Life in the Trump Era, Part 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by
UTEopia
Several quick thoughts.
I generally react negatively when someone who isn’t really a Republican lectures the Republican Party about what’s wrong with it and what the party needs to fix. Brooks is at best what might have been called, once upon a time, a Rockefeller Republican. But I don’t even think he’s one of those. He’s a very good man with very intelligent, sensitive takes on society. But he is not a soothsayer of politics.
Second, he is right about Roy Moore and Trump. He is right about many things that Trump has done. He is right that many Republicans now feel homeless. I am still a Republican, and although I am very unhappy with where the party is right now, it still embodies most of my political philosophy. I try to vote pragmatically. I follow the William F. Buckley rule: vote for the most conservative candidate who can win. Usually.
I am certainly not going to become a Democrat. I would like to see some articles by former Democrats about how horribly disfigured that party has become. Democrats and liberals love to assume the mantle of righteousness, the idea that their views are not simply political, but are the views any decent, intelligent and enlightened person holds. It is ridiculous and alienating for them to do that. A lot of people on the left seems bent on killing the notion that reasonable people can disagree reasonably on important issues.
There is a whole middle part of the country that finds no real home in either party. We used to call those people independents, but now I’m not sure what to call them. I think it’s a growing group.
So don’t tell me that Trump and Republicans are the problem. Trump is a symptom of a wider problem, and everyone owns a piece of it. The tribal Democrats, the extreme right-wing Republicans and Evangelicals, and everyone who gives money to both sides. George Soros and his ilk on the left, the supporters of the Freedom Caucus on the right, and a host of others.
You might be discerning that I am not in a good mood about this today.