Deplorable scum

Hillary Clinton made a big bet on “deplorables.” Three years later, already having won that hand, Donald Trump raised her bid. He tweets that Never Trumpers are “human scum.”

“The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!”

This is obviously the Democrats’ fault. They keep empowering the President with their Star Chamber Impeachment coup, and encouraging him by continually upping the crazyiness ante. I mean, aren’t we all waiting with bated breath for Hillary Clinton to respond?

“Deplorable Russian scumbags” is still available.

If the Democrats had potential Presidential nominees (and Ms. Tentsuit is not one of them) who would condemn gun confiscation, eschew banning fracking, resist the pronoun war fallout, refuse massive tax hikes, ridicule the provision of free healthcare to illegal immigrants, oppose open borders, concede a woman’s right to choose logically ends with the birth of an autonomous being, abandon ruinously expensive fantasy proscriptions to prevent “climate change,” give up efforts to erase the Electoral College and pack the Supreme Court, and stop threatening to stamp out religious liberty – Trump might have had to moderate his language.

Even so, he probably wouldn’t have. He can’t help himself. Democrats apparently cannot grasp that, and, by now, they certainly should.

Full disclosure: I was NeverTrump during the GOP primaries. I voted Libertarian in the General. After Mr. Trump was elected, I accepted his Presidency. I have been pleased by some of his policies, appalled by others. That’s all on record here.

Nonetheless, according to The Donald, I’m now at least peripherally scum.

I can’t vote for anyone else this time. Wish I could. My enthusiasm ends with stopping the Democrat, whoever that turns out to be. If there were a GOP Presidential primary, I’d vote for Ted Cruz, though he’s too principled to run against a sitting President of his own party.

Mr. President, I know you can’t keep a civil tongue. I know it contributes to your success. But, gross insults of people who don’t matter to your re-election won’t convince any undecideds to vote for you.

And some people who gave up NeverTrumping might succumb to recidivism. That comment was just one of many bridges you went too far to burn.

Implementing 1984

A moderately long look at some who are stubbornly NeverTrump.

The unending hyperbole, hypocritical ‘civility’ overreach, and fawning compromise with the Woke Progressives is beyond tiresome. It’s beyond ‘Trump tiresome.’

I’ve accused Trump of ruining the definition of conservative, but French, Kristol, et. al. are worse.

What they’re conserving is their supposed virtue. In which they find common cause with the SJW cadre. So, they’re helping the Progs redefine ‘virtue’ and ‘civility.’ Along with ‘equality,’ ‘safe,’ ‘free speech,’ ‘violence,’ ‘racism,’ ‘sexism,’ ‘merit,’ ‘rape,’ ‘capitalism,’ ‘science,’ and ‘gender.’ IOW, the comitted NeverTrumpers are choosing to ignore the undermining of our culture in favor of genteel acceptance of ‘freedom is slavery.’

The best defense?

Charles R. Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, writes a defense of Donald Trump for the Washington Post.

Granted, it’s the WaPo, but this is particularly shallow and unpersuasive.

…Trump won the Republican nomination fair and square, against 16 contenders, and the arguments for ignoring or rejecting those results need to be carefully examined.

The “Never Trump” critics have two main arguments. The first is that he is a buffoon, a clown, an overactive third-grader who has gone off his Ritalin, a tawdry egomaniac whose policies are no better than “barstool eruptions” and who by temperament and experience is unworthy of the presidency.

He is all of that, and more: Mr. Kesler’s list is incomplete. Mr. Trump is also a lifelong Liberal, master crony-socialist and flip-flopping economic ignoramus.

There are only two reasons one would vote for Donald Trump. Owing lemming-like allegiance to the GOP, or a conviction that he would make a better President than Hillary Clinton. I find the first farcical, since loyalty to the GOP is exactly what fervent Trump supporters reject.

I find the second undemonstrated: I can, and have, pointed out how, fresh off his triumph of destroying the GOP’s chance to defeat the Democrat nominee, he might well be a worse President.

The second [argument] is that Trump is a monster, a racist, a wily demagogue, a proto-fascist or full-fledged fascist, a tyrant-in-waiting.

While he is not demonstrably a fascist, he is an authoritarian of the first water, as evidenced by his willingness to eviscerate the Constitution. So let’s add “Constitutionally illiterate” to the list, too, because despite Mr. Kesler’s contentions otherwise, Trump has threatened to amend the First Amendment by “broadening the libel laws,” and was the first “Republican” to call on the NRA to approve due process violations of the Second Amendment.

