The beginnings of change: Lee Stranahan
Here’s a very interesting article from Lee Stranahan, a liberal who’s starting—just starting—to get the picture. I’m not sure how far he’ll go with his change experience, but at the moment he is surprised and perturbed that the liberal media has virtually ignored the death threats aimed at Republicans during the Wisconsin demonstrations.
This passage of his reminds me of the early stages of my own change:
My experience in the last few months tells me what I would not have believed possible; on any number of issues (including Pigford, by the way) I’ve seen liberals act much nastier and with less factual honesty than the conservatives… and this includes on issues where I disagree with conservatives.
Keep going, Mr. Stranahan, if you dare. You may be on the cusp of some more profound surprises. My change really began with the fact that, once I was exposed through the internet to conservative periodicals, I noticed they tended on the whole to be more factual and fair and be better prognosticators than the liberal press. It was a profound shock, and was followed by more shocks.
From this passage, it’s clear that this may be the first time in a long while—perhaps in his life—that Stranahan has had so much contact with conservatives [emphasis mine]:
I’m in an odd position. In the last few months, I’ve had one foot in the left wing news stream and one foot in the right. My media duality began when conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart hired me to work with him on the Pigford ”˜black farmers’ settlement story. I’m a pro-choice, pro-single payer, anti-war, pro-gay rights independent liberal with years of work in print and film backing those positions. Breitbart hired me to bring a different perspective to the non-partisan issue of corruption in Pigford.
Since then, I’ve written both here for the left-leaning Huffington Post and at Breitbart’s right leaning BigGovernment.com. I’ve ended up reading a lot more conservative sites and dealing firsthand with a lot more conservatives than any time since I attended a high school dedicated to the principles of Ayn Rand about 30 years ago.
That sounds like a rather unique high school, by the way.
Stranahan asks, “Is this really what liberalism has come to in 2011?” My answer is “yes, but it came to it quite some time ago, I’m afraid.”
Neo:
Please forgive the offtopicness but this is the best update, and probably overall the best post on the nuclear power situation both in Japan and in the world since this mess started last week:http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2473489
A quote:
A substantial part of high-tech manufacturing is reliant in one form or another on Japanese factories. There are severe power shortages in Japan right now for obvious reasons – close to 10 Gw of capacity is offline just in those two nuclear installations that got in trouble! About 3.5Gw of that, even in the good scenario, cannot be brought back online for as much as ten to fifteen years as the plant involved has been destroyed and will have to be replaced. This will cripple both recovery and industrial production, yet the political environment surrounding nuclear power may preclude the restart of even the undamaged plants. ”
Once again, sorry for the intrustion, but I thought you might like to see that.
We will have to see how Lee turns out. I could never be swayed to the liberal / progressive side, but that is because I know what you discovered quite some time ago, and what he is just now uncovering.
Jimmy Carter made turned me republican. Ronald Reagan made me a conservative, and cast it in stone. That, as the member of a dyed in the wool Irish Catholic family from New England living in the mid Atlantic coast.
When one considers what liberal / progressives say and do to get what they want, it make it easier for me to understand how they can remain quiet about followers of the Koran. They are free to lie to infidels – and do. Constantly.
I am honestly awaiting the day they begin to use the term infidel against anyone who is not liberal / progressive.
Truth is a selectively permeable membrane. There is an osmosis that in an honest exchange allows one to move toward the truth, but not away. That’s why lefties come right like the Commies used to come west, a few at a time, immediately denounced, and with shots cracking over their heads.
The time to realize you cant fly is before you take off, not just before you hit bottom.
At this rate we should be able to save the world from the ignorance epidemic in 1100 years.
Sadly, I honestly believe that many Democrats today — not the politicians but the people who barely pay attention to politics until its time to vote — especially older ones, very wrongly believe that today’s brand of liberalism is represented by the FDR and LBJ eras.
I think they are grossly misinformed. It’s my belief that when the neo-cons started to leave the Democratic Party in the 1970s, the party began to take a hard left turn. It’s gone from being an ideology of wanting to HELP the poor and the disadvantaged lead their lives (as it was during the FDR and LBJ eras) to an ideology that wants to DICTATE how we ALL lead our lives. That’s the progression it’s taken in my head, anyway. It’s morphed from compassion to control in about 40 years. And it’s only going to get multiples worse once they get control of our healthcare.
