It’s necessary to draw lines. In Trump’s case, it’s a question of drawing a line between his personal life and his political life. I voted for Trump twice, knowing his flaws as a human being—those were well known. However, I calculated on two things. The first was that at his age his worst failings were behind him. Secondly, I calculated that if he won the election he would have gone too far out on a limb, would owe so much to actual conservatives, that he wouldn’t be able to betray his base. I presume that many other people made the same calculations, and we were right. He kept faith with us.
One of my major issues with the "Pro-Life" movement has always been the term itself. It leaves no room for putting your opponent on their back foot. So, what do I mean?
I always thought by making the term "Pro-Choice" universal as in we are all "Pro-Choice" it allowed you to take your stand and if life is your choice then let your opponent make his stand as choosing death, no wiggle room.
"I voted for Trump twice, knowing his flaws as a human being—those were well known."
To borrow a phrase from Douglas Southall Freeman's magisterial Lee's Lieutenants that he used quite a bit when weighing Confederate Generals, Trump had "defects of competence and character" that meant he might not succeed if put in charge. People who voted for Trump twice, and I was one of them, did so because many of them understood that they were entirely without political representation and that this constituted a grave national emergency. Michael Anton was right. It really was the Flight 93 election. Sadly, it ended as Flight 93 ended, but in both cases the people who tried to take back control from the hijackers were justified in making the attempt.
If you were pro abortion (I refuse to use the phrase pro choice) you would probably look at Trump's current position on abortion and conclude that he might not be sincere this time either. Whatever role the abortion issue played in the 2022 election tactical flip flops of this sort aren't likely to help any candidate of any party.
In a single week, Trump has sided with sodomy, given his support to a DS Rino (sorry, I repeat myself) for speaker, and pimped a pathetic NFT on his gullible supporters. But, yeah, he'll drain the Swamp in '24.
Strangely, perhaps, the more Trump evinces his flaws, which I concede are without any doubt true flaws, the more I respect and admire the larger part of what he has done and tried to do for this country.
For example, I think some of his management of the covid fiasco was catastrophically wrong, yet I still believe he has the best tool kit and track record to be our President.
I am not prepared to support another candidate, even some Republican with fewer personal flaws than Trump, until such time as I am persuaded (if ever) that he would be a better president.
I was shocked to see you write that Trump "revealed the reality of the Deep State." This couldn't be further from the truth, though I've seen the claim made recently as a reason why Trump never laid a glove on it--that, gosh, none of us knew how bad it really was. Most of us have been painfully aware for a very long time that Republican voters have no chance of changing government even if they win elections, have been despised by the Republican Party for decades. The knowledge of our government's deep corruption was why in 2009 Karl Denninger suggested sending tea bags to congress. (What eventually became the Tea Party was quickly diluted and co-opted). Trump won in part because he told us over and over that he was the one person who could stop the bureaucrats, that he had no special interests. He certainly did have 'special interests,' so special that Jared was made de facto president. Jared had the last word on every important matter including censoring non-Davos narratives at Covid meetings. When you fail so badly, you should apologize and retire from public life. Instead, Trump/Kushner family and girlfriends are now embedded in the RNC, and reaping millions via countless PACs and Am. First groups. Trump is the front man, keeps his name in headlines and brings in millions, while Jared carries out the open borders, endless wars, globalist agenda. Trump/Kushner became worse neocons than McCain, started dropping bombs and sending tanks right after inauguration. I guess it's fine if you think repealing Roe v Wade will close the border, end US foreign military intervention, overturn CO2 endangerment ruling, cause US to resign from NATO and UN, and prevent US presidents from unilaterally decreeing suspension of normal government as Trump did in March 2020 and which continues today. Over 50% of abortions today are via a pill.
I think you are too harsh. Trump was successful in exposing the evil. You may have seen it, but too many others did not. By their nearly histamine reaction to Trump, they overdid everything. All of a sudden, kids need to be exposed as toddlers to explicit deviant sex, be allowed to be raped by fake trans in school bathrooms, girls lose their life’s athletic dream by a sneering boy in girl’s clothing. They ramped the pace of these insanities and that will be their undoing. We got along with gays because who cares what people do in private. But suddenly that was not enough. Now our babies had to celebrate it! In school! And sex is just one cultural area under attack. This occurred everywhere. And people who never before noticed, who didn’t even notice politics, have their eyes opened. For that, we owe Trump a huge debt of gratitude. Before you can fix something, you have to define it. Trump made the enemy self-define.
