A New Low

One sort of impressive thing about NY Times columnist David Brooks - every time you think he's hit rock bottom, every time you think "well this is the absolute nadir, this is the worst possible version of a David Brooks column - even if we accept string theory's hypothesisi of infinite versions of the universe, each with its own version of David Brooks, this is certainly the worst posible column any of those Brookses could write," every time you think that, you find that for David Brooks, rock bottom has a basement.

And once again, we find a new low point for David Brooks:

Opinion

Who Killed The Weekly Standard?

The bureaucratic mind has a temporary triumph.

By David Brooks

Opinion Columnist

• 
  

On God. No one "killed" the Weekly Standard. The Weekly Standard's sugar daddy decided he was no longer going to keep propping it up. By rights, the WS should have died years ago.

I’ve only been around Phil Anschutz a few times. My impressions on those occasions was that he was a run-of-the-mill arrogant billionaire. He was used to people courting him and he addressed them condescendingly from the lofty height of his own wealth.

I’ve never met Ryan McKibben, who runs part of Anschutz’s media group. But stories about him have circulated around Washington over the years. The stories suggest that he is an ordinary corporate bureaucrat — with all the petty vanities and the lack of interest in ideas that go with the type.

So. . . capitalists. The kind of people you generally lionize.

This week, Anschutz and McKibben murdered The Weekly Standard, the conservative opinion magazine that Anschutz owned. 

Murdered? Seriously? You don't think that's a bit harsh? I mean, you could say that Peter Thiel murdered Gawker. And even that would be a misuse of the word. But deciding to stop throwing good money after bad seriously is not even analogous to "murder."


Also, isn't one of the principle tenets of conservatism and capitalism that one is free to do what one likes with one's own property? Anschultz owned the WS, he was well within his rights to shut it down, right?

This week, Anschutz and McKibben murdered The Weekly Standard, the conservative opinion magazine that Anschutz owned. They didn’t merely close it because it was losing money. 

WHICH IT WAS! The Weekly Standard has never made money. It has always lost money. It has always survived on wingnut welfare. Now that welfare is being removed and you're going to cry tears of rage because you think this daft billionaire should be required to keep losing money so that your friends and former co-workers can keep their jobs that they don't deserve? How very conservative of you!

 They didn’t merely close it because it was losing money. They seemed to have murdered it out of greed and vengeance.

But wait. I'm confused. Haven't we been told for decades by conservatives that "greed is good?"

John Podhoretz, one of the magazine’s founders. . . 

Oh, speaking of people with careers they don't deserve. John Podhoretz, of whom no one would ever have heard had his father not been Norman Podhoretz


I mean, for God's sake, the Weekly Standard was founded by John Podhoretz and Bill Kristol, of whom no one would ever have heard had not his father been Irving Kristol.

John Podhoretz, one of the magazine’s founders, reports that they actively prevented potential buyers from coming in to take it over and keep it alive. They apparently wanted to hurt the employees and harvest the subscription list so they could make money off it. And Anschutz, being a professing Christian, decided to close the magazine at the height of the Christmas season, and so cause maximum pain to his former employees and their families.

Wow, I know I'm getting older and I guess my memory must be failing because for some reason I can not remember David Brooks taking this kind of umbrage when vulture capitalists in the throws of greed shut down Toys R Us or Sears throwing scores of hard-working Americans out of work.I mean, surely he must have felt the same righteous anger about privat equity firms taking over companies, stripping the assets and shuttering the facilities, sending all the employees to the unemployment line, right?

I took a second to look up what, for instance, Brooks had to say about Bain Capital back in 2012. Oh, it was scathing all right!

Private equity firms are not lovable, but they forced a renaissance that revived American capitalism.

Forty years ago, corporate America was bloated, sluggish and losing ground to competitors in Japan and beyond. But then something astonishing happened. Financiers, private equity firms and bare-knuckled corporate executives initiated a series of reforms and transformations.

The process was brutal and involved streamlining and layoffs. But, at the end of it, American businesses emerged leaner, quicker and more efficient.

when private equity firms acquire a company, jobs are lost in old operations. Jobs are created in new, promising operations. The overall effect on employment is modest.

