Is it too late to get one of those red hats?
I didn’t support Donald Trump during the 2016 election — not that it mattered. I wasn’t in a swing state and I wasn’t publicly opining about the general election. Had my vote mattered, I might have brought myself to vote for him, but it didn’t, so I didn’t.
On election night, I had a few drinks and enjoyed Hillary Clinton losing. It was a spectacle at which, to borrow a line, it would have taken a heart of stone not to laugh. I did text a friend or two that I hoped I was wrong about Trump.
In some ways, I was. He has kept his promises on judges, for instance. In other ways I think my low opinion of him has been thoroughly vindicated. Thus, in writing for The Federalist, I have defended President Trump and criticized him, sometimes in the same column.
I have also criticized the die-hard Never-Trumpers who are willing to jettison conservatism to pursue their vendetta against Trump. Like many Trump-skeptical conservatives I tried to call things as I saw them. Sometimes I was pleased with Trump’s policy, and sometimes I was appalled by him. I do not disavow any of what I wrote. Nonetheless, I now support Trump’s reelection.
To use the word du jour: I have been radicalized. The enormity of the efforts by the Democrats and their media allies to destroy Brett Kavanaugh forced me to reconsider my views. The concerns I have about Trump’s character, temperament, and propensity to damage America’s cultural and political institutions are still there, but I am supporting him anyway.
It is not just that the Democrats have vitiated any claim to possess superior character or temperament (though they have), or that Trump’s policies have been better than I expected. I now support Trump because the Democratic Party and its media allies are controlled by people who view conservatives not as political opponents to be voted down, but as enemies to be personally destroyed.
Trump will say anything, but Democrats will do anything. They and their media allies smeared a universally respected judge with an impeccable record as a serial sexual predator on evidence that would not have justified an indictment. They repeatedly lied and hid evidence in order to create delay (e.g., Christine Blasey Ford’s supposed fear of flying).
In the end, the evidence against Kavanaugh consisted only of the dubious testimony of a woman who could not recall basic details like a time or a place, whose story changed repeatedly, and whose witnesses remembered nothing of what she claimed. But Democrats did their best to forever brand him as a sexual predator anyway. They did not want a serious, confidential investigation; they wanted to publicly grind him into the dirt while the mob howled for his head.
They wanted the circus, the smears, the insane rumors and allegations from cranks. They wanted the tabloid journalism from formerly respectable outlets like The New Yorker. If Kavanaugh refused to withdraw, then they wanted Ford on national television. They even wanted the lunatic claims from a nutcase dredged up by a creepy porn lawyer, alleging that Kavanaugh ran a gang-rape ring as a teen. Even as the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh collapsed, they switched to smears about his high school yearbook and college drinking.
With rare exceptions, the national media repeated every smear and Democratic talking point. They spent weeks trying to destroy Kavanaugh’s life and reputation with lies, then had the effrontery to sneer at his anger when he took umbrage at being labeled a gang-rape mastermind. Lushes from the soused D.C. media lectured Kavanaugh about his teenage drinking. They earned every bit of Trump’s “enemy of the people” and “fake news” epithets.
Kavanaugh was a normal establishment Republican pick. Destroying him had nothing to do with opposing Trump’s particular flaws. This was about annihilating anyone who gets in the Democrats’ way, especially anyone who threatens their illegitimate Supreme Court policy wins. It was a declaration of war on every conservative, no matter how respected, reasonable, and mainstream.
There is no refuge from this sort of totalizing, destructive politics. The Republican rejection of Merrick Garland was political hardball; the sliming of Kavanaugh was categorically different and much worse. The Democrats crossed the line from policy disagreement to personal destruction, and in doing so they nuked any middle ground between themselves and conservative Trump skeptics. And they put every conservative on notice: You could be next.
If the Democrats will do this to a man as respected and mainstream as Kavanaugh, they will do it to anyone who gets in their way. The left has embraced mob justice that disdains our culture of due process and the presumption of innocence, and merely disagreeing with the mob provokes its wrath. At Facebook, the mob is after an executive who stood by his friend. At my alma mater, a dean was punished for tweeting skeptically about the woman accusing Kavanaugh of running a gang-rape ring in high school. Ordinary people are being targeted for having opinions the mob hates.
