Cornyn: I Totally Opposed Trump, But, You Know, Quietly — Because Speaking Out Against Him is Dangerous
One never knows these things for certain, as 2016 showed us, but Donald Trump sure does appear to be headed for a historic loss. (Gee. That’s too bad.) And one major indicator of that is the way that high-profile Republicans are laying the groundwork for the narrative that they totally opposed this guy all along, man. It started with Ben Sasse’s “leak” of his post-primary “he kisses dictators’ butts” criticism of Trump (followed by Trump’s inevitable but now-toothless Twitter backlash) and now continues with John Cornyn. The paper of my original hometown, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (which my Dad branded the Fort Worth Startlegram) has the report:
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn acknowledged Friday that at times he has disagreed with President Trump on issues such as budget deficits and debt, tariffs and trade agreements and border security.
But, the senior Republican senator from Texas, who is being challenged by Democrat MJ Hegar, said he chose to work on those disagreements with the president’s staff in private discussions, rather than by publicly voicing his opposition.
. . . .
During a meeting with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial Board, Cornyn was asked if he and other Republicans regretted not pushing Trump to combat the COVID-19 virus more aggressively, or rein in some of his political stances that were unpopular or stood little chance of passing in Congress.
Cornyn initially described his relationship with Trump as “maybe like a lot of women who get married and think they’re going to change their spouse, and that doesn’t usually work out very well.”
Cornyn continued: “I think what we found is that we’re not going to change President Trump. He is who he is. You either love him or hate him, and there’s not much in between. What I tried to do is not get into public confrontations and fights with him because, as I’ve observed, those usually don’t end too well.”
It comes as no surprise to people who have been paying attention that this is a very common sentiment among GOP pols in Congress. There are some true believers, like the Matt Gaetzes of the world (or is he Rick Gates, convicted felon — I always get so confused about that!), but of course there is a huge contingent of GOP pols who hold Trump in contempt privately and think he is an ass, but are scared to speak up. Cornyn, in his interview with the Startlegram, explicitly referenced the experience of Bob Corker, who compared the White House to an “adult day care center” causing Trump to sic his base on Corker, forcing his retirement. All of these guys have been biding their time, comparing Trump to a storm (albeit one that lasts four years) that will cause some damage but will eventually blow over. Come next year, Trump will (probably) be gone. Sasse will still be there. Cornyn might still be there. Live to fight another day, right?
And if you’re inclined to be charitable, you can see how someone could come to believe this. Why sacrifice your career when this fever will eventually break? And in the meantime, why antagonize the guy by opposing him publicly when you think private communication will be more effective?
Here’s the problem: you can always rationalize cowardice. But once you’ve resolved to Play Along at All Costs, and nearly everyone around you has decided to play the same game, the atmosphere becomes little different from that of a totalitarian country, where people nervously glance around, not wanting to become the first to stop applauding. And so they’ll stay silent, as the president uses his position to enrich himself personally, alienates allies and embraces thugs, urges his Department of Justice to go easy on his cronies and to prosecute his enemies, incites violence and gives a wink to far-right militia groups, and leverages foreign aid in an attempt to secure a foreign government’s pledge to investigate his political opponent.
And once these people have sacrificed every ounce of integrity they might have ever possessed, in service of holding onto a scrap of power that will soon be marginalized, buried under a monstrous blue wave, what do they have left but to pathetically mewl that they really didn’t support this guy all along — but what did you expect them to do? Say so out loud? In public?
It’s a tough call what to feel about these folks. I feel contempt for Ted Cruz, but in a way I feel sorry for people like Ben Sasse and Mike Lee and John Cornyn. Almost anyone in their position would do the same. (Some would not; some would be like Bob Corker or Jeff Flake, but everyone sees how quickly they became irrelevant, even though they retained their dignity and their souls.) When almost anyone would react to a particular situation in a similar way, the problem lies more with the system than with the people.
And yet. And yet, they were enablers. And while I might sympathize with them, I will never again respect these particular people. Respect is tougher to earn in a harsh environment, and in my gentler moments I’m less inclined to feel fury them. But they have forfeited any legitimate right to command respect.
But again: the real issue is the system. We have to fix things so that a smarter, more ambitious and crafty version of Trump can’t become a real-life dictator in this country. Trump has shown that the soil for such a demagogue is fertile. All it would take is someone more competent in the Oval Office. And that’s frightening.
Having finished Woodward’s and Andrew Weissman’s latest, I am plowing through David French’s book, after which I will tackle After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency, by Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith (affiliate link). I’ve read a few pages already and am interested in their ideas.
We have to do something. Because keeping quiet about an insane president, out of fear, is no way to run a country.
Have a great Sunday!
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:26 amLol using the ‘first to stop applauding’ analogy to describe conservatives when Lefties are the ones doing mob shaming and ganging up against those who go against the herd all across the country.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:40 am_
Now we know. The president is above the law if he wishes to be, and his party will go along with whatever he does. We have simply been lucky for a couple of centuries. We do not know how Trump will handle losing, but whatever he wants to do, Cornyn and pals will allow. he could load your family in a cattle car to a concentration camp and Cornyn will probably feel pretty bad about letting him.
Honestly Cornyn was the only one on my ballot where I just wasn’t sure how to vote. The guy is a traitor, absolutely no question about it, but how does Biden with a democrat senate serve conservatives? Reasonable people can disagree about that one, but I didn’t vote for Cornyn. I’m done voting for people I do not support. The very best they can hope for is that I do not vote against them either.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:42 amTrump is the president. Cornyn is in the majority. This is Team R, harkin. Maybe on twitter this isn’t the case, but the problems we have in our government belong to Team R. Things weren’t ideal with Team D, but we had that recently… wasn’t really this bad.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:43 amNo sympathy, no empathy, from me. Rat deserting sinking ship early to avoid stampede on November 4, that’s all it is. Go suck a saguaro, Mr. Senator Cornyn!
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:46 amNow do white athletes and team employees saying ‘All Lives Matter’ or criticizing China.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:53 am_
Leftists are no doubt doing that. But while you imply that I don’t realize that, I do. Meanwhile, you “lol” at the notion that Republicans are reluctant to criticize Trump due to a totalitarian-style pressure to refrain from criticism, despite clear nd overwhelming evidence in this post and everywhere that this is so. Simply laughing at me for making an obvious;y true point that you can’t counter with arguments or evidence, while dishonestly pretending that I do not recognize a similar problem on the left when I do, is not the sort of commentary that adds value.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:53 amYes, the left has its own issues. But, as Dustin noted, Trump is the president. I’ll be criticizing Biden vigorously, I expect, while you throw tomatoes from the sidelines chastizing me for voting for him, as if Trump were not both the only alternative and a far worse alternative at that.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:56 amAs the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
I’m old enough now to watch how things change, and how people sometimes don’t like the results of their wishes. I will remember hearing how utterly stupid Reagan was, and reading his letters, discovered that was a lie. But this is what the DNC has been doing for decades. The same plan. Every time.
I did not vote for DJT before, and despite my dislike of cannabis, voted Libertarian. I do not anticipate voting for him again.
My reasoning started with his personal style, which I find a bad fit for leadership. Do notice I wrote “I find.” I really don’t mind if you disagree with me. Though seeing some folks get all personal here repeatedly, I just don’t know what to say.
What bothers me more is that, with just a few small changes in his approach, preparation, and outreach, DJT could have made a huge difference. It would have cost him so little. And his combativeness could have been directed toward fairness, rather than personal aggrandizement.
At the same time—and this is important—I have never met the man. I have met politicians who were depicted as being terrible by people who never met them…and those politicians were completely different from what the press claimed. DJT, of course, has long banked on the image he has. He cultivates it.
So I find it likely that the horror show of Joe Biden will win, which means that Kamala Harris will be effectively POTUS. And we had better hope that ACB is confirmed, and that the SCOTUS is not enlarged. Because I see a DNC sweep. And it isn’t the DNC of my youth. Get ready for big change.
I completely blame the RNC for creating this fecal storm of nonsense. I don’t see how DJT is being anyone other that who he has always been. Yes, he makes some good decisions, based on some solid coaching to keep him from reacting before thinking. Supreme Court. Middle East. Reducing some level of bureaucracy.
Hence my daily depression and unwillingness to listen to people caper in the grave of the things I hold dear.
So, so unpleasant.
Simon Jester (545ea7) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:57 amPatterico, I wish we were friends IRL, so I could share a drink with you, and mourn the loss of what we hold dear.
Simon Jester (545ea7) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:59 am“Leftists are no doubt doing that. But while you imply that I don’t realize that, I do……..
……while dishonestly pretending that I do not recognize a similar problem on the left when I do, is not the sort of commentary that adds value.“
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You could have added value by making at least ONE mention that Lefties were doing it in one of the ten paragraphs in your post.
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Meanwhile….
Robert Reich
@RBReich
·
When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It would erase Trump’s lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe.
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Truth and Reconciliation Commission……don’t want to be the first one to stop applauding that!
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:05 pm_
To make me feel a little better from the beauty of the image, and to lend perspective, the Hubble Telescope’s view of the beautiful Orion Nebula. I have NO idea what it would look like with bare eyes, but this is a beautiful and uplifting image.
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0601a/
Simon Jester (545ea7) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:07 pm“ What bothers me more is that, with just a few small changes in his approach, preparation, and outreach, DJT could have made a huge difference. It would have cost him so little. And his combativeness could have been directed toward fairness, rather than personal aggrandizement…….
……… So I find it likely that the horror show of Joe Biden will win, which means that Kamala Harris will be effectively POTUS. And we had better hope that ACB is confirmed, and that the SCOTUS is not enlarged. Because I see a DNC sweep. And it isn’t the DNC of my youth. Get ready for big change.“
__ _
Totally agree with the above.
Still not voting Trump.
Still warning anyone who thinks Biden/Harris is the solution, they really have no clue.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:09 pm_
I could have, but it would have been distracting and besides the point, and so, as the writer, I decided not to. Now that I know you will lol at me for not giving a nod to lefties’ bad behavior even when it is not relevant, in the future I will continue to do exactly what I want and ignore your bad faith sarcastic nasty carping.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:10 pmSimon, well said. It’s fair to be very concerned about the push left, a President Harris with an entrenched democrat Senate and maybe a couple of decades where Team R has a hard time competing now.
In fact, I think the way forward is to continue through this death of the republican party. It did not do what it was supposed to. We need a better party for common sense limited government, civil rights, not not all the wedge issue cleverness that ultimately made it easy for Trump and Falwell Jr to scam evangelicals into what we will have next year.
Harkin, thank you for sharing something on twitter we can be outraged about. Meanwhile, Trump is accountable for what he did. We can spend the rest of our lives being angry at someone on twitter, promoted by people on twitter, or we can just hold people accountable for the real things they have done.
Of course more investigation must be done when trump is no longer able to screw it up.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:10 pmThey are not the solution. Getting Trump out is not even a solution. But it’s the urgent and immediate priority.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:11 pm“the Hubble Telescope’s view of the beautiful Orion Nebula.”
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Waiting for the Webb Telescope (and the prospective images and data) is torture.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:12 pm_
harkin, if you can demonstrate that you have ever shown the slightest concern about any of this noted in the post:
(which is a pretty damning if incomplete list) then show me. If you have never shown any concern about any of that, why should I pay attention to you while you openly laugh at me for being less of a partisan hack than you are?
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:17 pmThank you, folks.
Simon Jester (545ea7) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:17 pm“I could have, but it would have been distracting and besides the point, and so, as the writer, I decided not to.”
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I would treat this with a little more credence if so many posts you’ve made in the past few years criticizing liberals did not have inclusions comparing them to Trump supporters.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:17 pm_
I hope that I can make you all laugh about something. As I have mentioned many times, my own department is “all in” with all the progressive ideas. I keep my mouth shut and my head down, and I still have trouble. Anyway, we had a discussion about how to include and support students and faculty together during these pandemic times (and remote teaching). One faculty member (this is in a science department, remember) hosted a viewing party of “RBG.” No student attended. Another faculty member and his partner hosted a session about “Get Out the Vote.” Four people attended, none of whom were students.
So, just maybe, there is hope. I like it when the students don’t follow in lockstep. Even with me.
Simon Jester (545ea7) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:20 pmSo you hate evenhandedness when lefties are the target but love it when the right is the target.
I would treat your comments with more respect if you could demonstrate that you have shown any concern over any of the very serious issues I identified in my last comment.
I’d really like to show grace to my political opponents, which I now consider you to be, but it’s pretty difficult when their opening salvo is to “lol” at me. What an asshole move that is, quite honestly.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:22 pmIf you’re not going to provide interesting discussion, and you’re simply going to laugh at me unjustifiably, why don’t you take the logical next step and get the hell off my site?
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:23 pmHow I would welcome a contrary viewpoint expressed by someone not determined to be a dick about how they express it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:24 pmIMHO – NOT voting for a man (as I refused to do in 2016) is the ultimate way of saying he is not fit for the office.
I also refuse to vote for him next month. (Dustin called me a liar, said that I ‘adore’ and ‘worship’ Trump more than any poster here……for the simple reason that I point out some of the lies and many of the hypocrisies of his most ardent detractors).
I asked Dustin to copy and paste the best examples of my adoration and worship of Trump and so far he has done nothing more than you have, point at me and say I don’t add to the Trump hate.
I’m sorry if this is not good enough for you or that you feel I am not doing my part in making sure there is enough anti-Trump content on this board (I mean, seriously?).
I have repeatedly said I’m trying to convince people that Biden/Harris will bring in a set of nightmares that can not even begin to comprehend.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:28 pm_
Yes, yes, you’re not pro-Trump, you’re just anti-anti-Trump.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:32 pm“ I hope that I can make you all laugh about something.“
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I laughed, I still have my sense of humor.
Hope you get a giggle out of this:
https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1317863383190953986?s=20
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:34 pm_
But your case about the Horrors a Joe Biden presidency will bring is not credible since you can’t acknowledge any of the problems with a Trump presidency. I’m more interested in debating the issue with someone who is intellectually honest, defined as capable of admitting obvious problems with Trump such as I have described. You’re unwilling to grapple with any of them which frankly just makes you another boring partisan, whether you adopt a pro-Trump label or an anti-anti-Trump label.
I no longer trust people who can’t acknowledge the problems with Trump. I’d rather move on to discuss with people whose views are more substantive and lacking in open, naked, ignorant partisanship.
You know, since the gloves are off and all.
“Lol”
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:35 pm“Yes, yes, you’re not pro-Trump, you’re just anti-anti-Trump”
_
I hope you realize that the left are using this same form of tortured logic:
‘It’s not enough to NOT be a racist, you MUST be an anti-racist‘
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:39 pm_
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:42 am
A Hitler analogy? That’s original and not over emotional at all. If he’s literally ruining the whole world why waste time with building concentration camps and cattle cars?
You’ve got a tell.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:41 pmWhy on earth would you even suggest this? Why do assume that Patterico has any sort of obligation to meet about anything on his blog? He can write whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and let the chips fall where they will. Who are you to demand a blog proprietor should do what *you* demand? I really don’t understand this. Moreover, the subject is Cornyn and his ilk, and the quandry in which they find themselves as the election draws closer and the polls look increasingly bad for Trump. How are lefties involved with any of the decisions, justifications and actions that adult GOP members are making to cover themselves in case their ship goes down?
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:42 pmFrom my linked “first to stop applauding” post:
It probably made harkin cry because in addition to calling out Hillary and Bernie and Obama supporters, I called out Trump supporters and things that happened under Bush.
In fact, after writing the previous sentence, I looked to see if harkin commented on that post, and BINGO: “Using TGA [The Gulag Archipelago] to compare Trump supporters to those wishing for excesses of government power favored by Obama and Sanders is a real reach.”
harkin would be happier at a blog where Trump excesses of government power are not spoken of.
There are many many such sites, harkin. How’s about you go find one and hang out there instead.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:44 pmI don’t feel sorry or charitable to the Republican cowards in elected office, including Sasse. The Senator from Nebraska only spoke out in a conference call (which was conveniently a non-video setting) and only when his reelection was assured. The only GOPer right now who displayed any courage was Romney, and he should be the spiritual leader of this party from November 4th onward.
Paul Montagu (b43ee7) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:44 pmThere are some moments in history when a president is so unfit and so corrupt and so dishonest that people in the same party need to speak out. This has been one of those moments since the Trump-Zelensky phone call, and my party failed miserably, on an historic scale. Shame on all of them. They sold their political souls to hold onto their power. The water carriers (Cruz, Graham, etc.) are worse than the ones who tried to keep their heads down, but they’ll all carry that TrumpStain with ’em for the rest of their careers.
Why don’t you criticize Biden as much as you do Trump?
Because Trump *is* the President.
Yeah, but Biden *wants to become* the next President.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:47 pmYes, I am a fierce critic of the “anti-racist” racism of the Woke left, and once Trump is gone I’ll probably have more time and breathing room to write about such things.
Right now I’m too busy trying to prevent the impending train crash to worry about the gnat buzzing around my face.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:47 pmI’m not completely understanding the source of those words, but I’ll tell you why I don’t. Because Biden, whom I do not like and whose policies I generally dislike, is nowhere near the sh[vowel deleted]tbag Trump is.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:49 pmYou’re speaking my language, Paul.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:50 pmPatterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:35 pm
This seems like a longer way of saying you don’t trust people who disagree with you and aren’t interested in engaging with them. Which is a valid viewpoint.
Trump’s got problems. Biden has problems. NeverTrump has problems. Trumpists have problems. There are a lot of problems.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:50 pmSasse, for all of his pushback against the President (about which I agreed) will always have the impeachment albatross vote hanging around his neck. And I really like the guy. It’s too bad.
The current GOP has demonstrated a lack of collective testicular fortitude – with the exception of “milquetoast Mormon” Mitt Romney, and how ironically funny is that!?
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:52 pmDana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:42 pm
He said “could”. You included that in your quote. That isn’t a demand. It might be a criticism but “who are you to criticize” seems to answer itself.
Yea. I don’t understand either. It seems like that comment triggered an overreaction.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 12:56 pmI was sacracastically making the point that harkin (and those like him) question why you don’t criticize Biden as much as you do Trump, and people like you or me or anyone who is a critic of Trump explain for the hundredth time that it’s because Trump *is* the President, not Biden. To which the harkins indignantly try to justify their demand with Yeah, but Biden *wants* to become our President, meaning that he should be held as accountable as the actual President because he wants to become the next President. It’s a ridiculous demand. There is a big difference between actually having your hands on the levers of power and hoping you will.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:02 pmNot to take harkin’s side on this or anything, but that actually IS a distinction that makes a difference.