It seems like Mr. Stranahan is finally realizing the Democrats of today ain’t like his grandfather’s Democrats.
I remember liberals who were basically honest and consistent in their world view. People like Patrick Moynihan and Scoop Jackson. That kind of liberal is nearly extinct. As Scott notes, it was in the late 1960s and early 70s when liberals in mass turned towards ‘progressivism’. However, American ‘progressive’ movement goes back to the late 19th century and has long festered in society producing the pustular acne that mars the body politic today.
Scott –
You make a very goof point, one that, when I consider my grandparents – old-school FDR Democrats from the South – I think is all too true. The way I see the thought-process going is, “We’ve ALWAYS been Democrats, and Republicans have ALWAYS been the bad guys,” and at this point it’s just a reflexive tic.
I found it unbelievable that my grandfather, in many ways a very conservative guy (like a lot of old school Democrats), would even think of voting for a multicultural, euro-socialist, socially libertine intellectual like Obama. The greater shame is that the causality goes the wrong way – first comes the fact that “I am a Democrat,” then comes “Therefore, Krugman, Dionne, Reich, etc., are the good guys and truth-tellers,” and finally, “I trust what the liberal intelligentsia says.” All of the uncomfortable euro-socialist, multicultural stuff is just filtered out.
A lot of what we saw in the saw in the South in November was a result of a bunch of old school Democrats realizing that that filtering out was no longer tenable, the ilk of Zel Miller.
The greatest irony in all of this is that the line of the left and the media is that the REPUBLICANS have become far right because of an exorcism of the old school Rockefeller moderates. But this cannot be correct, despite what political scientists say about voting patterns (which is true, but trivial), because the GOP is a home precisely to a coalition, one of whom is neo-con, and most of whom had made their peace with the basic presence of some form of the New Deal welfare state. A true “far right” party would be overwhelmingly dedicated to its destruction and dismantling, root and branch.
The proxy always used for ideological “polarization” is simply party line voting in Congress, which is nice, but as I said, trivial. We are more polarized now, at least at the elite levels, but it says nothing about whether the GOP or the Dems are “far right/left.” All of the Republicans vote to block a plan, Obamacare, for a takeover of the health care system. All of the Democrats, with few exceptions, vote for it. In political science, this shows up as “Republicans and Democrats are both more rightist and leftist than hitherto.” And I’m saying that’s obviously incorrect. Voting against a roadmap to single-payer is moderate. Voting for it is extremist. Likewise, there is nothing extremist about voting for an extension of the Bush tax cuts, or voting against cap-and-trade, or against the EFCA. All of this is now seen by people like my grandfather as the actions of the “far right GOP.”
The narrative is so badly distorted at this point that I fear SteveH is right. To wit:
“At this rate we should be able to save the world from the ignorance epidemic in 1100 years.”
Yup.
Jesus, I need to proof-read –
“…a very GOOD point,” not “a very goof point.”
Sorry.
Communism, that is, Marxism, which is “scientific” determinism plus atheism is the enemy cloaked in Democratic and Republican garb. (On the last, Hugh Hewitt has a great new moniker for RINO’s: McClellan Republicans. Why can’t the Republicans mount a challenge: they share ideological beliefs with the Democrats that government (human intelligience and central planning can understand complexity better than freedom) is the answer.) (Whew, that’s a Henry James type of paragraph!)
The popular understanding of evolution of gradual change, so unlike the fossil record which shows catastrophic and “punctuated evolution,” serves as a corrupted model that mankind is gradually progressing, but even current history doesn’t show that.
We are currently in a period of accelerated and stressed change. Honest observation is the most convincing opponent and people are being forced to observe. I remember some of the comments from the Sean Bielat/Barney Frank election. People were observing and watching and there’s always the ten to one rule: One truth seeker is worth ten duds. The hegemony of the left, which is only due to the modern education system, is tottering. The true pursuit of science, the endurance of our institutions, and the fact that humans and nature are not what the Communists say they are and the fact that that fact can’t be hidden unless tyranny appear as its champion and the fact that there is still a “don’t tread on me” spirit in America, the rise of technologies giving might to the individual and common man, provides for at least a strong argument that a new sprouting of human freedom and common bond may appear.
To understand the delusions that are so common among liberals read this http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0320-mccarron-20110320,0,6062625.story
“today’s Republicans – the party of bankers, hedge fund managers and stateless corporations ” How sad. And he probably really believes it, too.
