MAGA is Getting More MAGA
Trump's second term would be much worse than his first.
![](https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/vance-trump-convention-1024x663.jpeg)
For good and ill, the post-debate mutiny within the Democratic Party and the assassination attempt over the weekend on former President Trump have largely taken the spotlight off of the ongoing Republican National Convention. Indeed, I have followed it only through press accounts.
The POLITICO gang reports, “A new kind of Republican Party is forming at the RNC.”
A new kind of Republican Party is revealing itself at its national convention.
All the markers of a MAGA jamboree are on display, from hulking Donald Trump iconography inside the convention hall to rhinestone Trump cowboy hats and red Trump-Vance placards.
But look closer and the party is changing — increasingly embracing economic populism at home and isolationism abroad, shifting its decadeslong position on abortion and not only leery of, but hostile to, certain business interests.
[…]
It’s the result of a confluence of economic, demographic and cultural changes — including a newly ascendant labor movement, which the GOP finds itself increasingly attracted to, at least nominally. Together, those forces have only accelerated the GOP’s flirtation with a renovation of the party.
“I think what we’re witnessing now is a full on frontal assault on conservatism,” said Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence from 2019 to 2021, who is so estranged from this new version of the party that he was advised to skip the convention. “And you can look at the platform walking away from issues like life and traditional marriage, embracing tariffs across the board, but I feel like yesterday and last night went a step further when you have speakers that are basically saying NATO was at fault for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and referring to job creators as ‘corporate pigs’ and denouncing national right to work.”
He said, “That’s an enormous departure from where our party has been and I don’t think it’s a prescription for success.”
Perhaps most shocking to some more traditionalist Republicans was the fiery speech from International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien — the first Teamster to speak at an RNC in its 121-year history. In his remarks, he trespassed on traditional economic conservatism, decrying the “corporate elite,” outlining the harm of Right to Work laws, which make it harder to organize and have been passed mostly in GOP-run states, and called the Chamber of Commerce “unions for big business.”
David Urban, the former 2016 Trump campaign adviser, told POLITICO he looked at his CNN co-host David Axelrod, the former Barack Obama adviser, and asked him while off air: “Am I at the right convention?”
O’Brien’s remarks left some watching — in the hall and from afar — nearly physically uncomfortable, even as they slowly began to embrace a new brand of Republican base voter.
“I was starting to squirm a little bit on some of that stuff, but I also know how you blend that, and that’s what makes up my support,” said Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana, who is running for governor and is one of the wealthiest members of Congress. “And that doesn’t mean you take the most outrageous stuff that he might have said, but you don’t dismiss some of the rest of it, and you find a new coalition.”
Or, as Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio put it: “I think President Trump has made our party what it always should have been, which is a populist party rooted in conservative principles.”
For years, the GOP has been undergoing a sea change as a working class party — all revolving around the organizing principle of America First. At times during his presidency, Trump reverted to more traditionalist GOP ideology on issues including tax cuts, which he cut in 2017. But it was his selection of Vance that could ultimately cement the party’s trajectory toward a different point on the horizon.
“Vance was the most distinctive choice he could make, in part to send a signal: I think coverage has rightly captured what we are certainly hearing which is that the business community and Wall Street and so forth, are, are deeply dismayed and concerned — as they should be,” said Oren Cass, a former economic adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, and a close associate of Vance’s who spoke with him last week.
In the coming years, Cass, the founder of the conservative think tank American Compass, a group aimed at developing a new center-right consensus on policy, predicted “a multi-ethnic, working-class conservatism as the foundation of an actual Republican Party that could achieve a durable governing majority.”
My co-blogger Steven Taylor frequently points to the weakness of our parties. This is yet another example of that. The party has abandoned almost every principle that defined it from Ronald Reagan (if not Richard Nixon) through Mitt Romney. The presidential nominee, for all intent and purposes, is the party. His delegates write the party platform (but nobody has any power to force any given member of the party, including the President, to adhere to it in governing). He appoints the party chairman and other key officials. Trump is the party and the party is Trump.
Unlike the POLITICO gang, I don’t see this so much as an ideological shift as much as one of instinct. Trump knows his appeal is to the white working class and he’s going to tell them what he thinks they want to hear.
