October 11, 2020

"There is still no Trumpian equivalent of Bush’s antiterror and enhanced-interrogation innovations or Obama’s immigration gambit and unconstitutional Libyan war."

"Trump’s worst human-rights violation, the separation of migrants from their children, was withdrawn under public outcry. His biggest defiance of Congress involved some money for a still-unfinished border wall. And when the coronavirus handed him a once-in-a-century excuse to seize new powers, he retreated to a cranky libertarianism instead. All this context means that one can oppose Trump, even hate him, and still feel very confident that he will leave office if he is defeated... Our weak, ranting, infected-by-Covid chief executive is not plotting a coup, because a term like 'plotting' implies capabilities that he conspicuously lacks.... [L]iberalism under Trump has become a more dominant force in our society.... Its return to power in Washington... will be the unification of cultural and political power under a single banner. Wielding that power in a way that doesn’t just seed another backlash requires both vision and restraint. And seeing its current enemy clearly, as a feckless tribune for the discontented rather than an autocratic menace, is essential to the wisdom that a Biden presidency needs."

85 comments:

wendybar said...

Bahahahhahhahahahhahahhahahahha!! Obama got a Nobel for nothing but being black and getting elected. Trump is actually getting us Peace in the Middle East...but go back to sleep, and let these liars keep telling you how to think.

wendybar said...

And by the way...Obama BUILT the cages they keep the kids in...Suck eggs.

art.the.nerd said...

I am embarrassed to admit that I once respected Douthat even when I disagreed with him.

Iman said...

Douthat comes in right behind Stephens and ahead of Brooks on my "pay no mind" list

effinayright said...

"Trump’s worst human-rights violation, the separation of migrants from their children, was withdrawn under public outcry."

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

Once it was pointed out that Obama had also put children in cages, and for the same very good reasons, the MSM quickly "moved on" to find something else to slander and libel Trump.

donald said...

Ross Douhat is a piece of human garbage.

Milo Minderbinder said...

That is one of the scariest columns I’ve ever read, from anyone,

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

"Obama's worst human-rights violation, the separation of migrants from their children, was ignored by all of us hypocrites in the press"

fify

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

We must rid ourselves of this menace - and return to the insider-deal corruptocrats we adore.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Trump's biggest crime was beating Hillary fair and square.

That crime ushered in the cascade of leftist lies and fraud filled accusations from every corner of the elite and corrupt government aristocracy. - the trickle of BS began with Hillary's scorched earth seed-lie that Russia helped Trump steal an election.

Did Ross forget the crime of the century? Trump's crime of asking about Biden's family graft in Ukraine. Trump was impeached for it by all the democrats.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Meanwhile - 9 News Denver hires an Antifa thug for security.

Here is a photo of the Antifa thug

Here is the man the Antifa thug shot and killed.

A photo of Lee Keltner, the conservative Denver man who was shot in the face & killed by suspected @9NEWS unlicensed security at a political rally. Keltner ran a hat making business & is a veteran. Photo: Anya Semenoff/The Denver Post

I hope Keltner's family sues 9 news.

Fuck you 9 news. Fuck you Antifa Nazis. You killed a vet.

TJM said...

So Trump respects the rule of law and the pseudo right...hates it?

Please explain to me how Trump not being a tyrant is not a bad thing. Also please explain how this squares with the Left's insistence that Trump is both a tyrant and that he did not use the levers of power to bend the country to his will for covid.

Mary Beth said...

His worst human rights violation was begun under Obama. No new wars. No stories of torturing. He's launched a global effort to end the criminalization of homosexuality. He has negotiated peace deals and favorable trade deals. The NYT is having a hard time proving he's dangerous so they're going with calling him stupid. That should work.

doctrev said...

Really? That's what Douthat's going with? Donald Trump doesn't take a shit on the constitution, therefore get rid of him and all will be well?

This is how you got Augustus, you shabby guy.

Mr Wibble said...

Douthat is supposedly a conservative. If so, he should prefer a weak, libertarianish Trump over the authoritarians that will populate a Biden administration. The conservative movement for the past forty years has decried the consolidation of power in the Executive Branch, the endless entanglement of the US in foreign conflicts, and the increasingly activist judiciary.

