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In Response to Dennis Prager: Yes, the Tweets Matter
I need to take issue with something @dennisprager said in his recent appearance on the Ricochet flagship podcast. He was there as part of the larger conversation around his recent National Review piece about why conservatives continue to attack the President. At 44:48, Prager spoke of his puzzlement about why conservatives fixate on what the President says. Specifically, the President’s tweets. Prager said, “I don’t give a hoot what he tweets,” and explained that it matters what he does, not what he Tweets.
Okay, so here’s the problem with that: We can’t just ignore Donald Trump’s tweets. They matter because each tweet is a public statement by the President of the United States. What he tweets cannot be separated from what he does because public statements are part of what a President does. This isn’t something overheard at a cocktail party or caught on a hot mic, these are public statements the President makes under his own name.
So when Donald Trump publicly accuses his predecessor of illegally wiretapping him in a manner akin to Watergate, it’s the President of the United States doing that. When Donald Trump publicly threatens a former FBI director, it’s the President of the United States doing that. When Donald Trump makes easily disprovable, factually incorrect statements, or threatens foreign nations, it’s the President of the United States doing that. If some underling did this, even in error, they would be fired. It is only the fact that they continue to come in such rapid succession that we’re not fixating on each incident for months at a time.
And this was an entirely foreseeable turn of events. Those of us who opposed Donald Trump tooth and nail did so because we understood that he was and remains unfit to be President. That he lacks the common sense or the impulse control (or both) to keep from saying these things in public is part of the reason why he’s woefully unfit to be President. The fact that he continues to make these statements says something either about the sycophants he surrounds himself with and their inability to control him.
Donald Trump is no longer just some crank with a Twitter account picking fights with beauty queens and Gold Star mothers. He’s the leader of the Free World. He’s sits atop the most powerful military ever created by man. He commands troops and planes and ships and missiles, enough to devastate the entire world. His public statements matter.
To choose to ignore his public statements is to choose to neglect our civic responsibility hold this man to account for his actions.
Published in General
You sound like a church-going sort. Did you ever wonder about the hymn “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”? It’s meant to be taken seriously but not literally! Same here.
You’re giving Could Be Anyone bad advice. Look at Adams’ opening paragraphs:
Do you remember the time you changed a stranger’s political opinion on the Internet by using your logic and your accurate data?
Probably not. Because that rarely happens. If you were paying attention during the past year, you learned facts don’t matter to our decisions. We think they do, but they don’t. At least not for topics in which we are emotionally invested, such as politics. (Obviously facts do matter to the outcomes. But not to decisions.)
Being able to present your ideas in such a way as to be influential is important. Look at the poor libertarians, who are technically correct (the best kind of correct!) in so many factual areas, but find themselves not only ignored but the butt of many jokes with the general population.
Understanding what influences people (including ourselves), the limits of political debate, and the techniques that can best influence people are very important.
If you wish conservatives to have a voice at the table in the upcoming years you would do well to study this field and see how it can be applied to your conservative philosophy.
It’s quite fine to dislike someone you’re ruling on. It’s a different thing to have publicly spoken out about them.
Wasn’t George Conway one of he guys on the Carol Burnett Show?
Yes, but the specific topic on which she spoke was about whether or not he should be President. That is not at issue in this case.
We often see people unwilling to move on from the times of their greatest victories.
A lot of MovCons seem to be mired in the past, imagining themselves to still be hardy cold warriors against the Soviet Menace.
Look at some of the most visible NeverTrumpers here. Claire hasn’t moved past her book on Margaret Thatcher (excellent by all accounts), and Jay Nordlinger keeps writing about “classical” dictatorial regimes. Both are fine, but it’s blinded them to the new, unusual threats in our modern times.
It’s the intellectual equivalent of The Innovator’s Dilemma.
If in any other court you found a judge who had publicly criticized either the plaintiff or defendant there would be no question as to whether the judge should recuse himself.
Well I don’t know if a recusal would be certain, but certainly filing by one of the attorneys would be in order. I think it is a Rule 54 motion. The real lawyers here might need to correct that. I’m just an up-coming 2nd year.
Frankly I think you give them too much credit. I put quotes around Conservative because I have come to realize that there is nothing “Conservative” about any of these people. Government never gets smaller–even under Reagan!! (Although I will give him some credit for having only slight growth in social spending.) “Conservatives” are about expanding the military and that is it. The rest is expendable in terms of policies for which to fight. They are con artists.
Anticipating the attacks for the heresy of speaking ill of Saint Reagan: https://mises.org/library/sad-legacy-ronald-reagan-0
Yet, Classical dictatorships are still a problem. In many ways they exacerbate modern threats as they use the chaos created by them to expand and consolidate their own regimes. Furthermore the inevitable collapse of these classical dictatorships creates opportunities for new threats to emerge. Assad was a classical dictator and like so many before him when his grip on power slipped just a little his whole nation descended into chaos that gave us ISIS.
I don’t bother myself with adams unless he is brought here to Ricochet. He has no intellectual weight, his definition of of cognitive dissonance being an example of that. But the cartoon is definitely inferring he has not been wrong continuously in a single distribution every time. There is a reason the robot further insults by saying that medical experts are checking their sanity. Add in the fact that adams hitched himself to trump with such loyalty and its not simply trolling but his own sad attempt at defense.