If they start by telling lies to themselves about who they are and who their opponents are, they can’t possible arrive at the truth. Even bitter clingers to guns and religion understand that.
If their opponents are all “known” to be mean-spirited, hate-filled, racist, sexist, homophobes intent on spoiling the evironment and exploiting workers, why bother to think any further?
Curtis –
That was very well said. I hope that the “Don’t tread on me” spirit is still strong enough to break the deserving ankles.
The one thing that gives me more than a faint glimmer of hope is the last factor you mentioned: “the rise of technologies giving might to the individual and common man.” That is something that has definitely proven capable of increasing the strength of the spirit of liberty. The blossoming of the blogs and the delicious, can’t-happen-too-quickly demise of Big Media are wonderful to behold.
To tie this back to neo’s post, there is no way Carnahan would have had this experience of his in the Old World.
Casca, I very much enjoyed the “osmosis” metaphor. In other words, to commit to an honest exchange is something of a fearful process because the process itself is larger and in control, not the “particle.”
kolnai: you said it better than I did. Thanks.
Kolnai, you did mean “Stranahan?” I’ve been googling “Carnahan,” because you often include names (which I have found very informative) I don’t know.
Sometimes mistakes have unintended consequences. For instance, I’m working today and the word “goof” is going to fit quite nicely into an introduction. What a lot that little ole word says. I love words and phrases and metaphors. My eye definitely caught Parker’s “has long festered in society producing the pustular acne that mars the body politic today.” I thought it perfectly placed as well. If the whole paragraph had been so graphic, it would have been over the top, but as the conclusion, it packed a hard punch with few words. Nice uppercut.
I was totally thinking of you, Neo, when I read this article earlier this week, especially two of the parts you highlighted.
This line stood out:
My experience in the last few months tells me what I would not have believed possible;
The choice of words is remarkable. He didn’t see it as unexpected or surprising – he saw it as not even possible. Being shaken that fundamentally has to be an eye-opening event – to learn something is true that you couldn’t even conceive as a possibility a short time earlier. A mental analogy to 9/11 wouldn’t be completely unfair.
This line stood out, too, because of your Dancing in a Ring articles:
I’ve ended up reading a lot more conservative sites and dealing firsthand with a lot more conservatives than any time since I attended a high school
It’s very easy to dismiss your opponents if you really only know the caricature of them. If you’re cocooned so tightly that you don’t ever meet, talk to, or read them firsthand then it’s not surprising that dismissing them is easy. It does really seem that much of the left’s modus operandi is to try to maintain this insulating wall as strongly as possible. When people get outside it, and see for themselves, dangerous things (like Lee Stranahan’s epiphany) can happen.
Curtis –
I don’t know what my deal is today. Yes, I meant Stranahan.
And I can’t count the levels of rich pie-in-face oopsiness in saying “goof” as a… goof.
It’s like a verbal MC Escher drawing.
Neo,
I went back and re-read several articles in your “my change story” and want to say that it takes intellectual honesty and courage to analyze one’s personal set of beliefs and assumptions and then change in accordance with that awakening. Too bad your family and many of your friends can not respect this courage.
Curtis, Glad you like the “uppercut”.
Yes, Kolnai, a very good goof. And thanks for the MC Escher reference. I found one to send my daughter. My best goof: I asked my uncle, a farmer, if he had a good crap last year.
Keep em coming, Parker.
Curtis, your gal gave a very good speech in India, her best since the convention afaic.
Thank you, gs! How I have been waiting. I’ve even fashioned a headline: IT HAPPENED! Of course, the stalwart mind which has maintained Palin’s electability all along is Mike Mc. I really did entertain that she was unelectable. But not anymore. In fact, the odds are good. Because of her solid conservative base, she’s a good bet to win the nomination. Then, when people have to choose between her and Obama, and given how the states are lining up, we may yet see America’s Thatcher.
Neo (or any of y’all), are there any tales of changers from right to left?
I make a habit of listening to both ends of the talk radio spectrum. Last week Prog radio offered a small outburst of change stories from right or libertarian to Liberal-Progressive.
I heard those not so much as people who changed, but undeveloped and unexamined lives finally taking a hardened form. They appeared to be adolescent Randians or Republican offspring who found themselves in difficult circumstances mid-life.
My inclination is to see that as a coping strategy. Blame the independent-conservative philosophy for the cost of medical care instead of accepting that life is hard and we all pay for our own mistakes.
