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An Open Apology to Evan McMullin
Dear Mr. McMullin,
I’m writing to tell you how much I regret my part in making you someone who sucks up to Shaun King.
When I voted for you, I was desperate. I didn’t trust Trump to be any good, and I didn’t think Hillary could be any worse.
I was on the rebound from losing the primary. My original choice had a heart-breaking finish, but I would have chosen even Jeb Bush over you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that.
I turned to you as a protest vote. I heard you in an interview, and you seemed clear-eyed and down-to-earth about your chances. My vote was meant to tell the rest of the country, “Go ahead. You pick,” and they did.
I didn’t know you thought Republicans were racist. My fault. I read a lot of news, but much of it happens outside my radar. But here you are in October, telling Byron York that there’s nothing wrong with the GOP except racism. If I had known you thought I and other Republicans were racist, I would have gone back to my earlier write-in pick, Ted Cruz, although I briefly thought about voting for The Dread Pirate Roberts, but I wasn’t quite ready to deal with the first Fictional-American president (is that racism?).
I apologize, Mr. McMullin, that I helped give you the idea that you are Somebody.
You apparently got fewer than 500,000 votes in the election. More than I got, but it does not make you a player on the national stage.
I know. It hurts to put yourself out there like that: the headlines, the interviews, the hoopla, the begging for donations, and the money! I’m sorry you thought we really, really liked you. In that interview I heard, you seemed to understand that your “path to victory” was probably, at best, a 250-to-1 shot (which by my not-so-stellar-math is what it turned out to be). You spent a lot of money. You made yourself a name.
And now — Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! — Donald Trump won. And made some surprisingly good nomination picks. And continued being Trump. And sent the Left into paroxysms of the Derangement Syndrome du Jour. He will make good moves and bad moves, like all presidents. History’s train is trundling down the tracks, and we’ll see where we go. But in case you haven’t noticed, you’re not driving.
In the future, when I ask where conservatism is going, I won’t look to you. I’m just not that into you. I’m sorry I led you on. I thought you understood that you were an emergency vote. A protest vote. Not a lasting political relationship.
Don’t go away mad. Let me give you a trophy.
And of bit of advice: It’s not too late to go into politics, if that’s your passion. But start over, with a school board or something. And don’t hang out with fakes like Shaun King. It makes you look like a loser.
Your former voter,
Jan Bear
Published in General
Agreed. There were reasons to not support Trump, though not realizing that Hillary would be way worse was incredibly short sighted. It’s water under the bridge. Let’s move on. I don’t intend to not criticize Trump. When he’s wrong, I will say so, and when he acts boorish I intend to denigrate him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP1GJ3esX-U
What makes you think you’re alone in this? There may be a few “on the right” who are unconcerned, but not many that I know of. I think 90% of us or more are keeping an attitude of watch that carefully. Of course, most of us are worried that Trump will be a little too normal as a politician, rather than too extreme.
Between Trump, Flynn and Rohrabacher, it seemed like the zeitgeist on the Right was tilting towards Putin…
Glad to see, as evidenced by responses to my comments, that, at least among Ricochetti (and John McCain and Lindsey Graham for that matter), that is not necessarily the case.
We shall see Z. I suspect at the very least we’ll survive. Suspect being operable.
I agree with you about not taking McMullin’s comments too personally, but he went beyond the limits you’ve imposed on his behalf. We’ve been around enough on the money quotes in York’s piece so I’m not going to rehash them here.
Richard, does your mother dress you? Do you dress in the dark? Does your mother dress you in the dark?
Don Rickles is my spirit animal.
Don’t look at me.
I was always NeverMcMullin.