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Another slow news week…yawn. Uh, no. With so much to talk about, we present another super-sized Ricochet Podcast clocking in at just under 90 minutes. We’ve got our pal David French, who wants us to Stop Making Terrible Arguments for Blind Loyalty. That’s followed by two Ricochet members (that’d be Robert McReynolds and Max Ledoux) who wants us to give the President the benefit of the doubt at least some of the time. Seems reasonable, but you won’t want to miss the debate that ensues. Who won? Tell us in the comments. Also, RIP Roger Ailes, the whip smart, innovative, and yes, controversial, creator of Fox News (the Michael Wolff piece Rob refers to about Ailes is here).
Music from this week’s podcast: Happy Family by The Ramones
The all new opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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What the “Trumpers actually want”, at least the stripe like me, is to not hear Every Podcast, James, Rob, and their guests (again, I exempt Peter as not engaging in this behavior) criticizing Trump Just as the NYT, Schumer, Pelosi, et al do. The fact that Trump has made stupid, impolitic mistakes does not mean that he has brought his trouble on himself. He hasn’t. He has exacerbated them, but NYT-Democrat criticism is unhinged. But that is what we get from the hosts (and a substantial majority of their chosen guests), and it is beyond the pale. It is not criticizing Trump for his non-conservatism. It is NeverTrumpism of the the Bill Kristol (dispose of Trump) variety. James.
Go ahead, criticize Trump. There are lots of reasons for a conservative to be critical of him. There are also lots of reasons for a conservative to be livid at the Republicans in Congress, though there is zero on that.
But don’t seize upon the vapid, opportunist MSM crap to bring him down. Don’t concentrate your arguments around, “wow, if that’s true it’s really serious.” Choose that route, and you’re vile.
Why in the world do you think that “Wall Street greed” and liberals are two different things? They are the same people. They are the same. I know quite a few of them.
Okay, man, but the gravamen of your argument is still the NYT, Pelosi, and Kristol. I mean, you put it in caps, I didn’t.
These people didn’t make one person after another lie about the Trump administration/Campaign’s Russia connections. Oh, no, they didn’t lie per se. They just got the story slightly wrong. Flynn got his story slightly wrong. Sessions got his slightly wrong. McMaster got his slightly wrong. Trump got his slightly wrong, and on and on it goes. Time and time again, this administration has come out and said “So And So never talked to the Russians, and/or such and such was never said, this is all nonsense”, and time and again they have had to come back and say “Wellllll… Yeah, they did, and/or we did talk about that, but so what? It’s no big deal.”
And hell, for all I know, it’s not a big deal, but it’s definitely an administration that’s acting at every turn like they have something to hide. Like it or not, that doesn’t look great for Trump, and that is going to be news. The podcast comments on the news. When the news was all about Clinton’s e-mails and that campaign was acting guilty as all get out, they hopped on that story, too. Editorialists don’t choose the news.
No, they didn’t. They ignored large portions of that story.
Liberals don’t hate America, they hate Americans who refuse to bow to their Marxist ideals.
If what you mean by, “America”, is the set of principles on which it was founded — which is frequently what people mean (instead of its people, its history, its policies, etc.) — then I think they do hate America. American principles and fidelity thereto are the stone opposite of their relativism and collectivism.
To Rob Long: As penance for your anti-Trump attitude, you must read every comment on this podcast post, twice.
So now we are filling the reeducation camps?
Finally got around to listening to the episode today. Some fallacious arguments on both sides, but I absolutely side with Rob and his frustrations. Rob and Peter both laid out the case that Trump could have handled the Comey firing better. Rather than trying to argue otherwise, Robert and Max dodged the question to lambaste the media and Never Trumpers again. Extremely frustrating.
Yeah, but don’t worry, they’re only for bald, blue-shirted dufusses.
Oh, wait. Check that. Worry.
I do have trouble taking any comment seriously when it comes from a starting position declaring that America’s defense establishment is there only to preserve “the American Empire”.
What utter nonsense- and that is before even the declarations that Congress only needs to decide to do so and it can then pass virtually any legislation it wishes to. Robert, they couldn’t do that in 1787 any better than they can today.
If someone really and sincerely decries “the American Empire”, that person does not make his living in the defense business. Period.
Rob, no matter what they say, you are my favorite. No offense guys.
Moderator Note:
The expression "Don't bother replying that you were thinking the same of me. It's silly. I criticize Trump substantively. You criticize Trump to dispose of him. " is blatantly putting words in others' mouths. It is deliberately treating others here as liars. Stick to the issues not the invective.The gravamen of my argument is that you (and confreres) have thrown your lot in with NYT, Pelosi, Kristol in accord with their principles.
The fact that you cite Sessions as getting it “slightly wrong” is revealing. Session got nothing wrong, slightly or otherwise. In responding to clown Franken about whether he had contact with Russians in his capacity as a Trump campaign surrogate, he answered correctly. The other citations are similar blind acceptance of the MSM narrative. I’m slightly surprised that a Ricochet member is so obtuse as to damn himself so. Your acceptance (in keeping with Rob, James, D. French, etc.) of the NeverTrump narrative lays you bare. Which, I’m confident, nobody wants to see. Your eager embrace of the “if it’s true it’s serious” narrative is just one more nail in your coffin.
