Liz Cheney removed from House GOP Conference leadership position
As far as I know, only Liz Cheney, her fellow Never-Trumpers, journalists, and the Democrats who read the MSM and adopt its talking points are upset (or pretending to be) about Cheney’s ouster. But at any rate, the deed is done:
House Republicans ousted Rep. Liz Cheney Wednesday morning in a closed-door vote from the No. 3 spot from leadership — but the Wyoming Republican remained defiant on the way out.
Her defiance took the form of a speech aimed at Donald Trump:
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!
Oops, wrong quote. My error. What Cheney actually said was this:
I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office. We have seen the danger that he continues to provoke with his language. We have seen his lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution, and I think it’s very important that we make sure whomever we elect is somebody who will be faithful to the Constitution.
One thing I don’t understand about NeverTrumpers is what they think Trump actually did to violate the Constitution. They always seem to think it’s a given and that all their listeners understand that it’s a given – including the Trump supporters, who are assumed to not care that he violated the Constitution. As for the “danger” he provokes “with his language,” I seem to recall that he asked the demonstrators to be peaceful, and that as the facts have emerged it actually was a relatively peaceful undertaking as things go these days (except for the killing of one of the demonstrators by a Capitol Police officer).
You may recall that Cheney was also censured by the Wyoming GOP back in February after she voted to impeach Trump in the last days of his presidency.
Trump had this to say in reaction to today’s ouster of Cheney:
Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being. I watched her yesterday and realized how bad she is for the Republican Party. She has no personality or anything good having to do with politics or our country. She is a talking point for Democrats.
That last sentence resonates. That is exactly and precisely what Cheney has become.
I think Obama and now Biden have operated outside the Constitution and the law far more often than Trump ever did. But then, I look at facts.
Whatever happened to Ronnie’s 11th Amendment?
It seems NeverTrumpers like Cheney or the ridiculous David French are mentally ill in a strictly clinical sense. They’re lost in a narcissistic delusion where they are the only things standing between the hordes of Mordor and the destruction of Middle-Earth. Their actions are producing results the exact opposite of their professed goals and they just keep on doubling down.
Mike
Is it wrong that I read the first quote in Ricardo Montalban’s voice?
If it is, I don’t want to be right.
Cornhead,
The professional politicians rarely adhere to actual amendments, why expect them to adhere to Reagan’s?
gmmay70,
“Is it wrong that I read the first quote in Ricardo Montalban’s voice?”
I loathe nearly all things Star Trek* and even I read it in Montalban’s voice.
*That movie and the one with the whales being the exceptions.
Fractal Rabbit,
Not to derail a thread dumping on Liz Cheney, but while I don’t exactly loathe all things Star Trek, I can really only get on board with Khan.
The rest is just so bleh to me.
Even odds she changes parties before November.
The Trump presidency exposed the left for being malevolent, underhanded and shrill to the point of lunacy. His post-presidency is exposing the establishment GOP for the same.
Liz Cheney is the classic case of a politician who was born on third base and thinks she hit a triple. She and far too many so-called conservatives foolishly believe that it’s all about Trump, and have reacted accordingly. They seem to care less about the damage being done by the current administration than they do the damage they perceive as imminent if the former president continues to hold sway among American voters.
There’s some speculation that Cheney, having lost the GOP primary in Wyoming, will run as an independent in an attempt to get the Democrat vote. Or maybe she’ll just join a Washington think tank, since that’s her real home town.
And yet, I’m sure that I read a couple months back that Liz was not removed from leadership in a secret vote.
So, why did the GOP decide to revisit the issue? What idiots.
It seems that an enormous number of these “leaders” believe every single lie told about people like you and me by the MSM, by the Dem Party and by celebs in Hollywood and professors at universities. It seems they totally believe we’re mentally defective, racist as all get out, hateful and intolerant. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney … and so many others.
“One thing I don’t understand about NeverTrumpers is what they think Trump actually did to violate the Constitution. They always seem to think it’s a given and that all their listeners understand that it’s a given . . . .” [Neo]
They, themselves, clearly demonstrate that they operate on a belief system with only a casual relationship to the real world and the truth. The are a ship of leftist fools aiding and abetting a so-called enemy while sailing under a conservative flag. Then, as Cheney demonstrates, they raIse the Jolly Roger and pounce when an opportunity presents itself.
“Liz Cheney removed from House GOP Conference leadership position.”
Good. She should have never been in a leadership position to begin with.
