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Message to GOPers: Words Are Not Actions
DeSantis wrote in a Wednesday post on X that “it is absurd that anyone, much less someone running for President, would choose now to attack our friend and ally, Israel, much less praise Hezbollah terrorists as ‘very smart.'”
In a recent BDB post (who is on fire of late) crystallized a vague concept I had about the legacy GOP and their over-reliance on political debate as a substitute for achieving results. I mean that quite literally.
It doesn’t really matter what we do, it only matters what we say out loud, lest someone get the wrong ideas in their pretty little heads.
I have often read on these very pages on Ricochet and elsewhere, how Trump should be more careful about how he says things because the media and Democrats will pounce on the wrong interpretation.
This in itself is laughable because these people are entirely capable of making any statement into any absurd meaning they wish.
Further, the fear GOP candidates have of being misconstrued (usually with deliberate intent) turns their statements into mild pablum, full of platitudes and devoid of strength and impact.
This is why Romney lost, and why so many GOPers fail.
Then, these very same pols who have failed to gain higher office, or failed to keep their weasel-ly promises while serving in office, gleefully join the attacks on DJT for being insufficiently vague and nuanced in his speech.
The statement from Ron DeSantis is despicable and clearly desperate. But desperation should not mitigate the reprehensible conclusion that Trump is “attack(ing) Israel” by saying these words.
Apparently Trumps actions are to be completely ignored, and his latest ‘words’, badly misinterpreted, should define his entire being.
(This, by the way, dismisses the amazing accomplishments Trump made on behalf of Israel to include the bold action to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, the Abraham accords, and granting his Jewish son-in-law close advisory position and more)
As to the substance, or lack thereof, to the charge that referring to someone being “smart” is ‘praise’ well, I fail to see that logic, and it scares me if DeSantis actually believes we should never regard our mortal enemies as being smart, cunning or resilient. He wants to be Commander-in Chief?
On the second level, does DeSantis believe this absurd attack will help his chances?
That’s not very smart, Ron.
Published in General
Have you totally missed all the direct criticism of Trump Supporters since 2015? Just passed you by, Jean?
It has been non-stop and relentless.
My point was that as we keep adding more qualifiers, “Only-Trump” looks more and more like the supporters of any other political candidate. If we keep digging down, I think that will become increasingly clear.
No, I’m not implying “most”. It was an innocent choice of words. I have no idea what percentage of Trump supporters would be in the Only Trump camp. Nor do I know what percentage of Trump supporters went to rallies. I don’t think attendance at a Trump rally makes one an Only Trumper – I have a friend who went to at least one, driving all the way from the Minneapolis area to Duluth to attend one. But she’s not an Only Trumper.
You don’t remember Gary Robbins elevating him to sainthood?!
The crux of the matter here is whether one thinks our government ( not Democrats) has treated or is treating Trump and his core supporters alongside the Jan 6 trespassers, fairly and constitutionally.
I support our Constitution basic fairness equal protection and the law evenly applied, and desire an uninfiltrated-by-Intel-agencies media. It has nothing to do with Trump as a man or as a President.
Those who are whistling by this travesty are not getting my respect or vote.
Oh no, criticism?! My heart faints! I need a safe space!
Honestly, politics is not for the overly sensitive. Criticism comes with the turf.
In case you didn’t see my comment that addressed this on the last page, I’ll repeat it here, as I think it is unique to Trump (and to Obama):
There is one difference: I don’t recall there being such loyal fans for other Republican presidents, such elevating onto a pedestal. I take your point – not every Trump supporter falls into the “Only Trump” camp – but the only other president that I have seen such emotional attachment to by some is Obama. I don’t think it’s a healthy impulse for Americans to put any politician on a pedestal. One of the aspects of my friend John’s being an “Only Trumper” is that he reacts to criticism of Trump as if were directed at him – he takes it personally. I don’t get that.
There is always a lot we don’t ‘know’. But informed speculation is quite useful. Trump got 72million votes. For it to be 5%, that would mean 3.6 million discrete attendees. At approximately 25,000 at each event he would have to have had 144 rallys, so maybe close. I did the math after, before it was just ballpark. So we do have a way of ‘knowing’, no?
Reagan was not constantly vilified unfairly and impeached twice and falsely charged with scores of accusations. Then you would have seen people start defending him and taking it personally.
