What evidence is there of a trade-off between "being respectable" and "winning"? Polling data shows that Trump is increasingly unpopular. His approval rating is worse than Biden's at this point in his term of office.
The Conservative Party of Britain would like a word.
But you're using an obsolete 90's era framework. The Democrats have made it extremely clear that they don't agree with the basic tenets of democracy and are working on voiding it:
1. Ban voter ID.
2. Import infinity illegals and redistribute wealth to them.
3. They now have to vote Democrat or else they get deported and lose their income.
4. You can now win any elections regardless of how unpopular you are.
A simple scheme that ends democracy permanently, and they are institutionally in support of doing exactly this. They talk about it all the time.
Crushing the left with an iron fist may not be "respectable" to people who are still pretending Clinton was the archetypical Democrat, but it is required for winning. The alternative is you go the same way as the UK where the left are outright banning conservatives from speaking at all, implementing ID verification to use the internet so they can do it more effectively, getting rid of jury trials and trying to implement race-based sentencing. Or maybe Germany, where they are constantly on the edge of banning the countries second most popular party.
You can bitch and moan about how mean Trump was. I personally can't believe how polite and restrained he is towards his enemies, given what he's been through. How many times did leftists with TDS try to assassinate him in broad daylight now? How many times did they try to imprison him in show trials, steal all his money, destroy his family and businesses, and how many people believe they wouldn't do exactly that with more success the next time the Republicans lose?
Frankly, if I had been through what he had been through, I indeed wouldn't care about Greenland. I would spend 100% of my time and political capital attempting to end the Democrats as an organized political force.
If you don't win enough votes, then you can't implement your agenda, so you should at least care about the median voter (who currently disapproves of Trump).
This isn't about "what liberals find respectable". I would assume that most conservatives disapproved of Trump's comments about allied troops in Afghanistan.
US doesn't use pure majority vote to select the POTUS. The polls of the median voter are likely wrong (perhaps they include lots of illegals) - polling has always had trouble with accurately measuring Trump's popularity because the panels are not representative and become less so over time as the least fanatical drop out. How many of them predicted the wipeout of Harris?
No, I’m going to tactfully disagree, and my basic argument is the current obsolescence of tact.
The most important thing Trump has done is move out the illegal immigrants. I expected this post to be about that and it wasn’t, but it should have been. Dissing dead pop culture figures and allies who contribute barely a rounding error to maintaining the westernized global order, that doesn’t matter. We knew Trump was a dickhead since the Obama birth certificate issue, that was part of the deal, as you said.
But with immigration, he’s stood by law enforcement when given an impossible task: get the illegals out and throw a wrench in the policy of Dems letting them in to sway elections in their favor. This was absolutely necessary.
Here, his dickhead egomania is a superpower. Here, we see where any stalling tactic, any talk of decency and reasonableness, works for the Dems, as time is on their side. The pseudo-invasion has been constant my entire lifetime, and any compromise on the scale of the operation will make it useless because of the scale of the problem. Trump made a dent. No other politician would have dared. I expected Trump to not dare. Now that it’s started, maybe the others will fight, and the immigrants might get the message while they’re at it.
We needed an asshole and got one, someone to show that being aggressive about a policy with bad optics won’t result in the sky falling. The tact was killing us, literally handing over the polity. There was no way to change it while being a good human, as the kids just love to say.
I didn’t vote for Trump, but on this issue alone, I think he’s beaten my expectations this term. He had to show that you can refuse to give an inch. If that results in a loss of public reason or a normalization of strife, then it’s because politics got real, and we needed it.
Interesting perspective. I do worry that all the success in reversing demographic trends will be undone if Trump's behavior provokes a backlash that leads the next Democratic administration to let millions of illegals back in. Don't you have to win the argument, so to speak?
When one side’s position is “The US is a coherent nation of particular peoples,” and the other side’s is “borders are evil, and you're a nazi if you disagree,” what compromise is available there?
How do you change one’s mind about first-order questions regarding who belongs to the polity?
Furthermore, how would pre-Trump conservatives handled it better than Trump? From my vantage point, they had decades to solve this issue, yet chose to do nothing other than allow the problem to get worse.
I don’t think the argument can be won at this point. It has nothing to do with the quality of the argument, either, but the other side is three generations of nonstop propaganda from the arts, education, and media combined with two thousand years of bad theology.
