Post by rogerbuck on Jan 17, 2021 14:17:20 GMT
Last night I saw on FB that Peter Kwasniewski had posted a very insightful angry piece from a self-evidently sincere, intelligent American Catholic Conservative dissecting Trump, Trump-ism.
It has hit me deeply. I urge others to not only read it, but study it.
I don't think I have ever urged like this before on this forum. But it seems that important to me.
I am posting some extracts with bolding by me then the link down below:
The last is a key point. The people at this forum know how BAD the alternative is.
So does this guy.
But I have spent the last four years worrying that Trump may be the lesser of two evils, but two evils do not make good.
I have also been worrying about the GREAT Chesterbelloc semi-endorsing Mussolini because they tended to see the Anglo-American "Money-Power" after the Treaty of Versailles as the even more terrible alternative to Mussolini.
This brought great damage to the great Chesterbelloc in the end, particularly the great Belloc.
One last quote relevant to my worries:
Link: johnjalsevac.com/2021/01/12/why-im-so-angry/?fbclid=IwAR2t9sjr5-_fbmBpO4N4doQedr6JchZ_u0hwA8DeFjt6xo8fagv9ohc1d1E
It has hit me deeply. I urge others to not only read it, but study it.
I don't think I have ever urged like this before on this forum. But it seems that important to me.
I am posting some extracts with bolding by me then the link down below:
In 2015, I was working full-time as a conservative journalist and editor. I vividly remember the suspicion, even disgust, most social conservatives expressed at the time, when it looked like Trump might clinch the GOP nomination. How could we ever get behind, or trust such a man?
Then, in July, 2016, Trump chose Mike Pence as his running mate. That was a brilliant move. We didn’t know what to make of Trump. But we did know Pence. And Pence was committed. He was the real deal. So, we climbed aboard the Trump Train.
Anybody who’s paid attention, knows that Pence was the driving force behind the Trump admin’s social conservative agenda. Yes, Trump deserved kudos for getting behind it, but Pence was the architect. He was our main man in the White House. And for four years, he delivered.
On Tuesday, on Twitter, Trump repeatedly called for Pence to reject the certified electors in the swing states, saying that if he didn’t, Pence would be to blame for his loss. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I was literally shaking with anger as I read those Tweets. Trump was publicly setting up Pence as his fall guy, his scapegoat.
“The coward,” I thought. “The double-crossing, two-faced, lying, unscrupulous, disloyal, thankless ingrate,” I added. “This,” I thought, “this is the moment. This is the moment when social conservatives wake up, and realize that they’re in bed with a snake, a crocodile.”
Nope.
Trump repeated his accusations against Pence at the rally on Wed. morning. “If Mike Pence does the right thing we win the election,” he said. He even dared to suggest that if Pence didn’t do what he said, it was because he lacked “courage”.
Pence responded with a statement explaining why he couldn’t do what Trump was demanding he do. Clearly, he was right. You’d have to be insane or delusional to think the framers of the Constitution or the 12th amendment intended to grant the vice president the authority to do what Trump was demanding Pence do. (“Hey, let’s give unilateral authority to reject legislatively-certified electoral votes to the politician whose continued position and power depend on the outcome of that vote! What a great idea! Because a little tyranny never hurt democracy, amiright?”) Which is why it has never happened in the history of the country.
According to reports (UPDATE: here’s video), during the ensuing riot some of the rioters rampaged through the Capitol looking for Pence, so they could string him up. Some of them built a gallows in front. A day later, “hang Mike Pence” trended on Twitter.
Then, in July, 2016, Trump chose Mike Pence as his running mate. That was a brilliant move. We didn’t know what to make of Trump. But we did know Pence. And Pence was committed. He was the real deal. So, we climbed aboard the Trump Train.
Anybody who’s paid attention, knows that Pence was the driving force behind the Trump admin’s social conservative agenda. Yes, Trump deserved kudos for getting behind it, but Pence was the architect. He was our main man in the White House. And for four years, he delivered.