I was politically engaged and lived trough Reagan. He was hated by many Democrats and the pattern never left. By the time Trump came along it was in boy-who-cried-wolf territory for me. Sad to watch so many Republicans still hold that they won’t do the same to the next guy they nominate.
Read some of the comments on this site and you can see where that impression comes from…
Aside from the “impeached twice”, I have a hard time believing you were politically engaged during Reagan’s Presidency if you really believe that he wasn’t “constantly vilified unfairly” and “falsely charged with scores of accusations.”
People frequently make heroes of people who have died, fairly or unfairly. I’m talking about people acting this way in regards to a living politician.
Impeached, no. But he was constantly vilified unfairly. I know – I’m old enough to remember. Reagan was actually the first president I voted for when I turned 18. But I will agree with you that it has been over-the-top for Trump. Trump Derangment Syndrome is real – just ask people whose families won’t speak to them, or who lost friendships, because they voted for Trump! I think Trump uniquely inspires extreme loyalty and extreme hatred. I know the Left hated Reagan, but they are positively apoplectic about Trump.
Oh, please….that’s rich.
Maybe Drew should have said instead of “criticism”, false charges, lies, bogus prosecutions, half truths and insults. This, combined with a complete refusal to acknowledge clear vindication in many circumstances.
My god, Trump calls someone a silly name and his opponents clutch their pearls in horror! Believe me it’s not the Trump supporters who are the overly sensitive ones here.
Bryan wasn’t referring to criticism of Trump, he was referring to criticism of Trump supporters.
I gave a reply in comment #89, but I’ll address it again from a different angle.
We can agree that this dynamic started with Obama. The Great Uniter was the most divisive President of my lifetime. It was he, not Trump, who set off the great fissure in our country. With the left becoming increasingly vocal about adopting radical new policies, the right had to respond in due kind and with equal fervor purely in the interests of self-preservation.
He was hated by the GOP elite to start with too
I agree – Obama was extremely divisive, all the while pretending to be the Great Uniter. I don’t think he minded all of those loyal fans who saw him as the Messiah – I think he basked in it. Utterly revolting.
I don’t mind the Right responding with equal fervor and (with some exceptions) in due kind. But I don’t think putting any politician up on a pedestal the way some progressives did is either necessary or healthy.
Well, don’t believe it then. My recollection is that the tone was entirely different, reporting was much ‘fairer’ Reagan and Tip were buddies. Of course there were hard core lefties who criticized him but they were fringe at that time
He wasn’t accused of collusion with a foreign power with no real evidence and what there was was fabricated by the intelligence community , he wasn’t taken entirely out of context and accused of naziism and racism and much more. I could go on at length.
Oh “ besides being impeached twice” lol. That’s pretty significant in itself. This was in one term by the way.
Yes I was very engaged. Were you? I wonder. Or maybe you’re not seeing the present very clearly. One or the other.
I don’t either, but every candidate is going to have that to some extent. It got worse following Obama because the stakes are so much higher now. The Democrats have dropped all semblance of playing by the rules and have systematically destroyed every norm that the GOP leadership warned us about losing under Trump. Their politicans supported actual insurrections in Portland, the prosecution of political rivals and are now floating the idea of stacking the courts. They are the archetypical bully who punches you then hides behind the teacher when you try to defend yourself.
There are people who still believe that Reagan, before the election, arranged for the Iranians to hold the hostages until afterwards. H.W. Bush was alleged to have flown to Iran in an SR-71 to make the deal.
Now I know you weren’t there. He was constantly accused of racism. Right from the first day of his campaign, when his announcement was supposedly a dog-whistle to the KKIK because he made it from a city that was the scene of some racist event years earlier.
You probably could. Based on what you just said here, I’d expect it to he equally laughable.
Only Trump…no?
Not clear at all. “ My candidate or not voting “ is not typical of supporters of most candidates.
That some people believed these things is not the same as the mass media treating these things as true and focusing upon it every day.
They were widely considered conspiracy theories- even by the partisan media. Sam Donaldson was the only pestering reporter in the WHPC.
Yeah, it was exactly the same… MSNBC didn’t exist. CNN was an actual news organization albeit biased. Not like today’s CNN.
Did some washed up comedienne do a Vanity Fair photo shoot with a mock-up of Reagan’s severed head? How many celebs threatened to leave the country in 1980?