People of Cheney’s group never read The Case for Trump. They never tried to understand the frustration of normal people sick of being looked down on by the globalist elite. If they had tried and supported Trump’s policies, maybe he would have turned down his rhetoric a bit and worked with them.
They are Thomas Sowell’s Annointed with an R after their name.
Trump captured her perfectly — a talking point for the left. Not even important to them.
If you were a 9 or 10 year old boy when the original series was on, you probably would have been counting the days until the next episode ran.
But 20 years later to still be obsessed with either the original or the dreary series of spawn it produced boggles the mind. The first time I heard that there were conventions and people dressing up, it killed even the pleasure of nostalgia regarding the original TV show.
YouTube’s Critical Drinker has taken a sharp axe to the J.J. Abram’s potboilers. Though I think that he has been a little too generous with the older films.
And then of course there is that other unwatchable space fantasy series featuring princesses, and carpenter space buccaneers and Sasquatch co-pilots and other stuff just about as entertaining as watching a child play with soldier figures on the floor, while clashing them together while making palatal explosion noises and emitting dramatic little cries of distress on behalf of the ostensibly dying figurines.
Hard to take it as any more morally serious or edifying than Liz Cheney’s performances
“. . . while I don’t exactly loathe all things Star Trek, I can really only get on board with Khan.” [gmay @ 3:44 pm]
. . . because everyone loves having a good villain to hate, and this is exactly how Never-Trumpers and the left see Trump.
T,
Excellent way to un-derail* a thread!
*Rerail?
I am not a Trump fan, to put it mildly, but I have no problem with Cheney being removed from leadership. She wasn’t removed because she opposes Trump. She was removed because she couldn’t shut up about it.
I don’t want to have to vote for Trump again in 2024. I think that if he wins the nomination in 2024, he will almost certainly lose again and we’ll end up with Kamala Harris as president. If he runs, but loses the nomination, I fear he’ll torpedo the nominee like he did in Georgia and we’ll still end up with Kamala Harris as president. If the economy gets bad enough that Trump stands a chance of actually winning again, the country is going to need someone with a fighting chance of being a unifying figure and, love him or hate him you’ve got to admit, that ain’t Trump.
So the best case scenario for the GOP and for the country is for Trump to sit out 2024. But the best way to make sure he doesn’t sit out 2024 is to keep pricking his ego by indulging exaggerated talking points from Democrats, i.e., exactly what Cheney has been doing for the last few months.
So yes. Purge Cheney from leadership. Hopefully she loses a primary in 2022 and joins some think tank where she’s long forgotten by 2024. And for the love of all things, pray that Trump doesn’t run in 2024.
Puts me in mind of this passage.
Perhaps she can decamp to the strains of [I did it] “My Way”, as did her spiritual forebear John McCain. No need to wait for a funeral service. Just her going away would be enough.
Every time a “liberal” (that is, a sadomasochistic State-shtupper) or one of their dupes professes his/her devotion to the Constitution, an angel loses its wings.
Liz Cheney is the classic case of a politician who was born on third base and thinks she hit a triple.
This insult was once directed at papa George Bush. It might have been Jim Hightower that thought it up; it’s the sort of thing his votaries fancy clever. There’s no evidence for it in Cheney’s case or papa Bush’s case, and the observation is irrelevant to the problems each has presented.
In truth, the real papa George Bush was quite capable and capable in ways that are atypical in the social circles in which he was reared. He was missing some pieces, too (pieces which are all too commonly missing in those same social circles). Liz Cheney has been married for nearly 30 years, has five children, has practiced law, knows her issues and knows her own mind. She also talks rot about the former President and seems completely clueless about the predicament in which we all find ourselves. (The President can talk rot too, because he doesn’t have any filters and thinks in sales and advertising bluster; in spite of all the nonsense he utters, he actually makes good judgment calls). We don’t need completely clueless people in the Republican leadership. Moving in the right direction would not only entail bouncing Cheney, but bouncing McCarthy and McConnell as well.
Why does the country need a unifying figure?
Certainly not for the sake of the economy. It was doing well, even all things considered, with his economic policies, and the Left simply did not care.
In fact, it has become evident that the destruction of the traditional American middle class is not only a price they will gladly pay but is in certain circles a tacit part of their overall progressive agenda.
You probably meant a unifying figure was required for some other reason.
So, why did the GOP decide to revisit the issue? What idiots.
Why are they ‘idiots’ for revisiting the issue?
It’s a passable inference that Cheney had an understanding with Scalise and McCarthy about improving her performance in areas x, y, and z. When her performance did not improve, they spread the word that the floor leader and whip will not give you a hard time if you do what you want. You had the 30% or so who wanted Cheney out last January added to another segment that wanted her out if they were assured it wasn’t going to complicate their lives. Ergo, the chick is toast.
