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Conservative (In)Competence
“Can’t anybody here play this game?” – Jimmy Breslin
Conservatives have been treated to serial disappointments of late, and while the left deserves to shoulder a lot of the blame, some of our recent wounds were self-inflicted.
First, I sympathize with Parler to a certain extent because what Amazon has done to them is somewhat unprecedented. There are, of course, competing views as to whether Amazon telegraphed their intentions far in advance of their final decision to bump Parler off their infrastructure. But whether they did or not, and even though what they have done is a little unprecedented for them, their actions were far from unforeseeable by anyone with a modicum of imagination.
Given the ferment within the tech market over censorship, Parler should have had a detailed plan locked and loaded long, long ago. The lack of an executable disaster plan is on Parler. As painful as it might be to admit, Parler has just been outplayed by the tech lords and there was nothing foreordained about that outcome.
But I have also come to view Parler’s failure in this regard as a mirror image of what happened to Republicans in the recent election.
It’s highly likely, in my view, that the election was stolen. That the left was going to try to steal the election was as plain as the noses on our collective faces. But the decision by Republicans, not to go to DEFCON 1 until after the election, reflects a rather breathtaking incompetence on their part. Mounting widespread challenges to the rules of the game only after the game has been played is just, well, dumb.
Both Parler and the Republicans (people don’t call them “the stupid party” for nothing) have demonstrated a lack of shrewdness and foresight that have ill-served both their constituents and the country at large.
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Reagan didn’t deal with the internet, twitter, facebook, the tech titans. He’d get his butt kicked today, but go on living in the past. I’ll observe with interest, but you’re on your own until you grow and wake up.
Gary, we’re both old enough to know that it was a different world then. The R and the D could work together. You didn’t have permanent 100% voting blocks. Can you name a Dem who voted for any one of Mr Trump’s SCOTUS picks? (hint: there were three, in just one of the three nominations).
Good joke. Canada looks worse.
It had better have serious at least anti-drone and maybe antimissile defenses
PA did! Twice! Our wonderful SC let us down. The first time, a stay was denied because the Court was equally divided. The second time, it was denied because it was too close to the election. Even though, Justice Alito wrote that it’s likely the State Supreme Court decision violates Federal Constitution.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-542_i3dj.pdf
I didn’t say it was a perfect plan…
They had time, but they didn’t have standing.
When you can predict that the structure of the system is going to favor someone in a dramatic way, you can notify the authorities…but that usually does not change anything. Why? Because there are no damages! You have to prove damages disproportionate to everyone else.
And given that is is not how democracy works (we only investigate if enough people feel badly about it)…
That’s how it ultimately is. We can feel…whatever..in our bones with some documentation. But if that supposition disenfranchizes one vote? It’s over.
Because it doesn’t matter how many illegal votes are cast. Only that they have been counted and that dismissing any of them will lead to other votes being somehow weighted differently.
Fed Chairman Paul Volcker conquered inflation by dramatically raising interest rates, which he started in 1980 before the election. Reagan had little to do with it. In fact, Volcker has said that Reagan later pressured him not to raise rates.
Whether or not the last one was, the next one will be.
I think a light bulb just turned on in my head! Thank you for this insight!
Canada is worse when it comes to free speech. And they were more authoritarian than we were during Covid, with their population less resistant to it.
In addition, during the present border shutdown, there have been Canadian expats in the United States that have moved back to Canada, with vehicles still having U.S. license plates, and there have been incidents of vandalism against those vehicles, and the residences they were parked at.
So if you want to “take over” Canada, don’t expect it to be easy. There always has been a low grade resentment of Americans there, and lately it has become more obvious.
The end of the cold war took us all by surprise and happened under Bush in spite of our lack of understanding. It might not have happened for years if Reagan had listened to the experts, but it would have ended as the Soviet Union was rotten to the core and couldn’t be fixed. Inflation was conquered by Volcker. Reagan would have eased up sooner than Volcker would allow. The Republicans who say we are better than that are right, but the Democrats are in the hands of radicals and centralizers who do not understand the world, now or in the past. We face grave threats. Trump was a big step in the right direction but we allowed the Democrats to steal the election and some of our folks unable to see beyond Trump’s tweets joined them.
Yeah, I think those few words by @keithlowery need to be framed and hung on the wall. Maybe hung on a lot of walls…