Erick Erickson, former NeverTrumper, has a change of heart
Never say “never”?
This week in 2016, I declared I would be “Never Trump.” A friend suggested I use a hashtag that had started circulating on Twitter, i.e #NeverTrump. The piece exploded and pushed me into a whirlwind of coverage. Despite lots of pressure, protestors literally on my front porch, and harassment directed towards my family, I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. I voted third party.
Some of my concerns about President Trump remain. I still struggle on the character issue and I understand Christian friends who would rather sit it out than get involved. But I also recognize that we cannot have the Trump Administration policies without President Trump and there is much to like…
…In 2016, we knew who the Democrats were and were not sure of who Donald Trump was. Now we know both and I prefer this President to the alternative.
Again, “NeverTrump” has been a persuasion with little popular resonance. Maybe 4% of the GOP electorate, if that. Its prevalence among opinion journalists has been an indicator that there was a crevasse between the Republican commentariat and Republican voters just like the crevasse between the Republican congressional caucus and Republican voters. What’s been happening is that the NeverTrump coterie has been self-sorting, with most deciding to assess the administration issue-by-issue and a minority making themselves an appendix to the liberal commentariat. That leaves a handful in the ‘muh prinicples’ camp who are increasingly twee and repetitive. (David French, I’m looking at you).
I’ll be interested to see how many more come to the same conclusion as Erickson. I know some people who voted third party in 2016 because they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Trump.
Makes sense. So much of what comes out liberals’ mouths is so steeped in hatred, but since they think they are right, they think their hatred and bigotry is justified. Even if I agreed with them, that would totally put me off. It puts me off just as much when I see it on the right, but I don’t see it all that often.
The beauty of Trump . . . he has a way of unmasking people so that we know better where they stand on issues. The Dems have been leaning left for a long time – now we know clearly how far.
There are still more than 4% Trump haters. One is a commenter at Althouse who goes on and on about how he hopes Trump will be humiliated. Other commenters doubt he is a Republican but I think I see more of them. I quit reading and commenting at Patterico because of his virulent Trump hate. I knew him personally. I quit Ricochet after I was suspended for two days for using the term “TDS” in responding to a Trump hater there. Quite a few Trump haters at Ricochet. I think Erickson booted Patterico off ” “Red State” blog a few weeks ago for his virulent Trump’s hate.
The never trumpers did not admit it was a binary choice hrc or djt. Voting 3rd party was misguided if one was willing to consider hrc would’ve been a terrible president, perhaps more damaging than bho. French,Goldberg, Krystal, etc have painted themselves into the my principles corner. Krystal wants us to vote straight dem ticket, so much for my principles.
I was pro Cruz, had a very difficult time believing djt would keep to his campaign agenda, oh boy, he definitely surprised me.
Never is a really long time.
It took this long for Erickson to come around. I imagine there are a lot of people who changed their minds long before he did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lYucFOveYU
I strongly favored Ted Cruz before Trump won the Republican nomination.
Despite my personal distaste for Trump’s braggadocio, once he won the nomination there was never any doubt in my mind that he was to be vastly preferred to Hillary. Had she won, it seems certain that today we’d be on the precipice of another civil war.
Since Trump became our President, I’ve come to believe that, in the face of the Left’s ever more clear fanatical lunacy, no other candidate could have done nearly as well. He is exactly what we need; this man fights… there’s no ‘quit’ in him.
PS: parker, I see we are of like mind.
Erickson hits on a key distinction here:
4% of the GOP electorate is the difference between winning and losing the election.
I have been thinking along the same lines as Erickson. I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016, but I may well do so in 2020.
I always thought Cruz too unlikeable. I could see Trump appointing him to the Supreme Court if Thomas retires. Next will be Amy Barrett to replace RBG. Cruz would better on the court. I liked Walker but he was too weak. Then he lost the Governor election.
It looks to me like the Democrats are on a 1972 suicide trip.
It really has been an amazing clarifying experience. While some of these NeverTrumpers never did much for me like J. Rubin and Krystall but others like Jonah Goldberg, Bret Stephens and Patterico I used to enjoy.
If someone honest and fair could tackle it a fascinating book could be written on this because it really is an interesting topic involving class and power and a whole bunch of deep psychological issues I think.
“…1972…”
Ah, but in 1972, the Democrats couldn’t conjure votes out of thin air.
(These days, they are simply magical. Consistently so. Of course, Massachussetts has always been a most magical state…)
Did I say conjure? More like manufacture.
Which means that there remains only about a year and a half to tighten up the voting rolls, which is probably not even possible at this point unless Trump issues an EO.
Imagine that. The racist, fascist tyrant trying to tighten up the voting laws so as to prevent political parties from stealing elections.
Absolutely unconscionable. Worse than Schicklgruber!!
(Now THAT might trigger a civil war!)
I’ve come to believe that the never-Trumpers exist almost exclusively in the GOP’s upper class (including Congress) & the professional chatting class – and only there. They are the lazy ones who crowded around the Little Red Hen once she took the bread from her oven – they are professional teat-suckers.
Their preening then & now, when they know darn well the enormity of what was & is at stake makes me want to puke. They are the lowest of the low. 2016 was a “Flight 93 election” and 2020 is no different. If you haven’t read Michael Anton’s columns, you can do so here:
https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/10/what-we-still-have-to-lose/
Geoff Britain has summed up the sentiments of a number of people that I know, myself included.
I can still see my posts about Trump being a fascist strongman ala Mussolini.
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea maxima Culpa.
I originally thought the Trump presidential campaign was a vanity project encouraged by the Dems. And it probably was. I think what changed was Trump. I think he was so offended at being betrayed by the media that he went all-in on conservatism after being educated along the way by various advisers.
In the primary I ended up backing Ted Cruz because he seemed much more trustworthy and experienced and was irritated at how Trump went out of his way to humiliate him, even realizing that Cruz was (understandably, but still) trying unsuccessfully to get his own digs in. I was never going to sit out the vote in 2016 and started liking Trump a lot more as it got closer to November and in the end was happy to vote for the man.