There are such things as logically-exhaustive binaries. A circuit is closed or open. A light is on or off. A bit is one or zero.
“Pro” and “anti” are NOT necessarily logically exhaustive. It is possible to be anti-Trump, and also anti-anti-Trump. I should know. I am.
Demosthenes (5f62f9) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:03 pmNope. I’m identifying a particular class of people who disagree with me with whom I have no interest in engaging. People who acknowledge Trump’s problems but want to argue that on balance Biden is worse, certainly disagree with me — but if they can marshal facts and evidence and refrain from openly laughing at me or demonstrating similar contempt, I’m happy to engage with them. But someone who denies, for example, that Trump has used his position to enrich himself personally, or that he alienates allies and embraces thugs, or that he has urged his Department of Justice to go easy on his cronies and to prosecute his enemies, etc. — well, such a person is simply not intellectually honest, and a discussion with such a person is a waste of my time.
There is a difference between shunning unreasonable and intellectually dishonest people and shunning everyone who disagrees with me. Of course there are millions of people who disagree with me and surely some percentage of them are intellectually honest and could marshal facts and evidence in support of an argument.
I’m just not seeing a hell of a lot of it around here. Instead, I see someone like you who claims that I am taking the position that I don’t want to talk to anyone who disagrees with me, which itself is an unfair accusation and an intellectually dishonest position.
1) Brussels sprouts smell bad. 2) A pool of diarrhea smells bad. 3) A pile of human bodies lying in the sun for three weeks smells bad. 4) Cheerios with milk poured on them smell bad. I’ll let you sniff 2 and 3 while I sniff 1 and 4, and let you go on pretending that the extent to which something is a problem doesn’t matter. Degrees of difference matter.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:03 pmAs a matter of pure logic you are of course right. But first: anti-anti-Trump is often the road to pro-Trump, and second: a lot of pro-Trumpers adopt the “anti-anti-Trump” label just so they can claim not to be pro-Trump — yet not a damned thing Trump ever does ever seems to bother them in a serious way. Those people are just pro-Trumpers pretending not to be.
I would not say that about you. You strike me as very honest.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:06 pmThat is all true, but frankly, if Biden were the president and Trump were the challenger, I’d be spending my time criticizing Trump. He’s just way, way, way worse.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:07 pmFor me it is easy: none of Don’s collaborators will ever get support from me, ever again.
This is easy: people like Cruz and Sasse are filler. They will go through the motions in a new East Germany as soon as they will a free country. So they’re unimportant seat-fillers. But: they have been tested and found wanting. We know they’re pathetic. If they get swapped out for new replacement-level filler, there’s a chance some fresh blood will be surprising.
john (cd2753) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:09 pmFrosty:
“A Hitler analogy?“
And they get mad when I ‘lol’
These are the same people who say my comments are in bad faith.
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In 2016 my liberal and Never-Trumper friends would glow and smile when I said: ‘no way in hell I can vote for Trump’.
Then I would add: ‘He just might be as bad as Obama and Hillary’
Then the anger and hate would engage, nothing’s changed.
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Remember – Seattle, Chicago, NYC, Milwaukee, SF, Portland and the other Democratic run sh[vowel deleted]tstorms of crime, ignorance, riots, arson, murder, property loss, police telling citizens they’re on their own etc. are NO INDICATION of what a Democratic-run Executive Branch has in store for us.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:09 pm_
Yeah, agreed. I work with one of those people. She will defend Trump to the echo.
Demosthenes (5f62f9) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:11 pmLooks like we are replacing an insane president with one teetering on dotage. Is the latter better? We shall see…
More afraid of Biden’s VP than Biden himself…
Hoi Polloi (92d467) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:12 pmYour assertion that Trump is worse than Biden is unproven ipse dixit. And the more important question, IMO, is whether a (second) Trump Administration will be worse or better than a Biden Administration. Your focus is solely on the personalities involved (Trump is worse there, although not by much), not the policies that are likely to be implemented.
The Shah of Iran was bad. Many cheered his ouster. His replacement, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and then AK’s successors, were far worse, both for Iran and the world.
As I see it, on one side you have a narcissistic self-promoter with zero morals, whose main goal is self aggrandizement. His administration is made up of some lackeys, some good people who draw the line somewhere (even Barr recently said NO on certain things), and some good people who are involved in things that Trump cares little about, so he is willing to let them run the show.
On the other side, you have a politician that at his prime was a panderer that went where the wind blows. And who is now, to put it charitably, with declining abilities. And you have a group of dedicated true-believers that are chomping at the bit to “fundamentally transform” the country according to their Marxist plan. And a VP candidate who has shown herself to be ruthless in promoting herself.
As I said before, I have the luxury of living in a very blue state, so I can register a protest vote without affecting anything. Were I in a swing state, I would take the P.T. Barnum candidate over the Paul von Hindenburg candidate. (For those without sufficient historical background, use Google.)
Bored Lawyer (7b72ec) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:20 pmHitler analogies are directly on point when the topic is silence about a leader’s atrocities due to fear.
Of course, there are always dishonest partisans waiting in the wings for their moment to leap out and falsely accuse you of directly comparing the current leader to one who murdered millions.
That’s why, when I use the analogy, as I did in my linked “first to stop applauding” post, I lard it up with all kinds of explanations about how this is human nature, both sides do it, I’m not saying the current leader is morally comparable to Hitler, I’m just pointing out that the same cowardice underpins all reluctance to speak out, etc.
Dishonest hacky partisans still rush to scream YOU ARE COMPARING TRUMP TO HITLER or whatever, but at least I can point to all the qualifications I made in the post, to show that the partisans are totally dishonest and full of shit.
Dustin’s comment was 100% on point.
There are absolutely Trump supporters who would applaud him doing precisely what Hitler did. Certainly not all, but some. And most of them would probably be too scared to speak out, if the atmosphere were the same. What, you think your human nature is different from that of Germans in the 1930s? It’s not.
Of course, many people would rush to tell you they’re not pro-Hitler.
They’re just anti-anti-Hitler.
I mean, his main domestic opponents are Commies, for crying out loud. You want to support the Commies???
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:20 pmBored Lawyer stares at mountain of evidence and says: what evidence?
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:21 pmFrosty, don’t be afraid of history. It’s good to explore what went wrong in Germany, how Hitler was electable, how the other guardians of the society eased into hell. It’s worth learning as we watch Trump. You are searching for my tell, but I’m not trying to trick you. I really am seriously concerned about the country.
It gets tiresome having my sincere opinions turn into attack after attack on my character. You are defending Donald Trump.
Most of you guys intend to improve the country, which is why my point is so hard to accept. A vote for Trump hurts us. It’s probably hard for Hitler’s voters who loved Germany to consider the same problem. But let that go. Nobody is perfect and you owe Trump nothing.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:21 pm@36
I think that’s where most of our disagreements lies…
Trump has major baggages that renders traditional GOP voters unwilling to vote for him.
However, Biden has different sorts of baggages that wouldn’t entice cross voters.
You say it’s a “priority” for Trump to return to civilian life. But, are you fully cognizant of the cost having a Democrat Whitehouse, where Harris would likely have outsized influence (being the most liberal Senator)???
I wished we didn’t have to hold our noses… but, it *is* a choice that we must choose.
I don’t blame Sasse or Cornym being like this, as you can personally despise someone, but dial back the public rhetoric/criticism so that we don’t completely burn your bridges. At some point, they have to *work* together to get things done.
The time to get the kinds of politicians you’d want to vote *for* is during the grassroot/primary phase of this whole process. Let this be a lesson for everyone who doesn’t want to see a repeat of Trump winning the GOP primary out of left field.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:22 pmAll the people I’ve seen committing Kristallnacht this year have been socialists and commies.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:23 pm_
Yeah? You know, Bored Lawyer, I listed some problems with Trump in the post and I have repeated the same set of problems a couple of times here in the comments. I challenge you to directly engage with my statements.
How about you engage each and every one of those complaints, rather than ignoring them to form your own more innocent-sounding narrative, and tell me whether I’m right or wrong?
I want to know whether I should ignore you or not. I have my suspicions, but hey. Surprise me.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:24 pmPutting Helsinki aside, relegating the modern ideological conservative movement to utter irrelevancy is the ultimate Trump Triumph in domestic politics. And even w/a long dreamed conservative SCOTUS as a consolation prize, they still b-tch.
Getting Bill Buckley’d out of the party was long overdue.
Glorious. Welcome to 1964.
“You’re learning that you don’t work with a captain because you like the way he parts his hair; you work with him because he’s GOT the job, or you’re no good!”- Barney Greenwald [Jose Ferrer] ‘The Caine Mutiny’ 1954
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:24 pmLiterally anyone who would vote for Trump who wants to take on that paragraph point by point, I would welcome it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:24 pmPatterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:03 pm
At a high level, the counter argument to this is that Trump Co. has lost money while he’s been POTUS. Forbes estimates that he has lost a little over $1 billion.
While Biden has no other income than however he profits from being a politician. Forbes estimates his net worth from those profits at $9 million.
You think Trump stinks more than Biden on this issue? And you really think Trump is enriching himself when Forbes is saying otherwise?
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:25 pmWe’ll see what happens after Mr. Relegation gets his ass kicked next month by the old man you despise so. I don’t hold out a lot of hope for the ideological conservative movement, but watching its replacement get demolished is going to change something.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:26 pm@47 They are exactly an indication of what a Trump-run Executive Branch has in store for us. This didn’t happen when Clinton was President or Bush was President or Obama was President. We know what will happen when Trump is president because it’s happening right now.
Nic (896fdf) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:27 pmThanks, Patterico. The cowardly falling in line with Trump by our representatives, no matter his transgressions, still chaps my hide.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:28 pmAlong similar lines, David French just wrote about the “liberating power of a political declaration of independence”, and his journey is not that far off from my mine (and yours, too, I think), and I can say that I’ve experienced similar rewards.
You provide no link; I assume you are talking about an article that says he lost #1 billion due to the coronavirus. Please link your evidence.
I don’t really care if his business has gained $$$ or lost $$$ on its own, nor do I consider it amelioration if people have actively avoided doing business with his company because they despise his politics. What I am talking about is the way that he visits his own properties constantly and forces the government to pay huge amounts to protect him, and the way that he profits from rent-seekers, both foreign and domestic, booking his properties as a way of bribing him. This happens, and whether it’s his attempt to make up a cash shortfall from the company doing badly because much of the country despises him does not assuage my concerns one whit.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:32 pmAnd frosty, I asked people to engage *all* the issues I identified, not to cherry-pick one and offer an argument based on misleading summaries of non-linked articles.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:33 pmDustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:21 pm
You complain about something and then proceed to do the thing you just complained about.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:38 pmfrosty, harkin, others of the same point of view: most of the Trump supporters I know are good people. Some of them are even great people. Almost none of them like trump. They make comments that feel similar to the ones Patterico quoted from Senator Cornyn. ‘It is what it is’ and ‘but the democrats’.
We need to think about how much power we have given the ‘but the Democrats’. It’s ruined the GOP to have set ourselves up as ‘anti-democrat’ or ‘anti-anti-GOP’. We can only get better if we require the party to be something we support and believe in, and ignore this binary choice cancer.
For some reason, my identification as a Trump critic often convinces those who have settled for him, even though they know he’s a POS, to see me as a bad guy, trying to fool them. Instapundit’s comments are incredible. they all are certain I’m paid by Soros and beyond evil, you guys think I’m tricking you and have ‘tells’. But no, that’s really not it. Most Americans dislike Trump. Most of your country rejected him before and will do it again. If anti-anti-Trump has put you in this place where you and other good people think ill of most of your country, that’s not worth it.
This argument that Trump sacrificed oh so much for me is honestly crazy. The con man is totally selfish and sought power for his own sake, for his ego and to deal with his debt and other mistakes. That he’s losing money right now means nothing… Trump has always lost money. It’s what he does.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:41 pmPatterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:33 pm
I thought it easier to engage things one by one. I was wrong.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:41 pmAs long as you commit to engaging them all.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:43 pmPersonally, I don’t criticize Biden as much because he doesn’t lie as much, not even close. We all know his positions on issues, so there’s not to criticize about, except to disagree with his more disagreeable policies. Unlike Trump, he’s taken CV19 seriously. He gaffes from time to time, but they pale before the incoherent word salads Trump creates. Biden does get my attention on matters such as avoiding questions on court-packing and such.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:43 pmIf Biden is elected, there will be more lots more to say because his decisions will carry the weight of his office.
Funny thing, ever since I lost confidence in Bush after the Golden Mosque bombing, there has been no president that I’ve supported since, and that non-support will carry into 2024.
Surprise me.
Nope. Buy a box of Cracker Jacks. You get a little plastic toy to play with, before it breaks in 20 seconds.
Bored Lawyer (7b72ec) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:46 pmI this it’s this, but I also think there is the point of pride in being able to admit that he isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. So many people really put their hearts and soul into this guy (which is a foolish move with any politician), but they really *needed* to believe in the bill of goods they were sold. It’s a shame too, because anyone who says I was wrong about Trump only gets applause from me, and a hearty welcome back. A lot of people throughout history have gotten in suckered in by grifters and helped put them in positions of power. It’s only a great thing when anyone sees with clarity what has always been right under their nose.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:51 pm@60. President Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Tom Dewey would likely agree with you.
OTOH, you may be measuring the drapes to soon. Around this time out from the general, Reagan was behind by a dozen points against Carter; and HRC was polling ahead by as much over Trump. The enthusiasm gap is glaring between Trump and Biden as well and not an element to ignore.
Never forget that in this era [which Ronald Reagan spawned and nurtured]- Americans don’t want to be governed, they wish to be entertained. Trump is a Reagan Creation. And much more entertaining.
From your POV– and mine as well- you might consider the disturbing implications of a President Kamala Harris. Biden will turn 78 in three weeks. Peruse the history books and see how many all-but-certain-one termers were elected as change.
Then consider what to do–if Trump wins.
Even Woodward hedged his bets stating it is likely he’ll lose but could still win.
Solid journalism. 😉
“No miracle is coming.”- Joe Biden
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:53 pmBeing “depicted as terrible” is not the same as directly presenting a terrible image to the public, on a daily basis. Trump is openly, publicly terrible, as voluminous video and Twitter evidence demonstrates. No further “depiction” is needed to make him look bad. Apologists either tell us that he’s really a much better person in private, or else they like the awfulness.
It isn’t just an image he cultivates. It’s who he is. He has proved himself incapable of being different even when it would serve himself to be different.
We’ve heard from people who worked closely with him, in the White House or elsewhere, testifying that he is no better than his public image, and perhaps worse. Then the apologists drop their “you’ve never met the man!” line, for the moment, and fall back on disgruntlement or cynicism or all the bad motives they ascribe to anyone who criticizes Trump.
Radegunda (786b96) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:55 pmThanks for confirming my opinion of you.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:55 pm“At a high level, the counter argument to this is that Trump Co. has lost money while he’s been POTUS. Forbes estimates that he has lost a little over $1 billion.”
How much would he have lost if he wasn’t president?
“While Biden has no other income than however he profits from being a politician. Forbes estimates his net worth from those profits at $9 million.”
Biden made that after he stopped being a politician (book deals and speaking engagements).
Davethulhu (af68c6) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:56 pmTrump has corrupted an entire political Party and its leaders (except Romney, who hasn’t been a GOP leader in 8 years) for his own benefit. His narcissism has ruined part of our country’s political fabric and it will take years to repair. No one should be happy about that excelt Democrats, foreign dictators, and DCSCA.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:57 pmDustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:41 pm
I’m convinced you read different comments from different people, possibly from different sites, mix them together, and then forget who said what. This is the only way I can reasonably explain you consistently attributing to me things I didn’t say.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:57 pmAnd Nixon fans.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:57 pmThat is disappointing, Bored Lawyer.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:00 pmPatterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:43 pm
@63 and @64 suggests it is better for me to disengage.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:05 pmToo many Texans don’t like Trump, and Cornyn is dealing with this fact far too late. Trump is the best thing to happen to Texas’ Democrats in decades.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:06 pmOh for God’s sake; as any NYer who knew Trump from the 80s can tell you- The Donald is no Hitler; he’s frigging Larson E. Whipsnade.
“You can’t cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump.” – Larson E. Whipsnade [W.C. Fields] ‘You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man’ 1939
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:07 pmThat probably is the smart thing for you to do, frosty.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:08 pmI can see where you could be put off after finding your first argument refuted soundly with a link, logic, and a challenge to confront the aspects of my argument that you had thus far avoided.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:08 pmBoth for you and Bored Lawyer.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:08 pmHaving our ideas challenged is hard for everyone but also worthwhile for everyone. Maybe Bored Lawyer and frosty will decide to accept the challenge.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:10 pmGoldwater has corrupted an entire political Party and its leaders.
Reagan has corrupted an entire political Party and its leaders.
FIFY.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:12 pmIt is so easy to criticize Trump critics and ignore the substance of the arguments that Trump critics are making. And it’s easier still to take their ball and go home.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:13 pmThis then makes me wonder, for the umpteenth time, exactly why/how does Trump compel such loyalty from otherwise intelligent and decent Americans from all walks of life?
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:16 pm58.Literally anyone who would vote for Trump who wants to take on that paragraph point by point, I would welcome it.
Make the case for Biden instead.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:18 pmTo be clear I wasn’t saying you comment at instapundit. I was saying you referred to my word “honesty” as a tell in this thread, which you did actually do. To me, you’re a very smart version of the same thing I get there: irrational suspicion.
It’s hard to overcome suspicion. that’s why Trump and russian bots use so much of that to describe anyone who is critical of Trump or russian bots.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:19 pmI knew this reminded me of something.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:19 pmThey are not the solution. Getting Trump out is not even a solution. But it’s the urgent and immediate priority.
And this is the point that many are coming to. There are no solutions, there is only existential threat. I admit to trying to learn to live with Trump, after wanting nothing to do with him as a candidate. I’d call it “coping with a piss-poor reality” rather than “playing along out of cowardice”, even for those Patterico no longer respects. I see no good in turning out Cornyn for a Democrat, or taking any action against people who tried to work with Trump after he won.