And, not even just in the sense that he’s a politician and that’s what politicians do. As noted in this morning’s episode of The Daily podcast (“Trump 2.0: He’s Never Sounded Like This Before“), his rhetoric and tone have shifted dramatically since he first came down that escalator in 2015. While he has always said nasty things about his opponents, in his first campaign he did so with a lot more jocularity and very much talked about building a “movement.” Since his 2020 loss, he’s very much focused on the “them” that have been persecuting him—and, by extension, his followers.
He has been very much focused on getting back at those who impeached him, “stole the election” from him, impeached him again, brought various criminal suits against him, and are otherwise making his life difficult. He has talked a lot about breaking down the barriers that constrained him in the last term, including the so-called Deep State.
As Vox’s Andrew Prokop notes (“J.D. Vance’s radical plan to build a government of Trump loyalists“) his choice for VP is very enthusiastic about this.
“If I was giving him one piece of advice” for a second term, Vance said on a 2021 podcast:
“Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”
That was no idle talk. To an extent unusual for a politician — and perhaps because he hasn’t been in politics very long — Vance is interested in big ideas. He’s been deeply influenced by thinkers on the movement known as the New Right, who want to seize and transform societal institutions they believe are dominated by the left.
A big part of that would involve a restored President Trump purging any resistance to him, or checks on his power, from the executive branch.
Trump has long had figures in orbit urging him to act to remake the executive branch, such as Steve Bannon, who called for “deconstruction of the administrative state” at the start of his brief White House tenure. In the chaos of Trump’s first term, such plans didn’t get very far at first. Trump grew increasingly frustrated by what he viewed as resistance to his agenda among permanent federal employees and his inability to get “loyal” people in place.
Meanwhile, younger conservatives on the outside of the administration — like Vance — were wondering why President Trump was struggling to enact his agenda and grappling with the leftward movement of the nation on social justice issues. Many of them gravitated toward explanations offered by writers on the New Right.
The New Right put forth an institutional theory for why conservatives couldn’t get what they wanted. Per this theory, the left had ultimate power due to their control of important institutions, from the media and academia to tech companies and the federal bureaucracy. The task ahead for the right was to fight for and seize control of these institutions.
[…]
As Trump was about to leave office in 2020, he finally got around to trying to do something about the supposed “deep state”: He issued an executive order known as Schedule F.
This order laid the groundwork for reclassifying as many as 50,000 career civil servant jobs as political appointees who could then be fired and replaced by Trump. He was out of office before it could be implemented, however, and Biden quickly revoked it.
There’s been much fear about Trump restoring this policy in his second term, replacing a great many nonpartisan career experts with political hacks or ideologues willing to go along with his extreme or corrupt plans.
Such a move could be implemented in any number of ways, from the more limited and less disruptive to more sweeping and very disruptive. Considering Trump has only intermittent interest in the details of policy and implementation, I’ve thought that how this plays out would depend on who staffs his administration, since he could be pulled in various directions. Advisers worried about chaos and political blowback could counsel restraint.
Vance would not do that. He would be a key voice in Trump’s administration urging him to go very big indeed.
Elsewhere in the podcast, Vance said that the courts would inevitably “stop” Trump from trying to fire so many employees. When they do, Vance went on, Trump should “stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did, and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
This is, of course, how authoritarians think about power. When they win elections—even if, as in Trump’s case, they don’t—they ought to be able to govern as they wish with no obstacles. The Constitution, the other branches of government, and the laws of the land are mere inconveniences.
To be sure, to the extent one believes in the Unitary Executive theory, civil servants ought to execute the policy preferences of the elected President rather than substitute their own judgment. The problem with that is that, while they ultimately report to the President and his appointees, the agencies are creatures of Congress who are mostly carrying out functions delegated to the legislative branch under Article I of the Constitution. Bureaucrats are supposed to act within the bounds of their legislatively-granted authority and apply their expertise in making day-to-day judgments as to how to execute policy.
Because they’re part of the Executive branch, they also receive policy guidance from presidential appointees (cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, etc.). But they’re constrained by, among other things, the Administrative Procedures Act.
Trump found himself thwarted time and again in his first term when he tried to do issue orders willy-nilly without regard to procedure. He clearly wants to make sure this isn’t the case next go-around.
