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 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Only the ‘Best’
In 2016, Donald Trump promised to “only hire the best people.” By 2018, he was openly trashing most of them. What Trump demands is absolute personal loyalty. Not to the office, not to the country, but to him.
When Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds endorsed fellow governor Ron DeSantis, Trump issued a statement that said, “Two extremely disloyal people getting together is, however, a very beautiful thing to watch.” Kneel before Zod, peasants.
In the past two weeks, three high-profile individuals associated with the Trump campaign have engaged in various levels of bad behavior that has been met with absolute silence.
First, Laura Loomer, the self-styled “investigative journalist” whom Don Jr. has been promoting as his father’s next press secretary, doxxed Riley Gaines for endorsing DeSantis. Gaines appeared at a DeSantis event and was compensated for her travel and expenses and that was reported to the FEC. Loomer, who sticks her head up Trump’s rear for free, tried to paint this as a scandal and published Gaines’ home address on X (formerly Twitter), exposing her to Antifa and the rest of the transgender crazies.
Then last week, convicted felon and still Trump advisor, Roger Stone called Casey DeSantis the “C” word. Not illegal, of course, but crude and an indication of the contempt Trump & Co. have for women. That she is a loyal wife, a mother of young children, and a cancer survivor is just icing on that crap cake.
Last night, it was reported that Ryan Fournier, a co-founder of Students for Trump, was arrested for pistol-whipping his girlfriend. I guess we should be grateful that he didn’t use the business end of that gun on her.
We could hope that the other co-founder of Students for Trump will take up the slack. Oh, wait. That guy was John Lambert, and back in 2021, he was sentenced to 13 months in prison for fraud, pretending to be a New York City attorney and bilking people out of thousands of dollars. He’s still working out his supervised release and may not be available.
Only the best people. And as long as you bend the knee you’re A-Okay.
Published in Politics
Character trait or megalomania? (Pathological egotist)
Probably the same if Trump is not the nominee, just wouldn’t take as much betrayal from those supposedly on our side.
I don’t know or care. It’s your call if you are sure you’re qualified to make it.
Who the hell is Loomer? I’m not on Twitter. The most recent statistics I’ve read are that only a quarter of Americans use Twitter. I keep hearing her name as if I’m supposed to know who she is and what she says and it’s taken me a very long time to figure out whether she’s a Taylor Lorentz-style lefty or not. And I’m still not sure. I wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a police line up.
But apparently the Trump-haters hang on her every word.
Be real. The majority doesn’t know who she is and doesn’t care. And if Trump denounced her more than three-quarters of Americans would go “Who?” Ditto Ryan Fournier. I’m sure more know who Roger Stone is, and probably largely because the FBI made sure that CNN was there when they marched him off in his jammies.
Demanding that America cater to a tiny group of Twitter Twats is what’s wrong with this country.
Oh you know all about his “inner circle”? You know Loomer and Stone are monsters too and the rest of us should discard them?
What of all those who remain in the halls of influence and inner circles who have no business being there any more than Stone or Loomer, who have proven themselves timid, incompetent, or fake? I’m sure we could come up with a long list we’d both agree on.
EJ you’re raging and lashing out. I value both judgement and competence. What kind of silly question are you putting to me here? It doesn’t sound rhetorical.
Ok, “ilk” is cliche and has baggage of its own. I do try to avoid it. Too bad, though, because I think this argument is what it was made for. Either way, I withdraw “ilk”. Use whatever synonym you wish, but the loss of the negative connotation won’t help.
Calling out these minor figures is like when the media finds a Republican county board supervisor somewhere in Idaho who says something racist, and then runs from one elected Republican to the next demanding “You must denounce or we’ll assume you agree with what he just said!”
“Sealioning” one step removed?
I remember when Omarosa claimed that Trump used the “n” word and she had it on tape, and immediately the Trump haters on Ricochet demanded that Trump’s supporters must all denounce him.
Of course, the tape never surfaced, and it’s clear Omarosa made it all up. But the righteous fury of the Trump haters who clung to the lie never abated. One was still required to denounce him for something he didn’t actually do.
Guilt by association. It’s a powerful weapon.
Or the infamous “good people on both sides”. I still remember getting many a “but still” when it was pointed out that Trump didn’t call nazis good people and did in fact speak against the hatred and violence. But still, the point is Trump is bad and the ends justify the means.
With that statement I heartily agree. The media has gotten very lazy- most of their stories are just Tweets with a paragraph or two of commentary. Sick to death of it.
Which ones of these am I making up?
