For what it’s worth, the eloquent George Will lets Trump have it good and hard (anyone remember when conservatives hated moral equivalency arguments?):
by his embrace of Putin, and by postulating a slanderous moral equivalence — Putin kills journalists, the United States kills terrorists, what’s the big deal, or the difference? — Trump has forced conservatives to recognize their immediate priority.
Fortunately or not, I don’t need to recognize my immediate priority, as I’m not a conservative. The latest crop of Republican candidates all make me hold my nose to different degrees, although I was amused by P.J. O’Rourke’s hilariously tepid “defense” of Marco Rubio.
Politics could not possibly be more depressing. What else can I say? Hillary is a dreadful candidate and would be a dreadful president. She is vulnerable, as the country is ready for a change.
The Republicans could be offering the voters a palatable alternative if they were living in the real world instead of having to kowtow to an echo chamber of social conservatives with whom and without whom they cannot win.
UPDATE: Many thanks to Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit for the link, and a warm welcome to all!
Comments
44 responses to “So depressing it’s almost funny”
republican alterinive poison minority children with drinking water full of lead like governor snyder did in flint michigan.
Who in their right mind would want to run as a Republican? They’re going to be dragged through the mud, attacked, defamed, maligned, smeared and slandered by the press, and possibly by their own side. Why would anyone want the grief?
Meanwhile, looks like Cruz is being written out of the socons for being insufficiently hysterical about gay marriage.
I wish we had truly Republican and Democratic parties to contest the issues, instead of a socialist party and a radical Marxist party.
Zonetard once again demonstrates his lumpen, illiterate, incoherent and deracinated Manicheanism.
wow. still censoring the s word. sosoism or whatever
Another post down the memory hole.
Actually, a Hilary win in 2016 might not be so bad. She is brain-damaged and infirm and would not be either mentally or physically (and maybe psychologically) able to perform her duties. Bill would obviously (and secretly) takeover the Presidency, a la Wilson’s wife, and we might actually have competent leadership.
Huma Abedin would be Bill’s bitch, too.
S-word? Meaning socialism? Let me try leaving this comment.
MMM I see what happened now. Your comment went directly into trash (not spam), for reasons unknown. I resurrected it.
BTW, the socons may have noticed that Cruz has (gulp) gay friends!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/politics/at-new-york-reception-ted-cruz-is-said-to-strike-different-tone-toward-gays.html?_r=1
[MMM: Once a month or so one of my comments will disappear into the ether. HTML usage? Length? IDK.]
David Goldman’s column on Cruz vs. the neocons over at PJ media:
Queen Cacklepants the warmonger:
who would want to run as a republiscum? I agree! evil vile racist ayn randist sociopaths don’t like this pointed out. who is john gault? william edward hickman thats who!
Thanks Eric.
Interesting thing about Reagan, he talked religious conservative, and he thoroughly co-opted the religious right vote, but he didn’t do anything particularly religious right in office. Didn’t even go to church much that anyone noticed, unlike Bill Clinton, who held a weekly photo op toting his pet Bible into whichever church was blessed with his Presence this time.
I doubt Bill will do much presidenting under Hilary, he’ll just have more free time for chasing intern internals.
Who is Hagbard Celine? And who, in the modern Republican party even resembles a Randian? Other than Rand Paul, anyway.
And, since Rand was brought up:
What is it about non Euclidean geometry with you people, anyway?
The Soc ial ism ban is because the word “cia lis” is in it – a very common spam drug.
man mole hill a more interesting thing about reagan is that he and bill casey committed high treason with iran to hold american hostage to win the1980 election. that was the iran part of iran contra. the contra part was ollie north and eden pastore having the cia sell dope to black school children to fund their illegal war in nicuragua. that was the secret source of funding the contra war bill casey talked about.
Water full of lead is a very bad idea. Lead can cause brain damage and places with high concentrations of lead frequently vote for Democrats.