[L]iberalism under Trump has become a more dominant force in our society.... Its return to power in Washington... will be the unification of cultural and political power under a single banner.

And Douthat will be there, ready to sell more books about how to have a "conservative revolution", one where he is in a lucrative role as "advisor". Because that ultimately is the grift, not to win but to sell the idea of winning to the gullible masses in flyover country. Trump has never been the authoritarian monster that the left and establishment right made him out to be. He simple wasn't One Of Them.

Balfegor said...

So basically, Trump has been atypically scrupulous about constitutional limits compared to recent presidents, is frequently responsive to public opinion, and has conspicuously declined to take the opportunity to expand the power of the Presidency at the expense of liberty despite an historic crisis, but because the audience is the readership of the New York Times, that all has to be prefaced with some macho chest thumping about how that restraint makes him "weak?"

I understand the rhetorical strategy, but it's still pretty cringey.

Gaius Gracchus said...

"He is a dictator!" "No, he is an idiot, a buffoon!!" "No, he is a tyrant and violates norms!" "No, he is weak because he isn't a dictator"

h said...

This may not be the appropriate place to write this comment, but it's close.

Trump has failed to deliver on the big symbolic issues;

1. He promised to build a wall, and he didn't.
2. He promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, and he didn't
3. He promised to bring all troops home, and he didn't.
4. He promised to achieve new trade relations with China, and he (kinda) didn't.

5. And maybe corporate taxes, and I'm not sure what.

But:

1. The wall was to reduce illegal immigration, and illegal immigration has come down.
2. Obamacare was not repealed, but the elimination of the insurance requirement has essentially gutted Obamacare, and future Supreme Court decisions may make Obamacare unconstitutional.
3. Trump has really disengaged the US from foreign entanglements. One can probably find specific promises that have failed to be kept, but the general theme is one of bringing troops home.
4. THere is a new NAFTA, and there is some change with China Trade relations.
5. And changes in taxes have created incentives for companies to keep their productions in the US>

So I conclude: Trump has failed on the big symbolic issues, but has succeeded in subtantive issues.

It looks like Biden will win, but then, the biggest issues will be symbolic:

1. Congress will pass a bill or resolution insisting on rights of immigrants.
2. COngress will pass a bill or resoluition supporting Obamacare.
3. Biden will gradually re-engage, or send troops back to Afghanistan, Iraq.
4. Biden will accept the new Nafta, without comment.
5. BIden will work towards a new tax bill; but it probably won't increase the corporate tax rate, and will probably set higher rates for very high income, or very high wealth individuals.


n.n said...

War is peace. Coups from Tripoli to Cairo to Damascus to Kiev. Immigration reform and trails of tears. Children in cages. Hunting witches, judging warlocks, protests in the streets, businesses, and homes. Babies are a "burden". Social justice, social progress, political congruence. We didn't start the warming, change. It's always been monotonic and unqualified.

MayBee said...

...or he could just say, Trump isn't any of the things you are afraid of, and has actually done a good job not getting us into wars and following the Constitution.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Douhat gets some kind of prize for using the word wisdom and Biden in the same sentence.

tcrosse said...

Wielding that power in a way that doesn’t just seed another backlash requires both vision and restraint.

If they do get power, vision and restraint will be in short supply. And we backlashers aren't going away.

jaydub said...

"essential to the wisdom that a Biden presidency needs...."

That would be the first time I have ever heard Joe Biden's name and wisdom used in the same sentence.

- Robert Gates, SECDEF in the Obama administration who criticizes almost nobody in his book, said ‘Joe Biden has been wrong on almost every foreign policy issue for the last four decades."

- Gates also points to Biden as a chief advocate of the Obama administration’s controversial dependence upon drone strikes and Special Forces raids as a substitute for a broader counterterrorism policy. This is controversial as a question of human rights, given that American citizens were targeted without trial and many civilians were killed.

- Robert Charles, Asst Secretary of State said: “On a personal level is he a friendly guy, but he has empirically had poor judgment particularly on foreign policy ... the examples are numerous.”

