The Democrats’ 2024 campaign: it’s lies all the way down
Politicians lie. Of course they do. But I’ve never before seen the sheer volume of lies that the Democrats are putting out this year – at least, not in the US. Their platform consists of lying about Trump and what he plans, and issuing vague generalities about how wonderful it will be when the Democrats get back in power.
Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but Democrats are in power right now.
Two topics in particular are the subject of many of the lies, and they both have to do with what Trump and the Republicans have planned if they’re victorious. It’s the ultimate strawman argument, and the Democrats count on two things. The first is that the MSM won’t fact-check them, and the second is that listeners won’t fact-check them either. So the lies will be believed, people will not only remain fearful of Trump (based in large part on previous lies that Democrats and the MSM have told about him) but will become even more fearful at the prospect of a Trump second term. The Democrats are basically saying: vote for us through fear.
And yes, Trump lies. But his lies are almost all of the bragging exaggeration type: the size of a crowd, for example. They are relatively harmless and there is no comparison to what the Democrats do.
I could spend a lot of time fact-checking the Democrats, but others have done it before me. So I’ll just be lazy and link to a sample of articles on the subject: this one deals with Kamala Harris’ DNC speech; this one deals more generally with the DNC speeches; this one is older and is about the lies concerning Project 2025, lies that continue; this one is about lies concerning Vance and Project 2025.
NOTE: The title of this post is a reference to this saying.
One of the Harris campaign’s main initiatives appears to be to scare middle class women into believing that Trump will behave as some kind of Pro-Life hardliner and enforce a bunch of restrictions on birth control and to somehow enact a nationwide abortion ban without Congress. All hogwash of course, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean it won’t be believed.
Leftists lie with the ease you breath
Dennis Prager
Democrats count on another thing – Trump isn’t capable of running a competent campaign to expose the whole charade.
I’m not sure we know how many people get their news only from legacy media. I think we can be sure the number is declining as the population ages, but I don’t know how quickly. I’m not sure who’d know or how to find out.
The bloggers I follow have been at blogging for twenty or thirty years and generally reference legacy media. This of course lets legacy media have its first crack at screening out anything that contradicts its narrative.
I’m not sure how I’d find out how the general population gets its information or what they think about it, but I’m pretty sure I can’t trust what’s in the legacy media to tell me those things, or anything else that doesn’t serve their interests and their patrons’.
CC™ strikes again.
Speaking of turtles, I’m surprised that I haven’t yet heard anyone call Kamala a “port turtle.” A “post turtle” is a turtle that somebody has placed on top of a post. Wikipedia has a perfect definition of a post turtle, which is also a perfect description of Kamala:
“You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, she doesn’t know what to do while she’s up there, she’s elevated beyond her ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.”
(Male pronouns have been replaced with female pronouns to have the above quote more perfectly apply to Kamala.
Of course, if you in Texas, people would say about Kamala that she is “all hat, no cattle.”
Please feel free to spread either of the above among other folks!
@Rusty
I feel like it is an apt comparison in most cases, but as a turtle lover and general herpophile I think I prefer other things. Also, Post Turtles are ultimately victims. Kamala is not. The more you look the more you can see what a truly rancid, horrible person she was and is.
@Bauxite
Firstly: Your judgement on Trump is provably fucking godawful Bauxite. And it looks like more people are happy to call you out on that, especially when you either deluded yourself or gaslit us to try and pretend that Trump was not making substantive arguments or doing things the video clearly showed he was.
Secondly: As far as timing goes this is a particularly bad example from you, considering how Trump’s debate performance and defeat of Biden there catalyzed the in house Dem coup to remove Biden from the race, effectively destroying the multi year charade that Biden was perfectly fit to run and be elected again in 2024.
I have plenty of issues with Trump (such as his frankly ineffective and naive prep for voter security before 2020), and if you wish to discuss the matters of FACT on that we can. But no such discussion can get around that.
Thirdly: The debate is not only one issue, but he and the grassroots have generally had a good track record (especially by the standards of actually-existing-American-conservativism and the actually-existing-Republican-Party) of debunking the left, hence why one of the campaign ads for him Twitchy highlighted was a snippet of Kamala’s speaking admitting how badly grocery prices had increased. Ditto the dogged resistance against the Russia hoax.
Fourthly: If you wish to claim that Trump is incapable of “running a competent campaign to expose the whole charade” one is inclined to ask: compared to who? Romney? McCain? Not everyone is DeSantis and even DeSantis as of now has an unfortunately limited audience outside of Florida. I hope that changes, but if you want to snipe at Trump it helps acknowledging what he brings to the table.
The thread about him addressing Jew Hatred showed you have greatly failed to do that, and this snipe from you does little to indicate you are getting better at it. Indeed Ii’d argue you are getting less effective at it, not more.
Looking for anything other than the convention on the tube, I accidentally listened to a few sentences from Kamala and every one was an untruth.
Regarding Bauxite / Turtler . . .
I sure wish Trump expressed his vital points more like, say, DeSantis or Ramaswami or Vance do. Even just a little bit more would be nice. His unforced errors drive me bananas (plantains if you prefer), but I do think he’s gotten a little better in that regard.
Butcha know what? ** I’m not his audience **.
His audience overlooks the unforced errors, much as the left overlooks the lies spewed by those who provide them with their talking points du jour.* What’s desperately needed is for his audience to include the scattered undecideds and persuadables left out there.
* neo is on target, when she points out that Trump’s “lies are almost all of the bragging exaggeration type: the size of a crowd, for example. They are relatively harmless and there is no comparison to what the Democrats do.” Tell it, sista!
We’ll see how well Trump exposes the establishment emperor’s nakedness in the coming weeks. I’m actually hopeful regarding the exposure — but I’m not terribly hopeful regarding the impending lawfare and other sundry shenanigans / surprises we’re all eagerly anticipating // SARCASM regarding that last turn of phrase.
I sure hope my blood pressure can handle the overload.
I wanted to watch some of the big speeches this week. I really wanted to see what they were saying. You know, know your opponent and all that. I caught a bit of Hillary’s and Bill’s speeches, all of Michelle and Barry’s,, and some of Oprah’s. I just couldn’t take any more.
I did learn that the problems we have were all caused by Trump. Yeah, he’s more powerful than anyone knew. Out of office for four years and yet, high prices, an open border, rising crime, two wars, and the Afghanistan failure are all his fault.
I also learned that the USA is a place where even rich people like the Clintons, Obamas, and Oprah aren’t free. Or at least that’s what they said. Somehow Donald Trump has power over them and others like them. He’ll take their freedom away.
