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The Bulwark (Once Again) Endorses a Democrat
The “Reagan conservatives” at The Bulwark really hate Ohio Republican senate nominee JD Vance. (“Trump’s Hillbilly” — they literally called him that.) So this morning, Bill Kristol and fellow Bulwark Operative Tim Miller endorsed his Democratic opponent. “If you voted for Matt Dolan, a totally inoffensive Republican in this primary and don’t want literal authoritarianism advanced by a charlatan who is at the mercy of Donald Trump’s whims go ahead a sign up to support inoffensive Democrat@TimRyan.”
Some say the end-state of Never Trump is becoming a full-on Democrat. I would argue these guys were closet Democrats all along.
Like Glenn Youngkin, Vance is too “Trumpian” for the bull-workers, too aligned to those grubby working-class folk who are upset about irrelevant issues like children being exposed to pornography in public schools, the unchecked import and distribution of deadly narcotics across our wide-open southern border, the mass export of American manufacturing jobs to China, and the replacement of American workers with cheap foreign labor.
In fairness, JD Vance was once a harsh critic of Donald Trump. But, like most reasonable people, his opinion on Trump evolved more favorably as President Trump showed himself to be a consistent advocate and advancer of conservative policies.
Speaking of advancing conservative policies, the New York Times token “conservative” Bret Stephen — who previously pitched the not-at-all radical left idea of repealing the second amendment — now says that a true conservative would not overturn Roe v. Wade. Stephens’s argument is — I am not making this up — that even though Roe was a terrible decision, it’s now precedent and overturning it would be “disruptive” to the political status quo. It would also upset leftists and reduce the esteem of the High Court in public perception.
As conservatives, you are philosophically bound to give considerable weight to judicial precedents, particularly when they have been ratified and refined — as Roe was by the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision — over a long period.
So, Stephens must likewise think the court erred in overturning Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Korematsu v. United States for the same reason.
Here, again, you may be tempted to think that overturning Roe is an act of judicial modesty that puts abortion disputes in the hands of legislatures. Maybe — after 30 years of division and mayhem.
Yes, Stephens is literally arguing that conservatives should not want the issue of abortion decided by elected representatives in state legislatures. Maybe Stephens views himself as merely being “prudent,” because the effects of a Roe repeal would be so wide-ranging and unpredictable. But this “principled conservative” notion that the role of conservatism is to preserve the gains of liberalism is precisely why the old Bush-Republican model is dying. And why Bret Stephens and Bill Kristol are reduced to sputtering about “populism” while collecting checks from their left-wing paymasters.
Published in Politics
On a side note, JD Vance probably owes his election to growing a beard. The Riker Effect.
If J.D. Vance is too right-wing, then so are folk like Michael Moore, Neil Young, and Noam Chomsky.
Are the people at the Bulwark in on the joke? Or do they really think they’re a conservative blog?
Do they know that we can see right through their charade? Or do they actually believe they’re not just a fraud to suck money from the gullible, the left, and the Chamber of Commerce right?
Stephens seems to think that conservatism is nothing more than risk aversion. But if conservatism is just risk aversion, then the masked, blue-haired journalists tweeting from their Brooklyn shoeboxes are the most conservative of all Americans.
The right is splintering, and it’s splintering because the current political reality confronts us with fundamental questions — questions about human nature, about good and evil, about the ugly and the beautiful, and about the meaning of life. These can’t be ignored or taken for granted the way they were ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. And we’re seeing exactly what it is that certain figures within the right (and ex-right) want to conserve: Form or substance? Means or ends?
I often think about IowaHawk’s famous “skinsuit” tweet. Some people really, really care about the skinsuit. They don’t care so much about who’s wearing it. Others (like me, like you) look up at the bootheel of History hovering just above our heads, and we’re less than thrilled.
“Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect another? “
— Bill Kristol, probably.
That degree of self-righteousness is difficult to fake. I’m inclined to take the Bulwark fools at their word.