Those are my thoughts these days. We are long past unity. If the Left can self-style as The Resistance™ for four years, I’m not going to keep slamming my head into that wall trying to make them care. If they’re going to treat me as their enemy, I’ll believe them.
WTF is a “unifying leader”? Please describe. What POTUS of the past 29 years has been a unifier?
Liz who?
And that’s all i have to say about that.
the country is going to need someone with a fighting chance of being a unifying figure and, love him or hate him you’ve got to admit, that ain’t Trump.
This is fatuous. Dwight Eisenhower retired in 1961. Sorry to break it to you.
Hey Bauxite, this one’s for you.
http://www.netfriction.com/DisplayMsg.asp?ForumID=91&Msgid=2688836&Return=DisplayMsg.asp&D83jsd=True
Miles Taylor, former gopher to the Secretary of Homeland Security, is recruiting signatories of an open letter by Bush votaries who are threatening to flounce off and form a 3d party to appeal to the 3% of the adult population who fancy themselves Republicans but are inveterately antagonistic to Donald Trump. Tom Ridge, Christine Todd Whitman, Barbara Comstock, Mickey Edwards. What a cast!
Bauxite is back! He can send his disposable money or all of his money to Liz Cheney’s reelection fund. She ain’t Trump and is the wave of the future (the new third wave Republicans, aka, The Proud and Out RINOs).
Not a cast, a caste, the American Brahmins. LOL, LOL
They always seem to think it’s a given and that all their listeners understand that it’s a given
What a jolly little cult they’ve built for themselves out of shared revulsion for one dude who simply, dear, is not one of us. What a toxic, ungrounded mob!
Good bye Liz! As a Wyoming voter this news is great news. She lived in The DC area when she ran three years ago. She is a carpetbagger. There are better people for Wyoming running against her and I hope she is voted out of Congress.
What a great Moby Dick quote, Neo!
@Art + Deco 5:40 pm. I was wondering if anyone would notice this. I find it’s the most fascinating thing about this whole drama. Really?? You’re going to leave and form your own Third Party?
I guess that means two things: The Republican Party is getting inevitably closer to truly being the Party of Trump and more importantly, we are finally going to know who the party moles really are, once they leave. And what a nice set of races we will have.
Significantly better than if Trump led a new Third Party. I predict sanity will reign within the party traitors before too long.
“One thing I don’t understand about NeverTrumpers is what they think Trump actually did to violate the Constitution.” neo
The NeverTrumpers know Trump never, even in the smallest of ways, violated the constitution. That accusation is a falsity advanced as cover for their real objection to Trump. He was and is, a threat to the status quo, a threat to the uniparty.
In this, Bauxite has the right of it; “She wasn’t removed because she opposes Trump. She was removed because she couldn’t shut up about it.” The GOPe knows how many Americans voted for Trump and pissing off those voters is a losing strategy for the GOP. McCarthy and the rest of the GOP reps only problem with Chaney is that she refused to get with the program.
The GOPe just got rid of Liz and is replacing her with Stefanik who as her record proves… is a RINO; https://thehill.com/homenews/house/552931-republican-says-stefanik-not-conservative-enough-to-be-gop-leader
McCarthy is pulling a Lucy and Charlie Brown move.
Stefanik who as her record proves… is a RINO;
Libertarianish business Republican. John Katko and Richard Hanna the same sort. However, she was willing to stick her neck out in defense of the President during the shampeachments, so there’s that.
Neo: Love the Melville quote! Thanks.
…only loosely relatedly, every year (except COVID years) the Mystic Seaport has done a reading of “Moby Dick” over the course of 24 hours. People put dibs on chapters they want to read; they all sit on the Charles W. Morgan (last wooden whaling ship in the world) in Mystic CT; and the story unfolds. C’mon up and enjoy hearing Ahab’s words.
I’d say we’re up to about Chapter 96: The Try-Works.
Z Man has this to say about Liz Cheney:
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=23773
“It is an iron law of the universe that the Left’s favorite right-winger is whoever currently has his hand on the knife firmly planted in the back of conservative voters. Nothing titillates the Left more than seeing one of their imagined enemies giving another imagined enemy the business. In the Trump years, they were spoiled for choice, as one “conservative” after another took their turn condemning the evil orange man. Now that Trump is gone, the party is turning their knives on one another.
.
.
