Author Topic: The Cognitive Dissonance of the Republicans  (Read 115582 times)


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 72246
    • View Profile
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the Republicans
« Reply #351 on: December 08, 2023, 06:27:17 AM »
Yup.


ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19754
    • View Profile
Rhona McDaniel
« Reply #353 on: February 07, 2024, 06:44:34 AM »
yesterday I read she will resign after SC primary
today I read she will discuss doing this

which is it?

For God's sake can we please get clarity from our own party.

Body-by-Guinness

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 3229
    • View Profile
Re: Rhona McDaniel
« Reply #354 on: February 07, 2024, 12:15:37 PM »
yesterday I read she will resign after SC primary
today I read she will discuss doing this

which is it?

For God's sake can we please get clarity from our own party.

I read a piece claiming she had resigned. I'll see if I can find it.

ETA, here's one: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/rnc-chief-of-staff-says-hes-stepping-down-after-trump-warns-changes-will-be-made
« Last Edit: February 07, 2024, 12:18:54 PM by Body-by-Guinness »

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19754
    • View Profile
Buck live on air interview for job with DNC/CNN Burnett
« Reply #355 on: February 14, 2024, 07:01:31 AM »
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/02/13/gop-rep-buck-terrible-impeachment-of-mayorkas-sets-terrible-precedent/

Myorkas lying to Congress and the American people is perfectly ok with Buck.
It is the R's who are the problem he suggests.

I dread having to see him on CNN ala McCabe, and along with this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alyssa_Farah_Griffin

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19754
    • View Profile
Karl Rove
« Reply #356 on: March 06, 2024, 05:48:34 AM »
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/karl-rove-issues-dire-warning-for-trump-as-gop-fractures-on-super-tuesday/ar-BB1joHgA?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=2acf73e016614d01a8b65ae507f1ab2d&ei=25

I would really love to see Karl Rove go on Mark Levin for an interview and defend Rino'ism' against the reality of the modern Democrat party.

I agree with Rove that it is necessary to bring Rino's to our side in the Republican party (not the other way around) but how do we do that ?  Yes the DC ers and the rest of the Rinos who support immigration for example are selling us out to some extent but I am thinking it would still be better if they fall to our side.

Convincing them seems more likely to win them over then trashing them.
Though Trump does not seem capable of doing that.

Just ruminating.

« Last Edit: March 06, 2024, 05:54:07 AM by ccp »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 72246
    • View Profile
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the Republicans
« Reply #357 on: March 06, 2024, 06:30:53 AM »
Perhaps it would be helpful to think more in terms of the dynamics of Normalcy Bias and how to overcome it.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19441
    • View Profile
Re: Karl Rove
« Reply #358 on: March 06, 2024, 08:33:09 AM »
"I agree with Rove that it is necessary to bring Rino's to our side in the Republican party (not the other way around) but how do we do that ?"


This is an age-old problem in the party.  The two wings have competed at every level since they called it the Rockefeller wing.  When the moderates won the endorsement, conservatives had nowhere else to turn.  When a conservative won, cf. Barry Goldwater, moderates abandoned and Democrats won, no matter how liberal.  So we had a Washington full of Leftists and RINOs who go along with it, some say uniparty. (Reagan united the party with a conservative message but he was the exception. He won 93 states but never won the House of Representatives.)

Checking usdebtclock.org this morning, we are still spending 40.4% more than we take in. 1.9 T deficit on 4.7T revenues. That's closer to criminal negligence than being a conservative or compromise position - even though 'Republicans' are winning half of all elections.

For another long term outcome example, a US dollar from the day the federal reserve was created has now lost 97% of it's value. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/  The dollar being something we might have wanted to conserve this past century, we know conservatives had no power.

The Way Forward? Change minds.  How? I don't know.

I'm not exactly sure what Crafty means by the normalcy bias, but for example the budgets that led to the above have become the new normal.  But a prosperous society going broke intentionally is not normal.  It's insane.  People like Mitch McConnell get cast as an immovable, conservative curmudgeon in the 'mainstream', but in fact he was passing radical budgets like the above, barely complaining, afraid to disrupt the disastrous status quo.

So who do they put up to replace him?  More of the same.  God help us.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 72246
    • View Profile

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19754
    • View Profile
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the Republicans
« Reply #360 on: March 06, 2024, 11:01:24 AM »
Thanks CD

I now recall this in medical thought classes
That we can and do have normalcy bias

make to many preconceived assumptions based on past and most likely scenarios rather then thinking outside the box and keeping ears and eyes open at all times for the unexpected.

