Once again, a well-meaning conservative tries to convince us that both sides are at fault. Give it up. Your party has abandoned you. Whatever was going on two decades ago, only one party is trying to govern today. That is the bottom line no matter how many big words you try to use.
Well said as always, Shaun. I'm politically adjacent to you, former Republican. The party hates me more than Democrats. In fact, MAGA hates every GOP candidate of my adulthood, back to and including Reagan. Doesn't that make MAGA the RINO?
I respectfully disagree with Der below. A campaign to get Haley voters to sit out the election would be devastating to the GOP. MAGA wants them out. Take them up on the offer. Far easier than coaxing a Biden vote in these polarized times.
Be sure you understand that a non-vote for Democrats (MAGA vote, no vote, third party vote) = a MAGA vote. Frankly, The Former Guy & That Woman from GA scare me. Want to see US troops dying in the Baltics? Then let’s elect Putin enablers.
Did the Supreme Court protesters take an oath to protect and defend the constitution? Were they led by Biden, Obama, Clinton? Very different from J6 in a big way!
Were they inside the Supreme Court chambers physically threatening Justices? Perhaps I missed something. And now the thread moves to a stout defense and justification of the J6 people?
Unless there's to be discussion of my original point, viz peace transition. Biden or Trump, I'm done with the thread. You want the last word, and you have it.
As the Nelson's have noted, it is weird to watch the rationalizations roll out so regularly that everyone does it. If it helps you and others deny us the horror of a 2nd Trump term though, I'll take it. Though I realize it's just as likely for it to be used by someone such as yourself to vote for him as against him. We'll see.
I can see why the Bard is your muse though, trying to find a solid point in your columns reminds me of translating 500 y/o English.
Still, it is interesting. If Haley had gotten the Republican nomination, I still likely would not have voted for her. But I would have considered her. And really not minded a bit if she won. In that I do not and did not see her as a baseline threat to democracy or rule of law.
But after close to a decade of Trump showing "conservatives" such as yourself how hollow your ideology is (life begins at conception, unless of course - it impedes Republicans getting the vote in the fall, in which case it is negotiable, etc.), the fact that you still have to use those rationalizations is telling.
You really cannot tell the difference between Kavanaugh's hearings, and January 6th?
Right-thinking people will not accept attempts to equate THIS: the well-documented relatively major violent actions of a host of lawbreakers (one candidate calls them hostages he will pardon on Day 1) with help of "lawmakers" inside the Capitol and in collusion with a failed 2020 candidate's deliberate, hidden, orchestrated misdeeds, broke into the U.S. Capitol in Joint Session for purpose of formally finalizing the 2020 electoral vote count) ...with THAT: the well-documented relatively minor violent actions of protesters who exceeded their First Amendment rights and got themselves arrested. Nor will they accept a binary view that one either accepts or rejects violence when humans are grayscale. Absolutes don't exist in real world. Nor will they accept an attempt to substitute Democrats writ large for Biden, and implicate him. My original comment was re Biden and Trump, not Democrats and Republicans, neither of which exist anymore as you asserted in your original commentary which spoke of conservative principle and objectivity regarding 2024 candidates. But your subsequent comments reveal your "excuse Trump and MAGA" slip is showing. Pretty badly, I might add.
Wow. Public protest being compared to a violent insurrection. Whataboutism at its most strident. A candidate to the highest court in the land is not supposed to be questioned about alleged misconduct? The FBI investigation of such misconduct curtailed by the chief executive in the march to overturn Roe v. Wade? And since when is a turnover of judges considered a transfer of power akin to a presidential election? Choice of words is revealing. The sense of conservative grievance appears to be proportional to the outrage at having their sense of privilege questioned.
brilliantly thought out. My primary dissent is perhaps neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden deserves your vote, but your country does. Please do what is best for America, and the future of us all, by not abdicating and allowing what you believe is worse.
Once again, a well-meaning conservative tries to convince us that both sides are at fault. Give it up. Your party has abandoned you. Whatever was going on two decades ago, only one party is trying to govern today. That is the bottom line no matter how many big words you try to use.
