Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Words to Remember, Especially for Never-Trumpers
I don’t agree with everything that Kevin Williamson has to say but a recent article of his contained a few sentences that should be required reading for those who “just can’t get past” Trump’s volatile personality. And, it’s a reminder for all of us that, even though the poster child for senility has taken the lead in the Democratic race, it’s still the party of AOC and Bernie.
When James Carville warns about driving away blue-collar and rural voters, Democrats in Brooklyn hear that Southern accent and quietly whisper, “Good riddance.” The Democrats are in the mood for culture war, not for coalition-building and reconciliation. They do not wish to win with moderation and compromise, because they do not wish to govern with moderation and compromise.
Williamson touched on their ideology,
They are committed to their belief that Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were “on the right side of history,” that those who opposed them were monsters, and that those who rallied to the flag of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were only humanitarians with excessive enthusiasm — “liberals in a hurry,” as they used to say.
When reading Williamson’s article, I thought about the consummate Never-Trumper, Bill Kristol. Even when he claimed to be a conservative, I had little use for him (with his condescending, arrogant manner, I always pictured him in a black uniform wearing a coal scuttle helmet). That these “ideologically pure” windbags would choose a candidate from today’s Democratic Party over Trump, out of sheer spite, is unconscionable.
When it comes to Donald Trump, there is clearly much to dislike. However, when it comes to today’s Democratic Party, he is a knight in shining armor.
Published in General
Sadly this post has degenerated into name calling by a couple of the usual suspects. There is nothing to be served by participating in further discourse with them.
But I leave you with this thought. There was a time when Ricochet was a welcome format for civil center-right conversations. That has gone by the wayside as Ricochet has been increasingly Trumpified. The other dissenting voices are gone.
Where is George Townsend? Inactive.
Where is HeavyWater? Inactive.
Where is The Gold Tooth? Inactive.
i hope that the day comes when Ricochet again stands for civil center-right conversations. But I don’t see that now. And I think that things are going to get worse before they get better.
The Whig Party died over the issue of extending slavery into the territories. The Republican Party may well die over the issue of Trump.
So much for Country First.
The Republican Party may deserve to die over its continual weak and feckless response to the aggressive, ascendant Left in this country, which does want to destroy everything precious to us, starting with our liberty and working its way all the way down to even our Christian churches and the nuclear family. Its desire is to atomize us, to decimate the little platoons so as to exert more power over every aspect of our lives. You seem to think you’re still dealing with the Democrat Party of the Reagan era. You haven’t been paying attention.
How has Donald Trump infringed on your liberty? How has he impeded your ability to function as a free citizen? He hasn’t. In fact, he’s improved your condition after the terrible corruption of the Obama years where government was weaponized against you and enlisted to aid and abet the illiberal progressive cause. And you would vote for more of that because of your personal distaste for Trump’s style, willing us to be subjected to the not-so-tender mercies of the George Soros crowd.
I find this incredibly angering. That’s all I’ll say, because to say what I really think about it will get me banned. Permanently. And, frankly Gary, you’re not worth it.
*sigh* A fool’s errand … you like to set this “divide on the Right” to be between President Trump and President Reagan. I challenge that characterization. President Reagan was also an interloper to the GOP Establishment, the precursor to President Trump. Yesterday’s B Movie actor is today’s Reality TV star. Yes, President Reagan has more in common with President Trump’s style than you can imagine.
No, you are defending the party of the entrenched GOP Establishment (the party of Ford, Bush, Dole, McCain, Romney). And President Reagan is telling you, Mr. Robbins, to give him back his microphone.
That Republican party is as dead as Jacob Marley, after Reagan we swallowed the softer Bush and then the halfhearted Dole, then the stronger Bush who allowed himself to be beaten up and then the half hearted McCain and Romney. To quote Everett Dirksen in 1952 ‘We followed you before and you took us down the road to defeat’ . Enough! This time the NTs will have to hold their noses and follow our lead.
Don’t count on it. 2018 happened. So any NT dumb enough at that point to believe that they had to succumb to the Trumpers for the good of the GOP……has long since wised up. Time to get better arguments.