Upon careful examination, I conclude I am neither ignoring nor rejecting arguments about Mr. Trump’s candidacy. It’s simple: I reject the GOP candidate’s policies. I owe the party nothing, and Mr. Trump, like his opponent, is unfit for the office he seeks.

I’ll be voting for Governor Johnson.

Response to solicitation of funds

Mr. Trump,

Please remove me from any and all lists associated with your campaign.

I will not contribute to your campaign, nor to any group associated with you: Including the political party formerly known as the GOP.

If you need money, please ask those “small donors” to whom you are already beholden. Sheldon Adelson, for example.

As you Tweeted last October:
“Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2015″

Or, beg the hated RNC.

I’d also appreciate a review of contributions in kind from media like Fox News. Maybe you can release your estimate along with your tax returns.

I am disinterested in bankrolling your threatened anti-Chicago Cubs ads and your “Little Miss Stompy Foot” feud with the Club for Growth. I will have nothing to do with a “finance expert” who so misinterprets the word fungible that he will fund Planned Parenthood, in any way, with taxpayer dollars. As if this accounting gimmick can force separation of dollar one from dollar 500,000.

I’m not attracted to a candidate whose frugality argument is that he can spend my money better than the Democrats have, better than Republicans would, and CERTAINLY better than I could.

As to Crooked Hillary’s “rigged system of crony handouts,” you’ve bragged about having been a recipient of said handouts, and are deeply complicit in that very system.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter,
Duane Hershberger
#NeverTrump

P.S., You misspelled “Yuuge.”

On May 31, 2016, at 2:07 PM, Team TRUMP wrote:

Make American Great Again

Our country doesn’t win anymore, Duane.

We are losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year to China. Mexico is beating us at the border and on trade.

It feels like every day in the news another company is leaving our great nation. We are losing millions of jobs, and it is time for this to STOP.

This will all change when Donald Trump is elected President. We will start winning again.

We are going to start winning so much that you are going to get used to winning!

Donald Trump went the entire primary without asking a single person for a penny, because he was not beholden to anyone but YOU – the American people.

But here’s the problem: Crooked Hillary and her cronies are raising $2 billion to try to stop us.

That’s why we are asking you to contribute $35 and become a Founding Member of our campaign: https://secure.trump2016.com/founding-member/

Crooked Hillary is scared to death of us. Our movement threatens her rigged system of crony handouts and bad deals that have cost the American people millions!

She’s pulling in as many special interests and media elites as she can.

But Donald Trump doesn’t want ANY of them.

You’re the only person we would ever want on our team. Our campaign is a movement of the American people – NO ONE else.

Please contribute $35 right now to activate your Founding Membership with our campaign.

While our Party is ready to unite, Democrats are fighting tooth and nail over a socialist and a serial liar under investigation by the FBI.

We have a HUGE opportunity to win!

We don’t want to just defeat Crooked Hillary, we want to CRUSH the Democrats at every level.

We want to win in a massive landslide. We want our victory to be so great that Crooked Hillary and Obama regret the day they ever turned their backs on the American people.

Together, we will win this election and Make America Great Again!

Please join us today using this special link: [deleted]

Thank you and God bless you,

Team Trump

I’m a Classical Liberal

If you point out to Trump supporters claiming they’re conservatives that these Trump approved ideas:

  1. Eroding the First Amendment by “broadening the libel laws.”
  2. Crony-capitalist insider bribery.
  3. Government funded healthcare for everyone.
  4. Ordering our troops to kill the families of terrorists.

… have never anywhere been considered conservative ideas, they scream that you’re the one who doesn’t understand conservatism. You have to wonder why they cling to calling themselves conservative, as if it conveyed some sort of legitimacy, since they reject yuuge parts of what has been conservative thinking.

They’ve been there all along, of course, we deluded ourselves into thinking they actually supported limited government and constitutional law. I guess we can thank Trump for unmasking them. At least we know where we stand. “Conservatism” now means big government, protectionist nativism.

I guess we’re all classical liberals again.

Quo vadis?

OK, what’s a #NeverTrumper to do now?

First, acknowledge that every Democrat should be purged from office. Second, admit it has become much less likely that will happen in 2016. Third, take a deep breath. It’s a long term game and there are things we can do in spite of Trump.

