Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Checking in with the Never Trumpers

 

Not having read Never Trumpers in a long time, I thought I would check in with the Never Trumpers to see how they are approaching the election. I settled on Dan McLaughlin at National Review, who has a long piece on his struggles with his vote tomorrow.

And I do mean long. The thing just goes on, and on, and on. It reminds me of an unpleasant tendency of Never Trumpers toward moral narcissism, as though the most important thing in the world is their moral purity.

Obsession with moral purity is not the same thing as moral virtue. The latter is the foundation of right conduct and, through the virtue of prudence, deciding the best course of action in any particular circumstance. The former confuses moral virtue with avoiding association with the allegedly morally tainted, as though voting for Donald Trump somehow makes one dirty.

Most moral decisions are straightforward. In this case, McLaughlin goes on at length about his pro-life principles and his commitment to the pro-life cause. After mentioning Trump’s positive pro-life record and the fact that Biden/Harris would be perhaps the most pro-abortion administration in history, he ends with this:

It is possible to justify voting Biden-Harris, or being indifferent between Biden-Harris and Trump-Pence, but no conscience can avoid the fact that this means choosing the death of many thousand innocents.

Ummm… how can one possibly justify voting Biden-Harris if you think it means choosing the death of many thousands of innocents? What could possibly weigh on the other side? I get it if you aren’t strongly pro-life. But McLaughlin insists he’s about as pro-life as they come.

After many more paragraphs of hand-wringing, we finally get the answer:

If I’m honest with myself, if I take this simply at the gut level, here is the dilemma: When I watch Trump, I just want to be done with him. I’ve had it. I’m sick of what he does to our politics and national discourse, and even to our brains and our friendships and neighborhoods….

I’m also really not sure I can look at myself in a mirror after voting for Trump. It is one thing to walk with Trump, on a transactional basis, thanking him when he does right, criticizing him when he does wrong, and hoping and trying to make him the best servant of the public we can get while he serves the term to which the voters have elected him. We can all do that with a clean conscience; it is a civic duty. We can do it again, if he is reelected. But it is another thing entirely to voluntarily choose four more years of this. Somebody has to stand up for the things we always said we believed; it should fall to those of us who still, publicly, believe those things.

So in the end, it’s just that McLaughlin won’t feel good about himself if he votes for Trump. He wants to be done with him. He wants to look at himself in the mirror and be proud of himself. Proud of what? That his moral purity is intact because he stood aside while a man who, by McLaughlin’s own analysis, will enable the deaths of thousands of innocents is elected? This isn’t moral analysis. It’s just moral narcissism.

And I just want to be done with it.

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  1. EHerring Coolidge

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    I do think that Biden is a good man.

    ‘plains a lot.

    • #61
    • November 3, 2020, at 6:47 AM PST
    • 3 likes
  2. EHerring Coolidge

    I find Trump to be fun, a welcome relief to the hate -filled left, the fear of viruses, the unpatriotic people who trash the country, etc. If he loses, we don’t go away. We can’t unsee and unhear. We can’t forget the sins of the media and Democrats.

    • #62
    • November 3, 2020, at 6:54 AM PST
    • 11 likes
  3. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Coolidge

    philo (View Comment):
    That “I’m sick of what he does to our politics and national discourse” pap signals quite a blind spot for the complete descent into madness the entire other side of the aisle have forced upon themselves.

    It also signals someone who apparently only watches left-wing news media.

     

    • #63
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:16 AM PST
    • 5 likes
  4. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Coolidge

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    I was listening to Kevin Williamson on a podcast today, think it was the Mad Dogs and Englishmen podcast. He was talking about how, if he didn’t vote for Trump but Trump nonetheless won, he’d get the benefits of Trump without being made dirty.

    The word that comes to mind is “effete.” It isn’t a good look.

    “Effete” works. Also “Jackass.”

