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Brad Thor: Trump is an Extinction Level Threat to American Democracy
Best-selling spy novel author Brad Thor just gave a remarkable interview on the Glenn Beck show in which he passionately explained why Donald Trump represents “an extinction level” threat to American democracy. I’m in full agreement. Here are Thor’s remarks, as reported by Lori, a journalist employed by the Beck organization. Everyone should read this.
“I think Trump is an extinction-level event potentially for our republic, for democracy. This is one of the greatest crises our nation has seen since the Great Depression, since World War II — is a potential Donald Trump presidency. It is a disaster for liberty,” Thor said. Glenn doesn’t often struggle to have his voice heard, but Thor’s passion overwhelmed the conversation.
“Listen, Andrew Sullivan, who I’m not a big fan…I don’t agree with a lot of stuff Andrew Sullivan writes…he wrote a brilliant piece recently in New York Magazine, and he said, “Democracies end when they are too democratic.” And he looked at Plato’s republic and some of the thoughts Plato had on democracy, and how, when there are no values, when anything is possible, when everything goes, that’s when a tyrant steps in and takes control of what Plato calls an “obedient mob.” It’s exactly what Trump has done. It is a brilliant, brilliant piece of writing. And I encourage everybody to read it,” Thor said.
Thor’s intensity surprised Glenn. “I’ve never heard you like this, Brad,” Glenn said.
“I’m terrified,” Thor answered.
Glenn reminded Thor of when he rang the bell about Barack Obama, but never said anything like an “extinction-level event.”
“Listen, I believe it was somebody at National Review that used that exact term, and it resonated with me…”
You can read the entire exchange, or listen to the audio, at Beck’s website.
Published in General
I’ve not met Sal in person, but the photos we’ve exchanged he is rather dashing and he married very well.
Thank you for the flag and helping maintain the high intellectual standards and dinner conversation that are the hallmark of Ricochet.
We now return to our regular scheduled Zubrinpalooza.
Here’s The full article.
Brad Thor, author of the new book Foreign Agent, joined The Glenn Beck Program to sound the alarm and rally Americans behind stopping Donald Trump — and he came out with both guns blazing.
“I think Trump is an extinction-level event potentially for our republic, for democracy. This is one of the greatest crises our nation has seen since the Great Depression, since World War II — is a potential Donald Trump presidency. It is a disaster for liberty,” Thor said.
Glenn doesn’t often struggle to have his voice heard, but Thor’s passion overwhelmed the conversation.
“Listen, Andrew Sullivan, who I’m not a big fan…I don’t agree with a lot of stuff Andrew Sullivan writes…he wrote a brilliant piece recently in New York Magazine, and he said, “Democracies end when they are too democratic.” And he looked at Plato’s republic and some of the thoughts Plato had on democracy, and how, when there are no values, when anything is possible, when everything goes, that’s when a tyrant steps in and takes control of what Plato calls an “obedient mob.” It’s exactly what Trump has done. It is a brilliant, brilliant piece of writing. And I encourage everybody to read it,” Thor said.
Thor’s intensity surprised Glenn.
“I’ve never heard you like this, Brad,” Glenn said.
“I’m terrified,” Thor answered.
Glenn reminded Thor of when he rang the bell about Barack Obama, but never said anything like an “extinction-level event.”
“Listen, I believe it was somebody at National Review that used that exact term, and it resonated with me. …Trump is a boorish orange raccoon. He is an absolute jackass. He is. I’ve said that on your show before. I despise Trump just because he’s such a boorish jackass. But the problem is, is that — damn it, damn it fellow Republicans — damn you, fellow conservatives, who cannot see the potential for tyranny in this man. Shame on you, shame on you all. And damn you all to hell who refuse to acknowledge the potential for tyranny.
“I don’t care that things might be good under Trump. That’s not good enough to gamble America’s freedom away on. It is there for everyone with eyes to see, that this man is a potential tyrant. He is a caudillo; he is a South American strongman waiting to come into power here in the United States. He will demonize anybody that stands in his way. Congress will not stop this man. We had some of our best and brightest in my lifetime on the GOP side, lined up in this primary, and he steamrolled all of them. And he didn’t do it with great ideas. He did it by being an ass, by insulting them, by making things up.