The best you can do is divide people between your side and theirs, and show confidence with whoever is in the middle. The optics hurt with them, and the counter-propaganda from rightists in media actually matters, but you have to hope they sort themselves out by looking at the core issue, and you hold enough of them and get wins elsewhere so you can maintain a decent sized base.
Look, the assumption you’re giving is that we could have - would have - won hearts and minds without Trump. I see no reason to believe that whatsoever; changing the illegal immigrant meta was unthinkable before. I’d love to win in the marketplace of ideas and get the legitimacy boost, but the competition is heavily subsidized and has massive legacy support. You can’t really start beating them until you deal with that.
Absolutely agree on this. Furthermore, Republicans had a period before Trump where they cared a lot about decency, but that was a period of constant losing. Even Trump’s 1st term, Paul Ryan was one of those Reaganite republicans and it was pointless. The opposition didn’t care how decent republicans were to them. They still saw them as an enemy, and it seemingly didn’t win over moderates.
I have grown up as well seeing my home state completely change from mass latin migration, and empirically this is true. Deportations are naturally a costly, violent, and difficult thing to do. Nonetheless, I don’t think it’s fair to ask republicans to roll over and be gentle with what’s left of their nation because the federal government effectively ignored 50+ years of public polling wanting immigration reduced.
You can compromise with progressives who forcibly remove children from their parents to perform gender experiments on them, ruin the careers of researchers who make unpopular points, and let rapists free so ICE can’t safely deport them from prison. Or you can compromise with Trump who is “boorish” and dishonest.
Dishonest! The previous administration hid the President’s obvious mental incapacity! They spied on their opponents and setup kangaroo courts to prevent candidates from democratically opposing them! They worked with social media companies to stifle debate that disagreed with their own positions (many things the gov said were right, many were wrong). Democrats have been no more honest about ICE than Trump has been — just look at Newsom.
And foreign policy — Biden’s signature proposal, from his SOTU was a pier off Gaza! Do you know what happened to that pier? Does “Afghanistan withdrawal” even ring a bell anymore with our TikTok attention spans?
The idea that the, “President’s erratic behavior paves the way for a radical AOC administration” is absurd. Maybe AOC will be president one day. I don’t know the future. But it will not be because of Trump. I genuinely don’t know where this comes from.
When Republicans lose elections it empowers the left, and Democrats use their positions to shore up left wing power.
I think conservatives’ vision for who should be President is a losing proposition. Try it, write down exactly the type of person you want to run for President on the Republican ticket. Better yet, make it the name of a real person. It will be a loser.
The right is a coalition of people that oppose the left. Unfortunately we do not have the unity in ideas the left does. The alternative is the left.
Currently, the left's fuel is the public embrace of pre-approved moral correctness. That's all it takes to be included in the happy vibe.
Practical matters, like whether any of the morally superior positions can self-sustain, and unimportant. Failure of any such unsustainable systems is taken as concrete proof that a more rigid morality is needed.
Avaricious megalomaniacs control the United States. Their goal is to remain in control and increase their power and wealth. All other issues are merely a stage play to convince the proles that they have a choice and that the electoral system works.
Agree, but one comment. Yes, the right doesn't have the idealogical unity the left does, but/and/therefore the intellectual excitement is on the right, currently. There's a lot of different ideas discussed and debated. It's interesting.
Maybe I'm in the wrong media bubble, but I don't see much of what you're talking about (minus cancel culture). I'd be interested in what you're referring to if you have any links.
The New York courts would be a start. NY elected a prosecutor who gave interviews where he openly said he didn't know what Trump was guilty of but he'd find a way to imprison him. That's not quite the definition of a kangaroo court, which is supposed to be unofficial. It's actually worse than a kangaroo court, it's a show trial.
Writing this piece during a Communist insurrection in Minneapolis is the embodiment of what Wrangel said about the White during the Russian Revolution.
I get your gripe with Trump. But you're only choosing from available options. You wouldn't prefer Kamala, would you?
Second, run-of-the-mill conservatism is a relic in a country where more than half the population will soon be non-White and increasingly supportive of radical left-authoritarian policies. At the same time, a large share of Whites is brainwashed and radicalized by decades of leftist propaganda.
How is conventional conservatism supposed to address what is happening in Minnesota? It can’t. Anyone who argues for a functioning state is immediately branded a fascist by the leftist propaganda machine.
