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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
Keith Ellison is supposedly polling at 28% as our attorney general. The Democrat governor is at 48%. Maybe they overdid it. I know absolutely jack about elections, but that seems like a preposterously low number.
So, a post that factually points out that the Bulwark endorsed a Democrat for the Senate (much like they endorsed a Democrat for governor of VA) and that they referred to the Republican nominee as a “hillbilly” is “outrageous.”
And he wonders why people think he’s a buffoon. (The Frank Burns of Ricochet.)
It’s about as true as the Never Trump claim that Joe Biden was a moderate.
Ballotpedia tells the real story on Tim Ryan: He’s far from moderate.
There are plenty of saps out there who will buy into this dumb “He challenged Nancy Pelosi for the speakership, that means he’s a moderate” narrative. Which is why JD Vance and his team must aggressively highlight how Ryan’s voting record is 100% in lockstep with Speaker Pelosi.
Exactly. I suspect that during the campaign Ryan will try to show that he is a “moderate” but, of course, that’s crap. He’s as far Left as they come.
It’s worth remembering that Ryan started out on the staff of James Traficant (7 years in Federal Prison). I’d be willing to bet that he learned well.
When I saw him interviewed by Brett Bair the other day, he didn’t strike me as a labor Democrat. Seemed pretty elitist to me. But I don’t know much about him. Bair said Ryan voted 100% with Joe Biden. That tells you something.
@garyrobbins — “Trump: The first Republican to lose the House, the Senate and the Presidency in one term since Herbert Hoover.”
Gary, that’s very misleading. You should be ashamed of yourself. For one thing, how many Republican presidents had the House and the Senate to lose since Hoover?
One of the few that did was Dwight Eisenhower. He lost control of both in just two years, compared to Trump, who — crucially — held the Senate for four years. (Imagine what the Supreme Court would look like now if he hadn’t!)
And while Eisenhower did manage to get himself reelected, his two terms were a disaster for Republicans, with Democrats gaining overwhelming majorities in both houses. Indeed, Eisenhower did so much damage that the Republicans did not regain the Senate until 1981, and the House not until 1995.
Trump was hugely more successful than Eisenhower in this respect.
@garyrobbins — I’ve been agnostic about the stolen election hypothesis, but I just recently noticed something that strengthens the case for that.
If the election of 2020 was legitimate, then black voter turnout was substantially higher for Joe Biden in 2020 than it had been for Barack Obama in 2012.
And that’s — absurd.
What do you say?
They were just saying that on red eye radio.
There are all kinds of social statistics that indicate there was cheating. The latest is John Lott’s peer reviewed research. From what I can see he’s not getting any pushback from actual academics.
There is no Scoop Jackson type power in the Democrat party above state legislature.
Proud Biden voters must be Proud. And remember, they will vote for him again. Have promised it.
It was to be expected, Gary. The idea you are disappointed by Biden on this begs belief.
Act accordingly
Proud Biden voters must be so proud.
What’s interesting is that, according to the Bulwark and the corporate media, MAGA policies are electoral poison. And yet lockstep liberal, Tim Ryan, who has voted with Joe Biden 100%, is doing his best to sound like Donald Trump.
We did every single thing wrong in the face of the wage deflation and job destruction from automation and globalized trade. All of these things are deflationary. Better living through purchasing power. So the Fed runs with inflation anyway. Which is not capitalism or free enterprise or free markets. But then the GOPe babbles about trade. It’s a lot more complicated than that.
Trading with the Chinese mafia was one of the biggest mistakes this country has ever made. These people just want to rip off their own citizens and the whole planet.
Every single institution is failing from a libertarian and conservative point of view.
The left doesn’t mind enabling mobs to do their dirty work. Mark Levin was really good on this last night.
Could we win a war every once in a while?
The issue is ***P O L I C Y*** and dealing with the state controlled media.
Trump laid it out really well. He may not be the best guy going forward but ordinary GOP and GOPe idealism is just regression.
Does he literally sound like Trump?
People weren’t voting for Biden, they (and me) were voting against Trump.
For me, I will vote for a Democrat for President in only the second time since 1976, only if Trump or DJTJ is our nominee. Do you want to win in 2024? Don’t nominate Trump (or DJTJ)!
Everything Moves Towards Communism All Of The Time™
Proud Biden voters must be Proud. And remember, they will vote for him again. Have promised it.
Spite is the wrong reason to vote.
For what it’s worth, this is my favorite anti-Trump analyst.
This is the way I look at it. Everybody votes against. You don’t vote for things, you vote against bad things. There maybe was a time when it wasn’t like this but that’s the way it is now. Gary does not care about public policy, and the point is to vote against bad public policy. Otherwise, things go in the bad policy direction.
Humm. Since you literally repeated what you said earlier, I will repeat my response:
“For me, I will vote for a Democrat for President in only the second time since 1976, only if Trump or DJTJ is our nominee. Do you want to win in 2024? Don’t nominate Trump (or DJTJ)!”
It would be good if the people that are up on tech could evaluate with these guys are saying. I have no idea. If they made a whole movie out of it it seems like a big risk if it wasn’t pretty dependable.
I *used to* think that way, but three terms under the Bush family seared that out of me. I’m no longer motivated to vote for a Republican just because the Democrat is worse.
For the sake of argument, let’s imagine a Republican I loathe … like Mitt Romney or Lisa Murkowski … somehow ends up as the party’s 2024 nominee. Am I going to vote for Biden out of sheer spite? No, I’ll sit the election out. Because a vote is an affirmative gesture of support for the policies of the person it is cast for. As much as I loathe Mitt Romney, a vote for his opponent would be a gesture of spite, not reason.
Fair enough. I suppose my first derivative is to stick to policy.