Here is a link to Everybody knew the dice were loaded and the fix was in (bunkerville.wordpress.com). The subject is this year’s election fraud controversy and a bit of context from the past.
The second to last video in the bunkerville post is an interview of Sydney Powell by Lou Dobbs. Dobbs wonders if the cheaters were even concerned about getting caught. That is something to think about. Has anyone noticed that there seems to be a different standard of justice for Democrats? At worse don’t they just get book contracts and become subject matter experts on CNN?
Will be interesting to see what happens when Powell finally goes public with her evidence. I have no idea what will happen. A dud, or a Kraken? But I do know one thing. The Democrats don’t seem too concerned about getting caught. Even without Powell’s evidence, many of us already knew that much is true, and that is the biggest part of the problem.
The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth.
William J. Clinton (Clinton, William J. (1996). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995”, p.1594, Best Books on; from TOP 25 TYRANNY QUOTES (of 1000) | A-Z Quotes)
Citizen Tom 
Reblogged this on boudica.us.
Please correct me, if I am wrong. The idea is, that millions of votes were stolen from Trump, and transfered to Biden instead, by the Dominion voting infrastructure. Voting with their machines has the voter produce a machine readable paper ballot, that the voter is expected to verify that ballot and then to put into the ballot boxes. Lateron these ballots are scanned and tabulated by another set of machines. During that process, millions of votes were supposedly transfered.
The part I do not understand: How come, that the Georgia hand recount matches the original Dominion machine count? At that point the alleged theft of votes should have become apparent, after all.
Can anyone believing in the election-stolen-by-voting-machines-hypothesis explain that apparent paradox to me?
@marmoewp
We are playing a game of hot potatoes. We are trying to get the potato out of the oven and onto our plate so we can cut it open and put some butter and sour cream on it. No one wants to hold the potato, but everyone wants to eat it after it cools off. Sorry. Someone still has to take the potato out of the oven. That’s why we have insulated gloves.
Unfortunately, the lazy cook just wants to wait for the oven to cool off. As it happens, that oven will cool off on January 20, 2020, when the Democrats want Joe Biden sworn in.
Our law enforcement agencies, including our courts, wants nothing to do with a political hot potato like a contested presidential election. Therefore, even though the results of the election are highly suspicious and there are plenty of stories about shenanigans, no judge really wants to get involved. Hence, it is difficult to overturn the apparent results of an election, even if it reeks of fraud because it is difficult get officials to even do a proper audit (versus a recount which is what they first did in Georgia. Note that the also found thousands of misplaced ballots.). In particular, the news media has already shown what they will do to defend Liberal Democrats. You are demonstrating how it works.
Imagine you are a diamond expert. You look carefully at an expensive, beautiful jewel, one you are quite familiar with. It doesn’t look quite right. Because you cannot explain how a cat burglar broke into a jewelry store, stole the real diamond, and replaced it with a fake, you are not going to say anything? You want to buy that diamond?
Powell and the Trump legal team just have to show that the election was not conducted properly. They just need to show that the diamond is a fake.
“It doesn’t look quite right.”
If I were a diamond expert, I would have the tools to make sure that at the very least I have a diamond in my hand or not. If the diamond in question is one, that is so important that I am familiar with it, then I have at least notes, if not photographs and other material that I can check the diamonds cut, color and impurities against, which make a natural diamond unique.
But now comes the really important part: After I have done all these tests and come up emptyhanded, I put at least the same amount of work and dedication into checking, whether my hunch, that the diamond is fake, is simply wrong. I look, where _I_ could have gone wrong. I look, where _I_ could have made a mistake. I consider, that maybe I was set up by myself (or others) for a hunt of a ghost, that simply does not exist.
@marmoewp
If you are a diamond expert, you may have the tools, but you still have to get permission to get the diamond out of it case, and you have to examine it with those tools.
The Trump legal team and Sydney Powell are going to court to get permission to examine the diamond with the right tools, but Democrats are already demanding absolute proof. When the evidence is mostly in the hands of Democrats, that’s a problem.
That’s not what they are asking for, actually. They are asking for striking down millions of perfectly legal votes as a “remedy”.
@marmoewp
You are just repeating spin. The problem is knowing who won, not throwing out legal votes.
Once it becomes apparent that people have gotten away with deliberately mixing illegal with legal votes, we cannot trust the results.
Then we must throw out all the contaminated votes, rerun the election, or let the state legislature make the decision. No easy solution.
Then why is none of the cases bringing any tangible evidence? Guiliani himself in the PA case said, that it is not a fraud case. What is it then?
@marmoewp
I will readily admit Guiliani and company have made mistakes. Powell has made mistakes. We all make mistakes. That doesn’t mean they don’t have evidence.
The case was primarily constitutional. Only the state legislature can change election law, not the executive branch of a state or a local government.
You want to read what they presented to the court? Nothing stopping you. I gave the example of poll watchers, but I am not going to repeat the entire document.
In case you missed it, Guiliani’s appeal for the case in PA was dismissed at the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by Bibas (writer of the opinion, Trump appointee), Smith (GWB) and Chagares (GWB). Here is the PDF, the language is scathing. You were dismissing Judge Brann as a RINO. You could wave off Judge Smith and Judge Chagares on that basis, too. But what about Judge Bibas? Simply an ungrateful mispick by Trump? Or maybe, just maybe, it is that the case was without merit to begin with.
@marmoewp
One of the things I find disturbing is the attitude that suggests Trump is bad for complaining the election was stolen. As if Democrats could not be bad. Sorry, but after the last four years that is ridiculous. The House of Democrats tried to impeach Trump. They had plenty of time, and their case was absurd. Still, Republicans took it seriously, and the news media declared him guilty.
At this point I think it is a given that a Democrat appointed judge will behave poorly. Because what the laws schools have been turning out reeks, it is anyone’s guess as to how even a Trump judge will vote.
Has Rudy Giuliani done a good job of putting his case together? I think they rushed into the problem of contesting the election unprepared. Because the problem of contesting an election in multiple states would be too complex, Trump focused on turnout, making sure he had enough votes to overwhelm cheating. Turns out Democrats were prepared for that too.