I think a lot of this NeverTrumpism is veryveryvery personal and emotional and that’s rather revealing. Like, it’s all about them instead of, as advertised, the nation. The president has to reflect well on the individual. This sounds a lot like the idiots on the left who are so forlorn that Obama – the perfect posing President – had to leave office. The horror! I include all the Bushies who were so grossed out by the “unseemly” tweeting “unbecoming of the Presidency.” This is so unimportant in a jungle rules politics. There will be no accounting at the end of the day with points awarded for who was most seemly. It’s so irritating that we, the great mass of deplorales, went along willingly with their candidates (and their Supreme Court picks) but we don’t get the same reciprocal consideration. Unlike the NeverTrumps, Ted Cruz decided to work with the guy – unlike some in Congress – and turned out to be an asset to Trump, and vice versa. If Ted Cruz can roll with Trump then the NeverTrumpers really ought to be able to do so as well. But since they don’t have to, they don’t. It’s all about them. Glad that some of them are coming around.
Right here on Neo’s site heading into the election I became fed up with the commentors who kept being offended that Trump received the nomination and they criticized every move Trump and some moves were nuts. However when the dust settled and the viable choice was Hillary or Trump it made no sense at all to keep whining and gnashing teeth about Trump, he was not Hillary. I had to take about 60 days off from reading Neo, not so much her but the comments leading into the election.
My stance was that if Trump was elected and we had one decent conservative judge placed on the Supreme Court then mine was a very well placed vote. I voted, Trump won and the rest of the good stuff for me is just extra sprinkles on top of the sundae. Never Trumpers just keep choking on your bile.
It is quite appalling to me sometimes how the standards of virtue are different between the east and the west. As an agnostic who holds a view of afterlife more inline with the Buddhist vision, it is quite astonishing to me how much the west overvalue Chastity and some other easy to achieve abstinent-nature christian morals as a good judge of character that causes many horrible men (Ben Shapiro, Bill Kristol, George W Bush, John Mccain to name a few) being viewed as virtuous just because they don’t f**k around.
To me what constitutes virtuous is:
1. someone who will keep his words no matter how it might hurt him, someone who has courage to call it as he sees it despite the backlash. someone who keeps his promises and tries his best to achieve them despite the difficulty.
2. someone who has the courage to not apologize for things he did right no matter how unpopular the actions were and to apologize when he was wrong.
3. someone who will not throw his friends under the bus to save his own azz.
4. someone who will help out a friend in need even though it might get you into trouble.
5. someone who is considerate for others and will not gun jumping to start a war without getting all the facts in even when doing so will get him to be called a russian puppet.
6. Someone who will sacrifice for what his beliefs. Someone who will go against the tide, someone who will not back down from doing the right thing do to pressure.
A womanizing friend who will call off a date with a hot woman to help me move after he made me the promise is a much more virtuous than a virgin friend who stood me up and will not help me move just because it was a sunday and he had to go to church or having an interview for a great job. the level of willingness to sacrifice for his principles and the understanding of priority instead of dogmatically following rules in the book should be the standard on judging a man, not how he intentionally not to sleep around just because he came from a political family and had been nurtured to be a future presidential candidate by his family since birth, those are fake virtues.
in other words – courage and a common sense of what is right and wrong is virtue, so simple a concept but how so many got it all wrong. Bill Kristol is pure evil, he has done the absolute opposite of everything i have listed above. Does he still believe Kavanaugh is guilty?
I haven’t given a single thought to Erick Erickson in over 2 years.
Is RedState still in operation, or is it like the other NeverTrump sites dying a painful death?
Which means that there remains only about a year and a half to tighten up the voting rolls, which is probably not even possible at this point unless Trump issues an EO.
Oh Boy ! That is the life/death choice. The ballot harvesting that defeated the Orange County congressional delegation was ugly. In Arizona we had it in Phoenix. McSally ran a poor campaign but the last minute vote totals appearing a week later were obvious fraud.
Ed Bonderenka:
Well, all my anti-Trump posts are up there, too, for all the world to see, although I was never a NeverTrumper. But one thing it’s important to remember is that there were many excellent reasons for distrusting him (and even disliking him) based on his history of playing both sides of issues, Democratic-love, and really really vicious insults. The latter propensity was on full display during the campaign, in particular vis a vis Cruz (his father and the assassination of JFK, yet, and his wife’s work history) and Ben Carson (that he was a dangerous man with a vicious temper; see also this) . There was plenty of reason to fear that if Trump ever attained the office of president, he would be unpredictable, unreliable, and a loose cannon. He was a completely unknown quantity in that respect.
I also thought he would lose, and Hilary Clinton would win if he ran.
Now people may like him or hate him, but he’s not an unknown quantity as president.
Yancey Ward:
Red State is still in operation, and it has quite a few good writers. Nor is it a NeverTrump site; it’s quite mixed on that. Plus, Erick Erickson left Red State in 2015 and hasn’t been connected with it since then.
Parker wrote: “The never trumpers did not admit it was a binary choice hrc or djt.”
🙂
Those wishing to review those days can start at the link below, and work back in time. All the moves and plays on display for reconsideration and evaluation.
Post game analysis, so to speak.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2016/11/04/victor-davis-hanson-and-the-non-trumpers/
To paraphrase a former SecDef: “You vote in an election for the candidate you have; not the candidate you want.”
I was for Walker first and then Cruz. After he became the nominee I happily and fully supported Donald Trump.
And I still smile broadly when I can write the words President Donald J. Trump.
One is a commenter at Althouse who goes on and on about how he hopes Trump will be humiliated. Other commenters doubt he is a Republican but I think I see more of them.
I think the other commenters think him a poseur because he has a visceral and reflexive reaction to her posts very much like a partisan Democrat, offering remarks along the lines of ‘but what about the time Trump…’ etc etc when it’s barely relevant and sometimes when it’s just non sequitur. Althouse isn’t strongly aligned either way and isn’t a highly contentious or polemical writer, so should not be provoking that type of reaction in anyone who is not intensely aligned. Also, what he considers a reliable source and what he considers unreliable is what you’d expect of a street-level Democrat.
By his account, he’s a lawyer in Michigan who has been involved in Republican politics for some time. From bits of data he’s offered, my guess is he’s about 60 and he might actually be on the payroll somewhere. The 2016 presidential nomination donnybrook delivered a failing grade to the Republican establishment. Candidates they might have preferred got about 25% of the ballots cast. If he actually is who he professes to be, he seems to have taken it as a personal affront, which is rather peculiar.
I quit reading and commenting at Patterico because of his virulent Trump hate.
My own impression of Patrick Frey as a person is that the difficulty he has admitting mistakes is (compared to most men around age 50) rather hypertrophied. I’ve long suspected that that type is common among prosecutors.
Took long enough for him to wise up.
I think a lot of this NeverTrumpism is veryveryvery personal and emotional and that’s rather revealing.