I would like to read in more depth about changers in that direction. If one can change, can one change back?
The biggest reason why Palin should be President (or one of them):
“And we both want to ensure that China’s rise is peaceful – while hedging against risks that it could be otherwise.”–quote from article.
Who else would state this common truth: Gingrich, maybe? Huckabee, big no. Romney, better than Huckabee but can’t be trusted. Pawlenty, refuses to say anything substantial. Hermain Cain says we can stand up to them. So the exception here proves the rule which is “if they recognize that China is a threat and don’t present appeasement but rather a strong defense and economic strength as the answer,” then they’d probably make a good president.
You’re welcome, Curtis.
However, don’t misunderstand: as far as this voter is concerned, Palin has a deep hole to climb out of. Her speech is a clear step upward–but it’s a single step.
Only slightly related. I never get emotional when debating a liberal. Facts facts facts. NEVER lose your temper. Listen intently, repeat back what you heard them say and respond factually. If this drives them to the point of rage then point out that yes you’re listening to their point of view and you are trying to see the logic of it and you would appreciate the same courtesy. If they can’t do that then maybe, juuuust maybe they will ponder this to themselves in a moment of reflection. If not then it’s just a brainwash and all you can do is all you can do.
foxmarks: I’ve written a bit on the topic before, here
foxmarks,
It is exceedingly rare to find ‘changers’ from conservative (I like to use the term practical) to the left side of the street (a mindset based upon wishful thinking – utopian dreaming). Its a matter of rowing up stream against reality. The current is swift, the river is wide, and there are many rocks upon which to break the bow.
To switch from left to right is a might bit easier in an intellectual sense (but not emotionally). Neo has documented her change. She opened her ears, examined her assumptions, and “saw the light”. However, that is also rare, just not as rare as going from right to left.
For most of us, our POV is largely influenced by our upbringing and the social milieu of our formative years. I flirted with the left in my late teens but couldn’t make the leap because in the end it was a severe contradiction of my farm boy upbringing. We all have similar stories to tell.
gs,
If you had 2 choices, a pin up of Helen Thomas or a pin up of Sarah Palin on your wall, which would you choose?
😉 😉 😉
Steve Ducharme,
Most liberals can not separate their socially programed emotions from their intellect (or lack thereof).
Parker, tell me more about the position at Google you’re considering me for.
gs,
If I had the power, I would appoint you to be in charge of all office decorations at google, and I would expect a thousand Sarah Palin pin ups to blossom.
I’m 63 and if I still had wet dreams Sarah Palin would probably be involved. 😉
And every SEIU workplace would get Helen Thomas.
Thank you, Neo and Parker.
Listening to the Progs, I am amazed at how internally consistent their worldview appears. It might be like a mythology. Evil gods (currently the Koch brothers) have powers which explain and bridge gaps in mere human logic.
The Progs are quite confident they understand the motives of their opponents. And those motives are never noble. There is no room for reasoned opposition, despite an occasional claim of respect for a righty guest.
The left claims to be fact- and reality-based. Those facts are facts of perception. In their universe, Palin, for example is a dolt. And yes, there is evidence to support that perception. But beliefs about Palin’s intellect do not alter her true, measurable intellect. Evidence to the contrary, that Palin might be shrewd, is dismissed on the grounds of her malicious nature. Or it is those brilliant evil gods speaking through her simple mind. Motives define reality.
Instead of framing as “practical” vs. “utopian” it might be a matter of complexity. The righty-conservative worldview is characterized as simple (by the left, anyway). But like Hitchens discovered, there are more details which require consideration. And that complexity cannot be unlearned.
You may like this, from Patterico:
Lefty Lee Stranahan Explains “How Political Lies Spread On The Left”
foxmarks –
you just hit on a deep subtext of some of the best work on the nature and causes of totalitarianism – the dangerous desire, nay yearning, for simplicity.
You can find the diagnosis of the problem in the forgotten crevices of some of the hidden gems of political theory and historiography:
Bertrand de Jouvenel: “So soon as an intellectual imagines a simple order of things, he is serving the growth of power. For the existing order, here as everywhere, is complex and rests on a whole mass of supporters, authorities, sentiments, and adjustments of the most varied kind. If it is sought to make one spring do the work of so many, how strong must be the force of its recoil; or if one pillar must support henceforward what many supported, it must be of the stoutest! Only Power can be that spring or that pillar…” (On Power, p. 145).