Just as Commodus’ vices and excesses led directly to the murder of his worthy successor Pertinax and less directly to the terrible nature of the reign of Caracalla, so Trump is the natural result of Obama’s seven years of debasement of the Republic and its ideals.
When virtue is no longer respected as the product of merit and value but rather of race or gender or class, what else can be expected than the rise of another thoughtless invoker of such notions? The Democrat media’s horror at the funhouse reflection of their anointed can be no less fitting than it is tragic.
Why are the “evil vile racist ayn randist sociopaths” any worse than the evil vile racist Woodrow Wilsonian sociopaths?
George Will a conservative?, Stop it! I lost half a lung to cancer a few years ago and can’t handle the hysterics.
Our two-party system functioned better when both parties had their conservative, liberal, and moderate factions. Then both could stay more or less with the majority of the voters and argue just the points in immediate contention or reward success and punish failure in office. The long ideological realignment over the last half-century has eliminated the political middle as a major power center.
The current situation in the Republican party has nothing to do with social conservatism. Funny. You are as tone deaf as the Establishment.
Amen, teapartydoc. People who claim that the Republican Party is obsessed with social issues, haven’t talked to a Republican in years. The big worries are debt, overspending, govt dependency, unassimalated immigrants, military weakness, etc.
The social issues boogeyman is a creation of the left to hammer the right.
I guess the “Classical Values” blog finds traditional marriage and letting babies be born unpalatable. That’s all one can take from its sneer at social conservatism.
Those are some nice ‘classical values’ – ones Bill Maher and Lena Dunham share.
Have to agree with Mark, since when did even basic “socon” values such as protecting babies become an object of scorn?
I’m somewhat agnostic on gay marriage as well as legalized weed, but abortion? Come on, what classical value supports such a heinous crime?
Was this post about abortion? Who knew? As to those who think I’m against traditional marriage and allowing babies to be born, I’m utterly intrigued by such insights. Sheesh!
FWIW, the last time I discussed abortion was in this post:
http://classicalvalues.com/2015/08/privacy-is-getting-ever-more-confusing/
While I didn’t label George Will a “conservative,” I take it some of the guardians of that identity are highly sensitive to even hints that he might be. (Any microaggression against conservative hypersensitivity was inadvertent on my part.)
Those who think Will is too much of a flaming liberal to criticize Trump might consider reading this:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423397/donald-trump-supporters-discarded-conservative-principles?tLWHQz2TSUbRAWgi.01
“The Republicans could be offering the voters a palatable alternative if they were living in the real world instead of having to kowtow to an echo chamber of social conservatives with whom and without whom they cannot win.”
Wow, that’s certainly not what I’m seeing.
What palatable alternative are you thinking of? So far, all I’m hearing is more amnesty for illegal immigrants, an quadrupling of 1-B visas to bring in more lower-cost engineers, a continued war on coal, more government support for climate change legislation (damaging to the economy and a false answer, besides) and “alternative” energy (which, the math continues shows is impossible to reach under current technology), and continued government encroachment into areas beyond what our lawmakers have laid down (such as those by the EPA, IRS, and FCC).
Again, tell us. Don’t bother slandering social conservatives and offer unnamed “palatable alternatives.” Put up.
Finally read the PJ O’Rourke piece. He’s really lost his funny.
Neither Trump nor Hillary tried to murder their mothers with a hammer. Isn’t that enough?
If this is the world that the GOPe is offering us, then I am one of the men who just wants to watch the “world” burn.
Trump/Cruz 2016.
How is it “slandering social conservatives” to opine that socially conservative candidates are unpalatable to a majority of voters? I might be right and I might be wrong, but I don’t see how such an opinion is slander.
As to “palatable alternatives,” the polls show Rubio as the only candidate beating HRC in hypothetical one-on-one polling, but he is not palatable to the GOP primary voters so he won’t be the candidate.
