish, Dutch, British, Prussians, Russians, and a host of others even before winning independence?).
This becomes particularly clear when you realize a few things, especially about the early US.
A: While there WAS a time prior to the Constitution that the President of the Congress could not even reply to a letter without the express permission of the Congress, THIS was quickly realized to be unworkable (especially for reasons I’ll get to later) and the Constitution itself underlined the consent and advice of Congress and the President in making foreign policy JOINTLY.
B: Congress was and is a body with a changing structure that adjourns or stands variably, and this was PARTICULARLY true in the pre-modern period where it would adjourn for months at a time, meaning that the President and other Executive offices needed the autonomy to formulate responses.
So you’re going to need more to prove corruption than simply pointing to horse trading and using Congressionally Appropriated funds as leverage over a foreign ally.
Secondly: I can already hear you say “AH, but if it isn’t corrupt to use those funds as leverage against an ally/friendly country’s government in and of itself, IT IS corrupt to use them to investigate your domestic opposition! Theerefore Orange Man Bad!”
Breaking news from 1777: *That’s not True EITHER.* And that should be OBVIOUS when you remember that the very first “domestic enemies” the US faced were British Loyalists and Amerindians (who for various bizarre and often bigoted reasons were generally not considered fully sovereign foreign countries and thus domestic; I don’t have to agree with that in order to point out its relevance to the law), and where we would very quickly see Citoyen Genet and Minister Plep Liston would duel and do incredibly saucy things like finance outright domestic propaganda calling for things up to and including actual, unironic insurrection (esp. in Genet’s case).
And this is before we talk about other issues like the CPUSA and German-American Bund.
The Founders were many things, but they were not THIS naive. They recognized that there was the prospect of foreign powers unduly influencing the US (after all, they lived during a time when they never stopped doing that) and of the US doing similar. Indeed the fear that John Adams was doing this was central to the XYZ Affair and the start of the Quasi War, and this actually happening helped kneecap Pierce’s Presidency.
So the Executive DOES have a legitimate scope for using the powers vested in it and the resources appropriated by Congress for relations with a given country to pressure that country to investigate illegal and/or unethical conduct by the Sitting Executive’s Domestic Enemies. Whether this is out of fear for Insurrection or more mundane matters like Corruption (such as the fallout of Lockheed and US government pressure to investigate and clear this up) does not inherently matter.
This is the legitimate wedge that the left used to press on to justify their Russia Collusion BS.
And IRONICALLY, you’ll note the Left by and large dropped or at least downplayed the issues of Trump using that pressure to ask Ukraine to investigate Biden etc. al.’s role in the dismissal of Shokin and the ties of Hunter to Burmisa.
Largely because
A: Of the naked double standard involved, because even explaining this in the typically clipped, dishonest way the MSM is given to would probably involve touching at least briefly over the reasons why Trump was pressing for that investigation, which in turn reopened the old Shokin Dismissal issue. Which for various reasons Legal Insurrection and others have pointed out didn’t play well for the left to start with and now plays EVEN WORSE since we have internal Obama Admin documents discussing how Biden’s demand ran counter to the US’s nominal anti-corruption pressure campaign in Ukraine (when that was the fig leaf Biden used to justify it before).
B: There is such a strong precedent for allowing POTUS to do these kinds of manipulation and pressure in such fashions, to some degree going back even to the strictly constructionist Pre-Jackson Presidents.
(Though I imagine the Dems are glad you are making an argument they can’t coherently or credibly make themselves for them.)
Ok, so it wasn’t a “perfect phone call.” And Jefferson’s investigation of British pressure campaigns in the US did not consist of perfect letters.
So what?
Policy does not have to be perfect in order to not be corrupt.
Sure, agreed. But his competence also goes far beyond.
Agreed, and that is one thing I criticize him for. But I note that his “lost” is still much better than any GOP POTUS in my timeline.
Only if you assume that the POTUS does not have powers to limit immigration in an emergency (such as say a state of ongoing international terrorism, LIKE WHAT THE FOUNDERS EXPERIENCED THROUGH THE 1780s AND 1790s
WHEN THE FRENCH, BRITISH, AND PETTY BARBARY DEYLIKS COMPETED TO SEE WHO COULD CAPTURE THE MOST AMERICANS ) or that the risk of terrorism from the clusterfarqs in Syria and Iraq were not threats that demanded a rapid response.
