August 27, 2016

Did the Alt-Right play its big day right?

Hillary Clinton said "Alt-Right" on Thursday, suddenly throwing a new word in America's face. That was an astounding opportunity for whoever has been wearing that label to spring into action. The readiness to take advantage was instantly expressed by that guy in Hillary's audience who — on hearing the word — shouted "Pepe!"
[A] man in the crowd was ejected for yelling “PEPE!”, the name of the iconic green frog meme that has become the alt-right’s mascot, as soon as she mentioned the movement....

"I proudly consider myself a member of the Alt Right… now saying that, or admitting that publicly has its drawbacks because of the false narrative being peddled by the regressive left that the Alt Right is all Neo-Nazi Russian Agents, hell bent on establishing a White Supremacist world takeover, all bullshit" said Sean in an interview with [a Breitbart reporter, Charles Nash]. "I call myself alt right because the conservative establishment right in this country does not represent my views, they are just as much to blame for the disaster taking place in America as the left, the alt right to me is fiscal responsibility, secure borders, enforcement of immigration laws, ending the PC culture, and promoting AMERICA FIRST (Not Sharia First)... If you come to this country legally, follow the laws, learn our language, and love the country, you are equal, no matter your color, or religion. Basically alt-right is to separate ourselves from the failing establishment right."
And then what happened? At Breitbart.com, we got "the 20 worst lies" in the Hillary speech, which not address her use of the term "Alt-Right," and this quickie interview with Milo Yiannopoulos, who said:
“Hillary Clinton created the alt-right that she spoke about yesterday, her and people like her, and now she thinks the solution is to keep calling people names and to widen the net of name calling from a couple of people she doesn’t like on the Internet and her political opponents to millions of Americans that she is now describing as racist and sexist... It’s going to have electoral consequences."
That fails to claim that the Alt-Right is something good. He's reinforcing Hillary's idea that it works as name-calling.

The NYT has "Hillary Clinton Denounces the ‘Alt-Right,’ and the Alt-Right Is Thrilled," which is what I read that inspired this post and made me ask the question I use for the post title.

Mrs. Clinton’s speech was intended to link Mr. Trump to a fringe ideology of conspiracies and hate, but for the leaders of the alt-right, the attention from the Democratic presidential nominee was a moment in the political spotlight that offered a new level of credibility. It also provided a valuable opportunity for fund-raising and recruiting.
Okay, so it's an opportunity, a spotlight. And then look at the next paragraph:
Jared Taylor, editor of the white nationalist publication American Renaissance, live-tweeted Mrs. Clinton’s remarks, questioning her praise of establishment Republicans and eagerly anticipating her discussion of his community.
The NYT reader is expected to lock "Alt-Right" to "white nationalist" and never think twice.
Mr. Trump has publicly kept his distance from the alt-right, but his critics have accused him of offering subtle cues to invite its support. His appointment of Stephen K. Bannon, the head of Breitbart News, to be chief executive of his campaign was cheered by alt-right members who are avid readers of the Breitbart website.

The alt-right claims to support the preservation of white culture in the United States, and many of its members want to see an overhaul of the entire political system. However, its views are widely seen as white supremacist and anti-Semitic.

Many who align themselves with alt-right philosophies say that they do not subscribe to all of Mr. Trump’s policies, but that electing him would be a step in the right direction because of his “America First” worldview and his hard line on immigration....
So that's how the anti-Alt-Right, anti-Trump forces can and did play the opportunity.

There's more like that. Rolling Stone has "Call the 'Alt-Right' Movement What It Is: Racist as Hell/Calling these people anything less than vile racists is morally reprehensible and intellectually fraudulent." NPR has a neutral headline "What You Need To Know About The Alt-Right Movement" and the racist charge made in vague, agentless language: "The views of the alt-right are widely seen as anti-Semitic and white supremacist."

I could go on. But I just want to say: If there's an Alt-Right that is NOT okay with getting painted as racist, it did not win the day yesterday.

366 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 366 of 366
YoungHegelian said...

@GWash,

we've been fed a bunch of misinformation about american history and how special we are... but in reality there's a lot of bad along with the good...

Yes, that's true, but the difference is that those people who lecture our kids about "the bad along with the good" never, ever, bring up the even more "bad" among the "good" of everyone else's history. No, the USA alone gets judged by some moral standard that some lefty-do-gooder has just pulled out of his ass. Why those moral standards should or can be applied to history is never discussed.

"Slavery was bad". Well, duh. So, do we throw out Aeschylus, Cicero, & Plato out, too? 'Cause, if you think American slavery was bad, it was a picnic compared to slavery in the classical Mediterranean basin. How about a good Marxist analysis of the economic conditions that made slavery occur, like if you don't have lots of currency available (like most of human history), you can't pay hundreds of thousands of workers actual wages. Thus, the rise of bound labor.

History isn't a morality tale. And it especially isn't a morality tale in the service of the Left.

mockturtle said...

GWash, take a look at 'history' books from today's high schools. Our nation's discoverers, founders and victorious warriors are vilified as racists and one would assume, from their prominence, that women and blacks had more to do with building our nation than did white men.

History--my favorite subject--should never be studied through the filter of modern sensibilities.

buwaya said...

I think we are predicting the future, but the present is interesting.
The left has created a locked-down cultural space where criticism of its world view is banned. This is proceeding as we speak, for instance, in a small way, by the elimination of comment sections. These, it seems, were inconvenient.
I expect the locked-down space will expand.

Humperdink said...

Unknown questioned: "Who is the guy who foments insurrection?"

Just bringing a gun to a knife fight. (Not sure who coined this phrase, but give me a moment, it'll come to me.)

YoungHegelian said...

@Gwash,

i've never heard anything from the 'govt' impinging my religious expressions...

Well, I guess the Little Sisters of the Poor were in court for just some big misunderstanding over an overdue library book or something. And those bakers & florists put out of business over that gay wedding business, well, their religious beliefs don't count, do they?

I'm done with you. You're living in a cave.

Fernandinande said...

buwaya puti said...
That government policies have failed or that persons in government are grossly corrupt or that the economy is in irrecoverable decline - these arent going to make it into the mass media in any way as to have an impact.


The A.Althouse thread about "Study Says Lazy People Are Smarter" was depressing. The study said no such thing, but nearly all the commenters there went along with the MSM nonsense. Near as I could tell, nobody read the actual article, they all trusted the MSM (except Paco Wove).

Drago said ...
How many States Attorney Generals are going after AGW opponents for having the temerity to speak the truth about this leftist-driven BS?


Worse than that - the feds are thinking about using RICO.

"The US Department of Justice has been considering whether people should be prosecuted for the offense of climate change denial."

“This matter has been discussed. We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action on,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch, responding to a question from green activist Sen Sheldon Whitehouse at a Senate Judiciary Hearing.

buwaya said...

I am talking about what is going on in classrooms right now (well, over recent years) from the real kids in them. I have seen what I have seen.

Fernandinande said...

Link for possible DOJ speech persecution.

buwaya said...

CA courts and State gov have just barely failed to force Catholic hospitals perform sterilizations, and there is constant pressure for them to petform abortions.
Besides every other sort of state and judicial pressure to impose alien views on Catholic schools, social service agencies and even churches.
This is not new, the Church was often harassed in the past about its right to run parochial schools, etc. But the modern pressure is uniquely intense and being applied on all fronts.
The feeling inside Catholic institutions is a state of siege.
A few more judicial retirements and...

mockturtle said...

Buwaya, one big mistake some churches made was to buy into the faith-based charity/federal government coalition. Any time the government gives special concessions, it will want its pound of flesh in the imposition of PC values. Some conservative Christian colleges were smart enough to forgo their tax exemption to avoid coercive government mandates.

Jon Ericson said...

A new tuff guy now has 'ol55's "unknown" account.
Welcome, tuff guy. Althouse should be proud that she rated an "upgrade".

Big Mike said...

If there's an Alt-Right that is NOT okay with getting painted as racist, it did not win the day yesterday.

I think there's an Alt-Right that has stopped caring whether they are painted as racist of not.

Anonymous said...

"You are broken.
That is reality.
Besides many other changes-
The nature of your polity has changed fundamentally. The bulk of social and economic power no longer is in private hands, but lies with the unelected, unrestrained bureaucracy and their private sector dependents. This is a new thing in the US.
Your country has changed under you while you werent looking."

Foreign agent? Why is this person so invested in our politics?

Anonymous said...

BP, do those Catholic hospitals accept public money?

YoungHegelian said...

@Unknown,

Foreign agent? Why is this person so invested in our politics?

Wait! Are you not welcoming of our immigrant brothers? Are we not "Stronger Together"?

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacccccccist!

damikesc said...

YH, i don't get it... not sure what you are referring to... yes, 'religious' groups can use speech in a hateful way... i've never heard anything from the 'govt' impinging my religious expressions...

States have threatened to use public accomodations laws to attack churches. It's going to happen. Progressives want it too badly.