Also, he’s going to ban abortion. Yep. he’s one powerful dude. He’s going to stand between women and their doctors. And he’s going to prevent children from getting irreversible sex changes that they desperately need. Trump is a dictator docha know.
I also learned that Trump is only in politics for himself and his greedy Wall Street buddies. He doesn’t care about we little people – not the way Bill, Hil, Barry, Michelle, and Oprah do.
Well, I hope you all appreciate what I did by watching these speeches. It was not FUN!
Regarding the Obamas (along with many others) and little people:
Excerpting from https://spectator.org/a-party-at-war-with-the-truth/ . . .
“And in a speech long on theatrics and drama, swooned over by all the usual media mavens, Michelle told us that her mother was ‘suspicious’ of people who ‘take more than they need.’ Excuse me?
“The Obamas had a net worth of less than $3 million when Barack was elected president. They’re worth more than $70 million now. They have houses in ritzy Kalorama in D.C., Martha’s Vineyard, and a new mansion in Hawaii on the way. Who in the hell is Michelle Obama to talk about how suspicious it is to ‘take more than they need?'”
There being no legitimate means to acquire the desired object, only the thief feels the need to lie.
J.J., listening to all those speeches was martyrdom indeed.
The Dem campaign this fall is content-free, except for a few speeches in which Kamala unleashed her latent socialist tendencies.
@M J R
Agreed. I wish he were an actual conservative rather than basically a rebranded 1980s/1990s Lib Democrat. Which is one reason I was and sort of am instinctively a Cruz/DeSantis man.
Largely agreed. I do think it isn’t just bragging exaggeration, like the claim “I don’t think” Washington had Slaves. Embarrassing and in bad taste and easy to be weaponized, but ultimately paltry.
Other than that, I largely agree. Good luck with your blood pressure. I feel we could all use some help here.
theres not enough antacid in the world to get me to listen to those speech
yes they served Bertelsman and Reed Hastings, very well,
the Pritzker clan given a nod by the actual
Communist sanders have pushed urban chaos and
the tranhumanist agenda, to the breaking point a certain division of labour, his generational wealth, prevented any accountability to happen in 2022,
who else was on deck, Fireman per excellance,
Al Sharpton, there is a strong scent of sulfur when he’s around from Bernard Goetz to Tawana Brawley to Freddie’s Fashion Mart
to speak of Pelosi and or Jeffries, the kidnappers in the study with the Candle stick is sort of beside the point, for a brief moment I had pity for the hollow eyed jack a lantern until he had to speak,
I have noted how the cult bond imitation series which lost a step in the last iteration, Kingsman is decidely on point, a non descript Obama is revealed to be scheming with the Villain who has decidedly transhumanist designs,
the villain and the lead operative are all riffing on the objectives suggested above, he doesn’t really care about the emissions because it’s a red herring
that serves his Gaia hypothesis that we are the pathogen on the planet, rarely is it ever spelled out in fiction, well perhaps Thanos, who was in severe error, and of course ‘you need eggs to make an omelet’ don’t you know
when facts are no longer the limiting factor, it doesn’t matter what desantis or haley for example would say, the former I have respect for, the latter I have little,
but they might have pushed the restrictions a little too strongly, I’m speaking practically not ethics,
Turtler
My feeling is that Americans have firmly rejected small government conservatism.
Turtler (6:59 pm), I’m certainly with you in the brief paragraph where you point out “I do think it isn’t just bragging exaggeration.” Thanks for the conversation.
This is the worst I’ve seen from Democrats, not that that is a particularly high bar.
I see it, not as 1984 knocking on our door, but as that’s all they’ve got. How else can they run at this point?
And if the Almighty Fraud Machine were so almighty, why would they have to switch Joe out for Kamala?
As the Politics of Joy flame out, I do worry what they might do next. Some huge emergency?
@Richard F Cook
I fear that is true, and if so it does make me wonder how much we can really change. It is neither wise nor healthy for human governments to have this much power, especially given how addictive and dependency-creating it is. dangerous too. It seems to me that if we cannot roll back the government drastically we are largely fighting over control of a crashing plane with nothing in the tank. Important? Sure. Maybe even life saving. But not able to prevent a crash, just shape how it slams down.
And that is horrifying in its own right, and why Trump was not my first pick and RFK not really someone I was fond of at all. But I’ll take what I can get.
@M J R
No, thank you for your comments. They are very penetrating and informative, even if said information is largely about things getting worse.
@Turtler, Richard F Cook:My feeling is that Americans have firmly rejected small government conservatism.
I don’t believe Trump will be elected, but even if he were to be, he’s a stopgap, making it harder (for a few years) for the Party of Government to turn the US into Mexico under PRI.
That breathing space needs to be used to figure out what on earth we’re actually for, and how on earth we’re going to get there, because getting behind a guy with Bill Clinton’s positions thirty years later than the Dems did is not a long term strategy for advancing conservatism.
I do think the ultimate solution has to be federalism, devolving the big government functions and the taxation and borrowing needed to support them down to the states, and some of them will want to be cradle-to-grave welfare states no doubt. And let those who like that go to those places. If conservatism is objectively a better way to govern it will eventually show up in the differential success of those states that embraced it.
And I do think the national GOP needs to be reformed from the bottom up into something that is not just token opposition and appropriations and backstabbing Trump.
John Hinderaker is trolling y’all: Democrats’ Strategy Is Bizarre, But It May Work
Or, maybe he is simply stating the rather obvious facts…
Karmi – I think Hinderaker nailed it. People around here don’t like to hear it, but I think it’s true.
The GOP nominated a candidate with virtually universal name recognition, an approval rate 10 points underwater, and who 60% of the electorate didn’t want to run again. The politics are simple. To win, Democrats make the election a referendum on the unpopular GOP nominee. Accomplishing that with a sitting VP as their own nominee is challenging, but not impossible when the press is willing to light what’s left of its integrity on fire to help. It also helps when the GOP’s hugely unpopular nominee also happens to be a publicity hound who can neither stay on message nor shut up and get out of his own way.
I hope I’m wrong. I’ll happily eat crow if Trump wins. But frankly, you can “CC(r)” me all you want. That won’t make a tiny bit of difference when we all have to live for four years under Harris/Walz, which is what I think is coming. And it won’t blunt the red hot anger from about 40% of the GOP directed to the Trumpers who will have brought it about.
Bauxite, so let’s put a box around this, stamp the date and on Nov twentysomething (when the counting is done) I’ll eat crow or you’ll eat crow, but in the meantime let’s work to get Trump elected– unless you want the fundamental transformation of America to continue.
