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.
Who Will Be Crushed When the Arc of the Moral Universe Bends?
Dear, dear Leftist Friends, remember: There are no principles. Only situations. And if you believe that the situations are only going to be the ones that pit good Democrats against wicked Republicans…you haven’t read nearly enough history.
Scenario #1:
The righteous, totally noble, completely non-corrupt, and un-self-interested Democrats succeed in indicting Donald Trump and sending him to the hoosegow. Hurrah! Problem solved.
Except that the Republican base, now really fired up, elects a Republican — say, Ron DeSantis — as president.
What will that Republican president do?
Remember back in 2015, when attendants at Trump’s rallies would chant “Lock Her Up” about Hillary, and the mainstream media fretted that Trump would, if elected, actually do it? That is, that he would weaponize the law enforcement resources of the Federal Government against his political rivals?
As it turned out, he never did this—The Donald never sent van-loads of FBI agents to Chappaqua to toss the belongings of Hill and Bill. He was, it seems, constrained by the Constitution and by the precedent that has held in the United States for over two centuries regarding the treatment of political adversaries, especially former presidents and their (im)moral myrmidons. Imagine!
That precedent ensured that, no matter how bitter the campaign, or even what dodgy or corrupt behavior the preceding president and his minions were suspected of, they would be left unmolested after leaving office. In order to ensure a peaceful transition, speeches would instead be made about “moving on” and “looking to the future.”
Well, no longer! There are no principles. Only situations.
And so, on the first day of President DeSantis’ first term, look for buses filled with FBI agents to roll into the driveway of the Biden’s house in Delaware, while the IRS—those 87,000 brand new agents!—takes a look-see into the Biden family finances.
Oh, and since Hilary Clinton’s possible crimes (That’s what FBI Director Comey admitted they were, by the way) are still within the statute of limitations, the DOJ will send agents belatedly to Chappaqua too. Who knows what they’ll find, if they just start opening drawers and breaking into safes? Since it’s extraordinarily unlikely that the Secretary of State could’ve had an unauthorized and non-secured server without her boss, the president, knowing about it, the Obamas, too, can look forward to having armed federal agents dispatched to any one (or, what the heck, all three!) of their mansions.
Scenario #2:
The machinations of the elderly but still surprisingly spry leadership of the Democratic Party succeeds in completely crushing not just Trump but the whole Republican party. The Orange Monster is wearing an orange jumpsuit, his 77 million Deplorables have been squashed, their fields salted, the air ringing with the lamentations of their women. The dreams of Bette Midler and Don Lemon have come true.
The next president (and the next and the next) will be Democrats. (Planet saved!)
There art thou happy?
Or …not so much?
As I write this, uber-leftists are indignantly Tweeting that the Build-Back-A-Little-Less-Better bill that passed last week was completely inadequate since it contained no provision for actually ending capitalism. They’re furious.
We human beings are an indignant, fury-prone, competitive, and fractious bunch. External enemies tend to unite us (hence the constant drumbeat TrumpTrumpTrump from the Democratic party, and hence —this week—-the increased unity among Republicans apres Mar-A-Lago).
Remove the external threat, and frictions inevitably erupt within the tribe. These often prove at least as lethally divisive.
Let’s take the obvious: The Democratic Party, having purged itself of actual moderates, is now divided between the far left, the far, far left, and the far, far-far (Antifa) left.
The far far left — the Democratic-Socialist-Bernie-Bro faction — is at odds with the Supposedly-Moderate, far-left, Hillary-ite establishment.
Who remembers what happened in 2015? The Bernie Bros do.
Bernie wuz robbed.
Bernie should’ve gotten the nomination, but Team Hillary maneuvered him out of first place. Lucky for Hillary, Bernie is essentially an establishment guy who (really) only talks the talk. And besides, there was TrumpTrumpTrump to consider.
Fast forward to 2023. No more Trump to Trumpet about, and when the Dems finally admit that Ol’ Joe is doo-lally, Hillary hears America calling, begging her to bring her youthful vim, experience and that trademark mod-Dem unifying normalcy to the White House.
Democratic Socialist true believers, not inclined to embrace four more years of Botoxed ersatz leftism and still yearning for the real deal, field a primary candidate, one younger, browner, female-er and much more charismatic (not that this is difficult). AOC from the DSA naively threatens not only to get rid of all the farting cows but also to sic those 87,000 IRS agents on the actual rich. This is a popular campaign promise. AOC is looking pretty good in the polls, and even manages to win a few early state primaries.
Yeah, well: Not to worry. Team Hillary “wins” the election. Of course, she does.
What does the New York Times do with AOC’s outraged claims of election irregularities now that everyone knows that an election won by an establishment Democrat is free, fair, and squeaky-clean by definition? How will it regard the street protests when these erupt (as they will?) at Hillary’s inauguration?
Will the presence of some far-far-far left ANTIFA protesters among the street protesters be tactfully overlooked…or this time, will the smashed-in Starbucks windows and Molotov cocktails be highlighted, analyzed, outed as indicators of the real intentions of AOC and the not-so-mostly-peaceful character of her opposition to Hillary?
