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Post by aquaduct on Sept 30, 2019 15:38:06 GMT -5
I still haven't heard a good answer to my question, why are Trump supporters so determined to keep this big ball of trouble in office when they have a perfectly good mainstream Evangelical conservative waiting in the wings? Is Trump really worth going to war over? It's not that hard to understand, if (and this is where it always falls apart) you want to listen with an open mind. DC has entirely separated itself from the rest of the country. The rise of the Administrative State has completely divorced the running of the country from the control of the supposed sovereigns of the country- the citizens. The only political control the entire rest of the country has is literally voting once every couple of years. And that's for a binary choice where often the choice is only in who's the least sucky. Period. The Administrative State rolls on completely out of direct control of the electorate and generally without any regard for them. Rules are made not by folks who care about the citizens, but rather regarding their own interests which include ever increasing self-aggrandizement. Sure, if one has plenty of frickin' time, you can submit to the rule's dockets and someone might read it and someone might answer. Maybe. Meanwhile special organizations who only exist to influence legislation work all the inside angles of the swamp and are effectively the only people with a voice. And because this is how they make a living, anybody that actually earns a living outside of DC is ostracized from the process. And what's really scary to me having been in the swamp is that the agenda is ever increasingly progressive and leftward leaning. Even to the point of defying physics. Where Trump wins is being defiantly anti-swamp. Call it populist or whatever the politically elite insult of the day is for us Deplorables, but Trump has identified the last nerve of the rest of the country that DC keeps dancing on. I don't expect that anybody who's used to the protection of DC business as usual will ever get it. But more and more folks out here in flyover land are getting it. And quietly staying steadfast and waiting to surprise the king makers and their toadies. Again.
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Post by brucemacneill on Sept 30, 2019 16:03:15 GMT -5
...and, for the record here, I say if Trump wins we're headed for a civil war. I am far more afraid of the left than the right. Understandable since the left is much more violent than the right. However, if pressed, the right will respond. Mostly for now, we just laugh at them as they riot in the streets because they like to riot in the streets.
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Post by brucemacneill on Sept 30, 2019 16:19:04 GMT -5
I support not playing nice with Democrats since they stabbed me in the back in '68. They don't play nice. They're miserable bastards all. They started impeaching Trump the day after the election. F&*K 'em. Go Trump. Destroy their china shop and drain the swamp. There's your answer, Don. So it's really a matter of anger rather than a practical matter of enacting a conservative agenda? It's the knowledge of experience. Never trust a Democrat with your life, your wife or your wallet.
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Post by millring on Sept 30, 2019 16:51:44 GMT -5
I also never seem to be able to get this across: This isn't a left wing conspiracy that is being battled. There is no conspiracy beyond that of shared ideals. Yes, I believe elements of the Democratic Party have conspired with the press. I don't think that's even arguable. But that's not the issue as I see it.
I remember 2015-2016. I was working over at my "boss's" lake house every day and I listened to NPR every day all day. I remember the primaries and the press's amusement at Trump (not to mention their ratings as they covered him) hacking his way through the Republican candidates. They were mostly amused because they didn't mind helping him take out candidates that they deemed actually viable. In 2015 and early '16, I'm positive that the Democratic Press -- like NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNBC, CNN, etc -- were more afraid of having their candidate Clinton face, say, a young, virile Rubio or a moderate (what they actually believe is a winning type of candidate, though from Dole to McCain to Romney, that common wisdom has always been disproven) like Kasich. There were probably four candidates they feared Clinton facing. And Trump was taking them out of the race for them.
But suddenly came the summer of '16 and it was clear that Trump was going to be the candidate. I remember the NPR programs discussing among themselves, "What hath we wroght?". It was going to be mud wrestling from that point on, and suddenly they feared the very mud monster they had created.