“How the hell do you debate with somebody who pulls facts out of his butt? This guy talked about stuff that wasn’t even true. These poor Republicans brought knives to a tactical nuke fight. They couldn’t win against him. And you’re telling me Congress will stand up to tyranny from Donald Trump? It will never happen. He will demagogue members of the press, members of Congress, judges. He will steamroll them, the same way dictators in South America do. It’s going to happen here. We cannot cede the battlefield to this man. There is still a fight to be had and still a fight to be won. Let’s get back in this fight.”
Thor’s intensity was palpable.
Source: http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/25/brad-thor-trump-is-a-potentially-extinction-level-event-for-our-republic/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link
No time to wade into this discussion, but if Zubrin wants a high IQ take-down of Sullivan/Thor, I heartily recommend the following:
http://journalofamericangreatness.blogspot.it/2016/05/trump-sullivan-and-caesarism.html?m=1
Only to the extent that making something illegal, antisocial and impossible to afford doesn’t destroy it.
Sounds like Thor is referencing Vince Flynn’s storyline from Term Limits.
A little off-topic, but has anyone read Thor’s Code of Conduct, released last year? There was so much sanctimonious inner dialogue and proselytizing that it was unreadable. At least 25% of the book was unrelated to the plot.
I’ll stick with Dan Silva, Vince Flynn, and Kyle Mills.
I knew I liked you!
This is spot on. People say things, but don’t act as if they believe them. Perfect.
Obama was an existential threat, and undoing the damage he has done will be difficult, but he will be gone. The threat isn’t realized until there has been another radical leftist President like him, a couple more Supreme Court appointments like his, and another decade of growth of Federal power, strangling of the economy, growth of our external debt and weakening of American Security. Hillary represents this existential threat. We can’t know what Trump represents but a separate question, what will either administration do in the next four years to reduce the likelihood of a dollar collapse, and if they fail how will they respond to it? That is the issue that bothers me about Trump more than any other, and is the reason I want to know who his Secretary of Treasury and other cabinet members will be.
Every time I get set to join the NT brigade, there’s another reconquista riot.
Remember, Trump is a national socialist, not to be confused with a National Socialist ( despite pictures of flag waving Nazi’s).
The Republican party hasn’t been conservative since Reagan, yet conservatism lives. So if the pope is bad should I just give up Catholism. This country has had bad leaders before and we’ve survivied. This argument that Trump means the end of conservatism indicates to me that many conservatives do not think it is a very strong philosophy.
Now, now, letting in illegals who have open talk of secession from the Union is being Pro-America, while wanting to build a wall and keep enemies out is Fascist.
And using executive power to circumvent the law is only wrong with a Republican does it.
The fact that Zoobrin’s posts are immediately promoted to the main feed is a sharp slap in the face to the members who write infinitely better posts, but who are not promoted. At least we know one thing for sure: Ricochet is no meritocracy.
I think it shows where the hearts of the editors lie.
I suspect that a contributor whose work is not man feed material is no longer a contributor. I guess The Zoob is waffling around his recent talking-to by using the ridiculous words of others in place of his own ridiculous words.
Extinction!!! Who’d guessed that Zubrin was a Prepper!
… human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together … mass hysteria!
Maybe the extinction level event has already happened. When the peepul (bless their greedy and stupid little hearts) have decided that we must choose between an ignorant, corrupt, authoritarian strongman and a venal, corrupt, authoritarian strongwoman, what chance does limited government have to survive?
Nobody seems to give a damn anymore about protecting the Constitution. It’s all “our strongman is stronger than your strongman.” “Our rioters riot better than your rioters.” Anyone who points out that this is not the way our system is supposed to work gets dismissed as an “Establishment Elite.” Screw the system and screw the Constitution. The peepul have spoken!
It’s wrong either way. It’s only tragic when a Republican does it.
Vehemently.
Rabble Alliance: Zoobrin Is an Extinction Level Threat to Ricochet
I wrote a post Myths About Trump which I had marked “do not promote” and was told that it was considered for promotion by the editors. I declined because the comments were already absurd, off topic and I just didn’t want to deal with the logical absurdities of more nevertrumpers.