Also, these guys are not going to feel any pain from this. They will just move on to a different wingnut welfare hustle. They'll all end up at the American Enterprise Institute or Americans for Prosperity or they'll be writing for Breitbart or FOX. Meanwhile, those who just lost their jobs at Sears will struggle mightily with no concern from David Brooks or any of the gravy-sucking pigs who once wrote for the WS.

The closing of The Weekly Standard is being told as a Trump story, as all stories must be these days. The magazine has been critical of Trump, and so this is another example of the gradual hegemony of Trumpism over the conservative world. That is indeed the backdrop to what happened here.

Oh wow. I'm really shocked here. I was sure you were going to take personal responsibility here!

 But of course. Of course, it's Trump's fault. Not the scapegoat I was expecting you to choose, but of course it couldn't be the WS crew's own fault. It must have been some nefarious outside force!

 In reality, this is what happens when corporate drones take over an opinion magazine, try to drag it down to their level and then grow angry and resentful when the people at the magazine try to maintain some sense of intellectual standards. 

Ahahahahaha!! "Intellectual standards!" Ahahahahahaha!!


Intellectual standards at the Weekly Standard!

This is what happens when people with a populist mind-set decide that an uneducated opinion is of the same value as an educated opinion, that ignorance sells better than learning.

Oh my God! A conservative decrying anti-intellectualism!
The people who take it as an article of faith that 99% of the world's scientists are full of shit about climate change suddenly have a problem with uneducated opinions being elevated to the same level as educated ones!

Look familiar, Dave?

In that sense, the closing of The Standard resembles Chris Hughes’s destruction of the old New Republic. This is what happens when the commercial forces trying to dumb down the American media run into a pocket of people trying to resist those forces.

Oh my God, are you serious? Who has tried to dumb down America more than conservative media in general and the WS specifically? (Okay, FOX has.)

Remember their shameless promotion of  the proudly ignorant dullard Sarah Palin?

here's what WS founding member Fred Barnes said about the empty-headed epitome of anti-intellectualism:

 If McCain loses, Palin will be the hope of the future. If he wins, she'll actually be the future.

And here's Mr. always wrong about everything, Bill Kristol:

Palin is potentially a huge asset to McCain. He took the gamble — wisely, we think — of putting her on the ticket. McCain's choice of Palin was McCain being McCain. Now his campaign will have to let Palin be Palin.

And you're going to sit there with a straight face and pretend that the WS was some bulwark against the "dumbng down" of American media?

 

Pictured: the Weekly Standard valuing education

The Standard was conservative, but it frequently dissented from the Republican establishment and delighted in modern pop culture. 

Frequently dissented when the Republican establishment wasn't being stupidly right-wing enough.

 The staff was never unanimous about anything. The many flavors of conservatism were hashed out in its pages.

   

Ah, the many flavors of conservatism!

If it stood for anything, I would say it stood for this: that the good life consists of being an active citizen and caring passionately about politics; that it also consists of knowing something about Latin American fiction, ancient Greek culture and social impact of modern genetics; that it also consists of delighting in the latest good movies and TV shows, the best new cocktails and the casual pleasures of life.

If it stood for anything, it stood for war-mongering, misinformation and proud stupidity.


Also, it's not much of an endorsement of your magazine if you have to start with "If it stood for anything. . ."

Over the past year, under the editorship of Steve Hayes, the magazine was as good as it ever was.

This shoe is every bit as delicious as it has ever been.

Over the past few years, if all the stories are correct, McKibben tried to change the tone of the magazine. He tried to get The Standard to hire highly partisan shock-jock screamers. He tried to tilt it more in the direction of a Republican direct mail fund-raising letter. 

So. . . he tried to make it profitable?
He tried to make it viable?
He tried to make it into something that the mouth-breathing knuckle draggers that make up the conservative "movement" might actually be willing to read?

When these efforts were blocked, resentment flared and the ax fell.

When they refused to give up the veneer of faux-urbanity, when they refused the owner's orders to try to make their rag into something that might attract an audience, they were let go? Is that what we're going with here? Because if we go with that, with your take on the shuttering of the Standard, there would be zero justification for NOT shutting it down. It lost money hand over fist, the owner who, by capitalist principles, has the absolute right to do whatever he wants with his property, introduces ideas in an attempt to make it profitable. Those ideas are rebuffed by his employees in a fit of insubordination and so the owner stops paying for their make-work jobs. That's capitalism, Dave!




The Standard is now gone, but the people and ideas The Standard nurtured will continue to flourish.