- Questioned by a Fox News reporter, former Vice President Joe Biden denied that he told then-President Barack Obama “not to go after [Osama] bin Laden” in what turned out to be a successful mission to kill the 9/11 mastermind. But, in his initial recounting of the events leading up to bin Laden’s death on May 2, 2011, Biden portrayed Obama as a decisive leader who decided to move forward with the daring raid over the vice president’s advice. In Biden's own words: "… Every single person in that room hedged their bet except [then director of the Central Intelligence Agency] Leon Panetta. Leon said go. Everyone else said, 49, 51. It got to me, He said, “Joe, what do you think?” And I said, “You know, I didn’t know we had so many economists around the table.” I said, “We owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go."

- Newsweek: "Biden Admits Voting for Iraq War 'Was a Mistake,' Says He Did It Because He 'Wanted to Prevent a War"

- Early on Jan. 7, Biden was savaging Trump as “dangerously incompetent” for the strike that had killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps terrorist leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani a few days earlier. Biden claimed that Trump was close to starting an “endless war in the Middle East” and that “this outcome of strategic setbacks, heightened threats, chants of ‘Death to America’ once more echoing across the Middle East, [and] Iran and its allies vowing revenge — this was avoidable.” Of course, literally every part of Biden’s statement was proven wrong,

- At one presidential primary debate, Biden claimed he had atoned for his Iraq War vote by spearheading Obama's 2011-2012 withdrawal from Iraq. But that withdrawal was a disaster, and it led to the rise of the Islamic State. Biden famously boasted at the time, “I’ll bet you my vice presidency [Prime Minister Nouri al] Maliki will extend the [Status of Forces Agreement]” with Iraq to maintain a military presence in the country. Lucky for him, no one took the bet, because Biden failed in his negotiations. Even if the entire thing wasn’t his fault, it was a consequential failure. The subsequent hasty withdrawal from Iraq led directly to the rise of ISIS.

The man is a light weight and a buffoon. His foreign policy cred is less than zero, because zero would have meant he did no harm in his recommendations and decisions.

mccullough said...

The Far Left is winning its war against The Left.

Douthat misses the important stuff while chin-stroking about Trump.

MikeD said...

Our hostess is just trolling us now. Linking to TDS suffering opinionaters with no succinct comments from her! Double plus bad, she's not even joining comments to support or disdain this dog's breath column.

rcocean said...

Good ol' Ross Doughnut. The Reasonable "conservative" trying to talk reason to the NYT's crowd. Trump doesn't give a damn about Ross and I know Harris doesn't either. maybe Biden used to care, when he wasn't senile.

Sebastian said...

"Wielding that power in a way that doesn’t just seed another backlash requires both vision and restraint."

WTF? Progs aim to crush the deplorables. None is worried about a backlash. The only question is whether the nice women of American will let them get away with it. I think they will, and then a few years henc tells, we didn't know! they went too far! it's terrible. But then it will be too late.

"And seeing its current enemy clearly, as a feckless tribune for the discontented rather than an autocratic menace, is essential to the wisdom that a Biden presidency needs.

The autocratic menace BS was just a tool, to delegitimate Trump and rile up the lefty base. Biden and wisdom? It is to laugh.

Trump hasn't helped his cause. But wisdom BS is the fallback of righties kowtowing in advance.

JPS said...

Maybe I'll motivate myself to find out, but before I do, a wild guess:

The comments to this "please don't mistake me for a Trump supporter, I hate him too, but let me differ from you just fractionally" offering to the NYT readership are every bit as hostile as if Douthat just donned the bright red MAGA hat and gloated over liberal tears. Just a bit more contemptuous, since he ritually bends the knee to them.

rcocean said...

Ross Doughnut is basically the male, NYT equivalent of Peggy Noonan. Big on "reasonableness" and "Tone" and full of undetectable, supposedly, conservative sympathies.

rcocean said...

Ross Doughnut SHOULD be upset that Biden has refused to disavow packing the Supreme Court. Or getting rid of the filibuster. Or taking radical positions on immigration, gun rights, abortion, making DC and PR states, and climate change. Or appeasing China and wanting to start WW III with Putin, but that would be "unreasonable".

DrSquid said...

Don't get cocky, Ross.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Doubt that

Francisco D said...

Trump's greatest and most important accomplishment has been outing the corrupt establishment Republicans, not to mention the phony conservatives.

Although respectable lefty intellectuals will never admit it, he will destroy the corrupt duopoly. It may not happen in this election cycle, but it will happen.