Trump did bring the craziness of the Deep State and Globalists bubbling to the surface, for ALL--including the great unwashed who don't follow day to day news--to see. Example: Vindman openly stated that the Interagency controls US policy and NOT the president. That assertion was a revelation never before openly made--that I'm aware of.
Thanks to all for a well rounded and thoughtful discourse regarding this topic. Like all on this site, I have been struggling with my conclusion regarding support for DJT. But in the end I recognize that we are trying to find an individual who will embody all of our values, beliefs and ideals in the current political world. Let me suggest that any individual playing in the political arena will fall short. Simply because politics is a nasty and dirty field. No one can compete in politics without assuming some level of associated tarnish. Part of my disappointment is the almost unbelievable level of corruption which has been exposed over the last 6 years. From Russiagate to COVID to election integrity. The scope has been almost mind blowing.
So what now. A few observations. The establishment does not want Trump. Similar to an iceberg, Trump is the 10% of the MAGA movement that can be seen. We are the 90% that is the force behind MAGA. The 90% is where the real power is centered. The corrupt establishment needs to separate us from him to kill the movement. If you cling to We The People as I do, I cannot accept the concept that the establishment gets to pick who represents us and what the agenda moving forward will be. Our power rests in the fact that we do not buy into the track the Country is on. We need a disrupter to continue to break the administrative State which has taken over the governance of the Country. We need to get back control over how our lives are managed at the Fed level. We should not allow MAGA to be defeated like the Tea Party movement.
I am disappointed in myself more than I am of Trump. I actually believed that the system was honest. I must come to grips with that before I can make my own choice on what is next, I need to forgive myself first for being asleep. The next step is complicated because I need to look at myself in a mirror and make hard decisions now. If not me than who. There is no white knight on the horizon to let me evade my own responsibility at this point. I believe we all are in the same space at this point. I am looking for guidance from a source which is wiser and kinder than us mere mortals.
"any individual playing in the political arena will fall short"
Of course. We knew that when we voted for Trump 2x. The question becomes, How far short is acceptable? When he embraces a key part of the Great Reset, that's unacceptable to me. Because pansexualism is a key part of Transhumanism.
"We need a disrupter"
But I'm beginning to wonder how much of a disrupter he is or even wants to be going forward. "What have you done for me lately" is NOT a frivolous question.
MAGA and America First ended when Trump was elected. Jared runs everything, makes sure his open borders globalist views are carried out, and has always made clear he despised 2016 Trump MAGA voters and their views. Jared still uses terms MAGA and Am. First, but the terms no longer mean what they did before Nov. 2016. This is called "co-opting," which a GOP insider called the greatest secret of politics, ie, fooling your opponents into thinking you're on their side. For example, at a White House Covid meeting Jared would be at the table along with the Davos narrative people such as Birx. A recognized scientist at the table, in this case Dr. Atlas, dared to politely present scientific data (in the interest of the American people) at the meeting that differed from something Birx had said. Jared interrupted Dr. Atlas, would not allow him to speak, by saying of Dr. Birx, "It's OK, she's 100% MAGA." Right. Today even Heritage Foundation calls itself "America Firsters."
"We will have forfeited much of our ability to influence the political process through winning elections." That ability is gone at the federal level. The only way to defeat the Evil Ones is to fight at the local and state level. If DC pushes open borders, then governors of Red states on the border mobilise their own border forces. If DC cuts back on oil drilling, Red states with oil reserves carry on drilling, etc. The best hope now is that the central system collapses. There will be plenty of nasty fallout, but it is the only way that the federal boil gets lanced.
There is a reason that they have let the mask slip in the last six years: they don't have to care anymore. As cynical as I had become, I nonetheless decided to leave CA and start a new life in AZ where I saw a critical battle in national politics was playing out.
Everything that has happened in the past two years has simply made it clear to me that my prior level of cynicism had been woefully insufficient. What used to be deep anger with TWANLOC has morphed into astonished resignation--both literal and figurative. I'm officially tendering my resignation as a GOP precinct committeeman and turning my attentions to personal goals and objectives. The revelations coming out of the Twitter Files--and the corresponding silence of the corporate media--has finally forced me to confront the fact that the reality is far worse than I had suspected...and that we're all just p*ssing in the wind.
For many of us despondent and in search of answers, Arnold’s heart-rending poem is a timely reminder…the crisis is deeper now, but not new. Yeats has two, the Magi and the Second Coming, but the import and imagery are bleaker, though the language sublime…as we approach Christmas, I wish to Mark and family and all commenters around this table a happy Xmastide.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/abp-vigano-trumps-lgbt-gala-shows-deep-state-has-contaminated-the-entire-political-elite/
One of my major issues with the "Pro-Life" movement has always been the term itself. It leaves no room for putting your opponent on their back foot. So, what do I mean?