I think with certain prominent opinion journalists – Jennifer Rubin, George Will, Wm. Kristol & Co., Jonah Goldberg, David French, Max Boot, Mona Charen, and John Podhoretz – that’s probably true. However, I think their reasons are idiosyncratic. A common thread might be that most of these people are Jews emotionally invested in what might be called ‘the Ellis Island narrative’, except that I don’t recall any of them have ever produced much copy on that subject. The person in that circle who does is Tamar Jacoby, but I’m not aware she’s been other than businesslike in critiquing the administration. French and Charen are social conservatives who (I imagine) find Trump’s immodesty and libidinousness repellent; I wouldn’t argue with them, but it seems to have addled them on matters extraneous to that (French fancies Robert Mueller is on the level). George Will is the most perplexing of all.
I voted for Trump, although I wasn’t sure what kind of president he would be, because of his judicial nominees list. I hoped he would stick to it. He has, and then some. I was sure Hillary would stuff the judiciary with people dedicated to the destruction of the American constitutional system and individual liberty. Whoever could have predicted that a man like Trump, with no strong religious identification, would so strongly defend religious liberty? God works in mysterious ways.
He has in general exceeded my most optimistic hopes on many issues, and I will vote for him in 2020 without reservations.
Art Deco:
I think it’s a combination of snobbery, intellectualism, elitism, and the embarrassment they would face at being in league with him. He is uncouth, a boor, a liar—he actually is these things at times, although he is many other things that are far more positive. But those things do loom very large in their minds, and they would be mortified to be caught in the same room with him. They are not populists and never have been, and it’s odd that Trump—a celebrity for much of his life and a mega-rich man—is a populist (I wrote about that very early on in Trump’s candidacy, summer of 2015, and I think the post holds up quite well). He is NOT their kind of people, and they can’t stand with the hoi-polloi who support him.
I think, to put it bluntly, that Trump makes them nearly puke.
What’s more, Jen Rubin had already pretty much gone over to the liberal side even before Trump, if I’m not mistaken (I don’t read her that much, but that’s my recollection). So she’s a special case.
As for George Will, I discuss him here.
GB,
We are often on the same wave lenght.
George Will should stick to baseball. He was never conservative, country club gop at best, and those people are tits on a boar. Wisdom from down on the farm.
Magnus: you know the story of the Little Red Hen. I thought that was lost to the depths of time.
When I saw that I had a mind picture of President Trump at a republican retreat somewhere asking “and who wants to help me eat the bread?”
I expect the President’s response would be priceless.
I think it’s a combination of snobbery, intellectualism, elitism, and the embarrassment they would face at being in league with him. He is uncouth, a boor, a liar—he actually is these things at times,
I think for some of them, it’s the Benjamins. Kristol has found a new left wing billionaire paymaster. Rubin and Will work for Bezos.
I think for some of them, it’s the Benjamins. Kristol has found a new left wing billionaire paymaster. Rubin and Will work for Bezos.
Will also works for Fox. His wife indubitably earns good coin and he’s been piling up large sums of money at least since he was hired by ABC in 1981 (though a hefty chunk of that went to his 1st wife when she put him out on the curb). Not sure what his current rates are, but ca. 1985 he could command honoraria of $15,000 for an appearance and was making about 40 speeches a year to trade associations and the like. He’s 77 years old and all of his children are out of school. He could blog for the rest of his life. Unless he suffers from Scrooge McDuck levels of avarice, it’s not about the Benjamins in his case.
Will hasn’t been on Fox since 2017.
George Will should stick to baseball. He was never conservative, country club gop at best,
Will’s writing began to turn libertarian around about 2000. He was on the masthead of National Review for 10 years and most certainly was a promoter of starboard thought from his days as a graduate student. His best collection was the first, The Pursuit of Happiness, and Other Sobering Thoughts, published forty years ago. The young Will had a distinctive voice and sensibility. He was an acidulous critic of libertarianism, of some of the dispositions of what was then called ‘the New Right’, and (at a later date) of the strands of starboard discussion of a sort you later saw promoted by Wm. Voegli. Reviewers called him ‘The High Tory’ for a reason. The young Will was a somewhat dispirited Anglican, not hostile to religion as he is today. He was also a caustic critic of Gerald Ford, and, later, George Bush the Elder. Now clue how his writings got coded as ‘country club GOP’ in your head.
Will was a Reagan lapdog. Nobody has measured up since. His WaPo job has to be a steady cash flow. Fox got rid of him. I have not looked at Sunday shows in a year or two. I doubt Bezos would keep him on if he did not toe the line. Syndication would sink if he lost WaPo.
Art Deco,
He never rang as authentic to me. He has smarts, but like many others I considered him to be self serving, no depth of conviction, just words. As far as RR is concerned, it felt like he wanted a ticket to ride. My pov, ymmv. IMO, he has revealed his true self. It is rare that one has a change of convictions in one’s 70s. It would be likely me mildly finding AOC interesting and astute. Ain’t going to happen.
Geoffrey Britain at 4:34 pm said:
“Despite my personal distaste for Trump’s braggadocio, once he won the nomination there was never any doubt in my mind that he was to be vastly preferred to Hillary. Had she won, it seems certain that today we’d be on the precipice of another civil war.”
So Trump won, and we are “on the precipice of another civil war,” seems to me.
Guess it’s basically a matter of inches-from-precipice, or something.
MJR:
It was a binary choice, not three questions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWS8Mg-JWSg
but for some we are “always” on the slippery slope of Mt. Hyperbole.
That is pretty much exactly where I was and am with Trump. To paraphrase an old joke, Trump’s administration is like sausage. You really don’t want to see it being made. But, as ugly as it may be sometimes, he is getting it done.
Will hasn’t been on Fox since 2017.
Thank you. My regrets. (He still doesn’t need any more money than he has).
ArtDeco,
Do you not see any room on the conservative bandwagon for libertarians? Is it the atheism thing?
This is a serious question. I would truly like to know yours and other’s thoughts on this.
Syndication would sink if he lost WaPo.
Not my business, but color me skeptical. Ca. 1985, he was found in over 400 newspapers. Only one syndicated columnist (James Jackson Kilpatrick) was found in more (and I’d wager the total circulation of Will’s portfolio was larger). I imagine the number is smaller now given what’s happened to the market for hard-copy papers. I’m not understanding why a newspaper in Omaha or Springfield, Mass. dumps him because the WaPoo does. In any case, he indubitably has a haul of interest and dividend income in addition to his wife’s earnings. His gross income ca. 1985 was about $1.2 million a year.