Joe Smith said...

The fact that a low-IQ non-entity such as Biden even has a chance to be president should make every American sad.

And his VP? I guess she comes with her own stripper pole so not all bad...

Leora said...

" [L]iberalism under Trump has become a more dominant force in our society.... Its return to power in Washington... will be the unification of cultural and political power under a single banner."

Liberalism under Trump has been exposed as virtue signaling lifestyle choice that has no solutions for our actual problems. I'm also thinking that Biden's polling is just a little worse than Hillary's was on the same dates.

Glad to see someone at the Times acknowledge that Trump is among our most law abiding presidents. Given all the investigations without issue, he must be the cleanest real estate developer in the United States if not the world.

Skeptical Voter said...

Well lemme see--just a few days ago Douthat and the other progressive posse of purveyors of ruminant digested alfalfa were saying it would take the military to get him to leave the Oval Office. But that was then and this is now, and the "journolists" say it's time to change the narrative.

Why bother reading these clowns? Now if I want that sort of stuff delivered while it is still steaming hot at my breakfast table, I just look to the Los Angeles Times. It's delivered every morning at my door--but I'm beginning to wonder why I bother.

Darrell said...

Biden is not winning. Democrats need polls showing a big win in order to come out and vote. The Media and pollsters oblige. After the last four years, you's have to be an idiot to vote Democratic.

Darrell said...

And fuck Ross Douhat.

Roy Lofquist said...

I would do anything for love, but I won't Douthat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ViIPA-Gc

Paco Wové said...

Conversely, here's Hillary voter James Kunstler:

Bill of Particulars

"Personally, I don’t want to see any of these people [Democrats] anywhere near the levers of power in this country. Quite a few of them deserve to be in jail, and I believe before Mr. Trump’s second term is up, they will be — if they don’t try to wreck the United States altogether with new treasons in the November election. I’m against them heart and soul, and I no longer care what my old friends think about it."

Yancey Ward said...

Douthat has completely lost his mind. He basically ticks off very good reasons for re-electing Trump, even praises him for it, and then writes that he needs to be replaced with a party that is literally promising to violate norms in a way that Trump never did in his first term. Just fucking astonishing that Douthat would write such a ridiculous essay like that.

Amadeus 48 said...

This really is too much. We have a president who is constrained by the historic norms of our three branch system, who patiently works within the constraints of our plodding bureaucracy, who has been harassed endlessly by a disloyal opposition and a coterie of dispossessed factions formerly identified with his party, who has persisted in his program notwithstanding scurrilous attacks from all directions including from within his own administration, and a goody two-shoes palace eunuch like Douhat calls him a weakling? What would Douhat say about Lincoln?

Trump certainly has flaws, but he has been a president like no other beset by challenges like no other. Douhat has earned our contempt with this column.

Amadeus 48 said...

And Biden was a two-legged stool on his best day. His best days are behind him. Far behind him.

Bruce Hayden said...

“ Our weak, ranting, infected-by-Covid chief executive is not plotting a coup, because a term like 'plotting' implies capabilities that he conspicuously lacks....”

My understanding is that he probably is no longer infected.

Yancey Ward said...

This is, again, Trump's superpower- he makes people take their intellectual masks off. At one time it might have appeared to some that Douthat was a serious conservative, but this kind of ridiculous essay is Douthat proclaiming loudly that he is and always has been a Democrat and progressive in conservative clothing. All he has done in his writing career is apparently pretended to be a conservative so that he could get hired by the NYTimes to suck Democratic cock and tell Republicans that it isn't such a bad way to go, and might be ok for them, too (see Chuck for an example of those that listen). Make no mistake here- even if we were talking about re-electing President Cruz right now, Douthat would still be writing about how it is imperative to vote for Joe Biden.

If things do devolve into violence after the election, I hope the people who start taking the bullets to the face are people like Ross Douthat and David Brooks. They will have earned it.

Jupiter said...

Meh. Ross Douthat has figured out that Donald Trump acts with restraint and self-discipline, respecting the boundaries of tradition, rather than smashing his way to grab whatever he desires. He attributes this to weakness and stupidity. Like that queasy little shit-sack Brooks, he has supped among the Lilliputians at the NYT for so long that he has become one of them. Any "conservatism" he may have affected is long forgotten, a husk he shed when he ascended to join the Elect. Born in 79, so he just hit 40. If I was his wife I'd lawyer up, he'll be turning up with a hot little mistress any day now.

bbear said...