Last 15 national polls taken, Biden leads Trump in 14 of them by an average 7.1%. Ugly. But don’t worry, cuz Kevin Williamson say evil Joe Biden wants a culture war, so that’ll be a winning Trump message.
You seen extremely angry that commentators at Ricochet look at Joe Biden’s current performances and don’t seem to be in panic mode, while media outlets all over, and even a few Democrats and #NeverTrump folks are tossing around the possibility of Andrew Cuomo replacing Biden as the Democrats’ presidential nominee. I mean, why would anyone even be talking about replacing Joe Biden as their nominee if the want to beat Trump and wacky-but-lovable Uncle Joe has a 7.1% lead on average in the polls? You’d think based on that they’d want Biden to resume his plan to do a daily coronavirus counter-briefing to Trump, and in lieu of the ability to make public apprarances due to COVID-19, would be posting social media video after video and doing online question-and-answer sessions at least 1-2 times a week to even further increase his lead in the polls.
The Dim leadership obviously doesn’t believe those polls since a movement is building to replace him with Cuomo of all people. The replacement of all voters with likely voters as the election approaches always results in a few point pickup for the Republican. Slow Joe can’t talk and they won’t be able to fully protect him over the next eight months.
But I saw a Mediaite headline tonight that Biden is beating Trump by 25 points in some counties. I didn’t bother following such a balderdash headline but that’s some of the lines their feeding their readers.
Probably cuz they know just about any Democrat could beat Trump at this point, so why not nominate a younger guy that can easily serve 2 terms. And they saw how Bernie was a paper tiger. But thats what makes Biden such a great choice for NT’s……he’s not Andrew Cuomo or Deval Patrick or even Bloomberg or any other liberal governor type that the Left could’ve chosen.
Btw, you should cite facts when you make arguments. I don’t like debating rumors about what “some people are saying”. Overall, Biden is wise to stay clear of Corona commentary. Theres plenty of other Democrat governors that can do his dirty work.
No, we don’t “hate” you. We just think you’re whining, useless dead weight.
Basically, your logic here — for people who want Trump defeated, but seem to also want to do it without the former VP at the top of the ticket — is “We can easily beat Trump with Biden … but we can really, really super-duper crush Trump with Andrew Cuomo and some others, so let’s throw Joe under the bus so we can win by a million, billion, zillion votes on November 3.“
I’d submit that even the people at CNN or The New York Times would give you a “What you talkin bout Willis?” look on that argument, even if they were OK in hushed tones about replacing Joe with Andy, Deval, Mayor Pete, Michelle, Andrew Gliium or anyone else within the party not currently suffering from COVID-19 infection.
Again, I need some facts from you if you want a debate. I don’t like debating rumors or “someone said on Twitter”. I fail to see why I should care that a bunch of white liberal Bernie Bros on Twitter are now desperately running to Andrew Cuomo as they see what a flop Bernie was and now understand that maybe competence matters. Too late/ too bad.
So despite all Trumper efforts, Biden is the nominee…not Bernie, not Bloomberg, and not Cuomo. And he’s built a large steady lead that Hillary only got right after the Access Hollywood tapes. And I don’t see Trumpers with any idea how to turn this around. Every idea has flopped or gotten Trump impeached.
I don’t disagree that Trump was the most worried about Biden in 2019, and that if Biden was the same person as he was a few years ago, he’d definitely be his most dangerous opponent. But do you think Biden’s recent live appearances, including reading from a teleprompter have been good? I think it was Jonah Goldberg on The Remnant who said that Matt Continetti (Bill Kristol’s son-in-law, FWIW), noted that Biden over the past several months has shown the ability to get through about four sentences of a subject, before he loses focus and struggles to regain his bearings (hence all the recent talk about Biden’s ‘stutter’ problem).
That’s why you’re hearing the talk about replacing Biden with Cuomo or someone else, because of the questions around whether or not Joe can hold it together during the course of the campaign, where going into seven-month coronavirus lockdown is not an option.
Sadly, I have watched the decline in two people. It is not linear, but accelerates. By August Biden won’t even be certain of who he is at times.
We know all about those polls from 2016.