    Annefy (View Comment):

    Whatever town DT was in was decimated first by off shoring. And no one cared. And then by opioid addiction. And no one cared.

    Certainly not Kevin Williamson who notoriously wrote that such towns should just die.

    • #64
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:16 AM PST
    • 9 likes
    • This comment has been edited.
  5. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Coolidge

    J Climacus (View Comment):

    Come on Gary. You can’t really think biden is a good man all politics aside.

    Biden is a nasty, angry, dementia-suffering old racist who molests women and uses his sex-and-drug-addicted son to collect bribe money from our enemies.

    But yeah, President Trump is the one who is just too icky to vote for.

    • #65
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:27 AM PST
    • 15 likes
  6. Stina Member

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    This year’s vote is refreshingly free of posturing and agonizing. Which, I suppose, is a sign I have lost my moral compass and joined a tribe so I can shake my spear with all my new friends. Nah.

    Totally should have been this year’s halloween costume.

    • #66
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:29 AM PST
    • 3 likes
  7. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Coolidge

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Evan McMullin endorsed Biden.

    Deep State CIA Spook endorsed the continuation of the corrupt Deep State.

    • #67
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:30 AM PST
    • 10 likes
  8. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. StephensJoined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Bob Wainwright (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    I was listening to a Trumpstumper this morning while I walked the dog. One of what, ten speeches he gave yesterday? Rambling, riffing, conversational, amusing. I thought: he’s having fun. I thought: I have never liked this guy, but that’s not the right metric. I’ve never clicked with this guy. Even back in the 80s. He comes from a different place. The playboy mogul braggadocio, the Howard Stern suck-up sessions, it all left me cold.

    I agreed with him a lot of stuff, but you’ll eventually agree with someone who talks as much as he does.

    Here’s the thing, and I’ve said it before: none of the things I feared came to pass. Everything I feared about the left has come to pass. I was hard-core NT in 2016 – I regarded this as wise move for the future of the movement, but it also masqueraded a self-flattering position that just happened to coincide with one’s desire to be thought of as a man of virtue.

    This year’s vote is refreshingly free of posturing and agonizing. Which, I suppose, is a sign I have lost my moral compass and joined a tribe so I can shake my spear with all my new friends. Nah.

    One more thing: I imagine Trump and Biden visiting our family gas station. Trump would be interested in the operation, because I think he’s always interested in how people manage to make money. It’s a frequency some people feel. He’d note how he reduced regulation on our operation and brought gas prices down, way down, it’s a beautiful thing. Biden would have had advance men make sure the owners were Democrats, then he’d talk about transitioning away from the gas pumps to EV changing stations, and how he’d sign legislation to make it so.

    TBH Trump is still something of a Sphinx to me. But the practical effect of his tenancy in office is what matters.

    Rush Limbaugh was on Fox and friends this morning, talking about how Trump has done everything Never Trumpers have been asking for for years, but they don’t appear to care or even want it.

    They have never wanted any of that in the first place it would seem.

    • #68
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:46 AM PST
    • 7 likes
  9. Jon1979 Lincoln

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Evan McMullin endorsed Biden.

    Deep State CIA Spook endorsed the continuation of the corrupt Deep State.

    Evan probably hopes Joe has some spare campaign cash left over and will pay off all the people McMullen stiffed during his 2016 campaign.

    • #69
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:47 AM PST
    • 8 likes
  10. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. StephensJoined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    What is fundamental to me is the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

    I don’t believe you. No disrespect intended, but I think this is something you’re telling yourself so that you can justify doing what you want to do.

    There is every reason to believe that the Constitution is in greater danger with Democrats in office. Both recent experience and the promise of what’s to come tells us that.

    In the meantime, the current President has been appointing a large number of Constitutional originalists — probably the single greatest effort any President can make to defend the Constitution and the rule of law.