Of course, you are nobody (same goes for me), but public figures who duplicate your behavior are is deep trouble as public figures on the putative right because they will have an extremely wizened constituency.
I find it hard to believe you’ve read Eric Hoffer. He described you well in “The True Believer.” (Don’t bother replying that you were thinking the same of me. It’s silly. I criticize Trump substantively. You criticize Trump to dispose of him. NYT. Democrat party.)
Your argument, such as there is one, is essentially that there is only one question that matters: Trump or Not Trump. All “Not Trumps” are united despite the fact that they disagree on every other issue.
And you wonder why we accuse you of demanding unquestioning loyalty.
Moderator Note:
Stick to the issues, not the personal attacks.No. Listen up.
Pay attention if you have the capability.Criticizing policy is fine. Throwing in with the absurd “Russian collusion” narrative, and other straw men aimed at disposing with Trump, absent any evidence(and that is where we are, despite any desperate lurches on your part)is congruent with NeverTrumpism, which is suicidal for anyone who is genuinely a constitutionalist or conservative. Persistence, I believe, reveals the agent as neither.And I don’t wonder why you accuse some of us of demanding unquestioning loyalty. You do so because you don’t listen, don’t think, and believe in the absurd.
Two points:
Shorter version: There’s a lot of smoke, which suggests there may be a fire of some kind.
Because criticism of the president is often met with accusations of collusion with the Left.
#Irony noted.
The FBI has been investigating this for a year. So far, nothing. By the way, assuming the worst, what is the crime? None articulated so far. The current status is, “but if it is true then I would find it disturbing,” summarizing your concerns above. This is a foolish basis upon which to join with your idealogical enemies in deposing a duly elected President, particularly one of your own party who could be of use, if one choses to prioritize that. It suggests other priorities that have nothing to do with principle.
Again, if you are critical of the President because, e.g., he’s not adequately funding our military, he won’t touch the entitlement problem, he wants to create new “family leave” entitlements, he appears to prefer some sort of government-run “universal” health/medical system, that’s a completely different kettle of fish.
But the discussions on the podcasts at issue predominate overwhelmingly to the former than the latter. Let’s have more of the latter. Of the former, criticism of the narrative is a lot more sane.
Whatever irony you are noting aside, criticism of the President entirely identical to the Left’s baseless criticism is effectively the same. I have no video/audio of meetings in smoky back rooms.
My criticism is that Trump is handling the “Russian collusion” story in the most incompetent possible way. Comey needed to be fired, but Trump made it seem to all the world that he was firing Comey to take the pressure off the Russia investigation, and then told the Russian ambassador in a room full of stenographers that firing Comey would take the pressure off the Russia investigation. Why in the world would you tell that to the Russians?
Is that criticizing policy or is that throwing in with the absurd “Russian collusion” narrative?
Sorry, some of us don’t change our minds because we happen to agree with the wrong people.
I follow the facts as I see them. What do you do?
I have done no such thing and I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of people here who are doing so.
And the worst part is, I agree with the Trumpists on the merits; there is no evidence of collusion, and I feel confident saying there never will be because it would have been leaked by now.
But the “shut up” mentality, the idea that we’re traitors for even talking about this stuff, is intolerable.
Ahem #1:
Ahem #2:
You realize that a good deal of the criticism was coming from Peter who 1) voted for Trump and 2) volunteered to help his speechwriters?
Worrying that something concerning-but-far-short-of-collusion happened between the president’s campaign and the Russian government is not limited to the Left or former NeverTrumpers.
I think the reason Trump handled the Russia thing so poorly at the outset – is that he knows there is nothing there – He probably assumed that reality would eventually dawn and it would go away.
Is it possible to investigate Democrat collusion? Not with Russia on the US elections, but meddling in the Canadian election in 2015. In the past week newspapers have began to publish articles on the election finance fillings, and have found foreign money (illegally) played an important role in the Liberal victory.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/millions-in-foreign-funds-spent-in-2015-federal-election-to-defeat-harper-government-report-alleges
More than 100 organizations like the “Tides Foundation” have turned up, many of these organizations are known democratic fundraisers (money launders) and have been tied to Obama and Podesta. If they want to investigate foreign interference in an election, why not investigate one where there is actual evidence.
oh, the differing worlds which we inhabit.
what a conversation.
bravo to all .
I side with max most of all. (as though it mattered at all to anyone. )
Fwiw, I don’t really believe that. If he really thought that, he would just ignore the issue. Trump can’t stop talking about it. He keeps making the issue worse by constantly referring and responding to it.
Upon reflection, I think it is more likely that he knows that some people in his campaign (possibly Flynn) did have inappropriate contacts with Russia. Trump is too loyal to let them fly in the wind, so he is trying to help them but doing so in the most ham-fisted way possible. If that is true (if, I’m not saying that it is) and given that he is going to be attacked, I think the best strategy is publicly release all the information at once, fire the people involved, apologize and move on. This dribbling out of information makes it look like he is hiding something, even if what he is hiding is trivial.
At a minimum, he needs to have someone conduct an internal investigation for him to assess the potential damage. This situation is precisely where Trump’s experience in the business world has not prepared him for the job of being President.