But we are supposed to be civil and your arguments are supposed to enroll people to your point of view.. if we are not all trying to work together than we really are broken... 200 years of elections and changing governments peacefully without rancor and submitting to the laws of the land.. what is your recourse? another civil war? this is not like most countries in the world but an experiment in all types and cultures getting along in a civil way.. not pipe dream, it has worked but arguments like this are unproductive and you will not be getting much support this way..

In this case, one group has had EVERY single belief and statement held up as being racist and evil. All of them. There can be no honest discussions because one side is just totally evil.

At a certain point, the "evil" side gets tired of even trying to be polite. Why discuss the shortcomings of Marxism when the response is just "Well, you want to starve kids/grandmas?". Arguments can be made that social programs have decimated the black family and deeply harmed the black community. The response? "Racist".

There is no good faith in discussion. There is no good faith in debate. It is "We are right and if you disagree, you need to be shunned and lose your livelihood". Fucking bakers are being driven out of business because they don't want to be forced to make a cake for a wedding they disagree with. Rather than saying "Whatever" and going elsewhere, they bring lawsuits and states drop the hammer on bakers.

Attack the small people and just crank up the intensity until you bring everybody to heel.

As far as submitting to the laws of the land, haven't we seen Obama ignore immigration law? Clinton ignore document retention laws? Why the hell should I follow ANY law when the people who help shape them won't do the same?

How many States Attorney Generals are going after AGW opponents for having the temerity to speak the truth about this leftist-driven BS?

Dem Senators have discussed it. The AG of the US has discussed it.

buwaya, history is always interpretive .. we've been fed a bunch of misinformation about american history and how special we are... but in reality there's a lot of bad along with the good... i seriously doubt if it's a calculated omission... and it's not by design.. this is paranoid thinking unless you can point to a real instance of this and a reason that makes sense..

Nobody is arguing we are perfect.

Students are forced to wallow in LITTLE but the bad. And, like it or not, we are really fucking special. Citizens have been allowed to do things here that people in other countries have not been. That is ending. And the former champions of free speech are applauding it.

YoungHegelian said...

@unknown,

BP, do those Catholic hospitals accept public money?

So, 200 years of cultural & legal precedent goes to shit when a bunch of Democrats wake up one fine morning & decide they don't apply anymore?

See what I mean about the Stalinism?

Anonymous said...

So now I'm a Stalinist? LOL. Drago has me down as a commie too, then some dope upstream had me down as a McCarthyite. You know what is wrong with the right? Your politics are schizophrenic. Make up yer damn minds.

damikesc said...

Unknown, care to imagine a country where Christian faiths decide to not play nice and opt to shut down their hospitals? It'd be a catastrophe of the highest order.

...but we gotta make them how, right? That is more important.

Anonymous said...

No, I'm all for Christian private hospitals, I'm also all for private hospitals abiding by the Constitution if they accept public money.

buwaya said...

I am a loyal subject of His Majesty Felipe VI of Spain.
And a citizen of the Republic of the Philippines.
In both countries I grew up at least partly in authoritarian/totalitarian polities, and I was a participant in a revolutionary movement.
So I merely give advice informed by my experience.
I dont think many here have this sort of experience. Yet.

hombre said...

GWash wrote (1:50): ". .. we've been fed a bunch of misinformation about american history and how special we are... but in reality there's a lot of bad along with the good... i seriously doubt if it's a calculated omission... and it's not by design...."

Oh, right, GW. We Althouse bumpkins grew up without a clue about smallpox and other diseases spread among Native Americans by Pilgrims, slavery and post-slavery persecution of African-Americans, graft among robber barons, dessimation of buffalo, displacement of Native Americans, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, bounties on Native Americans and escaped slaves, segregation, KKK atrocities including the Birmingham Church bombing, WW2 internment of the Japanese, Italians and Germans, My Lai, bombing Sudanese aspirin factories to distract from a blow job, etc., etc., etc. (Sarc alert.)

Thank God We have better educated folk like you to alert us to such on the eve of the HillBilly coronation which will, of course, be the end of American wrongdoing.

BTW, teaching history has been discontinued in many high schools and universities. Displaced no doubt by the history taught by Democrat politicians and their consorts in the media.

GWash said...

dami, i really don't see this happening.. if you are being put upon you do have recourse... all presidents have some degree of discretionary powers that are subject to judicial review.. the executive branch also decides how and to what degree laws are enforced (i got that from wikipedia) .. it's an executive branch function and many presidents have used executive orders in certain situations... you may disagree with this power but it goes all the way back to G.Washington..
When you start talking about the 'other side' as being evil, well to me that would be a red flag that i need to rethink my position.. if the govt attacks you for no reason i would stand with you.. but i think you are projecting as much 'evil' are you are perceiving...

Anonymous said...

Gwash: there may be a reference to Japanese internment but that is because it was totally ignored for 40 years...

That "[fill in the blank] has always been ignored" is itself a piece of bullshit propaganda. Meta-propaganda, if you will. It's remarkable how many allegedly "suppressed aspects of American history" I remember being explicitly taught in grade school 50 years ago, including the stuff about Japanese internment that you claim was "totally ignored for 40 years".

Granted, classroom time being limited, we were expected to have independent reading lives to fill in the details and expand our points of reference, unlike today, when it is assumed that young people can't know anything that isn't in the assigned textbook. Even so, I must have had dissident teachers, considering the amount of "ignored", "suppressed", and "critical" stuff I remember them talking about.

It was a running joke with my children, when they were of school age, that the history teachers would preface each year with a warning that they weren't going to teach the "rah rah America is great and perfect uncritical perspective on American history you're used to", and then proceed to spend the rest of the year preaching the same old tired, repetitive, extremely narrowly-focused, dumbed-down "new left" pabulum that the history teachers in the previous grade had taught.

Burn down the Colleges of Edukashun.

cubanbob said...

So now I'm a Stalinist? LOL. Drago has me down as a commie too, then some dope upstream had me down as a McCarthyite. You know what is wrong with the right? Your politics are schizophrenic. Make up yer damn minds."

In practice they aren't mutually exclusive. Incidentally McCarthy was right, there were communists in the government but then again with so many denominations in the Democrat party it's hard to keep score.

What you are is a shill for a grifter, criminal and traitor. Own up to it. Incidentally has John Kerry "Christmas In Cambodia" ever released his military discharge form? Has Obama ever documented his renunciation of his other citizenships?

damikesc said...

So, again, birth control is not a Constitutional issue yet the Left is pursuing a group of nuns over it. Even taking it to the SCOTUS.

buwaya said...

If abide by the constitution means to compromise fundamental values, it means driving the Church out of public space. This is yet another loss of those "mediating institutions" and the further consolidation of unquestioned state power. This is the actual purpose of all this harassment, as it was the purpose of the KKK when it tried to make parochial schools illegal. Thats when the KKK had ambitions of being the state.
But whats the point.
I know that you are a robotic thinker incapable of considering anything not programmed into your formulas. Evil has a mechanical quality.

Anonymous said...

"I am a loyal subject of His Majesty Felipe VI of Spain.
And a citizen of the Republic of the Philippines.
In both countries I grew up at least partly in authoritarian/totalitarian polities, and I was a participant in a revolutionary movement'".

So there it is. A foreigner who is encouraging revolution in our country. Biting the hand that fed him. Go back to Spain or the Phillipines and exercise your revolutionary longings. Some of us, more than half of the US voting population, do not want or invite revolution.

YoungHegelian said...

@Unknown,

Do you support religious conscientious objector status for pacifist faiths (e.g. Quakers) from wartime service?

It seems to me that granting CO status to a Quaker or a Jehovah's Witness means that some other mother's son takes his place in the foxhole where the mortar round hits. in other words, CO status to one man means that another man's military burden is that much heavier.

Yet, since the beginning of the Republic, we have thought so much of religious conscience that we have made these exemptions for these traditionally pacifist faiths.

So, do we continue with that religious exemption from the most serious of the duties of a citizen, i.e. to die for one's country in battle? If so, why?

If these faiths have such exemptions from the duties of a citizen, why not the others, which seem so less serious?

GWash said...

well i guess i respectfully disagree with you all... i got a great public edukashun, loved my teachers and found that i also was encouraged to pursue my curiosity... so i dont understand what all the hubbub is about... it's my impression that most of the school books are patterned after the books that come out of texas hardly a hot bed of dumbed down democrat pablum... also, americans are not any more special than any one else... we may excel in certain areas but i think God makes it rain on everyone...

Anonymous said...

Religious institutions have the freedom to worship as they see fit and run their institutions as they see fit. Accepting public money comes with some responsibility to the general public, who are not all of that religion.

hombre said...

Unknown: "No, I'm all for Christian private hospitals, I'm also all for private hospitals abiding by the Constitution if they accept public money." 2:56 PM

Horseshit! You are a Clintonista cafeteria constitutionalist, picking and choosing the provisions that allow you to force others to abide by your predilections. If Christian hospitals all chose to close rather than compromise their First Amendment rights, you would be first in line demanding that a fascist federal government seize their premises and force then to reopen to avert the consequences of their closing.

You aren't fooling anyone.