To be sure, doing any of this would require the acquiescence of Congress. The civil service as we know it was established by the Pendleton Act of 1883 (incidentally, a reaction to a presidential assassination by a disgruntled would-be government employee) and a century and a half of follow-on legislation. But there’s a very good chance that a re-elected Trump would, at least initially, enjoy majorities in both Houses of Congress. And, should the Democratic minority in the Senate attempt to filibuster, one suspects that device will go away.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I wonder if there is anything that would make Americans sit up and say “OK, that’s going too far.”
Trump supporters have the bit in their teeth and don’t care how irrational their God-King gets. And since Trump is a malignant narcissist, the only thing he cares is whether people pander enough to him. He won’t give a crap if his policies totally wreck the U.S. economy. And as long as he can blame “the Deep State”, or “the Woke”, or any other group-to-be-picked-on, his supporters will eagerly go along. After all, anything will be better than having to admit they screwed up on their own.
And as for the rest of the RNC members? I suspect that the active ones right now are simply eagerly riding the train as far as they can, hoping to grift as much money and power as possible.
The fun issue, of course, is that…. career civil servants want to create, empower, and improve a government that executes tasks to better the lives of citizens.
MAGA wants a government that does nothing for anyone. You get a sinecure! And you get a sinecure! And these sinecures aren’t waste and fraud because we said so!
Trump saying he wanted to Do Orders Without Procedure… is his fault, not anyone else’s. He found himself stifled? Yeah, because his orders were a dog’s breakfast.
And MAGA wonders why the people they hired to execute the deconstruction task… are not even good at the deconstructing — because MAGA is at its core affirmative action for incompetent people.
The “new” Republican/conservative movement chooses…
Schizophrenia (and gutting the administrative state because that’s bound to be a great idea)?
May you live in interesting times, indeed.
@Grumpy realist: No. My experience leans toward Americans consistently being a day late and a dollar short on the going too far thing.
“Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
“But that trick never works.
“This time fer shur. Presto!”
@Gavin: I spent several years working as a civil servant in the Japanese government. Based on my experience, one of the reasons Japan works as well as it does is because Japan is in fact run by a combination of civil servants, business groups, and citizen interest groups, with the politicians only there for color and entertainment.
Turning the US government into a political bureaucracy full of yes-men is the quickest way to economic and social collapse. You need to have a system where someone can tell the Prince he’s full of crap and his ideas are nuts.
I take it that billionaires like Musk and Thiel are happy to support Trump because they think they’ll be able to get all the regulations tweaked in their favor. Problem is, neither of those nuts seem to understand that the very same economic system that provides them with all their money is going to collapse if there’s insufficient protection for the customer, and then poof money.
@Grumpy realist: Based on current performance at X and Tesla, Musk doesn’t seem to be concerned about the “poof money” feature. Don’t know why not, tho.
@Grumpy realist:
All of this. Musk and Thiel have their heads so far up their asses that they think that if “They” are allowed to do whatever they want the money and power will flow to them. They don’t seem to realize that some of the Russian oligarchs thought the same thing up to the point they ate polonium for breakfast or a window for lunch. Trump will never allow them close to power that threatens him.
What I don’t understand are the men like Fain or the wealthy but not Musk wealthy are thinking. Fain has to know that the GOP will never allow Unions to have any power, but he’s licking their boots. For what? There have to be enough wealthy GOP people that understand tariffs will blow the wheels off the economy.
Why do these people think they will be safe?
Why do women like Chaia Raichk or Vance’s wife think they will be safe?
…but Biden is old.
Charles Murry, shilling for Hillary in 2016 observed:
Trump was another exception and it was because he wasn’t an Establishment Republican. Now, Trump has pushed the party to be more welcoming to those who aren’t into the hard Left that is running the Democrat party. On the Democrat side it looks more like banishment for all who are deemed heretics to the Leftist dogma.
Now on a simple generational level, Vance is a Millennial, finally someone young on a national ticket. Biden is pre-Boomer, Trump is early Boomer and Kamala is late Boomer.
Pelosi, McConnell and a fair number of those in Congress are pre-Boomer. Schumer is early Boomer (has teenage memory of the 1960s). Hakeem Jeffries is early Gen X (teenage memories of the 1980s), as is Mike Johnson.
