Conservative Ideology: A Big Lie

[njbill]

Haley clearly seems to be gunning to be VP. Sorry, Mike. She has put all her eggs in the Trump basket. It is a high risk strategy. If she gets the position, and if Trump is defeated in 2020, she then is consigned to the graveyard of defeated vice presidential candidates. Anyone hear from Geraldine Ferraro lately? Yeah, I know. She is dead, but you get my point. Also, she would be running against an incumbent president in 2024. An uphill battle to be sure.

If Trump wins, she no doubt would run in 2024. But she would be trying to win a third consecutive term for her party. Not easy to do. Ask Hillary. If the country thinks it has Trump fatigue now, how will it feel in four years? She would bear the brunt of a lot of that, certainly if she has served four years as VP.

By so obsequiously aligning herself with Trump now, she runs the risk that Trump allegiance in four years will be a negative in the party as opposed to a positive. It is a high wire act. She might be better off laying low for a cycle or two to see which way the winds are blowing in four or eight years. But then she hasn’t asked me for political advice.

[HooDat]

Oh, I think Nikki is positioning herself to run in 2024 and she want NOTHING to do with Trump going forward. The best case for her personally is that Trump loses in 2020 and she can run with 4 + years of distance between herself and Trump's stink.

The message she is broadcasting loud and clear is that she respects the office of the Presidency. She has not declared fealty to Trump.

She has charted a very tight (and savvy) course. (a) respect for the office; (b) duty to country and to serve honorably through debate and either convincing POTUS of your point, agreeing with his/hers, or resigning; (c) not alienate the Trump base; while (d) point out where she has and has not agreed with Trump.

[njbill]

I guess we will see what the future holds for her. Although I think she clearly wants to be vice president, it is not as clear that Trump will dump Pence. He has no loyalty to anyone, of course, but he may think that that will upset his base. On the other hand, Trump is hemorrhaging support in the suburbs and may think that putting Haley on the ticket will help him. I think her book and recent interviews have been damaging to her. I don’t think there is anything she can do to get Trump stink off of her. She heavily lobbied for the UN ambassador position, a job she had absolutely no credentials to hold, so that she could claim down the road that she has foreign policy experience. She is way too blindly ambitious politically for my taste.

[HooDat]

She is way too blindly ambitious politically for my taste.

you don't get discussed as a potential presidential candidate without falling into that category.

That is my biggest problem with politics - those who want to be President are by definition (at least by MY definition) not qualified to serve by virtue of what they are willing to do in the name of their ambition.....

[njbill]

I hear you, but for me the push for UN Ambassador was a bridge too far.

[jhu72]

Interesting that republicans are only now calling for Miller's firing. That racism thing is starting to hurt.

[Brooklyn]

the ever principled Republicans:

[jhu72]

I hear you, but for me the push for UN Ambassador was a bridge too far.

Halley is just one more triangulating politician. She had one bright shining moment where she did the right thing and that is supposed to inoculate her against her complicity in the Trump debacle. She is the average German citizen of the late 1930s. Seeing, hearing and silent. Now she panders to Trump's base. Pathetic.

[njbill]

I saw her interview with Wolf Blitzer yesterday. Shilling for her book, which is fine. Everyone does that. She seems to be trying to achieve a balance between small criticisms of Trump, here and there, while generally being supportive of him. I still think she is angling for Vice President. Trump doesn’t really need Pence in 2020, but he could well need somebody like Nikki. Maybe Mike can get a Burger King franchise in Terre Haute.

We will see whether aligning herself so closely with Trump helps or hurts her politically. That will depend on whether the post-Trump Republican Party embraces his “ideology“ (and I use that term very loosely) or runs away from him. I certainly think it will be the latter, but who knows?