Not sure George will is “hostile to religion”; at least he didn’t come across that way in 2014 in an interview with RealClear Religion, in which he referred to himself as “an amiable, low-voltage atheist”, and also said this:
*Will*
I’m in total alignment with parker and GB – didn’t support Trump in the primaries but once it was Don v. Hillary voting for him was easy. And a shout out to OldTexan for pointing out that judicial nominees were a key justification. One other thing – even in my Trump-skeptic days I never believed the “Hitler/Mussolini/authoritarian” stuff.
He never rang as authentic to me. He has smarts, but like many others I considered him to be self serving, no depth of conviction, just words. As far as RR is concerned, it felt like he wanted a ticket to ride.
He adhered in print to a fairly consistent viewpoint for 27 years (1973-2000), some of which was prefigured by his doctoral dissertation, completed in 1967. I’m not understanding why anyone would consider this some sort of ruse. I don’t think young professors promoted conservative thought ca. 1968 for careerist reasons.
Not sure George will is “hostile to religion”; at least he didn’t come across that way in 2014
Waal, sister, there’s a certain amount of water under the bridge the last five years.
Do you not see any room on the conservative bandwagon for libertarians? Is it the atheism thing?
Generally libertarians don’t play well with others. The exception would be ‘policy libertarians’ of the Friedman / Sowell / McArdle / Reynolds variety. Beyond these, libertarians come in a variety of flavors: paulbots who fancy entering the 2d World War was a mistake (some of whom also excoriate Abraham Lincoln for expropriating the property of slaveholders), twits who don’t give a rip about anything but the drug laws, dweebs who don’t want to be yelled at by liberal women, faculty poltroons like Tyler Cowen, and autism-spectrum cases like Bryan Caplan. These people are no help to anyone.
One exception to the observations above would be Objectivist crew organized around Leonard Peikoff. Ayn Rand never had much time for political sectaries nor more than an idle interest in day to day political disputes, so she tended to be oddly tolerant of politicians. She endorsed Gerald Ford.
Michael on February 11, 2019 at 8:01 pm at 8:01 pm said:
Magnus: you know the story of the Little Red Hen. I thought that was lost to the depths of time.
When I saw that I had a mind picture of President Trump at a republican retreat somewhere asking “and who wants to help me eat the bread?”
I expect the President’s response would be priceless.
* * *
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/02/an_updated_version_of_the_litt.html
Magnus on February 11, 2019 at 5:20 pm at 5:20 pm said:
…2016 was a “Flight 93 election” and 2020 is no different. If you haven’t read Michael Anton’s columns, you can do so here:
https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/10/what-we-still-have-to-lose/
* * *
I think there are still some NeverTrumpers outside of the Punditocracy, but we only hear about them statistically, as in the polls.
Thanks for the Anton post; I loved his writing in the 2016 campaign, and still think anything he says should be carefully pondered.
Note that what he says in this excerpt from his new book was written before the Covington Crisis happened.
I am not a mind-reader and don’t play one on tv, but my take on the Cruz-Trump relationship and their rapprochement after the election is that Cruz was one of the few people who really “got” the WWE approach that Trump took on the campaign trail, where verbal insults took the place of physical grips and throws.
(Which doesn’t excuse the really quite awful things Trump said, but might somewhat explain them).
Two more good articles from Erickson’s “The Resurgent” blog, which might provide some of the data needed in those discussions with low-information supporters of the AOC’s “Green New Deal Leap Forward Ten Year Plan.”
https://theresurgent.com/2019/02/11/socialism-free-enterprise-environment-greennewdeal/
https://theresurgent.com/2019/02/11/the-washington-post-fact-checks-away-the-insanity-in-the-green-new-deal/
Here’s a relevant comment from the latter:
“I’ve been involved in various energy efficiency efforts for over a generation now. When I started, there were many cost effective things that builders could do to save money on energy for their tenants/owners over the life cycle of the building. Over the years, the number of technologies available to builders and owners have increased and the payback periods have decreased. I’m no global warming nut or environmentalist but there are economic reasons for building “greener” that I fully endorse. What these leftist loons don’t understand is that forcing people to put such technologies in place would destroy the motive for further improvements and developments. Maybe they do know but they don’t care. I meet many environmentalist in my travels. Almost all seem to be driven by greed and hate than by an honest respect and devotion to the environment.”
Art Deco,
“In print” well okay, from now on I will judge what is in print versus what my gut instinct tells me. Well, not really. I have a farm boy’s nose, I smell what I smell. We peasants are like that. Never trust an ‘intellectual’ is our foundation. Trust your gut and your nose. Welcome to flyover country. 😉
When you call a plumber, you expect a guy who’s a bit rough-looking to come knocking. You don’t expect someone who looks like a college professor, dressed in his patched-elbow tweed jacket. Why? Because you need a tough guy who doesn’t mind getting dirty.
The GOP has sent more than its share of mamby pamby nice guys to do a job that requires more grit and less groveling. Well, the voters finally sent in a rough and tumble guy to get the job done. The left’s response is to try to out-left each other in their race to their fabled totalitarian utopia. If Trump remains steadfast on this illegal immigration issue, I think he’ll win in 2020.
FWIW, I was for Walker, then Cruz, then voted for Trump. Tucker Carlson had some excellent thoughts on Trump that he offered at a Firemen’s Conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2dct9ErA_g&t=1s) in which he pointed out that Trump isn’t the guy you want watching over your wife and checkbook when you go out of town for the weekend. Key portion begins at 3:00. His speech isn’t as long as the video shows. There’s a Q&A bit after his remarks.
We hired him to do a job, and that job title is “President” not “Priest.”
Too much here to even excerpt fairly, but the conclusion will give you an idea:
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/02/10/the-pristine-beauty-of-the-green-new-deal/
“The House resolution is short on specifics, implicitly demanding that we trust someone to tell us what we have to do to navigate to each of its goals. And that someone wants to kill your job, take your vehicle away from you, tear your home down and put you in something else, and all the while distinguish between you and “vulnerable communities” to ensure the pain is distributed according to a matrix of ideological preference. If you’re reading this, you’re probably in the “max pain” focus group.
