It feels good to not hate every public figure you disagree with.
It feels good to glance across the aisle and catch glimpses of humanity, of common understanding, of something approaching decency.
But unless you want to make the next two years even harder on yourself, you have to stop.
The fetishizing of the supposed political moderate is everywhere these days. It’s in the amnesia-afflicted Democrats who giggle with glee over Michelle Obama sharing candy with George W. Bush. It’s in the faith so many had to trust for even one second that Arizona Senator Jeff Flake (an on-the-nose surname if there ever was one) might actually vote against Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation. It’s in the willingness of the Missouri Democratic Party and even Bernie Sanders to open the tent to anti-choice candidates and platforms—because at the end of the day, women’s rights are still seen as a fringe issue.
And in the midst of this radical devotion to the feckless moderate, Never Trumpers, the faction of the Republican Party who digs Trump’s politics but cringe at his aesthetics, have a good thing going. Every conservative member of the New York Times editorial board voted against Trump. Useless Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse got a book deal out of not being an obvious asshole.
In the recent Oregon gubernatorial race, Knute Buehler touted the claim that he didn’t vote for Trump—he wrote in John Kasich’s name instead—as if that made him any less of a Republican or any worthier an opponent to Kate Brown. Fortunately, Oregon voters didn’t take Buehler’s faux-moderate bait. Brown beat him by a good six percentage points, cementing that idea that, in Oregon at least, words have to be backed up by actions.
When you’re being fed a steady diet of straight bullshit, diet bullshit might sound like a nice change. It’s tempting to smash the retweet button each time a Republican politician contradicts Trump. It’s soothing to imagine that a Bush or a Rubio or a Romney could save us all.
But unless you want to compromise not only your sanity but also your values, withhold your trust from the conservative establishment. And that includes the people who only seem to hate Trump as much as you do.
If you’re suggesting that people become whacked-out left-wing extremists, count me out.
Whacked-out right and left-wing extremists have SO much in common…
So, Douglas, if what you’re suggesting is that style is more important than substance, which you don’t indicate matters to you, then you haven’t said much except that you’re wishy-washy. I think what Blair is saying, if I might paraphrase, is that people who aren’t right-wing wackos, and especially those hovering around the middle somewhere – maybe like you, and compromising too readily with insane assholes is what has gotten us into this mess. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Anyone voting for the GOP these days is a nihilist. They stand for nothing and do nothing but destroy. They believe in nothing, care about no one, and truly believe somehow they will all be protected and saved from the savage destruction they have wrought upon the world.
Christina what savage destruction is that? Record low unemployment rates for nearly all minority groups and women? A booming economy? The complete and total wipeout of everything that lying fool Obama stood for and tried to pass by executive action(yes the ACA still exists albeit in a much watered down form and will soon be dead under its own weight) but virtually every other thing Obama did has been erased or negated by Trump. Maybe you are referring to the complete restocking of the judiciary with judges who actually follow the constitution. Oh I know you probably mean the Net Nuetrality decision, the one that destroyed the internet as everyone on the left bitched and moaned about. Once he gets the wall built he will have put in a thorough and excellent first term and unless there is a catastrophic meltdown of the economy he will surely win again!
@4 I don’t even know how to respond to that much bullshit.
These comments are an excellent validation of the premise of the article: Who’s more dangerous, obvious Trumpoid nutjobs like #4 above, or the seemingly mild contrarian of #1? The article correctly identifies #1 as more dangerous, because any decent human would automatically recoil from #4, and his nonsense would go unheeded, whereas some might think that since #1 is not obviously completely insane, they might be able incrementally sneak in some conservative nonsense.
The reason Bernie welcomed “anti-choice” Democrats to run is he recognized the party will always remain stuck at 45 to 55 percent electorally if it doesn’t widen its tent to encompass prolife moderates. Many moderates don’t necessarily want abortion outlawed, but they also don’t want to be forced to pay for it, as the never ending debate over Medicaid and abortion shows — Obama tried to force Catholic nuns to pay for abortifacients, that was about as stupid a political move as I’ve ever seen. And the idea that abortion is a “woman’s right” is countered by the fact more women vote prolife than men do — just read the Gallup poll from June of this year, or almost any poll. The prochoice community simply can’t grasp that many of the women it claims to represent actually believe abortion is wrong but they can still support national health care, oppose war (do Democrats really oppose war, btw?), fight poverty, stem climate change, etc. But they are uncomfortable voting for a party that smears every prolifer as some out of touch white male, when the prolife camp includes people of color, many women and other historically marginalized folks. Bernie, unlike the Clintons, who basically drove many traditional Catholics and evangelicals out of the party, gets this. Most people, when you really talk to them about abortion, actually think of it as a permissible evil, not a right, and this is something prochoicers need to grasp if the want to win their case with the public. I don’t want abortion outlawed, even sometimes think it’s needed, but I’m not so stupid as to realize there are many who do think every elective abortion is immoral, and that we Democrats are never going to get anywhere if we don’t recognize that. The Democrats’ insistence that abortion is some sort of sacred right has done more to hurt the party than most people realize — anyone who’s seen an ultrasound image knows there is more at stake than “fetal tissue,” and it’s long past time for prochoice activists to admit they got the science wrong and are arguing from a 19th century viewpoint on “quickening” etc. Most people will support legal abortion in the first trimester, but as a fetus develops they’re going to be less and less likely to think it’s okay to terminate it. What is so freakin’ hard to understand about this, and how clueless do you have to be to not understand some people just don’t want to pay for your choice? This eighth grader sensibility the article writer displays, where the world is divided into good and evil is so exemplary of Portland, where the grown-ups in any argument get pushed aside by the kids who never think things through and have no sense of life’s complexity and nuance. No society run by uncompromising people ever turns into anything other than a tyranny.
How about 1) not taking boat loads of money from Wall St and 2) not trying to start a war with Russia? Is that too much to ask?