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 Next Tea Party is Going to Be Much, Much Angrier
The first generation of Tea Party protests were, unlike media depictions, filled with happy warriors pushing the country towards more fiscal responsibility. It involved crowds of flag-waving Americans who cleaned up every bit of garbage they may have created in the process of protesting across the country. The next round of protests by conservatives will look nothing like the last; they will be angry, deeply angry, and you won’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out why.
Over the course of the last day, a few things have happened. First, student loan “forgiveness” plans, which are really bailouts for college-educated Americans, have been floated by progressives, including Biden himself.
Schumer saying Biden can cancel first $50,000 in student debt via executive order. And will do so in first 100 days. This will change so many lives. https://t.co/nkWZykLJVE
— Tom Winter (@WinterForMT) November 7, 2020
Biden was less bullish, however:
Asked about his plan for student loan debt, Biden promises:
• Immediate $10,000 forgiveness on federal loans
• Public colleges tuition-free for students whose family income is less than $125,000
• Lessen Public Service Loan Forgiveness requirement pic.twitter.com/7e94mJrpxh— The Recount (@therecount) November 16, 2020
There’s already a great deal of resentment from Americans who worked hard and have saved and paid for their own educations and those of their children without government bailouts, and that anger alone would fester. But factor in the fact that while the government is giving bailouts to one sector – those who took out loans on an education that they can now profit off of the rest of their lives – another sector, small businesses, are being bankrupted by government fiat across the country.
Take what’s happened in Philadelphia today:
NEW PHILADELPHIA RESTRICTIONS:
—No indoor private social gatherings.
—No indoor dining at restaurants.
—Outdoor dining limited to 4 people of same household.
—Gyms, libraries, museums closed.
—Schools to remain open.
—Retail limited to 5 ppl/ 1,000 sq. ft.— Brian Taff (@briantaff6abc) November 16, 2020
I have one question: How will the businesses and private organizations (like museums) be made whole? They are still expected to pay rent and make payroll, and yet, they have been stripped of the means to do so. This is theft, plain and simple, and it is being carried out by the government. One could argue, rather easily in my opinion, that some or even all of these measures are necessary for public health. Fine. If that’s the belief of the government, the government needs to compensate affected businesses. What is happening now, lockdown-induced bankruptcies, is eminent domain without compensation.
Imagine the anger across America for a moment. The only folks who emerge from this winter with intact finances will be white-collar workers able to work from home, predominantly college-educated ones. And the government will be giving them a bailout on an education they’ve already received and have profited off of. Meanwhile, the same government has shut down millions of small businesses and offered zero in the way of compensation for the “sacrifice” they were forced to make in the name of public health. If that’s not a recipe for incandescent rage, I’m not sure what is.
Published in General
That could happen. But we’re really not very good at predicting the future. Certainly the last few years should have told us that.
What seems important to me is that, however bleak our expectations (and mine are a bit cheerier than yours, I think), we nonetheless persist in the struggle. Go down fighting and all that.
You’ll pardon my even darker pessimism, but we’ll also be told fighting is unseemly, and embarrassing, and we should “make our case better” before elections of varying security. Their behavior will get worse because they will use Trump as a starting point for excuses.
Like I don’t know if the election was stolen (I honestly could see people who really think Trump is a tyrant doing what they could to prevent it. I can also buy it as a conspiracy theory). But on the other hand, Democrats have no interest in making elections more secure for some strange reason and that sets off my skepticism bell.
The Russian Collusion lie was just the next step after the “Romney doesn’t pay his taxes” lie. Both worked. They went bigger. This one worked because even people aligned with us were telling us “see, there’s merit to it” to the point they worked against their own policy beliefs and put one of the people who helped prop up the lie back into the White House.
There will be no fight, we will be told to endure with a stiff upper lip because character matters.
If both races are magically stunning upsets in Georgia, then we will know the true depths of our despair :)
We must endeavor to persevere.
Didn’t that line lead to shooting?
A politician should want a vote from everyone. If a pedophile cannibal votes for me in an election, I don’t see that as a sign that I support pedophile cannibals, but that pedophile cannibals agree with me that they should be in jail.
I think this statement of yours, Gary, is a very concise explanation for your views. You are so afraid that someone might have an opinion different from your own that might be attached to you personally by association.
If you had voted for Trump, it wouldn’t have been a personal reflection of your character. You are your own man. Trump is flawed but has done more to advance freedom or limit government than any president since Reagan. Are you so fragile that you can’t see the good in that without worrying that your peers might think you are similarly flawed? It’s a rather sad reflection, I think.
It terrifies me that we might be heading in that direction. Unlike our last War Between the States, this would be closer to the personal animus that drove the Spanish Civil War where neighbors stand neighbors against a wall in the middle of the night.
If there was voter fraud, and I firmly believe there was based on the evidence so far, then there is no way we will ever recover our rights again peacefully. It’s terrifying.
If Trump had hard evidence, he would have sought to have it admitted in court, where it would be subject to cross-examination. Trump did not have hard evidence. It should be clear to all that Trump is simply devoted himself and no one else.