I always thought by making the term "Pro-Choice" universal as in we are all "Pro-Choice" it allowed you to take your stand and if life is your choice then let your opponent make his stand as choosing death, no wiggle room.
Don Surber's comment re the Politico article about Trump's Gay-la event at MAL:
"Biden did Biden did not legalize gay marriage. He banned religious objections to them."
Don Surber gets it. But Don Trump says that's "our movement." And that's what some commenters here have said.
"I voted for Trump twice, knowing his flaws as a human being—those were well known."
To borrow a phrase from Douglas Southall Freeman's magisterial Lee's Lieutenants that he used quite a bit when weighing Confederate Generals, Trump had "defects of competence and character" that meant he might not succeed if put in charge. People who voted for Trump twice, and I was one of them, did so because many of them understood that they were entirely without political representation and that this constituted a grave national emergency. Michael Anton was right. It really was the Flight 93 election. Sadly, it ended as Flight 93 ended, but in both cases the people who tried to take back control from the hijackers were justified in making the attempt.
If you were pro abortion (I refuse to use the phrase pro choice) you would probably look at Trump's current position on abortion and conclude that he might not be sincere this time either. Whatever role the abortion issue played in the 2022 election tactical flip flops of this sort aren't likely to help any candidate of any party.
In a single week, Trump has sided with sodomy, given his support to a DS Rino (sorry, I repeat myself) for speaker, and pimped a pathetic NFT on his gullible supporters. But, yeah, he'll drain the Swamp in '24.
Strangely, perhaps, the more Trump evinces his flaws, which I concede are without any doubt true flaws, the more I respect and admire the larger part of what he has done and tried to do for this country.
For example, I think some of his management of the covid fiasco was catastrophically wrong, yet I still believe he has the best tool kit and track record to be our President.
I am not prepared to support another candidate, even some Republican with fewer personal flaws than Trump, until such time as I am persuaded (if ever) that he would be a better president.
In this regard there is still plenty of time.
I was shocked to see you write that Trump "revealed the reality of the Deep State." This couldn't be further from the truth, though I've seen the claim made recently as a reason why Trump never laid a glove on it--that, gosh, none of us knew how bad it really was. Most of us have been painfully aware for a very long time that Republican voters have no chance of changing government even if they win elections, have been despised by the Republican Party for decades. The knowledge of our government's deep corruption was why in 2009 Karl Denninger suggested sending tea bags to congress. (What eventually became the Tea Party was quickly diluted and co-opted). Trump won in part because he told us over and over that he was the one person who could stop the bureaucrats, that he had no special interests. He certainly did have 'special interests,' so special that Jared was made de facto president. Jared had the last word on every important matter including censoring non-Davos narratives at Covid meetings. When you fail so badly, you should apologize and retire from public life. Instead, Trump/Kushner family and girlfriends are now embedded in the RNC, and reaping millions via countless PACs and Am. First groups. Trump is the front man, keeps his name in headlines and brings in millions, while Jared carries out the open borders, endless wars, globalist agenda. Trump/Kushner became worse neocons than McCain, started dropping bombs and sending tanks right after inauguration. I guess it's fine if you think repealing Roe v Wade will close the border, end US foreign military intervention, overturn CO2 endangerment ruling, cause US to resign from NATO and UN, and prevent US presidents from unilaterally decreeing suspension of normal government as Trump did in March 2020 and which continues today. Over 50% of abortions today are via a pill.
I think you are too harsh. Trump was successful in exposing the evil. You may have seen it, but too many others did not. By their nearly histamine reaction to Trump, they overdid everything. All of a sudden, kids need to be exposed as toddlers to explicit deviant sex, be allowed to be raped by fake trans in school bathrooms, girls lose their life’s athletic dream by a sneering boy in girl’s clothing. They ramped the pace of these insanities and that will be their undoing. We got along with gays because who cares what people do in private. But suddenly that was not enough. Now our babies had to celebrate it! In school! And sex is just one cultural area under attack. This occurred everywhere. And people who never before noticed, who didn’t even notice politics, have their eyes opened. For that, we owe Trump a huge debt of gratitude. Before you can fix something, you have to define it. Trump made the enemy self-define.
Nevertheless ...