Liz Cheney, of course, is a hyper-credentialed clodhopper. Left to her own talents, she would be a schoolteacher or an office frau. She is a mediocrity born into opulence and then festooned with honors and titles that she did nothing to earn. Instead of becoming worldly through hard experience, she became even more narrow-minded and oblivious through her quick trip through the narrow word of politics. She never learned simple things like when to keep your mouth shut around the boss.
.
.
In the grand scheme of things, none of this really matters. The political system we have can work fine with a European population, but it will never work in a balkanized majority-minority population from around the globe. No one in either party has the courage or intelligence to speak to this reality, so the system will mostly like rattle itself to pieces over these sorts of issues. Like the band on the Titanic, the parties will keep doing what they do until they sink below the water line.”
@Owen:
That’s an inspired idea to have the telling on the deck of a wooden sailing ship. Shades of the beginning of Heart of Darkness.
Well I guess I differ from the others here, I don’t think Liz Cheney or other NeverTrumpers are mentally ill or fools.
Washington DC has a nice taxpayer-funded theatrical scam going on and Trump screwed it up, just like he would have been screwing up Wrestlemania 23 if he had attacked Vince McMahon for real.
The rubes think that politics is real, the politicians and bureaucrats know it’s not. The rubes sent Trump and Trump didn’t know how anything worked. The politicians and bureaucrats had their livelihood threatened by Trump, and that’s why they want to discredit him with the public. The paid scribblers are paid to write things to discredit Trump. NeverTrump is behaving quite rationally.
Some of the politicians think they can ride the same wave Trump did, and some of the politicians are rubes themselves and aren’t in on the good scams, but most of them want to collect their paychecks and deliver tax money to their clients.
We all here know that most Dems lie to their own voters about what they believe and what they plan to do in order to win elections. We probably should learn to accept that so do most Republicans.
Liz Cheney, of course, is a hyper-credentialed clodhopper. Left to her own talents, she would be a schoolteacher or an office frau. She is a mediocrity born into opulence and then festooned with honors and titles that she did nothing to earn.
Nobody passed the bar exam for her and nobody popped the kids for her. Z man is a jackass.
“We all here know that most Dems lie to their own voters about what they believe and what they plan to do in order to win elections. We probably should learn to accept that so do most Republicans.”
… Say it ain’t so, Joe!
Gotta have Gonnections.
@Art+Deco:
“Nobody passed the bar exam for her and nobody popped the kids for her.”
The bar for the Bar exam seems to be set pretty low given the moronic nature of some of our purported Betters who have passed it.
Your having strained to give birth to some gnats of late, I’ll take your word for it on the kid-popping.
When I saw the Khan reference all I could think was the Never Trumper’s being asked why they hated Trump and they would say. “He vexes me.”
I know of many good people that truly do not like Trump. If you probe why as I do the answer always comes down to, he isn’t “gentlemanly”. His celebrity life before politics and then his pugilistic verbal style as president are off putting to them. Then they invent reasons to substantiate it other than that aspect. When you punch holes in their inventions they draw back. But I at least get them to examine their assumptions. I always leave them with the question. What would you rather have? An obnoxious person who gets things done for you or a smooth talking teleprompter reader who implements policies that impoverish you?
Change is a process and not a moment.
Bauxite if Trump runs in 2024 things would be so bad that he can ask the Ronald Reagan question. “Are you better off now then you were four years ago?” You know what the answer would be. Also the election fraud will be out in the open.
People will crawl over broken glass to vote and work for him. Good or bad that is the case. I see it on the ground here in Michigan. This is the progressives high water mark. Wars and rumors of wars are popping up all over. Inflation is biting. Safety is diminished and they are just getting started just 4 months in.
Zaphod:
Remember Flight 96 before you get all high and mighty about others.
@om:
Let’s not obsess over a harmless pils naiduerf.
Zaphod:
Don’t stain giving birth to another insult, just makes you small.
The list of the 152 signatories of the Taylor / McMullin letter have now been published.