@marmoewp
This line from the judge is funny.
A rather Pharisaic interpretation of the law, don’t you think? If a county prevents poll watchers from doing their job, that is what matters. And the judge effectively admits that poll watchers were prevented from discerning whether votes were being counted according to the law, Instead, the judge points to the letter of the law and ignores the function of poll watchers.
If you think, self-registered poll watchers should have more rights (which at present they simply do not have), have Republican legislature pass respective laws. Keep in mind, that you need to protect the integrity of the election from rogue poll watchers, too, who could use too great liberty to move around to manipulate machines or ballots, or those intent to make a scene or obstruct the counting.
@marmoewp
Poll watchers are not self appointed. => https://www.votespa.com/Your-Rights/Pages/Poll-Watchers.aspx
The excuse they were using was COVID-19.
If someone starts acting up, the police will arrest them.
Poll watchers are part of the process for ensuring the integrity of the vote. If no one believes the results of an election, it doesn’t do any good to have an election.
Here’s a quote from a tweet Trump sent out after losing the Iowa caucus to Ted Cruz during the 2015 Republican Presidential primaries:
“Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.”
Different circus, same clown.
2016. We actually know there was election fraud that year, don’t we?
It was on wikileaks.
More recently:
Do you happen to remember what happened at this year’s Iowa caucus?
Spoiler:
This was written two days ago.
They still haven’t finished the full investigation.
Oops, forgot the link:
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/25/iowa-democratic-party-release-2020-caucus-review-end-of-year/6318097002/
Perhaps Liz. Perhaps no election is perfect, and caucuses are particularly imperfect. You seem to miss the point however – was “election fraud committed by Ted Cruz” as Trump libelously asserted back then? Did Ted Cruz have to be the dishonorable accomplice in some vast conspiracy because Trump simply lost?
In a binary world where Trump legitimately does not win, then Trump is just a “loser” and where Trump cannot stand ever making that concession, no matter how much his constant petulant whining may hurt the nation in the grips of a pandemic, no matter how much it hurts our standing as a democracy that has always put the peaceful transfer of power above petty personal pomposity and just being a sore loser, Trump will simply never concede. No tiny pebble can be left unturned if it focuses the slightest doubt on election integrity or slanders the actual winner with faux claims of promoting fraud, not as long as Trump can avoid in the eyes of his adoring fans the brand of “loser”.
Why would Trump hurt the country this way when the candidates in other, closer past presidency campaigns have ultimately conceded for the sake of the country? Because, as the consummate con artist, Trump knows that, if he is ever rightfully branded as a “loser”, one by one the scales will fall away from his faithful followers’ eyes, the hatred for their fellow Americans as connivers in some “vast” evil conspiracy against them will fade, and the charlatan emperor will suddenly appear naked in the broad daylight of truth. And as if awakening from a bad dream, we will all come back together again in the common, genuine bonds that our better democratic angels bind us in, and we will work together again against the real, tangible threats to and adversaries against our shared dream, a distant vision of that shining city on a hill that many nations around the world see as their beacon.
Much as “The Donald” wants to pretend winning is everything, “winning” is not always what is important. The game is what is important. The institutions that make up our imperfect democracy are what is important. Losing gracefully, even in a tough contest where both sides scored heroically and where both sides delivered a few questionable body blows that the refs maybe didn’t see, that kind of losing gracefully preserves the game for future generations, and it models something more important to our kids than “winning” no matter what the cost, don’t you think?
I remember at the time, Carson (whom I supported, until he bowed out and then it was Kasich) conducted an interview about Cruz’s “fraud”. The people handling his campaign asserted that Carson had bowed out…and ran the rumor publicly. I do not know how much this impacted Carson, but I do remember it seemed a big deal to me at the time. I don’t remember much else (2016 was a big year).
More to the topic:
At the end of the day, Trump is Trump. He isn’t going to stop being Trump.
Sometimes that is very good, sometimes not. Depends on one’s perspective I suppose.
I can see it both ways. One the one end there’s the perspective of “what’s better for the country” (as you’ve mentioned). I’d say in the immediate context, that perspective has merit. What about the longterm? From my perspective liberals spent the last few months burning, looting, attacking Trump supporters and promised more of same if Biden didn’t win. That’s pretty blatant extortion. A terrible longterm precedent.
So I don’t want to reward that with a “heh, let’s just concede now to avoid making the public uncomfortable”….not until the audits/recounts and so forth have run their course.
@Liz,
Yes, I get that argument Liz, and from your “perspective”, it’s not unreasonable. I think one of the reasons why I enjoy your posts so much relies upon where our perspectives derive from a common understanding, a common perspective.
In many ways, the lives of your family and mine parallel each other with yours tracking about 25 years behind my family. We both have military families with a husband that served as a pilots in the military and then worked for the airlines. Both our families have wives who followed their husbands around the world, often contributing to the service of their family and their country in ways that far exceeded their husbands, but with half the approbation for that service and sacrifice. We both have kids that sacrificed too, moving from school to school, starting over with an often absentee Dad. For both our families, therefore, sacrifice and service, honor and integrity trump fortune and fame, and are not just the cliches thrown out by people who have not done anything outside their comfort zone for their country.
I understand what you are saying about election integrity and your feeling that through their attacks on Trump, Democrats have undermined the legitimacy of the institution of the presidency. However, from my perspective, Trump simply conned his way into the highest office in the land. He lies and cheats even when telling the truth and playing fair would work just as well. He never appears to do anything that isn’t self serving. Every single Democratic challenge to Trump has been provoked by Trump’s own actions in corrupting democratic institutions and was responded to by those institutions.
You say that you can see it both ways, and given our common paths, I believe you. But how much is too much? When is this less in service to the country and more about a vindictive revenge reacting real or perceived past slights. After all the elections
have been certified and more than 30 challenges have been laughed out of court, after Sidney Powell never seems to be able to “release the Kraken” of Venezuelan election fraud even to friendly promoters, when is Trump’s ego bigger than the good of the whole country? When my friend? When is that?
@tsalmon
Conceding gracefully? Great advice from someone who did not do it.