    The myth that this is a lawless President who threatens the Constitution is one of the say-it-enough-and-everyone-believes-it stories that litter our media and popular culture. For whatever peculiar reason — and I won’t credit it to his robust ideological embrace of Constitutional government, since I don’t think he has any — this President has nonetheless been a defender of the Constitution and of law and order, at a time when his opposition seems bent on transforming the former and ignoring the latter.

    So come up with another justification for doing what you want to do, because that dog won’t hunt.

    Hi Henry,

    I think that we will need to agree to disagree.

    Gary

    No, that is not valid. You make an accusation against Trump, and they fail to back it up. That is not “Agree to disagree” that is “I can’t prove my point so I give up, and what is truth, anyway?” sort of argument. 

    Henry wins the point, you lose it. 

    Again. 

    As you always do. 

    You should understand how it works in your line of work.

    • #70
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:47 AM PST
    • 9 likes
  11. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Coolidge

    Bryan G. Stephens, Trump Aveng… (View Comment):

    Bob Wainwright (View Comment):

    Rush Limbaugh was on Fox and friends this morning, talking about how Trump has done everything Never Trumpers have been asking for for years, but they don’t appear to care or even want it.

    They have never wanted any of that in the first place it would seem.

    That’s what I’ve concluded. All the alleged conservatives turning against a President who actually did all the things those alleged conservatives have wanted? Proof, if you need it, that they were more interested in fame and money than in conservatism. Charlie Sykes is a perfect example.

    • #71
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:56 AM PST
    • 6 likes
  12. Bishop Wash Member

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    I am going to hate some of Biden’s policies. I fear the Sanders/Warren/AOC progressives. But Biden, while misguided in his policies, is fundamentally a good and decent person, and Trump is fundamentally a bad, unfit and Un-American person.

    The high-tech lynching of Justice Thomas. The years of lying about the driver involved in his wife’s fatal car crash as a guy “who drank his lunch”. A severe Catholic who supports the slaughter of babies, as even Dan points out but is okay with. The Big Guy who takes a cut of Hunter’s foreign money. The plagiarist.

    He’s neither good nor decent.

    • #72
    • November 3, 2020, at 8:10 AM PST
    • 19 likes
  13. Henry Racette Contributor

    Bishop Wash (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    I am going to hate some of Biden’s policies. I fear the Sanders/Warren/AOC progressives. But Biden, while misguided in his policies, is fundamentally a good and decent person, and Trump is fundamentally a bad, unfit and Un-American person.

    The high-tech lynching of Justice Thomas. The years of lying about the driver involved in his wife’s fatal car crash as a guy “who drank his lunch”. A severe Catholic who supports the slaughter of babies, as even Dan points out but is okay with. The Big Guy who takes a cut of Hunter’s foreign money. The plagiarist.

    He’s neither good nor decent.

    Bishop, I agree, and I think it’s pretty obvious. Biden is about as much as swamp creature as one could seek, a superficially affable old boy who has never taken a principled stand, who has abused his position at every opportunity for pecuniary gain, who likes to tell stories about the people he’s beaten and who talks an awful lot — for a doddering old man — of getting into fist fights. There’s nothing obviously good or decent about him.

    But he does the politician thing in a familiar and reassuring way, and that provides a patina of deniability for those who so can’t stand Trump that any alternative, no matter how implausible, must be seized and justified with increasingly preposterous feats of virtue gymnastics.

    • #73
    • November 3, 2020, at 8:16 AM PST
    • 10 likes
  14. Jim Beck Member

    In response to a criticism of Trump by Dr. John Piper, Dr. Grudem has a brilliant reply. https://www.christianpost.com/voices/a-response-to-my-friend-john-piper-about-voting-for-trump.html These are two theologians, who are friends with different views. I think Dr. Grudem has a more solid position, hugely.

    Concerning Biden’s character, in addition to the lying about the driver, saying for years that he drank his lunch, Biden stabbed Bork and Thomas in the back, when each man was at his most vulnerable. Also, if we recall Defense Sec Gates said that Biden had been wrong about every foreign policy decision in the last 40 years, we might surmise the consistency of poor choices as the result of Biden’s life of influence selling.