Meanwhile, the Washington insiders -- both Democrat and Republican -- could not image a Trump presidency. It wasn't that they didn't like it or that they didn't want to lose their power to him or anything like that. They actually saw him and his outsider presence as an existential threat to our country. And so the Obama administration, State Department, FBI, CIA -- the entirety of the administrative state decided they were going to do whatever it took behind the scenes to make sure that a Trump presidency didn't become a reality.
And nobody, at any time, thought they were doing anything underhanded or wrong to undermine the Trump campaign. They always acted on the best of impulses -- to save the country from what they thought could be a disaster. Just like you still feel. That's what the Washington press feels. That's what the Obama administration felt. That's what Clapper, and Comey, and Brenner, and every other insider thought. They were going to save America. They never once believed their impulses were dark or underhanded. They thought they were being heroic. You too would believe this if you understood the '16 campaign.
The problem was that they kinda weren't all in. They weren't all in on the idea because on some level they still couldn't image Trump winning. And there were so many reasons for that blessed assurance. He is not likeable. He has the vocabulary of an 8 year old. They assumed nobody else could take him any more seriously than they could. Additionally, because he was an outsider and of the sort that is so distasteful, they knew that few operatives who actually knew how Washington -- and elections -- worked would risk their status in Washington to help out the Trump campaign. His was a rag-tag group of Washington undesirables. That meant that the insiders were still pretty sure he didn't even have the know-how to get elected. But if he did, they started to realize that outsiders are not sufficiently in the Washington insider protected class of mutually assured destruction. If they were successful in the least, the insiders could attach scandal at every turn because of the outsider status of the whole operation.
But the current Obama administration was also working with the Clinton campaign to both protect it from the legal trouble it was inuring -- the benefit of that insider thing where the press will work hand in glove. If there is one fact of Washington life -- there is no scandal that sticks to anyone without the press driving it. None. And since the press is Democratic, the Clinton campaign thought it was golden.
And the administrations dirty tricks, and framing Trump, and spying on his campaign were all done in the safe knowledge that even if the press caught wind of it, they would still be safe. So far they've been correct in that assumption. But suddenly Trump realizes that there is no remaining neutral. If he doesn't attack the very institutions that came after his campaign in '16, the battle will never end. And that's what he's trying to do with this Ukraine flap. That's why the CrowdStrike inquiry. (the "favor" in the transcript was about the '16 election, not Biden. Read it.)
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Post by Chesapeake on Sept 30, 2019 17:39:28 GMT -5
Millring, I need more time to absorb your very thoughtful arguments. I know I agree with some of your points. Two fundamental disagreements. One, if you were to tell any Democratic president in modern times that the press treated them with kid gloves because they were Democrats I'm pretty sure you'd be laughed out of the room. That certainly was not the case with the two Democrats I covered, Carter and Clinton. Obama had a love-hate relationship with the press. Like all the rest.
Second, underlying most all the pro-Trump arguments I can think of is the assumption that Trump has the interests of the American people uppermost in his mind, and is doing everything in his power to advance them. I simply do not believe that, and the current spectacle of Trump putting his personal interests ahead of the country's by trying to trade American weapons systems to Ukraine to fight the Russians, in return for dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden, tends to prove it. (By the way, I don't think any of that allegation is in dispute, including by congressional Republicans. They just want to murder the messenger.)
My view is Trump is using the same playbook as virtually every other dictator in the world, past and present: he is trying to use his position to enrich himself and his family, and otherwise advance his own self interests. That, if nothing else, makes him unfit for office.
EDIT: And, by the way, it makes him unworthy of your gallant attempts to defend him. IMHO.
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Post by brucemacneill on Sept 30, 2019 18:00:30 GMT -5
Really sorry you feel that way. Most of what you think Trump did never really happened. It's a fantasy created by the Democrat dirty trick section, as always. You've been inside too long.