What is likely over the next 4 years is a dying off of the old guard so that at least things move to late Boomers and early Gen X, if not early Millennials.
I should add, that being friendly to organized labor is wise at this time as a lot of industrial processes are being re-shored as the globalization collapses.
@Grumpy realist:
Little critique here–I think I’m going to write on this later–what Trump and Vance are proposing is the exact opposite of a bureaucracy–at least the modern (post-weber) academic definition. Expertise versus loyalty is one hallmark of bureaucracy.
What the plan is, in fact, a return to a patronage system (similar to what was seen in most Eastern Bloc countries, dictatorships, and unstable “democracies.”).
Of course, your mileage with the “expertise” thing may vary. For example, there’s at least one commenter who is on record as saying that bureaucracies are a more evil and harmful creation than slavery… you’ll never guess who that would be.
I have to wonder what it’s going to take for the actual conservatives to stay home or vote third party. I mean, in some sense Trump is selling less-reasonable and more-bigoted liberalism.
@JKB: I gotta tell you, you lost me when you described Biden as Hard Left (With Capitals!!!).
I guess if “supporting Obamacare” to you means “hard left” then yeah.
@Jay L Gischer: Actual conservatives are in the same boat with Trump/Vance as progressives are with the Democratic Party. Where are they gonna go? Additionally, they may be convinced, and probably with good reason, that their candidates are political animals and say whatever they need to for victory while following the money afterwards.
@Matt Bernius: to give an idea of how a patronage system totally trashes things, take a look at how much Russian science and technology has collapsed since Putin started acting like a dictator. Partly because the brain drain where the top scientists and engineers have fled abroad, partly because science and engineering doesn’t advance unless you’re able to challenge the accepted theories and not get sent to a gulag. (The Soviets learned that the hard way, which is why part of the Urals is still radioactive. And let’s not talk about Chernobyl.)
What I’m curious about is what will be the country that U.S. scientists will start fleeing to if things get really bad.
Also, if some of the more lunatic ideas spinning out from the RNC get put into place ( getting rid of the IRS and replace federal taxation with tariffs and sales taxes), I can see the u.s. fragmenting apart, with blue states refusing to fund red states and then finally breaking off completely. Several states such as California and NY already have the GNP of individual nations and if they all joined together would present a nice little coterie from an economic viewpoint, like the EU. After all, nation-states are a relatively new idea and we do have historical examples of other forms of organization.
@Jay L Gischer:
I think all three of them already left the Party. More seriously, “conservative” has become a meaningless term.
@Jay L Gischer:
Please. Spare me. Lunch Pale Joe was always an imaginary character.
He’s a rather dim and gruff machine politician who went Progressive because it was expedient. That’s what Biden does. He’s a weather vane.
Maybe in your mind Progressive doesn’t equal “hard left.” Your prerogative. But for most, it does.
@Jack: What you said “progressive from expediency” is not an argument in favor of him being Hard Left. It’s an argument against it. It’s something a far left person would say to argue against him.
I’m quite serious Jack. What has he done in office that you would describe as Hard Left? This is an honest question. No gotcha. If you answer in good faith, I promise you I won’t even respond.
I dont think there is much chance that Trump would actually try to put pro-union policy into effect, he will just talk about to get elected. He will partially deliver for the working class on the social issues like making it difficult for trans people and doing stuff to immigrants, but not much for jobs. It will be much like his first time where he made big announcements about jobs coming back that never happened.
Just a reminder that Biden specifically rejected defund the police, his admin has been supporting the development of small nukes and he continued tariffs and goes to church every week, not at a wealthy mega-church. Not the stuff of the far left and he doesnt engage in the name calling typical of the far left and essentially all of the right.
Steve
@Jay L Gischer:
The leopard eating their faces.
And maybe not even then. Many of the people arrested and summarily sent to the gulag during Stalin’s terror were ardent, committed communists, and all-in for Stalin. Some did realize the massive injustice, but a great many did not. Some were convinced it was the fault of petty party functionaries, and as soon as Stalin heard about it he’d set things right.