Twenty-two Trump supported candidates won. I guess the Buls**t is against all of them . . .
Makes one wonder how successful the NT pond scum and The Turtle will be in their attempts to “move on” from Trump, doesn’t it?
Breitbart headline says Trump is now 55 — 0.
Might be the same reason I now have one and Jonathon Frakes grew one, a lockdown. I think Frakes grew one during a writer’s strike and it looked good, so they let him keep it. I was lazy during “15 days to flatten the curve”, my daughter liked it, and it’s stayed.
If I know anything about the Buckeye State, it is that The Bulwark has great sway on voters there—NOT!
Riker really did look like a child in the first season.
There’s no such thing as being “a little bit Bulwark.”
There is no Left or Right for them. It is simply, “who hates Trump most.” There is no other factor that goes into their thinking when selecting a candidate.
Am saying that Kristol and company would actively campaign for a candidate who said, “I will see to it that the United States gets annexed by the People’s Republic of China and I will throw Donald Trump into prison”? Yes. 100%.
Hoping he will go 55-1 on the Dr. Oz endorsement
The Bulwark and other NT witness protection hiding places have nothing to offer conservatism, they only surface often enough to remind us of their irrelevance.
Enjoy this celebratory photo of the Bulwark’s last public gathering:
I’ve been calling them the “status quoists” since Trump. Stephens said it out loud.
Stephens is writing for Pravda on the Hudson readers. Kristol is writing for his left-wing benefactors. They are cross-dressers and nothing more.
I get the sense that he might be the least-bad option based on a few things I’ve read.
What I really need to know is who the Bulwark hates. And then I’ll vote for that person.
My goodness. All the bile and hatred.
I loved J.D. Vance’s book, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” and bought a copy for my mother to read.
However, I didn’t support J.D. in the primary. Campaigning with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz were two big strikes against him. (What, Paul Gosar and Madison Cawthorne were unavailable?) Saying that he didn’t care one way or the other about Ukraine was my third strike.
On the other hand, his Democrat opponent Tim Ryan is a non-progressive “Labor” Democrat who ran against Nancy Pelosi. Tim Ryan ran for President in 2020 and was one of the half-dozen least progressive candidates. As Democrats go, Tim Ryan hasn’t drank the AOC Kool-Aid.
I want us to take back the Senate. However, it would appear that if we can do that without J.D. winning, that would be fine by me.
If J.D. Vance is a fake, then so is Tim Ryan. He’s a Democrat, after all, so he’s still woke. Feel free to peruse his website if you don’t believe me.
Still shilling for Democrats, I see.
Why all the hate for Republicans who want to put the interests of American citizens before the interests of the ruling class and their globalist oligarch pals?
I am reminded that Never Trump likewise insisted that Joe Biden was an “inoffensive Democrat” and a moderate.
Look at Tim Ryan’s voting record. He may have challenged Pelosi for the leadership slot, but a quick check of ballotpedia shows he votes in lockstep with her.
I hope you send lots of money to Tim Ryan as there are going to be so few Republicans you can support who are going to win their primaries. Let us know who you’re supporting in Arizona so we can root against them.
I don’t know about his politics, but I think Michael Moore’s vocals, like “What a Fool Believes“, were gear.
As for Neil Young, I can’t remember if he had already joined the group when they recorded “Our House”, but it was definitely a pop classic.
To be honest, I don’t remember Chomsky. Didn’t he team up with the lead guitarist of The Troggs after they broke up?
Anyway, my wife tells me I don’t remember the names of famous people very well, and maybe she’s right. So really, just, never mind.
Speaking of Chomsky, I saw this at a hipster bookstore in Columbus:
Thanks, K. I remember him now! He took over on drums for Pete Best in that one band. (Their name escapes me these last few years.)
[Victor Tango Kilo,
I’m done now, and I won’t say any more, and I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.]
The Future of the GOP
Isn’t that David French?
You are quoting a publication of The Claremont Institute?
Yes. What’s wrong with the Claremont Institute? More importantly, how is that column wrong?