How about those 40% get onboard for the next 75 days as well.
@Karmi
As far as the headline goes, Hindraker is right, as is much of what he wrote. However, I feel he got a good number of things in the article flat out wrong.
For starters, what Karmi quoted:
The reality is that No, No they were NOT smart enough to realize they needed a new candidate. Which is precisely why the Biden Clique were able to stonewall the Harris Clique all the way to the first debate and even held out for some time after it. Which is one reason they had to make such a hasty, poorly timed, and ugly transition that put things like Biden’s war chest and registration in states like Ohio in doubt, even if slight doubt.
Moreover; whatever voices in the party felt that Kamala was too incompetent, corrupt, or toxic to run (as many obviously believed given how long Biden was kept in) could not prevail over the likes of Clyburn refusing to set her aside.
The only real sense this claim of Hindraker’s makes any sense is that they realized they had to ditch Biden after the first debate, but that is worthy of partial credit at best.
Secondly: Hindraker argue that “The Republican were not (smart enough to realize they needed a new candidate).” The problem, with this claim, as I have pointed out many times over, is “Ok, what would the alternative be?” Who would the Not-Donald-Trump for the Republican Ticket be, and how would s/he be better or preferable?
Hindraker names Nobody. Unfortunately last I checked, you can’t run “Nobody” at the top of a ticket, in much the same way you can’t run “Ideal Platonic Form of a Conservative American Statesman”.
One consequence of criticism – and especially condemnation – is needing to come up with a *viable* alternative, and that has been sorely lacking. Especially when you see conspicuous failure to understand why Trump has hung in so much (even beyond leftist astroturfing for him in 2016), or of his merits or demerits.
Thirdly:
The problem comes with the bold. Which might SEEM to work – and certainly does as far as terminal TDS cases, who weren’t going to vote any way – until you take a look outside and look at Harris and Walz desperately trying to position themselves as moderates and friends of the working and middle classes, even when it means trying to forcibly divorce themselves from their prior track records. In other words, she is quite literally trying to stem the bleeding from Trumpian populism by imitating aspects of it.
So no, not even her persona as Not-Donald-Trump is “perfectly authentic.” And while I expect most of the hardcore TDS cases and leftist fanatics to not care about that for the same reason they were willing to go along with Biden’s term as Puppet of the United States, that’s going to be not such an easier sell outside of it.
Fourthly:
This is simply Hindraker huffing his own fumes and retreating into a borderline Opium Dream of a yesterdecade that never was. As our host has pointed out many many times over, the Left and DNC have made a long, Long history of demonizing “Generic Republican” or anyone running as a Fascist Dixiecrat (yes the irony) Warmongerer Corporatist. Take a look at the Romney Binders case. Take a look at the smear campaign by Blasey-Ford and co. Remember when the “Put you all back in Chains” thing happened.
Anyone who believes the left would allow an unmitigated attack or campaign on Harris’s record or platform as-is has failed to learn the lessons of at least half a century and probably more. But as for myself? Well, maybe I haven’t learned all the lessons, but I sure as fuck remember the “BusHitler” bullshit and the Women in Binders and how the left flipped on McCain when he ran against Obama.
Only some of what he is stating are facts, let alone rather obvious ones. Several others are rather obvious falsehoods.
CC™ will have a murder of crows to eat on November 6, 2024 but they will have nothing to fear. Not a single crow will touch his lips.
CC™ will seamlessly transition to his new argument that The Great Orange Whale must be removed from office.
It is CC™’s purpose in life.
@Bauxite
He got some parts right and the headline is true as far as it goes, but he got much provably wrong.
Well, that’s a ringing endorsement. The person who fucked up basic statistics so hard they tried to claim Romney’s GOTV campaign was superior to Trump’s and who is so deep into TDS brain rot that they quite literally claimed Trump wasn’t doing what he was in a thread with a video link showing otherwise.
And for the record: People around here don’t like hearing a lot of stuff. I’m sure Neo doesn’t like hearing the leftist news coverage or much of what passes for pro-Hamas propaganda, and I sure as hell don’t. J.J certainly had a hell of a time listening to the DNC. But many of us (I won’t claim everyone, or even a majority) don’t shy away from things we don’t want to hear.
“Analysis” by the likes of you and Hindraker regarding the drumbeat of TDS is different precisely because it’s not only grating to hear, but it is often monumentally badly argued and sourced. To the point where I sometimes wonder if Hindraker even remotely considered how a campaign between Biden or Harris or any other Dem on one side and DeSantis, or Cruz, or Rubio, or anyone else would go. The idea that Harris’s failures and track record would be front and center strikes me as a fail to plan, and thus planning to fail.
And as Neo pointed out, there are probably far fewer people who had Trump as their first choice in 2016 than there are those that didn’t on this blog, and we can and do criticize him (for instance, his failed battlefield prep on voter integrity). However, he also brings quite a lot to the table, such as widening the Republican Coalition. That is something that is quite evident here with RFK Jr, Kennedy Heir and Leftist Wingnut extraordinaire.
That’s not nothing. You, Karmi, Hindraker, and anyone else are welcome to argue that it is not enough to make up for what we lose with Trump. But you’re going to have to face an uphill battle arguing for the alternatives and against things like the failures from 2008 to 2016, on top of the issues caused in large part by Trump’s failed outreach to the Establishment GOP (like Kemp, another thing that gets seriously brushed out of the “Trump Bad Kemp Good” narrative a lot of Nevertrumpers on the Right like arguing for).
And to be absolutely blunt, I don’t think you can competently make that argument, because if you could you’d have done so already. Hell, you couldn’t even identify the reasons for the differences in vote share between 2012 and 2016.
Which is why you are reliant on – like what I referred to with Hindraker’s comment – fantasies of a “yesterdecade that never was” and the idea that ANYBODY and ANYTHING would do a better job as GOP Presidential Nominee or GOP President than Donald Trump.
But that simply isn’t true. Which is why “Trump Bad” is not actually an alternative party.
Which is its own double edged sword. Compare/contrast to others.
But still generally above that of Biden/Harris. And whose policies were much more broadly popular than 10% underwater.
But yet who managed to obtain a far larger headcount in ballots than any previous Republican President, and who was only (supposedly) drowned out by Biden supposedly getting more ballots than anyone in American History ever, disproportionately centered around urban leftist dominated Dem Political Machines while underperforming elsewhere.