You start with a whataboutism (favorite Democrats term), and then you inevitably set about demonizing Trump. You don’t discuss whether the election was conducted properly. Is that just a given we must concede no matter Democrats do? Trump is evil because the hissyfit crowd says so, and that is all that matters. Great argument!
Well, you are in the right company. The Democrats would not debate slavery either. The only evil was not accepting the right of whites to enslave blacks. Therefore, Abraham Lincoln was unfit to be president.
Gore had to forced to concede. H. Clinton advised Biden not to concede under any circumstances, but Trump has already said he will follow the law. Why don’t you ask Democratic Party heroine Stacey Abrams about following the law?
Will Trump succeed in making in case. With an unsympathetic news media, it is difficult. Most people just long to get on with the holiday season. Ironically, the return of the virus works against Democrats. So, people are frustrated. Will the news media be able to suppress the controversy? My guess is they will, but lots of people will be taking a closer look at our election systems. You might try it yourself.
Tom,
Was that supposed to be a response to anything or just a general diatribe against the unfairness of the universe? 😄
@tsalmon
In other words, from your perspective election integrity does not matter. It isn’t just about the attacks on Trump. That just illustrates the sheer hypocrisy of demanding Trump concede when your party never did. In fact, your glorious leaders pervert our government so they could frame Trump of treason. The real issue is that Democrats won’t honor the law. They don’t respect what the Constitution says, and they gave discarded the procedures that we use to ensure election integrity.
1. They don’t maintain proper voter registration roles.
2. They allow foreigners to vote.
3. They recklessly allow voting by mail without an excuse, without a witness, and without signature verification.
4. And so forth. All this stuff is in the 2005 Carter-Baker Report. see = https://citizentom.com/2020/11/23/a-road-map-for-how-to-cheat/
When Democrats run a system designed for cheating, how much evidence of fraud do we need? We have some, but why is it needed. When the state legislatures set election law, and Democrat officials refuse to follow the law, how much more evidence do we need?
“In other words, from your perspective election integrity does not matter.”
I think that you need to be more specific if you are going to question my personal integrity.
“It isn’t just about the attacks on Trump.”
Which of my claims about Trump do you feel lack merit. I’ll be happy to discuss them one at a time if you want. It’s not like it’s hard to find examples of the guy lying and cheating. In fact, it’s kind of hard to find examples of him not lying and cheating. 😏
“That just illustrates the sheer hypocrisy of demanding Trump concede when your party never did.“
Hillary Clinton conceded within 24 hours of the media calling the election for Trump even though she won the popular vote and the voter margins in the critical states were far narrower than in this election. Gore conceded very soon after the election was essentially called by the Supremes even though again, Gore won the popular vote, and if you remember, the margin was down to about 500 votes in one state, Florida. (BTW, I voted for Bush, but soon regretted that vote when he got us in to endless, stupid wars. I personally never argued (unlike Trump’s Birtherism) that Trump was not the legitimately, constitutionally elected President, even though it is a given that the Russians helped him get elected, particularly in the key states where Trump campaign chairman Manafort gave the Russians confidential Republican poling data so that the Russians knew exactly where to focus their efforts.
I don’t have time right now to respond to the rest, but it really would help if you’d narrow your argument a little and present some evidence. (Who knows? I might even agree with you). For example, Biden won in two states, Arizona and Georgia, where Republicans control the rules and the machinery of the elections and where those Republicans certified the elections and said the result was fair. In several other critical states, Republicans control the legislatures and until only recently, the governorships. How did the Republicans allow elections there to become so unfair so fast. I supposed that you can make all sorts of unsubstantiated claims about the Blue states, like Washington or Oregon, but do you seriously think that Trump actually won in those states?
Again, your claims are long on wild allegations and very short on actual evidence. That’s why even Republican judges keep throwing them out of court. That’s why Powell, and even Rudy, are getting too ridiculous even for Trump. Maybe we could take one issue at a time and tell me what you got. We can even relitigate slavery if you want (I’m reading a couple good books on that topic right now). You may want to do that with another post though. It should be interesting to hear how the Party that took up “The Lost Cause” of the Confederate Flag and of Jim Crow era monuments to white supremacy now wants to play the race card. 🤓
@tsalmon
H. Clinton “conceded” because she did not have any other alternative. She got caught flatfooted. She was too sure she would win. So she had no hanging chads. What happened the next four years, however, had no relationship to an honest concession. The Democratic Party did every underhanded thing it could to run Trump out of office. There was nothing gracious or honorable about it.
Meanwhile, now that they have won what do Constitution loving Democrats want to do. Get rid of the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court, and give DC statehood.
The only election issues Democrat want to debate about have nothing to do with integrity. It is about the acquisition of power and the personal destruction of their opponents. Your words.
If I respond to your endless attacks on Trump, I will be doing nothing else. It does matter what I disprove. You just continue to attack. Your attacks are both a diversion and a justification. You can’t debate your policies, but you can hate a man because no man is perfect.
Have you ever wondered why Satan is called the Accuser? All of us are sinners. Without Jesus Christ, we would be lost.
Robert Mueller’s team investigated Trump for years. He came up empty, but you still cannot move on. That’s sick and pointless. If the Democratic Party can actually demonstrate that that Biden won fairly, then why leave half the country thinking Democrats stole the election? You enjoy ridiculing people and gloating? Then what is stopping you from proving you won? You can’t. No evidence.
“H. Clinton ‘conceded’ because she did not have any other alternative. She got caught flatfooted. She was too sure she would win.”
Seems to me I remember her giving a pretty decent concession speech. Look it up.
The weird thing here is that you, of all people, are mind reading Clinton’s motivations. What are you basing that on – your amazing understanding of human psychology? Admit it big brother, you have spent most of your life absolutely bewildered about why people do the things that they do. That confused innocence is one of the most endearing things about you. Don’t let it make you bitter though. You are right when you say that we are all flawed. People are neither as good or as evil as this ambiguity about them often may make them out to be.
“If I respond to your endless attacks on Trump, I will be doing nothing else. It does matter what I disprove. You just continue to attack. Your attacks are both a diversion and a justification. You can’t debate your policies, but you can hate a man because no man is perfect.”