Frankly, you'd need someone even more heavy-handed (and preferably less derangement generating) to turn this around. Unless the West reverses the Great Replacement, the only place to see conservatism implemented is in history books.
Problem with Bo's good and principled position is, as you said, it posits there is someone in the D ticket different from (a type of) AOC. There isn't, as the new Governor of Virginia clearly exposed. It was Trump or Kamala, it is Trump or insurrection, it will be Vance or AOC. Tertium non datur. "Conservative" should get this memo or leave the field.
"But for many on the right, embittered by years of culture-war losses, even victory was not enough. The left had to be punished, had to suffer. Owning the libs became central to the MAGA movement."
Left, Right, Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat; in US politics, it's a charade whose purpose is to convince the populace that voting makes a difference—it doesn't on issues of significance. Those in control mean to remain in power.
The sole consolation is that this costly and enduring show is all about getting votes, which means that the ruse of elections still is the source of political empowerment. The votes, however ill-informed and manipulated, are deemed necessary to convince the governed that they are being treated fairly.
Trump gets all the blame for what he says and does, but he is a puppet—a titular president. He is a particularly narcissistic and obnoxious puppet, but nonetheless a minion. Those who control the United States have made sure only those who can be manipulated will become 'president'.
All US residents to an increasing degree have been titular since November 22, 1963
I think you're right. I can still remember when Gingrich started encouraging Republicans to call Democrats "traitors." It struck me then as over the line.
Did you really make a "Faustian bargain" with Trump? I think that's overstating the nature of your support. I voted for him and -- considering the alternative -- would probably do so again. But I made no bargain with him; he's frequently exasperating or embarrassing, and I have no problem saying so. Criticize him when he deserves it, praise him when he deserves it.
“But he (Rob Reiner) was also an advocate of productive discourse and debate.”
Reiner was also one of the promoters of the Trump/Putin collusion hoax that tore this country apart. He partnered with James Clapper (manipulator of the 2017 Russia intelligence report) and Michael Morell (manipulator on the laptop letter) on the advisory board of the “committee to investigate russia,”… which seemed more interested in smearing Trump through deception than actually getting to the truth of matters on Russia. Reiner was an architect of a toxic media environment, part of the movement of cultural authoritarianism on the left in this country that lead to a reaction of Trump being elected in the first place.
Both Democrats and Republicans have no interest in governing. These are now political interest groups, not political parties. More interested in acquiring and maintaining power. At this point, the only question is which interest group is worse at governing when they have power, I still think the Democrats are more dangerous long term.
Only way to reverse course and make government constitutional again is to have a bipartisan commitment to limiting the executive branch and return governance authority to the States. But that is not happening anytime soon.
Trump can't even control himself, he certainly can't be controlled by others.
Who could make a deal with him or issue some kind of command and rest easy that it would be done? He has the self-control and planning skills of an angry infant.
Trump is many things, most of them repulsive, but he is no one's puppet or dupe.
If there's some sort of shadowy group "who control(s) the United States", they would prefer him gone than to him being in power.
"Who could make a deal with him or issue some kind of command and rest easy that it would be done? He has the self-control and planning skills of an angry infant."
Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, and Paul Singer, for starters.
The Adelsons and Singer have something in common besides their loot and there is a certain small group of people who are supposedly "those who control the United States"...hmm I wonder who....
Glad to see people are still reading "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". It is a timeless work of fiction.
Hey, you're the one who said "He does as he is told by those who control the United States", which is one of the oldest of anti-Semitic tropes. The Soviets accused the Jews of secretly controlling their govt (and the world), as did the Nazis, as did Henry Ford, as every Jew hater has been doing for centuries.
There is a world of difference between this claim and "Trump is strongly supported by Jews".
And Trump does "Miriam's bidding" as much as any politician does the bidding of their major donors. Oddly though, no other group or tribe is accused of "control[ling] the United States", no matter how much they donate to a candidate.
You're playing motte and bailey here, which is fine. We both know what you meant.
When given a choice between Policy and Personality while voting for president, I'll choose Policy every time...
Border sealed
DEI curtailed
Iran nuclear program smashed
Drug cartels on the run
Nato "allies" forced to pay their share
Asymmetrical trade policies brought closer to parity
With cackling Kamala we'd have NONE of these successes - in fact we'd have the opposite. Like him personally or not, Trump is the *only* guy with the balls to go toe-to-toe with the far-left lunatics that - as Musk warned - were on the verge of taking permanent control of the country.