Was Carson making Reagan jokes every night? Any jokes about Reagan were tame and normal not hateful and malicious. Now there are 4-5 late night shows all vilifying Trump. The lies about what Trump said about “nice people on both sides” please cite something equivalent from the Reagan years. Yes the was an assassination attempt on Reagan – a lone crazy. Had some nut shot Trump ( I’m almost amazed it hasn’t happened) he’d be lionized and celebrated. You don’t think so?
Im talking about differences of quality quantity and severity.
AGAIN ….”besides two impeachments” 😂😂😂!
You get to take two giant examples off the table and then claim I’m wrong in my statement ? Homey don’t play that game.
I say my team won the game and Miffed the (theoretical) Dallas Cowboys fan retorts…except for those two long drives ending in touchdowns, we played better and won the game. Hilarious. That’s the kind of logic that’s laughable here.
Beyond that, I’m not sure if you’re capable of making the distinctions between generic leftist accusations in The Nation and Ramparts magazine which never resulted to action ( such as impeachment) and the endless Russia collusion hoax, and coordinated attacks by partisan media, Intel agencies and the DOJ and typical left wing political agitprop.
The level of character assassination with Trump was far in excess of Reagan. Reagan was called a ‘likeable dunce’ by many.
And I’m sorry to say, at some point I’m going to punch you in the nose for basically calling me a liar. So far this is all rhetorical.
I’m not saying Reagan escaped all unfair criticism in case you’re mind-reading. I was there then and I’m here now. If you really think it’s the same level ( even excluding the two impeachment LOL) I honestly can’t understand your position.
No. Bolded for the reading impaired.
The Left destroys everything it touches, and it only has regard for rules as long as rules hamper its opponents.
Reagan and Tip were buddies? There may have been moments when i wasn’t looking when Tip was polite to him. But buddies? Are you sure you remember the 80s?
You missed my point entirely. The initial comments that led to this exchange were:
“DeSantis is a smarter, more competent version of Trump. I don’t understand why any Trump supporter has an issue with him.”
“Because they’re Only Trumpers. It doesn’t matter who the other options are.”
My reply was to consider the possibility that People have reasons for supporting Trump over DeSantis and to provide my own personal reasons. As the discussion continued, I noted that the category of “Only-Trump” voters was never really defined so we discussed that in more depth. The point I was making in the highlighted quote was that after all the qualifiers that were added to the “Only-Trump” group during the course of the discussion were taken into account, the monolithic “Only-Trump” actually turns out to be a group of people with varying reasons for supporting him. In other words, much more similar to groups that support other candidates than the initial comment implied. Comments #24, #29, #32 and #34 have the context.
Yes I do. Search Reagan Tip O’Niell and look at the first results. Here’s one from the Reagan library. That should be a pretty authoritative source…
That’s one example from my little spat with MWM. Is that your only dispute with my overall point that Reagan was not attacked and railroaded on the same level as Trump? His claim? Or are you just nitpicking?
I’ve glanced at that and tried to google for it, but see nothing so far to show that they were buddies. Maybe I’ll still come up with something substantive. Maybe when their careers were about over Reagan and O’Neill acknowledged each other respectfully. Reagan would have been decent at any time. They did say nice things about the other when the situation called for it (which is not the same as being buddies) but one of my main memories of Tip O’Neil was his disrespectful yucking it up behind Reagan’s back when the man was giving a SOTU. During his presidency the media and the Democrats were hating Reagan 24/7. After Reagan was safely out of the picture there were lots of RINOs and Democrats who tried re-inventing history and saying, “why can’t we be civil with each other like Reagan and Tip O’Neill were.” I expect they’ll do the same about Trump when DeSantis is president.
I don’t think the Democrats sent the state security agencies after Reagan the way they did against Trump, so in that sense things were different in those days. But when Howard Metzenbaum’s office told a black university woman (I think a professor) who had flown to Washington to testify for one of Reagan’s judicial nominees (I think Bork) that if she knew what was good for her career she would get right back on a plane and go home, we were dealing with stuff in the same ballpark as we’ve been seeing against Trump. So maybe if the level of railroading and attack against Trump is rated as 90 on a scale of 1-100, they only did an 80 against Reagan. Against DeSantis it’ll probably be a 95.
So I’m arguing against your larger point, but when people post nits I’m going to feel free to pick them.