1/ There's a very passionate reaction to @realDonaldTrump's racisty racism this morning. It's justified, but pointless.
Let me remind you: there is no bottom. There is no better Trump. It's never a joke, or 87-dimensional chess, or some clever strategery.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 14, 2019
Obviously they’ll renominate him. But we should be clear about where the responsibility lies.
— Seth Masket (@smotus) July 14, 2019
There never was a factual objection. Just establishment politesse and denial. https://t.co/p4BOgkM0RR
— Ishaan Tharoor (@ishaantharoor) July 14, 2019
I've read this article. What I see is a few people saying: "I didn't expect Trump to win, I sure didn't expect him to win again, and I wish I hadn't limited my career options." Then you shouldn't have signed anything. Beyond that, not sure what this "fracturing" is. https://t.co/3GDGR3yZMH
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 14, 2019
… This weekend, a few dozen once-prominent GOP foreign policy figures, including some original “never Trumpers,” are gathering at a private Reagan Institute retreat in Beaver Creek, Colo., to promote and preserve the 40th president’s “conservative internationalist” approach to foreign affairs. Yet the White House has shown little willingness to tap into this wellspring of expertise, even as Trump cycles through national security aides and faces a dwindling pool of experienced staffers for a potential second term.
The ostracizing of the group has led some to reconsider their roles in a prominent public movement to stop Trump three years ago.
“I’m not comfortable with letters anymore,” said Patrick Cronin, head of the Asia-Pacific security program at the Hudson Institute, who signed the first letter, which called Trump “fundamentally dishonest” and “utterly unfitted to the office.” In March 2017, Cronin was forced to withdraw from a new position overseeing a Pentagon think tank after Trump allies blasted his appointment by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis…
Let me be a Sovietologist for a moment. You know what I hear when I see an article about younger Never Trump people having regrets? Not a "fracture," but rather a fear that the Dems are going to blow this and Trump will be president until 2024 – which they were betting against.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 14, 2019
I know creatures like Matt Wolking and the Island of Misfit Toys denizens who are still chest-beating over their White House invites think they get to live in the Trumpian Twitter Volksgemeinschaft, but Trump will *always* pull the rug out by using, you know, words.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 14, 2019
The modal #MAGA response to Trump’s @AOC tweets will be:
A) “Trump is no white nationalist but he’s committed acts of white nationalism.”
B) “The tweets have good grammar; Stephen Miller wrote them.”
C) “If Dems were more moderate I’d vote for them!”
D) “He’s just being honest.”— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) July 14, 2019
.
Reminder…
“In the first half of June 2019, just 26% of Americans identified as Republican.” https://t.co/339EVlLoRn
— Heath Mayo (@HeathMayo) July 14, 2019
Trump's approval among voters… July 14, 2018: 43%. Election Day 2018: 44%. Today: 43%. https://t.co/InRMzIwXZX
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) July 14, 2019
Trump inspires almost no one outside his own base, and when he talks he worries even pluralities of his own people. https://t.co/btExe8K4xN pic.twitter.com/JH67PySeam
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) July 4, 2019
mrmoshpotato
Fuck Rick Wilson. Need I say more?
Anne Laurie
@mrmoshpotato: Nobody (except maybe Mr. Wilson!) will be happier than I when the Squatter-in-Chief is gone and we can go back to being on opposite sides.
I don’t trust Wilson, but I’m perfectly willing to watch him frag the MAGAts.
Jay
Gin & Tonic
Kristol asks: “Are GOP leaders, donors and voters still fine with re-nominating Donald Trump for president?”
Of course they are, stupid.
mrmoshpotato
@Anne Laurie: And after Dump is out of office, they’ll all go “What was that?” like the Republican party hasn’t been a shitpile for the past 40+ years.
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic: mrmoshpotato asks: “Is Bill Kristol a moron or a grifter?”
Both.
Eric U.