"Twice," says Arnold in his History of Rome, "Has there been witnessed the struggle of the highest individual genius against the resources and institutions of a great nation, and in both cases the nation was victorious. For seventeen years Hannibal strove against Rome, for sixteen years Napoleon strove against England; the efforts of the first ended in Zama, those of the second in Waterloo."

from THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY: 1660-1783
by A. T. Mahan

The Gipper Lives said...

"There Will Be No Trump Coup" because the Islamo-Commie Obama and the Klepto-Socialist Clintons already conducted one--and still are, with their Perma-Blob Resistance and Professsional Liar-Media.

President Trump certainly hasn't quashed any dissent. That's what the Klantifa mobs are doing, just as the Klan terrorized Americans for Democrats a century ago.

Yet the Swamp all say Trump is a tyrant, destroying American Democracy. Despite the foam-flecked denunciations, our self-appointed betters have it exactly backwards:

At every turn, President Donald Trump is Restoring American Democracy. He's not wiretapping, framing and spying on his opponents as was done to him.

He's not wiretapping reporters and Congress like Obama and Brennan did.

Whether it is ending the Due Process-Free Zones on Kangaroo Court Campuses or promoting school choice to give parents and localities back their autonomy.

Or exiting the anti-Semitic and bloated UNESCO and having America help Christian refugees directly without the UN's thumb on the scale.

He is using the lawful provisions of the ACA to help small business pools and expand choice, while correctly tossing the insurance company bailouts back in CONGRESS' lap.

He's ending the War on Prosperity, on Business and on Coal by ending the unelected bureaucrats' assault.

President Trump is Restoring American Democracy, not subverting it. They've gotten so used to perverted government, that up looks like down and down looks like up to them.

He withdrew from the phony One-Man Climate Accord--we were the only country who joined without legislative approval.

He cancelled the Iran Deal, another One-Man Treaty, approved in the Iranian Senate but not the American Senate.

He shrunk the federal land grab in Utah that should have been a National Park, not a unlegislated "Monument".

He cancelled DACA which is a One-Man Suspension of the Laws passed by Congress and signed by presidents. And Sanctuary Cities, which are sanctuaries from the laws you enacted through your representatives.

He cancelled the extra-legal payoffs to insurance companies while legally expanding small business pools.

He's appointing judges who will umpire, not play. Judges who will honor the Actual Constitution, the one that the people actually consented to live by.

He's exiting UNESCO, who wanted to control America's refugee policy.

He withdrew from the Human Rights council run by dictators.

He's making NATO live up to their obligations.

He kicked the Pakistanis who hid bin Laden off the payroll and told the PLO's Abbas Crime Family to get a job.

He's ending the Kangaroo Courts on campus and bringing back the Constitution to campuses, while eliminating the One Size Fits All- mandates of Common Core.

Not to mention ending all the life-sapping regulation imposed by unelected, unaccountable Blob-ocrats.

He got healthcare choice for veterans and pay-raises for military families.

His tax-cuts keep money with the citizen who earned it and his booming economy has lifted up millions of Americans of all backgrounds. He even got the postcard tax form, talked about for 50 years.

He's pushing back against giant social media corporations and their un-American shadow-banning and censorship of bloggers, conservative educators and congressmen, done in hopes of rigging yet another election.

He's rewriting flawed trade deals as the deals themselves permit. And doing so on behalf of American workers. And he may yet succeed in getting Congress to pass an actual budget at long, long last.

And that's just a partial list. Every one of these items returns power, money, sovereignty and influence back to the American people and their elected representatives and restores each branch and level of government to its proper role.

President Trump is saving our democratic Constitutional Republic in spite of these flea-bitten Deep State hacks and their Media Pimps, not because of them.

And thank God for it.

papper said...

Vision and restraint, from the Democrats? That is the delusional fantasy of the never Trumpers.

bagoh20 said...