Democrats only support far left radicals and try to eliminate moderate Republicans. So, I wonder, what do they expect would happen? I supported Gingrich in 2012 because I knew he would FIGHT. Moderate Republicans wanted a different option. I supported Cruz because I knew he would FIGHT. Trump was even more determined, though, and brushed all other competition aside. I then supported him because I knew HE would FIGHT… and he did. I also felt he was the last desperate line of defense against Hillary getting her grubby, criminal, corrupt hands on the Supreme Court; America’s last redoubt.
Trump did the impossible; he defeated the Republican establishment, the media, the DNC, the FBI, the CIA, the DOJ and Obama using all the power of the federal government to undermine an opposition party candidate.
The left doesn’t understand the people who didn’t embrace Hillary simply because of her inevitability or as an extension of Obama. Subsequently, they have shown Republicans and independents WHY they supported Trump and if the media had any honesty in its coverage of Trump’s administration, the support for Trump would overwhelming, but the media, too is showing open-minded people the real danger that faces our nation.
@Deplorable me: The democrats have no platform, none. Unless you want to protest or hate on Trump. No plan to improve any ones life. Socialist plans of excessive taxes, shutting down a now thriving economy, open borders, crumbling cities full of homeless and trash. Freebies for invaders, nothing for the vets.
@kitt: Their platform is to raise taxes. Aside from their hateful anti-America and anti-growth, the only thing they support is higher taxes.
Q. When was the last time Trump’s average job approval rating gap was a positive number?
A. There has never been such a time.
Trump’s RCP job approval average is presently minus 8.9 percent. Even his claim of widespread popularity is a lie. At the peak of his popularity, nearly 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Donald Trump.
Faint praise but praise nonetheless.
It must be difficult for “Never Trumpers” to do this, but more and more are doing it.
@Greg: Wander over to the article posted about the 92% negative media coverage while they ignore the great economy, trade accomplishments and foreign policy victories. That should explain why Trump’s meaningless poll numbers don’t match his accomplishments.
@Deplorable me: Don’t give the foolish troll the time of day, just ignore it. It’s not worthy of anything but total disdain.
The democrats only want liberal actvists judges like the ones in the 9th circut court to rule Illegal aliens have the right to set up garden on your own farm and rule you have to remove your fence becasue it prevents the kangaroo rats from crossing because liberals reject the U.S. Constitution
@Boris Badenov: Quite true-you can tell how uninformed he is quite easily-he still believes in the bullsh!t polls!
Kavanaugh is essential to the plan to drain the swamp and to combat the deep state. This is the reason the democrats went into scorched earth mode. They didn’t care about him or that woman who made up a story that was not to have been forwarded. However feinstein panicked and it was leaked, and the democrats used it (before ford scrubbed her social media pages, she was touted as an activist (even wearing that pink vagina hat in a march), and had also stated on her fb page during the time Gorsuch was under fire that someone should write a letter accusing him of sexual assault. (sound familiar?). Just wait until ginsberg falls over, and she will. There will be an all out war. Our nation is at a tipping point.
As far as ford? I was sexual assaulted and although I complained/filed immediately I can still remember the details 20 years later. She was lying and if you notice, she is now gone like a puff of smoke. She probably took that 2 million dollar gofund and moved out of country.
Indiana asks U.S. Supreme Court to permit Pence-enacted abortion restrictions law to take effect
Down’s Syndrome is typically detected with a Chorionic Villus Sampling test during the first trimester of pregnancy. Republicans want to force women to continue such pregnancies against their will. Think about that before you cast your votes next month.
In the UK where “healthcare” is supposed to be “cradle-to-grave,” women are forced to take that test.
Then, if the baby has Down’s Syndrome, she is given an awful choice:
she can have an abortion OR she can foot all the child’s medical bills out of her own pocket for as long as it lives!
The Indiana law merely states that one facet of a baby’s genetics cannot be the ONLY reason for a legal abortion.
Thus women would not be allowed to abort simply because a baby is a girl, or has a defect.
Republicans believe gov’t does not belong between doctors and patients.
If I were you I would be looking at how insurers dictate behavior to would-be parents.
Historically, women who want an abortion can come up with whatever the legal hoop is they must jump thru.
So, women will come up with multiple reasons instead of just one IF SCOTUS reverses the Appeals’ Courts’ ruling.
@James D: Yay Euthanasia! Yay, Sanger! Kill those human weeds! Don’t forget the blacks!!
@Deplorable Me:
Down Syndrome? Many people with Down’s go on to lead almost totally normal lives. They get an education, hold jobs, pay taxes and live on their own. But of course, any reason to kill a baby prior to birth will do for the pro-death crowd.