What a blessing for America, to be afforded this clarity at a crucial moment. The chroniclers of socialism are right, if we look in the rearview mirror. People have been suckered down the road to socialism in the past by false dilemmas, rosy visions, false promises, stealth inertia. But for America in 2019, there’s no rosy vision or false promise here to deceive us. There’s only a ghastly vision of coercion and death, starting with all those innocent cows.”
Art Deco,
I know the identity of “Chuck”- I took the clues he left and with a little work with Google and one other proprietary database I have access to, I was able to pin down his identity with what I think is 99% certainty. From what I saw, he is authentically a Republican with a history of working as such in local and state elections, so I take most of his commentary non-Trump to be truthful.
Chuck’s problem is that he spent all of the Spring, Summer, and Fall telling anyone who would read his comments that Trump was certain to lose and that nominating him was a colossal blunder by all those who voted for him in the primaries. When that didn’t happen, and Trump won, all his plans for “I told you so,” went out the window leaving an incredibly bitter man writing comments that few at Althouse even read any longer.
Many conservatives were wrong about trump because they didn’t understand the nature of the business trump was in. To thrive and stay afloat in the most cut throat industry trump must be very trustworthy in a certain way and have great credibility or otherwise no banks, creditors and investors would back him to allow him to come back from near bankruptcy. His word is his everything for a man like Trump.
You should not trust him to watch over your wife or daughters, unless he gave you his words that he will not lay hand on them, then you can rest assured letting him do so.
That is why I never gave a darn rather he believed the conservative values because I knew once he made the promise to defend those values, he will protect it with everything he got.
Clintons is another animal though, I wouldn’t trust them with anything, promises mean nothing for snakes like them.
Am I a fool who blindly believes trump is a saint? No, I don’t expect him to put his own azz on the line to save mine, but neither will mitt Romney or ted Cruz and is something completely unreasonable to expect from anyone besides your family, but trump as shady as some of his business ventures were has a track record to be a trustworthy business partner and compare him to politicians who lie for living a businessman’s word is gold.
Why don’t I believe trump is a Russian agent? Simple, if he was working for putin he would never bring his daughter to the White House and got her involved in the mud water, to protect his children he would keep his family as far away as possible not the way he encourages them to be involved, it’s just common sense.
When it comes to the binary choice of Trump GOP vs. insane Dem, it is easy to cast a vote for the former to defeat the later. In 2016, those who disliked both, but still voted, voted against the known evil of Hillary Clinton (the most unelectable candidate ever nominated by a major political party within my and many others’ lifetimes) and even then won by less than 100K votes over three states that Hillary ignored.
Even still, despite that unsuspected bit of luck, some are hell-bent and pushing away not only those who could be brought over, but those who simply put a clothe-pin on their nose in 2016 due to the unique evil that was Hillary.
Trump can not win based on Trumpism or MAGA; the Democrats can lose if they make themselves more offensive to the low information voters who care not about political nuance or tactical political win & pay of those whose attention is to towards local news and local papers.
The Democrats are increasingly seeming to be hell bent on letting their freak-flag fly.
Still, it is a sad thing that people vote not on who is the best steward of state, but who is less offensive to the plurality of Americans.
In the long run it isn’t about Trump or not; it is about whether we can not only keep the intellectual basis that was developed in the wake of the New Deal and use that as a load-stone to return to American greatness, or if we simply envy the Left and demand their spoils for ourselves.
In the long run, as a wise man once said, we are all dead. However, what we do and build continues beyond that.
Let us be worthy.
For the “nevertrumpers”. Look at the Demarxists today. They have turned so FAR left, you have to ask yourself to separate the policies from the Trump rhetoric, which is to corner and define the Demarxists as they are, no matter the terminology. They are evil, From their afterbirth abortion policy, to their Green plan capitalist destruction policy (hello David Frum). TRUMP is the water carrier, DeMarxists are evil!
I think Neo is absolutely correct about the snob factor among the Republican elite and commentariat: they think of themselves as sophisticated and see DJT as boorish. You almost have to think in New York terms: they all work and mostly live in Manhattan and the elite suburbs of Westchester and Connecticut (Buckley himself lived in Stamford) and Trump is from Queens. He’s what is sneeringly referred to as “bridge & tunnel”. No matter what Trump did in and for New York, he could never be socially acceptable. Never. His kids? Maybe, but usually social acceptability would elude them and it would only be their children who would go to the right schools in Manhattan and be accepted in real society (as opposed to the charity event circuit where they’d take his or anyone’s money and sneer at him and his women behind their backs – I know, I saw it).
The suburb in which I live is filled with these people – a once-reliably Republican town for more than a century which is so hostile to Trump that even Republicans cannot admit supporting Trump. Oh, one can admit to like this policy or that, but it is now social death not to include almost ritual denunciations of the man and all of his supporters out in flyover country.
I’m very much an economic and political conservative, but not so much a social conservative. But the choices in politics are binary and we don’t always get our druthers. For me, the bottom line is that I’d rather live in a world where those (far) more socially conservative than I am are free to go about their business as social conservatives (even if they impose some, but not too much frankly, of their socially conservative agenda) than in a world where we are all forced to toe some current progressive line regardless of how it violates my (or anyone else’s) conscience.
I was trained as an historian, and the cautionary tales of the 17th (Glorious) 18th (French), 19th (French and Italian), and 20th (Russian, German, Chinese and so many more) century revolutions in Europe loom large in my thinking. I see reflections of the Terror (pick any one from 1790 forward) in the Progressive left and don’t want any of it.
As many have said, Trump is a bit like Grant in that he fights. (Otherwise unfair to Grant in many ways, but it’s an analogy that’s understood). We have a “Grant” presidency now because the Democrats have savaged our “Lincolns” and “Johnsons” who wanted unity and reconciliation.
Good for Mr. Erickson. Character… Um, Mr. Trump has been faithful to the People by actually doing what he says and to the Constitution by doing it legally; deferring to Congress when challenged. Contrast that against literally the rest of the republican party over the last 20 years: $20 trillion in debt, 18 year wars, imbalanced trade, open borders….
Character. Right.
It takes a big man to change his mind.
I was against Trump before I was for him. My opposition to him was based on the sorts of things Neo has written about: his publicly visible character (flaws), his history of moving from Left to Right and back again, his coziness with the Clinton’s and other political power brokers, and my sense that I could not trust him to fight for and deliver on his campaign promises. Then he was the nominee and I made the decision to support him for POTUS as the (overwhelming) lesser of two evils.
