‘Choose … Choose the Form of the Destructor!’

 

On Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008, I was sitting at Enchanted Grounds in Highlands Ranch, CO, with one earbud in. On KOA-850 AM broadcast what I’d been waiting for all day: The acceptance speech of Gov. Sarah Palin (R–AK), who had earlier that week been given the unlovely task of running as Vice President of the cantankerous nominee, Sen. John McCain.

After a rocky first few days where the media threw everything and the kitchen sink at the VP nominee, Sarah was finally getting her say. Speaking in a confident, rural-accented twang she described her family, her commitment to her state, the nation and faith in utterly unapologetic terms. She described her unlikely rise through the unclean ranks of Alaska politics from humble beginnings and the specifics she had accomplished there. She even managed to make McCain sound like a sympathetic figure along the way — but more than anything, I remember listening to her and thinking: Finally.

Finally, here was a person at the top of a ticket who sounded and spoke like the people in my life. From her accent (which wouldn’t have been out of place in the Wisconsin of my youth), to the look of her family, and even the look of her (she’s a dead ringer for my aunt), Sarah seized the commanding heights of my political imagination.

I challenge you to read the transcript of her speech and not hear the cadence; not hear her voice echoing gloriously through the vaults of your memory; a lingering reminder of a time long gone. It was electric. Transformative. Here, finally, was a reason to believe that Barack Obama might be defeated. Finally, something to fight for and not simply something to fight against.

But the same speech which galvanized me had a multivalent character I didn’t appreciate at the time. By that I mean the speech infused me with hope, but simultaneously terrified others. Witness:

“Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin’s performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin’s speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones “God and country.” If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.” [Emphasis mine]

That was Sam Harris writing in Newsweek, and we agreed about just how effective the messaging was. He and I witnessed the same event but came away with radically different feelings about it, however. You remember the rest. The reaction to Palin among the coastal elites and media-industrial complex approached shrieking panic. The attacks were so unhinged that Andrew Sullivan even floated a conspiracy theory that Trig Palin was not really Sarah and Todd’s son and that he was secretly Bristol’s. These attacks continued for years. They’ve never let up, even to this day.

The person of Sarah Palin, who is otherwise nonthreatening, apparently represented a sort of existential doom to the Left (not merely the actuality, but the mere concept of her) and she needed to be destroyed and destroyed completely. Admittedly, Sarah did herself no favors by failing to do the hard work necessary to make of herself a formidable public figure, and instead chose to run towards the money spigot at Fox News. Nonetheless, people were paying attention to the left’s collective freak-out and lessons were being learned.

The lesson the media seemed to learn was that consistent, obnoxious, and unfair attacks could de-legitimize an opponent. The Right learned the same thing, which is why when the same insane attacks began again in another time, people formed a phalanx around the target of those attacks to deny the media another scalp.

Ironically, the sheer savagery on display in the media’s takedown of Palin (and to a lesser extent, Mitt Romney) guaranteed the rise of a media-proof, flame retardant figure in the form of Donald Trump.

It’s easy to calculate that the enemy of my enemy must be an ally, but this misses something fundamental with Trump. Charles Murray has described Donald Trump as a “Murder Weapon,” and there is much truth in this idea. Trump is the vessel of the wrath for those burned in the conflagration of Palin’s media-fueled auto da fe; a man sent to destroy the many pieties which supposedly make up the left’s worldview. Why Donald Trump? To own the libs, of course!

“Oh, you hated nice, family-oriented Sarah? You called her a theocrat and a rube and a hater and a liar and a bumpkin and everything under the sun your fancy vocabulary could muster. You complained that she had the sheer audacity to shame other women by merely having a baby with trisomy 23? You sent out Tina Fey with a flute to talk about Russia (which was a big joke in 2012) to mock both her and us? We get it. Fine. How about a nice, tall glass of Donald John Trump instead?”

This, it turns out, is how you get 2016.

