A new fault line

 

Simple question: will the question of a “stolen election” by nefarious means – D malfeasance on the local level, top-down fraud efforts, Dominion manipulation, all of the above – divide the conservative side in the year to come? I get the feeling sometimes that if you’re not on board with the idea that Donald Trump actually won, full stop, you’re a cuck-shill Tapper-fluffer (cruise ship icon) RINO eager to buff your cocktail-party credentials.

Published in General
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 345 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    Okay, let me try to be clear. And maybe I’m missing your point, or maybe I’m simply wrong, but let me give it a shot.

    You say this isn’t about Trump. I’m saying that, if it’s true, as I believe it is, that different behavior from Trump could have turned this election into a win for us, then yes, it’s about Trump. Especially if that different behavior is something that many of us have been counseling for years.

    It doesn’t matter how fair that is. It doesn’t matter that Trump has been up against terrible odds.

    Your example of rape is horrible, but let’s run with it for a moment.

    If the victim is in the habit of walking into dark alleys alone at night, that doesn’t excuse the violence done her. It doesn’t make any of that right. But if our interest is in seeing her not get abused, and if we’ve warned her time and again to stop going into dark alleys, and if she persists in doing it, then…

    Then it’s still wrong, and awful, and unjust, and evil that she’s abused. But I’m not blaming the victim if I observe that we will have greater success if she refrains from entering dark alleys. That isn’t a moral judgment of her.

    And it isn’t a moral judgment of Trump to observe that not all his habits contribute to our success.

    President Trump was raped over and over. We can review each count again if you want. Russia Hoax, very Fine People Hoax, etc, etc, etc. This happened to him not because he deserved it, not because he brought it on himself by living recklessly and hanging around the wrong crowd. It happened because the progressives and left are radically dangerous and did this all out of nothing. They will do this to anyone. They will do it again.

    The people who fell for it all, I can only surmise that either they don’t know the extent of the rape or they really don’t think the rape is a big deal, that everyone does it or something like that. None of the options reflect well on the citizenry. Whatever – that’s still not the victim’s lesson to learn. Except maybe next time to come armed.

    Except BlueYeti has determined that this is all Trump’s fault.

    BlueYeti has said that Trump is responsible for his own behavior/demeanor.  

    • #331
  2. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    We can drop the analogy if you prefer.

    There was a soft coup attempt. Five years of non-stop slurs, negativity, and lies. Yet it was Trump’s tone that turned people off.

    I’m not saying that Trump was perfect. Of course he’s not perfect. No one is.

    Could it be, just maybe, that the perception of Trump by some was driven more by the lies and negativity thrown at him than it was driven by anything that Trump actually did or said or the way he said or did them? That, absent this heretofore unheard of level of propaganda and attack, he might have actually developed a positive perception? That, absent the need to respond to constant attacks, his communications might have been of a different tone? That, his tone was reactionary and that civility in teh face of such propaganda is suicide?

    That, and what of people for whom tone is more important than soft coups and dangerous radicalism and anticivility of the Dems? I’ve been in a couple of real fights. If an observer were to look at me during those fights and say: oh what a violent person, I don’t want anything to do with him then you’d likely say that person is silly. Do we need such a person? What are we willing to do to get such a person on our side?We can coach them. We can instruct them, We can lie to them, We can make the other guy appear more toxic than we appear to this silly person. I get it: our fate is in the hands of silly people. Is there something we can do differently? If the answer is to not defend ourselves in a fight because people are too stupid to see that we’re defending ourselves, then I guess there’s not much we can do.

    As Reagan said: “There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace — and you can have it in the next second — surrender.”

    • #332
  3. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    HW: See Ed G’s response.  That’s well put.

    • #333
  4. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    Trump brought a gun to the gunfight with the Left.  Problem was that most of the bullets Trump fired were fired into his own foot.

    • #334
  5. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    HeavyWater (View Comment):
    I’d be interested to know your thoughts on how future Republican presidential nominees should deal with the runaway entitlements issue. Trump’s tactic seemed irresponsible in some way. But it also seemed practical and helpful politically.

    You have to gut the political support for the entitlements, first.

    There are different approaches to all of them.

    1) Social Security –

    Seeing as raising taxes apparently doesn’t scare people, raise taxes and cut younger workers off from paying into Social security. Direct them to private savings plans or something else not government supported. As the number of people in the work force not relying on SS for retirement outnumbers the Social Security recipients, flip it to ending social security and lowering taxes.

    2) Welfare as UBI (which it is) –

    Support for this is everywhere because people with no work or poor wages can’t buy stuff in a service economy. So Welfare is the UBI we use to ensure consumerism fuels GDP. If we were producing more exports, we’d keep up our GDP without flooding the economy with funny money.

    Trump was tackling this at the base – remove regulations stimulating business growth, lower corporate taxes to make business here cheaper, tarriffs to bring production back home, get people into jobs, limit immigration to increase labor demand, watch wages rise because labor has high demand and supply is low. Next step should be lowering welfare benefits. But we had a Covid pandemic that interfered so I have no idea if he would have gone there or not.

    Just two parts with workable plans. But I don’t see a lot of willingness to tackle them on either front.

    Tarriffs are more constitutional than income tax.

    • #335
  6. Headedwest Coolidge
    Headedwest
    @Headedwest

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Except BlueYeti has determined that this is all Trump’s fault.

