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A Truce, Not a Capitulation
All I ask for is a truce, not a capitulation. This is directed at the persons who call themselves Reagan Republicans and who continue to be anti-Trump. 2019 is a consequential year. Pelosi and Schumer are preparing the battleground for 2020. Pelosi will wield the power of investigation far more aggressively and strategically than Paul Ryan did. Ryan was a somewhat closet anti-Trumper, as are far too many (R) politicians. Now is the time to rally to Trump whether he makes it easy to do so or not.
Michael Anton, who authored “The Flight 93 Election” is back with a post at American Greatness entitled “What We Still Have to Lose”:
These are dangerous times. The Left has made them so and insists on increasing the danger. Leftists hold virtually every commanding height in our society—financial, intellectual, educational, cultural, administrative—and yet they affect the posture of an oppressed and besieged “resistance.”
Nonsense. The real resistance is led by President Trump. It is resistance to the Left’s all-consuming drive for absolute power, its hostility to all American and Western norms—constitutional, moral, prudential—and its boundless destructive enmity. If I have been persuaded by any criticism of “The Flight 93 Election,” it is that I was ungenerous to Trump. The president stands clearly and firmly against these virulent attacks on America and firmly for the protection of life and liberty, and the promotion of the good life for the American people. Those are the core responsibilities of any American president. May President Trump continue to fulfill them until the end of his constitutionally won second term.
What the Kavanaugh affair has made clearer to me than ever is that the Left will not stop until all opposition is totally destroyed. The harm they do to people, institutions, mores and traditions is, in their view, not regrettable though unavoidable collateral damage; it is rather an essential element of the project.
Recall the headwinds that Republicans faced in filling federal appointments and getting cooperation from federal agencies. If there is no Deep State, it would be great if agency employees stopped acting as if there were. Everyone needs to act with fidelity to their oaths and not aid abet those that do not. A Fifth Column is not hyperbole: it is manifest just as Anton has described. And conservatives need to hold their fire on Trump and not pile on to the efforts to destroy him over the next two years. If you think someone better than Pence should hold down the “insurance policy” slot for conservatism, put your efforts in that person being on the 2020 ticket, not on primary-ing Trump.
Published in General
Who would I be.
Trump shares with Reagan a long history as a public figure within the pop culture media before ever running for office, which trained both in ways to handle an adversarial media as president (albeit both in their own divergent ways). Schultz has been a public name for more than two decades, but not an in-front-of-the-cameras public figure and certainly someone used to only the gentlest of negative media coverage. He had to have been shocked at suddenly being treated like a Republican, because many in the media share Democratic pols’ fears that if he runs, he’ll help the Republican in the White House right now get re-elected.
And Reagan had been a governor, too. So do you think Schultz’s learning curve will be better than Trump’s?
You typed we and not I. Perhaps you should define who the we is and then look to see how many actually exist in that we.
You are “us”. The “good” Republicans fighting those wretched elected GOP politcians who can’t do really simple things, like repeal ACA and balance budgets and end Russia investigations.
We are the “not so good” Republicans, that trash Trump for petty, non substantive reasons.
I doubt it in the 2020 election cycle. I think Schultz is a slightly less-assured Michael Bloomberg (who at the very least was willing to tell people on the left in NYC to pound sand on budget overruns and broken windows policing, even as he out-nanny stated them on social issues). Getting caught off-guard by the idea that the moderates in his own party aren’t going to follow him towards an independent bid — at least right now — may make Howard redouble his efforts. But it’s more like to make him either not run or cave on some of the non-social issues, in order to entice a few more people to his side.
Just noting the analogy and why they are different. On Flight 93 there were terrorists who were intent on using the plane to kill more people. The passengers had the option of fighting or doing nothing. If they fought there was a chance to survive and they fought. You don’t see that in the current day. Are there some Democrats who are hostile to the USA? Yes, but they are not the ones who are in control of the party and the Democrats have not successfully instituted a tyranny.
The Democrats are pretty weak comparisons to those terrorists on Flight 93. And the Republicans claiming it exists are not taking the actions necessary to eliminate the threat and retake control. It looks like warmongering to garner support. War and politics are vastly different, even though they are related.
Clarence Thomas received similar questioning so its not new. The progressives are as much bark as they have ever been. Their bite has not increased given that they cannot apparently hold on to any branch for more than 8 years max, same for the GOP.
He has continued to ask questions and act as if one should occur. He has not tried to pass legislation to make it so. I am certain we could look in the history books and find similar behavior but done on race or something else in the nation’s history. Pandering to radicals is not evidence that they are in control.
Coups do not require failed elections. They can occur when a military believes that things have gone awry for any number of reasons. And they do happen. The Roman Republic saw a number of military coups in its history. Venezuela saw Chavez use a military coup to come to power. There are several other examples. The point being that if things truly were so desperate, which is what a Flight 93 scenario is supposed to be, then that would be something rumored about.
What grass root groups are pushing for these secession movements? There was #CalExit but that didn’t last long and it was far more a joke than a reality. Again I am not seeing any real action here that looks like Flight 93. There has been no government usurpation. There has been no attempted usurpation either. Just because some shock jocks are talking it up at Fox Opinion or MSNBC does not make it so.
Schultz ran a publically traded business with an independent board of directors. Trump inherited Daddy’s money, ran it into the ground, had five bankruptcies, created the fraudulent Trump University, and stole from vendors.