If we were assessing this result in somewhere like Nigeria or Bangladesh, an honest accounting would know exactly how suspect to call it. Of course, such an accounting cannot be taken for granted given scum like Carter certifying more than one PSUV election in Venezuela as “Free and Fair”, but that points to the wider problem.
Ironically, you pointed out how Trump failed to prepare for this and his followups and attempts at retaliation and remedy fell far short. And you are correct to do so. This is one great weakness. However, you have been conspicuous in overlooking the question of if any other Presidential Republican Candidates have done it better, which is all the more jarring given how you basically invented the idea of “Romney’s GOTV was better” out of a mixture of statistical mangling and wishful thinking. (I know state side Republicans can and have been better, it is one reason DeSantis is so loved. But he hasn’t managed to break out into the Presidential Slate well, and I say this as someone who would’ve preferred him over Trump).
If they are so simple, why do you have to miss the point so damn hard?
And the mixture of generational smears and propaganda as well as powerful urban political machines and a near monopoly on the media makes that incredibly easy to do. And they have done it many times over, as Romney, McCain (who was terminally dependent on leftist press because almost no Conservatives outside Arizona wanted to deal with him), and Both Bushes found.
We can argue about whether or not they are more or less effective against Trump than either “Generic Republican Candidate” or a specific Republican Candidate, but that doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t going to step off the gas just because the candidate isn’t Trump. You know this, I know this, everyone honest or sane knows this. So the question is: who is better at countering and neutralizing this kind of libel? You apparently want to argue people like Haley, Romney, and so on. But I beg to differ, as does apparently the depths to which the left feels they need to go.
Which they’ve been happy to do since at least the 1990.
But enough about McCain, let’s talk about Trump.
Do you? Not many would be able to guess from reading your recent comments.
Considering how downright condescending you have been and prepared to ignore even the evidence of your eyes and ears, we’ll see.
Indeed, so we will. After all, you feel quite happy to snipe and snipe all you want, so turnabout is fair play.
We agree. The question is how much difference removing Trump would have for that, and if it would be positive or negative. You, Karmi, and Hindraker assume almost on faith that it would be positive. I am nowhere near so sure.
Moreover, neither is the Commentariat at Powerline.
Even those who quite blatantly are not uniform Trump cultists.
I’ll quote one here, one “Bro. Steve”
Funny thing is, it could serve as quite the rebuttal to you.
Ah yes, there’s the real face of Bauxite. The raging, self-righteous anger.
Spare me. You have already abused us with your “red hot anger”, as well as no shortage of bad faith, gaslighting, sniping, and pettiness. That “red hot” raging anger means little when you insist on blaming “Trumpers” for a possible Harris/Walz reign, but have Fuckall to say for yourself for Obama/Biden and the failure of the establishment that helped make Trump appealing and even successful.
And I reckon that as long as you continue to ignore the evidence and do not engage with not only others but the evidence others provide and their sentiment, you will be just as unsuccessful at blunting the anger of the “Forgotten Men” and the conservative base as McCain and Romney have been, and appear almost as out of touch as Hindraker.
The difference is that Hindraker is nowhere near as blind as you are about both Trump’s successes and failures. He is nowhere near as miserly with praise for the man when he thinks it is warranted.
So I’ll return to Bro. Steve to close out:
The problem with arguing with Bauxite is that for him, the problems we’re seeing are caused by Trump and the Republicans who prefer him over the mush served up by the GOPe. But for me and some of the others who disagree with Bauxite, Trump and the Republican voters who prefer Trump are the consequence of those problems, coupled with disgust at 30 years of mush from the GOPe.
In addition, Bauxite lives in 1980, and denies that the Party of Government has the power to elect itself by shaping which voters’ ballots go into the count (or very nearly has), and he denies that the media would lie as hard, or that the lies would be as effective, about Imaginary Republican Candidate as about Trump. Which is false, we’ve already seen this with figures as harmless as Mitt Romney and Brett Kavanaugh.
He’s living in a different narrative.
If Trump loses, it’s going to be because of stuff like Michigan’s Secretary of State enforcing Michigan’s new election laws before they legally take effect, and courts refusing to resolve the question before the election.
Great rebuttals to Bauxite from Niketas and especially Turtler. A key point that Turtler briefly touches on is that Trump has brought in voters who had never voted Republican before.
I was a reluctant Trumper in 2016 but it wasn’t that hard since I really didn’t want Hillary, or any other Dem. I was resigned to losing and was stunned not only *that* Trump won but *how* he won, flipping industrial states that hadn’t voted Republican in decades. I drew the conclusion that contra the NT narrative “Trump won because Hillary was such a bad candidate, anyone else would have done better”, Trump was the *only* Republican candidate capable of stopping Hillary’s pre-ordained coronation. Not to mention the fact she probably outspent him 2 or 3 to 1.
Regarding the Democrats, to paraphrase Mary McCarthy; ‘Every word they say is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.
What Turtler said.
My feeling is that Americans have firmly rejected small government conservatism.
==
My feeling is that soi-disant ‘small government conservatives’ devote precious little thought as to what that means, brass tacks. Change my mind.
The progs would mutilate every child they wouldnt abort (i remember kerry washington who kamala sort of mimes) had an aria to abortion in her dark west wing tableau it was full of election denialism as well
If we had run haley or desantis they would have gone full handmaids tale and it might have worked
Yes the slithy tove nessel a lizard in a pant suits a paid up member of the hamas caucus an enabler of the fake kidnapping of whitmer i dont put anything past them
They jailed navarro and bannon not because they were in the wrong but because they were willing to speak out same for sidney powell
Turtler
Trump was my first pick. I didn’t think any of the other candidates had enough fight in them. I totally agree with the rest of your comment.
Hinderaker stands in the crater that walz made and is still yelling orange man when scott jensen was the most vanilla candidate imaginable
Dems latched themselves to project 2025 and lied about for the last 6 monthes while they push project 1848, the collapse of the Republic and thats sadly not an
exageration
Where ilhan omar has recreated a hellscape of her fathers devising in minneapolis
@ Molly > ‘Every word they say is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.
It certainly seems that way.
The Regime Media used to carefully craft their stories so that everything they actually said or printed was objectively true, but they omitted so much and spun the adjectives and rhetoric so artfully that the post as a whole was a lie.
Now they just make things up.
“…..Michelle told us that her mother was ‘suspicious’ of people who ‘take more than they need……….”
Spoken like a true leftist (and hypocrite).
That is, there is no such thing as earning one’s way to economic success , which WILL produce an inequality of outcomes.
And these same leftists have no qualms living like royalty – in every sense of the word – when they achieve success.