Anonymous said...

hombre: Blah, blah, blah, blabbity blah.

buwaya said...

We were revolutionaries in large part because we were following the US example. Its your lot that put us up to it, having spent decades educating the place in democratic ideals.

In fact we had a permanent delegation, more or less, "embedded" with us from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, notably Steven Solarz (D-NY), who I met many times. Our revolution was, more than a bit, "made in the USA".

Like I said, a mechanical thinker. Not a finely made German-precision-with-lots-of-complex-parts mechanical thinker either.

damikesc said...

Not sure how Obama saying he is choosing to not enforce immigration law isn't ignoring law...but YMMV.

Tarrou said...

"Racist" just means "has arguments liberals can't counter".


Under that metric, I'm racist as fuck.


Whinging that people are calling you racist when you aren't a racist is to lose the argument, lose the frame, and lose the attention of the onlookers. Racism is an evidence free tag, better to simply embrace it, show how foolish it is, and move on. My favorite retort has become "if this be racism, make the most of it".

Jon Ericson said...

unknown sez:
hombre: Blah, blah, blah, blabbity blah.
Go get'em tiger.

buwaya said...

The more the state provides everything, such as funding everything (student loans for all for instance) the more fine control it claims over everything and the less independence everyone else has.
In the end there is nothing but the state.
This is the evil absolutist mill that is grinding everything away.

wildswan said...

Hillary reminds me of Brezhnev, this sick, sclerotic, corrupt old guy put up to run the Soviet Union in its dying days because all the Communists recognized its days were over but no one could agree on what to do. So we'll put up someone who we know won't do anything new because he's too old and sick and maybe we'll reach some conclusion given a little more time in stasis. Similarly the American left has their very own Brezhnev, a rape enabling feminist, an actual tottering example of the impending fall of the left. in my opinion she isn't even capable of seeing that corruption among globalists can have strategic consequences, let alone what those consequences are. She thinks she's still down in Arkansas taking bribes from companies - it's the American way. Now they are Chinese companies - but what's the difference? Strategic implications? money is just money. Well, Hillary, YOU don't know what the difference is but WE will have to pay the price for all you don't know and it won't all be paid in money.

GWash said...

buwaya you take your predictions to extremes... yes there is that danger i guess you could point out examples but the other side of the coin is power in the hands of a small group of citizens that control everything and there are plenty of examples of that throughout history, dont you think we could meet somewhere in the middle with checks and balances kind of like it's supposed to work... a little compromise? in this country at this time we are far from 'nothing but the state'...

hombre said...

Unknown said: "Some of us, more than half of the US voting population, do not want or invite revolution."

There it is, folks. The voice of division. As long as we maintain a 2% edge, who cares about the Constitution or what all those other assholes, the 49%, think, believe or need?

What a ringing endorsement of the Washinton Way from the amoral nimrod who demands the return of Hillary the Grifter and Bill the sexual predator to the WH.

The irony is, he/she/it doesn't speak for "more than half." "Some of us" in its half, notably the Communists, Black lives Matter, La Raza, etc., speak for revolution with greater regularity than the 49% Unknown despises.

damikesc said...

Gwash, it'd be great if checks and balances work. They've failed. IRS is caught targeting people for mistreatment and nothing happens because the AG has no problem with it.

They are subpoenaed to investigate and they simply erase and destroy hard drives with no repercussions because the AG has no problem with it.

The husband of a woman allegedly under investigation meets privately with the AG. The FBI director than mischaracterized the law under question,claiming the suspect didn't intend to break the law. It turns out, though, that they didn't really ask about her intentions.

SCOTUS upholds a deeply unpopular law by changing the argument for the law.

Checks and balances fail whenever.government control is the goal.

YoungHegelian said...

@Unknown,

Accepting public money comes with some responsibility to the general public, who are not all of that religion.

But, what does that mean "public"? The government has only the tax money of its citizens. How do those "citizens" register that they approve or disprove of what the government does when the money is handed out by unelected bureaucrats?

who are not all of that religion.

But, in the case of many of the moral issues at hand, a large majority of the populace either agree with the religious dissenters or they agree that the religious dissenters have the right to their historically protected dissent. There is no issue on the table here that doesn't have that sort of popular support.

So, the question is: what do you mean by "public"?

By "public" you mean not the majority opinion of the people, but rather what the laws say, & what the executive has decided to enforce.

It is telling that you chose the term "public" as the name for what is what is really an expression of governmental power. It's a presupposition that you would do well to examine more critically in the future.

Alex said...

Well, the alt-right is racist, white-supremacist, antisemitic, anti-immigrant, nativist and all around assholes.

Milo Yiannopoulos is simply a gay Nazi providing cover for the racist, homophobic assholes who would despise him behind his back.

buwaya said...

Gwash,
There simply arent any checks and balances anymore, effectively. The state can decree nearly anything through regulatory fiat without anything to check them but, sometimes only, a few aging judges. The last real check on the state died with Scalia. This will likely be ratified by the next SC appointment, and then you are all naked to every whim of absolute power.
There is no middle way because there is no power anywhere to create a middle way.

GWash said...

hombre who said that the other 49% dont have a voice?... the hang up to me seems to be that a subset of the 49% (i'm using your numbers dont know that they really are) dont seem to want to work with the rest and in fact want to impose their belief system by refusing to work together... this is a legitimate tactic but only works for so long before the majority of citizens feel frustrated because things that governments are designed to do are not getting done ... and we spend so many worthless hours endless arguing and name calling.. you dont have to accept my solutions but why should i have to accept yours?... it's designed to have us work together by compromising and convincing people that your idea is better than mine... the far right is not making a convincing argument these days... conspiracies, name calling, etc.. not working..it's possible to be passionate but not insulting and ideological... if it's come to the point where you feel a revolution is the only way than i feel sorry for us...

Alex said...

From the NY Times comment section:

suetr Chapel Hill, NC 1 day ago
Brava to Secretary Clinton for her devasting, evidence-based demonstration of the "alt-right" for just what it is: grotesquely misogynistic, racist, nativist. reductionist, and vicious.


Pretty much par for the course. Of course all Republican voters are 'alt-right' now, every last single one. Including Jews!

buwaya said...

You all are worse off, really, than even my own two other countries. In each there really is a free press that is not under the thumb of a central power. In each there are on every newstand, each backed by a numerous professional staff, newspapers that disagree with each other. On the TV, ditto, change the channel and get a different opinion. Even within these organizations there are different opinions.
In each there are powerful mediating institutions, such as the church, the monarchy, linguistic tribes, even rival regional governments with real teeth.
You are richer, but in so many ways you are much more vulnerable, and I think unstable.

Drago said...

Unknown: "So now I'm a Stalinist? LOL. Drago has me down as a commie too,"

Except I didn't call you a communist. I simply noted the eerie similarity in some rhetorical techniques. I can understand that you are confused. You've not received direction on how to handle these types of comments. I would recommend you check back in with your supervisor.

Drago said...

GWash: "...the hang up to me seems to be that a subset of the 49% (i'm using your numbers dont know that they really are)..."

Clearly some introductions are in order.

Drago said...

GWash: "...the hang up to me seems to be that a subset of the 49% (i'm using your numbers dont know that they really are) dont seem to want to work with the rest and in fact want to impose their belief system by refusing to work together..."

LOL

buwaya said...

Gwash,

You should feel sorry. This turning into a disastrous situation, and looking merely on the nature of bureaucratic governance there is no path to recovery. You are headed down the drain and there is no swimming out.

Your narrative is entirely wrong though. There hasnt been a compromise on offer for nearly anything in 8 years. The oppose anything narrative is an evil lie, simply put.

The Health care act was passed precisely as designed, based entirely on the will of one side, and its been disastrous.

Anything else done over the last 8 years was done by bureaucratic fiat with the bureaucracies' hands firmly on their ears. They are a wall. If you dont see this you are blind and deaf, or have no experience in important affairs.

Its all done with, now. The various fuses for the various bombs are lit and running towards their charges.

Drago said...

GWash: " this is a legitimate tactic but only works for so long before the majority of citizens feel frustrated because things that governments are designed to do are not getting done..."

Wow.

Like, take my doctor away and give the money to someone else.

Something our government was clearly "designed to do".

Drago said...

GWash: "the far right is not making a convincing argument these days... conspiracies, name calling, etc.. "

I couldn't hear you over the "Bush blew up the Levee's" crowd. You were saying?

eric said...

Ann Althouse said...
@MayBee

One of the most successful arguments for Hillary has been Trump is a racist. Whatever fits the bias confirmation is useful. When Trump hired Bannon, it created an opportunity to put that in the template. "Alt-Right" was the leverage to do that. Bannon came from Breitbart.com, Breitbart is the home of Alt-Right, and Alt-Right is racist. Therefore Trump is racist, but you already knew that. Toxic! Don't even consider voting for Trump! He's a disgusting pariah.

That's pretty effective on a lot of people, I'd say.


I'm pretty late to this thread and haven't read all the comments but wanted to put this out there.