As with any politician who aspires to the presidency, she is trying to figure out what year will be the right one for her. Some are able to do that (Obama, Clinton, Reagan). Others aren’t (Hillary, Stevenson, Rockefeller, Romney, Christie). I don’t see a clear and obvious time for her (not to say she can’t win in a less than optimal year). If Trump wins reelection, and if she is vice president, I think the country will be so tired of Trump by 2024 that her being vice president will be a liability. Also, she would be seeking the third consecutive term of her party which is hard to do. That same problem would exist if Trump wins and she is not vice president. If Trump loses, she would be running against an incumbent president in 2024. Impossible to say at this point how difficult that might be. 2028 is a long ways away. What is she going to do to stay in the public eye for all that time?

I personally think the Trump stink (and thanks to HooDat for injecting that term into the discussion) will hurt her. Not as much as Bill Barr, but much more than those who have gone on to be critical of him.

[seacoaster]

"Maybe Mike can get a Burger King franchise in Terre Haute."

Maybe he and Pruitt's spouse can get a few Chik Filet franchises.

[njbill]

Good one, sc. Chick-fil-A. Much better choice.

[jhu72]

I saw her interview with Wolf Blitzer yesterday. Shilling for her book, which is fine. Everyone does that. She seems to be trying to achieve a balance between small criticisms of Trump, here and there, while generally being supportive of him. I still think she is angling for Vice President. Trump doesn’t really need Pence in 2020, but he could well need somebody like Nikki. Maybe Mike can get a Burger King franchise in Terre Haute.

We will see whether aligning herself so closely with Trump helps or hurts her politically. That will depend on whether the post-Trump Republican Party embraces his “ideology“ (and I use that term very loosely) or runs away from him. I certainly think it will be the latter, but who knows?

As with any politician who aspires to the presidency, she is trying to figure out what year will be the right one for her. Some are able to do that (Obama, Clinton, Reagan). Others aren’t (Hillary, Stevenson, Rockefeller, Romney, Christie). I don’t see a clear and obvious time for her (not to say she can’t win in a less than optimal year). If Trump wins reelection, and if she is vice president, I think the country will be so tired of Trump by 2024 that her being vice president will be a liability. Also, she would be seeking the third consecutive term of her party which is hard to do. That same problem would exist if Trump wins and she is not vice president. If Trump loses, she would be running against an incumbent president in 2024. Impossible to say at this point how difficult that might be. 2028 is a long ways away. What is she going to do to stay in the public eye for all that time?

I personally think the Trump stink (and thanks to HooDat for injecting that term into the discussion) will hurt her. Not as much as Bill Barr, but much more than those who have gone on to be critical of him.

I think there is no doubt the Trump stink will stick to her.

[ggait]

Pretty interesting read, imho, on how/why the GOP has circled the wagons around Trump and will defend him at all cost and against all facts. The thing I think is interesting is that it describes (unlike much discussion) how things on the righty dynamics are quite different than the lefty. Not a criticism as to who is better/worse, but just a savvy description of how the incentives and dynamics on the right are working.

While there's lefty wackos in the Dem party, they are largely constrained by an active center left wing. Which are exactly the people who returned House majority to the Dems. And, big picture, the demographic trends in the country are flowing towards the currently constituted Dem coalition. So things are going well on the Dem side and are likely to get better.

In contrast, the center right of the GOP has completely collapsed and mostly disappeared. The RINOs mostly have resigned and left the fight. So the righty wackos are left relatively unchecked. They have diminishing demographics that threaten their ability to win elections, and they believe disaster comes when they can no longer win. So what do they do?

They cling to those mechanisms that would maintain their power as they increasingly can't win at the polls -- doubling down on gerrymandering, voter suppression, the US Senate, the Electoral College, the Supreme Court. But eventually those will stop working.

Eventually, as the 2013 RNC post-mortem argued, the GOP eventually has to re-jigger its coalition to rebuild a more diverse center right coalition. That re-jiggering has happened multiple times -- for example the morphing of the Woodrow Wilson Dixiecrat dominated Dem party into the Dem party that later elected FDR and Obama.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ds/600757/

[jhu72]

Pretty interesting read, imho, on how/why the GOP has circled the wagons around Trump and will defend him at all cost and against all facts. The thing I think is interesting is that it describes (unlike much discussion) how things on the righty dynamics are quite different than the lefty. Not a criticism as to who is better/worse, but just a savvy description of how the incentives and dynamics on the right are working.