And some just accepted that if the party, or Stalin, needed to press them into forced labor under dangerous conditions and without adequate food, water, sanitation, or medical care, than that’s what Stalin needed and they would go along as best they could to help.
@JKB: @Jack:
Neither of you know what “hard left” actually is. Being proud that most people agree with an error really is something.
I wonder, is substituting the word “hard” for “far” Freudian? Chew that bit for a bit.
Oh, whatever, your fingers have been firmly attached to your inner ear for years. It’s a wonder you can alter any phrasing.
James,
The GOP has gone even more plutocratic, and is openly planning on cutting taxes on the rich, raising them on everybody else, putting the government into a pure patronage system, aggrandizing the least two politically responsive branches, increasing government control over everybody but the rich, slashing worker protections, etc.
The items to the contrary rely on believing that people like Trump would do things contrary to their whole life’s work.
And Vance is almost a comical character, who’ll be bragging ’bout his roots as he banks his first $50 million.
@Jay L Gischer: I think they mean hard left in the contemporary sense–whatever I disagree with, today.
@steve:
While Trump and his adherents have specifically pushed to defund federal law enforcement.
@JKB:
Harris was born in 1964, and thus has teenage memories of the 80s. If you think there is much of a difference between being born in 1970 and 1964, you take generational labels too seriously.
For someone who professes to be skeptical of major media, you certainly embrace one of the silly labels they use for convenience. I think I know why, though. The vast majority of headlines I see that use those labels are from Fox News and NYP. Yes, other outlets use them as well, but not nearly to the extent or for the same purpose.
@JKB:
We tried it with Covid, but the shoddy Chinese workmanship on that one failed to wipe out the boomers and elderly in sufficient numbers.
They’re doing a bang up job with their Climate Change Hoax though.
@Jay L Gischer:
Seriously?
Perhaps we should first define terms – like liberal vs classic liberal.
Traditional Progressivism included:
1 Promotion of government efficiency – count me as progressive, except its a concept that has no intersection with reality.
2 Elimination of corruption – see #1
3 Anti-monopoly – heh. Sure. Let’s talk regulatory capture and Biden’s collusion with Big Tech (and Wall Street)
4 Promotion of education – great. But Johnny can’t read, and the education unions vote in lock step with their government goodies.
5 Promotion of Organized labor – Sure. But Labor overstepped their bounds. And now: its all gone to China etc.
6 Illegal voting – Ha! Don’t make me laugh. Open borders anyone??
And so now we have more modern progressivism.
1 Income inequality.
2 Wall Street Reform
3 Health Care Reform
4 Minimum wage
5 Social Justice – we could write a book.
So lunch pale Joe is not in cahoots with Wall Street?
So lunch pale Joe is not all green all the time………..and screw the miners and other fossil fuel workers? EV subsidies. Charging stations that never get built? Energy affects everything a consumer touches: car/food/clothing/home. Joe is screwing the average person, and they know it.
So lunch pale Joe is not behind minwage? And throwing people out of jobs.
So lunch pale Joe is not all in on DEI, and its horrible effects on economic efficiency and competency?
I could go on.
You are entitled to any philosophy you want. But please don’t insult my intelligence that Lunch Pale Joe didn’t go from this crafted everyman persona to whatever Obama and his ilk wanted. Denial is silly on its face.
And people wonder why I find mainstream media, and OTB types, batshxxt crazy. I have seen MSNBC, and people like Rachel “Russia, Russia, Russia,” Maddow cited so many times here. WTFU people. Trump is not Hitler. Trump is not a dictator. He will not put Rachel in a prison camp. Look at his first term. Compare it to the lawfare under Biden. WTFU
He is crass. He is not my first choice. But try to argue things on policy, not emotional spasms of TDS. Joe Biden is also crass. And he’s a crook. Nobody creates 20 LLC’s to funnel money………..except money launderers. Get a clue.
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/07/18/ear-trutherism-is-being-mainstreamed-by-ap-and-npr-n3791959
@Jack: the problem is that the guardrails that existed in Trump’s first term don’t exist now. Especially since SCOTUS has now blown up all checks and balances on limits on the President. As long as he can shove his action under the vague description of “Executive Duties” he cannot be held to account, or even questioned.
No one should be considered to be above the law.