Citizens should take note of how the media characterizes a President who insists on not abusing or exceeding his power, and still accomplishes great milestones for the nation domestically and abroad. The only reason he is not given the credit he deserves for that is that he is not a Democrat. What man of either party has ever accomplished so much in just four years, and with nonstop resistance and abuse, often including highly illegal and seditious methods.

The ancient parallels are deeply instructive, but unfortunately, those lessons are more than 15 minutes in the past.

StephenFearby said...

I usually never read anything that Ross Douthat says because of his penchant for emitting word salads.

Making Sense of 'Word Salad'

It describes the disordered speech of the mentally ill—but now it's also being used to describe political speeches


'...Since political debates are frequently about the difference between sense and nonsense as perceived by one side or another, it’s not surprising that word salad has entered the political arena:

Nunberg said that in 1996 he used computer software to analyze the most repeated words at the Democratic and Republican conventions. The Republican speakers, he said, repeatedly invoked a few words and phrases: "common sense," "America," "dream," "inclusive." The Democrats, by contrast, were a "word salad," he said.
–The Boston Globe, 28 July 2004

It's remarkable when you think about it: Here the country now has what may be our first dyslexic president in George W. Bush, a lead-tongued orator who can scarcely get through a presidential address or press conference without making word-salad of his speechwriters' finest efforts.
–Arkansas Democrat-Gazette [Little Rock], 2 November 2006

COULTER: This is just a perfect example of how all you get is a word salad from democrats.
–Fox News interview with Ann Coulter, 25 May 2007

In a conversation, you have to build your sentence phrase by phrase, monitoring the reaction of your listener, while aiming for relevance to the question. That's what led Ms. Palin into word salad with Ms. Couric.
–The New York Times, 4 October 2008

Only time will tell whether this "ridiculous and incoherent" meaning of word salad will become common enough to make it into the dictionary. But it seems likely: after all, politics are unlikely to become less nonsensical anytime soon.'

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-salad

Ampersand said...

Thank heavens Biden has the smarts and charisma to control the demands of the immigration floodgate releasers, the social justice lunatics, the anti racist racists, the public employee unions, the blame America bunch, and the people who want to use the federal treasury to prevent the well deserved municipal and state agency bankruptcies that are about to happen in blue states. Fortunately, he understands the need to use government to align incentives with positive behaviors.

And we are so fortunate to have wise thought leaders like the editorial boards of our major newspapers and book publishers, the leaders of our foundations and universities, and those within our professions who truly understand their public missions.

Decay and collapse is a choice. Everybody is supposed to get a vote. Remember, it's not a referendum on Orange Man. It's a choice between two futures. I hope everyone gets what they deserve.

bagoh20 said...

Trump is going to win bigly. He better or we are all screwed, and that means you.
Not just because of what policy changes are at stake, but more importantly what it means about who Americans have become as a people. We are either still Americans, or we have become something less, led by frauds and posers with no clear principles or integrity.

We are going to see who we are this year. So far, it has been very mixed, but the choice is clear.

Michael K said...

I cannot predict what will happen with the election. I know my wife and I plan to vote in person on the first day it is allowed in AZ. We have absentee ballots but I don't trust the PO. If Trump loses, I might have to bury my gun safe. Lost in a tragic canoe accident.

chuck said...

infected-by-Covid

That is so yesterday. Anyone else notice that news and opinion pieces seem dated the instant they appear? Even Scott Adams can't keep up.

narciso said...

Hes made a lot of headway against a possum congress recalcitrant bureaucrats malignant judges.

Howard said...

Don's no Hitler.

n.n said...

Trump is the antifascist that Antifa has been projecting. And with the Democrat witch hunts, warlock trials, and leftists protests behind us, he will have an opportunity to follow through with his commitments in his second term, including: progressive prices under Obamacare, diversity (e.g. affirmative discrimination) in the government, and workplace; emigration reform; labor, regulatory, and environmental arbitrage games; energy independence, nay producer; walk softly and carry a big stick philosophy; rehabilitation, revitalization, and reconciliation in urban jungles; and spread vaccine 2.0 (cloned antibodies), normalize complementary early treatments, to reduce the time and side-effects of vaccine 1.0 and mitigate disease progression, respectively. Pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Biden held a rally in Arizona (Phoenix?) where the crowd must have taken invisibility pills, they were so numerous. Meanwhile, across town, Pence has a rally with an enthusiastic crowd. So, tell me again, who is ahead?