Don’t hate Trump – it’s just not worth that damage to my soul. However, why am I supposed to respond to all your allegations about Democrats (and I’m not even a registered Democrat), but you you don’t have to respond to numerous allegations about the leader for the last four years of your chosen political Party? That don’t sound fair. 😊
“Have you ever wondered why Satan is called the Accuser?”
Now I’m Satan? You have made all sorts of fabulous accusations about the Democrats, Obama, Clinton and Biden. What does that make you?
“All of us are sinners. Without Jesus Christ, we would be lost.”
Amen! Jesus the incarnate Christ is my guiding star too.
“Robert Mueller’s team investigated Trump for years. He came up empty, but you still cannot move on. That’s sick and pointless.”
Mueller, a lifelong Republican, was appointed by a Republican appointee of Trump in the Trump administration. Mueller reported to that Trump appointee in the Trump administration and that Trump appointee in the Trump administration constantly approved everything Mueller did. How you can justifiably give Democrats all the blame for this grievance you are all nurturing requires some real mental gymnastics. You and Liz are the ones who keep bringing this up, not me. The fact is that Trump’s corruption and complete disregard for norms shocked a lot of normal, traditional institutional Republicans and it continues to shock them today. That’s mostly on you though. I would hardly say that Mueller came up empty, however.
“If the Democratic Party can actually demonstrate that that Biden won fairly, then why leave half the country thinking Democrats stole the election?”
Hum, you played baseball as a kid. Once the game is over and the winning team has scored the most points and the umpires have made all their calls and and the scorekeeper certifies the score, does the winning team have to go back and prove that they won the game again? What if all the Moms and Dads on the losing team are sore losers, and just don’t believe that their precious pitcher, Donny, could have lost to that more stable, more plodding pitcher, that Joe kid? The game is imperfect and it can always be improved. But at some point you’re just whining because your not winning when you ought to be asking yourself why you actually lost – you did just lose you know.
“You enjoy ridiculing people and gloating?”
Guessing motivations again, huh? Actually, I’ve been coming here and making the same arguments for years now. Mostly, it’s feels more like some form of masochism. More often than not, I am the only one singing in a different key in this echo chamber. I find the fact that you feel ridiculed and gloated upon as some form of progress though. Apparently, you are taking my arguments seriously enough to feel badgered by a little reality for a change. This is a breakthrough. 🙂
Mostly, I come here, however, for the same reason that I occasionally watch Fox News and read books by conservative intellectuals – just to figure out what people at the far right extreme are thinking. I often have some epiphanies here, and it’s rare, but every once in a while I also think that we have some mutual understanding, though neither one of us would admit that of course.
Because I’m your little brother, you grant me a little more leeway than you might give to someone else you feel is trolling your blog. I appreciate that. The price you want me to pay for your perceived forbearance, however, is that you think you can paint me as your straw man for every Democrat thing you loath. Am I right?
The problem with this scheme is that you know me, Tom. I am not all that good but I am certainly not as evil as you imagine your Democrat rivals to be. And I’ve got news for you bro, neither are they. Nobody’s that evil.😉
Side note as Liz says:
While I was running today I listened to the lastest Pod Save America podcast. They were doing an election ad recap. At one point, they said that Biden got 80 million Democratic votes. It struck me in that moment that this is not really true.
I mean, as a matter of proximate cause, sure, it’s true that more than 80 million people voted for Biden. However, as a matter of “but for” causation, more than 80 million people really voted AGAINST Donald Trump and against Trumpism. And also another 75 million voters voted FOR Trump. These were record number turnouts on both sides.
I would argue that “but for” Trump there is no 150 million voter turnout. Maybe even there is no Democratic win. Without Trump, in fact, I don’t think that there is even a Biden candidacy. The fact is that any average milk toast Republican candidate (a Kasick or a Romney for example) would have stomped boring steady Joe Biden hands down. The Biden candidacy was a perfect response to Trump, and perhaps nothing deeper, more profound or more diabolical than that.
Now there’s something real to consider when you get done with all the stages of grief.
@tsalmon
Yeah! H. Clinton gave a concession speech. Undoubtedly, she was quite sincere. No doubt she did it for the sake of the children, the ones she did not get the government funding she wanted to abort. Mind reading? The woman won’t shut up.
Is an election a baseball game? No. Do people sometimes contest who won a baseball game? Yes. Do umpires sometimes make bad calls, favor one side over the other? Yes. It is rare, but even the results of a baseball game can be overturned.
An election is quite unlike a baseball game. We cannot sit there and watch the whole game, and that makes a difference. Ask the people who live in a place like Venezuela. Their leaders may go through the motions of election, but the outcome is known in advance. We have not yet reached that point here, but we have clearly sacrificed election integrity to convenience and guilt-ridden stupidity.
Do I attack you? Do I attack Democrats? I try not to. I attack bad policies, and I attack the ethics required to support such polices.
You and other Democrats vote for people who:
Do I hate Democrats? When I debate, I try to avoid talking about my feelings. They matter to me, but they don’t prove me right or wrong. How I feel does not prove you right or wrong either.
What about your feelings? If all you can do is condemn Trump — if all you do is condemn Trump — that says that what you are doing is all about your feelings. Hate? What else would describe it? Does this hate prove you right or wrong? No. Just obsessed.
Consider your podcast. Consider your own description of the election. Consider your satisfaction. Orange Man bad. Orange Man lost. Why is the Orange Man bad? As president, what do the Orange Man do wrong? Never really mattered. What Trump did in office had nothing to do with your accusations did it? The biggest “joke” — the most absurd and obscene slur — was blaming 250,000 deaths on him. Yet this is what you want to believe, have been convinced you must believe. Otherwise, why do you accuse and accuse and accuse….? Why do you imitate the ugliness of our mass media?
The election provided us a choice between Trump and Biden. With hatred like your own, Democrats may it a choice between Trump and not Trump. Democrats abandoned a discussion of the issues — what Trump actually did and proposed to do versus what Biden had done and proposed to do — and viscously trashed the character of a man.
