Category Archives: Popular Culture

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

The Late Jumpers On The Trump Train

22 Comments

I agree with Jonah: I’m not going to abandon my principles just because he is “a winner”:

The “people have spoken” is not some abracadabra phrase that can change my opinions, never mind my convictions. If “the people” vote that I must hate dogs, I’m not going to start hating dogs. If a plurality of Republican primary voters tells me I have to like blue cheese, I’m not going to start liking blue cheese. And even if 99.99 percent of Americans tell me that I should shed my opinions of Donald Trump, I’m not going to do that either. New facts or some new argument — in theory — could make me change my mind. But crowds, mobs, twitter trolls, bullying hacks, eye-rolling apparatchiks – or even voters can’t just because they all shout at once. Why? Because I am not a politician.

[Update later morning]

Why #NeverTrump remains relevant. Yes, it wasn’t about denying him the nomination, per se. It’s about preserving what few limited-government principles the party had left.

[Late-morning update]

Five reasons Cruz shouldn’t have dropped out.

I was surprised. When I heard that late deciders had been going for Cruz, I saw it as a good sign going forward. I can only think that his CA donors told him to give it up.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Trump Versus Clinton

35 Comments

The latest Rasmussen. Put me with “someone else” (particularly given that I don’t vote in a swing state).

As I’ve been saying on Twitter for months, my concern with a Trump/Clinton match up isn’t that Clinton will win, but that one of them will, and both are terrible. I’d like to see a poll with some specific names (e.g., Cruz, Ryan, Mattis, Gary Johnson) as “other.”

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, War Commentary

Why Trump Is Worse

60 Comments

…than any previous Republican nominee (discounting the fact that he’s not really a Republican):

We know, from his deeds, words, and even his pronouncements in this campaign, that Trump offers nothing to conservatives – worse than nothing, he would evict us from any position within our own party. He gets his foreign policy ideas from Michael Moore and Code Pink (or worse yet, from Vladimir Putin); his abortion views are grounded in his sympathy with Planned Parenthood; he supports socialized medicine in the form of single-payer healthcare, higher taxes, more government spending, and Herbert Hoover’s trade policy. He’s never met a bailout or a crony-capitalist deal he didn’t like, or a Democrat he wouldn’t donate to. He’s astonishingly ignorant, emotionally unstable, and wholly incapable of saying no to Democrats. Trump is a spoiled, entitled rich kid who shows not the slightest understanding of the American way of up-by-the booststraps striving to better yourself; in Trump’s world, the rich get richer by having the right friends, and everybody else is a serf who needs the government to protect them from foreign competition.

Let’s compare Trump to some of the prior Republican presidential losers, and I’ll throw in Rudy and Newt for good measure since I’ve written on this site in their defense before…

RTWT.

[Update a while later]

In short: yes, you can find an example of many of Trump’s flaws in prior Republican presidential candidates. But not one of those candidates combined the total package of Trump: the unfitness to be Commander-in-Chief; the total lack of accomplishments, sacrifices or even efforts over his lifetime for any cause we believe in, combined with repeated efforts to assist the other team; the manifest lack of political principle, personal character or demonstrated political character; the ignorance; the catnip for white supremacists; the toxic effect on the brand of both the party and its ideas.

A vote for Trump, even in the general election, is a suicide note for the Republican Party and the conservative movement. I will never vote for Hillary Clinton, but I cannot in good conscience ever give aid and comfort to Donald Trump and the poison he represents.

That’s my current attitude. I don’t know whom I’ll vote for — it will depend on what I see on the ballot.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

A Cruz Surge In Indiana

42 Comments

I hope this poll is accurate, but if it is, I wonder what’s the cause? Carly? Pence’s (barely) endorsement? Boehner’s negative endorsement?

By the way, Boehner’s reaction to Cruz, and his talk about being buds with Trump should put paid to the notion of who the real “anti-establishment” candidate is.

[Update a few minutes later]

Allahpundit would like to believe it, too, but is skeptical.

Business, Economics, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

The Anti-Trump Vote

126 Comments

…gets serious.

Naturally the Trump campaign is bellowing its disapproval of the Cruz-Kasich deal. But there’s nothing unfair about enabling the anti-Trump majority, if it exists, from stopping the nomination of a candidate it believes would be disastrous for the party and dangerous for the nation.

Finally. I hope it’s not too late. Of course, “bellowing” is what the Trump campaign does best.

[Update a few minutes later]

Present

I Regret Voting For Donald Trump https://t.co/j7ukfhAi2U pic.twitter.com/BMoZUAXYpc

— Jim Treacher (@jtLOL) April 26, 2016

nt-at-the-destruction/” target=”_blank”>at the destruction:

As a result of this profound success, whatever the differences between the two major parties may have been on other issues, these two fundamental bedrock principles underlying the creation and continuation of the post-1945 world order have remained uncontroversial among serious political leaders for the seven decades ever since.

Unfortunately, this has now changed. In both major parties, powerful figures have arisen who are challenging this long-held consensus. Among the Democrats, the chief usurper is the Marxian socialist Bernie Sanders. Among the Republicans, it is the national socialist Donald Trump. Both would gut the Western alliance. Both would wreck the system of global free trade. Both would cause a global depression. Both would unleash the dogs of war. While their rhetoric is quite different, on the central issue of defending or betraying the Pax Americana, the program of both is the same.

It is to be expected that a rabid left-wing socialist like Bernie Sanders would support such a program, and one must be thankful that the remaining Atlanticist forces within the Democratic Party appear to have him and his faction in check – at least for this election year. But what can one say of the Republicans and allegedly “right wing” radical Donald Trump? National Review founder William F. Buckley used to say that conservatives should support the most conservative electable candidate. Hillary Clinton would continue the Obama administration’s deleterious liberal policies for four more years. So she is certainly no conservative. But Donald Trump would destroy the Western alliance and the world economy. On the basis of that comparison, if the two were to face off in November, as incredible as it may seem, William F. Buckley would have no choice but to vote for Clinton. Surely we can do better.

Unfortunately, the problem with Clinton goes far beyond per prospective policies. She would be the most corrupt president since, well…the last time we had a President Clinton. Though Obama’s been no slouch in that regard, either.

[Tuesday-morning update]

Why I regret my vote for Trump.