No fan of Trump. Very open to abandon him. But this post is much worse.
Sam Francis wrote a book called "Beautiful losers" about the conservative movement. People who always lose in an honorable way. While the other part is not afraid to tramp on the law, demonstrate, use violence amd lies as long as they win, conservatives are not afraid to lose, as long as they behave as gentlemen.
"The alternative here is not surrender. It is working with real conservatives and centrists to push back against progressive overreach." We have seen how this has worked so far. After trying this strategy for 60 years, conservatives have been unable to conserve anything, not even ladies' restrooms
Exactly right. I'm certainly over Trump. I never thought he was some great guy or savior. I've always just hoped he could be some sort of transitional figure who might be able to leave an opening to someone much more serious and decent, but who was also completely disillusioned with the GOP establishment.
Liberal crying that we need to go back to being respectable losers. Those days are over, get in the crystal.
What evidence is there of a trade-off between "being respectable" and "winning"? Polling data shows that Trump is increasingly unpopular. His approval rating is worse than Biden's at this point in his term of office.
—NC
The Conservative Party of Britain would like a word.
But you're using an obsolete 90's era framework. The Democrats have made it extremely clear that they don't agree with the basic tenets of democracy and are working on voiding it:
1. Ban voter ID.
2. Import infinity illegals and redistribute wealth to them.
3. They now have to vote Democrat or else they get deported and lose their income.
4. You can now win any elections regardless of how unpopular you are.
A simple scheme that ends democracy permanently, and they are institutionally in support of doing exactly this. They talk about it all the time.
Crushing the left with an iron fist may not be "respectable" to people who are still pretending Clinton was the archetypical Democrat, but it is required for winning. The alternative is you go the same way as the UK where the left are outright banning conservatives from speaking at all, implementing ID verification to use the internet so they can do it more effectively, getting rid of jury trials and trying to implement race-based sentencing. Or maybe Germany, where they are constantly on the edge of banning the countries second most popular party.
You can bitch and moan about how mean Trump was. I personally can't believe how polite and restrained he is towards his enemies, given what he's been through. How many times did leftists with TDS try to assassinate him in broad daylight now? How many times did they try to imprison him in show trials, steal all his money, destroy his family and businesses, and how many people believe they wouldn't do exactly that with more success the next time the Republicans lose?
Frankly, if I had been through what he had been through, I indeed wouldn't care about Greenland. I would spend 100% of my time and political capital attempting to end the Democrats as an organized political force.
What evidence is there that we should care what liberals find respectable?
If you don't win enough votes, then you can't implement your agenda, so you should at least care about the median voter (who currently disapproves of Trump).
This isn't about "what liberals find respectable". I would assume that most conservatives disapproved of Trump's comments about allied troops in Afghanistan.
—NC
US doesn't use pure majority vote to select the POTUS. The polls of the median voter are likely wrong (perhaps they include lots of illegals) - polling has always had trouble with accurately measuring Trump's popularity because the panels are not representative and become less so over time as the least fanatical drop out. How many of them predicted the wipeout of Harris?
We’re done caring about people who concern troll.
My thoughts exactly. Civility is over. It’s reset time.
No, I’m going to tactfully disagree, and my basic argument is the current obsolescence of tact.
The most important thing Trump has done is move out the illegal immigrants. I expected this post to be about that and it wasn’t, but it should have been. Dissing dead pop culture figures and allies who contribute barely a rounding error to maintaining the westernized global order, that doesn’t matter. We knew Trump was a dickhead since the Obama birth certificate issue, that was part of the deal, as you said.
But with immigration, he’s stood by law enforcement when given an impossible task: get the illegals out and throw a wrench in the policy of Dems letting them in to sway elections in their favor. This was absolutely necessary.
Here, his dickhead egomania is a superpower. Here, we see where any stalling tactic, any talk of decency and reasonableness, works for the Dems, as time is on their side. The pseudo-invasion has been constant my entire lifetime, and any compromise on the scale of the operation will make it useless because of the scale of the problem. Trump made a dent. No other politician would have dared. I expected Trump to not dare. Now that it’s started, maybe the others will fight, and the immigrants might get the message while they’re at it.