I'm not sure what "ideas" you think came from the WS that will continue to "flourish," but if you want to know what your rag's legacy will be, it is this. The illegal, immoral, ill-advised and ill-planned invasion and occupation of Iraq. About a million dead Iraqis, a few thousand dead Americans, countless thousands wounded, maimed, and without homes. Countless widows and orphans. That's your legacy. That was what you agitated for and cheer-led. That is what you sold with lies about supposed WMDs and the non-existent linkage between Sadam Hussein and Al Qeda.

Jon Schwarz has collected a few of your more egregious articles  here.

I've picked out a couple of highlights.

“The Iraqi threat is enormous,” Robert Kagan and Kristol wrote at the beginning of 2002. “It gets bigger with every day that passes. … If too many months go by without a decision to move against Saddam, the risks to the United States may increase exponentially.”


OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta

Neither of these statements was true. Either the WS writers who penned these were incredibly stupid, naive and gullible, or they were lying shamelessly, knowing that their lies were likely to lead to a vicious bloodbath. Either way, it's a hell of a legacy. I can certainly see why Brooks would mourn the passing of this noble publication.

The stupidest thing I've read in a while

Man, oh man. In the last couple of days I have seen some spectacularly stupid nonsense come across my Twitter feed. And not form random weirdos either. From people with actual platforms and followings. people like Matthew Yglesias:

AOC should run for president and dare the Supreme Court to stop her imo. https://t.co/TSviLpL1qJ

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 12, 2018

Seriously? No. For so many reasons. Well, two anyway. I love Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (not in a romantic way, Shmoopie.) She's awesome. But she has never held any elected office. What happened the last time a political neophyte became president? Gosh, I remember it like it was yesterday, some blowhard with no political experience got himself accidentally elected President. . . how did that work out again?
Also, the Constitution is perfectly clear on this point. There is a minimum age for the presidency. And you could certainly make a good case for changing that rule, but the rule is pretty much set in stone. The court would absolutely rule 9-0 against her. All you'd be doing is provoking a completely unnecessary constitutional crisis and that seems like the last thing we need about now.

So let's see what the logic is here:

It’s ridiculous that it’s unconstitutional for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for president

Immigrants, young people, and everyone else should be allowed to run.

By Matthew Yglesias@mattyglesiasmatt@vox.com  Dec 12, 2018, 8:30am EST

Okay, no argument here. But that's like saying that it's ridiculous that I'm not allowed to buy a kilo of coke. You might have a point, but if I decide to go out and buy the coke, I'm gonna go to prison. (Because, let's face it, there's no way I wouldn't get caught.)


Okay, so he talks about how AOC is a rising star in the Democratic party and how maybe having a doddering, senile old syphilitic in the Oval Office isn't such a hot idea either, and he's right on both counts, but so fucking what? The law is still the law.

Then he gets into why he thinks that AOC should defy the Constitution and run for the highest office in the land even though she is constitutionally ineligible to hold that office.

AOC should run for president

One good sign that AOC should run for president is that she has a nickname — AOC.

I know, I know, but I love this gif.

A nickname.

I got nothing. How do you even respond to a statement like that?

A House Democratic staffer told me the other day that “ACO” was a good example of something, and I knew exactly who she meant despite the error because there aren’t any other members of Congress who have widely recognized nicknames that you would just drop into casual conversation.

Well, Robert O'Rourke does. Maybe you've noticed people referring to him as "Beto?"

Is having a nickname a sign that you would exercise good judgment in the Oval Office? Absolutely not. But it’s proof positive that she’s an honest-to-goodness political superstar, and it’s clear that’s what many Democrats are looking for in 2020. They are seeking an antidote to Trump’s magnetic stage presence and ability to command attention, and she has that in greater quantities than anyone else in the field — certainly more so than Beto O’Rourke, a similarly experience-light candidate whom many Democratic operatives are pushing in a quest to capture some Bright Young Thing magic.

Wait, Beto O'Rourke is "similarly experience-light?" What do you think the word "similarly" means? O'Rourke is a three-term Congressman. AOC has exactly zero office-holding experience. It's  two completely different situations.

 Of course, she’s too left-wing for some and would need to demonstrate an ability to staff up and run a big operation while getting up to speed on the dozens of random issues that get tossed your way over the course of a national campaign. But that’s what campaigns are for!