Well said as always, Shaun. I'm politically adjacent to you, former Republican. The party hates me more than Democrats. In fact, MAGA hates every GOP candidate of my adulthood, back to and including Reagan. Doesn't that make MAGA the RINO?
I respectfully disagree with Der below. A campaign to get Haley voters to sit out the election would be devastating to the GOP. MAGA wants them out. Take them up on the offer. Far easier than coaxing a Biden vote in these polarized times.
Be sure you understand that a non-vote for Democrats (MAGA vote, no vote, third party vote) = a MAGA vote. Frankly, The Former Guy & That Woman from GA scare me. Want to see US troops dying in the Baltics? Then let’s elect Putin enablers.
Did the Supreme Court protesters take an oath to protect and defend the constitution? Were they led by Biden, Obama, Clinton? Very different from J6 in a big way!
Were they inside the Supreme Court chambers physically threatening Justices? Perhaps I missed something. And now the thread moves to a stout defense and justification of the J6 people?
Unless there's to be discussion of my original point, viz peace transition. Biden or Trump, I'm done with the thread. You want the last word, and you have it.
As the Nelson's have noted, it is weird to watch the rationalizations roll out so regularly that everyone does it. If it helps you and others deny us the horror of a 2nd Trump term though, I'll take it. Though I realize it's just as likely for it to be used by someone such as yourself to vote for him as against him. We'll see.
I can see why the Bard is your muse though, trying to find a solid point in your columns reminds me of translating 500 y/o English.
Still, it is interesting. If Haley had gotten the Republican nomination, I still likely would not have voted for her. But I would have considered her. And really not minded a bit if she won. In that I do not and did not see her as a baseline threat to democracy or rule of law.
But after close to a decade of Trump showing "conservatives" such as yourself how hollow your ideology is (life begins at conception, unless of course - it impedes Republicans getting the vote in the fall, in which case it is negotiable, etc.), the fact that you still have to use those rationalizations is telling.
You really cannot tell the difference between Kavanaugh's hearings, and January 6th?
Weird.
No longer surprising, but telling.
Kavanaugh confirmation not in same universe with Jan 6.
Ask yourself which candidate supports peaceful transition of power...
My Republican friends are terrified of Trump because he is crazy.
Right-thinking people will not accept attempts to equate THIS: the well-documented relatively major violent actions of a host of lawbreakers (one candidate calls them hostages he will pardon on Day 1) with help of "lawmakers" inside the Capitol and in collusion with a failed 2020 candidate's deliberate, hidden, orchestrated misdeeds, broke into the U.S. Capitol in Joint Session for purpose of formally finalizing the 2020 electoral vote count) ...with THAT: the well-documented relatively minor violent actions of protesters who exceeded their First Amendment rights and got themselves arrested. Nor will they accept a binary view that one either accepts or rejects violence when humans are grayscale. Absolutes don't exist in real world. Nor will they accept an attempt to substitute Democrats writ large for Biden, and implicate him. My original comment was re Biden and Trump, not Democrats and Republicans, neither of which exist anymore as you asserted in your original commentary which spoke of conservative principle and objectivity regarding 2024 candidates. But your subsequent comments reveal your "excuse Trump and MAGA" slip is showing. Pretty badly, I might add.
Wow. Public protest being compared to a violent insurrection. Whataboutism at its most strident. A candidate to the highest court in the land is not supposed to be questioned about alleged misconduct? The FBI investigation of such misconduct curtailed by the chief executive in the march to overturn Roe v. Wade? And since when is a turnover of judges considered a transfer of power akin to a presidential election? Choice of words is revealing. The sense of conservative grievance appears to be proportional to the outrage at having their sense of privilege questioned.
We're way off point. Peaceful transition of Presidential power: which candidate?.
Kavanaugh confirmation not violent, Jan 6 was.
brilliantly thought out. My primary dissent is perhaps neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden deserves your vote, but your country does. Please do what is best for America, and the future of us all, by not abdicating and allowing what you believe is worse.
Good point but offpoint. imo