३ नोव्हेंबर, २०२४

"I also think it’s important to acknowledge that, as much as I detest Trump the man, there are sides of the MAGA movement that deserve respect."

"I don’t think of it as a collection of unadulterated bigots. Most Trump voters I know are decent people who don’t like being condescended to by a morally smug and self-serving elite that fails to see the many ways in which the federal government fails ordinary people. I also think Trump’s voters see things that too easily escape the notice of Trump’s haters, whether it was the farce of many of the Covid rules and restrictions or the double standards by which Trump’s opponents claim to be defending democracy while using every trick in the book to put him in prison."

Said Bret Stephens, in "A Second Trump Term? Three Conservative Columnists Unpack What Could Happen" (NYT). The other 2 columnists are Ross Douthat and David French.

Douthat invites French to say something nice about MAGA. French says:
While I love and respect many, many people who vote for Trump, I do not have anything good to say about the MAGA movement itself. Perhaps you have to be embedded in deep-red communities to see its effect on the ground, but I have never seen people go deep into MAGA without profound negative effects on their character, their temperament and their relationships with people outside MAGA....

I wonder how many people who've gone "deep into MAGA" he could have monitored. You'd have to know someone awfully well to sincerely believe you knew about "profound negative effects on their character, their temperament and their relationships." Does this illusion of monitoring and knowing have an effect on your own character? I wouldn't even purport to know what it means to "go deep into MAGA." It sounds like condescension from the morally smug self-serving elite.

२२२ टिप्पण्या:

«सर्वात जुने   ‹थोडे जुने   222 पैकी 201 – 222
Narayanan म्हणाले...

will French be smart enough to take the hint?!

Gunner म्हणाले...

WaPo is implying that a vote for Harris should be so humiliating that they need to reassure you that nobody will ever know you did it?

Mason G म्हणाले...

The WAPO has made a backhanded endorsement. Headline: "In a bathroom stall, a simple message: Vote Harris. No one will know."

That's vandalism- not as outrageous as breaking windows or burning buildings down, but still. Anyway, good of leftists to acknowledge their support of that sort of thing.

What do you suppose the WAPO would say about the simple message "This is MAGA country" being written on the door of their office? Of course, everybody knows the answer to *that*.

Gunner म्हणाले...

Dinky, we love that you support Chickenhawks now. Go Cheney!

The Godfather म्हणाले...

I never understood "MAGA" to be a "movement" -- I thought it was a slogan: "Make America Great Again".
The slogan implies (1) that the US "used to be GREAT, but now isn't, yet (2) it can be GREAT again if it follows the right policies. So Trump and his supporters say Elect us and the US will be great again! As a slogan, or a promise, I can accept that.
Have they performed? Good chance they haven't. Most Presidents fail. If the first Trump Administration made the US great again, I missed it. Did Biden do all that he promised his voters he would do? No. Not even much.
Is there a better chance that Kamala will accomplish her promises? Will she make "America Great Again"?
Come on, let's get serious!

PM म्हणाले...

Trump fixed the Court.
He's earned a second Presidency just for that.

Mason G म्हणाले...

"If the first Trump Administration made the US great again, I missed it."

Inflation was low, employment was up, lower/middle class earners saw their incomes increasing, the border was secure, there were no new wars or prosecutions of his opponents, no political prisoners were taken and the country was energy independent.

Considering that all the Democrats, half the Republicans and essentially the whole of the administrative state was doing everything they could to hinder Trump in attempts at implementing policy changes when they weren't busy trying to impeach or imprison him, I'd say he did alright.

I'd prefer that he'd been able to accomplish more, too, but I'm thinking it wouldn't be a simple task for anybody when so many people are invested in preserving the culture of "Business As Usual".

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

He will be happy to be in TN next week while leftists burn down blue cities again.

Butkus51 म्हणाले...

I can substitute for Inga

Ctrl-C " Insert Propaganda Here " Ctrl-P



Interested Bystander म्हणाले...

It’s doubtful French knows anyone who votes MAGA. They don’t attend the Toney DC and Manhattan cocktail parties he loves so much. Besides, you can smell them when you walk into a Walmart.

EAB म्हणाले...

Why the need to say “multi-ethnic”?

Drago म्हणाले...

"I never understood "MAGA" to be a "movement" -- I thought it was a slogan: "Make America Great Again"."

Because perhaps you aren't that bright, and/or not really much of a student of political movements, and/or not really paying much attention to everyday events, or can't put 2+2 together. Who knows? This has been a strong political realignment in the making for over 2 decades now.