But Trump is multivalent for people on the right as well. While some people have delighted in his depredations, “Lib-ownage” is for many an insufficient victory condition. This is particularly true when Trump acts as the anti-Palin. Is there even one person who thinks that Sarah would have invited the Taliban to Camp David to discuss our withdrawal from Afghanistan? This is the Taliban. Yes, that Taliban. The one that was partially responsible for 9/11. On our soil. At the Presidential retreat, even.

No, Sarah strikes me as more of a “rubble don’t make trouble” girl, honestly.

The point of this is not to hold up Trump and Palin side-by-side and tick off the spots where they’d differ on policy, but hopefully to show that we have surrendered a great deal of our own agency by merely agreeing with our opponents to present them with a plate full of the things we know they hate … and then rubbing it in their faces.

The left remains principally responsible for this, so it’s impossible to muster much sympathy for them. In their treatment of Palin, they chose the form of their destructor, and now they get to live with it. But they’re not the only ones. In the future, I hope that we think about making these decisions based on things that we want to fight for, rather than merely providing the left with something to struggle against.

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  1. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk):

    The point of this is not to hold up Trump and Palin side-by-side and tick off the spots where they’d differ on policy, but hopefully to show that we have surrendered a great deal of our own agency by merely agreeing with our opponents to present them with a plate full of the things we know they hate … and then rubbing it in their faces.

    The left remains principally responsible for this, so it’s impossible to muster much sympathy for them. In their treatment of Palin, they chose the form of their destructor, and now they get to live with it. But they’re not the only ones. In the future, I hope that we think about making these decisions based on things that we want to fight for, rather than merely providing the left with something to struggle against.

    Do you really think that is why people voted for Trump?  To drive the left crazy?  I think that was a fortunate by product, but not the only reason.  

    I remember Palin’s speech well and how it electrified those of us who had not heard of her.  Unfortunately, media attacks aside, I don’t think I ever heard another speech of hers that did the same.  

    • #1
  2. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk): Why Donald Trump? To own the libs, of course!

    Eh, still not particularly descriptive of the underlying motives IMO. Counterattacking BS attacks is not the same as owning the libs. 

    • #2
  3. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk): Is there even one person who thinks that Sarah would have invited the Taliban to Camp David to discuss our withdrawal from Afghanistan? This is the Taliban. Yes, that Taliban. The one that was partially responsible for 9/11. On our soil. At the Presidential retreat, even.

    In 2008? No, and perhaps Trump wouldn’t have done so at that point either. Eleven years later? Maybe. After all, Reagan met with the Soviets. Yes, those Soviets. Nixon went to China. Yes, that China. Besides are you sure the subject was simply our withdrawal? 

    Where would you have preferred he meet them? In Afghanistan? In Paris? In hell? Yeah, I pick hell too but at the rate things are going are we even sure we know what we’re doing anymore? It’s one thing to take a hard stance before President Obama frittered away whatever hard fought victories we had; it’s quite another to continue doing so in perpetuity.

    • #3
  4. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk): The point of this is not to hold up Trump and Palin side-by-side and tick off the spots where they’d differ on policy, but hopefully to show that we have surrendered a great deal of our own agency by merely agreeing with our opponents to present them with a plate full of the things we know they hate … and then rubbing it in their faces.

    Merely rubbing the faces of our opponents in things we know they hate? I think you can only say that by first dismissing policy as a consideration. Looking for your keys under the lamppost because the light is better there, and all that.

    And I’ll reiterate: fighting back and staying firm is not the same as rubbing their faces in things they hate.

    • #4
  5. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    And I’ll reiterate: fighting back and staying firm is not the same as rubbing their faces in things they hate.

    Amen.

    • #5
  6. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk): The point of this is not to hold up Trump and Palin side-by-side and tick off the spots where they’d differ on policy, but hopefully to show that we have surrendered a great deal of our own agency by merely agreeing with our opponents to present them with a plate full of the things we know they hate … and then rubbing it in their faces.