The people who supported Trump going in (Sessions, Gingrich, Meadows, Priebus, etc) can rot in Hell for all I care.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:20 pmThat’s hard to do and that’s a pretty smart counterpoint. Biden is only nominally running for president. Riding bikes and eating ice cream, saying nice things to kids, being smarter and more youthful than Trump, but really just not being Trump. He’s taking no risks, raising enormous sums anyway, because the anger at Trump is so high.
‘he’s not Trump’ is not a positive case for Biden and most of the people voting for biden aren’t expecting much from him. I already voted for Biden and I hope he’s an awesome president, but have never said I expect him to be.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:21 pmHere’s the problem: you can always rationalize cowardice.
And you can always call prudence “cowardice”
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:23 pmI don’t understand the Trump/Hitler analogy. When I hear it, I see someone who either A) simply hates Trump over anything and/or 2) doesn’t understand history, specifically German history.
Hitler was far more dangerous than Trump. Trump wants to enrich himself. Hitler wanted to take over the world.
And I have millions of reasons why Hitler is more dangerous than Trump. I also have four years of watching Trump start zero foreign wars or even escalating our footprint in existing ones.
But Trump is corrupt and runs his presidency with a lack of morals and decorum. He will be gone soon and while many will breath a sigh of relief, remember Joe Biden will have no check. No media looking into his every move, unless he is not progressive enough. If Republicans lose the Senate as well – then maybe things might seem even worse than the Trump presidency.
This is a sad state of political affairs we find ourselves in today.
Hoi Polloi (92d467) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:25 pmWhy should he? Is Biden the President? Has he been in power these past 3-plus years with his hands on the levers of power, wreaking divisiveness and havoc througout the nation?
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:26 pmPersonally, I don’t criticize Biden as much because he doesn’t lie as much, not even close.
Aside from being caught committing plagiarism, lying about his credentials, inventing stories and being a swamp creature politician for half a century… and, of course, he’s older than Trump so has had time on this rock to fib. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:26 pm@96. Why not- he’s the viable alternative competing for the gig.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:27 pmTrump should have been impeached and convicted, but the charges Pelosi brought were INTENDED to fail. She knew that they would not resonate, but then she wanted Trump to stay in office while appeasing the hard Left in her camp.
If the charges had been that he was unsuitable, that he was a clear and present danger, that he was too fracking stupid an illiterate to serve, that he brought America into disrepute, it would at least have been more interesting.
Of course, that would have set a precedent that maybe the Democrats didn’t want.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:28 pmIt wasn’t long ago that most people who called themselves conservative insisted that good character is more important the more power a person wields over others. Then along came Trump, and a great many of them — including prominent voices — more or less turned that idea upside down. Trump fans openly scorned concerns about character as the silly (at best) preoccupation of losers. They took the position that scruples are a hindrance to accomplishing a righteous agenda.
How they could be confident that a person without scruples would be fully committed to a righteous agenda is a puzzle.
And they appear not to have given thought to how defining deviancy down at the highest levels of power would work out when power is again in the hands of people whose agenda they dislike. At any rate, it will be interesting to see the rank hypocrisy when Trump apologists express their dismay at a Democratic administration shattering norms and offending sensibilities.
Radegunda (786b96) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:30 pm98,
Yes, he is, but the fact remains that he is not the sitting President, and those who criticize Trump critics, more often than not refuse to criticize the current President for his despicable behavior and actions. IOW, let’s just skip what is currently right under our noses, and jump to that which isn’t yet.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:30 pmShe is instituting legislation to look at invoking the 25th amendment not to use against Trump, but Biden. She and her progressive bloc will use Biden’s age and gaffes to get Harris into the Oval Office sooner rather than later.
Hoi Polloi (92d467) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:30 pmPelosi is not progressive.
Davethulhu (af68c6) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:32 pmThe only GOPer right now who displayed any courage was Romney, and he should be the spiritual leader of this party from November 4th onward.
Romney has shown us the path to winning Utah.
He will be the spiritual leader for you guys at least until he stops clapping for your sanctimony. Like Cruz was, and now isn’t. Like Sasse was, and now isn’t. And, not so long ago Romney wasn’t.
You guys are big on purity, small on actually doing anything. Trump got one term, and has secured the judicial branch in conservative hands for years to come. Romney and your sanctimony got zilch, and it will always be zilch.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:32 pmwreaking divisiveness and havoc througout the nation?
Reaganoptics.
Tax cuts, dead beat allies coughing up… etc., etc. The only angry people are minorities and hard right ideological conservatives on the outs.
He’s entertaining, Dana.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:32 pmYou keep telling yourself that. She’s a good politician working towards progressive goals. Sometimes that means taking the high road, or doing things more slowly, but that’s why she is Speaker of the House and AOC speaks on Twitter.
Hoi Polloi (92d467) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:35 pmAs for Cruz:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/23/cruz-to-reverse-himself-and-support-trump/
https://www.rollcall.com/2016/09/23/trump-wins-ted-cruzs-vote-with-supreme-court-list/
He refused to endorse Trump at the convention — and then came to see that there were only a few horses in the race and made the best of a bad deal. Sometimes there are only bad options. Like now, when people are voting for Biden, not because they like him, but because they fear Trump more.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:40 pmI don;t think he’s haded toward a Walter Mondale in 1984 style loss, or even a George Bush the Elder in 1992 style loss but more of a Mitt Romney 2012 style loss or maybe, if he carries Florida, even a Dewey 1948, Nixon 1960, Humphrey 1968 or Gerald Ford 1976 size loss. He is set to carry Texas and Ohio, and probably North Carolina, and set to lose Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona.
The only changes from 2012
https://www.270towin.com/2012_Election
are liable to be the loss of Arizona and the first district of Nebraska, and carrying the 2nd district of Maine and possibly Florida. But I may not be familiar with what’s going on in certain states. If he loses Michigan, Pensylvania and Wisconsin (which has an uptick in coronavirus cases) but somehow flips Minnesota and Florida compared to 2012, he;d still have just to 230 to Biden;s 308. Now in Congress there might be a big loss of seats for the Republicans especially in the Senate.
Lindsay Graham is likely to win re-election to the Senate in South Carolina, despite the Democratic candidate heavily advertising in support of the Libertarian.
But results may not be clear for three weeks.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:41 pmI agree that Trump’s preoccupation is much more about glorifying himself than anything else. It isn’t that he doesn’t abuse power and blithely do harm to others in order to benefit himself. He is indifferent to cruelty inflicted on others, and he has even called for deliberately cruel actions — e.g. the border separations; asking that the fence have really sharp spikes; etc.
I don’t foresee a genocidal agenda coming from Trump, and the Hitler analogies tend to discredit the well-founded criticisms of his sociopathy. Then the apologists can shout “He’s not like Hitler!” and pretend that all the criticism is merely partisan hysteria.
Radegunda (786b96) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:41 pm@101. Despicable behavior and actions? And ‘U.F.Joe’ has none w/47 years as government ‘swamp gas?’
Make the case for Biden as opposed to against Trump a viable alternative.
But don’t forget: the ‘despicable behavior and actions’ of ‘Dallas’ J.R. Ewing were invited and welcomed into American homes for 14 seasons. And The Apprentice did well for years, too. So don’t be surprised if Trump does 8.
Americans love their bad boys.
“No miracle is coming.” – Joe Biden
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:44 pm100. Radegunda (786b96) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:30 pm
Becase it was in his self interest to stick to a not actually a 100% righteous agenda. He also had some personal beliefs. Anyway the fact of the matter is, he did.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:44 pmRight now, the real problem with opposing Antifa or “Progressive*” politicians is that Donald Trump is on YOUR side. Any position he touches he makes his own, no matter how much slime he has to cover it with. In reality his “support” makes their case in ways they could never attempt.
———-
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:48 pm* every progressive I’ve ever known is a closeted Communist.
Some weren’t closeted
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:48 pm1. Romney was running against Obama. There’s basically zero chance that Trump would have won over Obama.
Radegunda (786b96) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:48 pm2. The idea that no other Republican (or, an actual Republican of long standing) would have nominated “conservative” judges is ridiculous.
3. Trump has caused a massive flight away from the GOP. And it isn’t Covid’s fault, as it began earlier, though Trump’s behavior in response to it has revolted many who voted for him in 2016.
Romney was running against Obama
You’re arguing a bunch of what ifs, because you know what actually happened in reality.
The massive flight you want to hype would have to be catastrophic to exceed what happened post-Bush. More reality for you.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:59 pm#111 — He certainly didn’t drain the swamp. He just built a new one around himself and his cronies.
He didn’t bring back blue-collar jobs. He didn’t offer a better, cheaper replacement for Obamacare. He didn’t enhance our standing in the world. He didn’t rein in North Korea.
Insiders have said he had some really nutty, dangerous ideas that they did not carry out.
He didn’t build the wall– which his fans said was more important than anything else. But he did make America much less welcoming to legal immigrants and refugees, and must less respected around the world.
Radegunda (786b96) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:00 pmI can make an awesome case for him.
He’s not Trump.
The End.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:15 pmBut of course that one-line snarky drive-by fails to engage the point of the post, which is: it is not prudence to remain quiet “as the president uses his position to enrich himself personally, alienates allies and embraces thugs, urges his Department of Justice to go easy on his cronies and to prosecute his enemies, incites violence and gives a wink to far-right militia groups, and leverages foreign aid in an attempt to secure a foreign government’s pledge to investigate his political opponent.”
I mean, I even anticipated and engaged the point of view you are making, which is Cornyn’s point that you can be more effective by operating behind the scenes. Then I mounted an argument against that, the core of which is contained in the above blockquote. Then you came along with your one-line drive-by, basically arguing “maybe it’s not cowardice but the very prudence you spent an entire long post refuting” and then dusted off your hands as if you had said something meaningful.
It’s frankly frustrating to spend the time making a case and see it so airily dismissed. It evinces a basic disrespect for my efforts here.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:19 pmWe have to fix things so that a smarter, more ambitious and crafty version of Trump can’t become a real-life dictator in this country.
You’ve got two weeks. Good luck.
Jerryskids (702a61) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:22 pmThat is correct; you don’t. No matter how much time people waste explaining it, and expressly stating that it is not advanced to equate Trump’s evil with Hitler, you pretend we didn’t say what we said and proceed to demolish a strawman that we have expressedly disavowed.
You would think I had never written these words in comment 51:
And now, I can point to my language in comment 51, to show that you have totally ignored what I said.
The only question is whether your failure to understand is deliberate or the result of laziness. But again, why do I waste words explaining this stuff if you’re just going to ignore it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:26 pmDCSCA:
Proving DCSCA can’t read either. Or is being deliberately dishonest. One of the two.
Y’all owe Dustin and me an apology. In a decent world we would get it too.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:27 pmIn the end, most of the commentary here makes me feel like I am wasting my time. Almost nothing I have actually written is responded to. What is the point? I have more meaningful things to do with my life. If this site is to be nothing more than a bulletin board where people post whatever comes to mind and pretend that I have not written anything, why bother?
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:34 pmOh, this is not much of a challenge, especially after the case for Biden is “He’s not Trump.”
And so they’ll stay silent, as the president uses his position to enrich himself personally,
Biden started in government from humble beginnings, and he’ll bore you to tears about it. Forty-Eight years later, he’s a very rich man and his family even more so. Yeah, he’s not Trump.
alienates allies and embraces thugs,
Yeah, like our Eastern European allies, and the mullahs of Iran. Kim went nuclear on Jan 20, 2017. Yeah, he’s not Trump.
urges his Department of Justice to go easy on his cronies and to prosecute his enemies,
Like with the Logan Act and an insurance policy. Yeah, he’s not Trump.
incites violence and gives a wink to far-right militia groups,
Biden staffers bailed out rioters and looters. Antifa is an “idea”. Did you catch the right wing violence at the free speech rally in SF yesterday? And, Biden totally denounced it, right? Yeah, he’s not Trump.
and leverages foreign aid in an attempt to secure a foreign government’s pledge to investigate his political opponent.
FISA warrants and an independent counsel based on nothing would be the next level of escalation. Yeah, he’s not Trump.
In exchange for getting someone who’s not Trump, we get nut job lefty judges, a revolving door at the border, more regulation and the Green New Deal, President Harris, more cancel culture… what else you like?
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:35 pmbeer ‘n pretzels,
Other than some supremely weak whatabouts, do you have anything at all to say about whether my characterizations of Trump are fair?
(That is a rhetorical question. I have read enough of your comments to know the answer.)
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:40 pm@123
Bertrand Rusell once told a story about a woman who came up to him, and said, “Professor, I heard your lectures, and I am completely convinced that solipsism is true. I just can’t understand why I can’t convince my friends of its truth.”
Bored Lawyer (7b72ec) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:41 pmOh please. Drawing Hitler to any discussion on Trump is simply a red herring.
Reagan is your culprit. Trump is a Reagan Creation- 35 years in the making.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:48 pmPeople vote ‘for’– not ‘against.’ ‘I’m not FDR’ didn’t work for Wilkie anymore than ‘I’m not Reagan’ worked or Mondale.
‘I’m not Trump’ didn’t work for Hillary. And ‘I’m not Trump’ is just Biden plagiarizing from Clinton.
Try and make a case for Biden other than he’s not Trump.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:54 pmWhatever. I don’t really care about your opinion, frankly.
OK. I guess we’ll see. It’s out of my hands and yours.
I will not. I could say a few things, and have already, but I don’t feel like it right now, I don’t like the way you’re asking, and none of it matters anyway.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:01 pmOther than some supremely weak whatabouts, do you have anything at all to say about whether my characterizations of Trump are fair?
Though the question is rhetorical, you went through the trouble of asking. Let’s presume it wasn’t rhetorical then.
They’re fair, though somewhat exaggerated. Let’s assume they’re 100% fair and I agree. If every similar criticism of Biden is reduced to “weak whatabouts”, then what is the point of your challenge?
My argument then is that both are corrupt. We’re not electing saints. At least with one I get policies that are better for the country, and he’s guaranteed to only be around to do all those corrupt and devilishly evil things for four years.
And isn’t “He’s not Trump” a kind of whatabout? You can’t seem to answer without referring to how bad Trump is in comparison.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:03 pmThe smart move for any cool-headed conservative would be to back Trump, stay w/t party and know the kindred spirited Pence is in your back pocket.
Though Biden is slightly older, frail and clearly brain-farting, lest you forget, The Donald is a physically large man, a la Tim Russert. Overweight, too. Four more years is a long time to many– but may be a short time for others.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:05 pmI will not. I could say a few things, and have already, but I don’t feel like it right now, I don’t like the way you’re asking, and none of it matters anyway.
Wow. We have gone from Junior High mentality to Elementary School mentality. Next up, the latest from Nursery School, or will Jimmy spill his milk on his pants?
Bored Lawyer (7b72ec) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:08 pmI will not.
It seems a fair question.
From my POV, Trump or Biden is a win/win. If you won’t make a case for Biden then saying nothing actually says something.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:13 pmWe’ve gone to you being gone from this site. Bye now.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:13 pmTrump hasn’t plagiarized, DCSCA, but he lies about his credentials and invents stories that lap the field against anyone, Biden included. And Trump is only 3½ years younger.
Paul Montagu (688889) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:14 pm@123 “he’s a very rich man” accusing Biden of enriching himself at government expense is disingenuous. He won the “least wealthy member of the Senate.” award year after year after year. Most of his money came after.
Alienating allies- Your phraseology was highly unclear. I assume you mean that negotiating anti-nuclear proliferation treaties with Iran mean embracing Mullahs, though I don’t recall Biden talking about how they send him love notes. Kim either, pretty sure Biden never said he was getting love notes from Kim.
Logan act and insurance policy. Comey testified that that didn’t happen.
Looters and rioters. Biden has repeatedly said that violence is unacceptable (and said we needed to increase police funding to encourage community policing). Trump, OTOH, has volunteered to personally pay for lawyers if any of his supporters assault people.
FISA Warrants. I notice no significant changes in FISA warrants, despite Trump having had more than enough time to work on that. And the Independent counsel was appointed after Biden was out by a Trump appointee.
nut job lefty judges- Probably lefty judges anyway.
a revolving door at the border- Probably not. This is not a thing anyone wants, it’s just fearmongering.
more regulation- Maybe, depending
the Green New Deal- Probably not. Biden has not said it’s not practical and he’s not pushing it. I also don’t think that there are the votes for it.
President Harris- If she wins the votes.
more cancel culture- maybe, but that’s ultimately an own goal and will come back to haunt them in not too long if that’s the case (which you should be happy about)
OTOH, if Biden wins we don’t get an entire administration full of criminals where everyone who even ended up accidentally competent gets driven out or our own government intent on destroying the structures of that government, or day after day after day after day after day of vile rhetoric, love to horrible dictators, and suggestions to break the law from the highest office of the land.
Nic (896fdf) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:14 pmHow so?
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:16 pmAnd they appear not to have given thought to how defining deviancy down at the highest levels of power would work out when power is again in the hands of people whose agenda they dislike.
Paul Montagu (688889) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:18 pmThat’s the thing, Radegunda. When Biden or some other Democrat says something outrageous or does something sleazy, and a former in-the-bag Trump supporter complains, all the Dem has to say is, “Excuse me, you supported and defended Trump, all the way to the end. You don’t have the moral authority.”
I have said things about him here before.
When Kamala Harris mocked him for not supporting executive action to seize guns, he cited the Constitution.
His stated tax plan does not raise taxes on me.
He condemns leftist violence.
He is by far the most moderate of the leftist candidates.
The plagiarism scandal, which used to bother me more than it does now, is less disqualifying to me now that I know he had used the same example dozens of times previously, properly attributing it every time. That makes the failure of attribution the one time seem more like a brain fart.
I like the fact that he annoys you.
Good enough for now.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:19 pmIf you were truly bothered by plagiarism, DCSCA, you wouldn’t slobber so obviously every time Melatonin’s name comes up (h/t that guy on Twitter who makes fun of Trump, Cauvin I think he’s called).
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:20 pmIt is not a whatabout but a comparison of the candidates. As soon as I finish getting a straight answer from you as to what about my criticism of Trump is exaggerated, I’ll address your points.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:21 pmMike Pence can go perform unmentionable sex acts on himself. I will never support that enabler. Ever.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:23 pmDRJ (aede82) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:10 pm
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:08 pm
All of these topics have been covered in other threads and none of the active commenters will change their position. And we’ve actually got two different things goin on here that will be hard to untangle. But let’s see how badly this works out.