Of course, their success was earned, as opposed to “taken” from others.
It’s always the other guy (but only if he is a conservative) that is the “taker.” Liberal elites are never takers nor hypocrites.
What is discouraging about all of this is how many people (voters) buy into the bullshit of the Obama’s and other incredibly wealthy liberal elites, but they ignore how these same liberal elites actually live and what they do (e.g., live in gated communities, fly around in private planes, drive massive SUVs, own several large mansions – Ocean front included !!, pay big $$ to hire the best tax accountants, etc etc).
The facility with which people can be manipulated and controlled is really discouraging. A very significant percentage of American citizens (voters) are “good Germans.”
@ JohnTyler > “but they ignore how these same liberal elites actually live and what they do”
Back in the Dubya Days, I read an article noting that the Bush’s Crawford Ranch incorporated more “environment friendly” ergonomics than did Al Gore’s mansion.
He also did more for the mitigation of AIDS in Africa than any of the posturing Democrats.
Just another few stones in the hypocrisy wall.
PS I supported GWB at the time, but have severed my regard for him over his open support of Hillary and Biden, among other things. However, credit where credit is due.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/09/living/bush-ranch-tour/index.html
“An advocate of sustainable design, [architect] Heymann incorporated into the compound a number of green features, including a geothermal energy system for heating and cooling. Rainwater runs off the house’s standing-seam metal roof and into a gravel-filled moat, where it filters into a 42,000-gallon cistern concealed beneath the rear terrace and is recycled to irrigate the lawns.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bono-george-w-bush-world-aids-day-761747/
Bono: ‘I’ve Grown Very Fond’ of George W. Bush
U2 singer praises the former president’s global health initiative on World AIDS Day (2018-11-30)
“Sixteen years ago, Bono paid a visit to the White House with the goal of getting then-president George W. Bush on board with the worldwide fight against HIV/AIDS. The U2 frontman’s powers of persuasion worked: Bush launched the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) the following year, and the program has gone on to bring lifesaving drugs to many millions of people (though not without running into some controversy along the way).”
hasn’t oprah helped herself to Maui, right, shes the one that sat in Jeremiah Wrights church for far too long, personally she was one of the horsemen along with donahue that helped turn this republic to a sticky goo
yes W who betrayed the lives of those who trusted him in the way the modern day Anabasis expedition went, he went along with the skydragon narrative, he enabled the subprime scam, and made it worse with the socalled recovery act, that allowed the progs to conquer many executive suites, etc, then he went along with the Delta House charade, that was made into a big thing,
all these people who have proved to be fatuous frauds pretending the crocodiles won’t eat them last, they cry Orange Man, while the walls of the Republic are crumbling before them, while cities decay, while we are humiliated on multiple fronts, as dennis miller who has since been dulled over time and probably a certain sense of desperation
‘I don’t mean to get off on a rant here’
Is it just a coincidence that John Hinderaker and National Review’s Mark Antonio Wright publish similar stories about the Republican’s “weak” candidate on the same day? Is it more than coincidence among the anti-Trump crowd? Or is it just anti-Trumpers find solace in regurgitating the same talking points in an ever decreasing circle of irrelevance?
My anti-Trump friend sent me an article from Raw Story, ‘Picked a bad candidate’: Conservative pops MAGA’s bubble about Trump. Much of the article just quotes Wright’s National Review article, Trump Is Behind Not Because the Press Is Hyping Kamala but Because He’s Unpopular
It’s certainly doesn’t help when quasi-conservatives, or should I say, true-blue conservatives, do the left’s work for them.
Of course, Wright’s first paragraph was the obligatory “the liberal media is bad blah, blah, blah” but ends with the kicker, “It also doesn’t matter. None of it is remotely decisive.
All the while, Trump isn’t behind. In fact, he’s significantly ahead of where he was in 2016. The election is essentially tied– just like the election in 2016 and 2020 turned out to be. Just like a Prosecuting Attorney could indict a ham sandwich, the Democrat party could nominate that same moldy sandwich and much of the country would vote for it. And it’s not because their opponent’s name is Trump.
Once Trump’s campaign breaks through the Iron Curtain of the leftist media and the giddiness of the Democrat’s choice having a pulse subsides, American’s will recognize Not Ready For Primetime Kamala as at least an embarrassment equal to Slow Joe and certainly more likely to tank the economy, abandon our most important ally, Israel, and put our children in even greater risk with her woke agenda.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-is-behind-not-because-the-press-is-hyping-kamala-but-because-hes-unpopular/
once upon a time, National Review meant something, but somewhere along the way Buckley’s flagship stopped from being an impediment to the a drive through for the progs,
they drove away Steyn and Derbyshire and Brimelow, anyone who objected to this wonderful vanilla delusion the dems had devised for us,
Raw Story don’t get me started on that den of scum and villainy and who is behind it,
@miguel:but somewhere along the way Buckley’s flagship stopped from being an impediment to the a drive through
Probably around the time they started taking tech companies’ money.
@ Turtler
Seems I probably owe you one. OK – you’re long-winded and opinionated as usual, but left out the huffing and puffing (Thanks!) this time.
(UPDATE: Turtler, have forgotten the HTML for blockquote within blockquote—sorry about that) – Edited part of that quote to correct your spelling of Hinderaker, so maybe it ain’t actually a quote? No biggie tho.
I stand by the fact that the reality was and is REAL. Look at what the DEMs did, in an amazingly short time, to correct a definitely losing Biden/Harris ticket. Switching from a standing President as candidate—to a chackling word-salad like the unpopular VP Harris was a bold and smart move. The timing was perfect, perhaps a tad slow, but Biden was the standing president (when he wasn’t falling down 😉 ). You are too opinionated here, misspelled Hinderaker again, and have totally missed what the DEMs just accomplished.
Back in 2016, I was a NPA Florida voter and liked Cruz & Rubio, but Trump had amazing support even back then. Kept getting calls from the Trumpers—not harassing but bordering on it. Blogs and news comment sections were managed by them also.
Trump proved to be a terrible leader, and America is best served by a President who at least has some natural Leadership qualities.
On reflection, Cruz would’ve been the perfect choice in 2016. The REP party needed to change from the ‘Party of Whites’ – to at least reflect the changing demographics of America.
IMHO, Hinderaker was pointing out that the REPs could’ve probably ran any REP not named Trump and the Republic would’ve been better off since 2016. Trump was and is a disaster, as was reflected during his 4-years as President.
OK – two differing opinions—three if we include Hinderaker (you misspelled it again). Point is, the REP party seems unable to change, impossible to change ‘on-the-run’, and under Trump has become even more ‘Party of Whites’.