NO. That's what spending a couple terms in the House, maybe a little time in the Senate is for. To "get up to speed" on the myriad of complex issues that would confront a President. You can't just pick that up WHILE running a Presidential campaign.

It’s silly to arbitrarily rule out one of the most talented players due to age, and tragically non-obvious that political star power can actually last for years and years without dimming. 

Wait. Are you trying to say that it IS obvious that star power can NOT last for years without dimming? "Cuz it looks like that's what you're trying to say, but that is NOT what you're saying. You're saying that political star power CAN  actually last for years and years without dimming, but that fact is not obvious. Are there editors at Vox?

We should fix the Constitution ASAP

Not so long ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger cut a kind of vaguely Trumpish figure in California politics.

He was a Republican in the sense of stridently opposing the course the Democratic Party had taken the state on, but not a loyalist member of the conservative movement. 

No. He was not "a Republican in the sense of . . ." He was a Republican. He was a Republican in the sense of he was a member of the Republican Party (Probably still is.) He was a Republican before he left Austria. He famously told the story of seeing Nixon on TV, asking what party Nixon belonged to and then decalaring "then I am a Rrepublican."  Just because he isn't a goddamm lunatic doesn't mean he's not a Republican.

Had he run for president in 2012, he probably would have lost badly in the primaries on the grounds of not being right-wing enough.

Okay, couple of things. First of all, he would never have run for president in 2012 because he has some respect for the Constitution. And who did win the Republican primary that year? Mitt Romney. Hardly a rabid fire-breathing right-winger. He instituted Obamacare in Massachussetts, for God's sake. Schwarzenegger would have lost the primary because he would have been ineligible to hold the office.
Also, by 2012, he had a track record and you really weren't hearing"Amend it for Arnold" so much anymore.

But, of course, he didn’t run and we never got a glimpse of what a run would look like because immigrants, like 20-somethings, are constitutionally barred from serving. At the time this was in the news, almost nobody actually defended the prohibition (because it’s ridiculous), but nobody in politics lifted a finger to do anything about it. In part, that was laziness, but in part, it was too clear any change would specifically benefit Schwarzenegger — something neither Democrats nor right-wingers really wanted to do.

Seriously? Laziness? No one lifetd a finger to change this provision because a: we are a deeply jingoistic country, and b: no one was excited about Arnold anymore.
And by the way, amending the Constitution is absurdly difficult. We couldn't even get enough states to ratify an amendment stating that women should not be second-class citizens. You think the Bible-belt rubes who fought that are going to go along with throwing open the White House doors to some dang furriner? I mean, next thing you know, you'd have some dude being President who was born in Kenya or some shit.

That simply illustrates the cost of waiting to fix a constitutional problem until it’s “relevant” — once it’s relevant, people have a way of finding reasons to stick by even bad principles. The process of amending the Constitution is extremely cumbersome, requiring both supermajorities in Congress and ratification by a staggering 75 percent of the states. But there’s no time like the present to start working to abolish arbitrary qualifications and letting any eligible voter run for president any time he or she wants to.

Wait that's it? That's the end of the article? I mean, you laid out  your case ( a weak, silly case, but a case nonetheless) for changing the Constitution to allow AOC to run, but you've presented nothing to support the idea that even though she is Constitutionally ineligible to serve as President, she should run anyway and "dare the Supreme Court to stop her." Not a single word about how that would even work. Nothing to suggest that it would even be possible. Just your wish that the rules were different. What a waste of time!


Speaking of time, I was going to write about a couple other extremely stupid things I saw these last couple of days, but this one took too long. I'll try to remember to get to them tomorrow.

The all-time worst Christmas song

Okay, I'm back.

Actually, I've been back for a while, but I've been sick. Apparently, the American flu shot doesn't work in Spain because I guess their viruses are metric or something? Any way, mission accomplished. I don't know whether you noticed, but Dec. 5th came and went and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are still walking around free. You're welcome.We had to sacrifice Poppy Bush, but it was worth it.

Anyway, since returning to the States, I think I have discovered the absolute worst Christmas song of all time. I know, we've done our fair share of complaining about Christmas music in the past ( Like here. And here.  Also here.  And probably here. ) but this is the all-time winner. Ladies and gentleman, I present to you. . .



. . . "Dearest Santa."