What would prevent the new president from using the power of the federal government to go after AOC and other political rivals within the left with as much ferocity as was deployed against Trump? What (other than the high moral character of Hillary herself, of course) prevents the DSA from being subjected to electronic surveillance on the basis of a secret FISA Court warrant, censorship by the multi-billionaires of Twitter, Google, and Facebook, an attorney general who simply refuses to enforce laws against harassing and threatening DSA-friendly judges and justices at their homes, dawn raids by armed G-men, or the conjuring of an unanswerable charge of long-ago sexual assault while professional feminists dutifully chant Believe All Women?
It is worth recalling that, having taken power, Hitler’s first victims were other German gentiles—first the Communists and the social democrats but soon enough, other Nazis. Remember the Night of the Long Knives? Hitler eliminated 200 members of his own party—people who thought of themselves as loyal friends of the regime. And of course, the same thing happened, again and again, in God knows how many of Stalin’s Commie-on-Commie purges.
Never imagine that you and yours have a permanent place on the Right Side of History…
Published in General
I despise these moral equivalency games. The difference between Hillary and Donald Trump is that Hillary SHOULD HAVE HAD her home raided, and her computers/servers and cell phones confiscated because SHE SHARED TOP SECRET information over an unsecure server with America’s enemies!! She should STILL be indicted — TODAY!! — and frog-marched in an orange jumpsuit into federal prison for her betrayal of America. And then, you know who would be next? Barack Obama. because he knew what she was doing and even used a pseudonym to communicate with her because of it. Donald Trump refrained from all this, but judged by recent events, that was a mistake.
Anytime you’re wondering who the heroes and villains are, ask yourself this: who’s REALLY on the side of the ordinary American? Ultra-MAGA King or Felony “basket of deplorables” Clinton?
/sorry for the all caps, but ever since one of the R> “upgrades,” italics is weak and pathetic. Like the excuse-making for Democrats and their treasonous media enablers. But, I repeat.
They don’t. Why would that be?
I’d put it down to taqqiyya.
Well, I’m not sure about now. I just remember then.
I specifically remember back in 2016 when Trump was doing his “Lock Her Up!” schtick during the campaign, after he won there was a lot of Harumphing among the Serious Class(tm) that winning politicians going after their defeated opponents [over allegations of mishandling of classified documents] was the stuff of which banana republics were made and that the Trump administration should leave Hillary alone.
Of course, now that the Biden administration is going after Trump [over allegations of mishandling of classified documents], when Trumps defenders start yelling “Banana Republic!”, they’re being told by the Serious Class(tm) not to be so hysterical.
It’s almost like they have no solid principles at all…
Egypt is a US Client state?
Like I said, I don’t know about now . . . but back then Obama was best buddies with the Muslim Brotherhood and got big mad when Al-Sisi took over. That’s why he sent McCain and Graham to demand that Al-Sisi give the MB a seat at the table in the new government and threatened to withhold any U.S. aid unless he did. And I don’t think he did.
How are things today?
I was going to respond, but you took the words right out of my mouth. And I was going to use the term “legal equivalency” though, but they’re essentially the same.
I might add that reports are that the seized Trump documents were all declassified by Trump while in office, and Hillary’s 30,000 emails were not declassified.
That’s the way invasions have been done for millenia.
The difference in Grenada was there was no invasion other than a thwarted one.
There is absolutely no freaking way the Secretary of State DIDN’T share state secrets with our enemies on her unsecure server. No. Way. And as a cabinet head, she knew exactly what the requirements for securing classified information were and she violated every stinkin’ norm and standard to protect her sorry a$$ from the prosecution she so richly deserved (deserves).
Can you tell I’m angry?
I may be angry but I’m far more concerned; about the use of law enforcement to punish conservatives, including the 87K IRS agents. We know for certain that the IRS was used against conservative in the past, and now with US flag wavers being declared “domestic terrorists” and the willingness to punish the DC political prisoners, it looks like being a concerned citizen who believes in the Constitution is going to put a target on everyone’s back. And I don’t see a resolution to this.
But what makes me angry are the people, especially conservatives, who present this as normal working of law and government, something that is unfortunate but relatively benign and subject to the proverbial (and inaccurate) pendulous swing of political give and take.
How anyone can say that Hillary, who apparently actually committed illegal breaches of security, and who green-lighted the sale of uranium (of all things) to Russia to the financial advantage of her family is less of a concern that a president taking copies of unclassified documents to supplement his own recollections and records, AND saying that he did it for the purposes of espionage, shows either supreme ignorance or supreme malignance. And that is what I find truly dangerous.
Well, I forgot to mention “frightened.” I’ve lived in a Republican county in a (formerly) purple state since 1983. I’m changing my voter registration ASAP. I will no longer be known as voting in the Republican primaries (we’re a caucus state for the presidential elections anyway). As an independent, Colorado voters get both ballots for local/state elections, so if I do vote in the Republican primaries, my party affiliation will be opaque to any inquirers. Supposedly.