Here is a very interesting article written by a committed leftist you might be interested in in keeping with the meme of this thread:
Remember: When you vote next month, voting Democratic is the best way to give Trump and his fellow Nazis the finger. Remember that every time he says something un-American, offensive or stupid, and there’s no way you will forget.
@James D:
Remember, when you vote Democrat next month, you are voting for no valid policies except for radical protesters, violence, higher taxes, higher unemployment, more people on welfare and identity politics.
Must chap your a$$ that Trump is achieving the very things Obama said he would do. Oh, that’s right, Obama said that less than 3% GDP was the new “normal.”
@retire05: They are very upset about Trump separating families. With all the NOW HIRING signs the non launchers no longer have an excuse not to get a friggin job and move out of the “free” mom and dad room.
@kitt:
The left will never admit that many children are smuggled across the border by those who are NOT their parents for no other purpose but the sex trade. Think how they would be screaming if some child was sold into prostitution by a coyote and our government did not check for paternity.
The left doesn’t know how to do anything but promise free stuff and try to keep minorities on Uncle Sam’s plantation.
@retire05:Trump just his first month in office made 1627 pedo related arrests. This admin has saved hundreds and hundreds of little children from traffickers. Many of the children never reunited at the border was because of DNA testing that the “activists” fought tooth and nail. No one wants to believe such evil exists but toddlers were saved from sicko brothels. John D just want the right to twist the heads off children before the cross the border of the womb. Children kidnapped for the adoption process from 3rd world countries. We have much work to do and progressive Marxists just want to go back.
Praise these vets still on patrol in a different war.
The Veterans on Patrol also in the mission.
@James D:
I think doing what is best for the country is more important than some sore loser liberal gesture.
@retire05:
Probably depends on who is doing the buying. Getting their yards mowed cheaply is not the only thing liberals look from from illegal immigrants, apparently.
Doing what’s best for the United States of America means eliminating Trump and every one of his lying, traitorous gang of thieves from public office as quickly as possible, then disinfecting the White House in preparation for someone who’s truly worthy of our trust and the honor of serving.
@James D: James you are nuthin but a pasty little NPC.
Now brush off there is WORK to be done to erase the stain that the last admin left, the repairs to the White house that the previous residents left behind including needing exterminators, says much. Clean decent people do not live in infested quarters.
@James D:
No, what that is is doing what satisfies whining, crybaby sore losers who felt entitled to the ongoing ruin that is the liberal ideology. For eight years, we saw that was NOT good for the United States. How is trying to disrupt the nation for the sake of spoiled child revenge good for the nation? Note you don’t mention any CRIME for which Trump should be removed (eliminated? MORE left wing violence?); you feel your hurt feelings and disappointment is enough to remove a President from office.
We’ve seen what you place your “trust” in. A community organizer that lies and pits groups against each other so he can use confusion as a political tool, one that employs racism as a tool or a lying criminal that allows all hostile powers access to our classified information… no, that is BAD for America.
You liberals want to do what is best for the country? Step aside and allow Trump to implement his policies and agenda. If it’s bad for the country, you have a case to be made to replace him. However, the left cannot take the risk that Trump’s agenda is going to be great for the nation and the American people, especially since what he has been allowed to accomplish thus far has been exactly that.
What’s best for America? Shut up and sit down; let the adults run the country.
Well, I can certainly see why republicans in general and Trump supporters in particular want to focus attention on nonsense like Elizabeth Warren’s family heritage and the terrible menace of Democratic mob violence.
This just in: the latest Fox News poll results as of 10/17
Question #1 results:
47% registered voters approve of the job Donald Trump is doing, while 51% disapprove. The percentage of those who strongly disapprove is markedly higher than the percentage of those who strongly approve.
It gets even better when we get to item #17:
53% of registered voters now have a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, while only 42% have an unfavorable view.
Item #23 reveals that the single item both registered and likely voters identify as the most likely to motivate them to vote this year is health care—the big issue that republicans talked endlessly about but never really got around to dealing with.
@Deplorable Me, #23:
The problem is that the GOP no longer has any. Kelly, Bolton reportedly get in profane shouting match outside Oval Office
Um… Wahoo Warren went and got the DNA test. No one twisted her arm. SHE willingly identified herself as a “minority” and “woman of color” for her own benefit. Nobody force her to lie about her heritage, it was just the easy way to shove some qualified minority aside and benefit from affirmative action.