Dearest Santa tells the story of a young orphan boy who wants only one thing for Christmas. A family. The one thing he wants is a family and a home of his own - two things. The two things this poor child wants is a home of his own, a mother and a father. The three things he wants. . . All he wants is a family. Which is really sad.

But wait.

All this poor kid wants is a family AND HE DOESN'T GET IT!

How is that possible in a Christmas song?
Shouldn't everyone get what they want in a Christmas song?

here are the lyrics:

Would you listen and lend an ear
'Cause I only come around once a year?
And this is for a very special cause
My name is Santa Claus
One Christmas Eve, I visited a home
Where children lived who've no home of their own
And though I brought them gifts galore
This is what one asked me for...
"Dearest Santa, I don't want toys
Or choo-choo trains with lots of noise
I want a home like other boys
Christmas day
"Dearest Santa, I will be
Just as good as I can be
If you'll give me a family
Christmas day
"I'm so lonesome, I'm so blue
Is there somethin' you can do? oh...
"Please, dear Santa, don't ignore
This little boy who's begging for
A mother whom he'll just adore
Christmas day
"I would be so proud and glad
If I could just say, 'Meet my dad,' so...
"Please, dear Santa, heed my quest
And tell them I'll behave my best
That if they'd take me, they'll be blessed
Christmas day."

And that's it! There's no final verse where Santa hooks him up with a sweet mew pair of parents,. No coda where Santa adopts the kid himself. There's not even a little addendum at the end where Santa encourages the listeners to consider adopting lonely orphans. It's just Santa relating the story of a poor sad little boy begging him for parents and Santa not doing shit to help him.I mean, does Santa think he comes off as the good guy in this story?

And this kid is begging. He is groveling. He has zero dignity, and nothing good happens for him. The song ends where it begins, with this poor kid pining away in the orphanage. Merry Christmas, everybody - life is a cruel joke and no one is coming to save you! Ho ho ho!!!

Hiatus

The Daily Irritant will be dark the rest of the month as we go deep undercover on an overseas assignment. It's all very hush-hush, need-to-know kinda stuff. I'd love to discuss it here, but I doubt any of you have the necessary security clearance. Anyway, we should be back in business the first week of December. Until then, here's a cute puppy.



.


via GIPHY

I Guess I was Wrong About the Elections

I guess I completely misunderstood what happened Tuesday night. Because this was in today's New York Times:

The Midterm Results Are a Warning to the Democrats

Huh! That's weird. Here I thought they had re-taken the House and taken a few governorships that had been held by Republicans, but I must have misunderstood somehow.

Stop manning imaginary barricades, and start building real bridges to the other America.

By Bret Stephens

Opinion Columnist

Oh, right. We forgot to build bridges to the "other America." You know, the "real" America. I keep forgetting that after every election, whether we win lose or draw it is always our responsibility - nay, our moral imperative, to reach out to the racist rubes of the heartlands who despise us and try to find common ground with them. They, of course, are under no such obligation.

For months we’ve heard from sundry media apocalypticians that this year’s midterms were the last exit off the road to autocracy. On Tuesday, the American people delivered a less dramatic verdict about the significance of the occasion.

In a word: meh.

Ah! Now I get it. See, here I was thinking that the Democrats had managed to retake the House of Representatives despite the map being ridiculously gerrymandered to favor the GOP and that that would put them in a position to be a check on the President's power. But, see, I was wrong because. . . um. . . because "meh?"

Are you interested in seeing Donald Trump voted out of office in two years? I hope so — which is why you should think hard about that “meh.” This week’s elections were, at most, a very modest rebuke of a president reviled by many of his opponents, this columnist included, as an unprecedented danger to the health of liberal democracy at home and abroad. The American people don’t entirely agree

A very modest rebuke.
I mean, okay, we didn't vote to have him tarred and feathered. I guess that would have been a less modest rebuke. But I guess that we failed to win Senate seats in such easily winnable states as Texas, North Dakota and Indiana means we must have done something wrong.

The American people don’t entirely agree.

We might consider listening to them a bit more — and to ourselves somewhat less.

Okay, first of all, there is no "ourselves." You're not one of us. Do not group yourself in with us. You're a climate-denying Wall Street Journal opinion page alum who thinks that because he doesn't like Trump, we're supposed to hail you as some sort of #Resistance hero.

