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Binary Option: Anyone on the Public Right Publicly Not Supporting Trump is Supporting Harris
The simple binary outcome of this election is that either Trump or Harris will win. What we have, again, is many on what I am calling the Public Right declaring Trump unfit for office or that they will not vote for him. This helps Harris get elected. There is no squirming out of that. They can say they are being principled all they want to. It does not matter. They can sleep soundly at night, knowing their principles dictated helping Harris, who in theory, stands against everything in which they believe, win.
Thus, I will lay part of the blame for a Trump loss at the feet of the Public Right who did not support him. These include all the Never Trumpers at NRO, and anyone with any voice, any sense of public communications. In the battleground states, a few votes may make the difference. Those few votes could well be swayed by hearing the anti-Trump Public Right come around to supporting Trump.
It is clear to me that those not supporting Trump on the Public Right just don’t care. They don’t care what Biden has done to the nation, they don’t care what Harris will do. It’s all OK. No worries. All that is important is they feel good about themselves. Ironically, this is just like the voters on the left. All that matters to them is feeling good about themselves.
Maybe the anti-Trump Public Right is not so on the Right after all.
Published in General
Headline – Not?
Heh.
Note, they are not!
Absolutely true. Just like in 2020.
You say “binary”, but “support” is an analog thing.
Being Public Right and saying you are not going to vote for Trump is not supporting him.
If Trump loses, I blame Trump and the people who voted for him in the primaries. DeSantis and Haley always had a better shot in the General.
Since Trump won the most votes in the Primary, and with democracy being all the rage these days, anyone NOT voting for DJT is voting for the last person in the room with President Biden during the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Which is unforgivable
Another thought Bryan- these public voices of which you speak maybe be hoping for a Harris presidency as it will give them something to complain and write about. They may be putting their own interests above that of the country.
Unforgivable.
I look at it a different way.
We will still have the Administrative State, either way.
If Harris is President we have a Unified Administrative State in a good position to strengthen itself and subdue the people.
If Trump is President there will be no Unified Administrative State but the conflict between the people and the State will intensify.
The terms Right, Left, Republican, and Democrat are no longer definitive.
Doesn’t change the point of your post and I agree with that.
So what? If Haley or DeSantis were nominated and won the election that’s a win for a Unified Administrative State.
I am sick of hearing this nonsense. The assumption seems to be that switching out Trump for Haley would not have cost any votes. Not true. A lot of Trump people simply would not have voted for Haley. They might have left the top slot blank or maybe not bothered to vote at all.
David French said that voting for Harris is sending a message that Trump and MAGA are losing strategies. What is actually happening is that David French is sending a message that he is contemptible [redacted]
What?? It wouldn’t have been a binary choice if Haley had won? By the “logic” of this post, if Haley had won and it was now a contest between Haley and Harris, then “a lot of Trump people,” as you refer to them, would be supporting Harris if they didn’t vote for Haley.
And?
And so just as Trump supporters might have their reasons for not voting for Haley, if she was the candidate, so Trump skeptics might have their reasons. Calling the election “binary” is an oversimplification – not all of us live in swing states, and some people might be single-issue voters whose concerns aren’t being addressed by either candidate. No doubt other voters have other reasons not to vote. But by all means, go on and insult them! Now that’s the way to persuade…
Well that will piss off the majority of the party and probably will cause a backlash against the weaker candidates, DeSantis and Haley.
Neither Haley nor DeSantis would have won if a majority vote for KamalamaDingDong and her comfort animal.
You have a remarkable ability to hear things that aren’t being said. I haven’t insulted anyone. I just said that the assumption that substituting Haley for Trump would give better results in the general is wrong and I’m sick of hearing it. A man much smarter than I once said, “Look for the hidden assumption.” The assumption(s) here is that Haley would pick up NeverTrumpers and not lose anyone from Trump’s base. I think that’s a false assumption and I can name two voters who would not vote for Haley: Rand Paul and I. Paul put together a “NeverNikki” website describing why. Maybe it’s still out there though it is OBE now.
I would have voted for DeSantis, but that also is OBE.
Democrats use popular vote differences to push for eliminating the Electoral College.
Sorry – I wasn’t referring to you when I mentioned insults. I had in mind the items listed in the original post – they don’t care about the country, it’s all about feeling good about themselves, blah blah blah. I understand it’s just venting and anger, but it really does oversimplify the reasons one might sit out this election.
I don’t think it’s entirely venting and anger. I think it’s partly honest confusion and I share it. Bryan and I have locked horns a few times over the years, but I still respect the fact that he is trying to understand NTs. I, OTOH, don’t give a damn about them anymore.
Your “hidden assumption” logic is correct and similarly applicable to the case a few weeks back when everyone and their dog was condescendingly counseling Trump to not be Trump so he could pick up the “feeling” undecided and “virtue-signaling” independent vote as if there was no impact to the existing voting base. Such shallow analysis does little but fluff the pillows in their NT comfort zones. To each his own…
That line about the hidden assumption was from Albert Einstein. He said the assumption everyone made that was so natural that it was never questioned was that time and space are constants.
The best pro-Trump argument in 2016 came from a woman (could have been Mollie): “Yes, he’s not a good moral conscience, but I’m not looking for a husband I can love; I’m looking for a bodyguard who can do the job. It’s not a sentimental relationship on either side.”
I have read on Ricochet and elsewhere, about a thousand times, a variation of “Get this straight. I’m voting Republican on November 5, but don’t forget, I’m not a Republican, I’m not a member of GOPe, I’m a proud Trump person.”
Fine. I’ll be standing next to you at the polling place in November. But get this straight: I’m not a Trump person. I’m a proud Republican. Trump was often a powerful advocate of GOP causes, but not always, and when he wasn’t I usually disagreed with him. But for all the endless insults of the GOP on this site, he was our Republican president.
So if you want to disdain my vote, go ahead, but I doubt Trump disdains it. Fact is, he couldn’t have pulled off 2016 without a lot of non-Republican votes too. He got a lot of independents and fed-up Democrats.
Anyone trying to turn this into a right-wing ‘base” election is writing a prescription for defeat.
I was with you up to this point. What makes you think we will have no unified administrative state under Trump? I think Trump will ruffle enough administrative state feathers that he will be considered a threat to the administrative state, which is not nothing, but I don’t know how he’s going to make it less unified.
There are definitely things that could be done to chip away at that monolith, such as breaking up the DHS. But I haven’t heard him say anything about that, and by itself would not be nearly enough to do it.
I’m not sick of hearing it, and I don’t know why you think it assumes that nominating Haley would not have cost any votes. I doubt there is anybody who thinks that.
Then listen to that nonsense all you want. I am through with it.
Haley “has a better shot” was the statement. Explain that if you can. The only way that works is if she can pick up votes that Trump can’t get without losing part of the Trump base.
If nobody thinks that’s possible, and you said you doubt anybody thinks that . . .
Absolutely. Does the Trump base understand this?
No, that’s not the only way it works. It depends on the actual quantities, which nobody knows for sure.
I doubt that anybody thinks that it could be done without losing some Trump votes.
Some probably do, and some don’t.