Racist! has lost it's sting. Which is probably, in the long run, a bad thing. Most people I know think of the KKK as a joke. A punchline. Not a group to be taken seriously. Everyone else who is called a racist, generally isn't (Like Republican politicians) and those who are clearly racist, are considered exempt (Like the Nation of Islam types).

This is the alt-right backlash you're seeing. They see being called Racist! as a sign of contempt for you, not for them. They see it as being tough. Hey, I got called a racist, Fuck You! type of thing. They want you to come after them so they can show how tough they are in resisting the PC bullshit. They don't think of themselves as racist, they think of you (in general, not specifically) as trying to stifle them and their speech with the name calling.

This is their push back. They don't really care if Trump or Hillary wins. Although they probably have preferences. What they care about is pushing back against the culture we've created in this nation over the past 50 years and utterly destroying it.

The culture that asks the question that you asked, "Did they do an effective job of pushing back?" and they just want to shout, Fuck you! for even asking or implying they should have to.

I find sympathy for the position.

But this is the beginning of a terrible ending. If things turn south in the country, these are the voices people are going to listen to, because these are the people who will be seen as the "Strong Horse" and everyone else will be the weak horse.

Drago said...

Is there anything richer than a leftist in the time of "vast right-wing conspiracy" Hillary Clinton decrying the "conspiracy theorists" of the "far right"?

Alex said...

I'd say 50% of here are members of the alt-right.

Chuck said...

"...the John Birch Society is still going strong."

???
WTF?

What has happened to the Althouse blog, that it has become an attraction for Bircher-sympathizers?

If you read this, Professor Althouse, I'd never suspect that it was anything that you wrote. It may be what you didn't write, however.

You seemingly gave Trump the old "fair hearing." There was a time, I'm sure, when you and Scott Adams -- neither one a loyal Republican -- thought that the Trump phenomenon was interesting. Adams got himself an unusual amount of personal publicity, and maybe a few book sales, for his outlier prediction that Trump would win the presidency in a landslide. And Professor Althouse, I think, correctly appraised Trump as the one Republican who was "pro-gay and being cagey about it." Trump's been cagey about a lot of things.

But now you are left with a commentariat that has been in part attracted by some level of Trump-sympathy. And with that, you get folks who think that the John Birch Society is "still going strong."

buwaya said...

I am Alt-right in the German sense - Alt=old
Things really havent gone as they should since the extinction of the Trastamara dynasty. Thats when things started to go wrong.

Drago said...

"lifelong republican" Chuck: "What has happened to the Althouse blog, that it has become an attraction for Bircher-sympathizers?"

Noted "lifelong republican" Chuck purposely misconstrues another statement to the detriment of non-lefties.

Unexpectedly!

One can disagree with whether or not the JBS is "going strong" or not (I myself cannot possibly fathom how anyone could consider the JBS "going strong these days, what is it, 4 guys in a garage in Idaho?), but merely voicing the opinion that a group is "going strong" does not automatically connote that one agrees with that group.

I would expect a lawyer and "lifelong republican" to know that and since Chuck apparently doesn't,....well, conclusions may be drawn.

n.n said...

Of course all Republican voters are 'alt-right' now, every last single one. Including Jews!

Of course, all Americans are "alt-right" now. There is a distinct anti-native message in the Left's adventurism.

Especially Jews. The religious Jews first, but the secular Jews will be included in [class] diversity schemes. It seems almost cliche, but the Jews (and Christians) as principal competitors (and women, and babies, too), are always sacrificed for a leftist establishment and its greater good.

Drago said...

Hey, have you noticed that ISIS still seems to be going strong in some respects?

Uh oh, I have crossed the "lifelong republican" Chuck "red line" by noting ISIS relative strength. Therefore, according to "lifelong republican" Chuck logic ("LLRCL"), I am sympathetic to ISIS.

Of course, just the other day I couldn't help but notice that with the massive influx of cash to BLM that the BLM group would be going very strong into this election. Therefore, according to "LLRCL", I agree with BLM.

This is going to get tricky. However, I believe I am up to the task.

grackle said...

Our corrupt media will not focus on her corruption and pay-to-play insanity at the State dept …

Here’s something I think is worth considering:

I would not be surprised that there were NO “pay to play” examples when it’s all said and done. Why? Because we Clinton-detractors are not realizing just how corrupt the Clintons are. What if the whole thing was a complete scam, even to the foreign entities that paid for a meeting and got a meeting with Hillary? What if Bill and Hillary were playing them for total dupes and never gave them anything but a meeting, laughing behind their backs all the while?

hombre said...

Unknown said: "hombre: Blah, blah, blah, blabbity blah." 3:18 PM

Oh lord. There's the erudite response I have feared all along.

Anonymous said...

Unknown said...
What presidential candidate in decades hasn't released his taxes? This doesn't concern you folks? Now that is something you should take blame for.

***********

When you and the Twat-Worshipers "take blame" for Hillary's criminality, you'll have a point.

mockturtle said...

I would not be surprised that there were NO “pay to play” examples when it’s all said and done. Why? Because we Clinton-detractors are not realizing just how corrupt the Clintons are. What if the whole thing was a complete scam, even to the foreign entities that paid for a meeting and got a meeting with Hillary? What if Bill and Hillary were playing them for total dupes and never gave them anything but a meeting, laughing behind their backs all the while?

True, but wouldn't increased access at least create increased opportunity for influence?

Drago said...

n.n.: "Of course, all Americans are "alt-right" now. There is a distinct anti-native message in the Left's adventurism."

Well, it's not really about just the US and it's not really about just "adventurism". We see this across the globe with the western establishment regardless of hemisphere.

Just the other week Mr. Juncker made that very clear indeed.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jean-claude-juncker-borders-european-union-immigration-2016-8

One marvels at the astonishing arrogance of the international western elites who clearly believe that they can unleash these global cultural forces in order to secure the "permanent" political positions of power (by crushing western based conservative/republican/whatever it's called anywhere else power centers) and be able to turn right around and tame those same non-western forces and bend them to the will of the elites.

One cannot help but recall Churchill's admonishments to the appeasers of Hitler (the crocodile) in the hopes of being consumed last.

But here we are. It's certainly an "interesting" time to be alive.

Drago said...

"lifelong republican" Chuck: "But now you are left with a commentariat that has been in part attracted by some level of Trump-sympathy."

yeah, Chuck, all these commenters just showed up after Trump began his run.

Are you even trying?

Oh goodness, I just had a terrible thought: maybe this IS you trying.

Drago said...

Unknown: "What presidential candidate in decades hasn't released his taxes?"

Yes, in the era of the dems/left weaponizing the IRS against conservatives and the State department hiding Hillary's meeting schedules while at State a lefty dares to raise this subject.

Of course, in an era when Hillary's family and friends have profited greatly from their Russian connections and Hillary herself gave 20% of our Uranium reserves to Putin the lefty commentariat knew they had to change the narrative fast on that one.

It is unfortunate that "lifelong republican" Chuck missed that, or certainly he would have been all over Hillary for doing things such as that and even now I'm sure "lifelong republican" Chuck is busy preparing a scathing critique about it.

Any minute now....

jg said...

alt right flight

hombre said...

Blogger GWash said...

"hombre who said that the other 49% dont have a voice?... the hang up to me seems to be that a subset of the 49% (i'm using your numbers dont know that they really are) dont seem to want to work with the rest and in fact want to impose their belief system by refusing to work together...." (3:48)

I'll bite. Who said "the other 49% don't have a voice?"

FYI, 49% is basically the maximum possible on the losing end of a vote. I am curious as to how a "subset" of those on the losing end of a vote would expect "to impose their belief system by refusing to work [with others]."

Ridiculous as well as factually inaccurate!

Anonymous said...

Hombre,

It's the response your comment deserved.

rcocean said...

The Left has been teaching its "hate America" history lesson in schools for 40 years.

And still pretending its some "edgy" "alternative" history to "supplement" the so-called "rah, rah, America" history lesson that no one teaches.

buwaya said...

"Pay to play" doesnt work that way.
One pays, and then asks for a meeting, purportedly, because a meeting can be portrayed as a trifling favor. The actual favor is arranged behind the scenes, such as an unofficial word to some bureaucrat controlling some business of significance. Or its in the nature of a retainer, implying the willingness to provide such favors; or even as a license, a monopoly card to draw while conducting some bureaucratic business, demonstrating influence with powerful personages and therefore qualifying for some valuable consideration.
Or its used as demonstration or claim of influence with the USG while dealing with a third party, not the US government at all.
The payments are also likely to be from stand-ins, through cutouts, from unidentified principals, some of the Clinton contributors obviously are proxies
This is a complex, subtle system.
The Clintons are actually doing it crudely, in a small potatoes way, because the payoffs are in the open. Or some of them are. No doubt there is much more business transacted in a less blatant manner.

rcocean said...

Its like when the New York times pretends its "Speaking truth to Power" when its been "the power" and the voice of the Establishment for almost 50 years.

Jon Ericson said...

"unknown",Gwarsh:
Please try harder.
We aren't democrats, ya know.

GWash said...