Pretty sure I’m going to have to unfollow some never-trumpers as soon as trump leaves office
schrodingers_cat
Nichols wants to go back to the R fold.
plato
This is the tweet to put up there, not ishan’s insiderism banality
Brachiator
Gee, I’d like to say that I feel sorry for Republicans, but I just can’t.
We now know one way to objectively determine whether someone is evil. Look to see if they have a job in the Trump administration.
Jay
JaySinWA
@mrmoshpotato:
cain
@Anne Laurie:
I thoroughly enjoy Rick’s commentary. I’ve always found that when they were Republicans they were absolute clowns with zero framing.. but when they switch sides.. it’s I don’t know.. it’s like they are free to be.. (you and me). Great stuff. Maybe we’ll go back to hating each other later, but for some reason I don’t think so. I think he’s going to switch to fragging establishment Dems later.
cain
@schrodingers_cat:
He totally does. If anything he’s consistent. I can admire that. A true conservative ideologue.
cain
@JaySinWA:
Dear god, what have you begun?
Jay
Jay
JaySinWA
@plato: I don’t think it matters to Trump where they were born. He is asserting they are un-American no matter what.
ETA I saw a Trumpster tweet just that in response to the fact that all were citizens and 3 were born here.
Brachiator
@Jay:
There’s no happy ending anywhere in this story.
Jay
JaySinWA
@Brachiator: I don’t know anything about the story, but the destroyed records may well have save a few lives.
Eric U.
It has been clear to me for a long time that Republicans don’t consider anyone that’s not white to be an American citizen. Trump is just too stupid to keep it quiet.
Jay
@Brachiator:
William Van Spronson was named by his parents after Willam Arondeus.
Few Childrens Fairy Tales ever had happy endings. They were meant as cautionary tales for children.
Brachiator
@plato:
From various news sources, including NPR
Jay
Jeffro
Knowing that trumpov was/is never going to change (except for the worse), Dems would have been wise to adopt a strategy of beating on GOP officials for every sick, incompetent, cruel, stupid, and dangerous thing trumpov says and does. Don’t pay him a second of attention, just immediately pivot, every time, to: “You’re okay with this? This is your party? District? Country?”
And do it with the media too, constantly beat on them: “why aren’t you asking Sen X or Rep Y how they can support inhumane policy Z and still fulfill their oath?”
It wouldn’t change trumpov or 95% of the GOP officials asked. But it would make it very very clear who really owns this trash heap of a man and who’s propping up his minority rule.
Brachiator
@Jay:
We’re on the same page. Imagine the cautionary tales to be told if we survive this age of Trump.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
“a fear that Dems are going to blow this”
F you! (i mean Mr. N.)
JaySinWA
@zhena gogolia: Yep Nichols wants Dems to pull his nuts from the fire. No self reflection there.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
This.
They rarely, and most of them never, think the party went too far, only that they were open with it. They don’t hate the policies only the manner of delivery. IOW, drumpf only knows how to say the “quiet parts” out loud. And the base never understood why they shouldn’t say it out loud. drumpf wiped out the concept of “the quiet parts.” Because he’s too stupid or demented to know the difference.
If we survive this as a country at least the nasty family secret is in the wide open, that a good portion of our citizens are racist as fuck, that Lincoln didn’t go far enough.
HRA
@Jeffro:
I agree! He really wants them to address him and no one else.
Adam L Silverman
As most likely the only person here who was asked if I’d like to be considered for an appointment because a senior transition official is a professional colleague who appreciates my abilities and expertise despite our political differences and who passed it up for professional reasons, I don’t get the “I’m going to stick my chin out in front of the thin skinned guy who likes to punch people, but I don’t understand why I’m being punched” schtick these mostly men are or performing. Almost none of them have actually lost their jobs, they just weren’t able to get political appointments of various ranks.
I can tell you that it is frustrating to have senior professional colleagues who believe you’re ready to make the next professional progression, and a major one at that, that you’re qualified for a political appointment and you can’t for your own professional and personal reasons take advantage of it. And in my case, because of several other just bizarre factors largely having to do with the effects of sequester on contracting, I’ve largely survived the last three years doing consulting work, which isn’t constant, I get the frustration. But I’m not writing op-eds about it. I’m not whining to reporters about it. I do sleep like a baby. A 5’11, 268 lbs baby.
jl
I have no use for cruds like Wilson and Nichols if they are still registered Republicans. It’s become an outlaw anti-American anti-democracy plutocratic thug party.