Secondly, No. No I don't think we should listen to the people who like Donald Trump. There are more of us than there are of them. We should outvote them and pay no attention to their bullshit opinions or feelings. The fact that they are okay with this pussy-grabbing two-bit Franco is reason enough to never engage with them. They have nothing of value to say.

Hmm, maybe we should hear them out?

The 28-seat swing that gave Democrats control of the House wasn’t even half the 63 seats Republicans won in 2010. Yet even that shellacking (to use Barack Obama’s word) did nothing to help Mitt Romney’s chances two years later. 

Yeah, because that's not how elections work. Winning a bunch of Congressional seats doesn't give you any points toward your Presidential vote total.

Also, Barack Obama was, hoiw shall I put this. . . a POPULAR president. People liked him. People still like him. Very few people liked Mitt Romney. Even fewer can stand the sight of Cheeto Mussolini. There is no parallel to be drawn between 2012 and 2020.

It also underscores that while “the Resistance” is good at generating lots of votes, it hasn’t figured out how to turn the votes into seats. 

Right. If only the "resistance" had the good sense to go into these states controlled by Republican ratfuckers and undo the gerrymandering that the GOP has perfected over the last few decades.

Liberals are free to bellyache all they want that they have repeatedly won the overall popular vote for the presidency and Congress while still losing elections, and that the system is therefore “rigged.”

Oh. right. because the system is totally not rigged. The Founding Fathers totally didn't set up the electoral college and the Senate specifically to thwart the will of the majority by ensuring that low-population rural (slaveholding) states would have outsized representation. Of course not. And the fact that two of our last three presidents were elected despite getting fewer votes is totally not an indictment of our so-called representative form of government. And the fact that both of these presidents were right-wing Republicans is probably just a coincidence.  And it's perfectly fine that states with smaller populations than the city of Los Angeles get the same number of Senators as California, New York or Texas. that obviously makes perfect sense. And the fact that Republican gerrymandering has led to a situation where one party gets a million more votes for Congressmen but the other party gets more Congressmen is clearly a sign of a healthy democracy, not of the system being "rigged" to favor one party over the other!

But that’s the system in which everyone’s playing — and one they had no trouble winning in until just a few years ago. To complain about it makes them sound like whiners in a manner reminiscent of Trump in 2016, when he thought he was going to lose. It’s also a reminder that, in politics, intensity is not strategy. You have to be able to convert.

The Resistance didn’t convert.

Right. I mean, other than taking control of one of the two chambers of Congress, the only two parts of the federal government that were available to be won. Other than that, no converting. Well, that and flipping statehouses in Colorado, Maine and New York.
Oh, and Minnesota and New Hampshire.
 And Connecticut.
But other than that, they completely failed to convert. They converted nothing except re-taking the House and those seven state legislatures.

Oh, and the governorship of Illinois.
And Wisconsin.
And Michigan.
And Kansas (KANSAS!) and Maine and Nevada and New Mexico.
Other than that, they just weren't able to convert!

I don't know how I didn't realize that yesterday!

It didn’t convert when it nominated left-wing candidates in right-leaning states like Florida and Georgia.

Yes. Absolutely. I mean, assuming that you have no real concept of the meaning of the term "left-wing."

I mean, last time, Georgia Democrats nominated the moderate centrist daughter of  a long-time Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, and she came within 8 percentage points of winning. This year, they nominated "left-wing" progressive Stacey Abrams, and how much did she get creamed by? I forget. let me Google that real quickly. . .

50.3%

1,973,121

Brian Kemp

REP

48.7%

1,910,398

Stacey Abrams

DEM

0.9%

37,089

Ted Metz

LIB

Source: The Associated Press. 

Feedback

Oh yeah, What a blunder!

If only she had been a bit less "Left-wing" she surely could have won as an African American female Democrat in a Confederate state that hasn't elected a Democrat to the governorship since 1999. And in which her opponent also served as secretary of state overseeing the election process. Clearly it was her "left-wingedness" that was the culprit here!

It didn’t convert when it grew more concerned with the question of how much Trump did not pay in taxes than with the question of how much you pay in taxes.

Yes. Exactly. Everywhere you went, you heard Democrats talking about Trump's tax payments or lack thereof. Oh, the television was just full of political ads wherein Democrats complained about Trump not paying enough taxes. That totally happened in real life.

