January 6, 2016
"The strong appeal of purity to committed conservatives helps explain why Trump’s supporters are not put off by his compulsive focus on disgust."
That's most densely packed sentence in this NYT column by Thomas B. Edsall: "Purity, Disgust and Donald Trump."
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Apart from the dime-store psychology, here were the money quotes:
"Trump...is not a conservative, and is not appealing to classical conservative ideas. He is an authoritarian, who is profiting from the chaos in Washington, Syria, Paris, San Bernardino, and even the chaos on campuses, which are creating a more authoritarian electorate in the Republican primaries."
"Trump... is tapping into and indeed amplifying anger and fear, primarily among white citizens who are older and less educated than the average Republican voter."
"By setting a populist agenda that appeals to millions of Republicans and to substantial numbers of Democrats and independents as well, Trump has opened the door to a reshaping of the traditional two-party coalitions."
In other words, this guy running for the Republican presidential nomination isn't much of a Republican.
The NYT looks ridiculous when it tries to do political or social commentary. The Times, along with the Democrats, sees no reason to criticize a president who embraces rule-by-decree, yet publishes a story claiming that conservatives are attracted to authoritarians.
Let's hope Chuck is right. That Donald isn't much of a Republican.
Even though I have been a Republican all my life, I have zero loyalty to the party. Unlike Chuck.
It's always weird to get a glimpse into the minds of Liberal intellectuals and how they think Conservatives think. It's like they live in a Disney cartoon universe.
He is an authoritarian, who is profiting from the chaos in Washington, Syria, Paris, San Bernardino, and even the chaos on campuses, which are creating a more authoritarian electorate in the Republican primaries.
Trump is a lot of things, but authoritarian? He's boisterous and bellicose, but I've never got the sense that he's authoritarian. When it comes to the individual liberty of citizens, Obama (and the left in general) certainly seem much more "authoritarian".
At least Citizen Trump is neither Canadian hi-bred nor High Cuban Spanish. Trump is another strong natural born Andrew Jacksonian.
The last pure Conservative left town the day real Americans drove the Jacksonian Harry Truman down the pure Dixiecrats throats.
Deal with it.
Chuck said...
In other words, this guy running for the Republican presidential nomination isn't much of a Republican.
1/6/16, 10:43 AM
In addition, there was a lot of the usual "he's a fascist", "he will destroy democracy", etc, etc, etc.
A whole lot of projection onto Trump of what Obama is ACTUALLY doing / has done. They are worried about what Trump will do with no worries about what Obama IS doing. Mostly because they approve of what Obama is doing. Those interviewed seem to care not one bit for the illegal expansion of executive power, of judicial over reach, of a weakening of congressional control. They are getting the change they believe they want so all is good. Now that someone other than "their guy" might be in control of these same "new" powers, they begin to fret. Screw them, screw the NYT, and screw the Dem administration. They are all in their bubble of unicorns and rainbows where the only worries and threats are from those "gun nuts and bible clingers". Let us just hope that the GOP margins are too large to allow them to steal another election.
Oh and at this point, I really, really hope it is Cruz...
"The strong appeal to purity ...."
Yes, the tip-off about the craziness of the super-cons is the endless, repetitive washing of hands. And don't forget their intensely felt need to preserve and protect Vital Bodily Fluids.
Chuck is becoming more tedious than Amanda. Tell us, Chuck -- who is your preferred Republican candidate?
Since when is being a "Republican" a benefit? Who was the last republican, or what does republicanism have to do with the GOP? Even Reagan wasn't one, he got his military budget increase by bending over backwards to accommodate a congress that didn’t even have a majority in opposition. He could have done to them what he did to PATCO but he did not. Too many old friends, so he was willing to compromise to defeat the USSR with the Sauds doing the heavy lifting which led to a string of events and dependencies for which we are still paying. Maybe Mr. T. will be able to halve the size of government by modernizing it like New Zealand did when they ran out of other people's money and the ability to pile loan upon loan. Modernization to at least late-industrial age where intellect and judgement were more valuable than process would be a great goodness for the U.S.
Note that the Kiwis modernized and didn't break any union contracts, and government services only got better. No one starved and no one died, similar to Warren Harding’s halving of government. Which single handedly created the roaring 20s as people went from below the line costs to above the line revenue generation, willingly and unwillingly. Granted he had the advantage of “don’t work, don’t eat” with the soup lines as a safety net. Ok, some government bureaucrats suffered, and few died earlier deaths because they lost not only their jobs but their sense of importance. Look up Maurice McTigue for the full story. Especially when minorities like Maori found themselves empowered to solve thei own problems by local control. Yes, Chi-Raq, I'm writing about you. I wager Mr T. and his unbelievable crowds end up being called "the new face of conservatism" since the old one was certainly not. “Authoritarian?” I don’t think so. Authoritarians don’t stay in business. Monopolies only exist with an autocratic government’s support. Today the term authoritarian applies to the elites and 1%-er firms (yes, you bankers who shlonged the populace while taking care of their own) who will either toe the line or be out of a government job, or a job that’s a government parasite. All good fun, and odds are I'll be able to cancel my Burka order from Omar the tent maker, even though it had the comfort of my Highlander Kilt, to say nothing of keeping certain parts cool, as mother nature intended.