    Shawn, I don’t understand this ‘graph.  We gave up our agency?  By agreeing with our opponents?  Sorry, I’m sure that there’s a wisdom nugget in there, but I’m not smart enough to parse it out.

    I do think that Sarah Palin was treated terribly, by the media but, too, by her own side.

    I like your formulation that we proffered Palin, but after she was abused roundly we did a “Oh, yeah?” and put up Trump.  While maybe not completely accurate, it is a great metaphor.

    But, I would’ve voted for Yosemite Sam before I voted for HRC.  Actually, I kind of did.  And you know what?  All the heads I see exploding all the time are, in the vernacular, the bonus plan.

    • #6
  7. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):
    Sorry, I’m sure that there’s a wisdom nugget in there, but I’m not smart enough to parse it out.

    Not really seeing it, either, Boss.

    • #7
  8. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):
    Sorry, I’m sure that there’s a wisdom nugget in there, but I’m not smart enough to parse it out.

    Not really seeing it, either, Boss.

    I think he’s saying that we let them make us lose our heads, and pick someone based solely on his ability to piss them off.

    • #8
  9. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    I think he’s saying that we let them make us lose our heads, and pick someone based solely on his ability to piss them off.

    Then meh.

    All I needed to hear was TS//SAP information on an unsecure home-brew server, and I was voting for Yosemite Sam.  Seems like nobody ever flips the script and imagines what someone who was willing to commit such a great violation of national security OPSEC would do were she in power.

    The fact that DJT is President and makes progressive heads explode is very cool, but the fact that HRC is not President is key.

    • #9
  10. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    I think he’s saying that we let them make us lose our heads, and pick someone based solely on his ability to piss them off.

    Then meh.

    All I needed to hear was TS//SAP information on an unsecure home-brew server, and I was voting for Yosemite Sam. Seems like nobody ever flips the script and imagines what someone who was willing to commit such a great violation of national security OPSEC would do were she in power.

    The fact that DJT is President and makes progressive heads explode is very cool, but the fact that HRC is not President is key.

    That’s a big part of it, but I think it’s even simpler than that.  Trump talked about things, and said things, that millions of people had wanted to hear for years, decades.

    • #10
  11. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    That’s a big part of it, but I think it’s even simpler than that. Trump talked about things, and said things, that millions of people had wanted to hear for years, decades.

    Concur, wholeheartedly.

    • #11
  12. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    I think he’s saying that we let them make us lose our heads, and pick someone based solely on his ability to piss them off.

    But that is not what we did.

    • #12
  13. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):
    The fact that DJT is President and makes progressive heads explode is very cool, but the fact that HRC is not President is key.

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    Trump talked about things, and said things, that millions of people had wanted to hear for years, decades.

    Yep and yep.

    • #13
  14. Shawn Buell (Majestyk) Member
    Shawn Buell (Majestyk)
    @Majestyk

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):
    Do you really think that is why people voted for Trump? To drive the left crazy? I think that was a fortunate by product, but not the only reason.

    Why not both?

    I’m pretty certain it didn’t begin that way, but by the time the election itself rolled around, I’m pretty certain that “sticking it to them” with Trump turned out to be a legitimate motivation for many people to drive to the polling place.

    That’s certainly not all of it, but the larger lesson here I think is that when the left tells us who or what they despise, our reaction need not be “squad up and push in the opposite direction” – that, frankly, is how we end up with Roy Moore and his ilk rather than Sarah Palin.

    • #14
  15. Shawn Buell (Majestyk) Member
    Shawn Buell (Majestyk)
    @Majestyk

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    In 2008? No, and perhaps Trump wouldn’t have done so at that point either. Eleven years later? Maybe. After all, Reagan met with the Soviets. Yes, those Soviets. Nixon went to China. Yes, that China. Besides are you sure the subject was simply our withdrawal? 

    The obvious differences here being that the Soviets and the Chinese are nation-states with hundreds of millions of people and nuclear weapons trained at us.  We were somewhat obligated to treat them as such – not as equals, but certainly with some respect.

