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Trump2020: A Response to One Objection
One objection to re-electing President Trump in 2020 is that, because he exhibits so many of the personal traits which conservatives have traditionally condemned, his election by Republicans casts the latter as hypocrites and removes character as a dimension on which future Republicans can differentiate their candidates from those of the Democrats.
While I made this argument during the primaries leading up to the 2016 election, I think it is no longer relevant. Republicans have already elected Trump; failing to re-elect him will not in any way redeem Republicans. We live in a hostile, left-leaning media environment, and there is no voice on the left that will speak well of Republicans for rejecting President Trump in 2020. That would require a degree of charity the left is completely unwilling to extend.
Whatever damage to the moral standing of Republicans that the election of President Trump can do has been done, and nothing will reverse it or make it significantly worse. Those who think otherwise are crediting the left with more grace than there is any reason to believe it possesses.
I continue to believe that, on balance, the arguments in favor of re-electing President Trump remain compelling.
Published in Elections
Exactly so.
The overwhelming evidence of Obstruction of Justice makes denying the renomination of Trump morally imperative.
David French read the Mueller Report and instantly gravitated toward Bob Dole, who in his flailing presidential campaign against Bill Clinton in 1996 asked, “Where’s the outrage?”
The truth is, of course, that there has never been any evidence that the voting public has ever rewarded Republicans for fragging their own in a pique of moral indignation. And it has always been abundantly clear that such actions have always been unilateral. Even with the full knowledge of history the Kennedy boys and their offspring are treated like American royalty. The Harry Reids come to Congress poor and leave multimillionaires. They can have gun-running AGs and nobody bats an eye.
And so French, Kristol, Williamson & Company continue to rail against the voters who dare question the strategic nature of knee-jerk capitulation. They hate the fact that large swaths of the population looked them in the eye, asked “Just whose side are you on?” and came to the conclusion it ain’t them.
So overwhelming Mueller failed to indict. I believe James Comey calls that “prosecutorial discretion.”
I am on the side of the Rule of Law, and after reading about Trump’s Obstruction of Justice, Trump has forfeited his claim to renomination.
Presidents cannot be indicted while they are in office. But they must be held accountable. Censure? Denial of renomination? What is your solution?
So many conservatives have offered nothing but moral preening, after years of proving impotent in the fight to roll back progressivism…so much so that I am starting to believe I hitched my horse to the wrong ism.
Overwhelming evidence? My God. The epistemological arrogance is astounding. You are one precious lawyer!
Running that through the TDS translator, Gary meant, “The vindication of Trump over the deep state coup is all the more reason to double down on Trump for 2020. MAGA!”
Ben Shapiro called Notre Dame a symbol of Western Culture and labeled by the Washington Post as a White Supremacist. The monster of the Left cannot ever be appeased.
What is your problem?
I am afraid for our legal system and our country now that I know some people can operate freely as lawyers. At high levels, and all the way down to divorce lawyers. Idiocracy. I’m at a Shakespearian level of contempt.
First of all, if you cheer the release of the Mueller Report you are definitely not on the side of the Rule of Law. When you fail to indict, when you don’t have the evidence, it is incumbent for the prosecution to keep one’s mouth shut. Because the presumption of innocence is as important to the Rule of Law as anything. This is not a legal document, it is a political one. It it a former Federal Prosecutor doing the bidding of the President’s opponents.
Mueller was charged with determining the extent of Russian interference and unlawful actions in relation to that interference. He indicted a bunch of Russian military officers to that end with the full knowledge that extradition and trial were fantasies. Everything else was totally unrelated or “process crimes.” It’s been a two-year sham and you know it.
ADDENDUM: Let me add something here. First, prosecutors do not indict. Grand Juries do. There is a reason Grand Jury proceedings are sealed. Prosecutors under the American ideal of the Rule of Law do not try their cases in the press. If you do not have the evidence and you bypass the Grand Jury system and release accusations to the press that is prosecutorial malfeasance.
Since a President can’t/shouldn’t be prosecuted, the remedy is with Congress. Please note that the Watergate Special Counsel turned over his results to the House of Representatives. Or do you think that was a mistake?
Did Leon Jaworski file a report that said “I don’t know if a crime was committed?”
Yes, he did.
Was Jaworski’s report made public? No, it was not. It was only made public in the last year.
Republicans released the Starr Report and it backfired on them.
So you have read the Mueller Report, correct?
But that isn’t going to happen. And so: what then?
Gary, you know I’m no Trump advocate. But if Rule of Law matters, that has to include that dusty old piece of vellum in the National Archives, and its guarantees are paramount. To advocate for Trump’s defeat with no thought to the consequences of empowering a side that has become proudly hostile to the republican form of government – well, it’s like criticizing Nero because the lyre he played while Rome burned was incorrectly tuned.
Or, perhaps, put it this way: isn’t your problem now with Speaker Pelosi? She won’t press for impeachment. Wouldn’t that be the surest course to the restoration of the rule of law?
I have read portions and the analysis of others.
There are other alternatives, censure, or public scorn? Denial of renomination? We need to clean our own house.
There is no voice on the left that will speak well of Republicans unless they quit being Republicans.
We need to act like the stakes are much higher than one man’s personal failings. The President of the United States is not, should not and never will be my personal role model. And if you have children and anyone but their parents (or grandparents) are held up as role models then you’re a grade-A lousy parent.
If I’m in a foxhole I’m not making moral judgments on the guy next to me. All I care is that he does his damn job and hits what he’s aiming at. MoveOn.GOP? Yes, sir. Because in war or politics they don’t call you a moral loser – they just call you a loser. If Trump loses in 2020 it won’t be because of Mueller, it’s because he didn’t build the wall. Locking up the moral scold vote ain’t gonna get it done.
I don’t reckon any US president has had more public scorn than Donald Trump, do you?
Maybe it’s time to think of Trump as something other than a Republican. Maybe it’s time to consider Republicans something other than Republicans.
There is your issue Gary, you want Rule of Law to drag down those you do not like. The rest of us sort of like Justice, where people do not get drug down for resisting being convicted of crimes they do not commit.
Wouldn’t this be cancelled out by overwhelming evidence that the entire inquiry was based on falsehoods and misuse of the FISA courts presented with the falsehoods by none other than out of control career employees?
Anything further on Trump needs to idle while that is all fully brought to the wider public understanding beyond a handful of deep diving reporters and authors.
Which of course, you would otherwise have humbly and enthusiastically supported.
Bingo! – this wasn’t even a “Ham Sandwich”. Why didn’t Mueller take this weak sauce to that same grand jury that indicted Flynn and Manafort and those Russians. Mr. Integrity knew he’d lose.
Of course, you do understand that your initial question will be received by the target as:
Any expectations of a good faith reply are greatly misplaced.
Absolutely not. I am an American. I am a Conservative. I am a Republican.
I am against Trump who has Obstructed Justice, and Abused his Power.
Read the Mueller Report.
Richard Nixon who resigned before being impeached by the entire House and being convicted by the Senate.
Read the Mueller Report.