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Post by millring on Sept 30, 2019 18:04:41 GMT -5
Millring, I need more time to absorb your very thoughtful arguments. I know I agree with some of your points. Two fundamental disagreements. One, if you were to tell any Democratic president in modern times that the press treated them with kid gloves because they were Democrats I'm pretty sure you'd be laughed out of the room. It's not that they won't have the occasional bouts. It's what they battle over. The reality is that they are essentially on the same side still. They don't have ideological differences. And at the end of the day, they still party together, marry each other, get together at their kid's school events, share dinner parties, know all the right people together, share the same ideals. The all share the heads-up on what the next issue will be so that they aren't caught flat-footed in any politically incorrect embarrasments. If today's topic is climate change, they all speak in concert. There is no disagreement among the principles. They can put on a show of disagreeing what to do about it, but they don't disagree about the issues. They read the same things. They are like you once described -- they can't even make the conservative's argument. Just as the difference between you and me -- I have a much better idea of your stand on issues because I swim in your pond. You couldn't frame an argument as presented by me or by Jeff beyond (like Marshall understands it) I believe in conspiracy theories. That certainly was not the case with the two Democrats I covered, Carter and Clinton. Obama had a love-hate relationship with the press. Like all the rest. Second, underlying most all the pro-Trump arguments I can think of is the assumption that Trump has the interests of the American people uppermost in his mind, and is doing everything in his power to advance them. I don't think so. At least, that's not what I believe. To some extent I would say that Trump simply has a tiger by the tail. If he does not aggressively pursue proving that the Democrats and their press manufactured the entire Russia thing to defeat him, then he will suffer a worse fate than simply being impeached. I think he's grasped that uncomfortable fact. Maybe he likes the fight. Probably, even. But the reality is that is is a death-battle and he understands it.
If I have a dog in the fight, it is as I said -- I understand that the principle power in the country is the Washington insider, Democrat/Press juggernaut. They determine what every issue is going to be. The other side -- whether it is Republicans or conservatives or even Liberatrians -- is left reacting to whatever issue the Democrats and their press decide they will be. And it's been moving at a dizzying speed in the past decade. If you guys win this battle, guys like me are going to start being imprisoned and worse.
If the Democratic Press wins this and defeats Trump, that is how history will be written. Even if they lose, they will still be able to write their own history. But their might be an alternative voice -- a different view of history. Who was it that said "Never pick a fight with a guy who buys ink by the barrel? I sure wouldn't put safe money on Trump winning this one. The press, the Democrats, academia.....it's culture. You don't defeat culture. I simply do not believe that, and the current spectacle of Trump putting his personal interests ahead of the country's by trying to trade American weapons systems to Ukraine to fight the Russians, in return for dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden, tends to prove it. (By the way, I don't think any of that allegation is in dispute, including by congressional Republicans. They just want to murder the messenger.) My view is Trump is using the same playbook as virtually every other dictator in the world, past and present: he is trying to use his position to enrich himself and his family, and otherwise advance his own self interests. That, if nothing else, makes him unfit for office. EDIT: And, by the way, it makes him unworthy of your gallant attempts to defend him. IMHO.
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Post by Chesapeake on Sept 30, 2019 18:22:27 GMT -5
Millring, I need more time to absorb your very thoughtful arguments. I know I agree with some of your points. Two fundamental disagreements. One, if you were to tell any Democratic president in modern times that the press treated them with kid gloves because they were Democrats I'm pretty sure you'd be laughed out of the room. It's not that they won't have the occasional bouts. It's what they battle over. The reality is that they are essentially on the same side still. They don't have ideological differences. And at the end of the day, they still party together, marry each other, get together at their kid's school events, share dinner parties, know all the right people together, share the same ideals. The all share the heads-up on what the next issue will be so that they aren't caught flat-footed in any politically incorrect embarrasments. If today's topic is climate change, they all speak in concert. There is no disagreement among the principles. They can put on a show of disagreeing what to do about it, but they don't disagree about the issues. They read the same things. They are like you once described -- they can't even make the conservative's argument. Just as the difference between you and me -- I have a much better idea of your stand on issues because I swim in your pond. You couldn't frame an argument as presented by me or by Jeff beyond (like Marshall understands it) I believe in conspiracy theories. I've attended social confabs of both liberals and heartland conservatives, and the herd behavior you ascribe to liberals exactly mirrors how conservatives act. That certainly was not the case with the two Democrats I covered, Carter and Clinton. Obama had a love-hate relationship with the press. Like all the rest. Second, underlying most all the pro-Trump arguments I can think of is the assumption that Trump has the interests of the American people uppermost in his mind, and is doing everything in his power to advance them. I don't think so. At least, that's not what I believe. To some extent I would say that Trump simply has a tiger by the tail. If he does not aggressively pursue proving that the Democrats and their press manufactured the entire Russia thing to defeat him, then he will suffer a worse fate than simply being impeached. I think he's grasped that uncomfortable fact. Maybe he likes the fight. Probably, even. But the reality is that is is a death-battle and he understands it.