I’ll skip the Thirdly and Fourthly parts—other than to point out that the “TDS” (Trump Derangement Syndrome) works in both directions. For REPs it falls under the old ‘Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.’
As usual, enjoyed our conversation…
For years now, the Republicans only win the presidency by a fluke. Trump benefited from such an unexpected stroke of good luck in 2016 and ever since Democrats have been using every means, fair or foul, to insure that it doesn’t happen again. Could DeSantis have won? Could Haley? I don’t know, but neither would be a sure winner. It’s not the same country it was in 1972 or 1984, and conservatism, of whatever variety, isn’t the proven vote-getter Republicans thought it was in the 1980s.
Has anyone figured out for which wads of tech money the editors at NR now work?
Karmi, I can only speak for myself, but I think many Trump supporters considered the risk that Biden might not be the nominee. Trump, for all his faults, truly loves this country and he risked his life and fortune for it.
Trump was a darling of the New York liberal set. He certainly didn’t run for office to enrich himself. And even with his public persona of an overly inflated ego, he didn’t do it to massage his ego.
He resonates with middle/working class America because, despite his wealth, he comes across as authentic. And for many working class stiffs, his wealth works to his advantage. He’s less likely to be bought.
Did he make mistakes his first term. Sure. Apparently being President is harder than it looks. But he navigated the treachery and deceit of DC and survived, battered and bruised, but also wiser.
I think this election has revealed a/the fundamental difference between the two parties. Even with the risk that the Dems would dump slow Joe, I thought Trump deserved another chance, given all that he had faced- the impeachments, the lawfare, the attempts to destroy his companies. There is a sense of loyalty that deserved reciprocity.
I’ve said it often, but this is a battle for many things and among them is whether the countries sovereignty will remain intact. It’s a battle between national sovereignty and globalism. The globalism is often couched in terms of free trade, a sort of interconnectedness that limits the countries ability to act in our own best interest.
@Karmi:On reflection, Cruz would’ve been the perfect choice in 2016. The REP party needed to change from the ‘Party of Whites’…
1.) How does Ted Cruz, a non-Spanish speaking white man born in Canada, change the Republican Party in a less white direction? (If you dispute that the son of a Cuban is “white”, consider that “I Love Lucy” portrayed a white American married to a Cuban in a time when interracial marriages were illegal in some states; they would not have aired that show if it did not depict a white couple.)
2.) How does Ted Cruz get elected in 2016? The media would have defined him just like they did Mitt Romney and John McCain. They would have told the same kinds of lies they tell about Trump now, and some of the positions they attribute falsely to Trump are actually held by Cruz. Trump was a household name to Americans, everyone knew who he was. Ted Cruz in 2016 meant Hillary Clinton finishes her second term this year.
no in fact, Trump has more latin and african american support than say Romney or McCain, so we work from that misconception and work backwards, certainly on moral issues hes more pragmatic than Haley or Desantis, does it matter to these people, I don’t know,
looking at the actual record of his presidency and not the lotus driven delusions he is a better bet, inflation crime the lack of no major military engagement on his watch, but people like to pretend when reality is kicking them in the face, we don’t have time for that, this is a pair of jokers they have put before us, we understand the shortcomings and the advantages he brings,
he has much more working class support frankly the Dems want to grind the working class into a paste, for China as we suspect in Waltz’s case,
now we won’t swallow Marxist tropes nor transhumanist garbage, we’re stubborn that way, we won’t do shahada to the encroaching Islamist wave, that Hamas is but a tentacle,
@Niketas Choniates
I think it goes deeper and is on a more fundamental level. Hell, I’d be willing to concede to Bauxite that there’s “A little from Column A and a little from Column B” in play. The failure of the GOPe establishment and several of its candidates helped discredit them and pave the way for the party to get taken by storm by an outsider with at best secondary interest in conservative ideology and theory who spent much of 2016 being backed by the left as a spoiler. Moreover, Trump certainly has succeeded in making himself hated by several people, not all “the right people”, as I do not think the likes of Bauxite or Karmi or the like are leftist plants. However, that needs to be weighed against his success in broadening the Republican Party, as well as Trump’s actual failings and successes as opposed to those that are being advertised.
What galls me is how Bauxite has peddled blatantly false (and I mean provably, objectively-false-on-a-mathematical-and-statistical-level) claims about the pre-Trump GOP’s success as well as many other claims that – while not quite as provably false – are at least suspect, and acting as if they are self-evident.
Agreed though honestly someone living in 1980 should have known better if they remembered things like the demonization of Goldwater.
Agreed, or at least that and things like the pervasive narrative control are significantly more important than Trump’s personal failings and flaws (of which there are many). Bauxite, BrooklynBoy, Karmi, and in general do not provide much of an argument on how to address these issues beyond arguments that they would affect other candidates (or even ANY candidates) less. Which is irrelevant to me if they cannot bring home the bacon and seal the deal.
And at this stage things are so bleak we might have to start asking the question at which point Entryism in the Democrat Party might be needed, to launch our own “Long March through the Institutions.”
Turtler’s (2:11 pm) point . . .
“The failure of the GOPe establishment and several of its candidates helped discredit them and pave the way for the party to get taken by storm by an outsider with at best secondary interest in conservative ideology and theory who spent much of 2016 being backed by the left as a spoiler.”
. . . calls to mind a point I read somewhere — I wish I could quote it verbatim — to the effect that when respectable spokespersons fail to address issues that are of genuine concern to large portions of the populace, said populace will turn to non-respectable spokespersons who will give voice to those concerns. Enter Donald J. Trump.
(I’m generally on board with Turtler’s Column A / Column B point.)
Turtler concludes, “And at this stage things are so bleak we might have to start asking the question at which point Entryism in the Democrat Party might be needed, to launch our own ‘Long March through the Institutions’.”
I like that idea a lot, although we must first establish a genuine stronghold among the powers that be on our own side.
Read most of the comments and agree with Turtler.
This is simply Hindraker huffing his own fumes and retreating into a borderline Opium Dream of a yesterdecade that never was.
Hinderaker is a never Trumper. His comments section, from which I have been banned, include many of the same sentiment. Those guys are still riding on their exposure of the Bush ANG lie in 2004.
I mostly read Steve Hayward there.
Hinderaker is a never Trumper. His comments section, from which I have been banned,
Mike+K:
Oh my. That’s discouraging. I know you to be a rational, civil fellow, more so than most.
My feeling is that Americans have firmly rejected small government conservatism.