Trump did bring the craziness of the Deep State and Globalists bubbling to the surface, for ALL--including the great unwashed who don't follow day to day news--to see. Example: Vindman openly stated that the Interagency controls US policy and NOT the president. That assertion was a revelation never before openly made--that I'm aware of.
Thanks to all for a well rounded and thoughtful discourse regarding this topic. Like all on this site, I have been struggling with my conclusion regarding support for DJT. But in the end I recognize that we are trying to find an individual who will embody all of our values, beliefs and ideals in the current political world. Let me suggest that any individual playing in the political arena will fall short. Simply because politics is a nasty and dirty field. No one can compete in politics without assuming some level of associated tarnish. Part of my disappointment is the almost unbelievable level of corruption which has been exposed over the last 6 years. From Russiagate to COVID to election integrity. The scope has been almost mind blowing.
So what now. A few observations. The establishment does not want Trump. Similar to an iceberg, Trump is the 10% of the MAGA movement that can be seen. We are the 90% that is the force behind MAGA. The 90% is where the real power is centered. The corrupt establishment needs to separate us from him to kill the movement. If you cling to We The People as I do, I cannot accept the concept that the establishment gets to pick who represents us and what the agenda moving forward will be. Our power rests in the fact that we do not buy into the track the Country is on. We need a disrupter to continue to break the administrative State which has taken over the governance of the Country. We need to get back control over how our lives are managed at the Fed level. We should not allow MAGA to be defeated like the Tea Party movement.
I am disappointed in myself more than I am of Trump. I actually believed that the system was honest. I must come to grips with that before I can make my own choice on what is next, I need to forgive myself first for being asleep. The next step is complicated because I need to look at myself in a mirror and make hard decisions now. If not me than who. There is no white knight on the horizon to let me evade my own responsibility at this point. I believe we all are in the same space at this point. I am looking for guidance from a source which is wiser and kinder than us mere mortals.
"any individual playing in the political arena will fall short"
Of course. We knew that when we voted for Trump 2x. The question becomes, How far short is acceptable? When he embraces a key part of the Great Reset, that's unacceptable to me. Because pansexualism is a key part of Transhumanism.
"We need a disrupter"
But I'm beginning to wonder how much of a disrupter he is or even wants to be going forward. "What have you done for me lately" is NOT a frivolous question.
MAGA and America First ended when Trump was elected. Jared runs everything, makes sure his open borders globalist views are carried out, and has always made clear he despised 2016 Trump MAGA voters and their views. Jared still uses terms MAGA and Am. First, but the terms no longer mean what they did before Nov. 2016. This is called "co-opting," which a GOP insider called the greatest secret of politics, ie, fooling your opponents into thinking you're on their side. For example, at a White House Covid meeting Jared would be at the table along with the Davos narrative people such as Birx. A recognized scientist at the table, in this case Dr. Atlas, dared to politely present scientific data (in the interest of the American people) at the meeting that differed from something Birx had said. Jared interrupted Dr. Atlas, would not allow him to speak, by saying of Dr. Birx, "It's OK, she's 100% MAGA." Right. Today even Heritage Foundation calls itself "America Firsters."
Can we be anti Jack? Yes!
"We will have forfeited much of our ability to influence the political process through winning elections." That ability is gone at the federal level. The only way to defeat the Evil Ones is to fight at the local and state level. If DC pushes open borders, then governors of Red states on the border mobilise their own border forces. If DC cuts back on oil drilling, Red states with oil reserves carry on drilling, etc. The best hope now is that the central system collapses. There will be plenty of nasty fallout, but it is the only way that the federal boil gets lanced.
There is a reason that they have let the mask slip in the last six years: they don't have to care anymore. As cynical as I had become, I nonetheless decided to leave CA and start a new life in AZ where I saw a critical battle in national politics was playing out.
Everything that has happened in the past two years has simply made it clear to me that my prior level of cynicism had been woefully insufficient. What used to be deep anger with TWANLOC has morphed into astonished resignation--both literal and figurative. I'm officially tendering my resignation as a GOP precinct committeeman and turning my attentions to personal goals and objectives. The revelations coming out of the Twitter Files--and the corresponding silence of the corporate media--has finally forced me to confront the fact that the reality is far worse than I had suspected...and that we're all just p*ssing in the wind.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43588/dover-beach
For many of us despondent and in search of answers, Arnold’s heart-rending poem is a timely reminder…the crisis is deeper now, but not new. Yeats has two, the Magi and the Second Coming, but the import and imagery are bleaker, though the language sublime…as we approach Christmas, I wish to Mark and family and all commenters around this table a happy Xmastide.