It looks like you provided the list in
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 1:24 pm
Already commented on enrichment. Losing money is the opposite of enrichment. If you’re talking about conflicts of interest then yes, there are concerns there but this doesn’t rate as high for me as it seems to for you.
Is there a specific charge here? Is this about NATO where I think EU countries should be kicking in more money and I don’t think it’s as important as it was during the Cold War? Otherwise, I’m not sure what I should be linking to to rebut this charge without really knowing what the charge is. Would this involve links to opinion pieces about how this or that country doesn’t like what he’s doing? The Mideast peace deals seemed like a move in the right direction. I think we’re only alienating Iran there.
I’m guessing this is about Putin or NK. You don’t like his diplomatic style and that’s reasonable. He moved the needle enough on NK to be the first POTUS to walk across the DMZ. He gave Ukrainians a weapons upgrade and has pushed sanctions on Russia. But the word “embraced” seems more tailored to evoke an emotional response than to be a substantive criticism. Is embracing thugs a bad thing if it leads toward peace and less conflict? I notice that this is always framed as “embracing” and not as appeasement. I’d have an issue with appeasement but “embracing” is a bit more vague. We’ve bombed Iran but otherwise we’ve backed away from some conflicts. I’m generally in favor of disengaging from Iraq and Afghanistan and my biggest complaint here is that he hasn’t done enough.
There has been reasoned debate on both sides of the issues I’m guessing you are referring to. Again, not sure how to provide specific links to unspecified things. But what you’d describe as “urging” I’d describe as expressing a personal opinion. That would then lead nowhere productive because this is also a subjective issue.
This is a highly debatable point that rests entirely on subjective interpretation. It’s not a factual statement subject to being disproved. Anything you’d point at someone else would say with a straight face isn’t incitement. That would be given a label and we’re going nowhere again.
Same
You’re original comment was If you have never shown any concern about any of that and I’ve shown concern about that. Are you trying to rehash the impeachment?
As far as your comment about logic and links. The “enrichment” issue seemed like the only one open to that. I answered in the same way that you asked.
Most of the things you’ve cited fall into the category of things you just don’t like and they aren’t very specific. The only thing close to a policy issue is “embracing thugs”, i.e. his foreign policy. The reason it would have been better for me to leave well enough alone is that your points are largely subjective assessments that reasonable people can disagree with and pointing that out is only going to aggravate you. There’s no logic and nothing I can link to that would change that. We’ve moved to the point where even talking about it just confirms existing perspectives.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:28 pmTrump is a moron, he is also a terrible human, he is also a terrible president. Oh, and tens of thousands of Americans are dead of a pandemic that didn’t need to be if the president and his administration had shown the barest of concern. Wear a mask, not hard, he still can’t say it.
Where’s the miracle cures he’s been promising for 8 months…
The rest of his malfeasance is just the icing on the sh!t sandwich.
He is the weakest link, goodbye.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:28 pm@138. I like the fact that he annoys you.
He’ll annoy you, too. Know a lot about him from our years in South Jersey while he was senator and we’d get Wilmington Ch. 12 news piped in on the TeeVee.
@139. Plagiarism does bother me; it should bother everyone. It’s thievery of other people’s work product; it’s laziness- and a blatant character tell. Caught’em while at CBS.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:29 pmI appreciate an effort here, frosty. I think we leave soon but let me try to respond. Give me a moment.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:30 pmHey, Patterico: all this nonsense just encourages all the bad faith posting.
Final analysis:
1. It’s your blog.
2. Even if I ignore the comments (and I do, except from a few people I trust here), the essays themselves have genuine value—and from a variety of folks.
3. The people who carry on are a small percentage of the other folks who read your site.
4. Even when I don’t agree with you, I learn a lot from your posts.
5. See Observation #1
What you have built and do has value.
Simon Jester (545ea7) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:31 pmTrump hasn’t plagiarized, DCSCA, but he lies about his credentials and invents stories that lap the field against anyone, Biden included. And Trump is only 3½ years younger.
Capitalists do that. BTW, Reagan fabricated entire broadcasts.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:31 pmHow so?
They’re exaggerated in that anyone can choose any administration in the past 40 or so years and focus on certain things they didn’t like and paint that administration as diabolical and corrupt as they desire. Dubya had the war and many thousands dead, plus Katrina and the crash and he “doesn’t like black people.” Reagan had Iran Contra and budget cuts that created poverty. Clinton had his scandals and Somalia and pardons to cronies. Obama had the IRS, Iran, Benghazi.
Quite literally every administration has been the most evil that had ever existed according to some people which you could find randomly on the street or on blogs.
I see corruption in the Trump administration and Trump himself. I don’t see it as a radical departure from what we’ve seen in the past, or what we’ve seen and will see with a Biden administration. I don’t. It’s just not there. Especially given the extreme scrutiny directed at him from all corners since even before day one of his becoming president. Scrutiny that will go on hiatus this coming January 20.
Given that, it comes down to policy differences.
Have I answered your questions to your satisfaction?
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:32 pm@ patterico, #117:
Respectfully — and I genuinely do mean that — that’s not a case for Biden. California has six candidates on the ballot for president, and five of them are not named “Trump.” Since Biden is going to win the state by a huge margin no matter what, why not vote for one of the others — say, Jo Jorgensen? Or since your state allows write-ins, why not write in Mitt Romney?
Demosthenes (5f62f9) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:32 pmFear.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:33 pmYes, as I argued above, it is not an issue of taking the sum he has corruptly earned and substracting the sum lost through people shunning him, and determining whether the number is negative. It is, as I have already said, a matter of forcing the government to spend money on his properties and allowing rent-seekers to bribe him by renting his properties. You acknowledge this as a problem but unsurprisingly shrug it off. I don’t know how to respond further other than to say your shrugging it off is unsurprising but is not an argument. If you expect me to believe you would shrug off similar conflicts for a Democrat, I do not.
That is as far as I got before the wife grabbed me for a walk; sorry. Will try to finish later.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:35 pmI want the winning opponent of the man who encourages his followers to cheat and won’t commit to a peaceful transition to crush Trump, so badly that the outcome cannot possibly be questioned. Add to that the fact that I think Biden is not that bad.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:36 pmIt is not a whatabout but a comparison of the candidates. As soon as I finish getting a straight answer from you as to what about my criticism of Trump is exaggerated, I’ll address your points.
This doesn’t really make sense. Nobody is disputing Trump is a total scumbag and it is an either or choice. He’s just a more entertaining personality. [‘No miracle is coming’ from a 78 year old isn’t particularly inspiring– or entertaining.] And whether you like it or not [I certainly don’t] that’s the climate created, spawned and nurtured by Reagan and his 1980s minions. A Trump was inevitable- 35 years in the making and turning it off isn’t going to happen overnight. But then, my opinion doesn’t really matter.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:41 pmRadegunda (786b96) — 10/18/2020 @ 2:30 pm
This is one way to look at it. Another is that this argument usually is made by D’s and sounds disingenuous. Sort of like “hey, you guys aren’t supposed to play by our rules”. You may be reading to much into this. This continues to be seen as disingenuous since the same people making this argument also have their own righteous agenda that lets them justify whatever they need.
This one is easy. There are at least two types of Trump supporters. Those that believe the show and those that understand the plot. We can criticize those that believe him but they’re easy to understand. The second type probably agrees with you when you say that Trump is a self centered narcissist who only cares about what benefits him and they are counting on that. The difference between Trump and BO is that while both are narcissists BO is also an ideologue. Trump is the opposite of an ideologue and that means he’s going to do exactly what he thinks gets him elected again. Once elected he’s going to keep doing what gets him the love he craves. And to the second type of Trump supporter that makes him predictable.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:46 pm“It’s unlikely he’ll win, but it’s possible he will.” – Bob Woodward, MSNBC interview, 10/15/2020
Priceless.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:52 pmIt’s not the “Trump is awful” argument that i have any qualms about. It’s true almost to the point of being self-evident. What I have a problem with is the “Biden is better” assertion. As that seems to be more of an opinion than a stone-cold fact, I’m not sure that statement is disprovable. I intend to vote for neither and sleep very well the following evening.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:58 pmTrump is up by 31.7% in CA, Patterico. I would call a near 2-1 victory margin something that “cannot be possibly questioned”.
Paul Montagu (29a38e) — 10/18/2020 @ 4:59 pmHey gryph how have you been.
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:00 pmWhy Trump is a wholly Reagan Creation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYeNuISN4Dc
He fits ‘right’ in.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:00 pm158. Not too bad. Just came back from a two-night vacation and ready to go back to work.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:01 pm159. Say what you will about Ronald Reagan; at least he was principled. Trump, not so much.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:05 pmPatterico (115b1f) — 10/18/2020 @ 3:34 pm
I can’t imagine how this will work out well, but again, let’s see.
You’re question reminds me of jazz and different peoples reaction to it. And after reading a long rambling comment I deleted it. I don’t see anyway to make a constructive comment other than to say I’d like to see you comment more.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:06 pmThen you are using the wrong analogy. Instead of comparing Trump to Hitler, you should be comparing the GOP to the majority of the German politicians and populace who went along with Hitler.
Then you have to ask yourself – why?
Many historians believe the Germans were fed up with reparations and the rest of Europe profiting off of the German’s defeat.
It should make you wonder what has happened to the American political system that so many people would elect someone like Trump, just to send a message to the professional politicians. Was the message received? Not by a long shot.
Hoi Polloi (92d467) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:06 pmDon’t forget, from the 2015 totals: 62,979,636 Americans voted for Trump.
They all haven’t just didn’t disappeared.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:06 pmBiden’s 2012 smear (“They wanna put y’all back in chains”) struck me at the time as one of the most despicable attacks ever made in a presidential campaign in my lifetime.
In the unlikely event I were ever to meet Biden, I would tell him what I thought about it, in no uncertain terms. It’s the biggest reason I’ve resisted the temptation to donate to his campaign.
Since then he has made other remarks – sometimes offensive to his own supporters – that are nearly as bad. Charitably, one could argue that he is an equal-opportunity idiot in regard to shooting his mouth off.
At the same time, I think Biden has done credit to himself, and to his party, in the way he has carried himself in this campaign.
One of his last townhall answers resonated with me:
We need a president who isn’t convinced they’re god. One willing to take responsibility for failures as well as successes.
We will never (and should never) put aside good faith political disagreements in the name of “unity”. Maybe Biden’s assurances will turn out to be mere words, but at least he understands and can articulate how a president is supposed to think and act. His opponent will go to the grave without ever being able to do either.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:07 pm164. Which was still legitimately fewer people than voted for Hillary.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:07 pm@161. An empty vessel; he voted for FDR four times, G.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:08 pm167. …before saying, “I didn’t leave the Democrats. They left me.” You can be principled and still be wrong. I continue to believe that Reagan was a fundamentally decent person throughout his life and until he breathed his last, but to you and your fellow “But…he was a Democrat once!” crowd, I can only say, “Yeah. So?”
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:10 pm@168. See #159 for the ‘principled’ folks he hobnobbed with. He ran a union, was an FBI informant and married Nancy after knocking her up w/Patti in an era that would have ended his political aspirations had he not. His conservatism was poured into him by corporate America which sponsored his TV gig and while on the chicken and peas circuit for GE. You could mark those moves as principled–or political. Certainly had AMPAS given him an Oscar for Kings Row- which he deserved BTW, he’d have never left Tinseltown. Blame Hollywood. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:26 pm“May I suggest using your night-stick, officer?”
Allahpundit weighs in, humorously, on the same topic as this post:
Good stuff, read the whole thing.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:34 pmWhy not both?
Dave (1bb933) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:39 pmI’ll make a case for Biden:
He irritates DCSCA. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:41 pm@171. LOLOLOLOL
‘Can’t read. deliberately dishonest. Trump/Pence 2020’ 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:43 pmRonald Reagan was an empty vessel? AND he is responsible for every unethical thing that happens today, which you call reaganomics? It’s like that SNL sketch. The genius and the idiot all in one.
Often when we explain the world this way, all hinging on one person who is all bad things, no matter the contradictions, it just means we don’t understand the world.
Which is exactly right. We do not understand the world. That’s why Patterico is frustrated he writes a blog like this for many years and feels no one is reached (though I’m sure many are). It’s why I was a lifelong republican until I hated the party. People make no sense.
Gryph, glad you got a nice little vacation. The weekend here was amazing.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:47 pm@156.It’s not the “Trump is awful” argument that I have any qualms about. It’s true almost to the point of being self-evident. What I have a problem with is the “Biden is better” assertion.
LOL You’ve birthed a bumper sticker: “Less Awful. Biden/Harris 2020”
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:49 pm@174. You wanna understand today, see #159.
And it ain’t gonna change overnight.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:51 pmA rare iconoclast
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/an-ex-liberal-reluctantly-supports-trump-11602875814
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:57 pmI don’t think that really captures the moment or the election. We are not voting Biden vs Trump, who is the right guy, the better man, the younger, less brain damaged, patriotic, bla bla.
This election is actually ‘Has Trump gone too far, sunk too low, done wrong too much for me?’ Yes vs no. If Trump is re-elected, that validates a lot of terrible decisions that we, our kids, our country, will have to face forever. You have to decide if you think Trump is OK or not.
Whether the next democrat is good or bad is actually going to hinge on what the American people will tolerate. Trump isn’t hitler, many of his fans agree, but if Trump can corrode our values and concepts so much and be successful, isn’t another Hitler far, far more likely?
Let’s just keep some standards. America can do better than re-electing Trump.
It is actually convenient to the purposes of this point that Biden is very lame. No one will ever think Biden won due to his greatness or virtue. Yeah, there will be negative political consequences of electing someone I disagree with. But that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the flood we avoid as a nation.
Think about it.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:59 pmDustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:47 pm
What did you do with Dustin and why are you posting under his handle.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:03 pm178. America can do better than re-electing Trump — but not this time. My insistence that I’m not voting for Trump (and I have no intention of doing so, any more than I did in March before CoViD hit) does not obligate me in any way, shape, or form to support Joe Biden. It’s not an either/or question.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:06 pmFor all your concern that I misattributed your thoughts (by quoting you?) you sure are misattributing mine. I’ve never thought Trump is all that is wrong. he is a symptom of a broken education system, how the internet concentrates and validates madness, of the GOP’s failure, and of how easily a foreign power and take advantage of political parties.
I think Trump is an awful man, and anyone who doesn’t is a fool (so I know you know he is awful). I’ve never blamed Trump for everyone else’s immorality.
Maybe if you reconsidered this aggressive style of debate you’d have more time to understand my point of view. If you read more carefully you would see how far I bend over backwards to show respect to Trump supporters, who I called great in this very thread. Unfortunately, I’m not sure there’s a lot of room to persuade anymore.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:13 pmDustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 5:59 pm
This entire argument rests on Biden not being worse than Trump. If he is it makes no sense to replace something bad with something worse just to “send a message”. If the American people pick something worse they are signaling that they are willing to tolerate something worse.
So, you start with We are not voting Biden vs Trump, who is the right guy, the better man, the younger, less brain damaged, patriotic, bla bla. and eventually get to Let’s just keep some standards. America can do better than re-electing Trump.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:13 pmYeah and I think a lot of people will follow this. I just think with Trump, he absolutely must go, and a vote for Biden is more effective than not voting. Usually I would agree that if both candidates stink just don’t support them, but Trump must go. He’s even refused the idea of peaceful transitions of power. Good grief he’s gotta go.
By the end of the year, after a months of lame duck and another month of fighting reality, it will become very clear.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:14 pm183. I actually understand Trump’s reluctance to discuss a peaceful transfer of power, but he’s so inarticulate, he can’t bring himself to simply say “I don’t intend to lose and prefer not to speculate that far ahead.”
The reasons I have for
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:20 pmdisliking Trumpbelieving Trump is unfit for the presidency go back to Trump’s early days as a young real estate speculator pre-inheritance. Even then he showed a grotesque propensity for stiffing contractors while he worked under his dad, a propensity that would continue and intensify after he scored his first cool million from Daddy Fred’s inheritance. I don’t know Trump well enough to hate him on a personal level. He’s just everything that’s wrong with modern “celebrity” in one narcissitic package.I am still out with Mrs. P but let me take a moment to echo Angela from The Office:
Jazz is stupid. Play the right notes!
Patterico (893091) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:28 pm186. You’ll never persuade me, Pat. I am a jazz fan through and through. You can thank my high school band instructors for that. 😉
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:29 pmTrump maybe could have been Hitler’s dog. After it caught mange and lost all its fur.
The analogy is not all that inapposite, though, when we’re talking about their respective followers and lickspittles. Trump would not amount to the drippings from Hitler’s moustache, but the fanatics, cowards and opportunists who latched on to both are the same breed and of the same worth.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:29 pm188. Ouch.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:31 pmBy the end of the year, after a months of lame duck and another month of fighting reality, it will become very clear.
Nobody should doubt that. And Biden will get the honeymoon that Trump was denied.
But, it’s more like two years from now when it’ll become very clear, though not how you mean. Let’s see how many Biden supporters here own it.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:34 pmWhat does it mean that Trump is leading to Team D victories, maybe president harris, maybe fundamental changes to all kinds of things like enforcement of the 25th amendment, maybe the size of the Court, obviously good and bad mixed together?
It doesn’t just mean we have to resist nominating POS candidates. It means we need to figure out a clear test against everything that let this happen. The collusion (that some bastards amazingly still deny happened!) the betrayal of the kurds, the insane hoarding and lying around COVID, the stupid, stupid self-enrichment, light years beyond what politicians shouldn’t do. That’s on both political parties, how we get our news, what we as the people have accepted because ‘the other team is real real scary’.