David Almacy
Daniel Barkhuff
Steve Bartlett
Christopher T. Bayley
Michael L. Belitzky
Nate Bell
John Bellinger
David Billings
Mike Bober
Tatyana V. Bolton
Max Boot
Tim Boyle
Joel F. Brenner
Shellie Bressler
Randy Brockway
H. Bryan Cunningham
Michael Burchstead
Lucy M. Caldwell
Tom Campbell
Steve Carey
Arne Carlson
Davy Carter
Rod Chandler
Mona Charen
Michael Chertoff
Eliot A. Cohen
Tom Coleman
Barbara Comstock
George Conway
Marilee Cunningham
Soren Dayton
Susan Del Percio
Charlie Dent
Murray Dickman
C.J. Diegel
Charles Djou
David Durenberger
Mickey Edwards
Chip Felkel
Mindy Finn
John Fluharty
Emil Frankel
Christopher J. Gagin
Stuart Gerson
Wayne Gilchrest
Jim Glassman
Jim Greenwood
T. Greg Doucette
Michael Hayden
Jim Hendren
Thomas Hill
Rachel Hoff
Laura Holmes Jost
Jennifer Horn
Reed Howard
Joe Hunter
Bob Inglis
Charles R. Jeter
Karen A. Johnson
Bryan Jones
Paul C. Jost
Bobbie G. Kilberg
William J. Kilberg
John Kingston
Karen Kirksey
Jim Kolbe
Hannah Kummer
James Kunder
Justin L. Kurth
Gene Kussart
Rick Lazio
James Leach
John LeBoutillier
Eli Lehrer
Marty Linsky
R.J. Lyman
Mike Madrid
Bruce Maloch
Chad Mayes
Heath Mayo
Peter McCloskey
Molly McKew
Evan McMullin
David Meeks
Julie Meier Wright
Jerid J. Miller
Paul Mitchell
John M. Mitnick
Connie Morella
Mike Murphy
John Negroponte
Sophia Nelson
Elizabeth Neumann
William F.B. O’Reilly.
Robert F. Orr
Eileen Padberg
Richard W. Painter
Robert Patricelli
James W. Peppe
Jacob Perry
Mary E. Peters
Thomas E. Petri
Trevor Potter
Kristopher Purcell
Sam Reid
Reid Ribble
Tom Ridge
Scott Rigell
Denver Riggleman
Ted Roosevelt
Jonathan C. Rose
Paul Rosenzweig
Andrew Sagor
Mark Sanford
Matthew S. Sarelson
Anthony Scaramucci
Glenn J. Schatz
Lynn A. Schmidt
Claudine Schneider
Gabriel Schoenfeld
Joel Searby
Tara Setmayer
Rina Shah
Jeffrey N. Shane
Robert Shanks
Neal J. Simon
Shermichael Singleton
Peter Smith
Valerie Smith Boyd
Michael Steele
Miles Taylor
Jeff Timmer
Edward T. Tobin III
Christine Todd Whitman
Olivia Troye
Stanley A. Twardy Jr.
Michelle Udall
Chris Vance
Kathy Varga
Josh Venable
Joe Walsh
Matt Walton
Mark Weatherford
Jack Weinstein
Bill Weld
Gregory Wilson
Cole Wist
Charles R. Work
Bob Worsley
Bob Yudin
Dov S. Zakheim
Dick Zimmer
Off the top of my head, I recognize 32 names.
A. Of these 14 are most notable for having been members of Congress.
1. Two of them held appointments in the Obama Administration (one of them changing his registration beforehand).
2. Two are old-school Rockefeller Republicans who haven’t stood for public office in 30 years (and one of these two (1) was censured by the Senate ‘ere retiring and (2) changed his party registration 15 years ago).
3. About 8 of them are Republicans on the careerist / Chamber of Commerce fellator / libertarianish / temporizer axis. None of them are currently members of Congress. One has changed is party registration, two others have been out of circulation for > 20 years, two are notable for having spent nearly all of their work life in the political nexus (as office-holders, political staff, employees of political NGOs &c),
4. Two were fairly mainline Republicans while in office, but have gone in strange directions since. One endorsed Obama and later Biden and has changed his party registration. The other is a peculiar figure who does not appear to have ever been married, had children, or had a paying job after the voters bounced him out of Congress in 1982.
B. Five are notable for having been state governors:
With one exception, all of them are on the careerist / Chamber of Commerce fellator / libertarianish / temporizer axis, though you could argue one is actually a Rockefeller Republican. One of them (Tom Ridge) is as responsible as anyone for the Kermit Gosnell scandal in Pennsylvania; he’s also the man who gave the Department of Homeland Security it’s boffo seminal culture. Bill Weld is a fine example of what went wrong with Digby Baltzell’s protestant establishment. After attempting to cadge an ambassadorship from Bill Clinton (irate Republicans in the Senate blocked the appointment), he’s spent 25 years playing the clown betwixt and between lucrative financial sector gigs. For Christine Todd Whitman, politics was a patrician hobby she inherited from her mother, rather like some women do needlework; her most notable issue was complaining about her property tax bills. As for Mark Sanford, at least he’s entertaining.