Nichols is the jackass running around emitting dishonest poisonous tweets against AOC. Mocking her for insisting on being sworn in and testifying under oath on the human rights violations in the Trump concentration camps, and he unfairly imputed absurd childish motives to her insistence.
I guess one good thing that came out of Trump’s vile vicious ignorant and moronic tweet, is that it seems to have done a lot to fix up the silly squabble among the House Democratic caucus.
We should ship Trump, Pence and quite a few people in the administration off to The Hague and put them on trial for human rights violations after those goons are thrown out of office.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Serial killer with a very specific pattern of African American activists or contract jobs?
jl
@Adam L Silverman: “A 5’11, 268 lbs baby.”
If a wimp like me can almost bench press you, you aren’t that big. So don’t worry too much about it.
Harbison
Hmmmm
Jerzy Russian
@Adam L Silverman:
So you wake up every few hours crying?
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Never said I was that big. There are far, far, far bigger people than me.
Adam L Silverman
@Jerzy Russian: I wake up every few hours wanting to feed!
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Isn’t 80 pounds of that neck?
:)
Citizen Alan
@plato:
Shitgibbon couldn’t pick any of those people out of a lineup.
Redshift
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, their whole mindset seems bizarre. They publicly said Trump was unfit for office, but they were sure they were so indispensable that they’d be sure to get a high level political appointment?
The only explanation I can think of is that they bought into the idea that he was so inexperienced he’s be a figurehead who would let other people run things, and were willfully blind to his being a thin-skinned narcissist who won’t tolerate anyone who even slightly disagrees with him.
Redshift
@Citizen Alan:
He could if the rest of the lineup was white people.
Geoduck
@Eric U.: Yeah, Wilson can turn a phrase, but you know, as soon as the Tangerine Shiatgibbon is gone, he’ll re-aim 100% of his fire on Democrats.
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: I have no idea. I’m just senior enough to make it hard to find a full time position, but not senior enough, or, perhaps not self absorbed enough, to run with the crowd that seems to feel put out over their putting themselves out.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Just 18 inches of it.
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman:
I always had my suspicions that you were a baby giraffe. ?
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato: Circumference. It’s 18 inches of width, not length.
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: Circumference is not width. You’ll learn this as you grow up (and have an even longer neck.
J R in WV
@Eric U.:
That’s how they intend to stop people from voting – “You, and you, and you over there, you’re no longer citizens, give me all your ID papers, which will be filed in case you attempt to vote or receive benefits. You flunked the paper bag test!!! Plus your hair is funny!
NOW get out!!!”
Of course it won’t work, but that’s what they’re wishing for — that’s where the racists ranting at people speaking Spanish, or any language they don’t understand, is all about. They’re too stupid to learn two languages, so people smart enough can fuck right outta here.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
I buy 19.5 inch necks on my shirts. Most tee shirt necks are too tight, even on XXL shirts, or XXXL shirts. I try to buy then with henley necks but those are hard to find. I think mine is from carrying a brass sousaphone around for 6 years.
Anne Laurie
@jl:
Nichols, at least, has been very repetitively clear that he voted for Hillary in 2016, for his local Democratic candidates in 2018, and that he intends to vote against every Republican, up & down the ticket, in 2020.
Will he switch back once the Democrats get another chance to clean up the mess? Quite possibly, but when that happens, I’ll be too busy celebrating / working to carry a grudge.
JGabriel
@Brachiator:
Look to see if they voted for Trump.
CliosFanBoy
@mrmoshpotato: you forgot “with a rusty chainsaw”
mvr
@Jay: Cool story! I have my father’s false papers from that time somewhere with other interesting momentos of his life during the war.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
FTFY.
The ones Trump hires are just the dumbest ones.