————————-
Really?
I see small government conservatism finally moving out of the policy wonk sphere and taking its rightful place as a cornerstone of the new populism.
DeSantis has done a great job selling – and implementing – small government conservatism in a state with a large number of immigrants and low-info voters.
The education issue galvanized many apolitical Americans when they saw, during Covid, what gubmint schools were teaching their kids. Republicans almost always win when they can make vouchers and choice an issue.
One consequence of the Dems embracing “burn it down” BLM chaos is soaring gun ownership… springing from/leading to further distrust of paternalism.
Opposition to DEI and affirmative action = government picking who gets to play.
etc.
@ M J R > ” calls to mind a point I read somewhere — I wish I could quote it verbatim — to the effect that when respectable spokespersons fail to address issues that are of genuine concern to large portions of the populace, said populace will turn to non-respectable spokespersons who will give voice to those concerns.”
I have been calling something like that the Steyn Maxim for several years.
“If the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain issues, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones.”
Your formulation is a little different, placing the initiative on the spokespersons themselves rather than the culture that induces, or forces, them to remain silent.
I think both are valid, depending on who is being discussed.
Steyn quotes himself often; the 2009 MacLean’s post is the original source, and Steyn himself used it again in 2023. Both posts are worth reading, just to see that the current persecutions-prosecutions of Trump are nothing unusual for the Left.
https://macleans.ca/general/why-the-fascists-are-winning-in-europe/
https://www.steynonline.com/13943/is-there-non-far-right
Also, here are a couple of references to it that I’ve made on different topics.
Typically, I identify posts with good examples as “cue Steyn Maxim” in my bookmarks.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2018/10/22/the-caravan-moves-on-and-on/#comment-2409190
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/04/11/the-other-side-gets-a-vote/#comment-525477
I love Mark Steyn’s barbs; here is a nice bouquet.
It includes the Maxim as well, with an additional twist:
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~odyssey/Politics/Quotes/Steyn.html
Unfortunately, the identifications are sourced only to the publication, not the date or post title.
Earth to Karmi and Bauxite: Trump won in 2016 by flipping industrial states that hadn’t voted Republican in decades. NO F****ING WAY would have either Rubio or Cruz won PA, WI and MI (btw I supported Cruz in the primaries that year).
What states would they have won to compensate for losing those three? CA? NY? MA? IL? Sorry, Trump already won TX, FL and OH.
Of course this post is a waste of time because those two will never let themselves be confused by the facts.
“Hinderaker is a never Trumper. His comments section, from which I have been banned, include many of the same sentiment.”
I comment semi-regularly at PL under a different name (actually my own) and while that is not unfair to Hinderaker it is unfair to a lot of the commenters. While there a few regulars still skittish about Trump most of the commenters there are firmly in his camp. When Hinderaker expresses NT sentiments, not uncommon, he gets an earful from them.
I have a suspicion the identity of the Republican candidate may influence the final tallies a few percentage points either way. In an electorate as fissured as this one, that might be decisive. It’s difficult to determine just who the optimal candidate would be from the perspective of electoral advantage. Each would add some and subtract some over a median value. The identity of the candidate and the course of the campaign used to be much more consequential than they are today. (See the 1988 presidential election, when about 25% of the electorate changed their minds between the end of the Democratic convention and the election day in November).
I rather like Powerline, but I’m not a regular there. My impression has been that the NeverTrumper of the bunch was Paul Mirengoff, who was eventually cut from the list of contributors.
==
The trouble with NeverTrumpers is that half of them are poseurs and the other half have no constructive ideas and just kvetch (generally about things of secondary or tertiary consequence).
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The story of the week is RFK Jr. endorsing Trump. That in no small way upends the 2024 election!
BREAKING: Robert F Kennedy Jr drops out of the presidential race – endorses Trump! “in the name of saving democracy”
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2024/08/breaking-robert-f-kennedy-jr-drops-out.html
Full Transcript of RFK Jr’s endorsement of President Trump
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2024/08/full-transcript-of-rfk-jrs-endorsement.html
I call it “The Greatest Gaslighting Operation in US History”.
The worst of it is, they’re probably gonna continue to get away with it & Harris will become POTUS.
Then we’re in for a world of sh*t.
@Karmi
Apologies for the delay. Dashed off a quick reply earlier to someone else and was getting back to you before real life intervened.
No worries, you do not owe me it. And as for huffing and puffing, I just act as I usually do.
Yeah no worries. It was a bad SIC on my part, so correcting it is only fair. Let it never be said I am flawless, I absolutely and completely am not.
Bold? Maybe. Smart? More dubious. It was very obviously a decision made by committee, compromise, and corruption that fully satisfied nobody and is now trying to avoid coming apart at the seams. And the fact remains that it also helped split the Dems further and put some assets in jeopardy (even if scant). And in the face of a far more urgent need to replace it than there is to replace Trump (who at a minimum showed himself to have his own mind – regardless of what quality we assess that to have – and competed in a competitive primary).
And then the wrangling over who would be Harris’s VP further caused drama given the anti-Zionist and outright anti-Jewish backlash that led to the emergence of Walz, an authoritarian crypto-Maoist with a track record of dishonesty and stolen valor that handed the opposition the chance to make hay.
This was not “intelligence”, this was a mixture of an internal power struggle and gut reaction, and even if we wish to accord the Dems (or at least those that favored it) credit for this reality, that credit needs to be massively watered down by the aforementioned factors.
Moreover, it was not comparably “intelligent” to the idea of ditching Trump. Who wants to argue that Harris can bring more voters into the pile compared to Biden’s supposed 80 million? Because I have not seen that be argued even among most of Kamala’s supporters, who usually preached some kind of “legitimacy” that she was VP.
This is in sharp contrast to Trump, who visibly added to the Republican and Conservative coalition in both 2016 and 2020 (and did so most dramatically here) and who was.
No it very provably was not for the reasons we mentioned. Having it happen earlier would have removed any doubt about things like the fate of Biden’s war chest or voter registration, and also would have allowed for a more orderly transfer of power (whether to Kamala or to whoever else) as well as hammering out a VP.
Indeed to say the least.
And how is that a benefit or indication of “perfect timing”? It threw the DNC logistics into a tizzy, denied Kamala or whoever the “benefits” of incumbency (such as they are) in the coming election, and so on. Those aren’t necessarily FATAL wounds or setbacks, but they underline the imperfection and flaws of this.
Perhaps I am, but I can say the same for you.
Indeed.