Body-by-Guinness

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 3229
    • View Profile
Re: Karl Rove
« Reply #361 on: March 06, 2024, 11:27:50 AM »


So who do they put up to replace him?  More of the same.  God help us.

Those of us that participate in street focussed martial arts with integrated weapons training from time to time discuss what to do during an entangled engagement when an opponent bites you? It certainly happens (LEOs are particularly aware of the possibility), is hard to train as few are willing to even lightly bite a training partner, yet there are anecdotes enough to suggest it's something one has to be ready to deal with.

There are various thoughts on the subject--people on the pointy end of the spear I've chatted with tell me thrusting a blade into an attacker's, generally a guard dog's--anus reliably inspires a pooch to release its grip. Where humans are concerned, thrusting the affected body part as deeply into the opponents mouth--you want a piece of me? Here you go, open wide--as possible makes the gag reflex kick in and gives the bitee a chance to escape.

Why am I rambling about this here? I've come to conclude we are entangled with so many nasty maws that the only thing that make sense is to push into them. "You all like insurrmountable debt? Fine by us; we want a border wall that works, a well supplied and trained military, an accountable election mechanism..." and every other pie in the sky tool or resource we can think of. "What's that you say, you want to create an unsustainable trans-gender benefit for those you can dupe into mutilating themselves to your political ends? Fine, we'll trade that for hot and cold running F-35s for every military unit that needs them, though we strongly believe our spending secures America's future while yours secures political points that serve few Americans while ensuring fiscal insolvancy looms."

"What's that you say, you want to fund grifters in the Ukraine so they can throw more of there population into a Russian buzzsaw as their territory and liklihood of a positive outcome continues to shrink? Fine, we demand full funding for our only reliable Mid-East allie, Israel. We think it's stupid to throw money at causes that do little to support American interests and critical that we fund those whose interests align with ours, particularly in this energy rich portion of the world, but you've created this stupid quid pro quo process, we think it will lead to a fiscal crisis sooner rather than later, but if you insist on it we will make sure our demands that serve American interests are part of the package and will make sure we let all Americans capable of critical thinking know how silly and ultimately self-destructive your program(s) is, but if this is the structure you insist on okay, we'll play."

At our current rate the crash is coming. As pulling away from it and allowing the lunatics run the asylum only brings us more of the same, it's time to get what we can when we can that serves post-crash America while loudly proclaiming at every turn what a bad idea the spending "Progressives" insist on in return for allowing programs that actually serve America and prepares it to survive the looming crash is. The best option? Hardly! But at this juncture with these lunatics at the wheel it's the only option there is.

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19754
    • View Profile
Repubs refuse to repeal an 1864 law
« Reply #362 on: April 11, 2024, 07:10:30 AM »
https://dnyuz.com/2024/04/10/arizona-republicans-thwart-attempts-to-repeal-1864-abortion-ban/

and of course the LEFT has seized on this and rallying all their MSM outlets to headline this etc.

I will be pissed if we lose due to this!  :x

How politically stupid.

Body-by-Guinness

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 3229
    • View Profile
Unsuitable Repubs
« Reply #363 on: April 22, 2024, 12:50:02 PM »
This piece is part of a larger pattern: Republicans don’t have lawyers in the starting blocks ready to go into action as the 2024 election results pour in. Dems doubtless have a huge cadre of legal gadflies ready to spring into action, whether warranted or not. Until they get far more proactive on that front they will always be playing catch-up, and the results will reflect it:

Lawyer up, Republicans
Either start suing Biden or shut the hell up
APR 22, 2024

Late Friday night, Sarah Parshall Perry of the Heritage Foundation wrote, “The Department of Education just released its long-delayed Title IX rule—a rewrite of the 50-year-old civil rights law so vast that it promises to turn Title IX’s guarantee of sex equality in education completely upside down.

“Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is all of a single sentence. It simply bars sex discrimination in any federally funded education program. It does not matter how much federal funding a school or institution of higher education receives. And it does not matter whether such funding from the federal government is direct or indirect. So yes, even the vast majority of private schools must comply with the rule.

“But this simple longstanding prohibition on sex discrimination has been manipulated by the Biden administration to both undermine constitutional freedoms—like the freedom of speech—and erase the very women that Title IX was enacted to protect.”

