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No guests this week, just our hosts reflecting on a week that will not soon, if ever, be forgotten. We look at the testimony from both Kavanaugh and Ford, the reaction and remarks from the Judiciary Committee, from the media, and from friends. We wind up with some predictions from the hosts as to whether or not Brett Kavanaugh will get confirmed. Give us your predictions in the comments.
Music from this week’s show: Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty
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Sounds a little, uh, whiny on your part.
Therein lies your problem – you’re watching *any* of those [redacted]shows…
Whiny? In what way? I am pretty sure pointing out the facts that the left and potions of the establishment right hold Trump supporters in contempt is not a whine.
“You all just think we’re so deplorable!”
Nobody here was calling Trump supporters deplorable. Some of us just do not, on principle, give our unconditional loyalty to politicians.
And no one here on this site have done so.
Yet, you insist on saying that we have.
Over and Over Anti-Trumpers, accuse people who support Trump of being “cultists” of being “dupes”, or any number of things like you have above.
The fact that you actually believe that I or anyone else on the site has given unconditional loyalty to Trump just shows the contempt with which you hold us. You don’t have to use the word “Deplorable” it comes through anyway.
BTW, my comment about being deplorable was meant as a joke. Dear Lord, though, you have demonstrated it clearly. The “whiny” comment is just rich. Accuse us of being unconditionally loyal, and when we say “that’s not true” we are being “whiny”.
You would make a good Democrat.
More like nearly three million “fewer Jonahs.” In California. Where the last few cycles there has been an average of three million more votes for the Democrat. About the only more lopsided part of the country is the ratio in DC proper, with orders of magnitude more votes. The entirety of her popular vote edge came from California, and even if Trump had outperformed George W. Bush that would have been true.
No. California was/is a special case. California hasn’t come close to going GOP since 1988. The GOP in California barely exists at the moment – less than 30% of registered voters. There are more independents here than Republicans. There’s literally no chance of a Republican winning California unless something drastic happens – a 10.0 earthquake that makes the coastal cities a new Atlantis, say.
There are 48-49 states where the choice was harder, and the Binary Choice argument is more compelling. In California there was no competition. A vote for anyone but HRC was a protest vote against her, but doomed to fail. Like in Iraq when Saddam got less than 100%. It’s the only state where she outperformed Obama.
To many of us, 2016 was a choice between certain death by suffocation (Hillary/Dems) or possible apocalyptic death by a meteor in a clown mask. Many of us are pleasantly surprised by the job he’s done, but had little hope of it. Congrats if you jumped early on the #maga train – you get bragging rights. Some took a while longer. Others had to be dragged kicking and screaming. Some remain tepid at best. Some are still unconvinced.
Nope. Not just “nope”, hell nope. And how did you get that from what I wrote? I’ve gone out of my way repeatedly to make the opposite point. In fact, I think you’ve liked certain defenses I’ve made of Trump against unwarranted attacks, so I would think you of all people would know I’m trying to be good-faith here, Bryan. But to be super-clear: I don’t see Trump’s failings as your failings*, and furthermore understand that voting is strategic/tactical, and is among a limited number of usually non-ideal candidates. So, in the future, please keep this in mind when you read stuff by me.
Of the two possible reasons, that isn’t one. The two, as I see it:
It’s clear to me that the answer is “one and two.” My hope is that we’ll all calm down over time and make reasoned criticisms of Trump, and that his supporters (and I mean, I’m partly a supporter) will stop internalizing every criticism of Trump as a personal insult to themselves. This last, by the way, is what I find very strange.
*And please don’t jump to the sarcastic response of “gee, that’s generous of you”, because that’s not how I mean it. I’ve certainly voted for my share of chowderheads, whose behavior and ideas I’d hope I wouldn’t be accused of holding.
We need to know what the is opposition is doing. As George S. Patton said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
I was more commenting on TV news/opinion generally, not just “the other side”.
It was clear from other comments that there are anti-Trump types who hold Trump supporters in contempt. I was not internalizing anything about Trump. It is being called things like “cultist” that I find insulting. As has happened to me on Ricochet since I breathed the tiniest hint that I was for Trump. See my last post in this thread.
Anti-Trump people on the right have go after Trump supporters from Day One. People on Ricochet continue to go after Trump Supporters. It is not unreasonable to be insulted by attacks on one’s own self.
What I do know about the Professional Trump critics as those same people told me how bad it would be if Trump lost the nomination and did not support the nominee. Those same people then told me I should not support the nominee or I was being unprincipled.
So, I am sorry for being touchy about it.
No problem, but please pick your targets with more care. It’s exasperating to work to be good-faith and really listen, only to be lumped in with those you’re really mad at.
Because it’s a straw man that doesn’t exist.
You think that Moore was banned from the local mall. You think there was evidence that he was banned from the mall. But the former mall manager said he didn’t recall that it had happened and there was zero evidence that it had.
Yep.
Nonsense. Any criticism of him, no matter how obvious or warranted, draws heated responses. Nothing seems to pass unanswered. It’s strange.
That sounds like an excellent reason to leave PRC (People’s Republic Of California) to its (well-deserved) fate, and go someplace where your vote might count.
I voted for Cruz in the primaries, but I didn’t throw a
Jonahtantrum when he didn’t win and sit out the general. It was too important. As it happens, it looks like Trump is being more conservative than Cruz would have/could have.I was surprised and disappointed in what I perceived, fairly or otherwise, as excessive “even-handedness” in this week’s discussion. I can well understand the desire not to resort to the “logic” of the left, i.e. turning “We like neither him nor his ideas; ergo he’s guilty” into “We like both him and his ideas; ergo he’s innocent.” I can also fully appreciate humble reluctance to cast the first stone. But surely there is no need to apologize for being objective (not cold-hearted) and declaring: “Yes, it is possible that Ford is not lying, with all the further possibilities that such entails, but as her story cannot be verified, it must be dismissed.”
Unlike the distinguished three, I am old enough to remember the rise of the New Left and was once part of it. Well aware of just how unpopular we were, I was both intimidated and inspired, for there was something perversely thrilling about being “subversive,” spouting an ideology one somehow knew was rubbish, self-righteousness easily blending with snobbishness.
Then to my astonishment and, indeed, bewilderment, leftism became not only respectable but also trendy. Suddenly, the thrill was gone. Realizing that I did not want my children to grow up in a world run by my graduate-school professors and their ilk, I became a conservative. Those of my generation who have remained on the left are worse than the Bourbons as Talleyrand was once thought to have described them: They have learned nothing, forgotten everything, and are more dishonest and/or demented than ever.
As I have not lived in the United States in many years, I no doubt have a limited or even warped perspective; my American friends tell me that I should not be overly discouraged by the shamelessly biased US media, to which I sometimes turn. But as JL, PR, and RL rightly warn, the Democrats’ tactics threaten to set a most dangerous precedent.
@wolfsheim People simply do not remember the irrationality that was always at the core of the New Left, a movement with which I was very familiar.
That irrationality fled to the safe spaces of the media and the universities, donned academic vestments made in Germany and France, took over both boltholes and now has seeped out into the larger culture.
Here, from late in its brief heyday, is a reminder. Listen carefully to the long forgotten Dotson Rader as he explains the New Left to WFB and to a bemused veteran of the Old Left.