C. Two of them are Bush cabinet veterans (a category which includes Whitman and Ridge as well). They’re actually business partners as we speak. Note, the four Bush veterans include (1) the man who put Michael D.Brown in charge of the civil defense apparat and (2) the man who retained him in that position until he made a fool of himself over Katrina. Another successively ran the NSA (see Snowden) and the CIA (John Brennan’s employer for nearly 40 years). Heckuva Job.
D. One is the Maryland pol who ran the RNC for a while. I seem to recall he was bounced for sticking his hoof in it one too many times.
E. One is a prominent academic in the IR wing of political science. No clue why he wants any part of this
F. The rest come from the clown car. That includes Taylor, McMullin, McMullin’s sidekick Mindy Whats-her-name, George Conway, Richard Painter, Anthony Scaramucci, Max Boot, and Mona Charen.
How do you win more than 50% of the vote without a unifying figure? Even Obama and Biden had to at least pretend to be unifying figures.
The current model of tit-for-tat won’t last forever. Think about how it’s going to end. If the left gains enough power to ram through its full agenda, then it probably ends because a significant portion of the left’s agenda is about rigging the system so they can’t lose again. (It should be sobering that we were only two or maybe even one senator away from that result in 2020.)
If we have an economic crises that somehow allows Trump to win in 2024, what happens in 2026 and 2028? A 70+ year old man doesn’t change. Neither will the reaction to him.
And a Bauxite never learns. What will be the reaction to Ron DeDasntis, or Kristi Noem, or some other non-Jeb!, non-Mitt, non-Harry Logan (intentionally incorrect)?
Or what could possibly happen if another RINO is put forward, Bauxite? I can sense the enthusiasm for the RINO already. (sarc)
We need a uniter in chief who doesn’t tweet meanly, like Creepy Joe The Cloth Head? How is this working out so far, Bauxite?
The vote on Cheney, to quote an old joke, “Is a good start”.
Too many of the GOP found a good income as bit players in the Progressive Theater while they allowed the nation to be screwed. More like “Chamber of Commpromise (if the price is right)”.
How do you win more than 50% of the vote without a unifying figure?
There is no such thing as a ‘unifying figure’, and there never was. There are figures which command broad appeal – sometimes consistently and sometimes in phases. That pre-supposes a political culture very different from the one we have now. This isn’t that difficult.
If we have an economic crises that somehow allows Trump to win in 2024, what happens in 2026 and 2028? A 70+ year old man doesn’t change. Neither will the reaction to him.
They ran a 78 year old dementia patient whose family business consists of grotesque exercises in hustling connections.
And I think it’s a bit rich given that people like Mona Charen who have spent four years pouting and kvetching and assiduously refusing to acknowledge actual events, propose we gin up some ‘unifying figure’ (acceptable to them, natch).
Bauxite
the country is going to need someone with a fighting chance of being a unifying figure..How do you win more than 50% of the vote without a unifying figure? Even Obama and Biden had to at least pretend to be unifying figures.
I am reminded of my yellow-dog Democrat relative informing me that Biden was a unifying figure. Recall Biden told an audience that Romney’s policies would
Very unifying. Recall Obama’s talking about “punishing your enemies.” Or “I won,” when Republicans asked for some input on the Stimulus Bill.
No, pretending to be a unifying figure doesn’t count, though you believe it does.
Art+Deco, om – And yet here we sit, separated from a generation or more of progressive dominance only by Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema. The question is why you believe a second Trump presidency would leave us in any better position? What would Trump and/or his enemies do differently next time?
During the 2012 election, Democrats incessantly attacked Mitt Romney. Binders…dog on top of the car… high school bully….you name it.
But now that Mitt Romney has incurred the wrath of most Republicans for voting for Trump’s impeachment, Democrats will inform us that Mitt is a “unifying figure.”
There is one point that Bauxite and others forget about Trump’s divisiveness. Previous Democrat treatment of Republican Presidents or Presidential candidates was incessant attack. Chimpy McBushHitler… see Romney above…etc. Recall how Democrats trashed Supreme Court nominees that Republican Presidents made.
The generic Republican approach was to not respond to those attacks. That was considered the “noble” response. Trump broke the mold, and fought back. Trump was not my first choice back in 2016. His fighting back won my support.
Yes, Trump is divisive. On the other hand, recall Democrats calling Trump a Nazi. Trump has Jewish grandchildren, moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem, and played a leading role in getting some Arab states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. That is, it looks like a downright libel to call Trump a Nazi, based on his record. Tell me who’s being divisive.