Most of the attention to this unconstitutional legislation by a president — not Congress — has focused on turning over women’s sports to trannies and drag queens.

But Biden’s Law — and hold him, not bureaucrats, responsible for this travesty of justice — also strips men accused of rape of their rights to due process and the presumption of innocence.

She’s a lawyer and she ended her column on a positive note: “The Independent Women’s Law Center has already indicated it is readying a lawsuit against the Department of Education. Others are likely to follow. Let’s hope so.”

That’s good because for once conservatives are fighting back. Well, MAY fight back. Democrats would have gotten an emergency national injunction from a Hawaiian judge over the weekend.

Seven years ago, they did that to President Trump’s temporary restriction on travel in seven terrorist countries. Democrats called it a Muslim ban — even though the words Muslim and ban were never in the order or a follow-up order that the Supreme Court upheld.

That Obama had identified the seven terrorist countries was seldom mentioned in press accounts at the time. Democrats won the battle even as they lost the case.

Here, Republicans clearly have the law on their side and they refuse to use it.

Again.

Last June, Scotusblog reported, “Supreme Court strikes down Biden student-loan forgiveness program.”

Missouri sued to stop Biden from writing off $400 billion — $400,000,000,000 — in loans without congressional approval. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion.

The blog said, “Having determined that Missouri (and therefore the rest of the states) had a right to challenge the debt-relief program, the court then turned to the heart of the case – whether the debt-relief program complies with federal law. Here the court agreed with the challengers that it did not. The HEROES Act, Roberts emphasized, gives the secretary of education the power to waive or modify laws and regulations governing the student-loan programs. Congress’s use of the word modify means that the Biden administration can make ‘modest adjustments and additions to existing provisions,’ Roberts wrote, ‘not transform them.’ But the debt-relief program, Roberts stressed, instead ‘created a novel and fundamentally different loan forgiveness program.’ The plan modifies student-loan laws and regulations, Roberts suggested, ‘only in the same sense that the French Revolution modified the status of the French nobility — it has abolished them and supplanted them with a new regime entirely.’”

So the court said no to gifting former students $400 billion. And 10 months later, Biden has gone ahead and given away $559 billion — $559,000,000,000.

Where are the Republicans?

Where are their lawyers challenging this unconstitutional giveaway to the higher education industry?

That’s right. This is a bailout for Yale, Harvard, MIT and all those other tax-exempt colleges because the money does not go to students. The money already went to the colleges (mainly). The message now is don’t worry, kids, because no one will make you pay the loans back.

Do Republicans even have lawyers? What good are Trump-appointed judges if you never bother using them.

Let me give you another example of political malpractice by Republicans. President Trump ended years of needless delay to open up the frozen tundra of northern Alaska to oil drilling.

In August 2020, The Hill reported, “Environmental and indigenous groups are suing the Trump administration over plans to open up an area in an Alaska wildlife refuge to drilling.

“Two lawsuits announced Monday claim the federal government didn’t adequately comply with environmental laws requiring thorough impact assessments as part of its plan, announced by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt last week, to open up 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. The refuge totals 19.3 million acres.”

Once again, enviros are in court stopping progress. This is the usual.

Last week, AP reported, “The Biden administration said Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm.

“The decision — part of a yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Democratic administration prepared to approve the contentious Willow oil project.

“The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said the large oil project violated President Joe Biden’s pledge to combat climate change. Friday’s decision also completes an earlier plan that called for closing nearly half the reserve to oil and gas leasing.”

Murkowski the crooked cow mooed, “It’s more than a one-two punch to Alaska, because when you take off access to our resources, when you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore, you cannot move it — this is the energy insecurity that we’re talking about.”

Talk is cheap.

Show me the lawsuit.

There is none.

There are many reasons the faculties at law schools are overwhelming liberal and crazy but the main reason is because that is where the money is. Many are the well-funded liberal law firms — the ACLU being the most notorious one. They are hiring. Rare are the conservative groups.

To be sure, big corporations pay better to defend themselves, but that does not stop abuses outside the corporate world. There is no money to be made by Exxon (for example) in stopping the student loan steal. And so the theft occurs with Republicans talking the talk but walking away.