    The Taliban deserves none of this.  We could meet with them in a tent in Waziristan and have drones ready to follow them back to their hovels if negotiations don’t proceed accordingly.

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    Merely rubbing the faces of our opponents in things we know they hate? I think you can only say that by first dismissing policy as a consideration. Looking for your keys under the lamppost because the light is better there, and all that.

    The transmutation of Trump’s vices into virtues under is this in a nutshell.  If you think that hasn’t happened, I’m not sure that we’ve been watching the same movie.  But that’s to be expected; as I said, Trump is multivalent in that way.

    • #15
  16. Shawn Buell (Majestyk) Member
    Shawn Buell (Majestyk)
    @Majestyk

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):
    But, I would’ve voted for Yosemite Sam before I voted for HRC. Actually, I kind of did. And you know what? All the heads I see exploding all the time are, in the vernacular, the bonus plan.

    It seems to me that the Lib Ownage (not the worst thing on its own) became the point rather than something tacked on.  That’s all.

    • #16
  17. Shawn Buell (Majestyk) Member
    Shawn Buell (Majestyk)
    @Majestyk

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    That’s a big part of it, but I think it’s even simpler than that. Trump talked about things, and said things, that millions of people had wanted to hear for years, decades.

    Sure he did.  However: elite and leftist disdain for Red America certainly accounts for much of what caused such people to go towards Trump.  It’s this sensation of “being driven” rather than “being drawn” that concerns me.

    Broken clocks are right sometimes too… doesn’t really mean the clock is useful or good, but every so often it displays the correct reading by happenstance.  If the idiot media says about one of our candidates “that clock is broken” our reaction need not be “Broken Clock: 2020!”

    This is the pattern we’ve fallen in to and it’s already backfired in several own-goals.

    • #17
  18. PHenry Inactive
    PHenry
    @PHenry

    A kind of sly way of restating the general belief among Republicans who are not supporters of our president that Trump wasn’t elected because of any policy positions, nor any principles, but instead as a temper tantrum or some kind of intentional abandonment of traditional conservative standards as revenge for past humiliation.  We sank to their level, or something. 

    I don’t deny that there was some level of “in your face, take that!”  for the Trump supporters (towards the party establishment as much as the Democrats) , but to deny that Trump’s stated policy positions encapsulated in Make America Great Again were the number 1 factor is to hide from the real reasons “why Trump”.  What the Republican base wanted and believed in wasn’t thrown away to support Trump, it was embraced and in fact has been mostly implemented. The main explanation of “Why Trump” is simply that the politicians offered by Republicans since Reagan, despite mouthing the platitudes,  were not dedicated to implementing the conservative agenda. 

    Trump wasn’t one of them, so despite very real reservations about what his agenda would really be, most of the base understood that odds of moving conservative policy the base supported forward were higher with him than with any of the others. 

    Policy, and past reluctance to actually implement it by Republicans,  is what elected Trump and until the opposition on the right comes to terms with that, they will not be taken seriously by the base any more. 

    • #18
  19. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk) (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    In 2008? No, and perhaps Trump wouldn’t have done so at that point either. Eleven years later? Maybe. After all, Reagan met with the Soviets. Yes, those Soviets. Nixon went to China. Yes, that China. Besides are you sure the subject was simply our withdrawal? 

    The obvious differences here being that the Soviets and the Chinese are nation-states with hundreds of millions of people and nuclear weapons trained at us. We were somewhat obligated to treat them as such – not as equals, but certainly with some respect.

    The Taliban deserves none of this. We could meet with them in a tent in Waziristan and have drones ready to follow them back to their hovels if negotiations don’t proceed accordingly.

    So you’re against talking unless the opponent is scary enough? OK, that’s a rational position and I think I probably share some of that with you even if I disagree on the whole. Even if we take that as our SOP – what next for Afghanistan? Perpetual war? Total war? I don’t think there is any appetite for either of those with the American public.

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk) (View Comment):

    The Taliban deserves none of this. We could meet with them in a tent in Waziristan and have drones ready to follow them back to their hovels if negotiations don’t proceed accordingly.