Now that he’s been in office for two years I have his accomplishments to consider and use to evaluate him as POTUS. He’s been one of the best of my lifetime, not least of which because he has pursued the policies he committed to in the campaign. I have come to believe he truly loves this country and its people, and wants to do what is needed to improve our lives. I’ve also been influenced by the abhorrent actions of the “resistance” and the constant inflammatory and usually proven false attacks against him.
Count me for Trump in ’20.
The idea that anyone could have been “unsure” of who Trump was (or Hillary) in 2016 is fatuous. He was the mist famous guy in the country for decades
The whole “nevertrump” name reeks of the certainty that they did not want anything that Trump represented or promised.
I was, and will always be, a NeverHillary. Now, Never-PC. This Flight 93 thought was enough to vote for Trump. I’ve been pretty delighted with him, where my biggest disappointments are:
1) not following thru on Lock Her UP — I think he needed to get agreement with Sessions or whoever to go after Clinton’s crimes, and the illegal cover-up, in order to even be able to start any swamp draining. His failure was seen as weakness and the evil Deep State counter attacked, and continues attacking.
2) not pushing the Rep House majority to fund more of the Wall, even tho I know Paul Ryan, & other GOPers weren’t big fans of it.
I don’t see any evidence of Trump womanizing in the WH, unlike Pres. Clinton did, as also did JFK. Maybe he would have if he was 20 years younger. His history of cheating on his women is a bad trait that remains bad, even with good policy.
[@Nate – conservatives reject the Libertarian idea of “responsible promiscuity”, which I used to have but now reject, too. Most male Libs are emotionally wedded to it. It fails for most people, tho.]
In 2020 I’ll also be pro-Trump, as Eric says:
“not … just because of what the other side offers, but also because of what the Trump-Pence team has done. They’ve earned my vote.”
Trump has earned every conservative’s vote. (Will get vast majority)
Trump has earned every Christian’s vote. (Will get a majority, maybe vast, maybe just barely)
The Dem PC-Klan is all about tribal hate and tribal divisions, encouraging constant offense victimization. We can’t progress much if too many are too busy seeing themselves as victims.
I’d guess Trump’s 50+ rating drifts slightly higher in the next year. Maybe a lot higher.
“It takes a big man to change his mind.”
It takes a stupid man to be as completely wrong as all never Trumpers were. Maybe if they had been on board earlier his presidency wouldn’t have been such a shambles, and the GOP would still have the House.
I followed you for years. Even have a picture with you in Nashville way back when. But when you raged against Trump and became Trump Deranged, i quit. Think about it Erick – if people listened to you, Hillary would be President and you’d be blaming Trump for every evil thing she did. So no thanks now. Sorry you had such a bad experience but better you than the whole country. Just like Ben Shapiro, you don’t get to crow your ridiculous self congratulations about how great you are and Trump should live up to your standards. He far far far exceeds you.
THINK OF HOW IDIOTIC THIS STATEMENT IS:
“In 2016, we knew who the Democrats were and were not sure of who Donald Trump was. Now we know both and I prefer this President to the alternative.”
If you knew who Hillary was in 2016 (and all she had done, and what she was in favor of doing to US), how the hell could you have voted third party knowing Trump’s list of judges, and what he was advocating in terms of policy positions on the campaign trail? Could the choice have been more stark or clear?
Jesus.
I think Neo is absolutely correct about the snob factor among the Republican elite and commentariat: they think of themselves as sophisticated and see DJT as boorish. You almost have to think in New York terms: they all work and mostly live in Manhattan and the elite suburbs of Westchester and Connecticut (Buckley himself lived in Stamford) and Trump is from Queens.
Will and Kristol actually are sophisticates (both lapsed academics). Patrick Frey is a lawyer. David French, David Frum, Jennifer Rubin, and Mona Charen are lapsed lawyers. (IIRC, Charen and Frum never practiced). Max Boot is a think tank denizen; think tanks employ scholars and but also employ advocates; he’s more the latter than the former. Bret Stephens is similar to Boot: he had the beginnings of academic graduate work, but has spent his life in journalism. Neither John Podhoretz nor Jonah Goldberg are extensively educated and Goldberg’s the issue of a very rank-and-file institution. This crew is more sophisticated than the man in the street, more sophisticated (perhaps) than a high school history teacher. However, their skill levels aren’t all that rare. Neo or Wm. Jacobson or Lewis Amselem can look these people in the eye.
Boot’s biography of Edward Lansdale is quite good.
I still think these people are playing in somebody’s orchestra and I don’t know who
s.
We peasants are like that. Never trust an ‘intellectual’ is our foundation. Trust your gut and your nose. Welcome to flyover country.
I’ve spent over 80% of my sorry-assed life in the Rustbelt and I grew up in a provincial city no more dynamic than any other Rustbelt city. Three of my grandparents grew up in towns with fewer than 10,000 people in them (two in the Rustbelt, one in the upland South); the fourth grew up in the same provincial city I did, in a house about a block from the one we occupied sixty years later.
Maybe if they had been on board earlier his presidency wouldn’t have been such a shambles, and the GOP would still have the House.
I think people like Ryan were part of the opposition from the start. They take orders from Chamber of Commerce types and those are all open borders, China can do no wrong and let’s start another war.
It’s interesting to read books about Afghanistan like “Jawbreaker” about how things were going well with the CIA and SF until “Big Army” arrived and screwed it up.
Art Deco:
It’s not really about a pundit’s own educational attainment or even class, per se. It’s about how that pundit feels about those things—are they necessary in a candidate? And is it necessary for the candidate to demonstrate those things by certain airs and signs?
Trump was raised in great wealth and he has a pretty good education. Doesn’t matter. His persona is quite different in a way that these people don’t like and don’t want to be associated with.
ted Savas:
A lot of people thought Trump was lying about the judges; that he’d pull a fast one once president. But there were plenty of other things, especially that he’d be a loose cannon regarding international affairs (or just about anything else, really).
Trump is not the first accidental president we have had in my lifetime, a president who was not supposed to win or find himself in that office. The first in my lifetime was Truman when FDR died and the little man from Missouri who had been a haberdasher found himself making the decision to drop the atomic bomb he did not know existed a few months later. Then of course he won re-election when the country knew he lost and he made the decision to fire McArthur a few years later, a big deal.