Until Republicans go to court, get a TRO and force Biden to defend forcing women to undress before men in their locker room, I do not want to hear Republican complaints.

https://donsurber.substack.com/p/lawyer-up-republicans?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3FJXV13YRJoqyCbEhA7bJGMNsgc_P1oBLCdRQnFnhh1vyrkKh_LO02rFw_aem_AWUZOPw9emIXj8s8wDVjZb3-J4n_HT68DLnxnv4SJiMrllVdsfypBEYygRntqsFDq0hCbLZgef6Ff3_k_yVk20YW&triedRedirect=true

Body-by-Guinness

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 3229
    • View Profile
Squishes Get Squashed
« Reply #364 on: May 25, 2024, 05:53:55 PM »


Trump has a Republican problem
The public wants a winner. FJB and Republican senators are losers
MAY 24, 2024

Philip Bump of the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post reported, “Why Biden is underperforming Democratic Senate candidates.”

Of course he got the story bass-ackwards. He wouldn’t be at the Bezos Post if he got the story right. Biden isn’t underperforming. Republican senators and congressmen are.

Inflation is at 40-year highs. Millions of drug mules, child sex traffickers, murderers, spies and terrorists have infiltrated the country. We’ve had to take shots that we were told were vaccines but aren’t. We’ve lost wars in Afghanistan and Niger — yes, Niger kicked us out and took over a brand-new military base we built. We’ve backed terrorists who raped and killed Israelis. We’ve thrown billions to that loser Zelensky.

Republicans have a rock star presidential candidate who is peeling black and Hispanic votes from Democrats. They should be enjoying wide leads in Senate races.

Nope.

In state after state, Trump is up and the Republican Senate candidate is down.

In Arizona, it is Trump +6, the Republican Senate candidate -13.

In Nevada, it is Trump +13, a tie in the Senate race.

In Pennsylvania, it is Trump +3, the Republican Senate candidate -3.

In Wisconsin, it is Trump +1, the Republican Senate candidate -7.

The problem for Trump is that the down ballot may bring him down because most Republicans are seen as incompetent among independents and untrustworthy among conservatives.

Most Republicans in DC are unworthy of our trust. We sent them to repeal Obamacare. 14 years later, it is still standing.

We sent them to build the wall. They didn’t.

We sent them to support Trump and some of them voted to impeach him.

Bump stumbled across a salient point in his column about that Arizona Senate race between Democrat Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake:

Biden and Gallego get about the same level of support across the state. Biden is at 47 percent and Gallego is at 49%. The difference is on the Republican side, where Trump gets 52% to Lake’s 36%.

Trump cannot carry Lake because, well, she has become a McCain Republican who backed banning abortion until it hurt her in the polls.

And yes, abortion is hurting Republicans because the fear of a national ban on abortion (which we’ve never had) is real. Dobbs turned the issue back over to states like it was in 1973, but Republicans failed to realize that after 50 years of calling abortion a right, people started believing that. The easiest way to deal with abortion is to support letting states decide, which Trump is saying..

Thus, abortion is not hurting Donald Trump, whose trio of justices made Dobbs reality. The main difference between him and most Republican candidates is that he actually accomplished something in politics. The economy was better under him and not only did we have peace, we had an absence of fear.

By that I mean, we were not headed to World War III. Muslim nations signed the Abraham Accords with Israel. Putin was not bothering his neighbors as he was under Obama. Trump met with Kim Jong Un.

Bump’s fear about Trump carrying the party was encouraging. Bump wrote:

As Election Day gets closer, they’re more likely to catch up to Trump’s levels of support than Trump is to descend to theirs.

In other words, while it’s still fair to say that the CBS poll offers good news and bad news for Democrats, the bad news seems a lot more stable than the good news. There and in the other swing states, it seems more likely that the good news for Democrats will flip than it does that the bad news will.

Trump helped save a Republican Senate majority in 2018’s midterm election. The party actually had a net gain of two seats. I hope for his sake he not only carries Arizona, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin but that he carries the Republican losers in their Senate races to victory because I still hold out the hope that conservatives can wrest control of the Republican caucus in the Capitol from the RINOs.

The New York Times though believes Democrat Senate candidates can save FJB.

NYT, reporting on its polling in 6 states, said, “The results in the presidential race would have been surprising a year ago, but it’s hard to call them surprising anymore. Donald J. Trump leads in five of the six states among likely voters, with Mr. Biden squeaking out a lead among likely voters in Michigan. Mr. Trump’s strength is largely thanks to gains among young, black and Hispanic voters.