You don’t like the comparison with Satan? None of us do, but our natural propensity is to copy Satan. That is why Christ gave us His own example. The Apostle Paul taught this.
We are what we think. An open mind is a fine thing, but only up to a point. We have to be careful who we allow to put thoughts in our heads. Because their agenda is too often quite ungodly, the mass media is not to be trusted. When people are trying to sell us stuff we don’t need, it is absurd to say they have our best interests at heart.
Tom,
The focus of your contempt is the Democrats for which you want me to be the straw man, but actually I think I am just your straw man within another straw man. The Democratic Party is just the vessel in which to place a rage and a grievance that is actually against something far broader and otherwise more nebulous. What are you really so mad about Tom? Why is the anger so all consuming? Why is Donald Trump your hero? He is a fake orange colored man with fake hair who built a fake empire on the fake reality that he is the king of every vice that you would otherwise loath.
David Brooks thinks that this misdirected anger that has divided the country is against an “epistemic regime” who you feel has become too aloof, too comfortable, too estranged from your traditional values, too condescending and at the same time, oddly, too controlling. According to Brooks, if you can’t believe this elitist epistemic regime (the denizens of most news organizations, universities and government bureaucracies), then you turn to what Brooks calls the “evangelists of distrust” (from Donald Trump to Alex Jones ti the followers of QAnon) for solace and a sense of community, bonding together in a comforting mutuality in your common sense of fear, anxiety, alienation, ambiguity and conspiracy theories that provide you with a self righteous sense of control and the superiority that you possess important information about the deep state, demonic Democrats, and election rigging that is being kept from those sheep who follow the epistemic regime. This, says Brooks, “provided agency: I have the power to reject ‘experts’ and expose hidden cabals” or quoting from Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School, this commonality of distrust provides liberation: “If I imagine my foes are malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want.”
There is no real set of policies that actually bind Republicans right now, thus why, even when you controlled all three branches of government, you could not agree on anything that you wanted to get done. Instead, what actually binds you together is what Brooks calls “a paranoid mind set” that can simply disregard all the old rules and standards of the epistemic regime (democratic institutions, civility, science). The “source” of this divide is not Trump or the Right Wing media, but instead this underlying sense of “distrust and precarity, caused by economic, cultural and spiritual threat”.
The solution? There is a tendency among intellectuals like Brooks and yourself to think that you can synthesize the problems of everything down into some understandable scheme, and then come up with a progressive, even deterministic solution for all the problems of a finite and fallen world that exists as chaos and structure, entropy and creation, life and death, the yen and the yang all crashing together in an eternal struggle that is God’s creation on Earth. Brooks’ structural hypothesis of “the problem” seems reasonable, but the moment we even look at the problem it changes in a thousand ways with a thousand unpredictable, unintended, often negative consequences.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that we are trapped in some cynical unending and hopeless stasis. I think that, on the whole, as Steven Pinker demonstrates with data of all the matrices of human flourishing, that the arc of humanity is actually, slowly, precariously bending toward justice, but I also think that in the short term, we are just as likely to take two steps backwards as two steps forward, that Noah’s flood may come again many times more to wipe most of us out in natural apocalypses or those of our own doing, as we are to reach some semblance of a shining city on a hill in our lifetime or even that of our great grandkids. I think we need to quit the hubris of thinking we, as tiny creatures on a tiny planet, can deterministically figure out a theory of everything. We need to instead learn to be happy living with a sort of everyday problem solving pragmatism founded on the simple, universal virtues that come from love. The problem, in this sense, is the solution. The journey is the destination. You know, all the cliches. But they are basically true, I believe. I know, this is very unsatisfying for the likes of you and Brooks who demand a structure and a certainty.
What does Brooks think is the solution? He believes we supposed elites have the exclusive responsibility to bridge the divide and to provide policies that raise people up out of their economic insecurities. While I don’t completely disagree with this, it also ironically seems just as condescending an attitude as everything he says that half the world hates about the epistemic regime that he is a part of. It does not give the other side any responsibility for themselves and their problems. It’s like telling the alcoholic he has a disease, but he can’t help himself. AA know that that is a cop out – you MUST help yourself and the beginning of that journey is a recognition that it is YOUR PROBLEM. And as such helping ourselves as a society, in my humble opinion, begins with a sense of higher purpose and responsibility by everybody, especially the elite but not limited to them, and a gratitude for the blessings that we are given rather endless whining about grievances for how unfair it all is and how someone else (Democrats? Republicans? Trump? Biden?) are to blame. We all need to have a sense of joy in the moment, and yes, even in the inevitable suffering, and that joy and that purpose can only come from love.
I know this this long response is not what you expected from your rant. Sorry, I simply can’t respond as the straw man for all your self righteous rage. I can only imperfectly be the lost soul that I am and try to love all the other lost souls, of which you are one my good brother. We are all lost souls seeking in the dark for the one light.
@tsalmon
Wrote this (https://citizentom.com/2020/11/29/when-do-the-people-steal-their-own-freedom-the-sequel/) borrowing some of the ideas from here.
Straw? No. You are flesh and blood. You vote for Democrats, and you advocate for their candidates. You routinely point to a New York Times pretend Conservative for guidance on how to condemn Conservatives. Then you deny being a Democrat? What is most ridiculous is you cannot define what you believe, but you condemn the Republican Party for not standing for anything.
What does the Republican Party stand for? Protecting our rights so we can run our own lives. I don’t a big government sticking its nose into my life and telling me what to think and believe, and that is what you voted for.
Am I mad? Yes. I don’t pretend to be unaffected.
Is President Donald Trump my hero? I admire Trump’s toughness and the fact he has tried to keep his promises, but Trump is not Jesus. That’s why I wouldn’t give him a bunch of power either.
“Straw? No. You are flesh and blood. You vote for Democrats, and you advocate for their candidates.”
I recently voted for and supported the candidacy of a Republican (even donating some free legal advice on her contested election issues). Partisanship is less important to me than people. If I am “flesh and bone” then how about treating me like an actual human rather than the made up projection of your own rage?
You routinely point to a New York Times pretend Conservative for guidance on how to condemn Conservatives.