They’re obviously incorrect, they have no incentive to be accurate, they have lots of incentive bias Democrat, there is no market correction, the worst offenders don’t lose credibility, the most accurate polls don’t gain credibility.
Polls is not facts.
Anyone who thinks they know what will happen in the November election is nuts. No one knows who will actually show up , or how they will actually vote. Everyone thinks the electorate is exactly like the people they know, who tend to agree with them. I will vote in a way that I think is least bad for the country ( probably straight ticket R, and against most ballot proposals ). I would like to vote in a way that is positively best for my country, but I am not sure that will be on the ballot.
That’s my strategy in any election year. Always, always, always vote against the Party of Death. And almost always vote against every ballot measure. It’s rarely satisfying, but any time we manage to beat back the progressive “change” (most definitely not improvement), it is sufficient.
The supposed supporters of the groper aren’t very enthusiastic.
I’m not hearing anything because you refuse to cite any info. Anyway, I did research and as expected, its a bunch of ex-Bernie/Warren types like Charles Pierce and Alex Wagner that never liked Biden anyway….so now they’ve fallen for Cuomo in their latest month long infatuation for someone with zero chance. Its just a clear sign that Bernie is busted and Joe is the guy. Twitter liberals will take some time resigning themselves to it.
Politicians get a natural boost in the early days of a crises. Cuomo, Inslee, heck even Trump. That won’t last long if this crises wears on and things don’t get better.
Can Biden win without the Bernie voters?
FWIW: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/13/democrats-confront-a-never-biden-contingent-127438
Ancedotal, but looking at my ex-girlfriend’s 21-year-old son’s Facebook page, he’s a hardcore Bernie supporter and his group was irate on Friday that the media and the mainstream Democrats were essentially blowing off Tara Reade’s sex assault claim against Biden, which they saw as #metoo hypocrisy.
Being 20-somethings, their outrage might not even make it past Easter (and Reade waiting so long to make the accusation while also being a Bernie backer brings the charges themselves into question a la Christine Ford). But it does speak to a larger question of how much do Sanders supporters hate Trump, that seven months from now they’ll be willing to hold their noses and vote for Biden? That was the key to Trump’s win in 2016 — lots of people didn’t like his style, but their dislike for Hillary was so strong they held their noses and voted for him.
Sure. Hatred of Trump is all the motivation his voters will need. Worked in 2018. Biden’s biggest plus is that few people hate him, unlike Hillary and Trump. Plus, there won’t be a 3rd party prog option this time.
Do you think Trump may have a contingent of voters similar to Obama’s contingent of voters, who the Democrats discovered, much to this dismay in 2010 and 2014, only turned out for Barack Obama and didn’t bother to vote in the midterm elections when Obama wasn’t on the ballot?
Both men share a common complaint by detractors that they have a cult of personality around themselves, where too many of their supporters care only about them, and not about the party. If that’s the case, then 2018 would simply be a flip of the 2010 and 2014 results.
I have a feeling that the barrier to supporting Trump, for Bernie supporters, is not as high as it might seem. There is one subject–nationalism–that strongly separates them, and fuels most of the passion of their respective enthusiasts. But on all the other main issues and personal qualities, the two are very similar.
I don’t base it on knowledge of current electoral politics (above my pay grade) but on writings about 20th century political history by Mises and Hayek.
Sure. That’ll help him a bit. But, Trump didn’t win because of a surge of new voters, like Obama did. He only got as many votes as Romney. He won because rural Democrats hated Hillary and other progs were able to vote Jill Stein and not enough suburbanites we’re willing to flip to compensate for all those losses.
And this is the Trump republican party? Think correctly or we will revile you? Neat.
Mar. 25th. I only one I have seen parts of. truck me as odd. Here is the transcript:
Not terribly productive. But he still has good things to say about Xi. On the 27th he tweeted his great respect for Xi.
Revile? I don’t think so. It seems more of a question to me: If you, or anyone else, is completely disgusted with the current direction of the GOP, why are you still a member? I left years ago because I was sick of Bush & Family, Romney, Kasich, McCain, McConnell, and a lot of others.