'There it is, folks. The voice of division. As long as we maintain a 2% edge, who cares about the Constitution or what all those other assholes, the 49%, think, believe or need?'

Sorry for being ridiculous for not understanding what you meant... i thought you might be saying that the republicans would lose by 2% and then be ignored by the dems... and the subset i was talking about was the tea party caucus in congress with the help of the republicans has brought most needed legislation and funding to a grinding halt thereby forcing their belief system on the rest of us.. and frustrating the majority who would like to see thing get done.. so i was just playing with the number you initially stated.

Drago said...

hombre: "FYI, 49% is basically the maximum possible on the losing end of a vote. I am curious as to how a "subset" of those on the losing end of a vote would expect "to impose their belief system by refusing to work [with others]."


Leftists will not tolerate any dissent. Any.

Some of them will retreat to their safe spaces while the others will make use of their growing political power to "convince" the transgressors to change their ways. Think of it as a "re-education" of sorts.

You know, for our own good....https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/27/daniel-cabellos-venezuela-opposition-leader-imprisoned

Drago said...

GWash: "...the tea party caucus in congress with the help of the republicans has brought most needed legislation and funding to a grinding halt..."

Yes, because the dems get to define precisely what "needed legislation and funding" is. Just as it is written in the constitution.

Consensus must rule!! And that consensus must the be consensus around whatever the leftist position today happens to be!!

rcocean said...

Hilliary is the most corrupt politician ever.

The Democrat party has basically told her, "Give us our hand-outs and special privileges, and you do what you want to the rest of the country. We don't give a shit."

Hillary could literally make herself Queen of America and 75% of Democrats wouldn't give a damn as long as they could have an Abortion, get a government hand-out, have open borders and a low capital gains tax.


GWash said...

well jon e neither am i (a democrat).. been a republican my whole life.. but moving independent after spending some time here... and listening the political discourse in general...

Drago said...

rcocean: "Hillary could literally make herself Queen of America and 75% of Democrats wouldn't give a damn as long as they could have an Abortion, get a government hand-out, have open borders and a low capital gains tax."


Well, why shouldn't Soros get what he has paid for?

Drago said...

GWash: "... been a republican my whole life..."

LOL

Hey, "lifelong republican" Chuck has already fully occupied the "lifelong republican who now, gosh darn it, just can't support the republicans anymore" seat at Althouseblog.

And given your performance thus far, I have to say that objectively speaking "lifelong republican" Chuck is simply "better" than "lifelong republican" GWash.

hombre said...

Unknown said...

"What presidential candidate in decades hasn't released his taxes??" Squirrel!!

Who cares? Just another red herring from the Clinton immoralists.

Besides, Clinton tax returns mean nothing until "Graft" is included as a separate income category.

rcocean said...

What's even sadder, is that wiser heads won't prevail. Our destiny is in the hands of a bunch of soccer moms, Grandmas, idiots, College kids, and immigrants who just got their citizenship.

The independent morons, who don't really pay much attention "to all that political stuff" - but insist on voting - will decide our destiny.

Hopefully, some of them will see the debates and like Donald trump hairdo and vote for him.

mockturtle said...

been a republican my whole life

Wow! Just like Chuck! :-D

rcocean said...

Drago: "Chuck" really has been a life-long Republican. He's just voted Democrat in every election.

Anonymous said...

Of course you wouldn't care hombre. Maybe some others do care though, ever think of that? Solipsism much?

Drago said...

I wonder if "lifelong republican" Chuck is better than "lifelong republican" GWash due to prior training as a "retired military/combat veteran" Chuck who, gosh darn it, just couldn't bring himself to support that Chickenhawk GWBush in 2004.

There were thousands of those "retired military/combat veterans" online in 2004 and they seemed to pop up out of nowhere right after the "organic" formation of that notable "grassroots" organization Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Which was followed by that "organic" formation of that notable "grassroots" group OWS.

Which was followed by that "organic" formation of that notable "grassroots" group BLM.

Which was all preceded by decades by the "organic" and totally "grassroots" groups behind "Ban the Bomb", "US Medium Range Missiles out of Europe", "Second Front Now", etc.

It's almost, almost, like there is a pattern to leftist cult/herd mentality.

GWash said...

ok... well i guess i've been told... Chuck didn't mean to sit in your chair... i relinquish the title of life long republican to you since there can only be one... and the standards of this echo chamber seem to be so high...

Jon Ericson said...

This is my favorite "humor" blog.

Drago said...

GWash: "ok... well i guess i've been told... Chuck didn't mean to sit in your chair... i relinquish the title of life long republican to you since there can only be one... and the standards of this echo chamber seem to be so high..."

Wow, "lifelong republican" GWash "inadvertently" adopts standard lefty terminology here at Althouseblog.

Unexpectedly!!

Anonymous said...

Glad to say I've never been a Republican.

Drago said...

GWash: " i relinquish the title of life long republican to you since there can only be one"

LOL

There can be many lifelong republicans.

But really, more than one "lifelong republican" is probably overplaying your hand a bit.

Drago said...

Unknown: "Glad to say I've never been a Republican."

Because you are pleased that you still have the gift of speech? If so, any phrase would do, really.

Drago said...

Unknown: "Glad to say I've never been a Republican."

Well, then you have that in common with the Charlie Hebdo attackers.

Well played.

Laslo Spatula said...

Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....

It's funny, watching you all squabble like drunk chicks at 1:OO AM. Your Fear is that when it all goes to Shit you'll be forced to live like Black People...

Unless you're at the Tippity Top, you'll be scraping by at the very bottom, now: sounds familiar to me, boss. There won't be no middle anymore: you'll be living like us Black People, scrabbling by and trying to hold on to some of your Dignity as more and more of you go Feral....

Get used to it: you'll be sharing lines with us Blacks at every Demeaning Government Service, and you'll be Hassled By The Man, just the same as us...

I'd almost feel sorry for you, except I know you White People, and I hate you. Still, I'll leave you with this: listen yourselves to some old-school N.W.A. and you might get the picture of what your Life will be. See you soon...

You think you got Problems? Fuck You.

I am Laslo.

buwaya said...

The standards are fairly high.
Cite cases, statistics, logic, precedent, mathematics.
Challenge assertions with correct information.
Actually debate in an honorable manner.
Name calling back and forth is the degeneracy of discourse.
So, in your case, since you brought it up, how is one to check the out of control bureaucracy, exactly? What check and balance is there. Answer that plausibly.

buwaya said...

Laslo is right of course.
Properly the standard of living will be more Mexican but thats a quibble and Laslo hasnt got his Chicano voice yet.

mockturtle said...

Seems clear to me. America is either going to be 'great again' or become a third-world country. It'll be interesting, either way, and I'm not sure how to prepare. If the latter, maybe Lamar will let me hang with him long enough to learn the ropes. But, no. He hates white people.

Laslo Spatula said...

Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....

All these years of you White People trying to get us Blacks to live like You, and then your own Government is now going to make you White People live like US...

Damn: that is One Big Rooster coming to roost...

You think you got Problems? Fuck You.

I am Laslo.

Jon Ericson said...

Shift change.

hombre said...

Unknown said...

"Of course you wouldn't care hombre. Maybe some others do care though, ever think of that? Solipsism much?"

A lack of interest in Trump's tax returns is solipsism? Seriously? You are Olga, aren't you? Lol!

hombre said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
hombre said...

GWash said: "... and the subset i was talking about was the tea party caucus in congress with the help of the republicans has brought most needed legislation and funding to a grinding halt thereby forcing their belief system on the rest of us.."

Really? You intend to sell talking points intended for low information Democrats here?

I have found the political movement that best fits the worldview you express. It is called alt-Reality.

Anonymous said...

Hey, 'lifelong Republican' here....

Why shouldn't the People, led by a vanguard of revolutionary intellectuals, NOT seek to control the means of production?

David Brooks needs to write his next article about this.

Anonymous said...

Hey, dyed-in-the-wool Conservative here...long-time lurker...1st time commenter.

The government is the only thing we do together, right?

Can't be so bad..

Jill Stein 2016!

grackle said...

True, but wouldn't increased access at least create increased opportunity for influence?

Yes, of course, and it is obviously some sort of scam and morally corrupt but is it against the law? If offering and granting a meeting is against the law – why aren’t the Clintons being indicted?

… "lifelong republican" Chuck …

The NeverTrumpers are a sad lot. They’ve betrayed the base, parroted the latest PC bullshit and bowed to the progressive agenda for so long that it has become second nature and has rendered them incapable of soberly contemplating real change.

Sometimes hell is getting what you want – good and hard. I think that Chuck and the rest of the NeverTrumpers may not be very celebratory for very long if Hillary wins.

If Trump loses I will never vote for another Republican again. I will go Green, go Libertarian, go whatever rather than vote for either party. If no alternative to the Democrat/GOP shell game is available I will stay home on future election days – which our hostess in a past comment has assured all of us is an honorable and valid act.

So – for me it’s either, “Hello, President Trump,” or “Bye, bye Republican Party.” I do not believe I will be alone in this – far from it.