There’s a critical lesson. And I think Biden will bear the brunt of these frustrating reforms, so take some comfort in that idea.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:34 pmI like jazz. It soothes me. But I did try one time to explain that a musician can play jazz or he can play in a symphony orchestra, but not both, and got derided for it. The “notes” are different.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:35 pmI think you’re right. We’ll see a lot of economic recovery, the world will shower him in unearned prestige. It will be good for America. Life is unfair to a-holes like Trump.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:36 pmLOL @ 188. Let’s be real. Hitler was a horrible monster, but he was a doer. Trump’s not a doer. ISIS’s attacks are surging, the wall is 4 miles longer, Obamacare ain’t going nowhere. There’s not a thing he accomplished. ‘But muh judges’ shut up
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:37 pm194. I wouldn’t even go so far as to say that, Dustin. The peace deals struck in the mideast between Arab League members and Israel represent the [at least partial] fulfillment of promises that American presidents have been making since JFK. This doesn’t do much to change my opinion on Trump’s personal and ultimate fitness for the office that he holds, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say he hasn’t accomplished anything.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:39 pmMy prediction stands- Trump squeaks out a win w/3%– or it’s a President Harris within 24 months. Biden is irrelevant.
Very Woodwardesque. 😉
_____
Jazz is stupid. Play the right notes!
There goes the black vote. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:41 pmDo you “own” the bad parts of Trump?
Patterico (893091) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:42 pmBtw I really do intend to get back to frosty. He has actually tried to engage in the manner I wanted. I deeply appreciate it.
Patterico (893091) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:43 pmNot always, and sometimes it takes a long time before life catches up to a person and kicks in their door. As with Trump, it’s happening after he has the gilded penthouse overlooking NYC, and after he shafted untold numbers of business people to increase his fortunes, and after he lied, cheated, and took what he wanted to build his empire, and most importantly, after becoming the President of the United States.
At the end of the day, most of America wants to see fair play. We are generous to a fault, and a forgiving nation too. But Trump has pushed that envelop so much and in such a short time, I don’t think he will have a wide array of friends who will stand by him at the end of his reign. Yet still, he will face an eternal judgment just like the rest of us, and he won’t be able to buy or lie his way out of that.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:43 pmThis election is actually ‘Has Trump gone too far, sunk too low, done wrong too much for me?’ Yes vs no. If Trump is re-elected, that validates a lot of terrible decisions that we, our kids, our country, will have to face forever. You have to decide if you think Trump is OK or not.
Always been disappointed he dumped the Georgia Peach. Still, if it comes down to the Presbyterian vs. the Irish Catholic, the Presbyterian gets my vote. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:46 pmDustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:13 pm
The comment in that chain seems inconsistent with your previous comment about literally ruining the world. What I thought was a valid question there gave you reason to say I was defending Trump and Putin.
This is fair. I could be less aggressive. But we’ve seen a Hitler analogy in this thread. If that’s bending over backwards maybe you should reconsider as well. If the best all that effort gets is the concentration camp comment in @3 it doesn’t seem worth it.
The problem with who I called great in this very thread and I know you love your country is that they are hard to take at face value given your comment history.
Is this really what you’ve been trying to do? Serious question, no snark intended. That doesn’t seem like what you’ve been trying to do at all. I’d say you’ve been trying to play the roll of apologist and I mean that in the technical sense and not the commonly used derogatory sense, i.e. you’ve been trying to give people who already agree with you, or might be on the fence, arguments and a foundation for their beliefs. In that sense I think it’s a reasonable position.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:46 pm199. I have a theory about how Trump does business and it’s very relevant to his fitness for office:
Trump hasn’t actually done very much to increase his fortunes beyond what he inherited from his father. When it comes to stiffing contractors in particular, he would do so as much as he could get away with. If paying contractors meant costing him any appreciable amount of money that he couldn’t recoup with his index fund investing and he couldn’t plausibly stiff them for “poor-quality work,” he’d just have the business in-question declare bankruptcy so the unsecured creditors would automatically get moved to the back of the line.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:46 pmYeah, he will die a man who never knew discomfort or really the consequences of desperation. All those folks who aspired for more and worked, that he squashed, who wondered how they would put bread on the table, will not really know justice.
But Trump will see the world fawn over Biden, and tweet angrily (if they don’t block him), and he will do it from Instanbul or Moscow. If he doesn’t wind up prosecuted I will be disappointed, but not surprised.
I agree, Dana! We want to support our leader in a crisis like Trump’s had all year. Biden will benefit from this, I imagine, and Trump supporters will mistake some of it as political bias (some of it will be political bias though).
well Erdogan, ISIS, the Taliban, Kim Jong Un, Putin, and the St. Corona, patron saint of viruses, all agree.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:49 pm@193. Life is unfair to a-holes like Trump.
You’re kidding, right? Life has been wholly and inequitably yuggggely more than fair to a-holes like Trump: Reaganomics. Like we should all have an Ivana and Marla on our ex-lists and more helicopters than the San Marino air force. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:51 pmIf Trump had been able to see beyond his own selfish ambition, he could have not only united the country and seen most Americans rally behind him during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, but he could have used that good will to further America’s interests here and abroad. The amount of political capital he squandered or failed to attain because of how own avarice and deceptiveness is really stunning.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:54 pm204.
I can only hope — most likely in vain — that Trump sees the just consequences of his bad behavior in this life, but I don’t believe he will. How you feel about that depends on what you believe about an afterlife.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:54 pm205. That leads to an interesting question: Is Donald J. Trump capable of anything more than selfish ambition?
I’ve worked with and for heirs to family fortunes right here in my hometown. It’s led me to the inexorable conclusion that inherited wealth is an inherently corrupting influence ipso facto.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:56 pm@205. Yeah, but the thing is, he told ‘us’ he was elected to represent ‘the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.’ He got the NATO deadbeats to cough up cash, etc, etc, but Helsinki remains unforgivable.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:00 pmDCSCA, I think you miss my point.
What people will call unfairness in a few months, as people just try to make the country and world work again, and Biden seems to have an easier time than Trump, will really be that people can’t really work with an a-hole con man. The ‘fairness’ I referred to was sarcastic, my joke rendered unfunny by you two goofballs.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:00 pmMedical research is one area we have a huge advantage. We also know how to manufacture high quality products on the fly. The world needed us this year.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:02 pmGryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:29 pm
Like all things it can get more complicated than I’d like. If you say you like jazz out loud it may attract the attention of someone else who likes jazz and the only thing worse than a certain type of jazz musician is a certain type of jazz fan. If you mention Almeida you run the risk of that leading to a debate about The Girl from Ipanema and then we can’t have nice things.
Am I turning into a certain type of jazz fan :shifty eyes:?
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:02 pm211. I don’t know what “type” of Jazz fan you are. I just know that within the rather broad stroke of “jazz,” I was exposed to a wide variety of music spanning a history of 80+ years. I’m pretty certain I could probably get along with just about anyone who considers themselves a jazz fan.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:05 pmThe world needed us and the world *looked to us* for answers. And we could not adequately respond because that wasn’t the priority. The priority, to this administration, was how can we make Trump *look* like a leader without him having to really be a leader. About 220,000 families wish that he had had a different set of priorities.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:05 pmI know diana krall is soft jazz, does that count, there a whole bunch of more classicvstuff others have introduced to me.
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:07 pm@209. You missed mine; Biden is irrelevant. There’s a President Harris in your future.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:07 pm@214. She’s very good.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:09 pm213. This is where you lose me in your Trump
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:10 pmcriticismhatred. Even assuming that the 220,000 deaths number is accurate, so much hatred of Trump seems to assume that he could have prevented each and every one of those deaths even though the haters can’t explain how, beyond some nebulous concept of “leadership.”Jazz is Scott Joplin. Orbit around him and see how far off-center you go in any of the 360 degrees.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:13 pmNo, obviously we couldn’t have prevented every single death, Gryph. But things are much, much worse than they should be. That means the death toll has reached 210,000 and it should be much lower.
Like ISIS surging, the wall being unbuilt, obamacare, the insane deficits, this crisis being handled absolutely horribly is a simple analysis of Trump’s capabilities. It might seem unfair that people hate this guy… why if we all just loved him, he would probably be more effective. But that’s not how the world works. Trump was supposed to make ‘such great deals’ and get stuff done, but he wasn’t dealing with morons who buy steak in the mail and add ketchup, or buy a diploma from Trump U or Liberty U. Trump found the world and congress unwilling to trust him. And he just got worse and worse, a desperate lying loser.
Yeah I hate that kind of stuff. It would be deranged not to hate that.
Your standard is a strawman. If your analysis stops there this is debate theater, not a real argument.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:15 pmIt’s clear this is totally unresponsive to the comment you cited. Who cares that you think Biden is not relevant? That’s just another quip. PLAGIARISM
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:16 pmExcept I didn’t say that, Gryph, and I know you are smart enought to know what I meant.
Dana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:16 pm218. Actually, Scott Joplin composed and performed in a type of proto-jazz known then and now as “ragtime.” He was a contemporary of many other bordello piano players, but not all of them rose to his prominence.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:17 pmeven though the haters can’t explain how, beyond some nebulous concept of “leadership.”
There’s more. Trump let tens of thousands of Americans die in the early stages of the pandemic so his rich friends could get out of the stock market without losing money and even making money.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:18 pm221. You don’t have to say it. It’s implied in the criticism itself. How many of those deaths do you think could have been prevented with “better leadership,” if any? Or is it about how $hitty Trump makes people feel about those 220,000 deaths? There are far more substantive things to criticize Trump on than that.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:19 pm223. Again, you are implying (or here, sounds to me like you’re outright saying) that Trump was responsible for those deaths because he could have prevented them and chose not to. For someone as odious as Trump actually is, that’s a pretty weak-tea criticism.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:20 pmI guess you think Trump’s performance was normal and it’s just odd to see this nightmare as worse than acceptable, that if you have a problem with problems (such as the one nk pointed out, which is pretty glaring) you are saying something insane like, without Trump, the virus wouldn’t have hurt anyone.
I think you’re a bit unusual in how you see risk with disease so perhaps this is why the rest of us are so badly misunderstood.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:23 pm226. I only have words to go on. I can’t read minds. I do tend to think that in most crises, the less government does, the better. And I’ve believed that for as long as I’ve been politically aware. In that regard, Trump certainly could have been worse from a small-government standpoint had he actually been more proactive.
And yeah, if that makes me a political freak representing a fringe minority, so be it; the gridlock preventing congress from spending yet more trillions it doesn’t have, is not necessarily a bad thing in my book. It is through that filter that I watch current events unfold.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:29 pmDo you “own” the bad parts of Trump?
Yes, though we’re not going to agree on what the bad parts are.
In contrast, conservatives are probably going to agree on the bad parts of a Biden/Harris administration.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:29 pmI see even more “more”. Having told his friends “Pandemic! Cover your asses!” and the people “It’s just the flu, folks, and China has it under control”, he then, for all relevant times thereafter, continued to sell that lie and still continues to sell that lie. That subsequent refusal to acknowledge reality also killed, and continues to kill, more Americans.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:33 pm229. So what do you think Trump could have or should have said to save lives, and more importantly, how many lives do you think he could have saved with that “better quality of leadership?” Not a trick question here, and not rhetorical. I want to hear from the armchair epidemiologists.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:35 pmThe next four years will be more like Trump’s second term than Biden’s first, because they will be mostly staunching the bleeding from the wounds Trump inflicted on America and cleaning up his messes and home and abroad.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:36 pmSo what do you think Trump could have or should have said to save lives,
“It’s a pandemic.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:39 pmCover your asses!Take care of yourselves, and let’s all take care of each other.”232. And had he said that in such a time and manner you had approved of, how many lives would have been saved? Or is it possible that we’d have gotten to the 220,000 mark in December insteasd of October?
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:40 pm223. nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:18 pm
Trump’s economic advisers, not Trump, felt more free and maybe more obligated – because who wants to steer somebody wrong who is standing or sitting in front of them? – to give a more pessimistic point of view than Trump was giving on whether Covid was going to spread within the United States when they were speaking privately to some rich friends of Trump.(I don’t quite get who they were.)
At that time the CDC was insisting that they could contain it, like SARS.The point is Larry Kudlow et al wasn’t believing the CDC. His personal opinion.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:46 pm229. nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:33 pm
I think what it is, is that,regardless of what the facts are or were he always wanted to give the most optimistic possible projection sometimes way beyond any possible bounds of reality, because he didn’t want the economy to slow down. Probably because he believed that his re-election hinged on the level of GDP.
That also, of course, caused him to want to end the epidemic for real. But he didn’t want to shut down anything and then discover that it hadn’t been necessary. He got very concerned about schools closing because that could cause parents not to go to work.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:55 pmHe’s a borderline paranoid schizophrenic who wants reality to be what he says it is and conman enough to sell his “alternative facts” to enough suckers. Not a majority in any town (Huck Finn was just a callow kid who thought abolitionists went to Hell) but enough in half the towns. Unfortunately, enough.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:04 pm236. Well I see you have not answered my question yet. I’ll leave the speculation as to whether you have an answer for my question to hang here for a bit.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:09 pm@220. Then you Nevertrumpers have nothing in the world to worry about… do you.
Just like HRC on Election night.;-)
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:13 pmDana (292df6) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:54 pm
So, I get a bit of grief for being pro-Trump which I unsuccessfully try to explain isn’t accurate. I’ll try again.
Maybe this is me being more pessimistic than most but this comment is wishful thinking. I,was impressed with the lockdowns but was there much good will to rally? The post 9/11 type rally isn’t a thing anymore and that died before Trump. We can’t even talk about how and when that died now without it getting ugly.
There are things going on in the US that simply are not the cause of Trump. We can debate ad nauseam about whether he makes them worse and that misses the point. I think a lot of people want to attribute those issues to Trump because it’s easier than the alternative. The worse the alternatives are the more appealing it is to put this on Trump. We get rid of Trump and those issues are still there. Someone said it in another thread, the people who elected Trump knew what they were getting and they haven’t all gone away. Some of them may feel differently now with different choices but Trump is an effect. He’s got agency but he’s not “the” cause.
For example, there is a very vocal and very active “change the system” faction, call them whatever you want, and there’s also a less vocal but very stubborn “fu I’m gonna do what I want” faction. You see this tension everywhere and it’s why everything is political. Everyone reading this is already deciding which faction they’re in, which faction I’m in based on my previous comments, and whether they’re going to be offended. Some of you already decided that before you started reading based solely on who was commenting to who.
But both of those factions were going to have issues with the covid pandemic and there is no version of another admin that wouldn’t have screwed up the response in some other way. Same for what happened after Floyd. The out groups and in groups would be different, some details would be different and we could speculate they’d be better, but otherwise the tensions would be basically the same.
And that’s just the issues with those two factions.
If it helps to think this was all because Trump then you’re one of the people Dustin is talking about in @174. The world just doesn’t work that way. “Because Trump” is just a statement of faith.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:14 pmDo you “own” the bad parts of Trump?
62,979,636 Americans knew who and what they were getting when they voted for Trump.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:16 pmOh, I thought it was rhetorical. How should I know how many lives would have been saved? I thought that was your point — that I don’t know how many lives would have been saved. I already said tens of thousands in my comment 223, and I’m sticking to it. I hope you won’t think less of me in my omniscience if you know better in yours.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:17 pmMy 241 was to Gryph’s 236.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:18 pm214. Tens of thousands. So you can’t even give me a more precise number than that in your speculation. And you admit you ultimately don’t know. And yet you still persist in using that 220,000 number (which I’m sure will continue to increase between now and November 3) as evidence of Trump’s poor leadership despite the fact that much better evidence exists.
I’m not bringing this up for the sole and express purpose of being a contrary wisea$$. I genuinely think that perspective is called for and sorely lacking on both the pro- and ant-trump sides of the aisle.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:21 pm243 was supposed to be in response to 241, not 214. Blech.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:21 pm236.He’s a borderline paranoid schizophrenic
Our Captain? Really?!?
“That’s like running around explosives with a blowtorch.” – Steve Maryk [Van Johnson] ‘The Caine Mutiny’ 1954
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:22 pmYou misunderstand me, Gryph, and perhaps I should have corrected you sooner. “Poor leadership” is your choice of words. “Corrupt criminal traitor who let tens of thousands of Americans die so his rich jerkoff friends and his corrupt criminal family would not lose money and that’s only the tip of the iceberg” is much closer to what I’m saying.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:27 pmProblem for republican rats leaving the sinking s.s. trump. Secret never trumpers along with the public never trumpers are only supported by 10% of the now populist republican party. Another 5% became democrats or third party. Trump is playing to the republican tea party base. Try bring back the donor class and their free trade with china and see what happens to you!
asset (83df2a) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:27 pm246. I recognize an armchair epidemiologist when I see one.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:30 pmDustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 7:23 pm
This is you making up something someone said so that you can then criticize it.
The last part is actually the opposite of several of Gryph’s comments and it seems hard to honestly attribute to him that POV.
And I’m not even sure what this means:
Well, that’s not true. I think it’s an insult but it couldn’t be that because you said you were trying hard to be respectful.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:31 pmTry bring back the donor class and their free trade with china and see what happens to you
I’ll lose my run for the Berkeley City Council? Whom does Trump represent if not the donor class and Chinese schlock at Walmart?
Rich jerkoffs and white trash. The antebellum South and Trump’s base.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:33 pm250. Some of you seething haters are going to be surprised when Joe Biden doesn’t win in a landslide.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:35 pmWhat was the last important idea that Trump has introduced into the body politic? OK, many will snarkily ask what was the first? One can create a sterile Hannity-like list of accomplishments including conservative judges, tax cuts, regulation rollbacks, renegotiated trade deals, tightened immigration, scuttled Iranian deals, making allies pay their fair share, and on and on…..but how much is built on a lasting consensus….one that will survive the next change in power?
For all of DCSA’s lamentations about Reagan……Reagan won the theoretical argument about high tax rates. We no longer debate 70 or 92% tax rates. We battle in the mundane 35-40% range. Reagan won. Few persist in saying that bankrupting the Soviet Union was wrong or think that the world was better off with Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Reagan won the Cold War….rhetorically and in practice. Reagan together with the Fed whipped inflation….and got out of the way of a tech boom that has transformed our lives and continues to make the US the investment magnet of the world. Reagan’s optimism won over cynicism and malaise.
Flash to Trump. Does anyone think a wall will ever be built, illegals will be shipped out, the Chinese will cave under a trade war, that the Iranians and North Koreans are “contained”, that Trump is going to solve health care inflation/access, that our critical civic institutions have been strengthened, that debt doesn’t really matter, and that our alliances are as strong as ever? Every important topic is now just a joke and an excuse to Trump on and on. It’s boring….it’s inane. Biden is dismal…but it will represent a small tug back to engaging issues….rather than carnival theater….huckstering and excusing the inexcusible. We need to be a better people….and demand more from our leadership. Hopefully this will also ultimately usher in a more principled GOP….I’m eager to start….
