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I’m (Not) with Stupid
There are a lot of things I’m prepared to do for the Republican party. I’ve given time. I’ve given money. I spent six years working as a GOP flak. I’ve voted for uninspiring candidates like Mitt Romney, and intellectual underachievers like, well, the list is too long to itemize here. I even voted for … John McCain.
So, clearly, I’m not a finicky or fair-weather Republican. My party calls and I try to do my duty. But there is one thing I cannot do for any political party or ideological cause: I cannot be stupid on purpose.
As listeners of my podcast might note, “Why not, Graham–you have no problem being stupid by accident.” And they’re right. Yet another reason I can’t afford the luxury of intentional idiocy. Alas, this is what many of my fellow Republicans appear to be demanding.
A whopping 71 percent of Alabama Republicans claim they believe that all of Roy Moore’s accusers are lying. That is clearly idiotic. If you want to put a face to this, watch Frank Luntz’s focus group with Moore supporters. Actually, don’t. It is soul-crushing for supporters of conservatism. (I have some [ahem] “highlights” in this morning’s podcast.) Talk of a “George Soros hit,” and a guy claiming, “Mommas and Daddies would be happy to have a district attorney hitting on their 14-year-old” back in the early 1980s.
There is no way these people believe what they’re saying. They’re pretending to believe it–they’re feigning idiocy–in order to avoid acknowledging the immorality of their support for Moore. The people of Alabama nominated a scumbag to represent the GOP (a really stupid move in hindsight, yes?) and now they’re pretending they’re too stupid to realize it.
The same is true of Donald Trump. Despite the long list of women who’ve made serious and extremely believable accusations that he groped, fondled, and forcibly tongue-kissed them (yeccchhhh!), only 18 percent of Republicans admit to finding them credible. Despite the fact that Donald Trump has spent a lifetime making such allegations not only credible but extremely likely.
Are Republicans really this dumb? Of course not. They’re playing the stupid-on-purpose card rather than simply admitting that for [insert justification here] they chose to vote for a sleazeball with a reputation for treating women like trash.
Well, sorry: I can’t. I used up my clueless quota in college. I’ve committed enough acts of extreme idiocy to get me demoted out of the species, down to pro-simian, or even “professional weatherman.”
My question for Republicans and conservatives who can embrace intentional stupidity is this: How is “stupid” a winning strategy? Liberals pretended to be dumb enough to believe Bill Clinton and Al Gore lost the White House. Hillary lost it twice. Democrats are paying a huge price today on the issue of sexual harassment. Did fake-stupid work? Other than artificially boosting Bill’s poll numbers in the short term?
Democrats keep denying the basics of economics, pretending they live in a magical world beyond the realities of supply, demand, and human economic behavior. Is this a winner for them? Should we suddenly start pretending that tax cuts create magic money that falls from the sky? Or that lower-income families who already pay no federal income taxes “deserve” a tax cut? Or that corporations are, in fact, the evil, irrational, job-killing conspiracies that progressives pretend to believe they are?
How is any of this stupidity a strategy? And even if it were, even if stupid were a guaranteed path to political victory–I still couldn’t go along. Stupid on purpose is my red line, the one sin for which there is no redemption. It’s a violation of my core, fundamental worldview. The day I start embracing stupidity as a positive value is the day I stop being me.
How many more people on the Right feel the same way?
Published in General
Lots of strawmen in here. On the evidence we have, and given Moore’s own ever-evolving defenses and denials, the accusations are certainly credible. As Klavan said in his podcast last week, if you want to vote for a dirtbag because you think the other guy is a bigger dirtbag, then own up to it.
I was once told that my lack of support for the black people promoting Trayvon Martin made me a racist.
No room was given to the possibility that I simply didn’t believe the claims being presented as true.
Am I still racist for not supporting something I still find untrue? Yes.
Since that involved people I actually know and had relationship with, don’t expect me to compromise my interest in the truth just to make you and all the rest of the virtuous sit pretty on your petty claims.
If you want to vote for a dirtbag because you think the other guy is a bigger dirtbag, then you’re behaving rationally.
Mr. Graham,
I appreciate your declaration of disgust at the supposed stupidity of the non-establishment conservatives here. This lets us know to avoid your podcast, and to avoid patronizing your advertizers.
I agree. I’m just frustrated by those reasoning themselves into denying that he’s a dirtbag at all.
What? I’m not asking you to compromise anything.
Because you and Michael Graham think he is guilty based on the allegations, then everyone must acknowledge he is a dirt bag.
But not everyone agrees the allegations are enough to offer judgement of guilt.
And so Mr. Graham says we are stupid.
Moore is accused of dirtbaggery. Jones embraces it.
Do you believe that anyone who is accused must therefore be guilty?
Moore supporters don’t care what you think.
I didn’t ask you to acknowledge anything, and I don’t agree with Michael’s stupid/pretending-to-be-stupid characterization.
No, I believe the evidence should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. As I stated above, I find the accusations credible in this case based on what we know.
What, exactly, do we know? Because many of us don’t find the accusations credible, but maybe you know something the rest of us don’t.
