Long before emojis hit the Internet, I used to help run a MUDÂ where we had what were called emotes, and one of them was called “Ant Farm” which went something like:
You point out that the MUD is just like a giant ant farm, and that the most entertainment can be derived from taking the whole thing and shaking the hell out of it every once in a while, watching as the various creatures struggle to preserve their fragile, pointless existence.
That is this election in a nutshell! I’ve been watching memes going around both left and right, but mostly left. The right people have mostly gone back to their normal lives. The big thing I’m seeing from lefties is all the walk backs Trump has been taking.
- He walks back on immigration.
- He walks back on gay marriage.
- He walks back on Obamacare.
- He brings in a bunch of insiders into his Transition Team.
OK…. so what’s the problem here? He’s moving center after winning the election. This is what I’d hoped he’d do. I’m not completely happy with the transition team, but it’s mostly people who know how to get things done in Washington. It’s a signal Trump’s not necessarily going to be the whack job President myself and a lot of people feared. Sure, he’s still got 4 years to prove me wrong, and I’m sure he’s going to do things I don’t like, but every President has done things I don’t like. I’ll argue against those when he does them. A lot of lefties are asking conservatives to speak out against Trump’s hate now, presumably so they can feel a smug sense of self-satisfaction when they hear crickets. Screw them. I never saw any of them object when Obama trolled and gas lighted half the people in this country. You are part of what helped make this shit pile, so as far as I’m concerned you can sit there and smell it the next four years like the rest of us will.
It’s almost like they really believed that nonsense about Republicans never being able to win the White House again. I can believe that because I had people seriously argue that with me. It’s almost like they didn’t recognize that every once in a while, every party will float a dog turd of a candidate for President.
If there’s one thing I wish people on the left would recognize, and actually a lot of the old-school liberals and more honest lefties do: Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate. She is the worst candidate for President I’ve ever seen in my lifetime (and I lived through Dukakis). She is so bad, she lost to Donald Trump. That’s how bad she was. She has all of the faults of her husband with none of his charms. As Megan McArdle put it:
She had two cadences: “fifth grader reading their essay about the water cycle to the whole class”; and “I’m coming in there in thirty seconds and I’d better see all of you cleaning that room!” This despite what we must assume was heroic and patient work by the best speech coaches in the business. The only tool she had for emphasis was sounding outraged; her resting speech face wavered between “bored” and “peeved”.
In politics, it doesn’t do a bit of good to put a candidate up for a seat who validates all your best hopes, aspirations, and ideas for the country, if that candidate is constitutionally incapable of winning.
Guess that’s why they also supported the expansion of the President’s powers and the removal of the filibuster. Suddenly they are terrified because Trump has this power.
Maybe they’ll realize the-ends-justifies-the-means isn’t a wise policy.
Maybe they’ll realize the-ends-justifies-the-means isn’t a wise policy.
This is a core belief of leftism. Any positioning they do in the short-run is just tactics.
“He walks back. . .”
For eight years Obama attempted to understate and minimize his support for gun control, and our movement wisely chose not to believe him. And arguably he had been less strident in stating his positions on gun control, than Trump has been in stating his “walked back” positions.
I am curious what makes you so willing to believe Trump, when you so readily saw through Obama?
I’d say for four years Obama attempted to understate and minimize his support for gun control. In his second term, that was not the case. I saw through it because Obama’s record and public statements had showed he supported it. Trump’s history was never one of rigid right-wing ideology. My big concern with Trump is that I didn’t really know what I was “buying,” so to speak. I’m still not really sure. But his history suggested, and I mentioned this in a few posts, that he’s a haphazard moderate willing to promise anything to get votes.
“. . .he’s a haphazard moderate. . .”
Who has appointed Steve Bannon as chief Whitehouse strategist. After he surrounded himself with decidedly unsavory and non-moderate advisors through his entire campaign.
One thing this illustrates about all of us, I guess: We have boundless capacity for apologies and denial for anyone who says nice things about our pet issues.
“Who has appointed Steve Bannon as chief Whitehouse strategist. After he surrounded himself with decidedly unsavory and non-moderate advisors through his entire campaign.”
According to you and the MSM.
I’m not thrilled by some of his “conventional politician” picks. Rudy Giuiliani is no friend of freedom, for example.
Stop and Frisk, for example. Biggest disappointment for me in an election full of disappointments.
This argument that what someone is saying isn’t true because “MSM” is so tiresome. People get their news from plenty of other places. I don’t need the MSM to tell me how terrible a person Bannon is or how bad Trump’s advisors have been. I have plenty of other sources, including the persons own words.