On Tuesday, on Twitter, Trump repeatedly called for Pence to reject the certified electors in the swing states, saying that if he didn’t, Pence would be to blame for his loss. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I was literally shaking with anger as I read those Tweets. Trump was publicly setting up Pence as his fall guy, his scapegoat.
“The coward,” I thought. “The double-crossing, two-faced, lying, unscrupulous, disloyal, thankless ingrate,” I added. “This,” I thought, “this is the moment. This is the moment when social conservatives wake up, and realize that they’re in bed with a snake, a crocodile.”
Nope.
Trump repeated his accusations against Pence at the rally on Wed. morning. “If Mike Pence does the right thing we win the election,” he said. He even dared to suggest that if Pence didn’t do what he said, it was because he lacked “courage”.
Pence responded with a statement explaining why he couldn’t do what Trump was demanding he do. Clearly, he was right. You’d have to be insane or delusional to think the framers of the Constitution or the 12th amendment intended to grant the vice president the authority to do what Trump was demanding Pence do. (“Hey, let’s give unilateral authority to reject legislatively-certified electoral votes to the politician whose continued position and power depend on the outcome of that vote! What a great idea! Because a little tyranny never hurt democracy, amiright?”) Which is why it has never happened in the history of the country.
According to reports (UPDATE: here’s video), during the ensuing riot some of the rioters rampaged through the Capitol looking for Pence, so they could string him up. Some of them built a gallows in front. A day later, “hang Mike Pence” trended on Twitter.
In the minutes after the Capitol riot, I watched as numerous conservative friends and acquaintances started sharing memes and images claiming that two of the most visible rioters were “Antifa” and “BLM” provocateurs.
From the moment the first of these memes crossed my social feed, to the moment my feed was flooded with them, was less than an hour. Within a couple hours, millions of people had spread them across Facebook and Twitter.
It took me less than two minutes to identify both of the men. Both of them are well-known Trump supporters. I quickly wrote an article exposing the lie. But by that time it was too late. Millions of people already believed they had “proof” that the riot was instigated by Antifa provocateurs. Nothing will ever convince them otherwise.
On Wed. evening, a Washington Times article claiming that a “facial recognition” company, XRvision, had identified “Antifa” activists in the crowd went viral. It was shared over 350,000 times on Facebook. Later that night, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz repeated the allegation on the House floor.
From the moment the first of these memes crossed my social feed, to the moment my feed was flooded with them, was less than an hour. Within a couple hours, millions of people had spread them across Facebook and Twitter.
It took me less than two minutes to identify both of the men. Both of them are well-known Trump supporters. I quickly wrote an article exposing the lie. But by that time it was too late. Millions of people already believed they had “proof” that the riot was instigated by Antifa provocateurs. Nothing will ever convince them otherwise.
On Wed. evening, a Washington Times article claiming that a “facial recognition” company, XRvision, had identified “Antifa” activists in the crowd went viral. It was shared over 350,000 times on Facebook. Later that night, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz repeated the allegation on the House floor.
I noted, for instance, that Trump had a distressingly tenuous relationship with truth; that he was often unaccountably cruel not only to his sworn enemies, but to anybody who questioned or criticized him; that he had an extraordinary inability to earn and to maintain trust and loyalty among his advisors, friends and family; that his White House was a dumpster fire, a sordid day-time soap opera, with a revolving door of advisors and officials, welcomed effusively one minute, and thrown under the bus (or in prison) the next, with a final kick on Twitter for good effect; that he seemed to be surrounded and supported by a cabal of common con-men, grifters and snake-oil salesmen; that he spent a bizarre amount of time in frivolous feuds on Twitter, hurling schoolyard insults, or obsessing over cable news; that his unscripted speeches and interviews were frequently garbled and nonsensical; that he often displayed a failure to grasp the details or nuances of complex situations.
None of this necessarily amounted to a deal breaker, of course, especially in light of the ways Trump was delivering on key promises to social conservatives, and especially given the alternative.
None of this necessarily amounted to a deal breaker, of course, especially in light of the ways Trump was delivering on key promises to social conservatives, and especially given the alternative.
The last is a key point. The people at this forum know how BAD the alternative is.
So does this guy.
But I have spent the last four years worrying that Trump may be the lesser of two evils, but two evils do not make good.