“What’s more surprising is the U.S. Senate results. This is the first time we’ve asked about Senate races this year, and the Democratic candidates led in all four of the states we tested: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada.

“Not only do Democrats lead, but they also seem to do so in an entirely customary way, with ordinary levels of support from young and nonwhite voters, even as Mr. Biden struggles at the top of the ticket.”

The reality is, Biden is as big a drag on Democrats as Carter was in 1980. Not only did Reagan win in a landslide, Republicans gained 12 Senate seats.

Samantha-Jo Roth of the Washington Examiner reported, “Democratic Senate candidates in critical swing states are running well ahead of President Joe Biden and lead their Republican rivals, but Pennsylvania Senate Republican candidate Dave McCormick believes he’s got a plan to ensure the commonwealth turns red for both himself and former President Donald Trump.”

McCormick said, “Bob Casey has been the status quo; he’s voted with Biden 98% of the time. I’ve made huge progress on people getting to know me and that is being reflected in the polls.”

Republicans need to do that and they also need to show support for Trump. Otherwise it is 1972 all over again when Nixon took 49 states and Republicans had a net loss of two Senate seats. That was the year Biden first got elected by ousting a Republican incumbent senator.

https://donsurber.substack.com/p/trump-has-a-republican-problem?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 72246
    • View Profile
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the Republicans
« Reply #365 on: May 27, 2024, 05:54:01 AM »
Potent.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19441
    • View Profile
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the Republicans
« Reply #366 on: May 27, 2024, 06:31:47 AM »
Yes, good points made.  Strange that Trump is outpolling other Republicans.

"Democratic (senate)  candidates led in all four of the states we tested: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada."

  - That's bad news, but they are skipping over West Virginia, Ohio, Montana and Michigan.  Four possible pickups, plus the four above mentioned.  Picking up four of those eight wouldn't be all bad.  Not mentioned, Republicans are leading to hold all their seats.

Oops, plus Hogan apparently leads in Maryland.  We could get another Susan Collins/Murkowski.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4685156-senate-seats-flip-2024/

Events between now and November are not likely to turn in the Dem favor IMHO and these Senate candidates are way less known than Biden and Trump.

The Dem money advantage though is crippling to the Republicans.  How do you get an effective statewide message out in the face of all those millions of dollars of negatives coming through?


ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19754
    • View Profile
Christy Whitman ex NJ gov
« Reply #367 on: June 12, 2024, 08:52:08 AM »
I saw this couple days ago
and needless to say my outrage boiled over onto the floor:

She like Liz Cheney go on political enemy stations to bash our side:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ex-gop-governor-says-she-regrets-alito-scotus-support/ar-BB1o2H6G?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=36d939da07ab448096d974f0ae40ce40&ei=22

It is her ilk that helped us get into this mess.

Do we ever see her on Fox or Newsmax supporting out positions and explaining why the Democrat Party is ruining us?
F**k'in A !

Body-by-Guinness

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 3229
    • View Profile
Repubs for Harris Henceforth Forfeit their Seat at the Party Table
« Reply #368 on: October 24, 2024, 10:35:52 AM »
This could be filed in more than one cognitive dissonance thread, and perhaps deserves to head a thread of its own: the cognitive dissonance of Harris for President Republicans:

Harris's Bold Miscalculation

ERICK-WOODS ERICKSON
OCT 24, 2024

It is possible that Donald Trump has peaked too soon.  The momentum in the race feels like it has moved in his direction and we should never underestimate the Republicans’ ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  However, it does not really seem so much that Trump is increasing in the polls so much as Harris is fading.  From the very beginning, Democrats made a bold miscalculation that could cost them everything.

These days, in a fifty-fifty divided nation, both parties want to claim some sort of mandate.  Democrats made the calculated decision that they did not have to moderate.  Presuming enough people hated Donald Trump that they could have their cake and eat it too, neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris ratcheted down their rhetoric or positions. They gambled they could win without moderation and claim their victory was an endorsement for a hyper-charged progressive agenda.

Both Harris and Biden decided to go for abortion until birth.  They never have supported restrictions and refused repeatedly to say if they would support something less than abortion until the child passes out of the womb.  Not only that, Harris has even rejected the idea of religious exceptions to providing abortions.  Just the other day, she told NBC News that because abortion, which is not in the Constitution, was a “fundamental right,” she would not even consider religious exceptions, which is a fundamental right in the Constitution.