Frederic Maitland: “The philosophy of ‘checks’ has become a little old-fashioned, and the modern protest against it was timely… But when all has been said on the other side, the fact remains that we owe our freedom from arbitrary restraints to that elaborate constitutional theory into which our opinions of right have, through long ages, been crystallizing.” (A Historical Sketch of Liberty and Equality, p.114).
James C. Scott: “How did the state gradually get a handle on its subjects and their environment? … In each case, officials took exceptionally complex, illegible, and local social practices, such as land tenure customs or naming customs, and created a standard grid whereby it could be centrally recorded and monitored.” (Seeing Like A State, p.2 – I can’t recommend this book highly enough, fwiw).
Francois Furet: “For even though bourgeois society…has still not been constituted as a political will, it is still not at the end of its journey. Deprived of a legitimate ruling class, organized by delegation, made up of diverse powers, centered on interests, subject to violent and petty passions, it comprises many of the conditions for the emergence of mediocre and multiple leaders, demagogic agendas, and fruitless agitation. Its dynamic [according to the Left] is the contradiction between the division of labor and equality… Together, these two elements constitute its reality; it is man’s relationship to nature through labor that defines the universality of man. [But] labor happens to be the curse of the proletariat, which is exploited by the bourgeoisie. If the promise of universality is to be fulfilled, that curse must be broken.” (The Passing of an Illusion, p.6-7).
Aurel Kolnai: “It is not numbers, poverty, intellectual plainness alone – nor the fact of being exploited, cheated of education, disinherited, and underprivileged – that makes the true Common Man [in the Leftist sense]. In order to become such a one, the simply ‘man of the masses’ must be artificially hyper-simplified, cleansed from common sense, distinctive loyalties and traditions, chance limitations and possessions; he must be ‘born anew’ of the Cause, the Ideology, the ‘faith’ in his own ‘mission’… In a word, he must moulded and informed by the intelligentsia-made CONCEPT of the Common Man. [He is thus] a ‘plain man’ pared, trimmed, and clipped into a generic representative of mankind. He is a robot sublimized into an angel, an offspring of poverty taking hold of limitless abundance.” (Privilege and Liberty, p.90-91).
James Billington: “The professional revolutionaries who first appeared during the French Revolution sought, above all, radical simplicity. Their deepest conflicts revolved around the simple words of their key slogan: liberty, equality, fraternity. Liberty had been the battle-cry of earlier revolutions (e.g., in America) which produced complex political structures to limit tyranny. The French Revolution also initially invoked similar ideas, but the new and more collective ideals of fraternity and equality soon arose to rival the older concept of liberty. The words ‘nationalism’ and ‘communism’ were first invented in the 1790’s to define the simpler, more sublime, seemingly less selfish ideals of fraternity and equality, respectively. The basic struggle that subsequently arose among committed revolutionaries was between advocates of national revolution for a new type of fraternity and those of social revolution for a new type of equality.” (Fire in the Minds of Men, p.4).
Examples like these could be multiplied – I would add the great liberty-loving 19th Century theorists, now terribly neglected, Henry Sumner Maine, Francois Guizot, and Walter Bagehot – but the point is doubtlessly clear. There is a certain urge to simplify social reality both to satisfy the coherence demanded by reason and to satisfy the desire for effective control and power.
But you would never hear of any of this is you were studying political science and political theory – and, for that matter, history – today in the academy. Keep those quotes above in mind, and note next that it is an IRON-CLAD truth, a UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED result of “social science,” that CONSERVATIVES cannot, both genetically and psychologically, accept “complexity” and “ambiguity.” There IS no other definition of a “liberal” in political science today than as one who, because of genes and psychology or personality, gleefully and without anxiety, faces and accept “complexity.”
The conceptual apparatus is an absolute joke. What do they mean by “complexity”? They mean not being troubled by values that cut against certain values of the status quo, and not feeling threatened by minorities that apparently or really threaten the social fabric. Period. That’s all they mean.
And any four year-old with a minimal command of English can see the flaw in that – namely, it begs the entire question against conservatives. It DEFINES complexity AS liberalism.
Yet we don’t even have to go that far. I always ask my liberal colleagues: Were Jouvenel, Furet, Maitland, Scott, Kolnai, Guizot, Bagehot, and Maine (among others), stupid men? Were they writing comprehensible sentences? Have a few “experiments” in social science definitively proven everything they wrote and argued a tissue of nonsense and absurdity?