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:37 pmRelax, Frosty. Stop trying so hard to have a fight. Gryph and I were having a perfectly respectful disagreement.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:39 pm253. Frosty was voicing my misgivings about the level of respect in our disagreement, but I would have maintained in giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:40 pmMatt Whitlock
@mattdizwhitlock
·
Look at this Democrat misinformation echo chamber at work — national Dems have been rallying for Peter’s’ struggling campaign and they clearly coordinated on this.
It’s been a crazy week for @Twitter standards enforcement— this should be an easy one @jack.
https://twitter.com/ltthompso/status/1317940293958836224?s=20
__ _
It’s amazing to watch people calling themselves Conservatives actually begging for these people (and their tech/media enablers) to be put in charge.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:44 pm_
It’s clearly not an insult. Gryph’s disagreement on the risk/reward of business shutdowns and mask mandates is a well known difference of opinion that I was clearly referencing in a respectful way. Not sure what motivates all this anger but I’m not actually making any difference in the scheme of things. this is just an entertaining way to express our different ideas about this SOB presidnet.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:46 pmWhat are you saying?
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:47 pm257. I wasn’t sure that our disagreement was respectful, but I wasn’t going to say anything to that effect. Frosty brought it up for me.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:48 pmBoy we “seething” haters who aren’t “honest” and have “tells” really aren’t showing you guys enough respect, lol.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:56 pmYES!!!!!
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:58 pm259. I don’t care how low your opinion of me is as long as you don’t confuse me for a Trump voter. I’m just pointing out that there are better arguments to be made for Trump’s unfitness for elected office than those I see here in the comments section. Hell, I think Pat usually makes better arguments than the ones I frequently see from the commenters here.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:59 pm@253 Don’t worry and you don’t need to cover it. No one’s going to stop you with the personal insults.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 9:02 pm‘Add to that the fact that I think Biden is not that bad.’
Depends on where you shine a light:
‘Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, was even stingier about spreading his wealth. When his tax records were released in September [2008], they revealed that over the past decade he had only donated an average of $369 each year. In 2007, his charitable giving was only $995, or 0.3 percent of income in a year when his tax returns reported $319,853 in income. -source, Patterico 2008 election files’
‘Course Trump’s charitable gifts are notorious in their own right- but he does donate his annual salary as President:
‘U.S. presidents make $400,000 a year. It’s true that Trump donates his salary. Though presidents are required to be compensated for their work, Trump takes just $1 each year from his paychecks.’ -soure, USAToday
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 9:02 pmIf you pay my golf resorts $105 million ($105,000,000.00) and still counting to host my golf outings, I’ll gladly kick back $399,999 to you.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 9:08 pmThis is giving me deja vu. We already talked jazz, so here’s some Spam burritos I plan to make tomorrow*.
Spam sliced lengthwise to about the size of my little finger**, microwaved*** for one minute.
A can of sweet yellow corn and a can of diced tomatoes spiced to more or less medium salsa brought to a simmer in saucepan on stove top.
Flour tortillas microwaved for about 30 seconds.
Wrap one**** piece of Spam and spoonful(s) of corn and salsa in two tortillas.
*First time I’ll be making them.
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 9:23 pm**I have big hands.
***My microwave is 1300 watts.
****Maybe two.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 8:46 pm
Sorry. I posted before you doubled down.
First, you attributed comments to him he didn’t make. This isn’t unusual for you but you’ve been getting blatant with this lately. I’m starting to rethink calling it’s out because you’re so obvious now that it works to undermine your credibility.
Second, I’m guessing you think this was clever or subtle, but
is a strangely constructed sentence. I read this as you saying he misunderstands the “rest of us” because he’s stupid. This is a form of the “sorry you were offended” and “sorry you failed to understand me”. This is reinforced by you’re a bit unusual in how you see risk which is also oddly worded. The way you said it attached “unusual” to “you” instead of his view of risk.
On a related topic; I don’t think it’s even correct to say his risk assessment is unusual. It’s fairly common even if maybe not the majority. I gave him a hard time about this in Jan/Feb based on the data I had then. I’ve come over to his way of thinking based largely on the data. I also seriously reconsidered my opinion of a lot of people here based on some of the responses to him then. While I didn’t agree with him at the time, and at one point I got very frustrated, he made some valid arguments and I tried to engage him directly. Some people decided to personally attack him because he said commented on his job. I think this “misunderstand” sideswipe might be related to that. That’s disgusting. If someone makes an argument engage the argument. I don’t know Gryph’s situation and I don’t care. Based on what some of you have said about your jobs that’s a road we should avoid.
Now, because you thought this was subtle you’ll keep up the fiction and try to divert or deflect.
In the meantime, how’s it going saving the whole world? I sure hope you can keep it from literally being ruined. It was amazing how fast that topic shut down in the open thread after I responded to Klink and Davethullu(?).
frosty (f27e97) — 10/18/2020 @ 9:54 pmEasy, Gryph. Start with (1) taking the virus seriously, which Trump has never done, (2) not lying about the virus, which Trump has done daily, (3) recommended that states follow CDC guidelines, which Trump has resisted for months, (4) taken masks seriously, as recommended by the CDC last April 3rd, which has never been on board, (5) taken testing and contact-tracing seriously, which Trump never did.
Paul Montagu (3c093c) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:00 pmEurope, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and most of Asia contained it while we failed, and that’s on Trump. He’s responsible for every death after Memorial Day because of his gross mismanagement.
@267: All of these you list are recommendations that Trump could not have enforced at the federal level, except pertaining to federal jurisdictions (such as air travel). Blaming him for every death in the past five months is an insult to those who have died, who you are using as political capital. Enforcement was in the hands of state governors, who you won’t blame, because there’s no political payoff for you.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:15 pmEnforcement was in the hands of state governors, who you won’t blame, because there’s no political payoff for you.
LIBERATE MICHIGAN!
“It’s our stockpile.”
nk (1d9030) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:20 pm@264. It’s ‘The Art of the Deal’ 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:24 pmWell said, AJ_Liberty.
Paul Montagu (3c093c) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:27 pmit’s as if Trump is just a potted plant with no influence, unable to influence governors, even the Republican variety.
Paul Montagu (3c093c) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:32 pmDoesn’t wash.
it’s as if Trump is just a potted plant with no influence, unable to influence governors, even the Republican variety.
Between blaming him for all deaths and blaming him for none, there’s a lot of open territory. That’s where I am, and you’re not.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:38 pmAnd Trump had a Defense Production Act available for ramping up testing, but Trump preferred to “slow the testing down” because more tests means more cases. His words.
Paul Montagu (3c093c) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:40 pmI didn’t say “all the blame”, beer. You assumed that, but I do say he gets most of the blame after Memorial Day. He’s Leader of the Free World, not some bystander watching this unfold.
Paul Montagu (3c093c) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:46 pm@252. For all of DCSA’s lamentations about Reagan……Reagan won the theoretical argument about high tax rates. We no longer debate 70 or 92% tax rates. We battle in the mundane 35-40% range. Reagan won.
The JFK-backed tax cuts took down that rate to 70 percent, not Reagan; In 1981, Reagan reduced the maximum tax rate again, which affected the highest income earners, and lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 50%; in 1986 he further reduced the rate to 28%. Debt and deficits exploded, turning America from a creditor to a debtor nation w/deficits as far as the eyes can see . That’s not theory but reality.
Few persist in saying that bankrupting the Soviet Union was wrong or think that the world was better off with Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Reagan won the Cold War….rhetorically and in practice.
Even fewer credit Reagan alone as winning the ‘Cold War’; ‘containment’ was national policy –as the dead from Korea and Vietnam would tell you– from Truman through GHWB, under whose administration the CCCP dissolved; not Reagan’s. Any effort to credit Reagan as ‘winning the Cold War’ is an insult to HST, Ike, JFK, LBJ, The Big Dick, Ford, Carter & Pappy Bush– and Reagan would be the first to agree.
Reagan together with the Fed whipped inflation….and got out of the way of a tech boom that has transformed our lives and continues to make the US the investment magnet of the world. Reagan’s optimism won over cynicism and malaise.
Reaganomics was false prosperity; life on a credit card, leading to junk bonds the S&L collapse, the 1987 Wall Street crash… and the rise of the likes of Milken, Boesky, Keating… and yes, Donald Trump.
Would you trade terrorism and 20-plus years [so far] of endless hot middle east wars for the chill of a divided Germany, a contained Russia burdened w/East European problems for the World Trade Center and the 3,000 plus dead? Choose.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:51 pm“He’s responsible for every death after Memorial Day because of his gross mismanagement.”
It’s as if you don’t read your own comments, Montagu.
Trump is the president of the US, not the leader of the CCP. Guess what, Biden won’t be enforcing any of your recommendations either.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/18/2020 @ 10:52 pmWell said Dustin, nk and Paul!
Dave (542d85) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:09 pmWell, you can pretend all you want that Trump is this powerless soul with no influence over the handling of this pandemic, beer, but it’s not believable.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:11 pmWe need to be a better people….and demand more from our leadership.
The place to start are the major parties themselves. Over the past 40 years they’ve done more damage to America than the old Soviets, the new China and any retired Nazis still living in Argentina could have dreamed.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:22 pmI do say he gets most of the blame after Memorial Day. He’s Leader of the Free World, not some bystander watching this unfold.
Trump didn’t ‘kill’ anybody. If he told you a sure cure for Covid 19 was to jump off the Golden Gare Bridge or step in front of a speeding train- would you do it?
Common sense: personal responsibility. That’s always been the cry of the GOP. You don’t need the government- CIC or less, to ‘tell you what to do.’ Wear a damn mask. He didn’t and got sick– that’s leading ‘by example.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/18/2020 @ 11:39 pmNor will they have to. If I wanted to be ugly I’m capable of that kind of thing and there’s no judgment. Just realize (or refuse to if you need that) my little efforts to say nice crap was not sarcastic or a trick. I just don’t have the energy to care enough.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 12:08 amWoodward is beginning to display some problems as well– at least on camera; speaking in noticeably misworded sentence fragments… he turns 78 in March.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/19/2020 @ 1:55 amChinese loving pukes will vote for Joe China and Heels up Harris. You people just suck.
mg (8cbc69) — 10/19/2020 @ 2:32 amSorry I missed the fun. I hereby pile on retroactively.
I’ll add one obvious aside to Patterico’s indictment: as impressively inclusive as it is for a four line summary, it neither purports to be nor comes close to being exhaustive. I mention that because it strikes me as one of Trump’s defining features that his assaults on our laws, norms and institutions aren’t unprecedented only in their depth, but also in their breadth. He’s more pathologically disordered than LBJ, he abuses more power than Nixon, he’s more corrupt and indecent than Clinton, and he lies more than all of them together. And that too again falls miles short of capturing the fire hose effect of his unfitness for any office, much less the highest.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 10/19/2020 @ 4:26 amI watched The Insiders on CNN last night. It consisted of interviews with former administration officials and staffers, the competent ones who left because they couldn’t work with or for Trump. They had a lot worse to say about the president than Patterico’s reasons for why he is unfit for office. All of which I agree with, by the way, but our host certainly could have added more.
I couldn’t find a video link to the show, but here is a pretty good summary.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/16/politics/donald-trump-criticism-from-former-administration-officials/index.html
The interviewees discussed a range of topics, from the coronavirus task force to daily briefings. Former chief-of-staff Gen. Kelly said that Trump is the most dishonest person he’s ever met in his life. It was a horror show on epic failure of leadership. CNN will probably air it again, so check it out if you get the chance.
I’ve always said Trump was a total fraud, which is why I refused to vote for him. The Insiders reveal him to be incompetent, disinterested in policy, dismissive of experts, obsessed with his own image, a narcissist, and a pathological liar. So it’s not just the self-dealing, which is a violation of the emoluments clause, or the corruption and egregious abuses of power listed above, it’s the ineptitude. The man is a clear and present danger to the republic.
Trump is becoming increasingly erratic in his behavior, because he is desperate for reelection. And for good reason. If he’s voted out of office, he’ll probably be indicted by the SDNY for tax evasion, bank and wire fraud, a cacophony of crimes. The US Attorney for New York has his tax records and business files; his organization has been under investigation for several years. Not just in New York, but New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia, Florida, and Washington DC, most likely others.
The question is, how low will he go? There doesn’t seem to be a limit to the fathomless depth of his lack of character and lawlessness.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/19/politics/donald-trump-joe-biden-election-2020-coronavirus-fauci-masks/index.html
He keeps holding these large rallies in states where coronavirus cases are spiking, potentially infecting his own supporters, who rabidly refuse to wear masks and practice social distancing. That’s not only against CDC policies, it’s against state regulations implemented to prevent the spread of the disease.
Incidentally, I don’t believe Trump tested positive for Covid-19. He might have, because over a dozen people in the White House did, or it could have been a false positive, but I think the whole Walter Reed visit was staged. If he really had respiratory problems that required supplemental oxygen, medivacking him to the hospital for a concoction of experimental and unapproved drugs would have required more than three days for him to be cured. The standard is a fourteen day quarantine. You can’t travel to several states and foreign countries without one. But he walks out after three days like Superman so he can rip off his mask and salute a diseased county on the White House lawn?
Please. Everything about Trump is a lie. This last Friday saw over 69,000 confirmed cases, the largest single day spike since July. Over 7 million are infected and contagious, many are hospitalized, and over 220,000 are dead. No other civilized country has seen those kinds of results. And the US is supposed to have the best medical care system in the world!
This is a very sneaky virus. It can remain dormant for weeks, but the asymptomatic can still spread the disease to everyone they come in contact with. One won’t test positive until the viral load reaches a certain amount. But how many people did the infected person come in contact with before then, at work, at school? We have no way to know. The testing itself is problematic–false positive and negative results all around, and no contract tracing. The Trump administration severely botched the response to the pandemic, because of him, and it cost a lot of people their lives and loved ones.
Two weeks before the election, Biden is leading in the polls; he’s also substantially outraising Trump in funding. Not that that matters at this time. Trump could still very narrowly win an electoral college victory, but only if the American people don’t see him for what he is, a reprobate.
For the first time in my life, since I was first eligible to vote 1980, I will be voting against every Republican. This party needs to be purged of Trump and his sycophants. I will vote Libertarian where I can and Democrat where I must, but this GOP needs to go the way of the Whigs.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 10/19/2020 @ 4:36 am285. If that seemed short on specifics, it was tacitly intentional. Part of what I was trying to get at is that cataloging Trump’s wrongdoing is effectively impossible without doing injustice to the scope of his malfeasance. Any number of examples realistically mentioned is inevitably dwarfed by those omitted, a fact invariably left out of the micro arguments on the merits of each offense. And that annoys me.
Due to the ridiculous hour (PST), I suspect I’m expressing this poorly. I hope the gist is clear enough, but if later on when I’m thinking clearer I find it’s complete gibberish, I’ll just change my screen name. ☺
lurker (d8c5bc) — 10/19/2020 @ 5:01 am267. And had Trump taken the virus seriously, how many lives do you think he would have saved?
268. Political capital, indeed.
Gryph (f63000) — 10/19/2020 @ 5:14 amCrushing every economy in the west except sweden really worked right.
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 5:20 amI think one silver lining is that Trump got more people interested in politics. I lean Dem and usually vote that way if I vote at all. I started following nevertrump conservatives in 2016 out of appreciation for their willingness to speak against him as well as a certain interest in the internal fight within the GOP. One result of that is that I got exposure to conservative ideas and people that I might not have had under, say, a Jeb Bush Presidency. I disagree at times. (I found the Kavanaugh nomination period particularly contentious and was surprised at how zealous you were/are about him. (To me he seems to have honesty issues where as a Barrett and Gorsuch are people of unimpeachable integrity)).
one thing I dislike in Conservative politics is a tendency to pander to Christians and a certain Evangelical sanctimony. We got it a little bit in Bush and then Cruz and Rubio took it to extremes (IMO). I hope that, in the post-Trump era that may recede. But meh who knows. All politicians pander I guess. Anyway, soldier on, may God bless America.
But I also find myself agreeing. You folks make sense more often than not. One day in the not too distant future I think I may pull the lever for a conservative.
JRH (52aed3) — 10/19/2020 @ 5:45 am(I got my paragraphs out of order. anyway. you get the gist).
JRH (52aed3) — 10/19/2020 @ 5:46 amDont worry about soon they will purge all opposition forces to the left, remark on that when youve appropriated your house for reasons and your facing a tribunal like in the dark knight rises.
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 5:49 amThe irony is extra crunchy when those attacked by a anarchist terrorist who worked the system, cant tell who the enemy os.
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 5:57 amNot as exciting as danchenkos drinking game
https://www.scribd.com/document/480635518/PDF-2013-10-05-Operation-Ketchup-Heinz-vs-Hunts
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:00 amBut larry ellison!
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/obama-nsc-director-leads-tiktok-trust-team/
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:05 amWhat was that about Sweden, again?
https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-shifts-away-no-lockdown-strategy-amid-growing-case-numbers-2020-10
urbanleftbehind (feb514) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:21 amDue to the ridiculous hour (PST), I suspect I’m expressing this poorly. I hope the gist is clear enough, but if later on when I’m thinking clearer I find it’s complete gibberish, I’ll just change my screen name.
It’s not you and it’s not the hour. It’s the Trump supporters’ tactics of “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh!t.” Miring us down with a fog of lies, deflections, projection, and straw men, so that we stumble into their fuzzy thinking.
1. Did Trump, the First Lady, and their son catch the Covid at the White House?
2. Did a whole bunch of other people too?
3. Is the White House, person for person, the hottest Covid hot spot in the world?
4. Is Trump himself his own symbol of his failure?
Well?
nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:29 amno they didn’t die, like governor creosote would have even though he evades all the dictates, maybe he’s a lizard, like your gorn mayor,
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:36 amDid I say they died?
nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:44 amWhat do governor narciso-speak and mayor narciso-speak have to do with anything?
Thank you very much for confirming everything I said about Trumpthink.
one does comparative analysis and sweden did better than most of the oecd countries and the us, without throwing a spanner in the works, and now that every effective treatment protocol has been sabotaged (i mean ruled out) we are to wait for an untested vaccine as our salvation,
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:45 amThank you Gawain’s Ghost (@286). Well said. Ordinarily with a choice like this, I would simply not vote at all. But Trump has become SO unhinged that he simply must be gotten rid of. I never imagined that I would vote for someone like Biden, but under these circumstances, I simply have to.
