A few comments have come in along the general lines of "Bye," or "I'm done reading your blog," and what I want to know is, what took you so long?
Here's part of what I wrote on 6 January 2021, published at 4:34 p.m., EDT:
"For the record, from here on, no Republican candidate is getting my
vote again, not as long as they're supporting the rabble-rousing Mr.
Trump. [...] Presidents ought not raise up a mob and sic it on Congress. That's not how we resolve differences in this country."
I had watched real-time coverage of the Trump rally and attempted insurrection on the over-the-air TV networks and via social media. The nature and scale of the violence was clear -- people climbing outside walls, forcing past barriers, confronting police (with varying levels of conflict), making forced entry into the building, interrupting the proceedings and sending Congress running for cover, breaking into Senate and House chambers. After all of the political protest and rioting in previous months, it was clear that this was something different, for all that it had begun as a more or less normal rally.
My original assumption was that there would be a rah-rah rally and probably an unauthorized march to go wave signs outside the U. S. Capitol, maybe a little violence, but as the rally ran down, it was clear the crowd was in an ugly mood. I told Tam before it wrapped up at 1:00 p.m. that I thought the crowd would try to enter the Capitol, but I had not anticipated how well they would succeed or badly they were going to interfere. I figured that of course the Capitol Police were ready. They were not. After things started to wind down, I thought that of course the GOP would repudiate so profound an insult to law and order, to American traditions of Federal government. I assumed prominent Republicans would step up and assert that this was not who they were, that this was not what their party stood for -- and by and large, I was wrong. Only a few spoke out and many of them backed away from that position in the following weeks.
And I blogged about it. Not just once, but again and again.
So what took you so long to bail? I told you on 6 Jan of 2021, "[N]o Republican candidate is getting my
vote again, not as long as they're supporting the rabble-rousing Mr.
Trump." I meant it then and my judgement has not changed. I have acted on that judgement in subsequent elections. If you don't like it, go bellow in one of the many echo chambers that serve the deluded adherents of Mr. Trump's party -- and do such a disservice to the proud traditions of our country.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
9 comments:
Fascinating, your take on the GOP and Trump and of course Jan 6. I bailed on you in Jan of 2021 because of the position you took at that time. In recent months I have been visiting you site and your buddy Tam's just because I am an old gun guy and have followed a lot of the early blog folk of the gun persuasion.
There is no doubt in my mind that those in power in DC on Jan 6 created the confusion that appeared on TV, I also thought that the demonstration requested by Trump would be a mistake and of course it was. As with most things Trump the thought of it annoyed me and the event played out, through the media to be a total goat crap mess. The goofy stuff that occurred was perfect made for TV news that day and the cameras were set up to tell the story of the left and then the main stream reporting for days backed the story of the left up.
Trump amazed me by getting elected and some of the things he did worked out well, appointing judges and developing oil and energy but Trump also set my teeth on edge with his little catty comments and he failed miserably to build a team with consensus of the established GOP. He even ignored the advice of his expensive attorneys, my now deceased brother-in-law was a partner in that firm who did not care at all for Trump and he could not believe Trump had no idea how to use the power of his office when he had the chance. What Trump did was attempt to make himself the most popular guy in the world using his own, made for TV, personality and it worked at times.
I always voted for the politician I disliked the least, at times crossing over to the other side, especially when I personally knew the candidate like my friend in Dallas Ron Kirk who ran for senate years ago and lost. For sure we do need better quality, less greedy, people holding office at all levels of government and the slime we have in various offices on the left leave a whole lot to be desired. So I will step back from visiting your site for a few more years, wishing you well and I am hoping we can have a few better, less stolen elections and put some more decent people into office.
Last thing, Trump appears to be in real trouble and his own hubris has once more played into the hands of his opponents while his 'sell by date' expired in 2021 and I wish he would just fade away. We need some younger decent people running for office to replace the old people, folk my age and then damage control on both sides will be required if we are to avoid the mess that appears to be heading our way.
Do what you want with my response because I see your attitude towards those that disagree as being a classic case of the 'ex-wife' syndrome which is really not a compliment. No man ever won an argument with an 'ex-wife' so, that's that.
OT,
I published your comment because it's such a perfect example of the kind of double-think Republicans have become so good at.
As for "ex-wife syndrome," was never married to the GOP, let alone any commenter. This is my blog, where I express my opinions. Commenting here is a privilege, not a right and the fact is, I win every argument here because this is my blog -- just as you win 'em on yours, if you have one. Nor do I care if comments are complimentary or the reverse; I prefer them to be interesting and intelligent, and not just a rehash of whatever was on Fox/OANN/NewsMax (or MSNBC) the previous evening.
