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On the second COMMENTARY podcast of the week, we ask whether the constant swirl of dust around the president might actually be helping the Senate Republicans convince members to vote for tax reform because they are not constantly center stage as they were during the repeal-Obamacare debate. And we wonder whether Nancy Pelosi has brought a Democratic Tea Party down on her own head. Give a listen.
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I do think there’s an equal and opposite reaction to the “don’t rationalize” argument to the virtue signaling types
One side made peace with their compromise and to dismiss any struggle with flippancy to me is just as bad as going overboard with rationalization. Refusal to get on board to help due to a sense of superior piety and perhaps overcompensating by providing clickbait to embedded opposition doesn’t make you “more” superior. We can have the discussion up to the point of voting, but after, it’s moot and it’s time to focus on agenda and criticisms of implementation.
For a bad analogy, I think JPod and maybe Noah relish in re-litigating the Titanic hitting the iceberg with the Captain, and instead of helping the passengers on the boat they not only refuse, but impede the ability to save passengers because they want to be certain it was known that they told the Captain not to hit the iceberg and he did it anyway.
I’d much rather try and prove that conservatism and the Republican party can survive Trump, take the positives of the new hoi polloi voters that joined us, perhaps show that the country flourishes if people get out of the way vs. social engineering by the smart set than prove Trump is going to be the destruction of the party and your ideals so you can tell us “I told you so.”
Skepticism is fine, I just don’t get the “everything’s terrible because we’re not losing enough” point of view that seems to permeate week after week. Sure we might get a tax bill, but that will help Trump, so we’ll get more Trump, woe is us.