Anonymous said...

mockturtle: Seems clear to me. America is either going to be 'great again' or become a third-world country.

That's it in a nutshell, mock.

It'll be interesting, either way, and I'm not sure how to prepare.

Allies, mock, allies. A resilient network of allies. I tell my kids to work at maintaining their extensive cousin networks on both sides, and to make good friends and be a good friend. I know what a tremendous good fortune it is to be able to contact a cousin I haven't seen since I was a wee lass, out of the blue, and feel immediately comfortable and at home with them. Being alone in the world is death, when TSHTF.

What's interesting is that I have relatives whom I think of as being pretty clueless politically, and as much as I give them grief about this, I know that, if and when things go pear-shaped, they are people who know how to do things and who will know how to keep on keepin' on. The same will be true of some of the "bitter clinger" class people around you, who know a hell of a lot more about things than their "betters" give them credit for. As my husband once remarked years ago about an "ignorant cracker" type who provided some of the manual/mechanical labor for a scientific study he was involved in, "if things ever really went to hell, Bob would be an extremely valuable friend to have. He'd bloody well know how to survive while most of us PhDs would starve to death without his knowledge and his help." (Needless to say, the PhDs had better figure out how to make their friendship valuable to Bob, too.)

Mobility and assets accessible from a bolthole would be nice to have, but that sort of thing isn't available to ordinary people. A Swiss bank account is a Swiss bank account, but a good cousin (or a good neighbor) is a smoke.

JaimeRoberto said...

@Unknown, let me see if I have some of your arguments correct.

1) Trump's horribleness is compounded by the fact that he is more likely than Hillary to die in office. If you dislike Trump so much, maybe that should be seen as a plus. You sound a little like the people who dislike Obama's policies complaining that he spends too much time on the golf course.

2) Trump is "bashing" NATO for saying that if other countries aren't living up to their obligations (e.g. 2% of GDP for defense), then we should rethink our obligations. If you are in an agreement with another party, and the other party breeches its obligations, do you feel that you should still be obliged to adhere to the agreement?

3) Catholic hospitals should "obey the constitution" even though the Constitution discusses how the government operates, not how private organizations operate.

4) The NSA should monitor our comments.

5) You have no factual rebuttal to Clinton Cash.

Does this just about cover it?

Stephen A. Meigs said...

Back in the day elites proudly thought themselves cleaner than the masses because they tended to use money or education to attract mates rather than sodomy. Nowadays, by and large, the elites tend to think of cleanliness as having money and education--they're more clueless about sodomy than the masses. Labels about non-sodomy things only work to the extent people are so confused about what constitutes sodomy (a mere question of one hole versus another hole) that they overestimate the extent to which things should be viewed in binary fashion as one-hole-versus-another. Both Trump and Hillary will hurt themselves by using labels, because they fail to realize that ordinary people are not the emotionally stupid-about-sodomy people the elites are. A wise candidate who is conservative in the right way could refute any label a political opponent might put on them by merely pointing at them and saying "you're a supporter of sodomy encouraging sodomy by trying to cause people to think that the binary one-hole-vs-another thinking appropriate in understanding the simple evil of sodomy is instead useful for something else that in fact it is not useful for".

mockturtle said...

@Anglelyne Mobility and assets accessible from a bolthole would be nice to have, but that sort of thing isn't available to ordinary people.

I've got that part, living in a small, 4X4 RV.

mockturtle said...

I wonder what will happen to millennials when their phones become inoperable. Scary, huh?

Anga2010 said...

Way back in 1988, I used to yell out "PEPE!" at the 500 cafe in Dallas, Texas when the Loco Gringos played there. What fun! RIP Pepe :*(

hombre said...

Re: 5:31.

Oh. That's right. It's Inga, not Olga. Was that careless of me or solipsistic?

Jon Ericson said...

I think "unknown#11" is the uh... less talented unknown.
"unknown#55" seems more uh... feisty.
Ima guess #11 is Inga.

effinayright said...

So now we are chasing "alt-righters" (much like CO2 which represents only 3% of the atmosphere but is blamed for global warming),

*****************************

Correction: CO2 is only 0.04% of the atmosphere, 1/75 of 3%.

Yet the warmista Left, they who bray about their love and understanding of "Science", attribute to it Magical Powers.

(ask progs what the largest atmospheric component is, and they invariably answer, "Oxygen". BZZZTT!)

Gahrie said...

Today, we no longer have Birchers declaring that President Eisenhower was a dedicated communist. Today, we have Breitbarters declaring that Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Jeb Bush are "cuckservatives."

....and it is squarely the fault of the Republican Establishment. The first warning was the Tea Party movement. This was a group of everyday Americans expressing their frustration with the government, and the failure of the Republican Party to try and fix things, despite their promises. The reaction of the Republican Establishment was to oppose the tea Party in every way, and to try and destroy it. On many occasions, the Republican Establishment allied with the Democrats to defeat Tea Party efforts to reform the government.

The next warnings were Ted Cruz, and to a lesser extent Marco Rubio. The Republican Establishment reacted exactly the same way.

The people tried to reform within the system, and failed.

Thus you get Trump.

Gahrie said...

And given your performance thus far, I have to say that objectively speaking "lifelong republican" Chuck is simply "better" than "lifelong republican" GWash.

If Chuckles and GWash really are lifelong Republicans....it merely proves the point that the Republican Establishment fails to get....the GOP Establishment no longer represents its base, and instead has fallen captive to the Washington D,C, cocktail circuit and prefers to work with Democrats rather than its base and real Conservatives.

wildswan said...

The only one missing from the collection of post-millennial political types commenting is "life long Hillary supporter." Mourners over the fall of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, also none. Somewhere, somehow there is a common factor. Perhaps the whole crowd likes peanut butter and jelly and branches out from there.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Call the 'Alt-Right' Movement What It Is: Racist as Hell/Calling these people anything less than vile racists is morally reprehensible and intellectually fraudulent."
This, of course, is a call to heap hatred any arbitrarily chosen target.

SukieTawdry said...

This really is the stupidest election ever.

It really is. I don't know how we got to this absurd place, but we should be ashamed.

A republic, if you can keep it.

Lewis Wetzel said...

We got to this place by allowing the least democratically level of American government to run local schools (but not pay for them), and to tell Americans what light bulbs they were required to buy (but, again, not pay for).
21st century GOP: They'll order you to buy CFL lightbulbs, but banish you to outer darkness if you suggest that the bulbs cannot not be imported.
Because Freedom!

SukieTawdry said...

80% of the blame goes directly to the right.

Horseshit. All many of us on the right have ever wanted was to follow the Founding Fathers' blueprint. Perhaps in some enlightened alternate universe, they're doing just that.

Chuck said...

grackle said...


The NeverTrumpers are a sad lot. They’ve betrayed the base, parroted the latest PC bullshit and bowed to the progressive agenda for so long that it has become second nature and has rendered them incapable of soberly contemplating real change.

Sometimes hell is getting what you want – good and hard. I think that Chuck and the rest of the NeverTrumpers may not be very celebratory for very long if Hillary wins.

If Trump loses I will never vote for another Republican again. I will go Green, go Libertarian, go whatever rather than vote for either party. If no alternative to the Democrat/GOP shell game is available I will stay home on future election days – which our hostess in a past comment has assured all of us is an honorable and valid act.

So – for me it’s either, “Hello, President Trump,” or “Bye, bye Republican Party.” I do not believe I will be alone in this – far from it.


Hey don't get mad at me. I will be as depressed, at the prospect of four years of Hillary, as any of you. I just had a better idea back in January, which was don't nominate the fuckhead Trump because he'll lose.

If Trump loses badly in November, you'll have a lot to answer for. You can't blame the liberal media; they have been character-assassinating Republicans for 40 years. You can't blame the GOP Eastablishment. Trump said he didn't want their help, and he condemned "the donors." You can't blame me, if indeed I cast a vote for Trump (which I think is now the easiest thing for me to do, so that the Trumpists don't have that to use against me in any post-election post-mortem).

The only people to blame for the fiasco will be the people who lent support to Trump in the primaries.

You can abandon the Republican Party if you wish. (Buh-bye!) But we still control Conrgess and just about all of the Red and even the Purple states. WE will control the fight, and any compormises, with Mrs. Clinton. I hope our position remains solid enough that the compromises are few.

Jon Ericson said...

Mrs. Clinton. Nice.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Chuck wrote:
"If Trump loses badly in November, you'll have a lot to answer for"
The same loss of the popular vote the GOP managed to achieve in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2012 w/o Trump.
Look, I will not vote for Trump. But if the GOP doesn't blame itself -- instead of GOP voters -- for Trump, they will have learned nothing.

grackle said...

The only people to blame for the fiasco will be the people who lent support to Trump in the primaries.

I’m an independent that usually votes Republican, sometimes enthusiastically, usually as the lesser of two evils. But the NeverTrumpers have proven that there is no lesser evil, that there is very little difference between the MSM, the Democrats and the NeverTrumpers. They all have the same common goal: Give Hillary the Whitehouse.