Reelecting Trump will result in smaller government with fewer regulations. He had a chance to expand government power due to the Wuhan Flu, yet he made the states exercise the states' police and public health powers to deal with it. He's a real disappointment as a dictator!

The Godfather said...

I didn't read Douthat's piece. Does he explain that the "Trump coup" did occur, but it was a coup AGAINST Trump by the Obama Adminstration, the Intelligence Community, the Democrats in Congress, the mainstream media, etc.? That Trump was able to accomplish as much as he has during his first term is amazing. Re-elect him, along with a Republican Congress, and he'll go down in history as the first great President of the 21st Century. (Yeah, I know; not much competition for that title.)

Mikey NTH said...

Good God, Douthat is an idiot. Or at least he acts as one. What a load of bilge he has written.

320Busdriver said...

What will KAMULAH do?

historyDoc said...

So glad that Douthit is out there to soothe the anxiety of progs, and re-assure them that their worst fears are unfounded. Now they can face tomorrow with a glimmer of hope, because Dr Douthit has made the diagnosis, and the prescription is for more cowbell!

Someone as smart as Douthit ought to put his prodigious talents to a tiny bit more scrutiny of Sleepy Joe. Does he look or sound alright to you Ross? Does he strike you as having a master plan to deal with the Chicoms or Russkies - besides whatever enriches his family? Sheesh!

Trump has definitely removed the veil, and allowed many of us to see more clearly than ever.

Birkel said...

The Leftist Collectivists accuse their perceived enemies of exactly what they are doing and/or planning to do.

This is a subset.

320Busdriver said...

Trump trails Biden in WI by the same margin he trailed HIllary on Nov 2, 2016.
If Trump loses and Dems take the Senate, THEN we are totally screwed.

Readering said...

The vp debate did nothing for poll numbers; Harris, unlike Palin, can take over if needed. Trump peevishly canceled the next debate, maybe because he is not recovered. By the time the next debate is held, if it is, a majority of votes will have been cast. As long as Biden can avoid infection of covid, he should be as good as elected.

steve uhr said...

This four year nightmare will soon be over. Ann’s sunrise pics for Nov 4 will be spectacular.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Douthat's sniveling will be mooted by Trump's reelection.

Birkel said...

"h" above wrote that Trump has not finished The Wall.
This is partly true.
However, The Wall is half-built and the funding and construction contracts are in force for the rest of The Wall.
Over 700 miles of a very imposing wall will be completed.
The rest of the border is the Rio Grande and significant mountainous desert that is nearly impossible to cross in numbers.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/06/fact-check-donald-trump-built-more-border-wall-than-meme-claims/3437653001/

Much of what has been replaced was useless except to stop cars.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SVTXaa2mJwc

Let's put this into the "common misunderstandings because the media lies to you" category.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

How long before the news staff of the NYT ejects Douthat because Douthat is "sympathetic" to Trump? He's the next one to be put in the ejection seat and fired into the stratosphere.

Night Owl said...

You have to admire the balls of people who, after engaging in collusion with Russians in 2016, and a 4 year long coup attempt, dare to accuse Trump of both. I guess they know their base is ignorant and/or corrupt enough to not notice and/or care.

I didn't vote in the last election and I wasn't going to vote this time but fuck them; they have pushed me to vote for Trump because they deserve to lose bigly for being such awful people.

Michael said...

"Cranky libertarianism" sounds good to me. I'd vote for a lot more than four more years of that (only the next four with Trump, of course). Douthat needs to stop and think.

doctrev said...

h said...

1. The wall was to reduce illegal immigration, and illegal immigration has come down.
2. Obamacare was not repealed, but the elimination of the insurance requirement has essentially gutted Obamacare, and future Supreme Court decisions may make Obamacare unconstitutional.
3. Trump has really disengaged the US from foreign entanglements. One can probably find specific promises that have failed to be kept, but the general theme is one of bringing troops home.
4. THere is a new NAFTA, and there is some change with China Trade relations.
5. And changes in taxes have created incentives for companies to keep their productions in the US>

So I conclude: Trump has failed on the big symbolic issues, but has succeeded in subtantive issues.