Zubrin is a ‘contributor’ and their posts go right to the Main Feed.
All that said, I don’t think the man is qualified to post on political topics. SciFi fantasy politics, maybe.
If all it takes is Donald Trump for folks to go for Hillary, I have lost a lot of respect.
With this latest Zubrin post I’m re-posting a comment that I deleted because I thought it just too mean. I don’t think they are monolithic and I think they are trying to be fair, but Zubrin needs to go.
Center Right? More like We Are The World Moderates when we’re not Paranoid Fantasists
This is hilarious. So our republic is so fragile that a two bit reality TV star can knock it over? If that is so then it is over, since our country will not be able to stand up to anybody / anything.
Maybe that is true. In my Bible Study on Fridays, half the men are unwillling to say they think other religions are wrong. If I cannot call another religion wrong in Church, then the general willingness to stand up for what we believe in is at a low ebb.
I see the Ricochet Main Feed as a microcosm of the Republican Party, and the Member Feed as more akin to the people who are inclined to vote for Republicans over Democrats (note: worded carefully).
The Main Feed is like Romney. Nice, friendly, kinda cool (?) with the BobDylan Happy Birthday shout-out, and wonky. We need 4% growth goshdarnit! Mona Charen wearing pearls and discussing classical music and lamenting the crude culture. A heavy dose of detailed (and often interesting) ex-pat reports from Claire, whose ability to diagnose our domestic zeitgeist is handicapped by her choice of living somewhere other than the USA, yet still reflects a solid neo-con outlook (We Are the World).
The endorsement by Mitch Daniels is an awkward read (Ricochet is a “product”?) and no one knows who he is and if they do, it’s just not compelling. Just like Republican candidates such as Kasich, Gilmore Pataki, who promise a steady hand on the rudder and we go over the waterfall.
The loss of down-to-earth contributors (and commenters ) has really hurt the ‘edge’ Ricochet needs to be providing to get more attention and subscribers. David Limbaugh, Mark Steyn, and others are long gone and replaced with now a series of drive-by contributors with some niche policy.
Failure of many contributors to engage at all in the comment section give us the overall sense that once elected the representative has much more important things to do than take our call.
This. Exactly. Trump may well be the proverbial back-breaking straw. But the overbearing burden of government that led to the collapse has been coming on for 100 years.
BOOM. Franco drops the mike!
These days I have a pretty low opinion of the majority of my fellow American voters. So the idiotic ceding of power doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to me this morning. I hope I’m wrong.
As far as I’m concerned, anybody who throws up Burke is essentially saying the world would be better off if the US had never become a nation.
That’s Omega’s line, and HillBilly’s line.
May I register my profound, heartfelt disagreement. By your leave.
Omega’s latest: “World leaders” (who? Anybody we can respect, I mean, other than for echoing the leftist disdain of Trump?) are “rattled” by Trump’s electoral victories. There might be some changes in the world.
I’m not so fond of the status quo as to be horrified by that possibility.
But this has always been the tone of Ricochet. It has always been quite bland, mainstream, steady and um, conservative. But conservative in the Mona Charen vein. Conservative in a cultural way. Being nice and having muted tones. It’s as if it’s trying to prove that it’s better than those other sites, and Ricochetti are smarter than those other Republicans in their monster trucks. And we’re quite cool too!
It’s the Fredo of the Corleone family. I’m smaaart!
And it certainly is. Fredo was smart, he just wasn’t tough and ultimately he sold out his family because he thought his brother was excessive and harsh.
The Republican Party is not a crime family ( not as much as the Democrat Party) but this is a real fight in the real world.
We in the Rabble Alliance know that we will win no battles with Mitt Romney or Mona Charen leading the charge. We are stuck with a leader who has flaws doesn’t represent (all of) our values but he fights.
The choice is keep our vaunted ‘conservatism’ or lose our country after which there will be no chance for conservatism.
We face the same dilemma as a nation. How long can we be the nice guy on the planet? It must end. That scares people, I know.
There are lots of great people here contributors, members, and good people many of whom I may have heated arguments with here. But really….
Yeah, but those of us who said this goose was cooked upon Obama’s re-election were crazy.
Were we? I thought that too, but I didn’t think that much of the Republican Party would go over to the other side.