    • #74
    • November 3, 2020, at 8:35 AM PST
    • 11 likes
  15. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. StephensJoined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Biden eulogies for a Klang member, @Garyrobbins, he sucked up to Dixiecrats.

    But you are afraid to even acknowledge it. You cower in fear from any rebuttal of your broken worldview. 

    Sad.

    • #75
    • November 3, 2020, at 8:55 AM PST
    • 4 likes
  16. Jon1979 Lincoln

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Bishop Wash (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    I am going to hate some of Biden’s policies. I fear the Sanders/Warren/AOC progressives. But Biden, while misguided in his policies, is fundamentally a good and decent person, and Trump is fundamentally a bad, unfit and Un-American person.

    The high-tech lynching of Justice Thomas. The years of lying about the driver involved in his wife’s fatal car crash as a guy “who drank his lunch”. A severe Catholic who supports the slaughter of babies, as even Dan points out but is okay with. The Big Guy who takes a cut of Hunter’s foreign money. The plagiarist.

    He’s neither good nor decent.

    Bishop, I agree, and I think it’s pretty obvious. Biden is about as much as swamp creature as one could seek, a superficially affable old boy who has never taken a principled stand, who has abused his position at every opportunity for pecuniary gain, who likes to tell stories about the people he’s beaten and who talks an awful lot — for a doddering old man — of getting into fist fights. There’s nothing obviously good or decent about him.

    But he does the politician thing in a familiar and reassuring way, and that provides a patina of deniability for those who so can’t stand Trump that any alternative, no matter how implausible, must be seized and justified with increasingly preposterous feats of virtue gymnastics.

    Biden’s 32-year history of bumbling oafishness in the national spotlight, since his Kinnock gaffe in the ’88 presidential primaries, actually has served to soften his nastier edges. Because he’s been a human gaffe machine and frequent source of political comedy even before his current cognitive deterioration, it was harder to work up a mad about him as it would for a politician who was actually competent, and didn’t have to be shielded by having a ‘D’ after his name by the big media outlets, who’d spin every new mistake as “Oh that wacky-but-lovable Uncle Joe!”

    • #76
    • November 3, 2020, at 9:08 AM PST
    • 9 likes
  17. Ontheleftcoast Member

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    While I despise Trump’s personality, what is most concerning is his total lack of character and integrity.

    Trump cleverly disguises “his total lack of character and integrity” by deceptively keeping a surprising number of his campaign promises.

     

    • #77
    • November 3, 2020, at 9:51 AM PST
    • 16 likes
  18. J. D. Fitzpatrick Member
    J. D. FitzpatrickJoined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    What is fundamental to me is the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

    I don’t believe you. No disrespect intended, but I think this is something you’re telling yourself so that you can justify doing what you want to do.

    There is every reason to believe that the Constitution is in greater danger with Democrats in office. Both recent experience and the promise of what’s to come tells us that.

    In the meantime, the current President has been appointing a large number of Constitutional originalists — probably the single greatest effort any President can make to defend the Constitution and the rule of law.

    The myth that this is a lawless President who threatens the Constitution is one of the say-it-enough-and-everyone-believes-it stories that litter our media and popular culture. For whatever peculiar reason — and I won’t credit it to his robust ideological embrace of Constitutional government, since I don’t think he has any — this President has nonetheless been a defender of the Constitution and of law and order, at a time when his opposition seems bent on transforming the former and ignoring the latter.

    So come up with another justification for doing what you want to do, because that dog won’t hunt.

    Hi Henry,

    I think that we will need to agree to disagree.

    Gary

    On what grounds, Gary? Provide evidence.