It is altogether possible that if it is found that Trump engaged in money laundering, the Trump company could be found to be covered by RICO statutes as a corrupt enterprise.
All Schultz is was to create a vibrant business which millions of Americans visit every day. And he reported to someone greater than himself, an independent board of directors and shareholder’s. Apparently Schultz is willing to release his taxes, something Trump won’t do, perhaps because his money-laundering scheme could be exposed?
It’s not about Schultz being a sounder businessman than Trump — it’s Trump being a media celebrity for 38 years before the 2016 election following his 1977 Grand Hyatt project. Reagan was in the public spotlight for 43 years before he won the White House and that’s what both share that Schultz doesn’t — an understanding of how the media works, and how to use it to their best advantage. Schultz could still walk down the street and few people would know who he is.
And it’s not just name recognition, but knowing what the backstage processes are, and how to message quickly, face to face. How to argue in public.
You are not going to forge a truce with people whose identity has become entwined with a dislike of Trump.
I’m curious how you define 5 Eyes. The five eyes in FVEY are USA, Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and New Zealand.
You got that right. It’s not political, it’s purely psychological. There’s a mob mentality to this hatred that they try to call mere “disgust” with a man who is a stupid, egotistical, disingenuous, thin-skinned, immoral, defrauding, violent, racist, anti-semitic, raping, unfit, ignorant, disinterested in learning, populist Hitler. As if these things were true, and as if, of the true ones, presidents weren’t these things before 2016.
I don’t think I can think of any never-Trumpers off hand, except Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol, but it is definitely a monomania.
I find the fear mongering over Pelosi to be unpersuasive as it was with Hillary. But there are people on the left whom I do fear.
I didn’t start calling myself Never Trump until it was clear that Bernie Sanders would not be the 2016 nominee. I would let go of that label and vote for Trump if Sanders were to be nominated next year (returning to the Republican Party is another story.) The same goes for Warren and some of the others.
My objections to Trump have not changed, but if the left wants to outdo our side in the speed at which they’re loosing their minds and consciences, I’m not going to ignore it.
Is that a Truce? I don’t know.
Its all the Trumpers can expect. So stop the vulgar Flight 93 comparisons and focus on hoping the Left goes more insane than Trump. We shall see who wins that battle. Green New Deal economy wreckage vs. the President who can’t negotiate scraps for wall funding. Oh joy.
I think that it is important for my fellow Ricochetti to extend to each other the presumption of good faith. Who to vote for is a matter of conscience, and is a decision which is often made just before the election.
Right. I’m not saying they were all involved, but certainly off the top of my head, (1) at least one intelligence-steeped Australian diplomat (Alexander Downer), (2) at least two MI6 intelligence assets (Mifsud, the Russian consulted to help compile the “dossier”, and probably more Russians who have been suspected of related involvement, as well as Veselnitskaya whom I don’t know off-hand which organization called her in, either the CIA or MI6, and (3) and at least east one MI6 intelligence operative (Steele) were used in the operations, though there was at least one top-level MI6 director-level head who decided to quit immediately after the 2016 election (Robert Hannigan, Director of the signals intelligence and cryptography agency for the British GCHQ).
No one says NZ and Canada were involved. Is this what you’re asking?
Yes. Thanks for the clarification. I didn’t know about all of those connections.
It qualifies IMO.
Well, one scenario that’s been bandied about is allied intel services were recruited to the conspiracy because the CIA could launder information through them. The CIA being prohibited from conducting operations domestically.
There’s a whole branch of this mess that involves allegations of improper and illegal surveillance by civilian contractors at the NSA.
Admittedly, conspiracy is a strong word. I don’t know how else one describes a concerted effort to leak classified information about a counter intelligence investigation.
Yes, laundered is a good word, but does not go far enough, I don’t think. Not just to launder real but illegally obtained information, but create and plant false information which then could be accepted as valid simply by saying it came from an outside source.
The CIA used… foreign agents… to spy… on a presidential candidate turned president elect turned president of the United States. Conspiracies are illegal because they do exist. But it is more than that, it’s more than collusion, it’s a, I do believe, highly illegal series of deliberate acts in concert with intelligence agents of foreign powers to create false stories and to publish false allegations as fact in order to knowingly falsely accuse a sitting president as a pretext for removal. What does US law call this?
[some minor wording changes made for clarity]
Democrat politics.
I take that as a humorous remark. :)
We don’t have to hope; they already have.
There is an excellent article from The Bulwark which takes down Michael Anton and his Flight 93 thesis. The closing paragraph:
“Despicably appropriating the high tragedy of September 11 for the low cause of electing Donald Trump,“The Flight 93 Election” propounds a thesis that can be employed to justify almost any sort of extremist behavior. The choice Anton put before his countrymen, after all, was to act as if national survival was at stake: “charge the cockpit or you die.” But all the while, Anton concealed his identity, evading responsibility for his words and, in true Trumpian fashion, safeguarding his cash flow. In the end, his labors vividly demonstrate yet again why the phrase “Trump intellectual” is everywhere taken as an oxymoron.”
https://thebulwark.com/michael-anton-is-back-to-remind-us-that-theres-such-a-thing-as-a-trump-intellectual/
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My typical practice is to “like” every comment to one of my OPs simply to acknowledge that as the OP I have read the comment. Normally I accept the ambiguity for comments to my OP that a “like” might represent. But I simply cannot let the ambiguity stand here. I do not like the comment and I think that the remarks on Anton border on libel.
Yeah, pretty bad. (Sorry, philo, I took out the rest.)