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Trump. What Else?
I’ve been a Ricochet member for years (love the podcasts!) but this is my first post. Please be gentle. This article inspired a bit of political stream of consciousness in my head that I wanted to write down.
I’m not a Trump fan. I don’t think I’ve made that a secret to anyone who knows me–and thanks to social media, to several people who don’t know me. I don’t think that he’s evil incarnate, or that he is an existential threat to civilization; I don’t think he’s a racist (although he has–intentionally or unintentionally–played into some scary white nationalist stuff). I just think he’s an uncurious, philandering, serial-exaggerating (okay, lying), anti-intellectual, big government-supporting, insecure, hubristic, vainglorious buffoon. I mean, who gives himself a “10 out of 10” on anything? Humility is a virtue, Mr. President. Try it on for size some time. “I have the best hurricane response. It’s tremendous. No other president has ever responded to a hurricane, if you want to know the truth. It’s yuge.” Etc., etc.
Those of us on the center-right who haven’t embraced Trump find ourselves in a weird space. (My favorite is when a Trump fan accuses me of being a RINO, when Trump was a Republican for what, five minutes before he announced?) Occasionally he does something that I support without reservation (Neil Gorsuch, anyone?). Then he says things that make me cringe. Then he says things that make me think that he has never really had any serious thoughts about serious issues, that he has no under-riding, guiding philosophy of life. I could be wrong; I only report what I observe.
I’m a conservative, not a populist; a patriot, not a nationalist. Populism and nationalism are dangerous impulses.
I also sometimes think that my friends on the left have learned nothing from 2016, and that they may as well be actively working for the Trump 2020 campaign. The whole #takeaknee thing comes to mind. At first, I thought Mr. Trump was foolish to pick a fight with the NFL, but he seems to have won this battle in the culture wars.
I’d like to post more often, and be involved in more conversations. Thanks for reading.
Published in Politics
I think you’ll find that this is wrong. The term “whip” in politics is used because you have to push people to get them to act in concert. Politics is all about acting together. McConnell needs to whip the vote and he should use all the power he has — that is, if he really wants to help Trump. That seems to be an unknown and Trump is right to go after the head of the beast in order to turn it around. Either the head will be replaced eventually or it will start moving in a direction that is helpful.
I praise Trump’s good actions far more than you criticize his stupid actions.
I think you are fairer than most of the (insert your own negative word here)-Trumpers.
So, I just wonder if you have listened to Scott Adams. If you have I just wonder what you think about his take on Trump. Here’s the best of the recent ones:
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1dRKZnaMXmmKB
What is this “power” that could force John McCain or Rand Paul or Lisa Murkowski to vote a certain way because Mitch wants them to? That must be a very powerful power indeed. Do tell what it looks like – maybe I will dress as it for Halloween.
Whatever “power” Mitch might have had (and it surely isn’t much) is diminished by the Alabama primary. So you can get elected by promising to vote against Mitch? Cool. Let’s all condemn the “establishment” for failing to get people to vote their way, and make our point by electing people who promise not to vote their way. That’s the ticket.
Say, Larry, who did you support in the Alabama primary?
I’ve listened to Adams on the podcasts and read some of his blog in the run-up to the election. I remain unconvinced, but I’m curious about this persuasion stuff. Would like to read more about it.
I still think the Democrats nominated the only person that could lose to Trump and the Republicans nominated the only person that could lose to Hillary, so it was a race to the bottom and one of them had to win.
Try the link I put up there — it’s not what you think. Very interesting perspective on “The Power of Positive Thinking.”
Good point but there might be more power over them than we know. The point is that McConnell doesn’t seem to be putting his full weight on the problem. I might be wrong but I’m worried that he’s just a GOP status quo kind of guy.
Let’s not forgot the requirement to hate anyone who takes their steak well done and drowned in ketchup. (or is it catsup?)
No one lives in my head rent free or otherwise. If the economy is good enough, maybe he gets reelected and we get more judge appointments. If the Democrats wise up and don’t let the crone again and actually nominate someone who can at least impersonate a leader, Donnie may well get spanked and sent home.
I see you avoid talking about the use that tweeting has been put and its success for Trump. Was it all a fluke? Did he dominate the media for the last two years straight because his mouth dug a hole for himself? You can’t ignore it surely?
Exactly! I have never hesitated to vote for a woman – but I won’t vote for a Leftist like Nancy Pelosi.
I have never hesitated to vote for a person of color – but I would never vote for a Leftist like Fredrika Wilson or Elijah Cummings.
Insulting the people who were only just barely on your side last time is a strategic mistake. I hope it makes you feel good now, because you and the country may well pay for it later.
Absent the second coming of Ronald Reagan, I’ve found all national elections to be an exercise in determining which is the least worst candidate.
I’m one of those who praises Trump when he does something good, and criticizes, albeit gently, when he does something bad. (Gently, because I think he is criticized unfairly already.) I’m often accused of the opposite of what was described earlier — of being a Trump booster masquerading as an objective broker. There’s some truth in that, and I’d be more critical if the press were more fair.
Which brings us to tweeting. My single greatest criticism of Trump’s behavior has to do with his tweeting and general obsession with things beneath his office. Whatever value it may have had in getting him into office, I think it probably makes it hard for him to get things done now that he’s there. I simply don’t think he’s clever nor glib enough to use the tactical tool of Twitter to strategic advantage, and I wish he’d settle down and be suddenly very grown up and dignified.