Roger (83ed7d) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:50 ambut what about chappaquiddick mr nk
Dave (1bb933) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:54 amTrump killed thousands through his corruption, deceit, incompetence and mismanagement, but I think Saletan is too conservative. I say tens of thousands. Mass negligent homicide.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:00 amDustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 12:08 am
Well, there is some judgment. Anyone reading your comments gets to judge them on their merits. But you’re one of the active poster persons here for NeverTrump so knock yourself out. “No judgment” is a good look and you’ve called that correctly.
There’s the diversion and deflection I was expecting. It’s not you right? It’s anyone else who just isn’t capable of seeing how nice you are trying to be. At least you labeled it correctly.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:06 amthey are the ben hur of squirrels, they can’t tell us the magic solution that would have prevented this act of war by other means,
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:09 amWait, there’s more:
nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:11 amIsn’t Trump the one with the Article II?
Isn’t he in charge of the entire machinery of government, civil and military, of the most powerful nation in the world?
Hasn’t he been for almost four years?
So what kind of [incestuous androgyne], with all those powers, for so long, goes around whining that it’s a “rigged election” now?
I commend you for taking up Patterico’s challenge, frosty. I don’t understand your venom.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:12 amI think you might need an article 99,
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/10/dni-ratcliffe-hunter-bidens-laptop-not-part-of-some-russian-disinformation-campaign/
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:12 amWell said, lurker 286.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:13 amJRH,
Welcome to conservatism, even if it is just for one vote (someday)!
DRJ (aede82) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:18 amFakeNews. Sweden contracted 8.6% in the 2nd quarter, the EU 11.9%.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:21 amBecause of the spike in new cases, they’re adding more restrictions.
they are tearing down every foundation of our society, but I guess that’s too much americaning,
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:24 amthe facr that they pursued general flynn for nearly four years, based on vapor that steele actually was fronting a suspected russian spy,
@154
I think you’ve sucinctly nailed the rationale why Trump enjoys so much support.
You can’t win by driving your base to fill out hangers every other day… you also need support from those who don’t like you personally, but liked what you saw in the last 4 years. Those are the voters he’s gearing for, particularly those identified as independent.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:26 amBush is a war criminal, too. If only we had Democrat politicians and attorneys with the guts to bring these two to justice…
Hoi Polloi (15cfac) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:27 amWell, you can pretend all you want that Trump is this powerless soul with no influence over the handling of this pandemic, beer, but it’s not believable.
Get ready to blame Biden for every death starting Jan 20, Montagu. I know you’ll be holding him accountable, and Trump’s role will be forgotten just like China’s has.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:28 amI voted for two Republicans, Larry Hogan for prez and Ms. Wyman for WA SecState.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:34 amI voted for the Democrat Congressman (Rick Larsen) because of a kindness he did for my son. Regrettably, there were hardly any Libertarians on my ballot, so I voted for Democrats over the Republicans who expressed their loyalties to Trump. I don’t feel great about it because I’ve been a Republican since Reagan’s first term (except for the 2013-2018 hiatus), but I’m not voting for Trump or his sycophants. I don’t see this intra-party conflict going away but, IMO, Trump and GOPers who voted for him in the 2016 primaries have created a cancer in this party. Lock Trump up.
To get back to the original post–
Respect is something I rarely feel for our politicians. They bend their integrity to what they think the voters want. What GOP officeholders need to feel right now is a lot of pain. So much that they will pause before supporting the next Trump, in fear it will turn out the same way. If in 2024, they seem to have learned their lesson, I might vote for one or two. I would prefer it if the candidate is unsullied by Trump toadyism, but that’s really going to be hard to find. Even Nikki Haley has not totally avoided selling pieces of her soul to that person. Jeb and Mitt are too old for 2024.
As for 2020 I voted against every GOP person for the Democrat. Here in Georgia, voting Libertarian means you have voted for a runoff to be held in December. If control of the senate turns out to be at stake, it will really be ugly.
Appalled (1a17de) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:35 amIt depends on what Biden does, beer. One standard.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:35 amThis only works if you know who Trump owes favors or wants something from. Trump is willing to sell out to anyone and any country that helps him personally, so that could be anyone. That is the opposite of predictable.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:48 am@197
I will.
I’ll take ev’ery one of Trump failings/vices/*insert all Orange Man Badz things* over a Hillary Clinton Presidency, and over a Joe Biden-soon-to-be-Kamala Harris administration.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:59 amNot much he can do. He can send out more face masks but he’ll have a tough time making people use them.
He won’t shut down the economy to slow the spread – that was something that could only happen on Trump’s watch, before the election. Biden can’t afford to have a lousy economy. He will talk a big game, but probably do nothing. He will blame Trump for everything and of course the media will back him up.
Hoi Polloi (15cfac) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:59 am191. Dustin (4237e0) — 10/18/2020 @ 6:34 pm
The number one thing is the restricted number of of possible candidates, and the demolish derby, with no new entries, that happens when they start to run.
We’ve had this system since the 1972 election and it is not so good. Not that 1968 worked out so well, either, but it could have.
The number one cause of that is the extreme difficulty o raising money and starting a campaign (that will be treated as credible by the major media) and the number one cause of that is the kind of campaign finance “reform” that puts very low limits on the amount of money an individual can contribute (combined with various ways to access pots of money – from other campaigns, from unaffiliated groups that the candidate can help raise money for but not co-ordinate what they do and say, and, in general elections, from political parties. The last two is what caused many Republican members of Congress to show some loyalty to Trump.)
The political parties are way too strong.
One thing that can be done is fairly quick dollar for dollar rebates of campaign contributions below a certain limit.
Another thing is to allow a limited number of mega donors to any candidate at the start of his campaign. The limited number would mean that big donors would not have much of a hold because there wold be far more willing to give than who could give legally give, and they would be spread all across the political spectrum, and a politician could easily find substitutes.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:01 am@319 – I was talking about Trump having a record now, thus his predictability is a bit assured.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:01 amSilly rabbit biden will shut down the economy for any such thing like skydragon sightings.
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:03 amDustin:
There were attempts to help the Trump campaign and there were attempts by Russia to plant or turn some Trump campaign officials into spies, (and I’d still like to know how that happened that they got Manafort and Flynn into the high places in the Trump campaign), but there was no collusion because it takes two to collude and Putin wold not be so stupid as to trust Trump with any secrets.
This came basically from Trump’s unconcern. Although maybe some people who wanted that had Trump’s ear.
Hoarding?
Lying was caused by Trump being afraid of a depression.
It’s argued there was some, but I don’t see it really. Trump is now charging Biden with being an outright crook. Based on assumptions that some fraction of whatever Hunter got made its way to Joe. Or that because they supposedly knew it would go to Joe corrupt people gave to Hunter. I don’t know, has everybody forgotten he was merely the vice president? Of course, there’s Joe’s (false) boasts of playing an important independent role in policy. He had nothing to do with firing the prosecutor, but he lied about that and can;t say that he lied.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:11 amRe: Simon Jester @12:
Probably a false alarm.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:16 amT would also have required him to place a slight value on honesty.
He was truly a fool.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:18 am# 321 —
This is a Trump legacy. He made mask wearing political and part of the culture war.
Appalled (1a17de) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:20 amHoi Polloi (15cfac) — 10/19/2020 @ 7:59 am
He won’t shut down the economy to slow the spread
That can go either way. The WHO is already backing away from lockdowns and that will give Biden some room if he wins. The CDC is already flipped-flopped on masks. He can shut everything down and blame Trump since, like economic metrics, the numbers are lagging indicators. He can open up to restore the economy and just ignore the numbers. The average person doesn’t understand the data. Anyone who comes along and points out any issues with the data will be labeled a partisan whatabout hack.
Either way, it will follow the basic WOT playbook. Ending the WOT was a big issue under Bush. BO comes in and all that fades into the background. On this the pro-Biden people are correct. If you Want Something Done(c)(TM) about covid electing Biden is the best way to stop hearing about how nothing is being done.
When asked what he would do about the mask mandates one of his responses was that he’d call all of the Governors to the WH for a stern talking too and they’d work this out. I have no doubt that he’d do that, call it doing something, and there’d be a football field full of little bobbleheads nodding along.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:22 amfrosty:
Based on Trump’s precedents, Biden could have the CDC order a national mask mandate and make that a price of keeping the economy open.
Appalled (1a17de) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:25 amAgreed.
Hoi Polloi (15cfac) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:27 amIt’s what Biden will not do that I’ll like: He will not be Trump.
nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:27 amThere’re things Biden can do. A good first step would be to bounce Scott Atlas and his anti-mask herd immunity witch-doctoring off the CV19 tax force.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:31 amActually we know for sure that Natalia Veselnitskaya and donald trump Jr discussed collusion in 2016 so that’s incorrect. We know for sure Putin tried real hard to help Trump, that high level information was shared, that Trump wanted this help beating Hillary.
I agree with you that Putin wouldn’t trust Trump to keep a secret, but Putin is quite happy that his great triumph is known to the world. It harms US prestige, harms the ideal of democracy, and boosts Putin the same way using P-210 does.
This hidden element of collusion, that Putin had to have trusted Trump with a secret, isn’t a real element.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:33 amIs there anyone in national politics who will criticize the lies of both the Republicans and the Democrats?
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:38 amHow far will that get you?
Hoi Polloi (15cfac) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:39 amSadly no because most national-level politicians make too much money from one side to criticize the other.
Hoi Polloi (15cfac) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:40 amWhat I meant, of course, was that I am not judging you for the incessant (and stupid) personal attacks and bizarre attempts to distort everything I say.
Have fun being mad at me. Clearly nothing I can do about it.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:41 am@334
That meeting in that Veselnitskaya “may” have incriminating stuff about HRC ended up being a nothingburger as Veselnitskaya was using that as a pretext to get some face time to discuss the
Magnitsky Act. When Jr./Manafort/et el realized that, the meeting went no where.
You’d know this if you actually paid attention, instead of regurgitating the Democratic talking points.
While criticisms for even having the meeting in the first place is valid… but, the idea that it was some overt conspiracy is laughable.
The OTHER interesting tidbit of this ordeal was that Veselnitskaya meet with FusionGPS officials BEFORE and AFTER this Trump tower meeting. Your WTF antennas should be pinging here….
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:48 amAppalled (1a17de) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:25 am
I’m guessing you’re referring to the eviction restrictions Trump did via EO. Are you now saying that many of the people who gave reasoned and articulate responses for how that was a bad idea under Trump would all bobblehead along when Biden uses that for a federal mask mandate? If so, I agree with you.
The argument that “Trump did it first” will be a great fig leaf for everyone who spent 4 years giving lectures on whataboutism and the irony is it’s not needed. The D’s are perfectly happy doing whatever they want for any reason they want.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:49 amThat’s neat to hear, genuinely. I’d like to think there’s one worth pulling the level *for* at some point.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:50 amME:
Dustin:
That was not collusion,
That was a one way unsolicited offer of help (in the form of damaging information about Hillary supposedly uncovered in a high level Russian criminal investigation) to the Trump campaign by people in Russia who pretended to be acting independently of Putin.
And then she didn’t deliver.
The going theory is that she wanted to lobby about the Magnitsky Act. My theory is more that they wanted to say something untrue to Donald Trump Jr and caution him not to tell anyone, but that plan was spoiled by 3 people from the Trump campaign being there.
I don’t know how hard it was fr Puti. Once his hack of the DNCwas discovered, he decided to use it.
Nothing was shared privately with the Trump campaign, or even with Roger Stone, but a lot was leaked to the general public. Trump kept talking about Wikileaks, kind of ignoring what came from FOIA requests from the AP, the Western Journalism Center, and the Republican Party. Trump kept talking about Wikileaks in general terms. He never bothered to master anything about what it revealed.
And the only thing – all that Putin got for his trouble was a moderately anti-Russia foreign policy that was tougher on him than Obama. Because Trump mostly appointed serious conservatives to any positions that needed to be confirmed by the Senate and some that did not. And the FBI got rid of Mike Flynn.
This hidden element of collusion, that Putin had to have trusted Trump with a secret, isn’t a real element.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:54 amSome of you guys have argued that Trump bragging he gropes women is OK. That if the women didn’t report the sexual assault that is consent. I only got about 2 hours of sleep last night (baby) and I can’t recall if you’re one of those folks. Do you consider that owning all of Trump’s failings and vices? I consider that defending sexual assault. Trump has often had to pay lawyers to defend him from sexual assault claims, even from the mother of his children.
You strike me as a particularly smart Trump supporter. Like BNP, you both are totally unashamed of Trump and want to explain why to people who disagree, and I think that is great. But I think trying to accept Trump’s flaws as the price you pay to avoid democrats is a lot different from owning what Trump is as a (terrible) person.
Of course I’m doing the same thing, I’m accepting Biden as the price of avoiding what I fear Trump will do next year. I don’t own Biden’s dishonesty or his race hustling.
I think you know Trump and Biden aren’t really worthy of this kind of loyalty, where people identify with a leader they really believe in.
This idea that we need to have that kind of moral relationship with leaders sounds like raising the bar on them, but I wonder if it actually does the opposite. This thread shows at least one Trump fan getting needlessly defensive, taking it real personally, IMO refusing to admit to reality. Maybe this is why.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:54 amWhat if, right after this offer of help, Trump asked Russia to help, on national TV?
that would form an agreement right?
and then Russia helped a lot.
And then Trump did all kinds of odd things in foreign policy that helped Putin?
It is impossible that Trump and Putin didn’t collude on Trump’s election.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:59 amVeselnitskaya postponed that meeting (probably because she found out that more people besides Donald Trump Jr were going to be there, and I think cancelled Plan A. To avoid creating suspicions she went through with the meeting and talked about adoptions from Russia (which Putin had stopped in retaliation for the Magnitsky Act.
Ad she was not alone in that meeting. I think there were about 8 Russians there.
We only know know about it because there was an exhaustive request for all meetings between people associated with the Russian government and members of the Trump campaign.
DJT Jr’s first statement about it, edited by his father, was misleading. It didn;t mention how that meeting had been achieved.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:01 amTabella jacta est. Just voted at my corner mailbox. First Class, Postage Prepaid. I’m pretty sure my vote will be counted, because I voted to retain all the Election Commissioners.
nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:04 amAnyway, even if Trump is reelected, it is not all certain that he will be President for long. Or even sworn in on January 20. We all saw Beelzebub anoint Pence at the Vice Presidential debate.
nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:07 amIn other words they had the meeting and knew it was something they needed to conceal. It is impossible to conclude collusion didn’t occur.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:15 am#340 —
Yes, you are correct in your presumption that I had Trump’s/CDC’s eviction mandate in mind as a precedent for a mask mandate.
I think Trump’s most consequential failing was turn mask wearing into a cultural/political football. (I expect Herman Cain would agree with me.) A national mandate may be a way to turn at least some of that around.
Appalled (1a17de) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:16 am@343
The context of the Bush Hollywood Access tape wasn’t that he was admitting to sexual assault. It was a “locker room” talk that opined that women just throw themselves at him and… here’s the key distinction that you keep minimizing… that “they LET him…“. This is why we can’t have meaningful discussions about things like this. You guys do everything you can to make something Trump said/did in the most malicious/nefarious interpretation because it fit’s your views of the man.
That’s classic confirmation bias.
As for the other allegations, yes those were always of concern to me, but I also have to recognize that he wasn’t criminally prosecuted either. Yes, the fact that he may have wriggled out of them because he’s a billionaire who can afford the best attorneys and even settle it outside of courts is concerning and was one of the reasons why I didn’t vote for him in 2016.
It’s one and the same, isn’t it?
Isn’t that the point of such questions? That is, you must accept the likely outcome based you the decision you make today.
All I care about is that folks like you go into these decisions eyes-wide open.
Just say, that you’d pay the price.
And…that price would be a very progressive Obama administration, where much of the center-right/conservative policies/ideals would be set back for years.
Admittedly, I was a bit flippant about “owning” Trump’s flaws.
Frankly, I’ve never put any politician on a pedestal worthy of admiration like we’ve seen with Obama and the Clintons.
Trump is a temporary caretaker of the Executive Branch, who I don’t see doing the lasting damage you all are constantly arguing.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:17 am@310. Thank you! 🙂
JRH (52aed3) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:22 am@341. Thank you! I appreciate you.
JRH (52aed3) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:23 am@349
No… it wouldn’t turn it around.
Only N95 masks would have had any impact… and only if the public is trained to wear the N95 masks correctly ALONG with proper hygiene strategies. And even then, such impact would be debatable.
Furthermore, there was a SHORTAGE of N95 masks… it was literally too late to do anything like that in the early months. (hence why the initial response was not for the public to be masked, in order to save the existing supplies for caregivers.)
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:25 amwhembly (#350):
Trump said this:
If he does what he says — that is sexual assault. I agree that he was not admitting to sexual assault. He was bragging about it and maybe (it’s Trump, y’know) lying about it.
Appalled (1a17de) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:27 amBecause the masks are to protect others, and any barrier is going to reduce the distance and quantity of liquid material that escapes, it is not true that only N95 masks would save lives. The endless disinformation from Trump and his campaign about masks has led to a lot of misunderstandings, like the idea that if any virus can escape a mask, that mask isn’t effective. Because the point of masks is that you breath through them, they are generally not air-tight! They just reduce the spread (a lot).
It’s true that you can still get sick or spread the disease despite wearing a mask. Doesn’t mean they don’t help.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:29 amIndeed that’s the only logical defense for Trump, that he’s so insecure he brags about being such a big man that he would do this.
Unfortunately, the claim is pretty substantially verified. Trump has never had that presence in his life to teach him how to restrain his impulses, and he has little man syndrome (like many who hurt women).
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:31 amI think Trump’s most consequential failing was turn mask wearing into a cultural/political football. (I expect Herman Cain would agree with me.) A national mandate may be a way to turn at least some of that around.
Trump wasn’t the one who exempted BLM, rioters and looters from lockdown rules.
A mask mandate is unconstitutional, and Biden in his trademark weaselly way has admitted as much, sort of. There have been mask mandate protests in the UK, so it’s hardly a Trump thing.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:35 amBut of course that one-line snarky drive-by fails to engage the point of the post
Patterico, when you preface your actual point with such risible accusations, you should expect that people find it hard to read on.