    Here’s mine. Trump’s court appointments.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/us/trump-appeals-court-judges.html

    The review shows that the Trump class of appellate judges, much like the president himself, breaks significantly with the norms set by his Democratic and Republican predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

    The lifetime appointees — who make up more than a quarter of the entire appellate bench — were more openly engaged in causes important to Republicans, such as opposition to gay marriage and to government funding for abortion.

    When ruling on cases, they have been notably more likely than other Republican appointees to disagree with peers selected by Democratic presidents, and more likely to agree with those Republican appointees, suggesting they are more consistently conservative.

    “They have long records of standing up, and they’re not afraid of being unpopular,” said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative advocacy group that has pushed for the mold-breaking appointments. Ms. Severino once served as a law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the Supreme Court’s most reliably conservative members.

    Mr. Trump has appointed more judges to the appeals courts, where eight of the nine current Supreme Court Justices served, than any other president during the first three years in office.

    What do you have in reply?

    • #78
    • November 3, 2020, at 9:56 AM PST
    • 3 likes
    • This comment has been edited.
  19. kedavis Member

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    Oh my, I see that Dan upset a whole bunch of people. However, what I got out of his article was that with Biden we have bad policies and with Trump we have a bad man. That really boiled things down for me.

    Biden is also a bad man. Arguably, if not obviously, moreso than Trump. And with a lot of other bad people – men and women – behind and around him.

    That you evidently choose not to see it, doesn’t make you BETTER or SMARTER.

    • #79
    • November 3, 2020, at 9:56 AM PST
    • 7 likes
    • This comment has been edited.
  20. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Coolidge

    J. D. Fitzpatrick (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    The myth that this is a lawless President who threatens the Constitution is one of the say-it-enough-and-everyone-believes-it stories that litter our media and popular culture. For whatever peculiar reason — and I won’t credit it to his robust ideological embrace of Constitutional government, since I don’t think he has any — this President has nonetheless been a defender of the Constitution and of law and order, at a time when his opposition seems bent on transforming the former and ignoring the latter.

    So come up with another justification for doing what you want to do, because that dog won’t hunt.

    Hi Henry,

    I think that we will need to agree to disagree.

    Gary

    On what grounds, @garymcvey? Provide evidence.

    Gary McVey is a different Gary — the PIT President from a parallel dimension.

     

    • #80
    • November 3, 2020, at 9:58 AM PST
    • 7 likes
  21. J. D. Fitzpatrick Member
    J. D. FitzpatrickJoined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    J. D. Fitzpatrick (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    The myth that this is a lawless President who threatens the Constitution is one of the say-it-enough-and-everyone-believes-it stories that litter our media and popular culture. For whatever peculiar reason — and I won’t credit it to his robust ideological embrace of Constitutional government, since I don’t think he has any — this President has nonetheless been a defender of the Constitution and of law and order, at a time when his opposition seems bent on transforming the former and ignoring the latter.

    So come up with another justification for doing what you want to do, because that dog won’t hunt.

    Hi Henry,

    I think that we will need to agree to disagree.

    Gary

    On what grounds, @garymcvey? Provide evidence.

    Gary McVey is a different Gary — the PIT President from a parallel dimension.

     

    Sorry folks. Fixed it—though I can’t call up Gary Robbins using the @ command. Maybe Max can help?

    • #81
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:05 AM PST
    • Like
  22. Django Member

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    Political autoeroticism.

    Let’s hope it leads to autoasphyxiation.

    That’s cold, … but funny. 

    • #82
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:11 AM PST
    • 1 like
  23. Jeff Hawkins Coolidge

    Joe Biden isn’t a good person, it’s just that older people have become so accustomed to his rank dishonesty, bloviating, casual racism, malapropisms and arrogance that they view this as normalcy.

    The media doesn’t actively hate him so he must be “good”

     

    • #83
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:16 AM PST
    • 8 likes
  24. Stad Coolidge

    J Climacus: Obsession with moral purity is not the same thing as moral virtue.

    Good way to put it.

    J Climacus: Most moral decisions are straightforward.