If I have a dog in the fight, it is as I said -- I understand that the principle power in the country is the Washington insider, Democrat/Press juggernaut. That's what conservatives tell themselves. It may have had some truth at one time, but it is not true now, in my opinion. They determine what every issue is going to be. The other side -- whether it is Republicans or conservatives or even Liberatrians -- is left reacting to whatever issue the Democrats and their press decide they will be. And it's been moving at a dizzying speed in the past decade. If you guys win this battle, guys like me are going to start being imprisoned and worse. Really???I simply do not believe that, and the current spectacle of Trump putting his personal interests ahead of the country's by trying to trade American weapons systems to Ukraine to fight the Russians, in return for dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden, tends to prove it. (By the way, I don't think any of that allegation is in dispute, including by congressional Republicans. They just want to murder the messenger.) My view is Trump is using the same playbook as virtually every other dictator in the world, past and present: he is trying to use his position to enrich himself and his family, and otherwise advance his own self interests. That, if nothing else, makes him unfit for office. EDIT: And, by the way, it makes him unworthy of your gallant attempts to defend him. IMHO.
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Post by millring on Sept 30, 2019 18:52:26 GMT -5
"I've attended social confabs of both liberals and heartland conservatives, and the herd behavior you ascribe to liberals exactly mirrors how conservatives act." Yes, but the conservatives aren't in charge of everything. The liberals are.
"Really?" Yes. Hate crimes. Racism redefined. Bigotry redefined. We're pretty far down that road.
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Post by Cornflake on Sept 30, 2019 20:01:47 GMT -5
What I hear from some of you is that things are so awful we should smash the status quo and start over. You have a lot more confidence that the rebuild would be an improvement than I do. I think we're amazingly lucky to live with the best system there's ever been, for all its flaws.
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Post by Chesapeake on Sept 30, 2019 20:06:28 GMT -5
Trump has proven to be very good at smashing things. Building things, not so much.
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Post by Chesapeake on Sept 30, 2019 20:07:57 GMT -5
This just in from that notorious fake polling organization, CNN: 47% of Americans now support impeaching Trump and expelling him from office.
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Post by aquaduct on Sept 30, 2019 20:23:42 GMT -5
Trump has proven to be very good at smashing things. Building things, not so much. Couldn't prove that out here beyond the beltway. But then again, that's pretty much the whole thing about Trump. He doesn't appeal to those that didn't suffer in the last recession, or any other recession.
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Post by Chesapeake on Sept 30, 2019 21:02:53 GMT -5
"Really?" Yes. Hate crimes. Racism redefined. Bigotry redefined. We're pretty far down that road. Racism and bigotry will never be crimes in this country. Definition problem. As far as hate crimes, I can't imagine you being arrested for such a crime, but if you are, I'll be a character witness.
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Post by TKennedy on Sept 30, 2019 21:04:52 GMT -5
The “improvements” have been in spite of Trump not because of him. Any other Republican president would have done the same and probably more without all the drama.
The fact that a semiliterate bully with a severe personality disorder has been pretty much contained and kept from doing anything catastrophically stupid is a testimonial to the fact that our system of government works fairly well.
The Republicans need a new candidate for 2020. I think a centrist could win big.
