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You know, Michael, you might consider dialing back on the “conservative, not crazy” thing. It’s starting to sound like “stable genius.” Every time I hear it, I find myself asking, “Wait, is that right?” I think you’re constantly re-introducing the question into our minds.
I haven’t listened to this Podcast in a long time. After all, I am a man of my word, and I pledged not too listen. Michael was just becoming to much for me.
But I wanted to check in with the comments, and I think I agree with you, Arahant. Sounds like something a lefty might say. And, if he does indeed keep using this phrase, who knows what message he is sending? Even I wouldn’t go so far to say that all Trump supporters are crazy – if that is what he is trying to get a across.
No, credit where credit is due, Michael is talking about both extremes: Trump crazies (which there are some) and anti-Trump crazies. It’s just that bringing it up as a slogan starts making me question the truth, sort of like when Democrats accuse Republicans of doing things. I start thinking, “Are they saying that because it’s what they would do?” Projection is a real phenomenon.
Thanks for clarifying. I like to think we have this is common: We both have strong opinions, but we are always fair. I also like you comment regarding Projection. Not only is it real, but it happens more often than people realize.
He’s just using a catchphrase to brand his content. It doesn’t bother me. If I were a conservative then I might not like the implication that he needs to announce that he’s not crazy. I’m not, though. (I like big budgets & I cannot lie.)
It’s still a question of the psychological freight of the catchphrase.
Arahant, you’re a regular listener, so I’ll tell you what my talk radio boss told me: “When you’re getting sick of saying it, the audience is just starting to hear it.”
But podcast isn’t radio, so I’ll keep that in mind.
Also, I think the #ConservativeNotCrazy lane is pretty empty. As a media consumer I struggle to find it, but I think there’s a real audience for it.
Thanks, as always, for your input.
I do agree with that.
On the content of the podcast rather than just the intro:
I can absolutely agree with you about Trump’s behavior and how it’s harmful. I’ll condemn his remark, but I don’t know what kind of condemnation he deserves because I don’t know the context or his intent.
It may have been racist as most people assume. It could have been a legitimate point about immigration policy and national self-interest that was expressed in an offensive way. It might have been prejudiced, but not racism if there’s bias based on poverty &/or culture.
With enough time, I expect we could come to an agreement about the proper attitude to have towards Trump as a human being. The larger question is, what actions do you think we should take politically? That matters a lot more and may not be something that we can agree about.
Fixed.
PS: In the same way that I don’t feel offended by ‘conservative not crazy,’ I don’t feel protective of the Republican party. IMHO, much of the unreasonable responses on the right to the Trump embarrassments come from an emotional investment in party identity.
Nice find on the image. Heh, Stuff.
More context via Jake Tapper
[NOTE- an automated proceess was blocking parts of the tweets. I replaced the offending word. Readers with a keen eye may notice the change]
I searched for The Hot Air podcast you said your guest is on. I don’t think this is it: https://soundcloud.com/thisishotair
I expect liberals to construe everything Trump says in the most negative sense. It’s unfortunate when conservatives do the same thing.
I interpreted Trump’s comment as merely his salty way of referring to hellhole countries that send incompetent immigrants to the United States.
For Democrats, it’s not immigrants but incompetent immigrants that are most desirable. In fact, the changes to our immigration laws in the 1960s were designed to replace well-educated immigrants with poorly educated ones.
I ran into this policy change head on when I tried to help a cousin and her husband, both engineers in their early 40s from Ukraine, come to the United States in the 90s. Immigrants like that are good for the country, but not for the Democratic Party, because they are not guaranteed Democratic voters. As we have seen, the Democrats prefer illiterate farmworkers: easily misled about their own interests by their (bought off) “community leaders“, and easy to form into a political machine.
My cousin and her husband never got to the United States. There was a happy ending of a sort: the husband was Jewish, so they were able to get into Israel.
Michael also appears to swallow the liberal narrative about the (nonexistent) “Muslim ban”. Here’s a little thought experiment: if Naziism were a religion instead of a political movement, would we be required to admit Nazi immigrants? Of course, not all Muslims think Jews or gays should be killed. (In Egypt gays are merely imprisoned, for example.) On the other hand, I think most Muslims do believe that anyone who leaves the faith is subject to the penalty of death.
Michael also buys into liberal myth-spinning about 19th century immigration. One important factor is that those immigrants had to pay their own way, and crossing the ocean was expensive. As a result, the immigrants left behind the bottom half of the societies they were coming from: the incompetent couldn’t afford a ticket.
Furthermore, the Jewish immigrants Emma Lazarus was thinking about came from societies that were actively keeping them down. They were (relatively) poor for that reason, not because they were incompetent. As a result, they flew up the socioeconomic ladder as soon as the hobnailed boot pressing on their heads was removed.
The Irish immigrants dislodged by the Potato Famine were, of course, victims of a biological disaster. The only incompetence there was that of the British government, which announced that it wouldn’t allow grain prices to rise in Ireland, thereby diverting countless shiploads of grain heading for Ireland to Europe instead.
I think there are so few “legit” Trump crazies – i.e. those who will defend his crassest tweets and s**thole comments (that he made in a private closed door meeting) – that we don’t have instruments sufficiently sensitive to detect them. Michael Graham, if you know of any, please name two of them in your next podcast. I suspect that most Trump supporters do what the brilliant Salena Zito identified during Trump’s primary campaign: take him seriously, but not literally.
However, we do know the names of several anti-Trump crazies. Michael has properly named several of them on his show, including most prominently Jennifer Rubin* of the Washington Post, and her defender from the The Atlantic. David Frum.
On the other hand, most mornings on the Michael (Moral Preening) in the Morning (Virtue Signaling) Podcast Michael Graham reminds us that he didn’t vote for Donald Trump, and that he would never vote for Donald Trump. We get it, Michael. You made it one vote easier for Hillary Trump to win the general election. You’re okay with that. But you’re going to drive your most loyal listeners away – listeners who might have followed you from Washington DC to Richmond, back to Washington DC, to Boston, to Atlanta, and back to Boston – if you don’t drop this holier than thou attitude.
Instead Michael, you might properly express shame and embarrassment over voting for certifiable anti-Trump crazy Evan McMullin.
* Michael correctly called Jennifer Rubin’s descent into madness “a shame,” no doubt in part because we-who-knew-Jennifer-Rubin-when kinda had a crush on her.
Maybe, although denies it, another Senator who was there says he did not hear it, and the only guy saying it happened, Dick Durban, has a history of making things up that even the Obama White House had to deny happened. I think this is just more poorly-sourced fake news.