    And a lot aren’t. Moral dilemmas are common in novels and movies, but they also happen in real life. In politics, it gets real dicey because a political candidate’s position on issues almost never lines up perfectly with your positions. For never-Trumpers, it’s not even about issues – it’s about their perception of Trump’s character, totally ignoring the charcter issues with Trump’s opponent . . .

    • #84
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:17 AM PST
    • 4 likes
  25. Django Member

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Oh my, I see that Dan upset a whole bunch of people. However, what I got out of his article was that with Biden we have bad policies and with Trump we have a bad man. That really boiled things down for me.

    For better or worse, my focus is not on economic policy or environmental policy or fiscal policy. If you get any of these wrong, it can be fixed in future administrations. (How often has the top marginal rate gone up and down like a yo-yo between 36.0% and 39.6%?)

    What is fundamental to me is the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Aside from my morning prayers and surrendering my will and my life to God, that is the North Star that I salute each and every day. Character is the most important quality for me for a President. Intellectual honesty. Sobriety and rectitude. A commitment to something greater than one’s self. Heck, Ike was almost driven to distraction that he lied ONE TIME in his Presidency; Trump spits out a lie or exaggeration every other paragraph, if not every other sentence. Autocracy is the greatest evil our country faces. Trump is a bad man who would destroy the constitutional framework of this country if he can get away with it. He has already neutered the Republican Congress with the sole exception of Mitt Romney.

    I am going to hate some of Biden’s policies. I fear the Sanders/Warren/AOC progressives. But Biden, while misguided in his policies, is fundamentally a good and decent person, and Trump is fundamentally a bad, unfit and Un-American person.

     

    Obama/Biden and their corrupt FBI/DOJ/IC gave you 8 years of exactly what you claim Trump is doing:

    Autocracy is the greatest evil our country faces. Trump is a bad man who would destroy the constitutional framework of this country if he can get away with it.

    The Biden/(D)/MSM/BigTech are blatantly colluding to suppress newsworthy information in order to help the obviously mentally addled Joe Biden across the finish line and you persist that voting for Biden will make things better?

    If you would just go with you hate Trump because his personality grates on you, that would be much more logical than the nonsense you cobbled together above.

    While I despise Trump’s personality, what is most concerning is his total lack of character and integrity.

    My point is Joe Biden is much much worse when measuring lack of character and integrity.

    Your most logical solution would be to write in Evan McMullin again.

    Evan McMullin endorsed Biden.

    and the sun rose in the East this morning.

    • #85
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:22 AM PST
    • 8 likes
  26. MichaelKennedy Coolidge

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Oh my, I see that Dan upset a whole bunch of people. However, what I got out of his article was that with Biden we have bad policies and with Trump we have a bad man. That really boiled things down for me.

    For better or worse, my focus is not on economic policy or environmental policy or fiscal policy. If you get any of these wrong, it can be fixed in future administrations. (How often has the top marginal rate gone up and down like a yo-yo between 36.0% and 39.6%?)

    What is fundamental to me is the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Aside from my morning prayers and surrendering my will and my life to God, that is the North Star that I salute each and every day. Character is the most important quality for me for a President. Intellectual honesty. Sobriety and rectitude. A commitment to something greater than one’s self. Heck, Ike was almost driven to distraction that he lied ONE TIME in his Presidency; Trump spits out a lie or exaggeration every other paragraph, if not every other sentence. Autocracy is the greatest evil our country faces. Trump is a bad man who would destroy the constitutional framework of this country if he can get away with it. He has already neutered the Republican Congress with the sole exception of Mitt Romney.

    I am going to hate some of Biden’s policies. I fear the Sanders/Warren/AOC progressives. But Biden, while misguided in his policies, is fundamentally a good and decent person, and Trump is fundamentally a bad, unfit and Un-American person.