So you are your own god sitting in judgement of everyone else’s bonafides? Thanks, that’s sweet of you, but no thanks.
“Then you deny being a Democrat?”
I’m not registered with either party (not required here) and have voted for both partisan flavors of candidates and in both political primaries.
“What is most ridiculous is you cannot define what you believe, but you condemn the Republican Party for not standing for anything.”
What specific issues would you like to discuss? I’m no partisan hack fawning after any party platform, and I just don’t have a black and white opinion on every complex issue. Even if I do have an opinion, we have no commonality of the reliability of our sources of information. You don’t believe in peer reviewed science, tenured academics at accredited universities, institutional experts at the appropriate agencies and traditional credible news sources. We both may live in our own information bubbles, but my bubble is enormously big with traditional measures of credibility whereas yours is small, relatively new, decidedly radical and inherently conspiratorial. Your views are also far more narrow than that of most Republican voters.
Majority percentages of Republicans routinely say they support gay rights, increasing the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana, expanding Medicaid, strengthening Social Security, maintaining the most important provisions of the ACA, reforming institutional racism in police departments, and even keeping the basic provisions of Rowe v. Wade. The majority of Democrats polled believe the same way. You are the one out of touch, not me bro. And there appears to be very little nuance in your thinking.
“What does the Republican Party stand for? Protecting our rights so we can run our own lives. I don’t a big government sticking its nose into my life and telling me what to think and believe, and that is what you voted for.”
Those sound like platitudes, slogans and jingoism, not policies. Policies take the form of laws and the institutions that support those laws. Instead of “policies”, you only give “manifestos”.
Given that they cannot actually DO anything without putting off or losing a large part of the constituency, Republican politicians, even when they have power, don’t actually do anything either way. Because they are most comfortable only being the party of “no”, they may be permanently consigning themselves to be a minority rule opposition party.
“Am I mad? Yes. I don’t pretend to be unaffected.”
I think you may just be being hyperbolic and exaggerating grievances. How are you actually suffering?
“Is President Donald Trump my hero? I admire Trump’s toughness and the fact he has tried to keep his promises, but Trump is not Jesus.”
I’ll say. Has Mexico paid back that 15 billion dollars for few hundred miles of replacement fence that Trump robbed the military to pay for?
“That’s why I wouldn’t give him a bunch of power either.”
Sure. That’s why Trump spent most of his time undoing Obama’s EOs and doing a record number of his own. And that’s why Biden will spend his first few months undoing everything Trump did. Congress is functionally missing in action no matter what Party is in charge. You seem less concerned about government control than what government controls. Forgive me if I’m unimpressed.
@tsalmon
Given the way you take upon yourself to judge our president, I don’t think you are in a position to complain about my judgement of Conservatism of your favorite columnist. Do you really think you would like reading Brooks’ columns if he was an actual Conservative, like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Everett Piper, Cal Thomas, ….? If Brooks actually was a Conservative, do you seriously think you would have repeatedly used his columns to correct a Conservative? Seriously, the Conservative and Republican commentators on outfits like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and so forth are phonies. Those a propaganda organizations. Conservatives don’t trust the so-called mainstream news media because they hide and/or distort any facts that supports our point-of-view. Unless the people they hire slam Conservatives, they won’t hire them, and that is just the way it is. Do you have to be a god to understand to understand Democrats insist upon political correctness? It is not like that is a secret.
All that and then you immediately to tell me that a discussion of the issues is pointless, that you live in a BIGGGGG information bubble and I live in a miniscule bubble. 🤣 I could not have made that up if I tried.
I have listed all kinds of things the Democratic Party stands for. All you do is condemn Trump, defend yourself, or attack me for pointing out your feet of clay, something we are all born with.
How should I defend myself?
I am not very wise, but I hope I am at least wise enough to know God is God, and I am not.
When a politician promises to transform America, I just wonder who made him God. We have a constitutional republic because we don’t want someone who has appointed himself god trying to transform us. We each have the right to run our own lives, to pursue our own definition of happiness.
Do I, other Conservatives, or big wigs in the Republican propose a wonderful political agenda? No, but it is not a sin not to have an Utopian agenda to forcibly transform the beliefs and the lives of others like a god-like Democrat. I am content to vote for people who don’t promise to do anything except make things work the way almost EVERYONE expects them to work. Whatever else you want to say about Trump, he got results. He was doing what he promised, and he was letting people run their own lives.
You don’t like Trump’s immigration policy. Then discuss the issue and cut the crap. Whether or not Trump got Mexico to pay up was always a side issue. Your candidate wants open borders, cheap votes, and cheap labor, but that is indefensible, and you know it. So, because you cannot argue for your candidate, you condemn Trump. Shame on you.
“Do you really think you would like reading Brooks’ columns if he was an actual Conservative, like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Everett Piper, Cal Thomas, ….?”
Tom,
How do you know who I like? I have was a fan of Cal Thomas since before law school. Levin was an adamant never Trumper whose political principles blows with the the winds of punditry for hire. I don’’t know anything about Everett Piper. (and that explains that).
It is fitting, however, that you point out Limbaugh as one of the leaders of your supposed conservative movement. The four times married, former drug addict and viagra smuggling Rush Limbaugh is not a serious journalist, moralist, philosopher or academic person. Limbaugh flunked out of college, and is, to be generous, not a scriptural a Christian. Your describing Limbaugh as one of your “actual conservatives” kind of says it all about your faux conservatism.
By comparison, I invite you to look up Brooks’ bonafides as a serious conservative writer and critic. They are very much better than yours, or Limbaugh’s.
It’s hilarious that you condemn the Libs for their cancel and woke cultures, when you are doing exactly the same thing only at the opposite extreme. Admit it Tom – conservatism isn’t a definable, consistently principled philosophy for you – it’s all about tribal warfare and ends-justifying-the-means winning at all costs. Thus the populist propagandist of hypocrisy, Limbaugh, and the womanizing, conman, populist WASP racist nationalist demagogue Donald Trump neither of which believe in anything nor either have a moral compass. I’m not sure what conservative philosophically seriously stands for anymore, but you must know that empty suits like Limbaugh and Trump ain’t it.
