Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
‘The Conservative Case for Joe Biden’
To Whom it May Concern:
Don’t.
Stop.
I care about you.
Vote for who you want, but please don’t try to make it something it isn’t.
You’re not more principled. You have an opinion. You think four years isn’t that long. You think Joe isn’t like the others. Whatever. It’s fine. Smell your own farts but don’t ask me if I have the expertise to smell yours and call them phenomenal.
You’re not doing us a favor. Your vote isn’t adorned with gold and says “special.” I went to one of them fancy booklearning schools too and it fit like a suit off the rack.
He has an even-keeled temperament and treats people with respect? The guy who was challenging the IQ of reporters and where they went to school?m”Look, fat?” The guy who said Republicans were going to put black people in chains?
The guy who takes credit for smearing Bork and is apologetic about not smearing Thomas enough? Seems like he’s awfully quick to cater to criticism by throwing people under the bus. Just like one of your problems with the current occupant.
Hey guys, we’ll go back to the great Obama years, where people like us were audited (lifelong bureaucrats are known for putting their pensions in danger by going rogue after decades), said we wanted people to die to prevent ACA, called Brown Shirts, be falsely accused of spitting on black Congressmen, spying on rivals. He’ll treat the media better than Trump, just ask James Rosen or Sharyl Atkisson or Fox News. Good times.
At least we won’t have a liar in the White House, instead, a guy with a common experience with everyone, despite being in government since age 25. Find me a personal anecdote, I’ll find you the tall tale. He not only helped with civil rights, he was lynched once. Maybe. Or that wasn’t him but his buddy Corn Pop.
“Look at his deep abiding faith” as he answers a question from a man of the cloth. Note to you, the Biden-curious, here is the template for a Joe Biden answer: I understand where you’re coming from, anecdote with an air of truthiness that probably has 25 percent factual content at most, smear of people not as empathetic as him. Same people who were suckered by Amy Klobuchar being polite to a pro-life Democrat who was willing to vote Democrat. Find the common denominator. I learned in my dating years that just because the pretty girl says hello, it doesn’t mean she’s interested in me.
“Mitch can stop him” — sure, until the midterms where we’re all villains for obstructing. “We can repeal anything once we’re in charge.” Boy, that sounds familiar.
Again, you can vote Trump out of office. But you’re not playing high-minded 4D chess either. So the condescending pretzel logic thinkpieces can stay a draft on your computer. The Democrats don’t want to read them either, judging from Donna Brazile’s remarks.
Thanks.
Published in Elections
There are several people like that on Ricochet too.
Some of those are arguable. Some of those are completely silly.
“Pandered to the alt-right”?
“Set the stage for . . .”
“Presided over . . .”
“Tainted . . . with toxic rhetoric”?
Come on. Okay, so you hate the President. But how about something concrete instead of these vague, emotional accusations?
I assume this is satire.
TDS is not a joking matter.
“Pandered to the alt-right”?
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/08/donald-trumps-ties-to-alt-right-white-supremacists-are-extensive.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/06/13/trump-just-endorsed-an-apologist-for-white-supremacy-that-could-hurt-the-gop-this-fall/
“Set the stage for [the return of ISIS]”?
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/06/report-isis-has-been-rebuilding-as-us-troops-withdraw-from-syria/
“Presided over a [over a huge increase in government spending]”?
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/15/budget-deficit-swells-trump-900432
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/28/federal-deficit-one-trillion-trump-107901
https://www.thebalance.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306
“Tainted [the drive to restore our borders] … with toxic rhetoric”?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/president-trump-immigration-problems-promises-2020-election/
It isn’t? Now what am I supposed to do for fun?
So the way to fight deficits for never Trumping neocons is to dump more trillions into Afghanistan and Syria. And of course if its from Slate, Politico or the WaPo it is the height of credibility to them. What happened to NYT or CNN or Pravda links, for that matter?
My favorite part about Joe Biden is his pledge to eliminate our family’s business.
Not just yours, but lots of family’s business, and not just in energy.
But just think how flush you’ll be thanks to the Green New Deal!
Okay, yes, I am referring to a toilet flush…
My major problem with Trump is that he’s deficit spending at a rate even worse than Obama, with no acknowledgment that ever-accelerating debt might be a problem (something he did as a candidate, so he actually understands the problem).
On the other hand, any significant political will to control government debt/spending was killed when the Republican establishment finally drove a stake through the Tea Party, so any attempt to rein in spending would be doomed from the start. It’s hard to blame Trump for not going on a suicide mission.
The GOP majority after 1994 did zero to deal with the national debt. What it did do is raid the Social Security trust fund to pretend to “balance the budget.” That was during the Baby Boomer bulge in revenue. Now that check is coming due.
I remain unconvinced by your sources. It’s emotional editorializing.
“Trump set the stage for [this thing that hasn’t happened yet but when it does we’ll be sure to blame him!]”
No, it’s easy to blame Trump for anything. He “set the stage” for your hair loss, and he “presided over” your heartbreaking psoriasis.
I don’t get this. I want to—truly, because if you’re here at Ricochet, you’re at least willing to consider (willing to know about!) other perspectives.
I get the “hasn’t stopped runaway government spending.” I don’t know whether anyone from any party would be willing to, or capable of, cutting entitlements.
I get—I think—the “didn’t fix the Middle East” thing. I tend to cut any prez a fair amount of slack on that one, because …well, it’s the Middle East, and doesn’t seem to want to be fixed, with the exception of Israel. And Trump has been good on Israel, IMHO.