I can never support a party that turns traitor to its own nominee, that doesn’t hold party notables like Rubio to their signed pledges to support the GOP nominee, a pledge that Trump was forced to sign because the idiots were sure that Trump would NEVER win the primaries.

You never see the Democrats doing this – THEY have better sense and back THEIR party’s nominee to the hilt – no matter what.

But THAT’S the GOP establishment: roll-over artists, PC lovers and absolute whores for facetime on the cables. Looking back I don’t see how I ever expected anything else from them – it’s been obvious for years.

If the NeverTrumpers did not exist, if they were united for Trump and against Hillary then, yes, I think they could then legitimately blame the loss on Trump. But they have refused to back their party’s nominee and in doing so have forfeited all claims to moral or political superiority.

Chuck said...

Well, Terry; the Perot supporters have a lot to answer for, for the 18% that he took in 1992, and perhaps the 9% that he took in 1996.

The good guys won the White House in 2000.

And in 2008 and 2012, African-American voter turnout by percentage -- for the first time(s) in American history -- equaled and then exceeded white voter turnout.

Am I blaming GOP voters for Trump? I didn't really think so. I was blaming Trump voters. What does that Venn diagram look like?

mockturtle said...

I was glad to read that Rand Paul supports Trump, although I'm sure he is not enthusiastic about it.

Chuck said...

You never see the Democrats doing this – THEY have better sense and back THEIR party’s nominee to the hilt – no matter what.


So very true!

The Democrats have absolutely nothing like conservative talk radio, sniping at party leadership. What little there is of left-wing talk radio; it is never critical of Democratic leadership. And the left-wing broadcasting of the mainstream media (PBS, NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, CNN) certainly does not attack Democratic leadership. Not like FNC's Sean ("I'm not a Republican, I'm a registered Conservative") Hannity does.

Democrats have such enviable media control and organization. And then there are the super delegates. Goodness gracious, how Republicans could have used a thousand super delegates this year!

So yeah, you have to applaud the Democrats for their ruthless party discipline. They've gotten everyone from Jesse Jackson to Robert Byrd to Fred and Donald Trump as registered members at one time or another.


Lewis Wetzel said...

"Well, Terry; the Perot supporters have a lot to answer for, for the 18% that he took in 1992, and perhaps the 9% that he took in 1996."
So what? THEY LOST. The GOP supporters are like Cub fans. Excuse, excuse, excuse, wait'll next year . . .
Everyone is to blame for the GOP's miserable rate of winning presidential contests except the GOP. Got it.
The GOP does very well at the congressional and the state level. They should ask themselves what they are doing wrong at the presidential level. How'd the RNC's 2013 "Growth and Opportunity" project work out? Nothing but blue skies ahead?

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Goodness gracious, how Republicans could have used a thousand super delegates this year!"
Yep, that's what is wrong with America. Too much democracy. The little guy has too strong of a voice.

narciso said...

because democrats understand power, they have a singleminded determination to fundamentally transform this country, they don't let any institution stand in their way,

mockturtle said...

The GOP supporters are like Cub fans. Excuse, excuse, excuse, wait'll next year.

Hey, not this year! The Cubbies are leading their division with 82-46!

eddie willers said...

grackle .....

You nailed it.

MayBee said...

I can never support a party that turns traitor to its own nominee, that doesn’t hold party notables like Rubio to their signed pledges to support the GOP nominee,

Rubio is supporting Trump. He endorsed him.

MayBee said...

The same loss of the popular vote the GOP managed to achieve in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2012 w/o Trump.
Look, I will not vote for Trump. But if the GOP doesn't blame itself -- instead of GOP voters -- for Trump, they will have learned nothing.



Amen, Terry.

Lewis Wetzel said...

This seems to be the #Nevertrumpers' plan:
Don't vote, or vote third party, or maybe even vote for Hillary.
Trump loses. Hillary wins.
In 2020 run Rubio again, or Cruz, or Fiorina.
Chastened Trump supporters vote for someone more acceptable to the GOP kingmakers, or they stay home.
GOP uses strategy that has failed countless times in the past.
Win!

I will not vote for Trump. I am not a Republican, I am a conservative who is registered as an independent (always have been). In my state it doesn't matter who I vote for to be president anyhow.
But the #nevertrumper's plan is madness.

Known Unknown said...

Trump doesn't take responsibility for his many failures either

Yes, all of those failures in his political career as a public office holder.

Chuck said...

Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist (and the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal and the National Review), is one of the better media critics in all of conservatism.

Just moments ago on Howie Kurtz's FNC program, she made a point which is as important as it is obvious. Trump was aided and abetted by a wildly supportive and attentive press when he was running as a primary candidate. And now, with equal emotionalism, that same press has turned against him.

I'm curious; did Trump's supporters ever think that wouldn't happen?

Gahrie said...

I'm curious; did Trump's supporters ever think that wouldn't happen?

Do you mean that Trump supporters didn't anticipate that the media would treat Trump just like they do every other Republican candidate?

Of course they did...that is one of the reasons why they are Trump supporters.

Gahrie said...

WE will control the fight, and any compormises, with Mrs. Clinton. I hope our position remains solid enough that the compromises are few.

And here Chuckles finally starts to persuade me that he really is a Republican Establishment lackey......just like the rest of them he can't wait to start giving in to, and rolling over for, Hillary and the rest of the Democrats.

Chuck said...

No, Gahrie; I knew that.

But did the Trump supporters ever take into consideration that the support Trump derived from his media exposure in the primaries would be a double-edged sword to hurt him later on?

Every Republican candidate gets hurt by the mainstream media. But virtually no Republicans get the sort of media bump that Trump got in the primaries. That's the issue. How Trump got the unlikely nomination. And what would happen later.

Bruce Hayden said...

Fun and games. Over 360 comments, and Crooked Hillary toady Unknown answering almost every criticism of her with "bullshit". Never explaining why that big black dude follows her around with an injector in his hand. Why she had to be carried up the stairs of that house. Why over half of the private individuals who met with her as Sec of State had coincidentally contributed to her family foundation/slush fund. And no one even mentioned that brothers and mother of her closest aide still run to this day a militant Islamist publication (that said aide has written for), or that some of the biggest contributors to her family foundation/slush fund have the most to gain by her banning fracking (if Obama hasn't done it first). Or that she didn't just delete, but intentionally made unrecoverable, emails that include a number of what are now known to be work related emails. After she knew that they were being sought by the courts and Congress. All that Unknown can say is "bullshit". Must be low on official Crooked Hillary campaign misinformation right now, because he only tried to change the subject once or twice this time.

Bruce Hayden said...

Whoops. I misspoke. Only 345 posts so far.

Chuck said...

From last March, here is my comment on the future of the Trump campaign:

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2016/03/elite-media-slowly-absorbs-meaning-of.html?showComment=1457539374599#c173669982446933466

Chuck said...

Bruce Hayden: Not that the "Diazepam injector" would ever have meant much in the campaign, but before I destroy you I'd like to say that I agree with Dr. Ben Carson and say that since the Presidency is such a physically demanding job, I'd like to see all nominees submit their complete medical records (and perhaps an independent medical exam) for independent review. That would mean Donald J. Trump and his military-disqualifying heel spurs, as well as Mrs. Clinton's thyroid treatment.

Now, I am one of those guys; if you were at a cocktail party or in a bar, and you laughingly and/or excitedly started to thrill you fellow conversants with a story about Mrs. Clinton's security detail carrying medication injectors, I'd be that guy who would stand uncomfortably close in front of you and in front of the whole group I'd tell you that that's nonsense, and I'd ask you where you got such nonsense from.

It was a flashlight. There's elaborate video evidence that it was a flashlight:

https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-hillary-clintons-seizure-doctor-with-diazepam-auto-pen.t7821/

It was a flashlight, and you're a really stupid bumpkin to have believed that alt-right crap about injectors. This now marks the first time I have used "alt right" in any discussion apart from somebody's having asked about the "alt right."

I never cared one way or another about any "alt right." But if the "alt right" maintains that attacking the Republican Party is one of its core functions, then I'll be out to kill the "alt right."

grackle said...

Rubio is supporting Trump. He endorsed him.

I stand corrected. In June Rubio did finally say that he would honor the pledge. That was wise of him.

That leaves Cruz, Graham, Bush, Pataki and Kasich. Traitors all, with the exception of Cruz, who I’ll give a pass because it got very personal between him and Trump. BTW, it looks like Cruz may be in trouble in his district in Texas.

Declining to endorse your party’s nominee can be dangerous even if you have what many would consider good reason not to endorse.

Chuck said...

grackle it's "whom," not "who" in your usage.

And Cruz doesn't have a "district in Texas." He's a U.S. Senator. He represents all of Texas, not a district. He isn't even coming up for election this year. He's in Senate Class 1. The term runs through 2018.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Unknown,


Who is the guy who foments insurrection? Is he a citizen of this nation? Is he a agent of a foreign nation? CIA, are you reading this stuff?
8/27/16, 12:47 PM


I'll not tolerate your abuse of the President in this manner! And it is the Secret Service that is reading this stuff and will soon be talking to you!