As in, “I don’t know who you’re talking about but I’m going to argue her merits anyway because?” Ok, then.
Let’s re-elect Trump and then let’s all hold hands later and say, “Who is this clown? Why didn’t somebody say something?!”
What amazes me is that so many of the “best he hired” turned against him. Either they all were lacking or he’s got a leadership problem. Frankly he doesn’t have the personality to lead. Owning your own company is one thing. Leading a government of elected officials is a totally different thing.
The opposition presents the school choice issue and the need for vouchers as something that only suburbanites with their excess “white privilege” have any interest in. But in many African American communities, families tighten their belts in order to give their kids a private school education. It is in some neighborhoods a real necessity. Not only does the private school help ensure a decent education of reading, writing, math & history, that place is usually in a much safer neighborhood.
They don’t all do it to the extreme that Trump does. Reagan put up with a lot of crap from his people. He didn’t go badmouthing all the people who didn’t want him to give his Evil Empire speech, for example. If it got bad enough that someone did more harm than good he got rid of them (e.g. David Stockman) but he wasn’t nearly as touchy about personal loyalty as Trump is. Of course, Trump Derangement Syndrome is more severe than Reagan Derangement Syndrome (which was bad enough) but the leftmedia didn’t hold back in publicizing internal dissension within the Reagan administration. It is deviant the way Trump does it.
He was OK. But there used to be more to Trump than this personal loyalty stuff.
To a point, guilt by association to some unknown rando is unfair and someone should not dinged for it. Seem fairer though when someone actively embraces that association. For example when Trump actively touts an endorsement by a BLM activist Mark Fisher and also claims support by BLM, reinforces in my mind that Trump is way too opportunistic and transactional (unprincipled).
No, I’m arguing that you’re taking the crazy person, connecting her to Trump, and then asking us to believe that Trump is bad because the crazy person who likes him is bad. I’m arguing that you’re using guilt by association.
No, no one is asking Trump to denounce them. Why does Trump hire them to work for him? Surely the kind of people you hire to work for you says a lot about you.
Not true. DeSantis and Haley don’t have those kind of people working for them.
Or maybe they do, but the media isn’t interested in finding them.
If it were just Trump complaining about disloyalty and no one paid attention, who cares? But a fair number of his supporters also look at it through Trump’s lens. Going all the way back to the first Republican presidential primary debate in 2015, I remember seeing someone on Ricochet call Megyn Kelly a traitor or some similar term for asking Trump hard questions. As if being a Fox News employee meant that you had sworn some pledge to only paint Donald Trump (who wasn’t even the nominee yet) in the best possible light.
How many high-profile people were brought into the Trump administration to the applause of MAGA-world and left being called a traitor, back-stabber, loser, etc by that same MAGA-world? Any high-profile person thinking of working for Trump’s next administration better not be planning on running for office afterward, because they will very likely be despised by the Trump base for some act of disloyalty or another.
Lastly, isn’t it childish for Trump to denounce these few governors and others who have endorsed another candidate? He’s just a joke.
Did those people go public with it at the time? Did they badmouth Reagan for it at the time?
Is the Trump campaign incapable of finding these people themselves? They must be pretty dumb if they can’t do the oppo research. That unless the media does the work, the Trump campaign is helpless?
Also on the topic of Trump and his former employees, I know why he’s upset with Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions. What did Elaine Chou ever do to Trump? Why does he call her “old crow Mitch McConnell’s China-loving wife, Coco Chow”? Did she actually do anything awful other than having Chinese ancestors? Why misspell her last name, and where the hell does “Coco” come from?
I was referring to Trump’s supposedly maniacal demand for loyalty, or, as it’s sometimes characterized, fealty.
However, your belief that those kind of people could never be associated with your kind of people is touching. Really. If it’s sincere then i may be starting to understand you.
Well then name one.
What did Chao do? We’ll probably never know what happens behind closed doors among the connected. However, we do know she resigned over J6, Trump’s “actions”, and explores a 25th amendment removal aith other cabinet members. That was silly and counterproductive even on J7.
Ok I take it back, there is nothing touching about you.
Did Trump’s people all go public with their criticisms before he started badmouthing them?
In Reagan’s case, as I remember it, the dissenters views had ways of getting leaked to the media, with or without the approval of the dissenter. As often happens. The media love to publicize stories of dissension within Republican administrations. A president would have to be a really slow learner not to understand this from the beginning.
I have no way of knowing for sure but many did.
Times were different when Reagan was president. I doubt things would have workes the same of he were in the internet and social media era.