But I really don’t get why “pandered to the alt-right” is, after all this time, a thing. The “alt-right” as defined by the left is, in my experience, mostly what you and I would agree are ordinary conservatives—a well-educated liberal relative and WaPo reader told me, in all seriousness, that the National Review is an “alt-right” publication! Ben Shapiro has been called “alt-right.” Meanwhile, there’s the genuine alt-right, which means what? Maybe, at its most influential, Milo Yiannapoulos who, on his worst day, didn’t say (let alone do) anything as dreadful as a “mainstream” leftists like Al Sharpton, whose ties to Biden run straight through the last administration’s White House.
The alt-left is big, well-funded and enjoys sinecures in major cultural institutions; it is pandered to openly by all the Democratic candidates and one of its avatars is running neck-and-neck with Biden for the presidency of the United States. The alt-right even by its broadest definition (which, again, means Milo and maybe the Charlottesville protesters) is tiny, universally reviled, and institutionally powerless.
I understand disliking Trump. I understand wishing—and working—for a better alternative, one who could accomplish as much—or more!—without the nonsense. That seems reasonable to me. But I really, really don’t understand what makes Trump so peculiarly awful that the Bidens-Schumers-Clintons-Obamas-Bloombergs (let alone Bernie/Warren) look better?
I have no problem entertaining a well-reasoned conservative case for Biden. It won’t persuade me to vote for the guy, but I’d like to think the world wouldn’t end if he’s elected.
The truth is that the 2020 election, like the one in 2016, will be a choice between two bad candidates. That’s life.
The world wouldn’t have ended if Hillary won either. At this point I think we are beyond reason, we’ve been beyond it for some time now. Pro-Trump Derangement runs rampant of the Right I personally Revel in my Anti Trump Derangement. All that there is left is hate, and we should embrace it. It is the Christian things to do. An eye for an eye right?
For that matter, the world didn’t end when Hitler won, or when Pol Pot came to power. The ol’ planet kept on trucking.
Nah, President Trump is an excellent choice. I recommend him.
Last election I voted for Trump out of expediency. This time I am proudly voting for Donald Trump. He’s done a heck of a job.
Personally, I think TDS, like other irrational beliefs, is a joking matter.
1. And won them, if you’re referring to Canada and Mexico — which is now paying for a living wall of 15,000 soldiers on our southern border.
2. Speculative, and probably wrong. When TPP was put together, we were still treating China as a civilized, law-abiding competitor instead of a rogue nation.
3. Speculative, and probably wrong. Would Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton have even tried to build a wall?
4. Sans Trump, there was no “drive to restore our border“ worth mentioning.
5. Unlike Hillary, who can break the law at will, and expect the media and the Federal bureaucracy to cover up for her, Trump is constantly under the microscope. Forget about “abusing” his powers; left-wing judges will barely let him use them.
6. Too soon to say – and predictions are still not facts.
7. Isis controled 20,000 square miles when Trump came into office, roughly zero now.
8. This is all entitlement spending; and the Democrats immediately demagogue any attempt to rein in entitlement spending even to the slightest degree.
9. Three American soldiers. One had already served 6+ years in prison (for ordering the shootings of two suspected Taliban scouts); one had been absolved of a 2010 killimg but the case was mysteriously reopened in 2018; one had been acquitted of all charges but was demoted for posing for a picture next to a dead Taliban.
10. Rod Blagojevich had already served 8 years for trying to horsetrade Obama’s old Senate seat, which is arguably not illegal.
11. I wish! Trump was far too slow to fire people who needed to be fired; e.g., James Comey, Rod Rosenstein.
12. Guilt by association to people who are guilty by association to people who may or may not have said things that, taken far enough out of context, may seem inflammatory or unwise. (I read the articles!)
Exactly #Nihilismlolz.
It’s probably wise to start studying plumbing right now.
A plumber told us we had to replace our low-flow toilet for $600. If he had asked for, say, $300, we would have taken the deal. Instead we did more research, and found that we just needed to replace a $6 rubber seal.
“Trump is destroying all institutional integrity” — By provoking the leadership of the FBI to break the law?
“The stupid Nationalist trend on the right” — This is just part of the left‘s sneak attack on patriotism.
“You guys got 4 years to be happy arbitrarily raising taxes” — Are you sure you didn’t fall asleep watching MSNBC? (Hint: if Rachel Maddow was gazing into your eyes and speaking softly to you alone.) Trump is rarely accused of raising taxes.
“Creating massive deficits” — As I said elsewhere, the Democrats will not permit entitlement spending to be addressed.
“Failing to get 3% annual growth” — Still the best record in the 21st century.
“Restricting immigration on racist pretexts” — Garbled. According to the Left, Trump’s pretexts are not racist but his real motives (they can read his mind) are racist. N.B.: if Trump really did want to ban Muslims, this would still not be racist, because Islam is not a race.
“Claiming unprecedented executive powers and privilages [sic]” — Left-wing judges have made it difficult for him to use the normal powers of his office.
P.S.: Texas becoming California — why stuffed-shirt Beto was almost elected to the Senate!
He might have lost money at $300. Have you checked to see how much things COST now?
I wouldn’t be surprised. The point was, because the internal architecture of the low-flow toilet was not the usual, the young plumber from Mr. Rooter apparently didn’t know how to fix it.
A low-flow toilet is also more likely to cause a clog in your plumbing because, as the name implies, it uses too little water.
Yes, that’s a fairly common problem. The newer ones do better, but still I would never install a very low-flow toilet for that reason, and that they don’t do as well at… cleaning themselves out?
Also low-flow shower heads don’t get you clean, and in both cases – toilet and shower – the water doesn’t just disappear, it goes back to the city to be cleaned and re-used! Indeed, if the treatment plants don’t get ENOUGH water coming in, they can’t function properly!