We needed an asshole and got one, someone to show that being aggressive about a policy with bad optics won’t result in the sky falling. The tact was killing us, literally handing over the polity. There was no way to change it while being a good human, as the kids just love to say.
I didn’t vote for Trump, but on this issue alone, I think he’s beaten my expectations this term. He had to show that you can refuse to give an inch. If that results in a loss of public reason or a normalization of strife, then it’s because politics got real, and we needed it.
Interesting perspective. I do worry that all the success in reversing demographic trends will be undone if Trump's behavior provokes a backlash that leads the next Democratic administration to let millions of illegals back in. Don't you have to win the argument, so to speak?
—NC
What do you think that looks like?
When one side’s position is “The US is a coherent nation of particular peoples,” and the other side’s is “borders are evil, and you're a nazi if you disagree,” what compromise is available there?
How do you change one’s mind about first-order questions regarding who belongs to the polity?
Furthermore, how would pre-Trump conservatives handled it better than Trump? From my vantage point, they had decades to solve this issue, yet chose to do nothing other than allow the problem to get worse.
I don’t think the argument can be won at this point. It has nothing to do with the quality of the argument, either, but the other side is three generations of nonstop propaganda from the arts, education, and media combined with two thousand years of bad theology.
The best you can do is divide people between your side and theirs, and show confidence with whoever is in the middle. The optics hurt with them, and the counter-propaganda from rightists in media actually matters, but you have to hope they sort themselves out by looking at the core issue, and you hold enough of them and get wins elsewhere so you can maintain a decent sized base.
Look, the assumption you’re giving is that we could have - would have - won hearts and minds without Trump. I see no reason to believe that whatsoever; changing the illegal immigrant meta was unthinkable before. I’d love to win in the marketplace of ideas and get the legitimacy boost, but the competition is heavily subsidized and has massive legacy support. You can’t really start beating them until you deal with that.
Trump is the series of painful anti-rabies injections that are required after being bitten by a rabid animal.
Make what you will of the metaphor.
Absolutely agree on this. Furthermore, Republicans had a period before Trump where they cared a lot about decency, but that was a period of constant losing. Even Trump’s 1st term, Paul Ryan was one of those Reaganite republicans and it was pointless. The opposition didn’t care how decent republicans were to them. They still saw them as an enemy, and it seemingly didn’t win over moderates.
I have grown up as well seeing my home state completely change from mass latin migration, and empirically this is true. Deportations are naturally a costly, violent, and difficult thing to do. Nonetheless, I don’t think it’s fair to ask republicans to roll over and be gentle with what’s left of their nation because the federal government effectively ignored 50+ years of public polling wanting immigration reduced.
You can compromise with progressives who forcibly remove children from their parents to perform gender experiments on them, ruin the careers of researchers who make unpopular points, and let rapists free so ICE can’t safely deport them from prison. Or you can compromise with Trump who is “boorish” and dishonest.
Dishonest! The previous administration hid the President’s obvious mental incapacity! They spied on their opponents and setup kangaroo courts to prevent candidates from democratically opposing them! They worked with social media companies to stifle debate that disagreed with their own positions (many things the gov said were right, many were wrong). Democrats have been no more honest about ICE than Trump has been — just look at Newsom.
And foreign policy — Biden’s signature proposal, from his SOTU was a pier off Gaza! Do you know what happened to that pier? Does “Afghanistan withdrawal” even ring a bell anymore with our TikTok attention spans?
The idea that the, “President’s erratic behavior paves the way for a radical AOC administration” is absurd. Maybe AOC will be president one day. I don’t know the future. But it will not be because of Trump. I genuinely don’t know where this comes from.
When Republicans lose elections it empowers the left, and Democrats use their positions to shore up left wing power.
I think conservatives’ vision for who should be President is a losing proposition. Try it, write down exactly the type of person you want to run for President on the Republican ticket. Better yet, make it the name of a real person. It will be a loser.
The right is a coalition of people that oppose the left. Unfortunately we do not have the unity in ideas the left does. The alternative is the left.
Currently, the left's fuel is the public embrace of pre-approved moral correctness. That's all it takes to be included in the happy vibe.
Practical matters, like whether any of the morally superior positions can self-sustain, and unimportant. Failure of any such unsustainable systems is taken as concrete proof that a more rigid morality is needed.