    I didn’t so much vote for Joe Biden. I voted against Donald Trump. I prize my vote against Trump on par of when I voted for the Greatest President of the Twentieth Century, Ronald Wilson Reagan; both votes are the two sides of the same coin.

    Moral preening personified. I should save this in case I am ever asked for an example.

    • #86
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:33 AM PST
    • 9 likes
  27. kedavis Member

    MichaelKennedy (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Oh my, I see that Dan upset a whole bunch of people. However, what I got out of his article was that with Biden we have bad policies and with Trump we have a bad man. That really boiled things down for me.

    For better or worse, my focus is not on economic policy or environmental policy or fiscal policy. If you get any of these wrong, it can be fixed in future administrations. (How often has the top marginal rate gone up and down like a yo-yo between 36.0% and 39.6%?)

    What is fundamental to me is the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Aside from my morning prayers and surrendering my will and my life to God, that is the North Star that I salute each and every day. Character is the most important quality for me for a President. Intellectual honesty. Sobriety and rectitude. A commitment to something greater than one’s self. Heck, Ike was almost driven to distraction that he lied ONE TIME in his Presidency; Trump spits out a lie or exaggeration every other paragraph, if not every other sentence. Autocracy is the greatest evil our country faces. Trump is a bad man who would destroy the constitutional framework of this country if he can get away with it. He has already neutered the Republican Congress with the sole exception of Mitt Romney.

    I am going to hate some of Biden’s policies. I fear the Sanders/Warren/AOC progressives. But Biden, while misguided in his policies, is fundamentally a good and decent person, and Trump is fundamentally a bad, unfit and Un-American person.

    I didn’t so much vote for Joe Biden. I voted against Donald Trump. I prize my vote against Trump on par of when I voted for the Greatest President of the Twentieth Century, Ronald Wilson Reagan; both votes are the two sides of the same coin.

    Moral preening personified. I should save this in case I am ever asked for an example.

    It’s good, but the Kevin Williamson version might be better. Although I suppose it suffers a bit on the “preening” side due to being so obvious.

    • #87
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:35 AM PST
    • 3 likes
  28. Kephalithos Member

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    Annefy (View Comment):

    Whatever town DT was in was decimated first by off shoring. And no one cared. And then by opioid addiction. And no one cared.

    Certainly not Kevin Williamson who notoriously wrote that such towns should just die.

    I like Kevin — in spite of some of his writing, and especially his irrational and unjustified hatred for the state of Ohio — but he strikes me as an oikophobe (as Roger Scruton would say).

    • #88
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:37 AM PST
    • 1 like
  29. Django Member

    If one needed any more proof that Nevers are terminally stupid it came from Rush today. There are two points to consider. First, Nevers want Trump to lose so they can re-build the party in their image. Second, Trump is at 95% approval among Republican voters. The conclusion is obvious, but Nevers suffer from cranio-rectal inversion and can’t see it. 

    OK, I’ll ask: What do Nevers hope to accomplish with 5% of the GOP? 

    • #89
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:40 AM PST
    • 9 likes
  30. MichaelKennedy Coolidge

    DrewInWisconsin, Man of Consta… (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens, Trump Aveng… (View Comment):

    Bob Wainwright (View Comment):

    Rush Limbaugh was on Fox and friends this morning, talking about how Trump has done everything Never Trumpers have been asking for for years, but they don’t appear to care or even want it.

    They have never wanted any of that in the first place it would seem.

    That’s what I’ve concluded. All the alleged conservatives turning against a President who actually did all the things those alleged conservatives have wanted? Proof, if you need it, that they were more interested in fame and money than in conservatism. Charlie Sykes is a perfect example.

    This tracks with the record of the post 1994 GOP Congress. The “balanced budget” was done with the peace dividend and raiding Social Security when the Boomers were at peak earning. Was any of the GOP voter agenda enacted ? They went after the shiny object of impeaching Clinton.

    • #90
    • November 3, 2020, at 10:45 AM PST
    • 4 likes