To put a very simple action plan in front of you:

1- Vote Libertarian for president. More on this below.
2- Vote GOP on the down ballot races to provide as effective an opposition as possible. (Yes, I think Trump has handed the presidency to Hillary.)
3- Fight even harder for state and local politicians who will best resist whichever statist wins the presidency.

Meanwhile, we need to respond to the whining from the Trump camp that started weeks ago: “A vote for a third party is a vote for Hillary! We held our noses and voted for Dole, Bush, McCain and Romney, now you cuckservatives have to do the same for Trump. If Hillary wins the Presidency, it’ll be because of you, you traitorous assholes. Because GOP!”

Sorry, you broke the GOP, now you own it.

I hadn’t much liked it in recent years anyway, and won’t greatly mourn its passing. See, I had to hold my nose, too. I’ve detested how the leadership and the majority of members have conducted themselves, but I didn’t go all irrational. I didn’t start calling tea party folks “really, really stoopid” after they had made such important contributions. Some of you Trump folks did. And still are.

We were making some small progress in turning around 100 years of Progressive rot (with brief interruptions from Coolidge and Reagan). I wish it had been faster and better, especially in the last 40 years, but now we’re not going anywhere until we deal with the Trump Consequence.

And, seriously, how is a vote for a Not Hillary a vote for Hillary? Would a Sanders supporter voting for the Not Hillary be a vote for Hillary? Let me simplify your position for you: Something someone never had, and never had a chance to have, is being stolen from them when it’s not given to them. What that means is you think Trump has a binding claim on my vote, but it’s not as if you weren’t told Trump couldn’t have my vote, and it’s not as if I care that you read me out of the party formerly known as the GOP because of it.

I publicly laid out many of the reasons I could not morally or ethically vote for Trump. Now you’re telling me I can’t vote for anyone else, and I must call myself a cuckservative having had the temerity to even think about it. That’s what you’ve been insulting me with for lo these many weeks, as if valuing limited government under strict adherence to the Constitution has become subservient to a withering stream of sleazy innuendo, gross insult and shameless Constitutional ignorance.

I will note that labeling me a “cuckservative” seems to indicate you have some affinity for the term “conservative.” With Trump, however, you’re bound and determined to teach others that conservatism is a personally demeaning philosophy, chiefly characterized by small-minded incuriosity.

I can hear the shouting, “Hillary is far, far worse, you fool!” Maybe. I don’t care. See, the idea is that this is a long term game: Four years of Trump redefining core American principles into a mix of Huey Long populism and crony capitalist political-insider trading might well do more damage than our enemy. There are signs already, and Trump’s popularity is one of them, that we’ve forgotten what made America great in the first place: limited government, free minds and free markets under the Constitution.

The Dems are already rebranding the GOP with Trump.

The people who are handing the presidency to Hillary Clinton are the people who already voted for Trump, so I damn well don’t want to hear any more snide criticisms of my personal voting choice. You can maintain your self respect having voted for Trump. More power to you. I can’t do that.

So, I think I stick with my core beliefs. My conservatism was initially informed by Barry Goldwater, who was just barely short of Libertarian. This certainly won’t be the first time I’ve voted Libertarian. And the last time I did, it wasn’t counted as a vote for Al Gore.

To those for whom Libertarianism is an exotic or suspect philosophy, do some research if you’d like. I’m not vouching for this, but it gives a flavor.

Certainly visit The Cato Institute, The Mises Institute, Cafe Hayek, Reason Magazine and Libertarianism.org, they’re all conveniently located on the left sidebar. Read some Henry Hazlitt, Adam Smith, Friedrich von Hayek, Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Frédéric Bastiat and Milton Friedman. Try to recall some of the things Ron Paul stood for.

Or don’t. I’ll point out that a Libertarian vote this year really doesn’t commit you to anything. The Libertarian candidate is not going to be president, any more than Donald Trump is, so the philosophy doesn’t much matter. It does matter that the LP will be on the ballot in all 50 states, so it’s easier than a write in. It does matter that Libertarians want major change. It would matter greatly in 2020 if they could get into double digits in 2016. It’s a long term game. A little longer now than it was.

I may expand on the reasons you might prefer voting Libertarian to other parties in a future post. It’s certainly preferable to not voting, because you do need to vote the down ballot races.