Also, no one forces liberals to organize violent mobs that attack Republicans. That is simply the default position of the left and, failing to produce an attractive message to voters, trying to silence the opposition is their only option. Violence is a CHOICE for the left.
That CHOICE is creating this REACTION. Do you like that? Are you proud that your party has innovated, incited, and promoted such reaction? The left wing mobs that assault Republicans out for dinner or a walk has spawned this disgusting behavior. Yeah, disgusting, but justified, especially against Pelosi, because it is a CHOSEN tactic by the left.
We’ve told you your violence will begat violence. Now, it spreads to Republicans giving liberals who support violence a taste of their own medicine. How far will it go? Well, as far a YOU want it to go.
47% shows Trump’s popularity continues to rise, this DESPITE 92% negative liberal media coverage. You are about to be swamped, scooter.
Trump’s popularity is nothing more than a measure of America’s stupidity, which we now have in great abundance. I suppose we always have had, but stupid people have never been so effectively organized and exploited to their own ultimate disadvantage.
What happened to that ready-to-roll-out secret health care plan Trump had, that was going to provide cheaper and better insurance that would be available to everybody? Republicans controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate, and it still never happened. They can tell you the same tall tale again, and you’ll go for it again. Just like they’ll tell you your tax cuts will become permanent, too, just like those of the wealthiest—while ignoring the small problem of a built-in trillion-dollar-a-year deficit. Tax cuts always pay for themselves, you know.
Idiots.
@Greg:
Trump’s popularity is probably 15 or 20 points below what it would be if the media reported honestly. Speaking of stupidity, how about voting for a woman who lied on video about putting US classified information up for grabs? How about believing she only deleted 33,000 emails because they were “personal”? Now, THAT’S stupid!! REAL stupid!
Whatever happened to 2% was the most growth we would ever have again and manufacturing jobs were gone forever?
@Greg: The federal government collected a record $1,415,150,000,000 in individual income taxes through the first ten months after tax cuts, more people working because employers can afford to hire more. Works everytime, problem is spending not taxing. Fewer dollars spent on food stamps welfare ect wont help our spendaholics in DC. I agree the last budget was insane. Which democrat is running on cutting federal spending? Whats the plan?
The right was been methodically conditioned by their own media to disregard any and all sources that provide news or information that’s contrary to their own propaganda. I’ve watched this situation evolve over the course of several decades. It went mainstream with the appearance of FOX News during the Clinton administration. Lying to you has now become big business. It’s been financially incentivized by getting various single-issue target audience/markets under a single tent. It’s what has made hypocrites like Rush Limbaugh into multi-millionaires. Behind the scenes, they’ve got to be laughing their heads off at the poor rubes they’re leading around like a flock of hypnotized sheep. The irony is that the sheep believe they’re thinking for themselves, because they’ve been constantly told so, and that everyone outside the flock is deluded. They truly believe their exploiters are their protectors. If anyone tells them otherwise, they’ve been conditioned to immediately stick their fingers in their ears.
@Greg: Hmm… the number of times the WaPo, NYT, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and NBC have to issue “corrections” when caught lying seems to undercut your argument.
The far left liberal media has to lie to try and keep the liberal Democrat party afloat. Well, they don’t really need to bother. Shit floats.
$1,415,150,000,000 collected, and there’s still a trillion-dollar shortage projected for next year…
@Deplorable Me, #30:
The very fact that they issue corrections when they get something wrong, while FOX News and most right-leaning outlets don’t, should tell you something about who’s actually trying to get the true story out.
We only progress by acknowledging and correcting our mistakes.
@Greg: No, the reason they issue corrections is because they jump to conclusions and report what they WANT to be true, not what IS true. They are gossip columnists, not journalists.
Not investigating stories and finding the FACTS is the error that needs to be corrected and you don’t see any of the leftist media working on THAT problem. Why don’t you count how many times the liberal media reports that Trump said the media is the enemy of the state instead of what he REALLY said and get back to me? The liberal media would rather lie than tell the truth because the truth does not advance the liberal cause. It’s why so many idiots STILL believe in Russian collusion…
@Greg: Now my question now me, which democrats are running on budget cuts the plan the plan.
@kitt: Hell, if Democrats would cooperate on a budget (it takes 60 votes to pass a budget) we could cut spending and work on the deficit. Just wait until next year when Obama’s money-printing frenzy comes due.