While there's lefty wackos in the Dem party, they are largely constrained by an active center left wing. Which are exactly the people who returned House majority to the Dems. And, big picture, the demographic trends in the country are flowing towards the currently constituted Dem coalition. So things are going well on the Dem side and are likely to get better.

In contrast, the center right of the GOP has completely collapsed and mostly disappeared. The RINOs mostly have resigned and left the fight. So the righty wackos are left relatively unchecked. They have diminishing demographics that threaten their ability to win elections, and they believe disaster comes when they can no longer win. So what do they do?

They cling to those mechanisms that would maintain their power as they increasingly can't win at the polls -- doubling down on gerrymandering, voter suppression, the US Senate, the Electoral College, the Supreme Court. But eventually those will stop working.

Eventually, as the 2013 RNC post-mortem argued, the GOP eventually has to re-jigger its coalition to rebuild a more diverse center right coalition. That re-jiggering has happened multiple times -- for example the morphing of the Woodrow Wilson Dixiecrat dominated Dem party into the Dem party that later elected FDR and Obama.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ds/600757/

Excellent article. It brings together many of the thoughts and concepts a number of us have talked about.

[ardilla secreta]

McConnell appeals for civility: US needs to debate 'without acting out'
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... SApp_Other

This is like Dr Frankenstein complaining about his monsters unsavory table manners, which is decidedly AB Normal.

[DocBarrister]

It’s an unsettling but well-documented fact that Trump’s core supporters are generally racist white supremacist bigots. White supremacist bigot, Stephen Miller, is emblematic of the hatred and racism that forms the foundation of today’s Republican Party.

(CNN) — Last week the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report that lays bare senior White House advisor Stephen Miller's support for white nationalism.
Drawing upon more than 900 emails that Miller sent to the website Breitbart News when he was an aide to Senator Jeff Sessions, the report exposes Miller's naked extremism.
In the emails, Miller promotes a notoriously racist French novel that paints a dystopian picture of immigrants as subhuman hordes. He encourages a Breitbart reporter to emphasize stories about crime by immigrants and non-whites. He expresses dismay that Amazon had stopped selling Confederate flags after the 2015 Charleston church shooting.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/11/18/opinio ... 9999999999

As we have seen even on our own forum, for many (not all, but many or most) MAGA Trump supporters, their racism & bigotry mean even more to them than our national security, our Constitution, and our democracy. Their racial animus literally trumps over two centuries of American experimentation with democracy. For Trump’s most fervent supporters, his white supremacy is more important to them than God, Jesus, ethics, morals, and laws. If indulging their racism means accepting the crimes against humanity committed by Trump against migrant children, so be it. If it means putting an overt racist like Stephen Miller in charge of immigration, that’s fine with them.

Of course, it was this kind of indulgence of racism and bigotry that led to the destruction of the Republican Party in California, once a citadel of GOP power.

After embracing Donald Trump, son of a KKK member and a contemporary George Wallace, the same destructive fate awaits the national Republican Party.

DocBarrister

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://projects.newsday.com/long-islan ... stigation/

Not sure where this goes, but given Trump’s Housing Discrimination Lawsuit, I put it here.

[MDlaxfan76]

https://projects.newsday.com/long-islan ... stigation/

Not sure where this goes, but given Trump’s Housing Discrimination Lawsuit, I put it here.

Painfully, this really isn't all that surprising, horrifying as it may be.