We got Ike who had been approached by both parties and being a top general up to that time he had remained publicly out of politics, he had two terms during the high tension times of duck & cover when the experts predicted we were all going to die in an atomic war. He was also in office when Cuba when commie and he turned that mess over to JFK who kind of stole the election to Nixon when he went on TV and appeared to know what he was doing while Nixon looked like he belonged on the FBI ten most wanted. An unexpected president who managed to get himself shot in Dallas in fall of 1963 leaving us with good old LBJ who stole his way into the senate in 1948 winning an election he was trailing on election night by 20,000 votes, an old Democrat tradition. And LBJ got us totally jammed up in Nam in a no win war.
Nixon followed LBJ, got us out of Nam and was considered public enemy number one by the media, they knew he was nuts and with the Watergate Break In during an election he was going to win anyway between his close advisors and the press they did everything wrong, at least for Nixon and we ended up with Ford, kind of an accidental president.
Carter won over Ford who had pardoned Nixon, folks were ready for a change and we ended up with a non-accident president who was one of the worst men to ever hold that office until Regan beat him out of office and the embassy folks who had been held captive in Iran were released as Regan was being sworn in. Regan annoyed me as much as any president but he turned out to be a decent person to hold the office, I never got over him being a third tier actor who made some westerns and appeared on TV.
G.H.W. Bush followed Regan and he had the background to make some good decisions, he was a fairly decent man and after 12 years of Republicans in office we were ready for a change and we ended up with three choices, Bush, Perot or the Arkansas hillbilly Clinton who had no idea he might actually get elected but he played saxaphone on TV he had a good education and a well educated wife and Perot drew off enough votes even though he was not trying to get elected, Bush thought he was a done deal and Clinton was our accidental president, we know how that turned out for two terms, it ended up with the USA electing another Bush who had made a name for himself as governor of Texas with the help of a great Democrat Lt. Governor, not the son Bush Sr. planned on having in office but it worked, almost an accident and he won a second term and then we ended up with Obama.
Obama who was unable to use a credit card to rent a car when he went to the 2000 Democrat convention and with a decent resume for his education and some government experience including some sleazy stuff winning his single US Senate term did a masterful job of winning the election without having any real background in leadership or management, not an accident.
The successor to Obama, a US Senator with a lot of background being in the background was going to be a slam dunk, take it to the bank, we all love her, first woman president of the USA and we ended up with a big, old, goofy, orange TV character accidental president and here we are, history shows us that we don’t always get our first or second choice and logic does not seem to make much difference in determining who becomes Commander in Chief, how many times in the past have folks groaned and said Never-fill-In-The-Blank.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
I have never been fond of Trump’s style. He was never my choice during the primaries, but once he was the candidate, I saw him as a better choice than Hillary. I was worried as to whether he would turn liberal after being elected. I voted for him, but with reservations. I have been very pleasantly surprised. I still wish he was more “presidential,” but he seems to know how to get things done and counter his enemies. I like that. I’m mystified by his rallies. His on the stump schtick doesn’t impress me all that much. Although I recognize it as good showmanship. However, he occasionally hits some points that delight me almost as much as the wildly cheering throngs he attracts. At this point, I’m very glad he was elected and am a supporter in spite of his personal style.
The Venezuelan Crisis has generated an interesting discordance in the leftist narrative. One thread says that Trump collaberated with and is a puppet of Vladimir Putin. The other leftist narrative is that Trump is being irresponsible and that defying Putin over Venezuela will lead to WWIII. Yet the left seems completely blind to the mutual exclusiveness of these two propositions.
This revisiting of the “Never Trump” issue should be highly instructive.
Here is one particularly notorious thread. https://www.thenewneo.com/2016/08/19/mr-trump-regrets/
If I only knew how to interpret what transpired, and take advantage of the lessons.
For example: Can we in retrospect better see where some arguments or analyses fell short or misfired, and where others better predicted the outcome based on facts that were equally available to all? Is it possible to point to specific flaws in reasoning or approach that would enable us to predict more accurately in future?
I might like to think so, since I was on the side that made what now looks to be the right bet. But if in the final analysis it was just a bet, and not really an intrinsically better line of reasoning, then there is nothing of value to be taken away and we are still left with the original dispute over whether there was an objectively better scheme of assessment; or whether one manner of weighting the options was better than another.
I don’t have an answer. But what is clearly evident, is that we were basing our risk assessments on totally different interpretations of the public facts and their likely political implications.
It’s about how that pundit feels about those things—are they necessary in a candidate? And is it necessary for the candidate to demonstrate those things by certain airs and signs?
OK.
1. The Bushes, father and son, spent their lives in the business world and neither man had much verbal facility, though they’re embarrassing in different ways.
2. Ronald Reagan was a piece of Americana like no other, and one reason was his vernacular idiom, upbringing, and education.
3. Robert Dole had not a trace of the BosWash corridor in his speech and manners.
Don’t recall any of the characters under review found these men alienating. Trump’s domestic life is distressing, but it’s not as if Robert Dole and John McCain were anyone’s idea of a satisfactory husband.
Bush, Perot or the Arkansas hillbilly Clinton who had no idea he might actually get elected but he played saxaphone on TV he had a good education and a well educated wife and Perot drew off enough votes even though he was not trying to get elected,
Clinton was the issue of the small town bourgeoisie. His mother was a skilled worker (and, I’ll wager, on salary rather than hourly) and his step-father worked in the Clinton family’s many businesses. Neither Hope, Ark nor Hot Springs, Ark are in upland areas. His step-father was a mean-assed drunk. His mother was addicted to the Daily Racing Form, tried to persuade HRC to slather her face with Maybelline, and was something of a lush. The domestic culture of the Clinton household was repellent, but they were an in-town middle class family. (Mike Huckabee’s family was much more congenial and respectable – and absolutely working class; Vincent Foster’s was small-town haut bourgeois).
If I’m not mistaken, social research on the second choices of Perot voters indicate that he drew off he main candidates about equally, and his presence was not decisive. The collapse in public esteem George Bush suffered between January of 1991 and June of 1992 was something most amazing and nothing like it has been seen in the history of presidential approval polling.
Art Deco:
Bush senior was a patrician Yalie, very old school country club Republican, with impeccable credentials. He passed muster in that respect. Bush junior wasn’t their favorite person, but he squeaked by because he had the academic credentials and was Bush Sr.’s son. More importantly, they both were gentlemen and moderate Republicans who played by the rules. Trump is not.
Dole drew neither ire nor love from them, as best I can recall. But he was totally unlike Trump also. Dole was a seasoned and highly experienced politician with a long track record (he’d run for local office as early as 1950, and had been a politician pretty much ever since, including the GOP nominee for president in 1996), and a war veteran who’d paid a big price. He had all the experience and was a Washington insider.