Fortunately, Mr. C and our kids have always been registered independent, so there’s that.
Lord have mercy, look where the Left has brought us.
The more pressing question is whether Americans believe in US elections anymore.
She conceded the day after the election:
She may have given a pro forma concession but she never accepted the legitimacy of her loss and Trump’s win. For one of many examples, in a September 2019 CBS news interview, nearly three years into Trump’s term, she said this:
“No, it doesn’t kill me because he knows he’s an illegitimate president,” she said. “I believe he understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories — he knows that — there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did.”
AND:
Clinton compared her election loss to “applying for a job and getting 66 million letters of recommendation and losing to a corrupt human tornado. And so I know that he knows that this wasn’t on the level. I don’t know that we’ll ever know what happened.”
***
No, she acquiesced, but she always said the election and Trump’s win were illegitimate. This is not merely sour grapes or complaining about styles of campaigning, it’s calling the 2016 US election results illegitimate. This in itself is nearly identical to what Trump has been saying about the 2020 election.
And Time magazine at least partially backs Trump’s accusations up.
Just changed my party affiliation to “Unaffiliated.” It makes me wonder about all those new Republican voters in Florida, not that I’m paranoid or anything.
They only seem to believe in them when they like the outcome. Which is…..disturbing.
This is just more insulting bumper-sticker philosophizing. We may lament the outcomes but we never as a great percentage of the population believed that elections were grossly and illegally conducted before. Not in my lifetime.
How about you and in your country? A-okay, right?
Because your side lost. Right?
Australia is okay. India not so much.
Yeah, even those accepting the results should be able to admit 2020 was unprecedented in multiple ways what with COVID and the influence of social media magnates (Zuckerbucks). . . if they’re honest.
Don’t be silly again. Read St. Augustine’s work on it if you don’t know about it.
No, I assume there’s been fraud even when Republicans win. The Democrats just didn’t steal enough votes at that point. Republicans are always required not only to get the most legitimate votes, but get past the margin of fraud as well.
Do you think Republicans ever commit fraud when it comes to elections? Or is the problem all on one side?
Here is what disturbs me Mr. Oik. Conservatives are very concerned about fraud by Democrats – and fair enough, if there’s a lot of fraud that’s terrible. But they aren’t concerned about gerrymandering which, while legal and therefore ‘legitimate’, truly undermines democracy at a very deep level.
Is it excessively pollyannaish to want people to be concerned about both?
Regards
Saddened in Sydney
You’re apparently not aware that inter-party fighting sometimes culminating in court battles happens frequently. It’s always been a hot issue.
No, we’ve lost before. What’s different is that this time Trump refused to concede and continues to insist he actually won and the election was “stolen” from him.
Not precisely accurate. Here’s what CNN said about his concession, if you dare:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/trump-biden-us-capitol-electoral-college-insurrection/index.html
Much like Hillary (and Al Gore to some extent), he conceded, but he’s convinced the election was rigged/stolen. I and many, many other Americans believe our lyin’ eyes (True the Vote with video evidence) and think he’s right. Zafar would like this to be the moral equivalent of gerrymandering, but it has been the case for my politically aware lifetime (even when I was a lefty) that when elections at any level are close and disputed, the Democrat usually manages to “pull ahead” in the end. It’s just that Joe Biden had the “most extensive voter fraud” organization in history.
Talk about a Fraudian slip.
Not at all. I would love to set some algorithm free to design state districts that would attempt to keep them looking almost like a grid of squares overlaid on a state, slight adjustments made here and there as necessary for population.
Not sure he is a true hearted anything. He plays a role, co-opting the side of the discussion that could possibly lead to real reform.
Sure he looks and sounds like a Commie. But a real Commie wouldn’t be more dedicated to the plunder that comes his way for instilling Communist fervor in a large proportion of the Left’s followers than to actually undertaking the activities that might lead to real change.
People who would have never directed any of their hard-earned money to Hillary in 2016 eagerly contributed to Bernie’s war chest that year. When the DNC then swiped those funds, Bernie looked the other way, wearing his injured expression of indignation allied with “Well there is nothing I can do about this.”
Amazingly he played the same game in the spring of 2020. (I guess some people never learn.)
In both election years, he could have refused to be the D Party’s stooge and started his own movement. He is the poster boy for “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
So pls explain this to me:
Notice in the below photos the jump in the numbers of voters between Obama’s 2008 election and Trump’s 2016 election: it is a five million voter increase over 8 years. Given that it is over 8 years, it is not a significant increase in voter numbers.
Analyzing the 2016 victory of Trump over Clinton, not portrayed in below photo, Trump had 63 million votes, and Clinton had 68 million. (He won through the power of the Electoral College.)
This adds up to 131 million voters.
But then, just 4 years later, Biden has 81 million voters marking their ballots for him? Against Trump’s 74 million voters?
Which adds up to 155 million voters. This is a huge increase in voter numbers – and all in 4 short years!
Did every single illegal immigrant who came across the border Jan 2017 to Nov 2020 get granted citizenship during those 4 years so they could vote?