Said the Socialist.
Who, based on experience ranging from being a British bureaucrat in India, to fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War, had True Believers of every persuasion pegged, before you were even born.
I’m glad you blogged that bit from Megan, so I didn’t have to :)
The main conniptions I’m seeing from the left-hand-side of my FB wall have to do with having appointed a former Breitbart CEO (Steve Bannon) as “#2 chief of staff” and following that with the list of horribles his “alt-right” views will bring; and posting all manner of SPLC-derived Scary Things about him. (Not that I have much respect for the Brietbart organization after its founder passed, mind you).
Plus the relentless documentation of every two-bit bullying and assault (actual or hoaxed) as “Trump’s enabling of hate.”
Megan McArdle’s Law “The party in power is insufferable. The party out of power is insane.†(I’ve seen her state is as “supporters of the party” and “in/out of control of the white house”) This is being proven by verbal combat on FB.
I’m no Chump for Trump. But the Left has worked very hard for many years now, in fact I would say since 1980 and the election of Reagan, to bring the Nation where it is today. Exaggerating divisions amongst the public and undermining the rule of law. They earned the Trumpocalypse, every damn bit of it.
I’m sick of all the True Conservative(tm) virtue signalling.
I never disparaged the #NeverTrump coalition, but am frustrated at the elitist condescension from those who should now be partners. I’m sick of the lecturing and tut-tutting from the Smartest-Conservatives-In-The-Room.
I choose optimism with Trump. He wasn’t my first (or 10th) primary choice, but the wife and I volunteered to get him elected in a state where it mattered. Because it mattered more now than any time in recent history.
So now we have a President who swears he will do more for the 2A than any President in 40+ years, and I am still hearing most of the gun bloggers acting like the President Elect is something they’d rather scrape from the bottom of their shoe.
I’m not suggesting blind devotion or trust, but am suggesting that a little enthusiasm will go a lot further than a lot of snark. I know we all like snark, but now is the time for a little helpful optimism. If he fails to work for us, we have more power if we are part of a coalition he needs, rather than a bunch of whiners on the outside.
Get with the program and joint he team. Seriously. How hard would it be to say, “I am happy that Trump won and that the GOP has control of the House and Senate. I am optimistic that good things are going to happen.”
As a staunch #NeverTrump I agree (but I hate the terms “true conservative” and “virtue signaling” because they are worthless insults).
I read a lot of #NeverTrumpers, and almost all of them agree with your last statement. They still don’t trust Trump (and nobody should) but they are willing to give him a chance.
I mean no insult. The true conservative tag is something that most in team NeverTrump seemed proud to place on their own lapels to explain why they would not vote for the man. I am surprised (but frankly, heartened) if they now view that as an insult.
We need to all get behind our President and stop playing ashamed for doing so. Trump (on paper) represents everything we could have asked for. If the “but ya know…I don’t like him” language isn’t signalling, then what is it?
The media has painted our next President as a low-class cretin below your ken, and it seems like a decent portion of the gun blogosphere has bought their line. I was absolutely galled after the election to find people – ostensibly all on the 2A team – looking down their nose at the first elected President who actually checks off our boxes. Why are we not playing the part of cheerful warrior?
There are some key 2A places on the net and I think this is one of them. I suggest we all get behind Trump – without shame – and work for our goals.
If he screws us over, we’ll be Stronger Together (sorry, couldn’t help it).
Not that the other option for major-party candidate was any better on them; but I care as much for the 1A and 4A as the 2A; and I’m not so sure Trump will be much good for the 5A and 8A.
Trump is personally a litigious asshat who had bragged about “opening up the libel laws,” and I’ve already mentioned Giuiliani as a notorious foe of the 4A.
https://popehat.com/2016/11/14/lawsplainer-about-trump-opening-up-libel-laws/ – a little more nuanced view of why that matters (and doesn’t)
Agree. I noted somewhere above how bad stop and frisk was, and I think the 2A community could lead push-back on that. As for libel laws and the like, Congress will be a filter. I assume 5A reference is to eminent domain and maybe forced handover of passwords/encryption keys? I am likely with you there, as well. It’ll depend on what kind of judges he puts in the big seat.
All that points to a need to be enthusiastic members of the team. Sniping from the outside gets us nowhere.
I doubt his Presidency will be roses. None of them are. The idolatry of Reagan makes almost no sense to me, for instance.
Hummph. Much noise in comments. No substance.