    Is this serious or hyperbolic bravado? 

    • #19
  20. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk) (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    Merely rubbing the faces of our opponents in things we know they hate? I think you can only say that by first dismissing policy as a consideration. Looking for your keys under the lamppost because the light is better there, and all that.

    The transmutation of Trump’s vices into virtues under is this in a nutshell. If you think that hasn’t happened, I’m not sure that we’ve been watching the same movie. But that’s to be expected; as I said, Trump is multivalent in that way.

    Right – transmutation of vices into virtues has not happened. Coupla things happening: 1) some claimed vices are simply fake news or wild speculation based on whatever motives of the speculator, and 2) what some say are vices others say are virtues along with the contingent which views the assertions as neither vice nor virtue.

    • #20
  21. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk) (View Comment):
    Shawn Buell (Majestyk) Post author

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    That’s a big part of it, but I think it’s even simpler than that. Trump talked about things, and said things, that millions of people had wanted to hear for years, decades.

    Sure he did. However: elite and leftist disdain for Red America certainly accounts for much of what caused such people to go towards Trump. It’s this sensation of “being driven” rather than “being drawn” that concerns me.

    For me, I was first driven part way, but then I was drawn. With Palin I was driven to defend her too, but she never really drew me in. 

    Besides, most of my adult political experience is one of being driven rather than being drawn. This isn’t a Trump phenomenon.

    • #21
  22. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    PHenry (View Comment):

    A kind of sly way of restating the general belief among Republicans who are not supporters of our president that Trump wasn’t elected because of any policy positions, nor any principles, but instead as a temper tantrum or some kind of intentional abandonment of traditional conservative standards as revenge for past humiliation. We sank to their level, or something.

     

    Yes! That’s the underlying proposition I object to no matter how many words, columns, and reputations are piled on top of it. 

    • #22
  23. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    PHenry (View Comment):

    I don’t deny that there was some level of “in your face, take that!” for the Trump supporters (towards the party establishment as much as the Democrats) , but to deny that Trump’s stated policy positions encapsulated in Make America Great Again were the number 1 factor is to hide from the real reasons “why Trump”. What the Republican base wanted and believed in wasn’t thrown away to support Trump, it was embraced and in fact has been mostly implemented. The main explanation of “Why Trump” is simply that the politicians offered by Republicans since Reagan, despite mouthing the platitudes, were not dedicated to implementing the conservative agenda. 

    Trump wasn’t one of them, so despite very real reservations about what his agenda would really be, most of the base understood that odds of moving conservative policy the base supported forward were higher with him than with any of the others. 

    Policy, and past reluctance to actually implement it by Republicans, is what elected Trump and until the opposition on the right comes to terms with that, they will not be taken seriously by the base any more. 

    Yes again! I distill it to: timid, incompetent, duplicitous. That, to me, is the essence of the Republican party 1995-present. But what to do about it? Obviously enabling the Democrats was a bigger evil than perpetual frustration with the GOP. Then came Trump mowing down the 2016 deep bench of Republican candidates. Being different wouldn’t have been enough though. He was talking about long-neglected right-spectrum issues. So he was different in many ways from teh usual McCain. Romney, Bush, etc that we had been getting.

    • #23
  24. Shawn Buell (Majestyk) Member
    Shawn Buell (Majestyk)
    @Majestyk

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    So you’re against talking unless the opponent is scary enough? OK, that’s a rational position and I think I probably share some of that with you even if I disagree on the whole. Even if we take that as our SOP – what next for Afghanistan? Perpetual war? Total war? I don’t think there is any appetite for either of those with the American public.

    We’re the biggest, scariest nation on the planet.  We elevate people like the Taliban with this stuff – not to our level, but at least far above their actual station.  These people sucker-punched us in 2001 and then we crushed their puny caliphate.  We don’t negotiate with terrorists… or shouldn’t.