If not, then pray tell – what on earth were they talking about? The response? Crickets.
Academics cannot even account for what those brilliant men were talking about – they lack the basic, obvious conceptual resources to make sense of it. Liberals creating tyranny born from a mania for simplicity? Oh, flatus vocus!
Clearly they need to some more thinking about how they are using the words “simplicity” and “complexity” (in the first place, what they call “absolutism” – by which they mean believing in objective values or a religious creed – is in no way the opposite of an openness or a feel for complexity).
Oh, an perhaps they should consider that a manichaean hatred and denigration of conservatives is a bit…
what’s the word?…
“”What do they mean by “complexity”?””
kolnai
Liberals paradoxically believe themselves complex by their ability to embrace simple notions. One of the biggest being the simple notion that judging character creates people of poor character. And to make things even more simple, they assert that character judgements can never apply to individuals but whole swaths of the demographic any individual happens to belong to. O.J. Simpson was aquitted of a heinous murder on just such a simple and perverted notion.
Another connection to Lee via Patterico:
Lefty Lee Stranahan on the Blaze Piece on O’Keefe
Heck, I’m thinking of adding him to my daily scanning list.
Take the above and replace “Palin” with “Bush”, and you realize you just described BDS.
“Chimpy McBush” — “Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot” (My reply: “Oh, so you’re from Texas, then?”) and so forth…
These geniuses confuse articulateness with intellect or shrewd grasp of human nature. It didn’t matter how often Bush outsmarted them in the bigger picture — either it was because those who supported him were just as ignorant and stupid as “he is”, or because he (and the rest of us all) were being craftily manipulated by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
As Bill Whittle pointed out years ago in one of his excellent essays — Bush was a fully rated fighter jet pilot. That requires, among other things, to be fully proficient in IFR calculations.
Now, consider that — this is not a capability for the intellectually bereft or the mentally challenged…. like, say, oh… JFK Jr., for example.
So it can’t be that Bush is smarter than the average libtard. No, that’s not possible, evidence to the contrary be damned.
‘Nuff said.
Igotbupkis, the reason they see Bush and Palin as idiots to be despised is because their idea of nuanced intelligence is really cowardice called another name. Do RINO’s who often cave for fear of the media and its liberal wrath ever get similarly despised? Of course not. Their cowardice affords them some degree of “nuanced intelligence”.
you would never hear of any of this is you were studying political science and political theory – and, for that matter, history – today in the academy.
which is why you cant convince them of what they are doing to themselves.
your warning has to come with a complete re-education into factual reality.
in other words, any case you make will be negated by the absence of the needed information and concordance to change a position one never actually took up (but seemed to just happen).
you watch the protesters say their thing..
and you realize…
when the tanks roll, they are going to be surprised.
but will they realize they asked for them?
The test will lie in how Stranahan reacts when he is shunned by nearly everyone he knows, or his name becomes a catchphrase or a punchline, to be accompanied by tittering on queue. When people pick quarrels over nothing. When the writing assignments dry up and the editors won’t call back. When the co-op board president or the school admissions officer raises an eyebrow. When your in-laws talk around you at the holiday dinner. How far will it need to go before he falls back into line?
Oblio,
Perhaps he is made of sterner stuff than you imagine. Give the guy credit for admitting his POV has started to change. Look to neo-neocon as an example. We all get to strut upon this stage because she changed.
LOL, I despise RINOs most of all. They are charlatans of the worst sort, pretending that they follow and believe in a set of ideas that they not only have no faith or belief in, but have no intention of following once they get voted in.
I’ve been calling for their ouster for years. Most of them should never, ever be allowed to hold any public office (elective or otherwise) above “dog catcher”.
So, respectfully, I disagree with you. RINOs get despised. Lots. Because I don’t believe I’m alone.
I personally would happily have voted against the GOP in the last two elections save one (i.e., 2006/2008), were it not blatantly clear that the Left had gone off into lunaland in the last decade or so. As such, I knew what would happen if they got any power at all, and everyone else is just now starting to grasp how corrupt and stupid they all are. As bad as the GOP — even loaded with RINOs — the Dems are far, far worse.
Fair enough, Parker. I merely say that it is part of the test, and many of us did not turn back when we faced it. I hope he passes, too.