I’m hardly a Rubio man, though. I’d much prefer someone like Gary Johnson. Running as a Republican, he won the governorship of a solid Democrat state twice but he left the GOP. Which IMO was too bad.
social conservatives tea baggers trump storm troopers attention! romney got 61% of white voters sames as reagan. most whites around you agree with you. here is your problem romney needed 65% of white votes to have won. the next republiscum will need 67% of whites to win in 2016. these are mostly single women. they are ungetable with the republican ignorant white trash philosophy or ayn randist free market drivel. only 36% of voters voted in 2014 and only one democrat senator lost his seat in a state that voted for obama and that state colorado has introduced vote by mail. no democrat presidential candidate has lost a state with vote by mail and now democratic states are adopting universal citizen registration (not illegal alien voting racists) no republiscum will ever win the popular vote again!
There is a huge disconnect — a widening gap — between activists (generally passionate about politics) and the majority of people who actually vote (but who are mainly busy with living their lives). In theory (and ironically), the latter are the ones who most matter in a democracy.
I don’t think it is healthy to have a huge gap between those who want to tell people what to do and and ordinary people who want to be left alone.
My darker thoughts keep drifting to the period just before the Spanish Civil War.
A similar pattern can be seen with Muslims.
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2015/12/27/One-nation-under-Allah-long-before-Donald-Trump-demonized-Muslims/stories/201512270027
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/12/24/limbaugh-islam-is-a-conquest-ideology-not-even-a-religion/
Protecting babies in the way social conservatives generally conceive (heh) that issue requires making women of child bearing age intrinsically subjects of State power.
Why not just convince women to not have abortions?
========================
Corollary: What ever law you conceive will require enforcers.
the best way to have less abortion is to stop punishing women on child welfare. I know that is not fun for conservatives who want to make it illegal for women to have an abortion and end welfare so the babies starve to death after they are born. rubio and bush passed a law in florida that worn had to advertise their sex lives before they could give their babies up for adoption. michigan governor snyder is concerned about the unborn but its ok to poison them with lead after they are born though the lead would effect the unborn.
This column sounds excessively depressed to me. I think Cruz would make an excellent candidate. He shows more respect for the constitution than anybody else, other than possibly Rand Paul. Rubeo would be reasonable, and even Trump would be vastly better than Hillary.
where is the foreign born cruz going to get the votes to beat hillary? since both are political opportunists their is no reason for the bases to change sides and democratic base is larger and getting even larger as 100,000 minority AMERICAN CITIZEN kids turn 18 every month and 20,000 republicans die off each month. also blue states are going to universal registration of its american citizens living in their states most of which will vote democrat.
They’re ALL better than Hillary. I have been holding my nose and voting Republican for years and will continue to do so. The point, though, is whether they can beat her.
Better to ask what could be worse than Hillary?
man molehill any republiscum is worse then hillary!
Eric – Would you really rather have Trump, Carson, or Cruz in the White House than Hillary? Admittedly, it is a depressing choice, but Hillary isn’t crazy or a loose cannon. – And Hillary didn’t try to murder her mother with a hammer.
Chocolatier,
Loose cannons do better at foreign policy.
The attitude is, “Be careful, he might do something nuts.”
That was how his opponents viewed Reagan. He was quite successful in foreign policy.
how did that work out for dubya simon? and did you forget iran contra or the killing of the marines in lebenon. by the way the cental american children are coming from reagan’s drug selling stooge states el salvador honduras and guatamala not nicuragua that defeated ollie north and reagan.
Unlike Reagan or Nixon, W never convinced foreign leaders he was insane, just a bit of a thicky.
If you think that Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, or George W. Bush were loose cannons, you don’t understand the meaning of the term. A loose cannon is a person who is completely unpredictable and out of control, a person who disregards legal constraints. Douglas MacArthur was a loose cannon. He did what he thought was right, regardless of orders from superior officers or the president.