I think that Jonah has it right in piece in The Dispatch at https://thedispatch.com/p/donald-trump-will-never-stop-fightingfor:
Donald Trump Will Never Stop Fighting—For Himself
The president is removing any doubt that his narcissistic presidency was always entirely about him.
“‘Despite the Left’s attempts to undermine this Election, I will NEVER stop fighting for YOU,’ President Trump assured me in a fundraising email.
“I don’t take campaign fundraising emails seriously (never mind literally). They’re all pretty stupid. But this one was obviously different, for the simple reason that the election is over.
“Indeed, this note—one of many sent by the Trump campaign recently—was a plea for money to pay for the legal effort to reverse an election Trump lost by the same margin of electoral votes he once claimed amounted to a “massive landslide.” If you read the letter’s fine print, you’ll discover that ‘fighting for you’ actually means ‘fighting for me.’ Most of the money from small donors will go not to the legal effort but rather to pay down campaign debt.
“In a sense, I’m grateful that Trump is doubling down on everything wrong about his presidency in its final chapter. Yes, this is embarrassing for the country. Yes, Trump’s radioactive conspiracy theory of a stolen election will have a long, poisonous half-life. But Trump is removing any doubt that his narcissistic presidency was always entirely about him.”
Stop posting garbage from garbage sites like The Dispatch. If we wanted to read the useless mutterings of a man who never worked a day in his life and lives deep in the DC bubble, we’d go there ourselves.
This is a very effective picture. It isn’t true, but it is an effective picture.
I am deeply disappointed that no Republicans will call Trump on his attempted coup, by having legislatures ignoring voters and naming their own electors.
“Attempted coup.”
Hypocrite, you cheered on four years of attempted coup.
More projection. Your side spent four years trying to take out Trump with a soft coup. Based on Biden’s rules, Trump should be justified on spying Biden and beginning investigations based on false information, right? That’s how the last transition went.
There’s a presumptuousness, and a sloppiness, to our opinion-shaping elite that I sometimes find tiresome.
Jonah writes that the Trump presidency has always been entirely about Trump.
That’s at best a null statement. I voted for Trump. Twice. I very much appreciated the Trump presidency. I want the President to exhaust every legal option to examine the results of this race.
So no, it isn’t all about Trump. It’s about me, and about millions more like me who voted for him for reasons which made sense to us and still make sense to us, and who would like the legal process to be followed as far as possible, however upsetting that is to those who think they know better.
I harbor no ill will toward Jonah in general, but this piece reflects the shallowness of people who can’t accept that other people might make decisions for good reasons of their own. It’s of a piece with the nauseatingly smug superiority of the never-Trumper intellectuals and their cramped and provincial worldview.
Only sometimes??
Fair enough, Charlotte. Sometimes I trip over my own generosity. ;)
There’s such a thing as being too gracious.
Or so I’ve heard. It’s never been a problem for me personally.
LOLing out loud!
So did Trump. Ergo, 73 million voters.
Great point, Max!
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-how-republicans-see-what-trump-is-doing
Support by the GOP for Trump.
I was assured here that the GOP was totally abandoning him.
Odd.
Money Quote:
So, Gary, you can name call Trump all you want (which continues to be rich, based on you saying you hate Trump for name calling), but Trump is being seen by all those voters, like your mom, as fighting for them.
Really, best I can tell, Jonah is all about Jonah.
And Never Trumpers are all about Never Trumpers. The more people call Trump a narcissist, the more I wonder about projection.
Indeed. Whenever I read Gary Robbins rambling on again about restoring the party of Reagan, I think he really means the party of Gary Robbins.
No. Trump only has the Social Conservatives.
Fiscal Conservatives? Trump has no sense of fiscal rectitude. Our debt is now greater than our GDP. Sooner or later, the chickens will come home to roost.
National Defense Conservatives? No. Trump threatens to withdraw from NATO, and does not have a coherent national security outlook, other than whatever I want to do at the moment.
Two of the three feet of the stool are missing.
So those 73 million people are only the social conservatives?
Fascinating.
Yeah, that’s quite a big tent!
Also, Gary is mind-reading the President again. You know why he doesn’t mind-read Joe Biden?
There’s nothing there to read!
Joe Biden visited the Brain Slug planet, and the poor thing died of starvation!
Speaking as national Defense conservative, I’m thrilled somebody finally held the members to their their commitments to pay what they promised, and moving bases to Poland and other Easter European countries that actually want us there. I’m pretty pleased with sticking it to Iraq, killing whatever the hell his generalship’s name was, and seeing Arabs and Israelis getting past the intransigence of the Palestinians.
By the way, you know what the difference is between Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler? The Germans liked Hitler.
There’s a reason why The Remnant had one fewer listener after awhile. Jonah might as well be wrapped in bubble, like unto a Bubble Boy. He’s still funny, on GLoP, and that’s about it.
The rest of it reeks of intellectual preening. And has for about a decade. I’ll buy him as an intellectual when he gets a PhD in physics and invents something useful.
Otherwise, his opinion is no different or more insightful than anyone else’s on this site.
Far less insightful. Most people on this site live in the real world.