Which given the drumbeat of jihad at here, is going to be One HECK of a pull to make.
Trump put his foot in his mouth on plenty of things and allowing the Left to paint it as a “Muslim Ban”, but this is still far better than the alternatives.
Silly maybe. Incompetent I would argue in some cases. But the POTUS has a bully pulpit for a reason, and that includes being willing to call out the Justice Department or its predecessors for abuses or folly. In many ways I would argue he erred in not being careful enough but also not confronting JD on matters like Epstein’s “Suicide” .
I’m sure you can, and I am sure that you will not be overly encumbered by checking the facts or relevant law before making grandiose allegations of fact.
Where do I start with this?
Firstly, Bauxite is once again playing the Humpty Dumpty “Words Mean What I want Them To Mean” game again, using “Tyrant” and “tyrannical” with staggering dishonesty.
So let’s go to what Tyrant ACTUALLY means. Namely, one who seizes power illegitimately and rules absolutely or at least in an authoritarian manner.
That’s important because it establishes a few things.
Firstly: NO, IT IS NOT TYRANNICAL TO ATTEMPT TO STAY IN POWER AFTER LOSING AN ELECTION unless almost every single Prime Minister to head a Minority Government in a Parliamentary Democracy were to be considered a Tyrant, especially after facing crushing electoral defeats.
(And before you say “But the US is not a Parliamentary system!” That is true but ignores the point: you overstated. Grotesquely. Because you get to demonize and vilify Trump and by extension those of us who support him, no matter how cautiously. Again. Own your screwup.)
Nor is it tyrannical to attempt to remain in power by legitimately rules lawyering about the integrity of the vote or asking for investigation, which is what Trump did.
It is tyrannical to remain in power without legal authority or justification, but that is not what Trump did.
This is a strawman that’s moving the goal post. Election audits rarely feature ironclad evidence that the other side was the rightful winner starting out, as Neo pointed out. Indeed, Correia and others pointed out that *This is literally the purpose of audits.* To identify red flags indicating POSSIBLE Tomfoolery and to clamp them down, whether or not this changes the result.
(Though it can and it has).
I will be the first to argue that Trump was brash and overconfident in putting it as he did, but he had SIGNIFICANT reason to suspect this was the case and demand audits (and not mere recounts). I keep bringing up the 100%+ Turnout in much of Milwaukee but that was not even the only or most important case, and it gets all the more jarring when one points to the synchronized gaps in vote counting in crucial swing states and the illogically Democrat leaning “new votes” counted after the pause.
All of these are legal grounds to suspect fraud or other shenanigans and to demand an audit, as was recognized in Florida in 2000 and in many other cases.
To act like one has no right to call for such things unless one has ironclad proof that shenanigans happened but did so decisively enough to change the outcome of the election is suicidal, dishonest, and illogical. It also handily regurgitates the Left’s rhetoric and propaganda points, as others have pointed out.
You come forth with evidence that justifies an investigation and THEN investigate and see if what you find will turn up enough to change the results of the election. It’d be NICE if the initial evidence is enough to show “OMG you guize cheated I won”, but it isn’t AND SHOULDN’T Be NECESSARY.
https://monsterhunternation.com/2021/09/27/people-really-dont-understand-how-audits-work-and-the-media-likes-it-that-way/
https://monsterhunternation.com/2020/11/12/i-asked-one-simple-question-to-people-who-work-with-fraud/
https://monsterhunternation.com/2020/11/09/election-2020-the-more-fuckery-update/
And before you go into the issue of “But Popularity/Optics!”
A: This being unpopular with the public or controversial does not change whether or not it is necessary.
B: It does not change whether or not shenanigans happened.
B.1: It does not change if there were so much shenanigans the outcome was changed.
C: It does not justify or explain why YOU are so quick to pooh pooh the results and condemn anybody who so much as raises the question.