Top of the 8th, bases loaded. Where's my popcorn?
Yikes, that's a helluva mess by Edsall. Really awful. Stream of email thinking.
A lot of psychobabble there. Isn't this Dowd's line of work?
Anyway Edsall needs to admit it: Nobody knows what the heck is going on with Trump's supporters.
In other words, this guy running for the Republican presidential nomination isn't much of a Republican.
Paul Ryan gave Pelosi, Reid, and Obama everything they wanted in the omnibus budget. Being a "Republican" seems to be not useful.
I am going to vote for whomever is the Republican nominee. My own choice of a nominee shouldn't be of a whole lot of interest to anyone else; primary voters will decide. I just hope the primary voters don't choose Trump. Because I don't like the idea of a Democrat landslide in November.
But you asked, and I don't mind telling you who I like, and why.
I think Marco Rubio is the best natural politician in the field. He was a wunderkind in Tallahassee. He forcibly took the Republican nomination for the Senate in Florida (thank God!) from the odious Charlie Crist, and then beat both Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meeks in the general. I'd very much like a Rubio/Kasich (Florida/Ohio) ticket for 2016. I like them precisely because Rubio's a real, principled conservative, and because I especially like Kasich's prickly, non-nonsense demeanor (and his skill with Congressional budgeting, which is where the action is).
Now, I expect that more than a few of the Trumpkins will not have been able to even get this far in reading this post without screaming at their monitors, "Rubio is a worthless Establishment tool!"
So I refer you to David French in the National Review: "If Marco Rubio Is ‘Establishment’ Then ‘Establishment’ Has Lost Its Meaning."
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429262/marco-rubio-establishment-tea-party-conservative
I go by the way you can tell who is the wolf in sheep's clothing. The perfect sheep is the wolf, because there are no perfect sheep.
The NYT has become like the proverbial heap of horse shit the little boy franticly digs through in search of the pony. Pick up any issue... pretty hefty -- two pounds, maybe three, twice that on Sunday. It's 99% shit, 1% pony. Edsall is 100% shit. That's a reliable figure. No matter what he attempts to analyses he fails miserably. If he were the boy in search of the pony he'd conclude the mountain of manure produced the steed and not the other way around. His causal chains are always exactly reversed. He thinks the FDNY is staffed with arsonists. He thinks corporations cause unemployment. He thinks terrorism causes Muslim anti-Semitism.
Trump isn't compulsively focused on disgust. The last eight years have been thoroughly disgusting. The single bright spot, the one and only, was popping a cap on Bin Laden. Otherwise it's been shit from sea to shining sea. Everybody knows it, even Thomas Edsall. But Edsall and the rest of the staff writers at 620 Eighth Avenue won't admit it because they'd have to take some responsibility for the buffoon they helped elect by refusing to criticize him or even check out his backstory.
eric:
If you don't want to be a Republican, then don't.
Here are some great anti-Republican success stories for you. Ross Perot (result: two terms of Bill Clinton). The Bull Moose Party (result: two terms of Woodrow Wilson). Sharron Angle (result: another term of Harry Reid). Christine O'Donnell (result: the avoidable installation of Chris Coons in the Senate).
I've already gone on record, congratulating the Tea Party wing for some great, historic successes; Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and above all, Marco Rubio. And I am forgiving, too; I don't mind a bit that Richard Mourdock knocked off Dick Lugar. That seemed to me to be a good primary challenge, and the press was then vicious in its treatment of Mourdock.
But some of other erics out there; you need to figure out how you'd like to (a) win the day in Washington and (b) defeat Democrats.
Here's Michael Medved on that, in Commentary:
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/a-gop-civil-war-who-benefits/
The party that says they have a pen and a phone and will act without congress through executive orders accuses Trump of being an authoritarian? That's a joke!
Here's some Clinton quotes:
“Look, I don’t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate. You’re not going to change every heart. You’re not.”
“If Congress won’t act, then I will ask the Treasury Department when I’m there to use its regulatory authority, if that’s what it takes.”
"If Congress refuses to act to end this epidemic of gun violence, I'll take administrative action to do so."
Now THAT'S what I call authoritarian. Liberals always lie and project.
"The strong appeal of purity to committed conservatives helps explain why Trump’s supporters are not put off by his compulsive focus on disgust."
Their link supposedly supporting that statement doesn't contain the strings "conserv" or "repub". I'm shocked, etc.
How about this one:
"The strong appeal of dishonesty to committed liberals helps explain why the NYTimes scribblers are not put off by compulsively making up stuff."
I don't understand the authoritarian criticism either. Deporting 11 million people here illegally is enforcing the law. Building a wall on the border is the right of any nation. Proposing to halt Muslim immigration , temporarily, is a push against the risk of future authoritarians and an acknowledgement that Muslim Americans are, in general, not well assimilated in the US.
Trump is a nationalist, not an authoritarian.