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Post by t-bob on Sept 30, 2019 22:35:42 GMT -5
I skimmed a lot of this long thread. Hmmmm..... tangential How about those Yankees ?
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Oct 1, 2019 5:08:32 GMT -5
The “improvements” have been in spite of Trump not because of him. Any other Republican president would have done the same and probably more without all the drama. The fact that a semiliterate bully with a severe personality disorder has been pretty much contained and kept from doing anything catastrophically stupid is a testimonial to the fact that our system of government works fairly well. The Republicans need a new candidate for 2020. I think a centrist could win big. The primaries will insure that will not happen. On both sides. We have lost our way in this country. Ignorance is bliss. Mike
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 1, 2019 5:12:30 GMT -5
This just in from that notorious fake polling organization, CNN: 47% of Americans now support impeaching Trump and expelling him from office. I wonder how CNN did predicting Trump's victory in 2016?
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 1, 2019 5:40:49 GMT -5
The “improvements” have been in spite of Trump not because of him. Any other Republican president would have done the same and probably more without all the drama. The fact that a semiliterate bully with a severe personality disorder has been pretty much contained and kept from doing anything catastrophically stupid is a testimonial to the fact that our system of government works fairly well. The Republicans need a new candidate for 2020. I think a centrist could win big. Don't worry. If the Junior Jackass League does manage to impeach Trump, that makes Pence President. Centrist enough for you?
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Post by lar on Oct 1, 2019 8:45:45 GMT -5
I still haven't heard a good answer to my question, why are Trump supporters so determined to keep this big ball of trouble in office when they have a perfectly good mainstream Evangelical conservative waiting in the wings? Is Trump really worth going to war over? For purposes of brevity this is somewhat simplistic. Nonetheless, I believe it to be true. In parts of this country there still exists a certain number of people who value fair play and detest mob mentality. They have a tendency to root for the underdog. That thinking is something I don't believe is understood on the coasts, in large urban areas, and D.C. There were calls for Trump's impeachment before he was even sworn in as president. The Democrats are still insisting that Trump somehow "stole" the 2016 election. I lost count of the number of people who said to me, "Trump is not my president" during the first few months of his term. Trump was never given much of an opportunity to even get his administration started before he was beset on all sides by the Democrats who were determined not to let him accomplish anything. How do you think that plays with the people who voted for him? I think there are other things at work here as well. People in the middle part of the country are having an increasingly difficult time understanding some of the things that are happening in this country that seem to defy common sense. Here are a few. To me they are reminders of governmental bodies that have abandoned any pretense of serving the people who elected them. Portland has banned urinals from it's newly remodeled Portland Building, their municipal headquarters. There will be gender neutral bathrooms that can be used by both women and men on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th floors. Each floor will have at least one gender specific bathroom. The Chief Administrative Officer for the city said, "I am convinced that this is the right way to ensure success as your employer, remove arbitrary barriers in our community, and provide leadership that is reflective of our shared values.” California was one of the first states in the U.S. to start issuing drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. This idea has now spread to other states. California is also one of the first states to propose offering access to health care benefits for low income young adults who are living in the US illegally. A couple of months ago I read an article by a writer from back east. I wish I had book marked it because now I can't find it. The gist was that the importance of rural America is grossly overstated and that the country as a whole would be just as well off without the rural areas. The article reinforced the feeling that many rural Americans have that they've been forgotten and left out of the general prosperity that other areas of the country have enjoyed since the recession. Hillary Clinton's remark about Trump's "basket of deplorables" fed into the resentment that was felt by many rural Americans. It was a clear indication that the Democratic party had abandoned them. This next thought is pure conjecture but it does tie in with my rural upbringing. There's an old saying that goes, "Dance with the girl you brung". It would not surprise me to learn that a part of the loyalty of Trump's base springs from that. Trump may not be all that his base thought he could be but they don't think he's been given a chance and they don't see a viable alternative. In my opinion, Trump's vase views Pence as being a bit weak.
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