Harris has not walked back providing taxpayer dollars to cover the gender transitions of prisoners.  She has not walked back her support for boys in girls’ sports.  Even on fracking, Harris has offered a mixed bag of positions while assuring environmentalists they could trust her.

Every opportunity Harris had to moderate a position and calm the nerves of those hesitant to vote for her, she has taken a “you will vote for me and like it” approach.  It is arrogant and could be costly.

More baffling are the cheap dates from the GOP who allied with Harris because they hate Trump.  They could have pushed Harris to restrain herself and moderate core positions for their votes.  But prostitutes have more restraint and hesitancy to get in bed with someone than the Republican Harris supporters.  She did not have to offer restrains on abortion, trans issues, economic issues, foreign policy issues, or any other issues.  She and her team could go left, stay left, and these Republicans have not just justified voting for her, but have tried to bully and shame others into voting for her.  Given the opportunity to use their influence to pull Harris to the center, they gave it all up because Orange Man Bad.

When this election is over and when the GOP moves on from Trump, there will be no place in the party for those who were such cheap dates for Kamala Harris.  They will have no voice, no credibility, no seat at the table, and no hearing on what the future of the GOP will be.  They could have just declared their antipathy for both candidates and sat it out as others did.1  Instead, they went all in without even a half-hearted effort to get Harris to move to the center.

In the end and of great irony, Harris unburdened by what had been long held centrist Democrat positions, let Donald Trump move to the center.  Trump has rejected nationwide abortion restrictions.  Trump has signaled opposition to boys in girls’ sports, but also signaled a child who has parental consent should be able to transition.  Trump has signaled an embrace of long held Democrat positions on economics, including tariffs and unions.

Kamala Harris abruptly started her campaign when Joe Biden ended his.  She had limited time to separate herself.  She started with joy and has ended with fear.  But for a candidate who claims Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, she never showed Trump weary voters skeptical of her that she was not a threat to them, their values, and their pocketbook.  She could have moderated.  She decided she did not have to.  That may cost her everything.

If the Democrats really, truly believed Trump was the threat they claim he is, they would have compromised and moderated instead of going for broke.  Now, Trump is on the verge of breaking them.

Put succinctly — it’s not that I believe or disbelieve John Kelly. It’s that I don’t care. I don’t care for either candidate, but the Democrats are worse in my mind and for all the talk about Trump being a fascist, Joe Biden has placed grandmothers in jail for protesting at abortion clinics and is prosecuting a whistleblower in Texas for exposing gender transition surgeries done in defiance of state law. And Harris, instead of walking towards the center, has dug in her heels with the left. Between the two, Trump is more reasonable.

For all their talk about saving democracy, Democrats are fine delegitimizing any institution that blocks their power. Kamala Harris, even now, is for an end to the filibuster so Democrats can legislate abortion on demand and add seats to the Supreme Court to upend their inability over fifty years to win elections and do what Republicans did by respecting the electoral process.

But because the press agrees with that authoritarianism, they’ll claim Trump is the end of America as they collaborate with Democrats to actually end the republican system set up by our founding fathers that they think is systemically racist.

So spare me your Trump-Hitler outrage. I don’t care about it. Democrats and the press demand you bake the cake, bigot, and they’ll end the filibuster, destroy the significance of the Senate, and pack the Supreme Court with progressives to make you bake it.

Trump won’t.

1
I have some very good friends in the Conservative Movement who will not be voting for Trump. They do not believe he is a conservative. They do not believe he has the character or fitness to be President. And they have kept their mouths shut. You’d all know them, except they are not public because while they will not vote for Trump, they will not vote for Harris, defend Harris, champion Harris, or suggest to others that Harris is a viable option. They do not believe she is. These people will be able to help shape the post-Trump GOP. Harris’s Republican supporters will have no place in it and do not deserve one.

https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/harriss-bold-miscalculation?r=2k0c5&triedRedirect=true

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19441
    • View Profile
Cognitive Dissonance of the Republicans, Bill Barr
« Reply #369 on: Today at 06:53:24 AM »
A good article about how Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein let us down. Speaking of a perfect resume for attorney general, Bill Barr had it. He did some things right, yet in total he was a huge disappointment.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/11/thy-rod-and-thy-staff.php