Avaricious megalomaniacs control the United States. Their goal is to remain in control and increase their power and wealth. All other issues are merely a stage play to convince the proles that they have a choice and that the electoral system works.
Agree, but one comment. Yes, the right doesn't have the idealogical unity the left does, but/and/therefore the intellectual excitement is on the right, currently. There's a lot of different ideas discussed and debated. It's interesting.
Maybe I'm in the wrong media bubble, but I don't see much of what you're talking about (minus cancel culture). I'd be interested in what you're referring to if you have any links.
What kangaroo courts are you referring to?
The New York courts would be a start. NY elected a prosecutor who gave interviews where he openly said he didn't know what Trump was guilty of but he'd find a way to imprison him. That's not quite the definition of a kangaroo court, which is supposed to be unofficial. It's actually worse than a kangaroo court, it's a show trial.
Writing this piece during a Communist insurrection in Minneapolis is the embodiment of what Wrangel said about the White during the Russian Revolution.
I get your gripe with Trump. But you're only choosing from available options. You wouldn't prefer Kamala, would you?
Second, run-of-the-mill conservatism is a relic in a country where more than half the population will soon be non-White and increasingly supportive of radical left-authoritarian policies. At the same time, a large share of Whites is brainwashed and radicalized by decades of leftist propaganda.
How is conventional conservatism supposed to address what is happening in Minnesota? It can’t. Anyone who argues for a functioning state is immediately branded a fascist by the leftist propaganda machine.
Frankly, you'd need someone even more heavy-handed (and preferably less derangement generating) to turn this around. Unless the West reverses the Great Replacement, the only place to see conservatism implemented is in history books.
Problem with Bo's good and principled position is, as you said, it posits there is someone in the D ticket different from (a type of) AOC. There isn't, as the new Governor of Virginia clearly exposed. It was Trump or Kamala, it is Trump or insurrection, it will be Vance or AOC. Tertium non datur. "Conservative" should get this memo or leave the field.
Well said, Bo. Thank you for articulating my accelerating unease so thoroughly and persuasively.
"But for many on the right, embittered by years of culture-war losses, even victory was not enough. The left had to be punished, had to suffer. Owning the libs became central to the MAGA movement."
Left, Right, Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat; in US politics, it's a charade whose purpose is to convince the populace that voting makes a difference—it doesn't on issues of significance. Those in control mean to remain in power.
The entire public debate is a means to an end.
The sole consolation is that this costly and enduring show is all about getting votes, which means that the ruse of elections still is the source of political empowerment. The votes, however ill-informed and manipulated, are deemed necessary to convince the governed that they are being treated fairly.
Another excellent article, Bo.
Trump gets all the blame for what he says and does, but he is a puppet—a titular president. He is a particularly narcissistic and obnoxious puppet, but nonetheless a minion. Those who control the United States have made sure only those who can be manipulated will become 'president'.
All US residents to an increasing degree have been titular since November 22, 1963
Trump is the realist and that is why people who like spending hours on the toilet dislike him. Your name? It ain't making it.
Trump is a Bozo!
At best, this is some form of disillusioned wishful thinking. You can't go back, and it most certainly isn't all Trump's fault.
This is no different than, "I just want a return to normalcy." Trump accelerated a move away from "normalcy", but it was always coming.
I'm playing around with the idea that the modern era of extreme partisanship, of the scorched earth kind, started with Gingrich's term as SotH.
Not entirely sure about this, though...
I think you're right. I can still remember when Gingrich started encouraging Republicans to call Democrats "traitors." It struck me then as over the line.
Did you really make a "Faustian bargain" with Trump? I think that's overstating the nature of your support. I voted for him and -- considering the alternative -- would probably do so again. But I made no bargain with him; he's frequently exasperating or embarrassing, and I have no problem saying so. Criticize him when he deserves it, praise him when he deserves it.
Yes, he has gone too far. The incompetent and dangeroud ICE raids, as well as the kidnapping of Maduro, show an accelerating derangement.
“But he (Rob Reiner) was also an advocate of productive discourse and debate.”
Reiner was also one of the promoters of the Trump/Putin collusion hoax that tore this country apart. He partnered with James Clapper (manipulator of the 2017 Russia intelligence report) and Michael Morell (manipulator on the laptop letter) on the advisory board of the “committee to investigate russia,”… which seemed more interested in smearing Trump through deception than actually getting to the truth of matters on Russia. Reiner was an architect of a toxic media environment, part of the movement of cultural authoritarianism on the left in this country that lead to a reaction of Trump being elected in the first place.