“Totally” missed? I had been chronicling the Kamala v. Biden power struggles for months by now, and have brought up the issues with the timing, which have had very real effects.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13657003/Inside-conservative-legal-fight-Biden-2024-ballot.html
So I think I am the one who has a better grasp on the upsides and downsides of what this was, as well as the fact that – above all else – it was anything but ‘perfect” but a desperation gamble when their first choice (already no great achievement) failed. Was there some skill or intelligence there? Maybe. But it was no great act of intelligence or foresight, and indeed the desperation and haste of it undermines the entire campaign.
Indeed.
My apologies for that, it sucks.
To which I’d argue “compare to who?”
To which I’d counter: “Define natural leadership qualities.” Because I think it is fairly clear Trump has some. Maybe not as much as he or his fans claim, but still. Charisma and management come to mind, even if neither is perfect. As is having an idea for where and how to strike deals. In many ways I’d argue he ran into a bunch of very key problems there, now underlined by him -years later now – reaching out to try and bury the hatchet with Kemp in spite of the latter’s proven track record of being – to put it credibly – two faced. Many of his efforts to push olive branches to the Party Establishment and the Left at the wrong time or place.
Phoning Mike Pence and Brian Kemp.
Likewise his energy and willingness to stump across the country both for himself and for other party candidates on a level there.
Even as a Cruz fan, there ARE no “perfect choice”s. There are always tradeoffs, even if there are choices that are clearly superior or inferior. And while Cruz was the other outsider insurgent candidate of the Republican Party and the one whose values generally align more with me, he did not have the exact magnitude of grassroots support Trump did or (For better or worse) his skill at making deals.
And this is particularly evident when you look at the actual “Non-White” voting share and campaigning in the rust belt.
Karmi, this kind of BS is what makes others suspect you’re a downright racist. You argue that Ted Cruz would have been the “perfect” candidate. So what do you justify this argument with? His role as an attack dog and investigator? His conservative principles or understated charisma? His role as a vital support player and skill in debate?
No. Only blathering about how the GOP is a “Party of Whites”. And that alone. While saying absolutely nothing about the rest. And the kicker is that even if I accepted this nakedly small-sighted premise, it still doesn’t work given Trump’s success at pulling away Black and Hispanic voters (especially working class men) from the Dems.
Here’s a novel concept. The content of one’s character is far more important than skin color (after all, it was one of the core follies and evils of racism and skin discrimination), and people are far more than the sum of their melanin or skin tone. People may live in communities tied to skin color and racial names, but they live AS Individuals and groups with their own capacity. And no country or society – especially not the US – can survive ignoring this.
Now, consider this a word of advice. If you keep blathering about the “Party of Whites” again I am going to start making flat out accusations of being a superficial racist.
I don’t believe that is what Hinderaker was claiming, especially given the issues he has clashed with other GOPe members. But that is irrelevant. Whether that is by him, you, or both, it is provably false and we can show this on a statistical level. I also point to the likes of Kaisch and Romney.
Next.
To which I would counter: compared to who?
Trump made egregious flaws and plenty of shortsighted decisions (in part due to his ego and desire to make good and show people he wasn’t the demon). But he also had very great achievements, such as economic reform, lethal aid to our Eastern European allies (including Ukraine, which I know is so valuable to you), and deepening ties with Israel, India, and others. He also helped midwife things like the Abraham Accords for relative normalization between the reactionary Sunni governments and Israel in order to form a united front against Iran and its Apocalyptic “Resistance Bloc” while deterring Russia from Eastern Syria and Western Iraq.
Fair.
Karmi, this is more pig ignorant than the ostrich with its head in the sand, since the ostrich at least does it to cool the brain, not for security against outside threats. Trump’s emergence to lead the GOP *REPRESENTS A CRUCIAL CHANGE IN AND OF ITSELF.*
And as for “become even more “Party of Whites”, kindly pull your head out of wherever you’ve stuck it and measure those claims against some indexes of reality.
https://www.tremr.com/james-aldridge/donald-trumps-outreach-to-minority-voters-winning-strategy-or-damage-limitation
https://www.newstandardpress.com/the-donald-and-the-blacks/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-partisan-gender-and-generational-differences-among-black-voters-heading-into-election-day/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/us/politics/biden-trump-black-voters-poll-democrats.html
(PS: This is also a good indication that Trump has done better at blunting the anti-GOP and generally racist propaganda that Republicans are White Supremacists and want to put African-Americans “Back in Chains.”)
So Kindly SHUT THE FUCK UP about this “Party of Whites” horseshit and either revealing yourself as a superficial racist, or falsely giving that impression.
And this is before I get into the fact that “Whites” are still a distinct plurality if not majority in the US, and that it is not surprising we would expect Trump to try and curry favor with not only the largest single groups of voting blocs in the country, but ones being explicitly discriminated against by things such as DIE measures. After all, Trump is white himself and he has to at least try and live in this country, as do his family, so there’s personal motives as well as pragmatic and principled ones.
To some degree.
This is cute but wrongheaded on multiple levels.
Firstly: There’s a reason why Einstein (himself a rather naive pro-Soviet Socialist) was not a psychologist or therapist. His grasp of insanity and its different forms is weak. As someone who actually worked in therapy and some mental institutions, I probably am more qualified to speak on it than he is, and that’s in spite of being out of the loop for many developments for about a decade and a half.
Secondly: In many ways Trump is a case of the Republican base trying something else, a more isolationist and America First form of politics to reach out to the rust belt.
Thirdly: If we want to talk about “different results” Trump still has the undisputed largest vote tally of any Republican Presidential Candidate in history. That’s no small feat, and were it not for the literally unprecedented (some might say suspicious) amount of votes for the Dems in the “right” machine politics dominated jurisdictions, 2020 would have been far more decisive a victory for him than 2016.
How do you figure Cruz would have done? Or Kaisch? Romney?
Talking about a “Party of Whites” is a piss poor and frankly counterproductive substitute for strategy or analysis.
Re: FOAF, I can confirm that. The comment for Hinderaker’s article is downright up in arms about it and I quoted one of the choice examples underlining the problems with it, and how one does not have to be an “OnlyTrumper” to take issue with it.
I would say a more realist view even in the 80s did not commit to long standing expeditionary forces you would say well beirut but that was a peace keeping force there were mostly proxy forces in southern africa central america and south asia (one might argue the success in the last theatre led to consequences in another war
There punitive exercises like tripoli most notably
So what did trump do wrong while most of the gop was basenghi missing in action darning their socks certainly not prison reform for non violent affairs something you think would concern you maybe when thd dems were burnibg half the country down while locking down people with a vengeance