For reasons Neo has talked about EXTENSIVELY, namely how hard it is to wing it against voter fraud and machine politics with the flaws we have, and also harder to detect it after the fact even with an opposition making no effort to cover its corrupt tracks.
Ironically, this is an argument in favor of what Trump argued, of an immediate post-election audit. A system that REALLY SHOULD be well integrated into this system already but which isn’t and which we suffer from.
The problem is that the latter would be aggregated from the former.
Moreover, the former serves as an alarm bell or red flag TO PUSH FOR AN AUDIT or at least a delay of the EC.
There you go, says the gaslighting ignoramus. The supposed bottom line or exclamation point justifying demonization of Trump and those that support him and grotesque indifference to Biden etc. al.’s abuses. Let’s go through this.
A: “Aspiring Tyrant”. No, he’s not, for the reasons I pointed out. Indeed, you had to torture the definition of tyrant past the point of breaking in order to make this claim.
B: “Corrupt”. The one explicit claim you made about corruption here was that it was corrupt for Trump to use apportioned aid to pressure the Ukrainians to investigate Biden and Obama’s role in the firing of Shokin and investigations of corruption at Burmisa, BOTH OF WHICH were tied to iterated concerns of the US Government regarding corruption in Ukraine. That makes your claim that this is “corrupt” historically and legally illiterate, as well as the moral equivalent of word salad. It can be utterly dismissed.
The only other claim you had was the question of if Trump financially benefitted from foreign payments while President, which YOU ADMIT YOU DO NOT KNOW IF HE DID or if he did anything improper. You try to flip this on its head to argue Trump has not Proven Himself Innocent even with the might of Treasury looking over his finances, but this is irrelevant. It is Trump’s necessary obligation to pay what is legally determined as his obligation, avoid illegal entanglements, and produce what documents are demanded.
It is Treasury’s job to provide evidence if he did what you did, and BY YOUR OWN ADMISSION they have not. You complain about trusting Trump or Trump Jr, which is fair, but it also means we have every right to trust unproven innuendo or theory casting like this.
So the part you made a concrete claim about Trump’s corruption on is blatantly false. The rest is innuendo to which I respond “Then Freaking Prove It”. Because it’s not like Treasury wouldn’t like to prove it.
As such going off of the arguments and evidence you cited, there is no “There” there. Indeed, there is actually LESS than no “there” there because of the legal precedents allowing the US to lean on Ukraine using Congressionally appropriated aid as a lever to demand things like anti-corruption investigation and preventing undue ties by the likes of Biden.
There’s a reason why the Left generally leaves this particular hot potato alone and when they don’t they greatly abridge and crop it to try and make it look bad.
Forgive us if I don’t give particular freight to what a bombastic ignoramus who has been uncritically lapping up anti-Trump agitprop from the Left without even *checking it* “believes.”
This is rich considering how you have been using similar guilt tripping to argue that those of us who do not ditch Trump are empowering Biden. It’s even more rich since smearing your opponents as morons while peddling literal blood libel and lies is also not a great way to quell dissent in your own party.
Especially when you engage in gaslighting, arguments in bad faith, factual illiteracy, crass indifference to injustice by Biden and co against people like the Jan 6th Defendants and Trump because you don’t like them and/or it’s unpopular, and so on.
Most people don’t have the patience to read through your prattle and respond to it with even a fraction of the autistic prattle and text bombing I do. let alone what knowledge I do have to point out things like how you misuse the word “tyrant” when it is appropriate and blatantly lie about what is and is not corrupt for a POTUS to do with Congressional Funding to an allied country as if you were proclaiming empirical reality that water is wet.
But I at least am willing to make the effort, because this kind of foulness needs to be called out more, and I encourage others to do it too. It goes well beyond mere distaste for Trump and doubt about whether he could win (which for all of the issues is at least a position that can be HONESLTY argued). You are engaging in blood libel character assassination and leftist propaganda on here while smearing your fellow contributors, and it needs to be called out.
I hope others continue to do so.
Finally, I frankly think om is being too generous to you by calling you a “Concerned Conservative” given the abject lack of concern regarding things like the abuses to January 6th defendants and his overreach.
Part of me considers using the label of one of the villains from the original Max Payne, but I ultimately propose Cruel Conniver.