When you refer to "a few better, less stolen elections," you are echoing Mr. Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 election, which his Administration's own cybersecurity people reported to have been honest and secure; this was also said by senior members of that Administration and several dozen Federal judges, including Trump appointees. Our election systems are highly decentralized and offline; the kinds of cheating which have been alleged are effectively impossible.
As for "the confusion that appeared on TV" and "the cameras were set up to tell the story of the left," this is patent nonsense unless one subscribes to wild conspiracy theories that somehow the media knew things would get so far out of hand. From the tone of Mr. Trump and his surrogates leading up to the rally and during it, I assumed the aftermath was going to look like a BLM-associated riot: protesting without a permit, confrontations with police, minor (or larger, though D.C. is relatively fireproof) fires and property damage. I didn't expect they would storm the Capitol and get inside, go looking for VP Pence and Congressional leadership and so on. I don't think the Press expected it would go that far either, and most of the TV coverage confirmed it: a lot of very wide shots from cameras long-installed to get background and "beauty" shots along with odds and ends of hasty handheld video. The wide shots were especially useful in understanding the events as they unfolded: I have frequently reminded readers that the way news is covered tends to strip context by focusing on small-scale, highly-newsworthy action, but the wide shots revealed a large, angry, violent mob, a thing impossible to fake or spin.
The Trump Administration's "oil and energy" accomplishments were, like those of previous and subsequent Administrations, no more than deck-chair rearrangments, which is all any such can be in a mostly-free economy. His judicial appointments are a highly mixed lot, but that can be laid at the feet of the Federalists Society, who turned out to be more about culture-war noise than actual Federalism or judicial conservatism
Certainly Mr. Trump's "sell-by" date is long past, and I hope the same can be said of Trumpism as well, because otherwise it bids fair to put an ugly end to this country's long Great Experiment in human freedom and self-government.
Allow me to say this about that...The Republicans are on about Bidens advanced age. If we look at how old Trump will be in four years, it would make him a non-starter based on age by their own criteria.
He had his turn, for better or worse, biden got the nod in the last election. We have to move on and find younger, newer blood to lead this country, plain and simple.
irontomflint
In 2015-2016 when I was still registered as a Republican, at a brunch attended by five of us who had known one another since the 1960s, a friend asked what I thought of Mr Trump. "He's a clown", said I - to the utter amazement of the other four. I wish that I had been pleasantly surprised by Mr Trump's tenure in office. Alas. Were I to be asked the question, again, I should only be able to reply, "He's a lying, self-aggrandizing clown." (Still to the utter amazement of the other four.) To me, Trumpism displays all of the markers of a religion. Proponents and opponents fail to convince one another of the righteousness of their own positions.
We have, in this country, forgotten how to disagree without being disagreeable. Trump is/was a larger symptom of that. If we can't get that back, it will make the unpleasantness of the 1850s and 60s seem like a church picnic.
IMO, Trump is done regardless of what plays out in court. Everything he says he wants to do he had the chance to accomplish from 2017-2021 and didn't. There is no reason to believe a 2nd term would be different and now, as irontomflint said Trump's age cuts against him as well. His being the nominee would nearly guarantee a 2nd Biden term, God help us.
A second Biden term doesn't worry me much. Now that the Republicans have shown an even greater interest in getting into office and proactively wrenching away on things than their Democrat counterparts, I'm not feeling a terribly strong preference for one over the other -- except that the Supreme Court as it presently stands is a lot more likely to push back against Democrat initiatives than Republican ones. Since I am firmly of the opinion that politicians can make things worse a lot more easily than they can make things better, President Biden looks better than [generic Republican] on that basis.
“… a 2nd Biden term, God help us.”
I’ve been thrown into a concentration camp and had all my guns confiscated forty-seven times already in the first Biden term. I don’t know if I could survive a second one.
The happy thing about Biden is that he's a charisma free dunderhead. That causes its own issues- serious ones, especially with a lot of our allies, but we're spared the problem of having an ambitious turd with a political cult at the top of the Federal CoC.
Joe, remind me how a "charisma free dunderhead" managed to work out a bill to raise the debt ceiling with a House determined to not cooperate? Biden reminds me of Gerald Ford: no flash, very easy to underestimate, but he somehow manages to get done what needs to get done.
We often get "star" Presidents, no matter the party, and the emphasis on form over substance annoys me. I want 'em to shut up and do the work. I want them to be effective cheerleaders for America when they do speak up, and not promoters of their own "brand."
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