Nice try, Mr. Mona Charen.
Snap out of the Republican Stockholm Syndrome! The Left only fights for power and position, not over morality. Stupid is as stupid does in handing the Left more power.
I’m sure we have access to the same facts. I find it unbelievable that if the same facts were true of a Democrat that there would be so much skepticism. It stinks of motivated reasoning to me.
I have stated before that I don’t agree with the way democrats treated Conyers and Al Franken; apparently, Newt Gingrich agrees with me. He was on tv a few days ago and he likened the current climate to a banana republic. If all you have to do to railroad someone out of office is come up with a few accusers, no one will be left.
Ryan forced the Arizona Republican to resign for talking to some of his staff about surrogacy! I’m no lawyer, but that doesn’t even sound like an accusation to me.
Same data but I doubt the same priors. Some may employ motivated reasoning, but some people on Ricochet really do have strong experiential priors that accusations of this type are false.
I have never personally known anyone who was accused of sexual harassment; I have personally known at least three men who were falsely accused of domestic violence, but in those cases, the people involved were not public figures, and the cases were not tried in the court of public opinion. They were tried in actual courts, and 2 of the three men were exonerated.
If the accusation comes about immediately after the alleged crime took place, that is one thing. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the accusation is true, but it makes it far more likely. Both of the women accusing Moore waited 40 years and they also waited until after he won the nomination, and they also have serious credibility issues. Both have either omitted and misrepresented important facts; if they were in an actual court of law, the jury would be told that it is acceptable to not believe anything they say. So, I feel totally justified in not believing them.
Which ‘type’, if you don’t mind me asking? E.g., 40 years in the past, during an election, etc. (Hopefully this doesn’t sound sarcastic, I’m genuinely curious)
The most general relevant type: a woman accusing a man of something sexually untoward, from words and gestures all the way to rape, in a way that seems to blow the event out of proportion. Even with perfectly natural differences in understanding, and no malicious intent on either the man’s or woman’s part, this sometimes happens, although drastic differences may not happen as much as many conservatives currently fear.
I think Moore’s telling the truth. People who think that there is no way all those accusers would lie or stretch the truth havn’t thought it through, in my humble opinion. Or, they think that the press couldn’t have got the facts wrong. Actually, the press could have got it wrong. And the accusers could be lying. The press is that bad. And human nature is that corrupt. Because of that, I give Moore the benefit of the doubt.
I think the difference between “no way” and “unlikely” ought to be respected, though. Plenty who find it unlikely that they’re all lying or exaggerating know that considering an event unlikely isn’t the same as considering it impossible. When people say it’s plausible that at least some of the accusations are true enough to be worrisome, they should get some benefit of the doubt, too, that they’re not necessarily taking the absurd position that an event that’s merely unlikely (in their eyes – every report of misconduct being unwarranted) is actually impossible.
What people seem to be doing with these kinds of accusations is to subject them to a “credibility” test. What process people use to judge the “credibility” of accusations is anyone’s guess. For some, the fact that CNN reported it is enough. Is the process or processes that are used to measure “credibility” reliable? I don’t think so. In fact, I think “credibility” is a very low standard of proof. Too low. It may even be lower than “preponderance of the evidence” standard on college campuses.
It’s one thing to have a #zerotolerance policy. It’s quite another to have a #zeroaccusations policy.
If it’s all true then he’s a piece of crap but I’d vote for him anyway.
I am certain it’s not all true. It’s likely some of it is. I don’t know and very few truly know the truth.
Given how it all got handed to the good people of Alabama( dems , GOPe, Bannon, WaPo) anyone who judges them for voting for Moore is also a piece of crap.
Dare to be stupid.
https://youtu.be/SMhwddNQSWQ
Why should anyone own up to anything ? What an obnoxious demand
why is this election so dang special ? Was every one before it a choice between two intellectual giants who also happened to be saints?
You’re voting for the man, not marrying him and not giving him the milk money to invest.
this demand that anyone voting for the guy publically declare their distaste is beginning to sound familiar.
The guy’s (probably but how would I know) a dirtbag. He’s not the first one you’ve voted for and he won’t be the last.
So what? But then again, my republican bonefides are nothing to brag about, having just joined the party in 2016. And it’s situations like this that kept me away and make me question changing my registration.
Yes, credible is another word carrying more freight than it can handle. There is no evidence aside from allegations. So in this case credible can only mean “plausible”. And that’s true enough, but so is it plausible that the two accusing Moore of assault while they were under age are lying or simply not remembering correctly.
I won’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve been on record here expressing exactly that kind of skepticism even with Democrats.
To me, allegations aren’t and shouldn’t be enough.
I think the only thing going on is a bit of shadenfreud to see these incredible liberals being consumed by the monster they helped create. It isn’t to say that they should be ousted for it, but they are reaping their harvest.
These aren’t underage girls making accusations, though. They are middle aged women who are making accusations concerning underage girls.
We judge the accusation under some lofty idea that a 14 year old wouldn’t put herself through this for a lie, seemingly oblivious that she isn’t 14 anymore.