The odd thing is that you kinda prove prove Brooks’ argument that Trumpism reflects a paranoid culture of emotional grievances rather than anything consistently serious or principled.😄
“Do I, other Conservatives, or big wigs in the Republican propose a wonderful political agenda? No . . . .”
Hum . . . So Tom you condemn me for not wanting to pontificate some simplistic “policy” agenda, but then you say that you don’t have any policy agenda either. At best you can spout diatribes saying what you are against, but you have no plan or
even a consistent philosophy for that explains what you are for.
This is the problem with being driven by hate and fear rather than by love and hope. It’s inherently just destructive without the ability to be constructive. It’s all hammer and no nails. 🙁
@tsalmon
I did not say you don’t have a policy agenda. I said you won’t defend it. Instead, you attack people like you just attacked Rush Limbaugh.
“You don’t like Trump’s immigration policy. Then discuss the issue and cut the crap. Whether or not Trump got Mexico to pay up was always a side issue. Your candidate wants open borders, cheap votes, and cheap labor, but that is indefensible, and you know it. So, because you cannot argue for your candidate, you condemn Trump. Shame on you.”
Tom,
What “immigration policy”? Did the Republican Party pass an immigration reform Bill and I missed it? Trump’s often illegal “executive actions”, (family separation, deport the Dreamers, religious bans, build an ineffective, overly expensive, racist wall paid for by the military), on the other hand, are driven by the fear and hatred, the xenophobia and ethnocentricism of white nationalist demagoguery, and nothing else. There is no other practical there there.
@tsalmon
And your alternative to the chaos Democrats and RINOs insist upon is open borders.
Did you know that the little illegal immigrant children in cages happened during the Obama administration, but even Obama blames it on Trump.
“And your alternative to the chaos Democrats and RINOs insist upon is open borders.”
Find me where Obama or Biden has ever advocated for open borders? On the other hand, that has been the unabashed policy of Republican economic conservatives for decades. (Free markets for labor – don’t you remember that?). It is only recently that Republican conservatives have morphed into xenophobic closed border advocates.
Obama was criticized by liberals for his stiff policies on deportation. Given that you just love Trump’s purposeful and cruel policy on family separation, shouldn’t your overblown charge that Obama had a “policy” of putting people in cages make you applaud that cruelty? Where’s the moral consistency? The answer is that there is none, is there?
@tsalmon
Do I like what Republican politicians keep trying to do on immigration? No. I held my nose and voted for McCain and Romney because the were better than Obama.
When we sell our votes to politicians, we elect people who will sell us to their rich cronies. That’s why we should never sell our vote.
This is your usual evasion and name calling. When we had the amnesty in 1986, Republicans thought they were ending illegal immigration. We we lied to. Was Reagan fooled or a participant? I don’t know, but it was a bad bill, and the borders were not enforced.
Even with Congress and the news media fighting him tooth and nail, Trump closed the border. Obama never made a serious effort. Instead, he had smugglers using children as a ticket into our country. Child abuse, you go ahead. Rewrite history. Blame Trump.
“I did not say you don’t have a policy agenda. I said you won’t defend it. Instead, you attack people like you just attacked Rush Limbaugh.”
And I said that you don’t have a defensible policy agenda. Period.
You’re the one who threw out Limbaugh as one of your conservative trend setters, not me. Limbaugh is an entertainer who peddles in hate. That’s just who he is. So tell me I’m wrong. Go ahead? Explain to me how Limbaugh is your model of Christian integrity who you put at the intellectual heart of modern Christian conservativism and I have a degree from Trump University I will sell you, cheap.
@tsalmon
Protecting people from each other is indefensible? The most famous words of the Declaration of Independence are indefensible? The Constitution is indefensible? Well, I have been trying, but I guess you have not noticed.
You don’t like Rush Limbaugh? So, I have to defend him now instead of Trump? Seems like your “solution” for the discussion of every issue is to attack someone, in love I suppose.
You made fun of Limbaugh’s drug addiction. He got hooked on OxyContin after a doctor prescribed it to him. He got caught, and he finally got off the stuff.
Crime? I wish you Liberals would make up your minds who you want to blame. I thought the opioid epidemic was the drug companies fault. Darn it! I cannot keep track of the latest spin in political correctness.
We are what we are. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. To take up their crosses and follow Jesus, the apostles had to see Him die and rise from the dead, but that still was not enough. They also had to receive the Holy Spirit.
You think Joe Biden has been filled with the Holy Spirit. Doubt you do. Yet you still have no problem giving that man too much power. But you think it is okay because a news media we cannot trust says it is okay. Because he has two dogs and a cat, no doubt.
Tom,
I actually agree with your view that Rush’s drug addiction would not in and of itself disqualify him as your model of conservative values (although I doubt that Rush is ever so generous with the flaws and peccadilloes of anyone he disagrees with). But you constantly favor yourself as a “Christian Conservative”, don’t you? It’s hardly resorting to ad hominem simply to point evidence out that Limbaugh is not, in intellect or practice, either.
Now, if you actually were to make a rational argument using Rush as your conservative authority, then wouldn’t it make sense for me to respond to the actual argument rather than to resort to ad hominem attacks on Limbaugh’s credibility as a conservative? But that’s what we are left to here isn’t it?☺️
@tsalmon
As far as I can tell, Limbaugh is a Christian. A perfect Christian? No. We can only imperfectly model Jesus.
Limbaugh does not preach on his show, but I suspect he takes the Bible more seriously than he once did. Life is instructive, sometime harshly so. Limbaugh is battling lung cancer. So, he no longer tells us how much he enjoys cigars. Humbling. I would not be surprised if that were so.
Anyway, I have listened to Limbaugh off and on for decades. He knows he is an entertainer, and he that is what he calls himself. I know he is an entertainer so I know I don’t know him. You don’t anything about the man except the so called mainstream mass media’s caricature of him. That caricature is one small reason I no longer trust the media.
“You think Joe Biden has been filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Sure, but I can only go by what he says and does and how he is known for his decency even by those who disagree with Biden on policy. Catholics, rarely assert such things even when we feel that it is the case for ourselves. We know that there are already far too many frauds asserting such things. “They will know we are Christians by our love”, not by who proclaims it the loudest and most pompously, say by brandishing a Bible that he has obviously never read and does live by in front of a church he doesn’t go to.