Bauxite show again that he never learns, but is deeply concerned for the mess “we” have gotten him in.
om – I don’t think you’re even making a good faith attempt to address my point.
Gringo – There’s a lot of room between sitting back and taking it like Bush, Romney, McCain, at al. on the one hand, and Trump on the other. It’s not a “one or the other” proposition. If a candidate like Trump fights in a way that alienates significant portions of the electorate and drives record turnout for his opponent, what’s the point?
Bauxite believes the media and then wonders why others don’t take him seriously, odd. It could be a concern.
And then the others such as DeSantis or Noem would most likely not be bland enough or not passive enough for a Bauxite.
“No, pretending to be a unifying figure doesn’t count…”
Seems to me there’s a misunderstanding—a serious misunderstanding—surrounding the word “unity” (or “unifying”).
Because we suffer from this misunderstanding, we either tend to complain (or chortle) about “Biden” ‘s incessant, if nauseating, use of the term. Conversely, some of us complain that Trump was NOT a unifier…purportedly along the lines of the—shining—“Biden” model.
To hack through this Gordian conundrum, all we really have to do is DEFINE “unity” as Decent Joe “understands” it:
“Unity” means 1) “getting rid (however one can do this) of any opposing viewpoint so that everyone stands unified with the chosen party and its policies and 2) vehemently suppressing (or preferably destroying) anyone who does not, i.e., refuses to, support that party.”
As such, “Biden” is a heartfelt supporter of “Unity” and is actively promoting the ideal throughout the country “he” “leads”.
Unity. Such a beautiful concept.
Bauxite:
Are DeSantis or Noem too aggressive or too off putting for you or your oh so moderate and reasonable serious citizens? You know, the other Biden voters?
“People of Cheney’s group never read The Case for Trump. They never tried to understand the frustration of normal people sick of being looked down on by the globalist elite. If they had tried and supported Trump’s policies, maybe he would have turned down his rhetoric a bit and worked with them.
They are Thomas Sowell’s Annointed with an R after their name.” – expat
Well said.
“The rubes think that politics is real, the politicians and bureaucrats know it’s not. The rubes sent Trump and Trump didn’t know how anything worked. The politicians and bureaucrats had their livelihood threatened by Trump, and that’s why they want to discredit him with the public….NeverTrump is behaving quite rationally.” – Frederick
Also, if the Democrats (as well as the GOPe) had at least stood down and gone back to their internal termite tunneling, Trump would likely have given them a lot of what they wanted as well.
The key is their attack on General Flynn, because he would have had access to the crypt where the espionage & corruption was buried, and the knowledge to interpret what it meant. They thought taking him down would take Trump out also; they were wrong, but it probably looked like a good idea at the time.
Art Deco – they lost me at Boot and Charen.
Barry Meislin, that is a good description of Biden’s definition of “unity.” The definition might be reduced to one word: “Shutup.”
Art+Deco, om – And yet here we sit, separated from a generation or more of progressive dominance only by Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema. The question is why you believe a second Trump presidency would leave us in any better position? What would Trump and/or his enemies do differently next time?
Again, your alternative. That person does not exist.
“every year (except COVID years) the Mystic Seaport has done a reading of “Moby Dick” over the course of 24 hours. People put dibs on chapters they want to read; they all sit on the Charles W. Morgan (last wooden whaling ship in the world) in Mystic CT; and the story unfolds.” – Owen
Do they include all the whaling chapters?
The text I had in High School left those out, so I found an unabridged version later.
I kinda liked them.
DNW’s literary quotation sent me on a Hunt, which became quite extended, and that is why I am up until the wee hours every night, chasing Rabbits through the Internet Warrens.
That one was from CS Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress.
Which DNW quoted in the comments here:
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/10/goodbye-scp.html
Which linked to Neuhaus’s Law here:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/03/the-unhappy-fate-of-optional-orthodoxy
Which was originally published in January 1997 and states:
“Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.”
I have to go out right now, but the bottom line is that the Imposition of the Inquisition has been building for many decades, and President Trump’s tenure slowed it down only briefly, if at all.
Discuss.
AesopFan on May 13, 2021 at 6:16 pm said:
I had first come across Lewis during an argument which I as a college age kid, was having with a Protestant Evangelical. I don’t recall the specific dispute, but as a long lapsed congregant myself, I was probably challenging him to provide a coherent doctrine of essential Christianity. He recommended some book or another. Probably, “Mere Christianity”
I have to admit that as with most of his works what appeals to me is his reasoning; and in fiction, his ability to draw impressive crystalline sketches, of people, their psychologies, and environments. His poetry is as dead to me as any other poet’s.