    Is it just me, or does it seem odd that the hired help argues with and insults the paying customers?

     

    • #336
  7. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Ed G. (View Comment):
    If the answer is to not defend ourselves in a fight because people are too stupid to see that we’re defending ourselves, then I guess there’s not much we can do.

    #KyleRittenhouse

    • #337
  8. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Stina (View Comment):
    Next step should be lowering welfare benefits. But we had a Covid pandemic that interfered so I have no idea if he would have gone there or not.

    One phrase that Trump used over and over, was that those who were getting subsidized for closing businesses and yet keeping staff (if I understood that correctly): They didn’t do this, didn’t deserve it, and if was China’s fault.  This always struck me as odd, justifying paying people for doing essentially nothing.  I mean, who needs to justify giving free money or free anything away?  I think Trump was voicing his own thinking that these payments were unlike entitlement payments, and was NOT a dole system.

    I think you’re right, prior to covid, he was trying to employ people to get them off Welfare.

    • #338
  9. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Except BlueYeti has determined that this is all Trump’s fault.

    Is it just me, or does it seem odd that the hired help argues with and insults the paying customers?

    I detect, conspiracy theorizer that I am, a company policy of appeasing Democrats and NTers and is pushing (albeit very gently) moderators to control the dialogue.  The mildest of threats to the customers paid off, and so far we have been mostly complaint.

    • #339
  10. Instugator Thatcher
    Instugator
    @Instugator

    Jim Beck (View Comment):
    I used to be worried about all the proper conservative issues, debt, national security, well thank God for Trump, Compared to the corruption in the FBI, State, Defense, media, tech, debt is nothing. The FBI tries to pull off a coup and everyone in govt knows it is a crock and yet they put the country through the Russia collusion theater. I should have seen how corrupt the FBI was when Strassel documented how the FBI harassed Catherine Engelbrecht and worked with the corrupt IRS of Lerner fame in “The Intimidation Game”, but again I never imagined how corrupt the FBI was. Again, I never imagined Armed Forces leaders lying to a president about keeping forces in Syria to make Russia’s plans fail. I never imagined State could successfully pull off an impeachment stunt with such weak tea as the Ukraine call. Lastly the immensity of the gulf between me and those who I thought were my conservative allies was made most visible by the passivity these conservative “leaders” had toward the coup, and all the rest, as if Trump justified any corruption because of a “higher morality”.

    President Trump is “The Great Clarifier”, as I argue in my post here.

    President Trump is the Great Clarifier because we learn who is right or wrong empirically. Just by watching their opposition to him or his opposition to them.

    • #340
  11. Instugator Thatcher
    Instugator
    @Instugator

    Flicker (View Comment):
    This always struck me as odd, justifying paying people for doing essentially nothing. I mean, who needs to justify giving free money or free anything away? I think Trump was voicing his own thinking that these payments were unlike entitlement payments, and was NOT a dole system.

    It was a rational argument to a government “taking”. 

    When the states implemented lock down orders they were interfering in the course of business. This has been held as a “taking” in the past, a violation of the 5th and 14th amendment. It shouldn’t be considered odd, that when the government says you may not use your property, that they be required to compensate you.

    According to reporting at the time it was structured as a “loan” that turned into a “grant” if you retained your employees.

    • #341
  12. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Stina (View Comment):
    limit immigration to increase labor demand,

    Decrease labor supply. 

    • #342
  13. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Instugator (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    This always struck me as odd, justifying paying people for doing essentially nothing. I mean, who needs to justify giving free money or free anything away? I think Trump was voicing his own thinking that these payments were unlike entitlement payments, and was NOT a dole system.

    It was a rational argument to a government “taking”.

    When the states implemented lock down orders they were interfering in the course of business. This has been held as a “taking” in the past, a violation of the 5th and 14th amendment. It shouldn’t be considered odd, that when the government says you may not use your property, that they be required to compensate you.

    According to reporting at the time it was structured as a “loan” that turned into a “grant” if you retained your employees.

    I don’t know about odd, but I consider it bad policy. 

    • #343
  14. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    I think both the Never-Trumpers and the anti-GOP people should sit down and be quiet for awhile, and let cooler heads prevail.

    Resurrected from the Chix Pit

    • #344
  15. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Instugator (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    This always struck me as odd, justifying paying people for doing essentially nothing. I mean, who needs to justify giving free money or free anything away? I think Trump was voicing his own thinking that these payments were unlike entitlement payments, and was NOT a dole system.

    It was a rational argument to a government “taking”.

    When the states implemented lock down orders they were interfering in the course of business. This has been held as a “taking” in the past, a violation of the 5th and 14th amendment. It shouldn’t be considered odd, that when the government says you may not use your property, that they be required to compensate you.

    According to reporting at the time it was structured as a “loan” that turned into a “grant” if you retained your employees.

    I don’t know about odd, but I consider it bad policy.

    It’s bad policy to develop conditions that prevent your people from working. And I think that we have been doing that for a long time egen before covid.

    It is proper to be willing to feed and clothe and house the people you forced out of work through direct policy.

    I did not like the use of the federal government for the covid payouts because those suffering were under governments THEY elected. And the federal government did not make those impositions, so it was not responsible for them.

    • #345
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.