I have also been worrying about the GREAT Chesterbelloc semi-endorsing Mussolini because they tended to see the Anglo-American "Money-Power" after the Treaty of Versailles as the even more terrible alternative to Mussolini.
This brought great damage to the great Chesterbelloc in the end, particularly the great Belloc.
One last quote relevant to my worries:
I have said since the first day of Trump’s presidency, that the primary result of his presidency would be to foment a backlash from the left that would not only erase whatever conservative gains he pursued in the meantime, but would ensure that conservatives were ultimately far worse off than if he had never been president.
It is hard to deny that this is where we find ourselves now: Most of Trump’s accomplishments were accomplished through personnel changes or executive orders. All of this will be wiped out on the first day of the Biden administration. Meanwhile, MAGA has descended into a rat’s nest of violence, conspiracy theorizing, and cultish thinking, culminating in a horrific attack on the seat of democracy that has given the tech giants the excuse and public support they need to conduct a purge, silencing and marginalizing conservative voices. Meanwhile, the whole GOP is weakened by this internal civil war, the conservative movement divided and rendered ineffectual by ferocious disagreements over the personality who has dominated our every waking hour for the past five years.
The right’s response right now is to blame everything on the left. No doubt, the left bears a great deal of the blame. I can recite the litany of leftist crimes of the past four years as well as anybody else. But I have lost all patience with whataboutism. I have lost all patience with the mental habit of eschewing responsibility by responding to all criticism or internal self-doubt by reciting the litany of grievances against the left.
All we had to do, was stay true our principles: Truth matters. Character matters. Charity, decency, honesty, the rule of law, love for our enemies, humility, goodness – all of these matter.
Some conservatives have been asking me why I’m directing so much of my anger at “our side,” when the “other side” has done so many horrible things. The short answer? Because I’m not responsible for the other side. I can’t change them. I have no influence over them. I am not surprised when my enemies do things I disagree with. It doesn’t make me angry, because I never expected anything different.
But when my own side abandons its own principles willy-nilly, and then girds itself in the impregnable armour of puerile whataboutism (“Ok, so we did riot a little. But what about all those BLM riots over the summer, huh? Why didn’t the media get as angry about those!”), then I get angry.
It is hard to deny that this is where we find ourselves now: Most of Trump’s accomplishments were accomplished through personnel changes or executive orders. All of this will be wiped out on the first day of the Biden administration. Meanwhile, MAGA has descended into a rat’s nest of violence, conspiracy theorizing, and cultish thinking, culminating in a horrific attack on the seat of democracy that has given the tech giants the excuse and public support they need to conduct a purge, silencing and marginalizing conservative voices. Meanwhile, the whole GOP is weakened by this internal civil war, the conservative movement divided and rendered ineffectual by ferocious disagreements over the personality who has dominated our every waking hour for the past five years.
The right’s response right now is to blame everything on the left. No doubt, the left bears a great deal of the blame. I can recite the litany of leftist crimes of the past four years as well as anybody else. But I have lost all patience with whataboutism. I have lost all patience with the mental habit of eschewing responsibility by responding to all criticism or internal self-doubt by reciting the litany of grievances against the left.
All we had to do, was stay true our principles: Truth matters. Character matters. Charity, decency, honesty, the rule of law, love for our enemies, humility, goodness – all of these matter.
Some conservatives have been asking me why I’m directing so much of my anger at “our side,” when the “other side” has done so many horrible things. The short answer? Because I’m not responsible for the other side. I can’t change them. I have no influence over them. I am not surprised when my enemies do things I disagree with. It doesn’t make me angry, because I never expected anything different.
But when my own side abandons its own principles willy-nilly, and then girds itself in the impregnable armour of puerile whataboutism (“Ok, so we did riot a little. But what about all those BLM riots over the summer, huh? Why didn’t the media get as angry about those!”), then I get angry.
Link: johnjalsevac.com/2021/01/12/why-im-so-angry/?fbclid=IwAR2t9sjr5-_fbmBpO4N4doQedr6JchZ_u0hwA8DeFjt6xo8fagv9ohc1d1E