Not that I had a substitute belief system at that time. And certainly not either socialism or atheistic humanism, both of which struck me as beneath contempt and fit only for emotion driven lower forms of human-like life incapable of logical analysis. I had read Marx extensively and recognized that his anti-metaphysical metaphysics contained nothing in it that would lead one to assume that there was any characteristic of the consciousness of the inorganic body, that immunized any example of it being cut down for convenience any more than it did an offending tree, or shrub.
And of course, that is just how communists have in fact acted.
Anyway, although Lewis’ critical insights on ethics didn’t do me much good in real philosophy class, his main critical point concerning the habit of progressives’ studiously ignoring the redounding effects of their announced premisses on their own value statements, resonated with what I had already perceived. Some simply call it “hypocrisy”; but, there is a philosophico-psychological phenomenon there which is anthropologically interesting, and perhaps indicative as well, there too.
So, years after having left school and digested what appeared to me the complete Lewis corpus, minus the children’s stories and his main academic opus, I stumbled upon “A Pilgrim’s Regress” while on an AMTDA-NTMA business trip to San Fran.
It was in a book shop window, an aging and sun scorched paperback laying there flat as I was passing by coffee in hand sweet rolls in a bag, back to the Fairmont, that Sunday morning.
My current understanding is that it is considered to be one of his lesser works by a considerable margin. But what grabbed me, was that half the theme – and for me the main interest – is concerned with precisely the self-de-legitimizing or antinomy problems I just mentioned.
Some liberals, like my favorite target Richard Rorty, are willing to admit that their theories of meaning and truth have undercut any principled imperative claims which they themselves might make of the tolerance or forbearance of others.
Rorty admits that he really can offer up no metaphysically commanding reason why you should not just kill him if you feel like it. He admits that progressive “democracy” is just a taste with him.
But most liberals are not quite there yet. They still rely on the rhetorical deployment of general principles which they have otherwise “debunked”, for their own protection.
It is probably the great theme of our age.
https://archive.org/stream/pilgrims-regress-cs-lewis/pilgrims-regress-cs-lewis_djvu.txt
http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/Pilgrims_Regress_CSL.pdf
Although I have read most of Lewis’s books multiple time, I only made it through Pilgrim once, and so I didn’t recognize the quote and had to go looking.
But it is good to go on back in time to the insights of Mr. Lewis, who saw what was further along the road the Western Humanists were trudging down with mad abandon.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/975268-the-pilgrim-s-regress-an-allegorical-apology-for-christianity-reason-an
The story isn’t as good as some at the Bee, but the headline is priceless.
https://babylonbee.com/news/dick-cheney-invites-trump-on-reconciliatory-hunting-trip
Art+Deco – Your argument also works just as well to justify running a Bush/Romney/McCain figure again. We’ve tried honorable gentleman candidates, and that didn’t work. Now we’ve tried a boorish fighter, and aside from a fluke in 2016, that didn’t work either.
A popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.
Is Bauxite insane? Fixated? Mittens and The Maverick were loosers, and one is a dead man walking politically; sort of like Liz. Or does the GOPe(extinct) have end stage political syphilis; insane too? Spent too much time in bed with the K Street and Chamber of Commerce harlots.
Insane or not, bless Bauxite, such a sweet child.
Art+Deco – Your argument also works just as well to justify running a Bush/Romney/McCain figure again.
When you can state my argument accurately, get back to me.
“The question is why you believe a second Trump presidency would leave us in any better position?”
Because Trump in defeat still left us with GOP gains in the House and likely would have had a GOP-controlled Senate if McConnell didn’t shoot down $2,000 stimulus checks. And, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got a GOP that is far more willing to fight for its voters.
When George W. Bush left office, we had Democrats gaining 21 seats to keep control of the House, gaining 8 seats to keep control of the Senate, and Barack Obama in the White House. And that was facing not-even half the opposition Trump had to battle.
Mike
How do you win more than 50% of the vote without a unifying figure?
Apparently the Democrats have figured out how to do it. There is nothing “unifying” about this Biden crack about “Neanderthals.”When Will Biden Apologize For His ‘Neanderthal’ Smear?
For any readers not grokking my comment above:
https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/10/03/a-video-message-from-president-trump-in-walter-reed/#comment-2518040
Also:
If Dick Cheney is Darth, does that mean Liz is Leia?
Byron York:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-the-gop-is-bigger-than-trump