And my granddaughter wishes she had a pony.
Trump won’t change. I voted for him, would again in a heartbeat against any conceivable Democrat, and am on balance happier about him than I expected to be at this point. And still overjoyed that he won. I remain cautiously optimistic — though not cautiously wildly optimistic.
Ultimately that’s one of the major built-in structural limitations of our government – we all have to work through our own senators and congressional reps. This is a good thing, for imagine if California or New York voters could influence senators or reps from other states. I have exactly zero power over McConnell, only over Portman and the feckless socialist Brown, and that power is to make my voice heard as a constituent.
If we want Mitch to act in a certain way (and I don’t think he gets nearly enough credit for what he has done), then we have to bug our own senators to do it.
I really resent that charge from the Left. If anything, it was one of the reasons my husband and I could make lemonade out of lemons when the Dems won in 2008. We thought the one good thing that could come out of his presidency would be for the Blacks to take new pride in themselves and realize they were not the downtrodden with no voice. We also thought he would be a wonderful example for marriage and taking responsibility for your children as he seemed to be an excellent, loving father. We naively hoped his presidency would end racial divisions, but, sadly, it only made them worse and enabled the far left to take over the Democrats.
I understand what you’re saying as there are many who feel the same way. The MSM is completely anti Trump to the point of embarrassment. After the local news at night I find myself switching between Fox, CNN and MSNBC. Hannity sounds like a Trump spokesman and books no opposition; Rachel Maddow on MSNBC is completely anti and boringly stays on any and all Russia conspiracy claims; CNN is on the anti Trump story of the day. It’s all about he said she said. So, that’s three against one. I so wish the networks would see themselves as reporters on policy and give us the pros and cons of actual proposed bills rather than obsessing over personalities and arguments among politicians over who hates Trump’s tweets the most.
Yes, exactly. Why are we looking a gift horse in the mouth? Look at what’s happened with regulations, business optimism, economic growth, religious freedom, judges, the (cursed) EPA, the Keystone pipeline, the double-cursed UN (and other multi-national organizations like the WHO, which just nominated Robert Mugabe as its health ambassador — you can’t make this shtuff up), the Obama memo to universities revoking due process for young men, the Norks… and think about the Clinton bullet we dodged. Good heavens! What do we want?
Conservatives usually ask, “what good does it (my criticism of Trump) do? What are the trade offs?” When people on the Right pile-on, I have trouble distinguishing them from people on the Left.
I also strongly disagree with @a-squared that Trump was the least likely to beat Hillary. I don’t see any of the other contenders being able to bring out the vote in the Rust Belt the way he did. I drove through rural Michigan before the election and all I saw were Trump signs — without any apparent embarrassment. I don’t believe for a minute Cruz would have engendered such enthusiasm.
I love these people. These are my (American revolutionary) brothers. They get it.
Same in rural Ohio.
I liked your entire comment. As for the great who-else-could-have-won debate… I stay out of it. We can’t know the answer, how the campaigns would have played differently if someone else had received the nomination on either side. It may well matter what the answer is, but I’m convinced we’ll never get any kind of agreement on the question, simply for lack of sufficient information with which to resolve the competing theories.
My own opinion… is irrelevant. We are here: let’s move forward. (Which, to this conservative, generally means backward.)
Wow. The less said about this talk the better.
Those brave souls shamed a lot of us into voting for Trump as we saw their huge numbers standing in line during the primaries.
I get nothing but errors when I try to pull those up, regardless of the browser, so I’ve got no idea what he’s been trying to say in those.
It’s totally fair. George Bush’s economic policies, both abroad and at home, were completely absurd. There’s a reason a fair number of people predicted the GFC would happen; there are literally hundreds of examples to draw from in the past two or three hundred years of history alone.
Believe it or not, the recovery from the GFC was actually pretty good compared to what normally happens to countries with both large fiscal and trade deficits. Why? Because John Boehner is a freaking political genius, and managed to engineer what must be history’s most successful balance of trade adjustment ever, and he did it by throwing the Bush playbook away and acting as a truly conservative political leader (oh, the horror!).
No you didn’t. —->> Like ;-)
I think we can be fairly sure given that Trump beat the other 16 like a drum in the primaries and then knocked down Hillary’s blue wall. The last guy to make inroads behind the blue wall was Rick Santorum, and he suspended his campaign in early February.
There. Now I did like it. ;)
And see how I don’t get pulled into a pointless argument about whether or not only Trump could have defeated her (particularly given that you and I probably– ha! Almost had me there.)
Could you expand on this with a detailed explanation of your assumptions and reasoning?
Welcome to the fray. Your post was excellent, and showed your heart.
@asquared, The only thing I have heard Adams name as a qualification for his self-appointment as an expert on “persuasion” is that he is a “hypnotist.” In my opinion, hypnotism is not persuasion; it is a parlor trick. And if Adams is so persuasive, it sure isn’t apparent in his interviews that I have heard. I suspect that the only thing in which Adams is actually an expert is work place foolishness, and he has made a nice living from that. If he wants to learn something about persuasion, he should try being a litigator for a few decades.
Well, that was fun! Thanks to everyone for the great comments!