Both Democrats and Republicans have no interest in governing. These are now political interest groups, not political parties. More interested in acquiring and maintaining power. At this point, the only question is which interest group is worse at governing when they have power, I still think the Democrats are more dangerous long term.
Only way to reverse course and make government constitutional again is to have a bipartisan commitment to limiting the executive branch and return governance authority to the States. But that is not happening anytime soon.
Well said.
Trump sure ain't no pussy!
"Trump sure ain't no pussy!"
Oh, yes, he is! He does as he is told by those who control the United States.
Trump can't even control himself, he certainly can't be controlled by others.
Who could make a deal with him or issue some kind of command and rest easy that it would be done? He has the self-control and planning skills of an angry infant.
Trump is many things, most of them repulsive, but he is no one's puppet or dupe.
If there's some sort of shadowy group "who control(s) the United States", they would prefer him gone than to him being in power.
He is uncontrollable, for better or worse.
Yes. The archetypal loose cannon.
"Who could make a deal with him or issue some kind of command and rest easy that it would be done? He has the self-control and planning skills of an angry infant."
Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, and Paul Singer, for starters.
Ahh, I get it now.
The Adelsons and Singer have something in common besides their loot and there is a certain small group of people who are supposedly "those who control the United States"...hmm I wonder who....
Glad to see people are still reading "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". It is a timeless work of fiction.
Trump has admitted that he does Miriam's bidding—there are videos.
Yes, Trump is strongly supported by Jews—that is a fact. So cut the crap about "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"!
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pro-israel-megadonor-miriam-adelson-takes-center-stage-at-trumps-inauguration/
Hey, you're the one who said "He does as he is told by those who control the United States", which is one of the oldest of anti-Semitic tropes. The Soviets accused the Jews of secretly controlling their govt (and the world), as did the Nazis, as did Henry Ford, as every Jew hater has been doing for centuries.
There is a world of difference between this claim and "Trump is strongly supported by Jews".
And Trump does "Miriam's bidding" as much as any politician does the bidding of their major donors. Oddly though, no other group or tribe is accused of "control[ling] the United States", no matter how much they donate to a candidate.
You're playing motte and bailey here, which is fine. We both know what you meant.
When given a choice between Policy and Personality while voting for president, I'll choose Policy every time...
Border sealed
DEI curtailed
Iran nuclear program smashed
Drug cartels on the run
Nato "allies" forced to pay their share
Asymmetrical trade policies brought closer to parity
With cackling Kamala we'd have NONE of these successes - in fact we'd have the opposite. Like him personally or not, Trump is the *only* guy with the balls to go toe-to-toe with the far-left lunatics that - as Musk warned - were on the verge of taking permanent control of the country.
Please add to the list
Unmasking the rise in self-identified transgenderism as a symptom of mental illness.
There are a lot of toilet jockeys commenting here. You are not one of them. Bulleted and to the point. Excellent.
No fan of Trump. Very open to abandon him. But this post is much worse.
Sam Francis wrote a book called "Beautiful losers" about the conservative movement. People who always lose in an honorable way. While the other part is not afraid to tramp on the law, demonstrate, use violence amd lies as long as they win, conservatives are not afraid to lose, as long as they behave as gentlemen.
"The alternative here is not surrender. It is working with real conservatives and centrists to push back against progressive overreach." We have seen how this has worked so far. After trying this strategy for 60 years, conservatives have been unable to conserve anything, not even ladies' restrooms
To effectively oppose a group of ruthless manipulators, you must yourself become ruthless.
I don't like it, I hate it, but if you don't you've done as the old saying indicates, "brought a knife to a gunfight."
Yes. I hate it. I can accommodate a lot--no problem--but I just can't lay all the way down and kiss jackboots.
Exactly right. I'm certainly over Trump. I never thought he was some great guy or savior. I've always just hoped he could be some sort of transitional figure who might be able to leave an opening to someone much more serious and decent, but who was also completely disillusioned with the GOP establishment.
"The alternative here is not surrender. It is working with real conservatives and centrists to push back against progressive overreach."
DeSantis is looking better day by day, especially for his proven executive ability to actually get things done.