Interestingly, Trump, like Reagan before him, has been rather consistent in how he viewed the world for at least several decades, long before he ran for office, which is clearly evident in interviews over those years. No different than Reagan spending years working thru the commies in Hollywood as SAG President and then spending years writing all his own speeches while traveling around speaking directly to factory workers and manufacturing executives for GE Theater.

Most importantly, a confluence of factors merged which created the opportunity for this movement:
- starting with the GOPe Bush/Rove team actively speaking out against republican base voters near the end of Bush's 2nd term
- Bush openly abandoning the republican base by refusing to fight back against the left at the end of that 2nd term ("turning the other political cheek") in the face of increasing attacks against conservatives by the left using organs of government
- Organs of government that would later use the very post 9-11 legislation passed that allowed the deep state to turn its surveillance and political weapons against its own citizens
- Realization by much of the republican base their own leaders were simply democraticals anyway in terms of full alignment with the globalists/dems in sending US manufacturing overseas (giving the ChiComs developing nation status TPP etc) /unlimited immigration/forever wars to line the pockets of wall street and the military and censorship intelligence complexes
- The rise of the Tea Party (remember Rick Sentelli's comments on CNBC in Feb of 2009?) which McConnell and other republicans gleefully sought to destroy with the help of the weaponized state, particularly the IRS in the case of the Tea Party
- All the cultural "stuff" that is too much to list here"

and on and on this list could continue.

"Make America Great Again" simply became shorthand for pushing back on all of that. So yes, it was a slogan....with an immediate, intuitive, broadly sensed, deeply felt movement waiting to coalesce around it.

There didn't have to be anything special about Trump to harness all of that and mold it into a campaign. ANY republican/conservative could have done it....but remember what happened in the republicans in the 2016 campaign? All the DC insiders and ALL the other candidates wouldn't go near any, or much, of any of the above.

Except Trump.

2016 should have been Scott Walker's race to win coming out of Wisconsin the way he had......but DC got to him and squished him down to size and watered down his message and convinced him to hem and haw on everything that had ever given him success at the state level.

Interesting note: George Will's wife was one of the DC insiders.

And don't get me started on Jeb! and his $150M!

It didn't have to be Trump, but who else was willing to lead such a movement that was champing at the bit to get out of the stalls and onto the racetrack?

Drago म्हणाले...

He "knows very well"...but Franklin TN is NOT where the checks originate.

I Shouldn’t Have Left the White House म्हणाले...

They forget that people enjoy the fact he annoys the canapé scoffing faux leftists

The more they whine about him the more people like him.

Goetz von Berlichingen म्हणाले...

National Association of Chronic Masturbators comes out in full support for Kamala. Jack Handy, Chairman of the Bored: " We're all pulling for Kamala!!"

MfG Goetz von Berlichingen

John म्हणाले...

Dixcus said...
I'm not going to live in a country where the Deep State CIA/NSA/FBI and running psy ops like they did in 2020 against the American people.

Dixcus -- When you make comments like this, I am going to assume that you are some deep state dwerp on a Whitmer-assassination job.

Drago म्हणाले...

Reporter: "How did you vote on Prop 36?"

Kamala Harris: "My ballot is on its way to California, and I’m going to trust the system that it will arrive there.

I am not going to talk about the vote on that because, honestly, it’s the Sunday before the election, and I don’t intend to create an endorsement one way or another around it.

But I did vote."

Proposition 36 — which would create tougher penalties for serial retail thieves and drug traffickers.

LOL

How perfectly kamala-la-la-la-la is that? The gal that STILL supports bailing out the Summer of Love 2020 rioters that burned cities and killed civilians and police doesn't want to expose just before an election that she absolutely supports massive theft from retail stores targeted by mobs.

walter म्हणाले...

I suspect there are many men who will vote for Trump while letting their girlfriend/wife think He's with Her. Happy wife, happy life etc.

AntiBathos म्हणाले...

What kind of reverse DEI is in place that reserves so many "expert" media slots for myopic, aged, white narcissists?

jvermeer51 म्हणाले...

Hey David, try telling your friends in the MSM that you had a revelation on election day and voted for Trump. See what happens to your "friendships" and plushy gigs. A modern day "Gentleman's Agreement".

Buford Gooch म्हणाले...

Ya know, I've met way too many like French. He lives in his small bubble, and considers himself a "conservative" (which I guess could be rather correct, considering who else is in that bubble with him). He is doing a pretty good job of describing the leftists he hangs with, and a few on the very far edge of the right. He is not describing anyone I know personally on the right, and I know lots of them.

Jeff H म्हणाले...

"Most Trump voters I know are decent people who don’t like being condescended to by a morally smug and self-serving elite..."

Clearly does not own a mirror, nor have a sense of irony.

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