(Oh, and if creating a large number of LLCs indicates money laundering, you have just condemned Trump out of your own mouth.)
@Jack:
As I posted the other day, you have shown no evidence that you have had an original thought in your life.
‘Classical Liberalism’ is no different from ‘Western Civilization’–a shibboleth, meaning more a signal of disposition than position. The best analogy I can think of at the moment is Biblical canon–the books were chosen by a process that had little to do with divine inspiration and more to do with various reasons of the politics of the time, many of which are likely actually lost to history.
Or: classical liberalism is useful as a term to situate a group of thinkers that had commonalities and differences, but were similar enough to each other and different enough to other schools of thought at the time that it makes sense to group them.
They were not a monolith. Once it is used as an ideology, it no longer makes sense to do so, because the people using it as a heuristic are actually selecting items from a larger menu.
I would also note that can you actually defend increasing income inequality as a good thing or as a necessary cost for something else that is good? Please do, but keep in mind that the moment you engage that questiin, you are going to have to commit to some contradictory positions.
WRT: Maddow and ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’. Maddow has been cited around here. But it’s not as if she is cited constantly. I may have missed a few, but I cannot recall the last time anyone here is pointed to her for any real reason.
It is a documented fact that Russia not only favor/ed/s Trump, but that they took active measures to benefit him in 2016 and 2020. Defend it and own it, or shut up about it. Or defend an insane conspiracy theory. Your choice.
@Jack: You know, that really does seem like a good faith response, even though I am having a hard time tracking some of your points. Some of the issues you raise don’t seem like they are things of the Left, like, at all.
All the same, I will not respond to your points, as promised, unless you specifically say you want to hear from me.
@Jay L Gischer: “This is an honest question. ”
Why bother? He’s never going to give an honest answer, because he’s not here in good faith. Don’t waste your (electronic) breath.
@Jack: “But please don’t insult my intelligence that Lunch Pale Joe didn’t go”
Really, dude, if you don’t want people to insult your “intelligence,” you should probably learn the difference between “pale” and “pail.”
@Jack:
Not going to defend the AP, I can’t imagine that Trump’s GSW is going to impact his long term health. Of course, I am not a physician. But medical records should be a topic of discussion for both candidates–and it’s obvious what I specifically mean here.
As far as the AP or any media outlet goes, people are asking questions about it, right? I don’t understand your beef here, because the general refrain from the right is that news outlets should be reporting the news, not analyzing it. Well, prominent people are asking questions. So should the media ignore them if they are deemed nonsensical or lack any evidence at all?
Because if they are, then I can think of a host of GOP obsessions that should be getting zero airtime. Occam’s razor suggests that you are not to be taken seriously rather than thinking that you have a consistent, fair view.
Also, am I to understand that Michael Steele is now considered to be on the left? Because if that’s the case, then it says way more about your position on the political spectrum than it does about anything else.
I wonder, are you self aware enough to realize that your disdain for OTB and the commenters flows from your own feeble kind.
@wr:
Well, he does seem to have a thing for people who spackle the bronzer on thick.
@wr:
You’re looking for “arguments in good faith” from a commenter who is only capable of blind faith.
Read his answer to @Jay L Gischer’s request. He thinks the media, OTB hosts & commentariat, the Justice Department, and really anyone with an opposing view is not only wrong, but crazy. He’s smarter than everyone else, he’s more astute than everyone else, he’s steeped more in history than everyone else, and he’s more tethered to reality than everyone else. The historians, military leaders, conservative justices, and members of Trump’s prior administration who have all said publicly that Trump is a threat to democracy are simply WRONG and he is right.
He’s answering “honestly” based on articles of faith from a belief system anchored in willful blindness. He can’t give you what you and Jay are asking for.
Jim Jordan has figured out a pretty anodyne way to label authoritarian, Christian Nationalism.
My friend remarked that God is on Trump’s side since the bullet missed by millimeters.
I replied, “Obviously, God loves Joe Biden more. How so? Because Joe hasn’t been shot at. God may have wanted Trump dead but missed.”
@wr:
Still pissed that I was right, and you were wrong, about Obama and the other chieftons calling the shots? Your claim of tin foil hats and all. The only question now is, are Team Biden so arrogant/out of touch/terrified of prosecution that they simply take down all the down ballot candidates to save Joe’s sorry ass. The Party be damned. You tell me.