Also, tax "relief" should totally be a winning issue for Democrats. People who vote based on their perception that their taxes are too high can easily be convinced to vote democrat. I mean, it's not as if they thought that Barack Obama had actually raised their taxes when he hadn't. Right?

It didn’t convert when Chuck Schumer chose to make Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court the decisive political test of the year. 

Yeah. What a huge mistake to oppose the nomination of a drunken sexual predator to the nation's highest court. What were they thinking? People love drunken sexual predators!

Although. . .

By championing Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump and the Senate GOP have successfully accelerated a female exodus to the Democratic Party on the cusp of the first national elections of the #MeToo era. The latest Fox News poll, released on Sunday, says that burgeoning opposition to Kavanaugh is being driven by suburban women, who believe Christine Blasey Ford over Kavanaugh by a margin of 17 percentage points. The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll says that opposition to Kavanaugh is notably driven by women over the age of 50. 

 It didn’t convert when it turned his initial confirmation hearing into a circus. It didn’t convert when media liberals repeatedly violated ordinary journalistic standards by reporting the uncorroborated accusations against Kavanaugh that followed Christine Blasey Ford’s.

A circus. Yes, that's what it was. A circus. Democrats objected to confirming the drunken sexual predator without at least hearing testimony from one of his accusers. Send in the clowns! And those reporters! Reporting things! Don't get me started on the reporters reporting uncorroborated accusations against Kavannaugh! Why, they breathlessly repeated all manner of claims about him murdering Seth Rich and Murdering Vince Foster, and Telling the Marine Corps to let Americans get killed in Benghazi and molesting children in a pizzeria! Oh, those darn liberals always repeating these unfounded accusations!

It doesn’t take a lot to get the average voter to tell you what he doesn’t like about Donald Trump: the nastiness, the divisiveness, the lying, the tweeting, the chaos, the epic boastfulness matched by bottomless self-pity. . .

Then again, what does the average voter think about the people who pompously style themselves “the Resistance”? 

Yes, if any of the hashtag resistance army had actually been on the ballot, that would certainly have been an issue! Good point!

Then again, what does the average voter think about the people who pompously style themselves “the Resistance”? I don’t just mean the antifa thugs and restaurant hecklers and the Farrakhan Fan Club wing of the women’s movement, though that’s a part of it.

Are you referring to the Luis Farrakhan who endorses Donald Trump? Is that the Farrakhan who has a "fan club" within the women's movement? I mean, if you say he does, I'm sure he does, I'm sure you're not being a spurious, disingenuous shit-weasel or anything.
Although, I gotta say, I think most normal people enjoy seeing Nazis get punched, so maybe the atifa "thugs" aren't such a huge problem?

Yup! Still funny!

I mean the rest of the Trump despisers, the people who detest not only the man but also contemn his voters (and constantly let them know it); the ones who heard the words “basket of deplorables” and said to themselves: Bingo. They measure their moral worth not through an effort at understanding but by the intensity of their disdain. They are — so they think — always right, yet often surprised by events.

Yeah. Why can't you jerks be more respectful of Trump's supporters? They certainly respect your right to your own views. It's not like they would ever call you "deplorable." Sure, they might call you "libtard" or "cuck" or "soy-boy." But never deplorable!

Oh, and if you're a woman they might call you a b*tch or a c*nt. Or if you're Jewish, they might call you "oven-ready" but never "deplorable!"

Remember, as a left-of-center person it is YOUR responsibility to reach out to the other side with friendship and respect no matter how much they despise you. It is never ever their responsibility to try and understand you or find common ground with you. Even though there is no olive branch that you can ever offer these people that they won't slap out of your hand and accuse you of trying to hit them with, always remember that it is YOUR job to understand where THEY are coming from and not the other way around.

            

I was a charter member of this camp. 

[ Ron Howard voice: "He was not a charter member of this camp." ]

Intellectual honesty ought to compel us to admit that we achieved precisely the opposite of what we intended. Trumpism is more entrenched today than ever. The result of the midterms means, if nothing else, that the president survived his first major political test more than adequately. And unless Democrats change, he should be seen as the odds-on favorite to win in 2020.

So, in conclusion: Democrats winning is bad for the Democrats. Having nearly every candidate that Trump endorsed lose is a sign of Trump's electoral state. War is peace, freedom is slavery. And if you, like I did, thought that the Democrats had done pretty well in these midterms, well you obviously don't understand politics.