Good day sir!

I said good day!

grackle said...

grackle it's "whom," not "who" in your usage.

And Cruz doesn't have a "district in Texas." He's a U.S. Senator. He represents all of Texas, not a district. He isn't even coming up for election this year. He's in Senate Class 1. The term runs through 2018.


In addition to being the best lifelong Republican Hillary ever had in her corner it turns out that the commentor is also a member(lifelong?) of the grammar police. Good to know. Not that it’s going to much improve my somewhat troubling relationship with English grammar. Nonetheless, I’ll have to limp along with my awkwardly phrased comments.

As for Cruz’s political future, I’m only reporting what I find online:

… he’s been somewhat shunned by his own party since his non-endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a speech at the Republican National Convention in July.

http://tinyurl.com/jy4rqyt

While the GOP nominee has been a point of divisiveness within the party, Cruz’s choice to not endorse the real estate mogul has turned voters against him, the survey showed.

http://tinyurl.com/jy4rqyt

And I apologize to the readers for the unintended, perhaps Freudian, demotion of Cruz, a politician I once considered one of my choices in the GOP primaries. I think the basic problem may be that it is difficult for me to picture Cruz as a US Senator … such a big, important job for such a small, self-defeating person.

So, while I forgive Cruz for his non-endorsement, his constituents may not be so forgiving in 2018.

Chuck said...

grackle, Ted Cruz was being shunned by his colleagues in the Senate and a number of House Republicans long before he decided to run for president. Cruz is, in a class by himself, a unique rebel within the Republican caucus in the Senate. There are conservatives -- Jeff Sessions, Mike Lee, Tom Cotton, etc. -- and then there is Cruz.

I suppose, if I were in the Senate and it was my job to produce a bill or a vote on a given issue and Ted Cruz regularly screwed things up for my, I too might have a big problem with him. But that isn't my job, and I don't have any big problems with Cruz.

Still, Ted Cruz's life now seems a bit unfairly defined by the six-month period in which he at first slipstreamed behind Donald Trump, never laying a glove on him in the hope that all of the Trump support could be converted to Cruz votes, and then when he went toe-to-toe with Trump in the final battle of the primary season.

I'll say; I am not happy with Cruz and his reputation for poor cooperation and party discipline. But I'd much rather have Cruz and all of his disruption in the Senate, than a Rick Perry. Just because I am a fan of smart politics and smart politicians. Ted Cruz is kind of brilliant, and Rick Perry is kind of an idiot.

Still, if you are asking whether there'd be lots of Republican support, for Rick Perry to "primary" Ted Cruz, I think the answer would be yes, and there is no better metaphor than the one of Lindsey Graham, suggesting that if Ted Cruz were killed on the floor of the Senate, and if the trial were held in the Senate, nobody would be convicted of murder.

So could Rick Perry "primary" Cruz? Sure. What difference would it make? Not much, in the national scheme. The seat would remain Republican, and reliably conservative. Ted Cruz might be sidelined for 2020, after such a defeat, and that might be part of the thinking of some Republicans. I think the Republicans would lose a good mind in the person of Ted Cruz, but if it helps us purge the brief Era of Trump, that would be a good thing.

mockturtle said...

Chuck, you make some convincing arguments here but 'brilliant' [while, assuredly, Cruz has shown to be, at least as a law student] is not 'wise'. Cruz is perilously unwise. I would rather have wisdom than intelligence in a leader. Your mileage may vary.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So now we are chasing "alt-righters" (much like CO2 which represents only 3% of the atmosphere but is blamed for global warming)...

Yeah! Kind of like how beer is only 4% ABV so everyone knows it can't possibly lead to drunkenness or impairment.

Love how that right-wing mind mixes the "feeling" of numbers with made-up pseudo-scientific guesstimates.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Obviously it must be the water in wine and beer that leads to drunkenness or impairment. THere's way more water in those drinks than there is alcohol.

#alt-rightwing_scienceclass

grackle said...

I think the Republicans would lose a good mind in the person of Ted Cruz, but if it helps us purge the brief Era of Trump, that would be a good thing.

There was a time that I could have enthusiastically voted for Cruz had he gotten the nomination. I would still vote for him over Hillary but not very enthusiastically. I think Cruz is a small person in a job too big for him.

But big or small, I believe he miscalculated badly near the end of the primaries and started to himself believe all the baloney generated mainly by the MSM and other NeverTrumpers about Cruz’s vaunted “ground game.” He then decided to attack Trump, which is always a risky business considering the political gravesites Trump left in his wake in the previous primaries.

But lo and behold, Trump beat him in Indiana by almost 17 points, despite Cruz’s supposedly highly superior campaign organization. Darn that Trump! Why can’t he be like other GOP politicians and fight fair!

Cruz had a chance then to be magnanimous in defeat but I guess we all know what happened next. He decided to brawl with Trump and a little later to use Trump’s convention stage to conspicuously NOT endorse Trump. There’s all kinds of ways to not endorse someone but choosing to do it on the stage of the convention owned by the GOP nominee might not have been the best choice. You want folks to forget non-endorsements of popular politicians – not have it stand out at such a prominent event in everyone’s memory.

Like I say, I forgive Cruz for that particular bit of behavior, but there are a lot of Trump supporters in Texas who I think will not be so easy on Cruz.

Gahrie said...

What the Hell? Chuckles the lifelong Republican defending Hillary?

This is my shocked face.........

Gahrie said...

That's the issue. How Trump got the unlikely nomination. And what would happen later.

Trump got the nomination for two reasons:

A) The GOP Establishment continued to ignore their base. They and the donor class really thought they were going to be able to shove Jeb down our throats.

B) Since it was so obvious to everyone else that Jeb was never going to get the nomination, everyone and their mother jumped into the race and kept a majority from forming....this allowed the really pissed off to register their displeasure by supporting Trump and win pluralities.

As to what happens later...either way the GOP Establishment loses, which is enough for many.

Chuck said...

Gahrie; I "defended" Hillary Clinton? How? Where? A quote, please. Or are you just making up more shit?

Bad Lieutenant said...

Oh Chuck there you are! So are you going to answer about performing your duty as an election monitor in Michigan or are you going to keep dancing?

Gahrie said...

Gahrie; I "defended" Hillary Clinton? How? Where? A quote, please. Or are you just making up more shit?

You spent a whole post defending her health, when anyone can see with their own two eyes that she is one old, sick puppy.

We know she had a stroke, and is on blood thinners. We know she has a chronic cough...we know she has balance issues, we know she needs to take large amounts of time off...

But Chuckles insists that there is nothing to see here, move on........

Chuck said...

Bad Lieutenant said...
Oh Chuck there you are! So are you going to answer about performing your duty as an election monitor in Michigan or are you going to keep dancing?


What the fuck is your problem? What do you want me to "answer"?

Chuck said...

You are a real assclown, Gahrie. In one post, I debunked the phony and stupid alt-right rumor that some "big black dude is following Hillary Clinton with an injector filled with some unknown medication. It's a false rumor, and I confess to taking some extra pleasure in seeing it run down, just because the proponents of the rumor are so stupid.

It's certainly not because I like Mrs. Clinton. Which you ought to have guessed, since in the same post I urged the release of both candidates' medical records. That's mostly what you want, right? A chance for the whole country to see her medical records? Count me in. I agree. Somehow, that part escape your low-grade attention.

I'd like to see Trump's medical records too. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. And, I'd like to see Trump's tax returns too. I do not believe that he is under any order, nor is there an order, nor would it be harmful to any audit, for Trump to release his returns for the past ten years.

Here once again, I have not typed a single word of "defense" for Mrs. Clinton, but for you and the rest of Trumpkinland, that's not enough. I have to be in full fire-breathing support of Trump to satisfy you. And that ain't happening. I expect that I'll cast a vote for Trump. While it is in litigation at the Sixth Circuit right now, Michigan's law banning straight-ticket voting might be enjoined for this election. And if that's the case, I can vote a straight Republican ticket and never fill in the circle next to Trump's name. I will very much be casting an effective vote for Trump in that case. And in doing so, I will be looking forward to arguing the disastrous 2016 presidential election from the standpoint that I didn't withhold my vote from Trump. Trump will have lost it, despite getting my vote. No one will be able to cast a disloyalty label on me. There were just too many credulous Trumpkins who voted in primaries.

Ingot9455 said...

Anyone can call anyone a racist at any time.
it is impossible to keep from being called a racist.

Therefore, you cannot act in such a way as to keep from being called a racist.

You can try to act in such a way that someone calling you a racist is an evil liar, but evil lairs remain.

richardsson said...

I'm not on Twitter so I only hear bits and pieces of what's going on there. Nor am I on facebook because it's owned by another billionaire leftist dwerp who thinks he's God. For over 40 years in the workplace, I had to put up with getting the short end from affirmative action, then I had to put up with accusations of "white skin privilege" So, I know who the REAL racists are nowadays and they are all Democrats clinging to rickety political coalition that will not survive the next downturn in the economy. If Hillary thinks these accusations will take out Trump, all I have to say is that it's not 1968, deary.

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