10/11/20, 6:13 PM

Those were all of his campaign promises, and I personally backed him most heavily for trade and immigration. You're forgetting "jobs, jobs, jobs," which Trump was crushing before China Flu- and red states are doing much better than blue ones in the recovery. I have no idea why you think relations with China have quasi-changed: they are now hated around the world for their role in biowarfare, and are going to be facing a strong international coalition to punish them.

However, I also think that three major issues have since supplanted all prior promises with a major segment of Trump voters. Those are:

A) The bureaucratic coup against his administration, backed by Robert Mueller, the CIA, and FBI. Former hardcore patriots now want heads to roll, while neoliberals are trying to motivate the Dore/ Greenwald types to defend Langley. To which I say, lawwwwwwwwwl.
B) In a related issue, law and order. George Soros and Mike Bloomberg are sponsoring a massive terrorism campaign against the American people. Donald Trump is constantly promising to take the gloves off the second he gets a fresh mandate from the American people. NB: blacks are not going to be the minority facing the harshest attacks. The financiers and organizers of the BLM terror network are, and they're "white."
C) Yet another related issue is the massive pedophile conspiracy headed by Jeff Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. This conspiracy would go a long way to explaining the outright insane behavior of neocons in North America, and is almost certainly why the first two attacks on America were implemented.

Granted, the vast majority of LIVs aren't going to be able to wrap their heads around the Epstein cabal. But Facebook/ Twitter aren't banning QAnon because it's just so darn implausible. Mothers and LEOs throughout America are getting a good look at the sheer evil that has metastasized through the Rat Party, and they know there's no compromising with such people. It's anti-vaxxing on steroids, and for a worthier cause.

BUMBLE BEE said...

I voted American.

DEEBEE said...

Guess even 4 years was not enough for these slaves of liberals to throw off their chains and mot yearn for the return of their masters. Perhaps another 4 of MAGA might do the trick. Not holding breath, since even after 150 years slavery is the putative reason for most POC social ailments.

Kevin said...

Shorter Douthat: Strong Presidents stretch the bounds of our Constitution so Trump is a weakling.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

If Douthat really believes that following the constitution means the president is "weak" then that tells us some rather unflattering things about Douthat.

Swede said...

All the Heathers are writing their mean things now.

They know Trump will win and they know that he'll probably get at least 2 more SC picks after Barrett.

So it feels good to pretend and write things about a Biden presidency.

Xanax will be flying off the shelves and into their medicine cabinets in a few short weeks.

Caligula said...

"Douthat is supposedly a conservative."

Writing columns like this is the price one pays for continued employment at the New York Times.

As the NYT exists today, it is essentially impossible to publicly retain conservative principles and continue to have one's work published there.

At some level Douthat must understand this, yet I suspect at another he can't fully acknowledge the compromises he makes to retain that "New York Times" imprimatur.

mikee said...

Trump retreated to a cranky FEDERALISM, because that is what the law says in the US about public health. DAMN THAT LAW-ABIDING PRESIDENT!

Sam L. said...

I trust NOTHING from the NYT.

Jim at said...

Whether Trumps stays or goes is immaterial.
The people who put him in office aren't going anywhere.

Meade said...

"Whether Trumps stays or goes is immaterial.
The people who put him in office aren't going anywhere."

Totally agree. This post and thread alone give me great hope for America's future.

Lurker21 said...


He's right that Trump isn't an autocrat or an authoritarian and right that there won't be a "Trump coup," but wrong in assuming not being a tyrant means being weak or a failure.

Where he goes off the rails is in thinking he might get wisdom or vision from Biden. Joe may not be the radical that opponents take him for, but thought and judgement haven't been his strong points over the last five decades.

What's new is the idea that progressives are poised to unite "cultural and political power under a single banner" if Biden is elected and Democrats win the Senate:

Wielding that power in a way that doesn’t just seed another backlash requires both vision and restraint. And seeing its current enemy clearly, as a feckless tribune for the discontented rather than an autocratic menace, is essential to the wisdom that a Biden presidency needs.

Even a much better leader than Biden probably wouldn't have that wisdom. And notice the phrase "a feckless tribune for the discontented" which shows the kind of arrogance and high-handedness that Douthat would like the Democrats to avoid.

Readering said...

You mean the Hillary haters?