Here. Have some tin foil. Might be worth something at the dump.
@Jay L Gischer:
Jay –
You seem like an honest broker. A rare event here. I have seen a few here that seem to speak their mind coherently. M Reynolds. Charon. I apologize to those I don’t have at top of mind. Most? Juvenile sycophants.
Let’s elevate this. If you look at Joe Bidens 50 year history. His positions and persona. Can you really say that Average Joe has spoken, or governed, like his 50 year track record? Really?
The progressive wing loves him. Look who is revolting now! Main stream Dems. Progs want him to tough it out.
You and I can differ, that’s fine. But I find it very, very difficult to reconcile Scranton Joe with his legislative track record as President. He went. <———-
Tell me I’m wrong.
@The Q:
Careful. You may be fired from German public broadcasting
@Jack:
I’m pretty far left. I don’t love Biden.
However, how about you put some specifics behind your claim that he moved left?
-He campaigned on a public option, only to abandon it when he took office. So no, not progressive there.
-His immigration policy is pretty much indistinguishable from Trump’s. With one key exception, he stopped construction of a border wall. Only to reverse course, adding sections to it last year. Not progressive.
Pretty much every other policy he has pursued has been standard, mainstream Democratic policy goals for decades.
The one exception I can think of is student loan forgiveness.
If you give specifics, I’ll gladly say I was wrong. But you don’t seem to have specifics.
Its easy to throw phrases like “honest broker” and “incoherent” around. But frankly, you make assertions, not arguments. And that’s when you bother to do anything other than drive-by, taking shots at Joyner and commenters.
If people around here are so incoherent, please ask questions. It would be instructive for both you and your discussion partner. But again, your goal doesn’t seem to be substantive discussion, instead, juvenile disruption is your usual MO.
The fact is, I would love to hear your answers to my posts above as well as this one. I have, on many occasions around here, conceded that I was off the mark or not clear–in one instance I can recall, I may have done it too soon. But the fact is, I am here to learn and test my own worldview. That should be clear to anyone who bothers to read what I write.
I have also defended people like @JKB, @Lounsbury, and most often, @Andy if people treat them unfairly. I admit that that first example has been a rare instance, but it has happened. Moreover, when I have been unfair to people, I post a sincere apology.
Ball is in your court to defend your positions, if you’re willing to engage. But your pattern seems to be to attack posts similar to yours, but ignore ones that go deeper.
RUY TEIXEIRA on the GOP working class “bet”
@Kurtz:
I doubt you’ll get an answer.
@Jack: Wait, so the Evil Negro Obama is secretly calling all the shots in Washington AND he and his minions have to wait to see if Biden is arrogant enough to stay in the race?
Seems to me you’ve got a little contradiction there, Brainiac. If Evil Negro Obama is Joe’s puppetmaster, why does he have to wait for anything? Why isn’t he just ordering him to step down? Or sending in another Republican 20 year-old with an AR to take him out like he tried with Trump?
As always you are incoherent and vile. Apparently you still think that makes you “right.”
@Jack: Ok, let’s just focus on one thing: Joe Biden’s affinity for corporate affairs. He once had the nickname of “The Senator from Mastercard”, since Delaware was the home state of Mastercard Corp. He has been pretty business friendly. This seems to be a complaint of yours about him, so we agree on this much.
AND, you call this a “hard-left” thing. That’s not a meaning of “hard left” that I have ever seen anybody employ until you did. However, I don’t think you made it up, which makes me even more curious about where that idea comes from.
I did not vote for Biden in the 2020 primary. Because I didn’t think he was a great campaigner, and he was a little bit too corporate friendly for my taste. Which is to say, a little bit too much to the right (not the left). Not that I thought he was bad.
And to answer questions about why I am doing this: I like it when people talk to me like they are a human being, rather than a slogan-spewing bot. Mostly people here do that.
And one other point, Jack. I despise Trump. Trump betrayed our system of government, whether you call that “democracy” or “republic”. He tried to destroy it, so that he could stay in office.
I don’t despise you, though I do wonder where some of the things you say come from.