If I said I have guessed 1,000 times on tests and every time others said I would get it wrong but I was right I have inferred that when I guess I am not wrong on a test every time. Likewise when adams says through his satire that trump has tweeted 1,000 times and his critics have been wrong each time he is inferring that trump has never been hurt by said tweets. One does not have to say he is always right to be saying he is always right.
Your voice must sound quite anxious then (best you check that out and your constant desire to speculate into the mind set of those on the other side). But regardless, I am glad to see you have realized you have no weapons to bring to this battle of wits.
I think Prager’s point was that Trump’s tweets aren’t an indication of policy.
I actually think it is refreshing. Trump is the most transparent President in history, because he announces his motivations unfiltered by handlers.
Don’t you like that we all know why some policy is being pursued, rather than being fed a bunch of politically tested PR crap?
Yes, it hurts Trump’s policies in the short term, but it gets to the heart of attacking the PC culture.
If you like the policies but hate the tweets, then you yourself have succumbed to thinking like politically correct leftists. People should only be accountable on their actions not their motivations. This is fundamentally what freedom of conscience means. But the PC left wants not just to control your actions, they want to control your thoughts. Trump’s tweets are big ‘ol middle fingers to the PC leftist way of thinking.
Twitter Troll in chief.
Indeed.
For the record, I approve of trolling lefties. Especially since it got Trump into the White House!
I believe you’re right. For what it’s worth I’ve watched Judge Judy for way more than 2 years!
Aren’t you the one who calls yourself a 1787 Libertarian?
First of all, there are many True Conservatives in congress- Cruz, Lee, and the House Freedom Caucus, and if you think they are for growing government then you are completely intellectually dishonest, and that attack makes you look like the real con artist here.
Second, you decided to take a cheap shot against Conservatives and Reagan. Then President Reagan had 8 years of the House under Democrat control. You may not like how the Constitution works considering you would have voted against it, but you ought to at least understand it. Spending bills originate in the House, and the Democrats controlled it for all 8 years of Reagan’s presidency. I would have preferred a government shut down to increased spending, but it is what it is. Bush had complete control of the House and Senate for a time, as did Obama, and now Trump. Reagan never had that advantage.
Third, despite your hatred of the military, Conservatives understand that the military is not your enemy. Since 1962, the percent of military spending of the federal government has dropped from 49-19% of the budget, while entitlements have grown from 31-62%. It’s been dropping as a percent of GDP for years- 1962 nearly 10% to today at just over 3%. And of course there is the fact that if there is only one thing the feds should be doing, it is defending the country. Military spending can and should be increased, and massive cuts to entitlements should be where the fat is cut.
Wow a lot of hate in this comment. First, you are right Cruz, Lee, and others are pretty good. But Doesn’t Paul Ryan call himself a “Conservative”? He ain’t much for wanting to decrease the size of the general government. What of, say, Mike Pence? He’s a “Conservative” and he just told us via the Rush Limbaugh Show that the last little tussle over the CR was a “Conservative” win because it had more military spending than it did domestic spending. So as long as we spend more on guns than they do on butter I am supposed to be happy? That’s not what I was told “Conservatism” is.
Yes, I understand how the Constitution works, and if you would have read the link I provided, you would have found that Reagan’s budgets–albeit because of defense spending–were consistently more than what the Democrats in the Congress wanted to spend. Read the piece I linked to if you want to talk to me about intellectual honesty.
Lastly, I don’t hate the military. I hate what politicians do with the military and people who make statements that if I am not for perpetual war than I hate military. Perhaps we could start here in cutting the DoD budget:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-buries-evidence-of-125-billion-in-bureaucratic-waste/2016/12/05/e0668c76-9af6-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html
Ah another link. That would require that you read it first.
Read the whole thing – heavy on cherry-picked quotes, maybes, what-have-you’s and back-of-the-napkin-math; too light on actual use-cases and actionable specifics.
Yes, let’s get rid of DLA because UPS is smaller and has so much experience delivering tank tread around the world. All they don’t have to do is turn left.
You argument is that he is unfit for president. Is that really moving on?
My pre-election prediction has been borne out by subsequent demonstrations to that effect, so, yeah.
Well, all except for be able to take the oath, assume the office and do the work.
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Being capable of doing the job, and being capable of doing the job well are two different things.
This is why I think “unfit” is the wrong word in this context.
I think y’all are conflating unfit with unqualified. To be qualified to be President one merely has to be a 35+ year old natural born citizen who can convince a plurality of the population to vote for him, which I think is what y’all are getting at. One’s fitness includes other factors like moral character, intelligence, education, discipline, etc. Obviously Trump is qualified, but there’s clearly a wide range of opinion on his fitness.
Forget Trump and consider his opponent: I think pretty much everyone here (yes, including Fred) agrees that Hillary Clinton was qualified but unfit.
And, earlier, McHale’s Navy…
Just a little postscript to this post:
One day after I wrote this OP, the White House agreed with me and made my case stronger:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-official-statements/