    I’m genuinely torn as to what we ought to do about Afghanistan.  On the one hand we apparently lacked the cultural fortitude to take that nation and hammer it into a shape more pleasing to our eyes.  Part of the problem is doing that would look suspiciously like “turning Christian Missionaries loose” there.  That would probably spark the much-feared “clash of civilizations” that President Bush sought to avoid so assiduously.

    I view the situation in almost medical terms; Islamism of the type we’ve been actively fighting for the past 20 years is a chronic condition which cannot be cured and can only be treated sporadically and where there are flare-ups.  How are we supposed to end or cure a condition which has been a thorn in the side of the West for 1,000 years?

    • #24
  25. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk) (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    So you’re against talking unless the opponent is scary enough? OK, that’s a rational position and I think I probably share some of that with you even if I disagree on the whole. Even if we take that as our SOP – what next for Afghanistan? Perpetual war? Total war? I don’t think there is any appetite for either of those with the American public.

    We’re the biggest, scariest nation on the planet. We elevate people like the Taliban with this stuff – not to our level, but at least far above their actual station. These people sucker-punched us in 2001 and then we crushed their puny caliphate. We don’t negotiate with terrorists… or shouldn’t.

     

    I used to nod along to this argument about not elevating or not legitimizing etc. I don’t agree with that anymore. Or, more accurately, I don’t view talking as elevating or legitimizing. As with anything, the specifics and the context matter, but I don’t think I agree with this as a general axiom anymore.

    I sympathize with you being torn about what to do in Afghanistan – I’m torn too. However, eighteen years after 9/11 and what is the end goal of what we’re doing there? We need to poop or get off the pot, so to speak. My preference is to finish pooping with extreme prejudice, wash our hands, then go about our lives until it’s time to poop again. I don’t think that is a viable option with today’s electorate. Yet we still have to get off the pot or we might get hemorrhoids. The only alternative to finishing is….. messy and unappealing. Life must go on anyway. So I’m ok with talk as long as it doesn’t degenerate into senselessness.

    • #25
  26. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    Shawn Buell (Majestyk) (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    So you’re against talking unless the opponent is scary enough? OK, that’s a rational position and I think I probably share some of that with you even if I disagree on the whole. Even if we take that as our SOP – what next for Afghanistan? Perpetual war? Total war? I don’t think there is any appetite for either of those with the American public.

    We’re the biggest, scariest nation on the planet. We elevate people like the Taliban with this stuff – not to our level, but at least far above their actual station. These people sucker-punched us in 2001 and then we crushed their puny caliphate. We don’t negotiate with terrorists… or shouldn’t.

     

    I used to nod along to this argument about not elevating or not legitimizing etc. I don’t agree with that anymore. Or, more accurately, I don’t view talking as elevating or legitimizing. As with anything, the specifics and the context matter, but I don’t think I agree with this as a general axiom anymore.

    I sympathize with you being torn about what to do in Afghanistan – I’m torn too. However, eighteen years after 9/11 and what is the end goal of what we’re doing there? We need to poop or get off the pot, so to speak. My preference is to finish pooping with extreme prejudice, wash our hands, then go about our lives until it’s time to poop again. I don’t think that is a viable option with today’s electorate. Yet we still have to get off the pot or we might get hemorrhoids. The only alternative to finishing is….. messy and unappealing. Life must go on anyway. So I’m ok with talk as long as it doesn’t degenerate into senselessness.

    Leave, but with a clear warning that if they mess with anyone outside their borders, we’re coming back with nukes this time.

     

    • #26
  27. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    I didn’t vote for Trump to piss anyone off.  I voted for Trump to keep HRC out of the White House.

    • #27
  28. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    PHenry (View Comment):
    Policy, and past reluctance to actually implement it by Republicans, is what elected Trump and until the opposition on the right comes to terms with that, they will not be taken seriously by the base any more. 

    Yes! 

    I am tired of being told by voting for Trump I am throwing a tantrum. 

    The anti-Trump Right used exactly the language of the Left against the Trump supporters on the Right.

    • #28
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