You think Donald Trump has been filled with the Holy Spirit?
@tsalmon
Pompous? Like promising to transform America and lower the sea levels? How about constantly accusing your opponents of racism instead of debating issues? How about accusing people of having a phobia just because they think your ideas about sex are sinful and unhealthy? How about forcing taxpayers to pay for killing the unborn? How about using your drug addicted son as a bagman for bribes?
If Biden has been filled with a spirit, it is not holy.
“Pompous? Like promising to transform America and lower the sea levels?”
It’s just science, not magic brother.
“How about constantly accusing your opponents of racism instead of debating issues?”
Racism has been an issue four more than four hundred years of our history. This is like our pretending that we are not sinners actually makes our sins go away.
“How about accusing people of having a phobia just because they think your ideas about sex are sinful and unhealthy?”
MY ideas about sex are sinful and unhealthy? Sorry, ask my wife, unfortunately I’m just not that interesting. What kinds of sex are you afraid of anyway?
“How about forcing taxpayers to pay for killing the unborn?”
In what way are taxpayers having to pay for killing fetuses? Directly? Indirectly? Be specific and I may even agree with you.
“How about using your drug addicted son as a bagman for bribes?”
You mean Rudy’s Russian disinformation nonsense? You know that you are getting this bull “Kraken” from the same place you found out that the ghost of Hugo Chavez runs Republican state’s elections.
“If Biden has been filled with a spirit, it is not holy.”
Good thing that God does not make this your call then.😇
@tsalmon
The difference between us is that I don’t vote my religious beliefs on you. I have not got that confused with love. I also don’t confuse conjecture with science. Neither does Obama. He bought a big house on ocean front property, kind of like you.
You need to wade pass the propaganda and see what the people you vote for actually do. See what you actually believe, and it is not what you say you believe.
The Paris Global Warming Give-Aways did not solve any problems. They just created new ones. Sending our manufacturing to China is both self destructive and increases pollution. Obama did a lot of stuff that made no sense, but it made the supposedly scientific feel good. Yet fracking, which Democrats oppose, has actually reduced our carbon output. As a practical matter, Obama was trying to make us a third world nation. Why? I don’t know, but his policies were awful, and that is why Trump became president.
Why did you vote for Biden? He is filled with the Holy Spirit? No. You are filled with guilt and shame. You have been taught to despise America. Foolishness. We are not responsible for all the world’s problems, and it is pure arrogance to think we are.
You cannot point to anything either Obama or Biden did that should have been done. Nevertheless, you condemn Trump, and he has actually been a good president. Nuts!
“The difference between us is that I don’t vote my religious beliefs on you. I have not got that confused with love. I also don’t confuse conjecture with science. Neither does Obama. He bought a big house on ocean front property, kind of like you.”
Tom,
You can’t have it both ways brother – you can’t say constantly that you vote your religious beliefs (anti-abortion, anti-gay pro God given rights and no others), and then say that you don’t and I do. I think we both vote our religious beliefs in our own ways, with you wanting to do more of the legal imposing of those beliefs on others.
BTW, don’t know about Obama, but I didn’t buy the house I live in – my wife inherited from her mother through our children. And the house is not ocean front – it’s a block and a half from the beach at a fairly high point on the peninsula (they call it “holy ground” because it has not flooded in hurricane . . . yet) – but with man induced sea level rise it may be water front some day. So my grandkids have that to look forward to.😏
@tsalmon
Do I vote my religious beliefs? Yep! However, I vote to protect God-given rights, not so-called government given rights.
Are murder, stealing, lying and so forth wrong? Yes. These things are wrong because God says they are wrong, and God gave us government to help us stop murdering each other, steal from each other, and lying about each other. He did not give us government to redistribute the wealth, fund the arts, proclaim the glories of same-sex marriage, abort babies, and all those things so beloved by power hungry politicians.
I know how you got your house. If you believed in global warming, you would sell it to someone who doesn’t.
Happy Thanksgiving, Tom! Long ago I was involved with Black Box Voting and the movement to secure our voting machines to be able to audit our elections and to make sure there were no hackers tampering with them or algorithms being programmed in. I’m hopeful that over the years we have learned something, that those machines can be audited today, and that people in government somewhere care about such things. There is no doubt in my mind that this election was not legit.
@insanitybytes22
The people who set up the vote by mail systems have no intention of setting up something that is auditable. We can sacrifice the ability to audit an election for the sake of convenience and for a “secret” vote.
For the sake of convenience, Democrats want vote by mail without requiring an appropriate excuse. In addition, they just want to send everyone a ballot and shut down in-person voting. They don’t even want to use a signature to validate the ballot, and they are perfectly okay with ballot harvesting. How does anyone meaningfully audit that?
What about secrecy of our vote? That’s where ballot harvesting really “shines”. Ballot harvesters can buy votes and intimidate people. Lot easier to do that in people’s homes and apartments than it is in public at a voting precinct.
For the sake of appearances, Democrats want to go the motions. They want a coronation of their handpicked winners, not an election.
Of course they don’t care: there’s never been any consequences for anything they’ve ever done. Sure, occasionally a celebrity or a CEO or two and maybe a political operative or two will get sacrificed for public opinion; but as soon as the story disappears from the news cycle, the ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card gets played and it’s business as usual.
@The Night Wind
That observation raises a question. How do we define the people we are calling “they”?
I’ve been meaning to write a post on that very topic for some time. Here it is:
https://nightwind777.blogspot.com/2020/11/they-who-must-be-obeyed.html
Thanks for the shout out and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.. 🙂
@bunkerville
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours too!
Happy Thanksgiving Brother! Hope you are all safe and well for this Holiday Season.
@tsalmon
Happy Thanksgiving to you too. We are well. Hope you all are too.
The Republican-led Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County. Ariz., voted unanimously last Friday to certify that county’s election results. The board chairman declared that there was no evidence of fraud or misconduct, “zero”.
“Release the minnows“!