The NY Times calling for a ban on private ownership of firearms is authoritarian. Schools that punish as "harassment" students opinions is authoritarianism. Companies firing employees who donate to causes the company doesn't like is authoritarianism.
Yet another article from the Times explaining why its liberal readers on the Upper West Side are morally and culturally superior to the hoi polloi who do not shop at Zabar's. It's part of a continuing series.
In other words, this guy running for the Republican presidential nomination isn't much of a Republican.
Circular reasoning alert!
Trump cannot be a Republican. What’s that? Polling high among Republican voters, you say? Doesn’t mean a thing, ‘cause Trump’s not a Republican, dang it. You HEAR me! Trump’s NOT a Republican! He’s NOT! He’s NOT! Because I say so, that’s why!
Oh and at this point, I really, really hope it is Cruz.
Us Trump supporters kind of like Cruz. He’s the second choice for many of us. I think he would do fine as AG with perhaps a SCOTUS nomination in his future where his influence could last hundreds of years. But he cannot win the nomination. Trump has a lock on that.
Yeah. It comes across as various unimportant people trying to prove how important they are. It's nearly unreadable.
To pull one of Haidt's quotes out for special attention:
If morality is about how we treat each other, then why did so many ancient texts devote so much space to rules about menstruation, who can eat what, and who can have sex with whom? There is no rational or health-related way to explain these laws.
My guess is Mr. Haidt has never bothered to investigate such matters and just decided this was true because, golly, he wanted it to be. At its base, he does not seem to understand that "rational" and "correct" are not synonyms, in that perfectly rational decisions based on the information available can be wrong. It is a rather target rich environment of ignorance in just those two sentences.
Thank you, Chuck. I have no heartburn with Rubio. Cruz would be my first choice, as I believe he's most likely to appoint Scalia-like justices to the courts -- and that's one of my top three issues.
In other words, this guy running for the Republican presidential nomination isn't much of a Republican.
At least he calls himself a Republican. Sanders has a good chance of winning the Democratic nomination, and he refuses to call himself a Democrat.
Rubio is the Republican Obama. His partnership with Schumer is a deal breaker as far as I'm concerned plus he backed Hillary's Libyan misadventure as well as the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Beyond that he has no chance no win the primary thank god. Cruz is my second choice too, but Trump will win barring something evil and underhanded.
I have to laugh at people who rely on the National Review to know what to think and even further delude themselves that Trump supporters are the ones on the margins.
Us Trump supporters kind of like Cruz. He’s the second choice for many of us.
Bread good. Fire bad.
I gotta hand it to Trump. No matter what, he always garners attention.
"further delude themselves that Trump supporters are the ones on the margins."
I don't think that Trump supporters are the ones on the margins. Obama supporters weren't on the margins. He won two elections.
I have to laugh at Trump supporters who delude themselves into thinking they're different than Obama supporters. "He's saying what we want to hear! He must be the one!"
Meanwhile, he's a real estate mogul (and I expect to hear similar justifications as why that's enough as I heard about Obama).
I'm not moved much by Trump or politics at the moment. But "purity", that's interesting.
I was pure once. Before I became so cynical. it was a feeling of pure beauty.
What a drag it is getting older.
Re Char Char Binks comment
Trump is the trough at which political pundits feed.
Paddy O: "I have to laugh at Trump supporters who delude themselves into thinking they're different than Obama supporters. "He's saying what we want to hear! He must be the one!"
Meanwhile, he's a real estate mogul (and I expect to hear similar justifications as why that's enough as I heard about Obama)."
I think you need to flesh this out a bit more.
Trump is sayin stuff + meanwhile, he's a real estate mogul! (OMG!)
Is this truly the formulation you were seeking?
Chuck said...
"If you don't want to be a Republican, then don't."
Nice party you've got there, Chuckles. Shame if anything were to happen to it.
Kind of reminds me, how Obama keeps telling me that how I am is "not how we are".
Blogger Fabi said...
Thank you, Chuck. I have no heartburn with Rubio. Cruz would be my first choice, as I believe he's most likely to appoint Scalia-like justices to the courts -- and that's one of my top three issues.
I admire that thinking; if Cruz is the nominee, he'll get my enthusiastic support for exactly that reason.
Chuck said...
"Now, I expect that more than a few of the Trumpkins will not have been able to even get this far in reading this post without screaming at their monitors, "Rubio is a worthless Establishment tool!"
He is. He ran as a tea party candidate in 2010 and promised to stand up against amnesty. Then he promptly joined the gang of 8 and fought to pass amnesty.
Rubio is the epitome of the slick liar politician. He said everything Floridians wanted to hear in 2010 and promptly betrayed them. If you truly value conservatism and our countries borders, you would be a retard to vote for Rubio. You are right he is a great politician in every sense of the term.
Right down to the saying anything to get elected and screwing the people that voted for him to please his wealthy chamber of commerce donors.
Pure Conservative means that when your mother and father apply for and receive Canadian citizenship so they can work and live in Canada and have their new baby Ted born in Canada with a Canadian birth certificate and full natural born Canadian citizenship all of that means nothing if the mother previously was an American citizen before she became Canadian.
A Pure smooth act, that is.
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