In other posts I do address some of the issues, such as one with contemporary articles on why Cruz belat3edly endorsed Trump in 2016 after dissing him rather publicly at the Convention. Short answer: He got Trump’s pledge on judges and, like it or not, since that pledge was honored it explains why Cruz is an exceptional politician and you are not.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:36 amTalk about a waste of law enforcement resources! I would have just cordoned off the sidewalk beneath him. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-hangs-side-chicago-s-trump-tower-13-hours-being-n1243869
nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:37 amDustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:41 am
That just isn’t true. Well, it’s true that I’m having fun (and it’s interesting) but not that I’m mad or the other thing. Here’s a thought, you could, and I’m just picking the low hanging fruit here, stop calling people who disagree with you bastards or stupid. You could reconsider making broad generalizations about how people you don’t like are racists or haters or possibly willing to put people on cattle cars headed to concentration camps. Those are things you could do that would drastically cut down on opportunities to respond to you.
Well, of course. That was obvious and I didn’t see it because I’m stupid. Thanks for not judging me and thanks for saying that outright because words like stupid and bizarre were leading me in another direction.
I’m starting to get the feeling that you just can’t help yourself with this. You actually might be convinced that criticism of your arguments is a personal attack and pointing out flaws in them is distorting them. You actually might also be convinced that you aren’t personally attacking people or mischaracterizing their comments or doing to other people exactly what you are complaining about being done to you. That is a hard thing to imagine being possible but I’m starting to consider it.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:41 am344. Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:59 am
He didn’t. hat was sometime later. I think he changed his word at the last moment, and said that, if they found Hillary;s deleted emails, they’d be greatly rewarded by the press.
Thngs like that have been deemed I think collusion in price fixing cases.
The wikileaks leak happened just after the meeting n Trump Tower. It was probably unrelated.
When Trump indicated (after being badgered a lot in a press conference) he hoped Russia would find Hillary’s deleted emails (which everyone thought were no loner accessible from the Internet) Russia is said to have maybe made one last ditch effort to obtain them, but that may be a coincidence.
Russia never got them because there was never any email account as secure as what was on clintonemail.com.
Secure from dictionary password attacks. Her password was picked by computer.
Secure from phishing – no phishing would be credible, and Hillary Clinton didn’t even know her password.
Secure from backdoor password resets. There was none.
Secure from mass downloading. Not enough thruput, and the SYSOP would notice it..
And secure from subpoenas, something unique to clintonemail.com.
The fact that the emails even existed was not known; her own lawyers, and not that of Google, say, would decide whether to comply and even a FISA warrant wouldn’t work quickly because the server was protected by the Secret Service.
He didn’t really.
And one thing that happened was that, right after the election, Trump considered appointing Mitt Romney Secretary of State and Mott Romney met with Donald Trump, you may remember.
Putin then tried to take away the 2016 victory from Trump through recounts demanded by Jill Stein.
“What Putin giveth, Putin can take away” But not so.
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:44 amPatterico,
As for the point of this post — that politicians have just kept their heads down and not fought the crazy — I have written on the subject of the professional politician in a party system so many times that I really don’t feel like writing about it again. In that, I feel your pain.
But not only have the GOP Senators not done that, Pelosi and the Democrats have not done that either. Oh, they’ve opposed Trump, passed countless posturing bills in the House, and impeached him for some inside-baseball crimes.
But if he were actually insane, that would be grounds for impeachment, and they never went there. As I’ve said repeatedly, they never brought their actual charges — that he was irrational, an embarrassment, unsuited to the office and a clear and present danger as CinC with control of nuclear weapons. Instead they filed weak charges about him being a crook, which is probably true, but nowhere near the reasons that I have voted against him now 4 times.
So, add the Democrats who wanted an incompetent blowhard running this year and making the Democrats case for them.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:50 amDustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 8:54 am
Can you quote a single person who made this argument?
frosty (f27e97) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:51 amHis record is that he does whatever benefits him. How is that predictable? How can we know who will try to buy him next?
DRJ (aede82) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:51 am356. Dustin (4237e0) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:31 am
The claim was that they let him do it
There were one pr two accusations that he tried and they didn’t let him do it. One by a woman whi claimed it was on commercial airliner in 1979.
There was some attempt to prove that story impossible
https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/14/news/donald-trump-jessica-leeds-armrest/index.html
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:52 amhis is one of the few times Trump admitted lying. He said it was “locker room talk.”
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:54 am#252
It was Trump — with his “I alone can fix it” posture and “I’m better than anyone else in history” boasting and the tweet-storms and addiction to being fawned over at rallies — who made his presidency primarily about himself and his image and ego, much more than about any policy vision (which he never had). He cares much more about getting credit than about getting anything done for anyone else’s sake.
The Trump defenders who keep saying “policy, not personality!” are actually going against the ruling principle of the Trump presidency — besides overlooking the fact that presidents have responsibilities that can’t all be contained in a list of policies handed down from a couple of think tanks.
In this election, it’s not unreasonable to vote on the basis of what kind of person should be making decisions in the Oval Office. The kind of person described by people who have worked with him in the White House (@286): grossly self-centered, arrogant, deeply dishonest, erratic, uninterested in learning anything, etc.? Or someone who “at least … understands and can articulate how a president is supposed to think and act” (Dave @166)?
When President “Look at Me! I’m the Greatest! My Brain is Better than the Experts!” is gone, it will be easier to debate issues. But it may take a long time to wash the Trump taint off any policy he has promoted. And it may be impossible to heal the rift on the right between those who have taken the “Trump must always be defended” posture and those who have said “Why should this be excused?”
Radegunda (20775b) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:57 amTrump and judges:
Stupid argument: Only Trump would have appointed conservative judges.
More interesting discussion: WHY did Trump appoint all these conservative judges? In nearly every other instance he’s thrown the former GOP positions under the bus: NATO, North Korea, trade, deficits, decorum, competence, reliance on EOs and, of course, immigration and China.
But on the subject of judges he lets the GOP Senate and the Federalist Society pick judges for him.
It’s almost like there’s a quid pro quo.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 9:58 amOr do people believe that Trump meets with his Privy Council to select judges after long and serious examination of their records?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:02 amWhen President “Look at Me! I’m the Greatest! My Brain is Better than the Experts!” is gone, it will be easier to debate issues.
If you remember the 2016 debates, this is abjectly clear. The one debate that Trump did not attend was so completely different than the ones he filibustered. Actual discussion of actual issues instead of Trump gaming the rules to “respond” to everyone else.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:04 amLike they have something on him that he doesn’t want to risk disclosing.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:09 am@333:herd immunity
Well, a vaccine IS about herd immunity, but even without a good vaccine this won’t end without herd immunity. Society cannot go on indefinitely this way and “things that can’t go on, don’t.” Before antibiotics the list of serious and incurable diseases was fairly long and we actually cured some viral diseases by vaccine (herd immunity) before we could cure pneumonia, scarlet fever or staph.
We may be entering a period where Pestilence is back riding his horse, and until we find new ways to combat viri (and perhaps new antibiotics to overcome resistant strains) we just have to live with it.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:13 amLike they have something on him that he doesn’t want to risk disclosing.
I think it’s more the price for their silence on the obvious issues.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:14 am@368
Or…
Bare with me…
It was a tactically savvy political position that animates both his base AND the luke-warm GOP voters.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:17 amThought experiment:
Suppose that Trump was NOT sending up conservative judges. Suppose he was picking only corporate tools and shysters? Do you think the Senate would be accommodating him? Do you think that the Senate would be punching judges through at the rate they are? Do you think that he would have won that impeachment vote?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:18 amMore like that he has no clue, like when he was asked what kind of judges he would pick and he could only think of his sister*, and he cannot be bothered to get a clue, so he left it up to McGahn who mostly went along with the Federalist Society except when he was picking cronies.
There is always less to Trump than meets the eye. He is mostly puff and bluster, glitz and glitter, over empty space.
*Or when asked about a Secretary of Defense and he could only think of George C. Scott in “Patton”.
nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:20 amIt was a tactically savvy political position that animates both his base AND the luke-warm GOP voters.
Well, “tactically savvy” are not the first words I think of when I think of Trump. I think it was a deal imposed on him in 2016, in order for the GOP not to sit on their hands during the election. Trump could not have won without party support.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:21 amTrump letting Senate Republicans pick his judges instead of Putin is a risking move.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:21 amThere is always less to Trump than meets the eye.
I am so stealing that.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:22 amLike Putin could care less about Roe v. Wade.
nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:23 amThe point I am trying to make is that the gist of our host’s post is that the GOP and particularly the GOP Senate has been remiss in not convicting, or at least robustly opposing, Donald Trump’s myriad asshatteries.
The big defense of Trump from the Right has always been “but judges.” I think it is not inconceivable that this is also true of Senators, particularly when they have such a big hand in picking them.
And, when you go back to the contemporary accounts of things like Cruz’ switch, you see just that calculation/promise being made hand-in-hand.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:26 amLike Putin could care less about Roe v. Wade.
News at 11: most people could care less about Roe v Wade. Like 70% or more. It’s a red cape the matadors use to confuse the bull before they stick the sword in.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:28 am@364
I mean predictable in that what he’s done in his 1st Term would be a repeat in his 2nd.
I don’t buy your premise that he only does something because someone is “paying him” (whatever form that is).
He’ll continue his agenda of nominating originalist/textualist judges, which is not insignificant. (frankly, I doubt any other GOP candidate would’ve stuck with Kavanaugh like Trump did… and I seriously doubt any other candidate would go to ACB afterwards, so I don’t buy the argument that a non-Trump GOP potus would’ve have the same sort of success).
Whatever you might think of Trump… he has a short shelf life in politics either in Months or another 4 years. His judges will be felt for decades.
That’s meaningful because in this day and age, when we’re seeing the likes of Antifas, Critical Race Theory, normalizing socialism (from Bernie to AOC) and a Democratic party falling more and more leftward, you’d WANT more originalist/textualist judges in the courts.
If nothing else, to put the stop to the idea that progressive has that they can circumvent the legislative process and go straight to the courts to push their agendas.
Trump (and McConnell/Senate GOPers) should get full credit for that.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:31 amFurthermore, there was a SHORTAGE of N95 masks… it was literally too late to do anything like that in the early months.
I bought N95 masks in February at Walmart (the last ones in the store, hidden at the back of the overflow shelf), and I asked by doctor how to make them last (answer: rotate 3 masks daily leaving the other two exposed to light). Still have some, although the straps on 2 of them have since broken.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:35 amI mean predictable in that what he’s done in his 1st Term would be a repeat in his 2nd.
Try: What he’s done in his 1st Term would continue and expand in his 2nd. He would feel validated and supported and what he might do then is hard to fathom. Maybe he’d send the Army to clear out East L.A. Maybe he’d let North Korea continue to build and test ICBMs. Maybe he’d to to war with Ukraine or pull the US out of NATO.
Truly hard to say. More of it, sure, but more of crazy, irrational and mercurial covers a lot of ground.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:42 am@ 384
You’re one of the lucky ones, I couldn’t buy anything at a reasonable price till towards the end of April.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:46 amIf nothing else, to put the stop to the idea that progressive has that they can circumvent the legislative process and go straight to the courts to push their agendas.
And listening to the clothes-rending articles about Barrett, they have gone from realizing that they’d not longer be able to do that, to projecting that GOP judges would do the same. As in: returning the government to the Constitution is “activism.”
Of course returns are now diminishing, and Trump is so very high-maintenance that — like Trump with Ivana — it’s time to look for a newer model.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:48 amYou’re one of the lucky ones, I couldn’t buy anything at a reasonable price till towards the end of April.
Yeah, it wasn’t the first place I looked. Lowe’s and Home Despot wre sold out completely, even the lesser masks.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 10:50 amThis is for Time123:
https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/border-wall-system?utm_source=redirects&utm_medium=https%3A//www.cbp.gov/borderwallsystem&utm_campaign=border_wall
Border Wall System Update:
371 miles completed
210 miles under construction
157 miles under pre-construction
Objectively another “good” Trump action, one in that no other GOP Potus/candidate was able to accomplish.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/19/2020 @ 11:01 amWe can buy him ourselves.
Biden should Flynn-pardon him, dismiss the IRS audit and offer him an 8-figure salary (sweetened with 7-figure side deals for his spawn and courtesan) to become the administration’s evangelist on anti-pandemic measures to uneducated whites and QAnon conspiracists.
The deal is null and void, and he gets the Reinoehl treatment, if he ever utters a word about the virus that isn’t approved by Fauci and Birx.
While it obviously rankles to let a reprobate like Trump not only skate on his crimes, but profit handsomely from them, it would be a smart investment for the country that would pay for itself many times over.
(And for that matter, once the pandemic is finally over, Darth Harris can tell him “I have altered ‘the Deal’ – pray I do not alter it further…”)
Dave (1bb933) — 10/19/2020 @ 11:03 amHarris is more one of those weird Jedi chicks with the hair-tusks than a Sith.
My daughter also told me a variant of QAnon theory that JFK Junior is alive and that he will replace Pence and then be eased into the Oval Office by Trump stepping down.
urbanleftbehind (feb514) — 10/19/2020 @ 11:39 am297. nk (1d9030) — 10/19/2020 @ 6:29 am
Probably somewhere around the Whiite House grounds.
Their son caught it later. It was only announced by Melania after he had tested negative.
Yes. Some would have been secondary or tertiary spread.
The world, I don’t know you can say. It was probably the hottest spot in Washington, D.C. It probably isn’t any longer.
He’s an indication of what can go wrong or be done wrong.
But he is also the symbol of his own success. He got the cure that he pushed for.
It shouldn’t be, like he tried a little, that he becomes a symbol of the non risk of getting Covid. It;s that he got the cure. That just neutralized the virus in his bloodstream and much better and safer than bleach.
I wonder if he will have the courage to go out on a limb for it on Thursday. It won’t be enough by itself for him to win but it would be a useful thing to do.
Dr, Scott Gottlieb seems to have become a little bit more an advocate for it than he was a week ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/09/dr-scott-gottlieb-coronavirus-antibody-drugs-wont-end-us-epidemic.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-do-i-go-to-get-my-covid-antibody-cocktail-11603052662
[They talk about the current bad plan for distributing it:
Sammy Finkelman (4eddd7) — 10/19/2020 @ 11:41 amThe CBP is peddling propaganda, whembly, because there’s only five miles of new wall. It’s just another typical overblown false Trump claim.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/19/2020 @ 11:46 am“At the 1988 Republican National Convention, Donald Trump was asked by Larry King on CNN: “You might be classified as an Eastern Republican, Rockefeller Republican. Fair?”, to which Trump replied: “I guess you can say that”. When Trump was considering to run against Andrew Cuomo for Governor of New York, Trump was dubbed as a “Conservative Rockefeller Republican”. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump was described as both a modern-day Rockefeller Republican (by some conservative writers)and as the heir to the Goldwaterite opposition to the Rockefeller Republicans.” -source, wikiswoppedends.org
Glorious.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/19/2020 @ 11:53 amTwilek!
Yeah, I can see that.
Sounds legit.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/19/2020 @ 11:54 amI mean predictable in that what he’s done in his 1st Term would be a repeat in his 2nd.
Former White House officials have said that Trump had some really wacko ideas that underlings simply did not carry out. John Kelly said he quit when he was asked to do something “not just stupid, but felony stupid.”
Problem is that Trump administration officials who make some effort to restrain his worst impulses either get pushed out or get fed up.
Radegunda (20775b) — 10/19/2020 @ 11:57 amAnother problem is that a President Trump knowing he won’t be facing voters again could be more reckless and more disdainful of any limits on his action.
Another problem is that a President Trump knowing he won’t be facing voters again could be more reckless and more disdainful of any limits on his action.
Rounding up the illegals (or people who look illegal) into camps would thrill his base.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 3:46 pmIt would be interesting to know what ledges the GOP Senators pulled Trump back from.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/19/2020 @ 4:01 pmGoing back to frosty’s long comment:
So did you miss the numerous stories about Trump insulting our allies, not just including NATO? I don’t really know how you’re unaware of that. Anyway, there is a summary of some of the issues here, but I’m not really interested in a response that just cherry picks one or two and airily purports to refute them.
He has done jack-all about North Korea other than legitimize Kim Jong-un. His repeated acceptance of Putin’s denials of interference over our intelligence is an embarrassment. But no, you don’t get to get away so easily as citing only the two of them. He got Congress to leave MBS alone after MBS murdered a journalist. He OK’d Xi incarcerating Uighurs in concentration camps and called Hong Kong protests “riots.” I think people have already pointed some of this out. He repeatedly praises Erdogan and allowed him to overrun our allies the Kurds. He has praised Duterte’s extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers. There’s hardly a thug he has not given aid and comfort to.
Pressured Comey to let Flynn go, pressured them to drop the Flynn case, pressured them to go easy on Roger Stone, Manafort is serving his long sentence outside of prison in an example of differential treatment, Cohen’s home sentence attempted to be reversed, dangled pardons in front of Manafort and Roger Stone, commuted Roger Stone’s sentence, has called for DoJ to investigate Joe Biden and encouraged crowds to chant “lock him up” about Biden, and that’s just a partial list.
Well…
Those are just some examples. And it works. People do violence in his name.
“Stand back and stand by.”
I am not going to pretend it didn’t happen, or pretend that Trump didn’t do what he did. And it was a gross abuse of power for which he should have been removed from office. Of course you won’t disagree, but frankly, I’m right and you’re wrong.
The main point of folks like yourself is to say “sure he lies but so do all politicians.” That strikes me as a repulsive minimization of the extent of his misconduct — and you know what it reminds me of, specifically? It reminds me of, when people talk about MBS ordering a critic to be carved up like a turkey, or Putin poisoning critics or having them throw off buildings, Trump says things like “well America isn’t perfect” because … because what? Because we waterboarded a guy who planned an attack that killed 3000 of our citizens to see if he knew about any other awful attacks in the works? Yeah, it’s not the same fucking thing (and Trump agreed with waterboarding, so what the hell *is* he talking about??), nor is a standard politician’s misconduct the same fucking thing as Trump’s endless litany of corruption and dishonesty and incompetence.
You have my response.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/21/2020 @ 7:45 pmYou have observed very interesting points! ps decent
virtual telethons (7161a3) — 11/16/2020 @ 1:07 amsite.