I recall meeting the young wife of lax friend of a lax friend (my close buddy, best man in our wedding, etc our host for the evening), all from the Island. Delightful, attractive, bubbly, I thought for the better part of an hour, a few glasses of wine, dinner...until she started using the N-word...much to my wife's and my dismay, and the embarrassment of our host and his wife. Interestingly, multiple other guests, all from the Island,all middle to upper middle class, working in the City, blithely continued the discussion which had turned from the N-word to other euphemisms, "they and them" etc. Our host ended the evening rather precipitously. We were staying the night from out of town, so we spent several subsequent hours discussing the culture in which he'd grown up in on the Island...

Here in Baltimore, the impacts of generations and generations of government endorsed redlining, then de facto redlining subsequently, continue to plague us. There are definitely areas of our region where these statistics might well be found today as well.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://projects.newsday.com/long-islan ... stigation/

Not sure where this goes, but given Trump’s Housing Discrimination Lawsuit, I put it here.

Painfully, this really isn't all that surprising, horrifying as it may be.

I recall meeting the young wife of lax friend of a lax friend (my close buddy, best man in our wedding, etc our host for the evening), all from the Island. Delightful, attractive, bubbly, I thought for the better part of an hour, a few glasses of wine, dinner...until she started using the N-word...much to my wife's and my dismay, and the embarrassment of our host and his wife. Interestingly, multiple other guests, all from the Island,all middle to upper middle class, working in the City, blithely continued the discussion which had turned from the N-word to other euphemisms, "they and them" etc. Our host ended the evening rather precipitously. We were staying the night from out of town, so we spent several subsequent hours discussing the culture in which he'd grown up in on the Island...

Here in Baltimore, the impacts of generations and generations of government endorsed redlining, then de facto redlining subsequently, continue to plague us. There are definitely areas of our region where these statistics might well be found today as well.

I would have paid to see that. Just not PC.....A friend was looking to depend up to $4MM on a new home. Agent showed them sub $3MM places which were not much different than where they were already living. My buddy’s wife asked what was the price range and the agent told her the places were in the $3mm range which was more affordable....happens all the time. The LI case is sad, bad neighborhood, bad schools, less choices for college, less professional opportunities for kids. It all starts with steering.

[MDlaxfan76]

https://projects.newsday.com/long-islan ... stigation/

Not sure where this goes, but given Trump’s Housing Discrimination Lawsuit, I put it here.

Painfully, this really isn't all that surprising, horrifying as it may be.

I recall meeting the young wife of lax friend of a lax friend (my close buddy, best man in our wedding, etc our host for the evening), all from the Island. Delightful, attractive, bubbly, I thought for the better part of an hour, a few glasses of wine, dinner...until she started using the N-word...much to my wife's and my dismay, and the embarrassment of our host and his wife. Interestingly, multiple other guests, all from the Island,all middle to upper middle class, working in the City, blithely continued the discussion which had turned from the N-word to other euphemisms, "they and them" etc. Our host ended the evening rather precipitously. We were staying the night from out of town, so we spent several subsequent hours discussing the culture in which he'd grown up in on the Island...

Here in Baltimore, the impacts of generations and generations of government endorsed redlining, then de facto redlining subsequently, continue to plague us. There are definitely areas of our region where these statistics might well be found today as well.

I would have paid to see that. Just not PC.....A friend was looking to depend up to $4MM on a new home. Agent showed them sub $3MM places which were not much different than where they were already living. My buddy’s wife asked what was the price range and the agent told her the places were in the $3mm range which was more affordable....happens all the time. The LI case is sad, bad neighborhood, bad schools, less choices for college, less professional opportunities for kids. It all starts with steering.

It was 30 years ago, so well within appalling, 'how do you not know better?' period.
And these were not ignorant folks. Educated, upwardly mobile...
They actually thought they were being sensitive, 'politically correct' when they switched to the euphemisms...but the bigotry continued to spill out, nevertheless.

It was really rather shocking given that my wife and I'd known the guy for quite a few years, former UNC lax player, heck of a lot of fun, hilarious sense of humor, certainly someone I'd never have expected to marry someone so overtly bigoted. And she'd seemed so nice and sweet, maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer but not a dummy...but when the conversation turned to various social issues, yikes!