Reagan was sui generis. But he was also a gentleman too—which Trump is not. That is one of the main reasons these people hate Trump—he’s not playing by the rules of the well-educated, classy gentleman (even though he actually is quite well-educated and grew up very rich).
That’s what I mean when I wrote about their wanting someone like Trump to demonstrate class and education by certain airs and signs. In other words, act like a gentleman.
Here’s something interesting that George Will wrote about Bush Sr.. Excerpts:
You get the drift. Bush Sr.: basically moderate, temperate, prudent, gentlemanly, brave, patrician, Yalie.
(Jonah Goldberg is only 49 years old, by the way. I doubt he was writing about Reagan or Bush I or even Dole. He only became a political writer in 1998. Max Boot is also 49 and became a journalist during the 90s. Kristol is much older, of course, and Podhoretz is somewhat older, as is Charen.)
Will is actually the one person on that list who wrote contemptuously of George Bush the Elder in real time. The title of the column was ‘Arf’ and it appeared in 1986.
Jonah Goldberg is only 49 years old, by the way. I doubt he was writing about Reagan or Bush I or even Dole. He only became a political writer in 1998. Max Boot is also 49 and became a journalist during the 90s.
Have they ever offered a disagreeable retrospective opinion about these men? It’s not as if neither has ever undertaken historical writing.
DNW on February 12, 2019 at 1:49 pm at 1:49 pm said:
This revisiting of the “Never Trump” issue should be highly instructive.
Here is one particularly notorious thread. https://www.thenewneo.com/2016/08/19/mr-trump-regrets/
If I only knew how to interpret what transpired, and take advantage of the lessons.
* * *
That was interesting (and very long) — I think if covered most of the points made in the major blogs and news media, rather in the form of a talking-heads roundtable, but much easier to follow!
Amongst all of the arguments (in the classic sense) and predictions and discussions of character, did you notice the ONE topic that is conspicuously missing?
HINT: it has to do with the timing of the post.
In that old post from 2016, JJ gives a list of things wrong with the State of the Nation; it seems to me that President Trump (and the GOP in Congress in some cases) have turned a lot of them around already, and are working on the others — being handicapped by obstruction from Democrats (and the GOP in Congress in some cases).
https://www.thenewneo.com/2016/08/19/mr-trump-regrets/#comment-1581266
Reviewing the arguments again: a lot of the worries were justified at the time, but many of the dire fears of a Trump presidency have not come to pass.
And, HILLARY IS NOT PRESIDENT.
When Erickson says “The President has shown himself to not share my faith convictions any more than the other side, but the President has shown he is willing to defend my faith convictions and is supportive of them”, he is engaging in self-delusion. Remember, everyone, that Trump is a showman. He only become “woke” when he realized it would serve his own interests. The reality is that Trump does not have the type of convictions the Alt Right espouses. So Erickson ends up prostituting himself, like a number of people here. Furthermore, the beauty of Trump is that he contradicts himself time and time again. There was no “unmasking” of anything that the Demonrats had to offer. The NeverTrump crowd remains, and once Mueller is finished sorting out the messes he and his team made, Erickson and others will magically come around and say “I knew it, Trump was a fraud”.
Allyn:
“The type of convictions the Alt Right espouses”—like white supremacism? Quite a conviction.
AesopFan says
No, I didn’t. Not even with the hint..What was it?
That was about all I expected in placing my bet. But it has, as you pointed out, given a much better return than even hoped for.
Trump is exactly the President we need at this time. He has the best interest of the country as his mandate and is pushing forward. He can not be bought or intimidated since he was wealthy and well known before he became President. It has been obvious for a some time that many of the people we send to Washington to represent our desires, simply joined an exclusive “country club” and forgot about what was needed or wanted by the voters. His direct response to the media and its’ actions are also refreshing because the general public can now understand just what has been going on and the cover ups done by the media to promote a political agenda.
It appears that the Democratic party is on a mission to self destruct unless some
one wakes up and realizes that the majority of people in the US do not like the constant whining of an opposition party that can not get over losing an election.
we are better than that!
Trump has the best interests of HIM in mind. It is clear that he has been bought and sold. Wake up, Mr. Brewer.
I was a Republican who teetered on ‘who to vote for’ …choosing Trump over Hilliary…more by default than support. Today….I am a Trump supporter. The Democrats have shown they are a pool of Socialists and Resistance individuals…hopefully those that love the freedom that our Democratic REPUBLIC assures them…will wake up and begin to unite behind our President…our only hope to avoid an end to our free society. Socialism only rises when it has a dictator leader….do we really want that in America? Wake up AMERICA!
During the pre-election months of 2016 Erickson’s columns led me to send comments that basically ADVISED HIM TO CONSIDER THE POSITIVE ASPECTS OF TRUMPS AGENDA. Basically, I said in all of those comments, as apparently he now says himself, that the alternative of his opponent -Hillary Clinton, and her democrat party cohorts- would be far worse for the USA. It is indeed increasingly more obvious that the prevailing leftist politician’s and main steam media’s cooperating in “Resist Trump ” behavior and movement and even worse, the democrat party’s rapid movement toward the anti american socialist ideology may have convinced other “never Trumpers” to rethink their position. Come the 2020 election it will be a very much more troubling conflict. An important and significant factor will be the continued successful implementation of “Trump’s Agenda”.
Do you know why so many voters are so full of hatred? It is because of the propaganda machine called the mainstream media. Also the voters have been dumbed down by numerous chemicals in the water, air, food and vaccinations.
So manyof our young people are harmed by early vaccinations causing Sudden Death Syndrome and autism. Amish do not vaccinate they have no problem.
The fluoride in the water is a very good Nai trick to dumb down the population. We have been lied to on numerous fronts. The New Waorld Order that the monomaniac jackasses = democrats belong to want to destroy this country. If you want to learn how the population is being destroyed read a book titled Chemical Warfare on America available on Amaon but not on Barnes and Noble.
I am fed up with these wishy washy people. This “never trump guy” took a side and stayed there for 2 years. Sorry, but I will never, ever trust him or anyone like him. He did not support his party or the obvious platforms of his party. As far as I am concerned, he is a Rino and always will be. I am dismayed that he did not believe what America was smart enough to believe and that was that our President put them first. This man, apparently puts himself before the people. I say, forget him and find people that want to serve our Country, our People and only that!
Patriot citizem: