1) I think the people mentioned in the article are outliers. In my world, the average leftist hides from his or her obviously wrong beliefs and reappears when convenient. Among all who righteously blustered during Trump’s impeachment there is nothing but silence about Biden’s bribes.
2) Like it or not, the MSM still shapes opinions. When these stories are in CNN or NBC I will think the shift is real.
3) My response to any leftist now is as follows;
“ I am a practical man. The left has run significant parts of this country for 2 generations. Have any of those places improved or have they degraded? I don’t support people or a side. I support policies that work. What has the left done in the last 40 years that has improved anything? “
The future of this country lies in 2024. One year away.
Speak brother. At the end of this weekend's football game was a CBS promo gushing about the upcoming 60 Minutes interview with "Vice President Harris."
Who? The giggling nitwit who was installed only for the single reason of insurance that the Senile Imbecile whom she serves under will not be removed any time soon?
I have always thought that a democracy requires 2 things. One, an aggressive and objective media. Two, a strong primary and secondary education system.
These leftist assholes are just now getting the message that the Soc/Dem party is the party of antisemitic racism. These leftist aren't very perspicacious, are they? No, they are dolts. If you don't believe me, just look at compro.
To call these people stupid is an insult to stupid people everywhere.
To your second point, any GOP candidate whom an MSM moderator interviews has to not only answer the question but also attack the premise of the question. Watching the Sunday shows, the questions asked are primarily dumb and performative rather than substantive. The GOP, for too long, has been deferential to the narrative created by the media and plays the game. If there is going to be any change, they are going to have to get more aggressive in going after them, or as you said, things will return to normal.
There are so many things that the GOP could attack, CRT, gender and kindergarten sex classes in public schools, defunding the police, the astronomical rise in crime in Dem run cities, the border, the burning of cities run by Dems, the acceptance by the Dem/Soc party of BLM, Antifa, and accepting Islamic fundamentalists, communists and socialist into their party and into congress.
The GOP should be running truthful ads against these frauds but does the GOP do this? No, they don't even wring their hands. They sit on their hands.
What a bunch of useless, incompetent clowns. They disgust me and they, by their inaction, are turning this country over to the far left Dem party.
Well, as Dennis Prager is wont to say:" There are only two parties, the Dangerous one, and the Stupid one. I am a member of the Stupid party." Take a guess of which one is which...
I am a conservative and cannot bring myself the affiliate with the clown party. I will vote for them because I cannot bring myself to ever vote for the anti-American/Socialist Party.
A lot of what you say is true. But if I may add, what does the GOP do? They run as candidates election deniers who keep on re fighting the results of 2020. And then, run against the well established belief of most American women that they want some access to abortion rights. So, they got clobbered in 2022. Deservedly so. And on top of that, they look idiotic in Congress fighting amongst themselves since January to the grins and laughter of Democrats while the nation's (and the world's) business languishes. That does not look good. It looks like children at a circus. Voters might remember that in a year from now.
Republicans have to find smart, moderate and educated people who can appeal to independents (like me) and disaffected Democrats. We're out there.
You seem to have a problem with our republican form of democracy. Different approaches to governance are healthy for the future of our nation as they open the floor to the debates at the core of our society.
I find those who mock the debates to be the ones that hew to the "progressive" approaches that have turned our urban centers into war zones, that have granted high-school diplomas to kids unable to read, write, or do basic arithmetic, and that have allowed our justice system to morph into an equity exercise that was discarded with the ratification of the Magna Carta in the early 13th century.
I also find these people to be the first to hop on the cancel bandwagon and rail against racism and xenophobia while expressing unequivocal racist and xenophobic positions.
Exacerbating the inconsistencies is an underlying anger suggesting deep and personal affront for opposing their thinking or even daring to point out that they are engaged in the self-same type of behavior about which they rail.
The anger is so visceral as to affect close and long-standing relationships.
I am a conservative independent, a fierce defender of personal freedoms and respect for others and their beliefs. I do not believe, however, that government is the solution to every problem, even for any problem. The role of government is to facilitate, not control.
My view is not accepted by many on either the left or the right. But I urge careful inspection of government(s) over the years, noting those that have been successful and parsing where government has helped and where government has hindered.
Our Constitution establishes a federal government that is limited in its authority. Our current division is symbolic of an important and overdue correction in the federalization of state affairs.
'You seem to have a problem with our republican form of democracy. Different approaches to governance are healthy for the future of our nation as they open the floor to the debates at the core of our society.'
What debates are you referring to, LK? What 'different approach' do you mean? The sniping and intraparty chaos which was gripping the majority party in the House since January? And may continue to do so because the current Speaker can be tossed at any time by a recalcitrant extreme wing of his own party? Those debates?
Great to have a correction to reverse the large federal role in our lives since before your and my parents were born, but meanwhile, a federal budget needs to be passed in a couple of weeks - a budget states need. Because there's a ton of money in there for them..and they know it.
I hope they're up to it. Do you think they can by compromising? Can they compromise? That is government.
Jim Jones would find you a willing, enthusiastic acolyte,
Are you that willful in you mocking of the Republican debate for Speaker of the House that you cannot see where the "It's my turn now" approach in the House with Stiletto Nancy and Rubber-Stamp Denny Hoyer has managed to plunge the country into the worst inflation since the equally feckless Jimmy Carter administration?
As for experience with more limited federal government, sir, I am a lot older than you might think and know well just how much "mission creep" has contributed to Deep State and the ills that we currently face.
"I hope they're up to it. Do you think they can by compromising? Can they compromise? That is government."
Boy, is this a laugh-line coming from a supporter of executive fiat as the only way to govern.
We're not the stupid ones...you are. A tad on the hypocritical side, too.
Truth! The Ds are practically handing the wins to them on a silver platter and so many formerly D voters and independents especially the working class are wandering in the wild, but the GOP can't or doesn't want to do anything to seize the opportunities.
Republicans are following the old adage, "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrell." But that came from an age when you could suck up to the media and gain favorable coverage. No longer applicable to a media that are dedicated partisans.
You mean like Trump ALWAYS did? No one likes a supine, spineless candidate, but if you eliminate Trump who ELSE could fill that bill? Christy? And...who else......?
I agree with you. There are many things I love about Trump but he is such a big baby and has no impulse control. The media plays him like a fiddle. Desantis did a good job on Meet the Press this weekend. Haley is too much of a establisment squish. The next 6 months will tell
I honestly think it would be the same sh*tshow. The fawning press is solidifying my belief. I really hope it does not come to that. I felt that way about Pence and he is gone. I feel.that way about Christie too.
As to #3, Emily Rose, 51 of Minneapolis who hopped a plane from Minneapolis to wear a pink hat and protest Trump’s Inauguration, pumped her fist along with BLM and all of her fellow “intelligent educated” peers can’t understand why her peers are flocking to proclaim their anti Israeli allegiance. She fails to see, that she was just like them. She listened to the lies spat out by the MSM and obediently took to the streets as she was programmed to do. She didn’t exercise critical thinking to ration the danger involved in group-hating her President or her neighbors who may have been MAGA voters. Years later, it is quite clear who has been lying. Only now, they are lying about her and her group. It shouldn’t surprise her that her current or past groupies are either extremely naive to, or complicit in perpetuating the lies from the MSM. However, she still isn’t sure if she wants to revoke her allegiance to the Democrats who feed the MSM.
It’s funny. I have always tried to be a nice kind person but I find I have no sympathy for people like Ms. Rose. They have been mean, arrogant sheep their whole lives. They won’t turn into thinking wolves overnight. Or ever.
> The future of this country lies in 2024. One year away.
I mean, no. A Trump presidency plus a majority in both houses (almost certainly won't happen) will at best nominate a new SC justice or two and maaayyyybe roll back some of the stupidity. It won't remove the nearly 9 million illegals who entered under Biden. It might be able to slow - but certainly not stop - inflation and the debt spiral. It might, at best, put a temporary halt on the expansion of the police state. It *might* pay some lip service to tackling rising crime, drug use, and mental illness -- but these aren't things it's really capable of solving. It won't be able to bring back family, tradition, religion, or childbirth. And it certainly won't heal the massive divides we have.
More importantly, I doubt Trump really has enough backbone to counter the creeping forces of socialism (which now seem to be based on immutable traits): DEI hiring. indoctrination in education, various NGOs and large corporations ushering these things in, complete ideological capture of every major institution, from corporations, to tech, to media, to churches, to the millitary. And he 100% can't stop the AIs which are right not being trained on our 2023 biases and will continue those into the future in ways that are almost impossible to overcome even if our social structures change.
Sorry to be so depressing, but I honestly do not see a way to vote our way out of this (and if there was one, Trump is not the man to lead it). The problem is a rot in our culture and institutions. Not politics or law, which are generally transient and simply a downstream reflection of our culture.
I do think, given Trump possibly running a smart, controlled campaign (unlikely I know) that he could win and we could have an R house and senate. The economy will be in an obvious recession soon, our foreign policy is in shambles and the idiocy is getting hard to hide. Having said that, everything you say is true but you have to start somewhere. People are starting to get pissed, and that helps.
Yes. I deeply wish it were not so, but it is. Reality is “real”, and must be accepted. If I were the sort of rabbit who could live in a fantasy world, I’d be “woke”. I’m not.
OTOH, I still believe that we must “go down fighting”, as all honorable men do...but it’s probably an impossible task. Still, we must fight...
Let's hope the '24 election does not feature anyone running for president over 80 - or about to turn 80 in a year or two. If that happens - yes, we might have a future..
Agree. I don't see many liberals in my world even opening their eyes, People who chose a side are like gang members after initiation. They are in it for life.
Re point 1: Speaking of points, these people, no matter how nice to know (or not) are also no more than points of light. Until this awakening registers on the Richter Scale, it don't mean a thing.
I think for the fraction of Democrats who really care about the issue set Democrats focus on, it is probably somewhat disturbing to discover that most of the people who ‘agree’ with them are genuine psychopaths who are exploiting those issues to obtain power.
4% of the population are sociopaths and 60% are agreeable, so they go with the flow and get taken advantage of. We are the prickly disagreeable 36%. Ego also plays a big role, when you have been part of a cult for your entire adult life it’s hard to admit you were wrong and leave.
My son encapsulated this all in one fell swoop. He wryly noted: "If you were preparing Thanksgiving dinner and had the need for several crucial, last minute ingredients, would you dispatch Uncle Joe Biden to the store to fetch them for you?" Of course, you wouldn't. He'd get lost, forget the most important one or just generally F up the task Yet you voted for this senile imbecile to lead our nation in this hour of peril. But, but, but ....Trump.
You're right, my gut response is that Biden would utterly fail to bring back the ingredients, whereas Trump would come back with the finest quality ingredients, plus some extras and maybe some cheerleaders just for fun, and then proceed to make the entire holiday about himself.
Trump would pocket the money for the groceries, spend it on something else entirely. Later he would tell the story of how he saved Thanksgiving and fed everyone and it was beautiful.
No Trump did it to himself. He is a vicious, lying, megalomaniacal, bully. I don't say that because of left wing propaganda. I don't watch the news at all. It is my independent opinion after watching his speeches and how he treated the people around him.
Trump would come back with what he insisted were “the finest ingredients, finer than anything the world has ever seen,” but they’d very clearly be garbage by anyone with eyes...and he’d still devote a national holiday to himself.
I'd trust Trump to be able to get out of the car and wave to his adoring acolytes, and then say something stupid. Like Biden, in that respect. But to actually go into a store and buy something? Are you serious? He hasn't pulled his wallet out in front of a cash register since the 1970's. Ask Michael (Cohen).
While these stories represent a change of heart, the reality is this. We have an ideology that if funded by dark money that has infected our universities, our criminal justice system, most of our media. When Progressives talk about fundamentally changing America this is what they are talking about. I don’t mean to make Soros the boogieman in the same why the Left made Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers right wing boogiemen but there is money behind these progressive politicians. Money behind CRT and anti anti racists radicals. There is money behind the protests on college campuses. There was definitely money behind BLM protests. Anybody who has bothered to look in to crime knows that crime afflicts the poor more than anybody else. Areas of poverty have more crime. It just so happens that a higher percentage of black America lives in poverty where crime happens. This is why I have said for years to fix crime fix poverty. In the meantime we need to protect the poor, not have progressive white fold who live in safe neighborhoods telling poor black what they need. It was too long ago that 50% of all arrests in America for murder and assault were black according to FBI statistics. That number had been coming down recently but it still is in the mid to upper 30’s. We can’t tell you because a whole bunch of big cities did not report to the FBI. On purpose perhaps?
In any event, until this ideology is reject by voters it will stay with us. The money is there. Is this the “plan” to destroy America? If so it’s working.
Earl, you know this, I know this, because we read a lot, study history. People on the left are willfully ignorant, unquestioning people who are assigned their opinions by Rachel Maddow etal. And they think they are the smart ones. Changing that smug mindset or just getting them to read something other than NYT is next to impossible. For some reason, they will not entertain the possibility that they have been wrong about something.
If only it were limited to Soros. But most of the tech billionaires are also funding the madness and their motives are definitely not benign. Maybe it's long past time to take away all their tax deductions for these "causes" and make them actually pay the marginal tax rates impose on us "working stiffs?"
Isn’t it interesting that Mark Zuckerberg is a major funder/propagandist for the whole spectrum of intersectional Woke causes? What, as a Jewish person, is he thinking right now? He has funded and promoted an ideology that may lead to the actual genocide of his own people. Maybe he thinks that his money will protect him, but the rich Jews of Germany found out otherwise. Ditto for Soros, (except that at his age he’ll be dead soon) but he has children carrying on these works.
The Soviet Union won the Cold War... not militarily, but by funding all counter-culture movements since the 1960s. Two generations later, those ideas have become the dominant force on campus.
Wrong wrong wrong....the Soviet Union lost the Cold War which we won. In spades!!!
There was nary a military confrontation, but lost it anyway as we outspent and outarmed them.
Soon after, they disbanded. They turned all the state owned business, banks, utilities, etc. over to their citizens. What further proof of losing do you need? Losing doesn't mean they stop their evil ideas which are resurrected today on a few college campuses.
Those anti-Jew ideas on campus are neither new nor dominant.
Most of the universities and colleges in America are not represented by the few protesting Cinderellas pampered and coddled in their safe spaces.
Live by numbers, die by numbers. "You can say anything you want to with statistics[!]" my stats professor gleefully said on day one. I dropped the class. Thinking, if I need stats I'll buy some. Turns out I was prescient.
The shame of it all is how Jewish voters vote Democrat. The Democrat party looks for optics and narratives that suit their needs. I’ve always voted Republican and I’m not ashamed for doing so.
I think it depends where you live, and the makeup of the community. I'm in a small city in a deep red state, and the Jewish community here is more reflective of that lean than many other predominantly reform or conservative places.
JJ - I wasn't saying ALL Jewish voters vote Democrat. I was referring to the broader brush of the issue. I am Republican and Jewish and proud. I live in a very liberal/progressive area. My comments were a reflection of that experience.
I didn’t think it was possible to get more depressed reading the Free Press, but these articles, and the ensuing comments, did just that to me. I am reminded of the words, “if we do not hang together, rest assured we shall all hang separately.” If we lose the rule of law, then we really are lost. Vote accordingly.
All nice but let's cut to the chase. It's November 2024. The border is still a sieve. The campuses have calmed down ( hopefully) but what is being taught has changed little ( likewise at blue city public and preo schools,) . The MSM continues to bang the colonizer systemic racism climate drum ( and opposes any limits in abortion, an issue that will be front and center). Inflation is still marching right along. And the debt and deficits are even greater. And interest rates have not budged much. It's Biden v Trump on the ballot. How many of the newly enlightened vote for Trump or stay home in protest all but ensuring 4 more years of the status quo? Until then this is great for articles and cocktail talk.
"How many of the newly enlightened vote for Trump or stay home in protest"
I'm not sure how many of the newly enlightened will vote for Trump, but I'm pretty certain the Dems will find a way to make sure the votes of those who stay home go to Biden.
Everybody it seems here in the comment section hates mail in voting - yet Trump won handily in Florida in 2020, the state with the highest mail in votes by percentage in the country..
The campuses have calmed down? Compared to when? There are anti-Israel protests at dozens of universities, and professors are gushing about how wonderful the Hamas attack was. And not, as far as I can tell, getting fired for it.
You are correct on all fronts. My point was that a year from now they HOPEFULLY will be calmer. If I were king I would close the campuses and go to remote learning. After all it seems most of the "students" are wearing masks and afraid of close contact in classrooms and dorms. And in the process the chances for violence would be diminished
If I were king, I would shut down all public universities for a year, with every single professor and administrator losing their job, regardless of tenure. They would not be allowed to reopen until they signed hiring agreements with *ideologically* diverse professors and administrators. Professors who had previously identified themselves as "activists" would not be eligible for rehire under any circumstances.
We are dreamers no? Here's one more. Since govt pays a huge part of the cost of colleges ( loans and loan guarantees, grants etc), time to treat colleges as adjuncts of govt. Thus all employed are subject to the pay grades of the govt meaning no more 3-5 million salary for university presidents, and reduced salaries for the rest of the admin staff and professors. Remote learning would solve much of this by only having top notch unbiased teachers teaching their areas of expertise. No need for thousands of social science profs and one gender studies prod for the entire country would be plenty
Remote learning would also eliminate the "party school" phenomenon.
In a system like that, I would totally support "free" college for anyone. Only the serious students would continue. The ones who want to party would quickly stop attending.
I’ve said this before, but “activists” are the scourge of our time! They are simply lobbyists for a cause (whether paid or unpaid), and deserve only our scorn and suspicion. Suddenly, everyone is an “activist”: K–12 teachers, university professors/administrators, corporate CEOs, students, workers, bartenders, Uber drivers, you name it, because it is a high status marker.
“Activists” have transformed our society into a tyranny of the minorities. Prior to their reign, most of our society’s structures were created and maintained to serve the greater good (a.k.a. the majority). The result of that was that things functioned well, and most people were happy. But some people were not happy, albeit a small number. Along came the “activists”, and suddenly our society was re-engineered to serve the minority. Now, nothing works very well, and everyone is unhappy. Fabulous! <sarcasm>
Netanyahu has it exactly right. A ceasefire or any voluntary interruption of the Israeli effort to eliminate the Hamas threat is a victory for terrorism. It proves that Hamas's war plans are working; start a war with Israel by instituting unspeakable horrors on innocent Jews, then retreat back to the underground warrens with hostages to await the coming onslaught of Israeli retribution while counting on the queasiness of Israel's western allies to pause/halt the war for "humanitarian" reasons, giving Hamas a needed publicity victory while it resupplies and reemerges for further terror. The only way to end the terror campaign is to end Hamas.
One of my good friends predicted that wokeness would someday come for Jews. As soon as you start going through group identities and sloppily picking "oppressed" or "oppressor" for each entire group, it is inevitable, he argued. I nodded along, seeing left-wing social justice for the fraud that it is, but I never thought that things would go so far as siding with murder, rape, kidnapping, and torture. I guess we have found the left-wing equivalent of Trump's, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"
Jordan Peterson has often noted that it there is a bright line for when the Right goes too far (white supremist racism a la the KKK), but there is not such a bright line for the Left. Celebrating Hamas and framing their barbaric acts of terror as “resistance” seem to me to have created a bright line for lunacy on the Left.
I hope you are right. Seems like we are plumbing the depths of the abyss looking for a low bar of decency -- and we (as American society) can't find it.
Virtual carrots OR. I do not even want to consider that possibility. But you may be on to something. Have they have achieved dystopia instead of utopia?
It's funny I keep remembering when Howard stern used to interview the kkk guy--"wake up whiiiite people" can't remember his name and stern had him list in order the most reviled races etc and the guy said Jews at the top then from dark to light. Back then Jews were comfortably nestled within the oppressed side of the scale but now, they're Goliath slaying those poor victimized innocent Palestinians, ruling the world with their money and so forth. People are so fucking stupid. The world is a cult and we're watching and shouting wake the fuck up!
Trump's comment referred to the fact that his supporters have learned that everything the media says is a lie to such an extent that if he actually DID something terrible they wouldn't believe it anymore.
The Left, by contrast, would BELIEVE that their figurehead committed an act of barbarity and applaud him for it.
Haha! No, of course you're right. But I'd like to believe that somewhere between our "anti-racist" Democratic socialists and racist GOP cultural fascists is a level-headed middle consisting of those who think that marriage equality, book learning, and Medicare are good things -- but also that we need to enforce laws and fill our jails again, reopen places like Creedmore, make people pay off their college loans, and bite the bullet and make corporations bring back manufacturing to our shores.
Imagine, we make only five percent of our aluminum. And almost nothing of our various other needs. Maybe if there were jobs for those whose skills tended to the more physical than cerebral, there'd be fewer extremists -- on both sides.
Maybe here in our cities we'd be able to agree that the minute a deranged Black man throws a punch that breaks an elderly woman's eye socket, he is to blame and not the rest of us, and belongs in jail as the vicious menace he is. As an older, lifelong Brooklynite, I'm incensed by the myriad of excuses people invent to defend such creatures.
Finally, it's time to admit that Senator Moynihan was right: Providing welfare to single mothers, usually undereducated and often uneducable, and making it economically foolish to marry and have a job, has been a disaster for the Black community on par with Jim Crow. And perhaps worse. It has spawned generations of crime, and now protests noted for their violence and sustained disruptions of our city life as well as the attempt to brainwash everyone into an "anti-racist" ideology -- which now includes agitated, non-introspective Muslims. And doing a darned good job of it.
We KNOW who the far left is and are, but please explain who the "far right" are, and how they are influencing us. Certainly the media is with the far left and they exercise an overwhelming influence Who, or WHAT, on the far right has an equal power to influence?
Like pornography, to echo the learned judge, I know them when I see them.
Folks who shoot ob/gyns who terminate pregnancies? Who poison dogs belonging to the lesbian couple who just moved in down the road? Who as a matter of course hate Black people and Jews? And whose votes put into office those like them?
How about guys who laugh uproariously when Donald Trump limps on a stage in mockery of a cripple?
Almost exclusively Republicans. But not Republicans like my family.
Does all this garbage sink in? Are there enough people in this nation to combat this hysteria? Are sane people going to finally elect someone that can clean America up? Or is there just a few that post here all there is? Tell me this isn’t so!
This gives me such hope after days of watching the protests in cities and on college campuses that seem to make no logical sense except dutifully and bandwagonly following a narrative mob religion. I truly hope people are in fact waking up from woke!
I read these stories yet I remain doubtful Jews will vote for centrists Dems or Republicans. Where I live, Jamal Bowman , member of AOCs Marxist socialist caucus, remains formidable with Jewish support because JStreet continues to argue he is a supporter of Israel. I cannot make sense of it.
I am Jewish and am voting for RFK or whoever rises to the top of the Republican party, preferably DeSantis. I don't respect Trump as a person, though would hold my nose if it came dow to it. I've been independent for years and mix up my ballot wherever candidates makes sense, but after the last 4, am never voting Democrat again, at any level.
He will take some of the quasi-Never Trump crowd and ignorant Chardonnay Book Club virtue signalers in purple states like GA and VA.
The hope is that he can win a couple otherwise blue-collar blue states that don’t have major urban centers or large indoctrinated university thought bubbles. These are the people who lost their jobs to vax mandates and can see why reverse racism and trans issues are foolish.
First they came for the children and I did not speak out—
Because I did not have a child. (Trans rights)
Then they came for the police, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a police officer. (BLM)
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew. (Hamas support)
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Might sound a bit dramatic but I firmly believe if our government wasn’t strong the woke fanatics would have been lynching people in the streets. During each of these events.
If you bought into this crap and are waking up to it, some soul searching is needed. Since I can’t see how woke ideology is any different from fascism. They hate our separation of powers.
Also, why do the fascists always end up coming for the Jews?
Fascists, and the other champions of the oppressor/oppressed mentality, always go after Jews because Jews keep showing their ideology to be a crock. Jews are successful despite vicious persecution for most of the last 2,000 years.
Here is reason #22: the GOP should coalesce around Desantis or Haley and not Trump. There is a growing movement of frustration around the lack of performance of Democratic policies; the issues of crime, immigration, and antisemitism are just the first shoe to drop, and the deficit spending that is going on will have to end soon and badly. The GOP needs a person who can attract people and inspire, not be repellent and sicken. Trump is not the man for the times; if he wins, it will be a squeaker, and he has proven he can't govern as he can't build coalitions or pick good people. Do we need someone with personal vendettas ( See his Bill Barr post) and can't stay focused on a task? There is an excellent opportunity to destroy the woke in this coming election. Trump can't do it. Great articles show the opportunity for the GOP to win and do something with it.
Unfortunately the people who need to read these articles and send the septuagenarian and octogenarian out to pasture don’t subscribe. Or, frankly read anything that doesn’t affirm their biases.
I'm with you on that one, Lynne. As I am sure you know, I really want DeSantis. I will vote for Trump if he is the option - but not enthusiastically. If it is Haley I think I need to write in DeSantis. It annoys me how much TheFP pushes Haley. It's like she is the chosen one for people who have only made a baby step away from the Democrat party or who want the Republican Establishment in office. The WSJ wanted Biden last time around and they want Haley this time. That has to tell you something. Having been UN ambassador does not impress me. She is one of these "I won't fight a culture war" people but "I will fight any actual war" that comes my way. And, she will mouth things about not supporting Hamas - but not very coherently. DeSantis acts. And, he acts intelligently & effectively, and then he explains it - just not in a bubbly way (which is OK by me)..
I hear what you're saying, but for the umpteenth time, a write-in vote is a wasted vote.....the good it makes you feel will quickly evaporate in 5 or 6 seconds of more Biden/Harris.
Few people like Trump the person. Put me on the top of that list. But ask yourself was your PERSONAL life that bad under Trump? Is it better or worse now?
Oh, I registered with a party for the first time to pick Trump as the candidate in 2016 and then I voted for him for president twice - making me a 3 time voter. I don't think he is the right/effective pick now but I will vote for him if he is the candidate - even though I think it should be DeSantis.
However, I do not think I could vote for Haley. We would feel good that it is not Biden/Harris but I do not know that anything would be materially better.
Three quick points-
1) I think the people mentioned in the article are outliers. In my world, the average leftist hides from his or her obviously wrong beliefs and reappears when convenient. Among all who righteously blustered during Trump’s impeachment there is nothing but silence about Biden’s bribes.
2) Like it or not, the MSM still shapes opinions. When these stories are in CNN or NBC I will think the shift is real.
3) My response to any leftist now is as follows;
“ I am a practical man. The left has run significant parts of this country for 2 generations. Have any of those places improved or have they degraded? I don’t support people or a side. I support policies that work. What has the left done in the last 40 years that has improved anything? “
The future of this country lies in 2024. One year away.
Speak brother. At the end of this weekend's football game was a CBS promo gushing about the upcoming 60 Minutes interview with "Vice President Harris."
Who? The giggling nitwit who was installed only for the single reason of insurance that the Senile Imbecile whom she serves under will not be removed any time soon?
I have always thought that a democracy requires 2 things. One, an aggressive and objective media. Two, a strong primary and secondary education system.
Well, there you have it.
The two things the Left has done everything in its power to destroy.
Like I said, I’m depressed.
These leftist assholes are just now getting the message that the Soc/Dem party is the party of antisemitic racism. These leftist aren't very perspicacious, are they? No, they are dolts. If you don't believe me, just look at compro.
To call these people stupid is an insult to stupid people everywhere.
To your second point, any GOP candidate whom an MSM moderator interviews has to not only answer the question but also attack the premise of the question. Watching the Sunday shows, the questions asked are primarily dumb and performative rather than substantive. The GOP, for too long, has been deferential to the narrative created by the media and plays the game. If there is going to be any change, they are going to have to get more aggressive in going after them, or as you said, things will return to normal.
The GOP is run by passive, lazy, idiots.
There are so many things that the GOP could attack, CRT, gender and kindergarten sex classes in public schools, defunding the police, the astronomical rise in crime in Dem run cities, the border, the burning of cities run by Dems, the acceptance by the Dem/Soc party of BLM, Antifa, and accepting Islamic fundamentalists, communists and socialist into their party and into congress.
The GOP should be running truthful ads against these frauds but does the GOP do this? No, they don't even wring their hands. They sit on their hands.
What a bunch of useless, incompetent clowns. They disgust me and they, by their inaction, are turning this country over to the far left Dem party.
Well, as Dennis Prager is wont to say:" There are only two parties, the Dangerous one, and the Stupid one. I am a member of the Stupid party." Take a guess of which one is which...
I am a conservative and cannot bring myself the affiliate with the clown party. I will vote for them because I cannot bring myself to ever vote for the anti-American/Socialist Party.
A lot of what you say is true. But if I may add, what does the GOP do? They run as candidates election deniers who keep on re fighting the results of 2020. And then, run against the well established belief of most American women that they want some access to abortion rights. So, they got clobbered in 2022. Deservedly so. And on top of that, they look idiotic in Congress fighting amongst themselves since January to the grins and laughter of Democrats while the nation's (and the world's) business languishes. That does not look good. It looks like children at a circus. Voters might remember that in a year from now.
Republicans have to find smart, moderate and educated people who can appeal to independents (like me) and disaffected Democrats. We're out there.
Find them, and I'll vote for them.
You seem to have a problem with our republican form of democracy. Different approaches to governance are healthy for the future of our nation as they open the floor to the debates at the core of our society.
I find those who mock the debates to be the ones that hew to the "progressive" approaches that have turned our urban centers into war zones, that have granted high-school diplomas to kids unable to read, write, or do basic arithmetic, and that have allowed our justice system to morph into an equity exercise that was discarded with the ratification of the Magna Carta in the early 13th century.
I also find these people to be the first to hop on the cancel bandwagon and rail against racism and xenophobia while expressing unequivocal racist and xenophobic positions.
Exacerbating the inconsistencies is an underlying anger suggesting deep and personal affront for opposing their thinking or even daring to point out that they are engaged in the self-same type of behavior about which they rail.
The anger is so visceral as to affect close and long-standing relationships.
I am a conservative independent, a fierce defender of personal freedoms and respect for others and their beliefs. I do not believe, however, that government is the solution to every problem, even for any problem. The role of government is to facilitate, not control.
My view is not accepted by many on either the left or the right. But I urge careful inspection of government(s) over the years, noting those that have been successful and parsing where government has helped and where government has hindered.
Our Constitution establishes a federal government that is limited in its authority. Our current division is symbolic of an important and overdue correction in the federalization of state affairs.
I fully support that correction.
'You seem to have a problem with our republican form of democracy. Different approaches to governance are healthy for the future of our nation as they open the floor to the debates at the core of our society.'
What debates are you referring to, LK? What 'different approach' do you mean? The sniping and intraparty chaos which was gripping the majority party in the House since January? And may continue to do so because the current Speaker can be tossed at any time by a recalcitrant extreme wing of his own party? Those debates?
Great to have a correction to reverse the large federal role in our lives since before your and my parents were born, but meanwhile, a federal budget needs to be passed in a couple of weeks - a budget states need. Because there's a ton of money in there for them..and they know it.
I hope they're up to it. Do you think they can by compromising? Can they compromise? That is government.
Jim Jones would find you a willing, enthusiastic acolyte,
Are you that willful in you mocking of the Republican debate for Speaker of the House that you cannot see where the "It's my turn now" approach in the House with Stiletto Nancy and Rubber-Stamp Denny Hoyer has managed to plunge the country into the worst inflation since the equally feckless Jimmy Carter administration?
As for experience with more limited federal government, sir, I am a lot older than you might think and know well just how much "mission creep" has contributed to Deep State and the ills that we currently face.
"I hope they're up to it. Do you think they can by compromising? Can they compromise? That is government."
Boy, is this a laugh-line coming from a supporter of executive fiat as the only way to govern.
We're not the stupid ones...you are. A tad on the hypocritical side, too.
Truth! The Ds are practically handing the wins to them on a silver platter and so many formerly D voters and independents especially the working class are wandering in the wild, but the GOP can't or doesn't want to do anything to seize the opportunities.
Totally agree. Republican candidates have been too deferential to the press, as a rule.
Hence, Trump.
Republicans are following the old adage, "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrell." But that came from an age when you could suck up to the media and gain favorable coverage. No longer applicable to a media that are dedicated partisans.
True, but in defense of the so called journalist’s, they are not very smart and are just as dumb as they sound and appear.
You mean like Trump ALWAYS did? No one likes a supine, spineless candidate, but if you eliminate Trump who ELSE could fill that bill? Christy? And...who else......?
I agree with you. There are many things I love about Trump but he is such a big baby and has no impulse control. The media plays him like a fiddle. Desantis did a good job on Meet the Press this weekend. Haley is too much of a establisment squish. The next 6 months will tell
I agree with this. I will not vote Haley.
If Haley is the Republican nominee you will not vote for her, and risk 4 more years of this sh*tshow?
I am not convinced Haley would be any better. DeSantis is the man for the job.
I honestly think it would be the same sh*tshow. The fawning press is solidifying my belief. I really hope it does not come to that. I felt that way about Pence and he is gone. I feel.that way about Christie too.
It's a two-fiddle ensemble. Trump plays the media as much as the media plays him.
I think DeSantis has a spine. He was braver during COVID than Trump, frankly. Of course DeSantis’s campaign seems dysfunctional.
As to #3, Emily Rose, 51 of Minneapolis who hopped a plane from Minneapolis to wear a pink hat and protest Trump’s Inauguration, pumped her fist along with BLM and all of her fellow “intelligent educated” peers can’t understand why her peers are flocking to proclaim their anti Israeli allegiance. She fails to see, that she was just like them. She listened to the lies spat out by the MSM and obediently took to the streets as she was programmed to do. She didn’t exercise critical thinking to ration the danger involved in group-hating her President or her neighbors who may have been MAGA voters. Years later, it is quite clear who has been lying. Only now, they are lying about her and her group. It shouldn’t surprise her that her current or past groupies are either extremely naive to, or complicit in perpetuating the lies from the MSM. However, she still isn’t sure if she wants to revoke her allegiance to the Democrats who feed the MSM.
It’s funny. I have always tried to be a nice kind person but I find I have no sympathy for people like Ms. Rose. They have been mean, arrogant sheep their whole lives. They won’t turn into thinking wolves overnight. Or ever.
That is well said. And those "pink hats" were so gross.
It's people like Emily "I won't change my values even though they're crap" Rose who perpetuate the evil they pretend to despise.
> The future of this country lies in 2024. One year away.
I mean, no. A Trump presidency plus a majority in both houses (almost certainly won't happen) will at best nominate a new SC justice or two and maaayyyybe roll back some of the stupidity. It won't remove the nearly 9 million illegals who entered under Biden. It might be able to slow - but certainly not stop - inflation and the debt spiral. It might, at best, put a temporary halt on the expansion of the police state. It *might* pay some lip service to tackling rising crime, drug use, and mental illness -- but these aren't things it's really capable of solving. It won't be able to bring back family, tradition, religion, or childbirth. And it certainly won't heal the massive divides we have.
More importantly, I doubt Trump really has enough backbone to counter the creeping forces of socialism (which now seem to be based on immutable traits): DEI hiring. indoctrination in education, various NGOs and large corporations ushering these things in, complete ideological capture of every major institution, from corporations, to tech, to media, to churches, to the millitary. And he 100% can't stop the AIs which are right not being trained on our 2023 biases and will continue those into the future in ways that are almost impossible to overcome even if our social structures change.
Sorry to be so depressing, but I honestly do not see a way to vote our way out of this (and if there was one, Trump is not the man to lead it). The problem is a rot in our culture and institutions. Not politics or law, which are generally transient and simply a downstream reflection of our culture.
I do think, given Trump possibly running a smart, controlled campaign (unlikely I know) that he could win and we could have an R house and senate. The economy will be in an obvious recession soon, our foreign policy is in shambles and the idiocy is getting hard to hide. Having said that, everything you say is true but you have to start somewhere. People are starting to get pissed, and that helps.
Yes. I deeply wish it were not so, but it is. Reality is “real”, and must be accepted. If I were the sort of rabbit who could live in a fantasy world, I’d be “woke”. I’m not.
OTOH, I still believe that we must “go down fighting”, as all honorable men do...but it’s probably an impossible task. Still, we must fight...
Let's hope the '24 election does not feature anyone running for president over 80 - or about to turn 80 in a year or two. If that happens - yes, we might have a future..
Agree. I don't see many liberals in my world even opening their eyes, People who chose a side are like gang members after initiation. They are in it for life.
Re point 1: Speaking of points, these people, no matter how nice to know (or not) are also no more than points of light. Until this awakening registers on the Richter Scale, it don't mean a thing.
I think for the fraction of Democrats who really care about the issue set Democrats focus on, it is probably somewhat disturbing to discover that most of the people who ‘agree’ with them are genuine psychopaths who are exploiting those issues to obtain power.
4% of the population are sociopaths and 60% are agreeable, so they go with the flow and get taken advantage of. We are the prickly disagreeable 36%. Ego also plays a big role, when you have been part of a cult for your entire adult life it’s hard to admit you were wrong and leave.
My son encapsulated this all in one fell swoop. He wryly noted: "If you were preparing Thanksgiving dinner and had the need for several crucial, last minute ingredients, would you dispatch Uncle Joe Biden to the store to fetch them for you?" Of course, you wouldn't. He'd get lost, forget the most important one or just generally F up the task Yet you voted for this senile imbecile to lead our nation in this hour of peril. But, but, but ....Trump.
Fools.
Educated fools Bruce. Proving that university degrees do not connote wisdom. Glad to hear your son knows how to think for himself .
Sophomores - wise fools.
This is a fascinating take.
You're right, my gut response is that Biden would utterly fail to bring back the ingredients, whereas Trump would come back with the finest quality ingredients, plus some extras and maybe some cheerleaders just for fun, and then proceed to make the entire holiday about himself.
Trump would pocket the money for the groceries, spend it on something else entirely. Later he would tell the story of how he saved Thanksgiving and fed everyone and it was beautiful.
Still drinking that Kool Aid, eh Paula? So we have you to thank that a corrupt and senile imbecile now rules over us?
I know this will surprise you but I agree with her. But then again, I despise Trump and I think she is right.
I think this is willful blindness to who Trump really is and what he's done, coming from a place of hatred manufactured by Democrat propaganda.
No Trump did it to himself. He is a vicious, lying, megalomaniacal, bully. I don't say that because of left wing propaganda. I don't watch the news at all. It is my independent opinion after watching his speeches and how he treated the people around him.
"vicious, lying, megalomaniacal, bull"
Name a single person in Democratic Party leadership who does not fit this description.
I'll have a good laugh and then tell you many examples of why I disagree.
You have a brain and eyes, it appears. Good job.
LOL 😂
Good one.
But would prefer the village idiot to be the "leader of the free world?"
Trump would come back with what he insisted were “the finest ingredients, finer than anything the world has ever seen,” but they’d very clearly be garbage by anyone with eyes...and he’d still devote a national holiday to himself.
"I've never once heard a story of Trump being generous and I don't want to"
TDS. Go learn.
We now live in the land of the foolish.
Lead by the inept.
Biden= Uncle Billy in "Its a Wonderful Life"!
I'd trust Trump to be able to get out of the car and wave to his adoring acolytes, and then say something stupid. Like Biden, in that respect. But to actually go into a store and buy something? Are you serious? He hasn't pulled his wallet out in front of a cash register since the 1970's. Ask Michael (Cohen).
Note that even the inveterate Trump haters don't dispute the incompetence and venality of the Senile Imbecile who was installed in the Oval Office.
While these stories represent a change of heart, the reality is this. We have an ideology that if funded by dark money that has infected our universities, our criminal justice system, most of our media. When Progressives talk about fundamentally changing America this is what they are talking about. I don’t mean to make Soros the boogieman in the same why the Left made Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers right wing boogiemen but there is money behind these progressive politicians. Money behind CRT and anti anti racists radicals. There is money behind the protests on college campuses. There was definitely money behind BLM protests. Anybody who has bothered to look in to crime knows that crime afflicts the poor more than anybody else. Areas of poverty have more crime. It just so happens that a higher percentage of black America lives in poverty where crime happens. This is why I have said for years to fix crime fix poverty. In the meantime we need to protect the poor, not have progressive white fold who live in safe neighborhoods telling poor black what they need. It was too long ago that 50% of all arrests in America for murder and assault were black according to FBI statistics. That number had been coming down recently but it still is in the mid to upper 30’s. We can’t tell you because a whole bunch of big cities did not report to the FBI. On purpose perhaps?
In any event, until this ideology is reject by voters it will stay with us. The money is there. Is this the “plan” to destroy America? If so it’s working.
Earl, you know this, I know this, because we read a lot, study history. People on the left are willfully ignorant, unquestioning people who are assigned their opinions by Rachel Maddow etal. And they think they are the smart ones. Changing that smug mindset or just getting them to read something other than NYT is next to impossible. For some reason, they will not entertain the possibility that they have been wrong about something.
If only it were limited to Soros. But most of the tech billionaires are also funding the madness and their motives are definitely not benign. Maybe it's long past time to take away all their tax deductions for these "causes" and make them actually pay the marginal tax rates impose on us "working stiffs?"
Isn’t it interesting that Mark Zuckerberg is a major funder/propagandist for the whole spectrum of intersectional Woke causes? What, as a Jewish person, is he thinking right now? He has funded and promoted an ideology that may lead to the actual genocide of his own people. Maybe he thinks that his money will protect him, but the rich Jews of Germany found out otherwise. Ditto for Soros, (except that at his age he’ll be dead soon) but he has children carrying on these works.
The Soviet Union won the Cold War... not militarily, but by funding all counter-culture movements since the 1960s. Two generations later, those ideas have become the dominant force on campus.
Our elects schools have become madrassas teaching a virulent form of anti-American hatred words than whabism.
You are so right.
The Khrushchev plan?
Wrong wrong wrong....the Soviet Union lost the Cold War which we won. In spades!!!
There was nary a military confrontation, but lost it anyway as we outspent and outarmed them.
Soon after, they disbanded. They turned all the state owned business, banks, utilities, etc. over to their citizens. What further proof of losing do you need? Losing doesn't mean they stop their evil ideas which are resurrected today on a few college campuses.
Those anti-Jew ideas on campus are neither new nor dominant.
Most of the universities and colleges in America are not represented by the few protesting Cinderellas pampered and coddled in their safe spaces.
Live by numbers, die by numbers. "You can say anything you want to with statistics[!]" my stats professor gleefully said on day one. I dropped the class. Thinking, if I need stats I'll buy some. Turns out I was prescient.
The shame of it all is how Jewish voters vote Democrat. The Democrat party looks for optics and narratives that suit their needs. I’ve always voted Republican and I’m not ashamed for doing so.
Signed,
American Jew who loves his country and Israel
""The shame of it all is how Jewish voters vote Democrat"
The latest statistic I heard was 3:1 for democrats. As they say, "there are none so blind as those who refuse to see".
I think it depends where you live, and the makeup of the community. I'm in a small city in a deep red state, and the Jewish community here is more reflective of that lean than many other predominantly reform or conservative places.
JJ - I wasn't saying ALL Jewish voters vote Democrat. I was referring to the broader brush of the issue. I am Republican and Jewish and proud. I live in a very liberal/progressive area. My comments were a reflection of that experience.
Double-like!!
I didn’t think it was possible to get more depressed reading the Free Press, but these articles, and the ensuing comments, did just that to me. I am reminded of the words, “if we do not hang together, rest assured we shall all hang separately.” If we lose the rule of law, then we really are lost. Vote accordingly.
All nice but let's cut to the chase. It's November 2024. The border is still a sieve. The campuses have calmed down ( hopefully) but what is being taught has changed little ( likewise at blue city public and preo schools,) . The MSM continues to bang the colonizer systemic racism climate drum ( and opposes any limits in abortion, an issue that will be front and center). Inflation is still marching right along. And the debt and deficits are even greater. And interest rates have not budged much. It's Biden v Trump on the ballot. How many of the newly enlightened vote for Trump or stay home in protest all but ensuring 4 more years of the status quo? Until then this is great for articles and cocktail talk.
"How many of the newly enlightened vote for Trump or stay home in protest"
I'm not sure how many of the newly enlightened will vote for Trump, but I'm pretty certain the Dems will find a way to make sure the votes of those who stay home go to Biden.
100%. Mail-in voting will ensure the downfall of the country more than any policy blunder of the past 100years.
It is the true legacy of the Biden administration, and it will be the ultimate ruin of this country.
Everybody it seems here in the comment section hates mail in voting - yet Trump won handily in Florida in 2020, the state with the highest mail in votes by percentage in the country..
Republican voters there appear to enjoy it.
The campuses have calmed down? Compared to when? There are anti-Israel protests at dozens of universities, and professors are gushing about how wonderful the Hamas attack was. And not, as far as I can tell, getting fired for it.
You are correct on all fronts. My point was that a year from now they HOPEFULLY will be calmer. If I were king I would close the campuses and go to remote learning. After all it seems most of the "students" are wearing masks and afraid of close contact in classrooms and dorms. And in the process the chances for violence would be diminished
I don't foresee them being calmer.
If I were king, I would shut down all public universities for a year, with every single professor and administrator losing their job, regardless of tenure. They would not be allowed to reopen until they signed hiring agreements with *ideologically* diverse professors and administrators. Professors who had previously identified themselves as "activists" would not be eligible for rehire under any circumstances.
We are dreamers no? Here's one more. Since govt pays a huge part of the cost of colleges ( loans and loan guarantees, grants etc), time to treat colleges as adjuncts of govt. Thus all employed are subject to the pay grades of the govt meaning no more 3-5 million salary for university presidents, and reduced salaries for the rest of the admin staff and professors. Remote learning would solve much of this by only having top notch unbiased teachers teaching their areas of expertise. No need for thousands of social science profs and one gender studies prod for the entire country would be plenty
Remote learning would also eliminate the "party school" phenomenon.
In a system like that, I would totally support "free" college for anyone. Only the serious students would continue. The ones who want to party would quickly stop attending.
And then tax their endowments and have all their property subject to property taxes.
I’ve said this before, but “activists” are the scourge of our time! They are simply lobbyists for a cause (whether paid or unpaid), and deserve only our scorn and suspicion. Suddenly, everyone is an “activist”: K–12 teachers, university professors/administrators, corporate CEOs, students, workers, bartenders, Uber drivers, you name it, because it is a high status marker.
“Activists” have transformed our society into a tyranny of the minorities. Prior to their reign, most of our society’s structures were created and maintained to serve the greater good (a.k.a. the majority). The result of that was that things functioned well, and most people were happy. But some people were not happy, albeit a small number. Along came the “activists”, and suddenly our society was re-engineered to serve the minority. Now, nothing works very well, and everyone is unhappy. Fabulous! <sarcasm>
And if I were King I'd just close them.
And start over.
Start over needs to begin with K-12.
Netanyahu has it exactly right. A ceasefire or any voluntary interruption of the Israeli effort to eliminate the Hamas threat is a victory for terrorism. It proves that Hamas's war plans are working; start a war with Israel by instituting unspeakable horrors on innocent Jews, then retreat back to the underground warrens with hostages to await the coming onslaught of Israeli retribution while counting on the queasiness of Israel's western allies to pause/halt the war for "humanitarian" reasons, giving Hamas a needed publicity victory while it resupplies and reemerges for further terror. The only way to end the terror campaign is to end Hamas.
End Hamas and, unfortunately, make Gaza an uninhabitable pile!
If that's what it takes.
One of my good friends predicted that wokeness would someday come for Jews. As soon as you start going through group identities and sloppily picking "oppressed" or "oppressor" for each entire group, it is inevitable, he argued. I nodded along, seeing left-wing social justice for the fraud that it is, but I never thought that things would go so far as siding with murder, rape, kidnapping, and torture. I guess we have found the left-wing equivalent of Trump's, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"
Jordan Peterson has often noted that it there is a bright line for when the Right goes too far (white supremist racism a la the KKK), but there is not such a bright line for the Left. Celebrating Hamas and framing their barbaric acts of terror as “resistance” seem to me to have created a bright line for lunacy on the Left.
I hope you are right. Seems like we are plumbing the depths of the abyss looking for a low bar of decency -- and we (as American society) can't find it.
I really hope you are wrong because I firmly believe that hitting rock bottom.leaves no place to go but up.
I dunno...what if there IS no bottom? Pardon my pessimism, but it comes naturally to us rabbits.
Virtual carrots OR. I do not even want to consider that possibility. But you may be on to something. Have they have achieved dystopia instead of utopia?
It's funny I keep remembering when Howard stern used to interview the kkk guy--"wake up whiiiite people" can't remember his name and stern had him list in order the most reviled races etc and the guy said Jews at the top then from dark to light. Back then Jews were comfortably nestled within the oppressed side of the scale but now, they're Goliath slaying those poor victimized innocent Palestinians, ruling the world with their money and so forth. People are so fucking stupid. The world is a cult and we're watching and shouting wake the fuck up!
Trump's comment referred to the fact that his supporters have learned that everything the media says is a lie to such an extent that if he actually DID something terrible they wouldn't believe it anymore.
The Left, by contrast, would BELIEVE that their figurehead committed an act of barbarity and applaud him for it.
Haha! No, of course you're right. But I'd like to believe that somewhere between our "anti-racist" Democratic socialists and racist GOP cultural fascists is a level-headed middle consisting of those who think that marriage equality, book learning, and Medicare are good things -- but also that we need to enforce laws and fill our jails again, reopen places like Creedmore, make people pay off their college loans, and bite the bullet and make corporations bring back manufacturing to our shores.
Imagine, we make only five percent of our aluminum. And almost nothing of our various other needs. Maybe if there were jobs for those whose skills tended to the more physical than cerebral, there'd be fewer extremists -- on both sides.
Maybe here in our cities we'd be able to agree that the minute a deranged Black man throws a punch that breaks an elderly woman's eye socket, he is to blame and not the rest of us, and belongs in jail as the vicious menace he is. As an older, lifelong Brooklynite, I'm incensed by the myriad of excuses people invent to defend such creatures.
Finally, it's time to admit that Senator Moynihan was right: Providing welfare to single mothers, usually undereducated and often uneducable, and making it economically foolish to marry and have a job, has been a disaster for the Black community on par with Jim Crow. And perhaps worse. It has spawned generations of crime, and now protests noted for their violence and sustained disruptions of our city life as well as the attempt to brainwash everyone into an "anti-racist" ideology -- which now includes agitated, non-introspective Muslims. And doing a darned good job of it.
Unfortunately in the current climate those of us the in the middle are being drowned out by both the far left and far right :(
We KNOW who the far left is and are, but please explain who the "far right" are, and how they are influencing us. Certainly the media is with the far left and they exercise an overwhelming influence Who, or WHAT, on the far right has an equal power to influence?
Please define: "racist GOP cultural fascists ".
Like pornography, to echo the learned judge, I know them when I see them.
Folks who shoot ob/gyns who terminate pregnancies? Who poison dogs belonging to the lesbian couple who just moved in down the road? Who as a matter of course hate Black people and Jews? And whose votes put into office those like them?
How about guys who laugh uproariously when Donald Trump limps on a stage in mockery of a cripple?
Almost exclusively Republicans. But not Republicans like my family.
Does all this garbage sink in? Are there enough people in this nation to combat this hysteria? Are sane people going to finally elect someone that can clean America up? Or is there just a few that post here all there is? Tell me this isn’t so!
This gives me such hope after days of watching the protests in cities and on college campuses that seem to make no logical sense except dutifully and bandwagonly following a narrative mob religion. I truly hope people are in fact waking up from woke!
I left the woke reservation several years ago. I am not going back.
I read these stories yet I remain doubtful Jews will vote for centrists Dems or Republicans. Where I live, Jamal Bowman , member of AOCs Marxist socialist caucus, remains formidable with Jewish support because JStreet continues to argue he is a supporter of Israel. I cannot make sense of it.
I am Jewish and am voting for RFK or whoever rises to the top of the Republican party, preferably DeSantis. I don't respect Trump as a person, though would hold my nose if it came dow to it. I've been independent for years and mix up my ballot wherever candidates makes sense, but after the last 4, am never voting Democrat again, at any level.
We just need them to stay home and not vote, like they did in 2016.
Or vote for RFK Jr. I still refuse to believe he takes Republican votes.
He will take some of the quasi-Never Trump crowd and ignorant Chardonnay Book Club virtue signalers in purple states like GA and VA.
The hope is that he can win a couple otherwise blue-collar blue states that don’t have major urban centers or large indoctrinated university thought bubbles. These are the people who lost their jobs to vax mandates and can see why reverse racism and trans issues are foolish.
JStreet needs to be unmasked. Its Halloween: perfect timing!
First they came for the children and I did not speak out—
Because I did not have a child. (Trans rights)
Then they came for the police, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a police officer. (BLM)
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew. (Hamas support)
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Might sound a bit dramatic but I firmly believe if our government wasn’t strong the woke fanatics would have been lynching people in the streets. During each of these events.
If you bought into this crap and are waking up to it, some soul searching is needed. Since I can’t see how woke ideology is any different from fascism. They hate our separation of powers.
Also, why do the fascists always end up coming for the Jews?
Fascists, and the other champions of the oppressor/oppressed mentality, always go after Jews because Jews keep showing their ideology to be a crock. Jews are successful despite vicious persecution for most of the last 2,000 years.
Here is reason #22: the GOP should coalesce around Desantis or Haley and not Trump. There is a growing movement of frustration around the lack of performance of Democratic policies; the issues of crime, immigration, and antisemitism are just the first shoe to drop, and the deficit spending that is going on will have to end soon and badly. The GOP needs a person who can attract people and inspire, not be repellent and sicken. Trump is not the man for the times; if he wins, it will be a squeaker, and he has proven he can't govern as he can't build coalitions or pick good people. Do we need someone with personal vendettas ( See his Bill Barr post) and can't stay focused on a task? There is an excellent opportunity to destroy the woke in this coming election. Trump can't do it. Great articles show the opportunity for the GOP to win and do something with it.
Unfortunately the people who need to read these articles and send the septuagenarian and octogenarian out to pasture don’t subscribe. Or, frankly read anything that doesn’t affirm their biases.
Stephanie, MOST people do not read, and what they get from social media is accepted uncritically.
My point exactly
I cannot support Haley. She epitomizes Republicans of what Mr. Scott calls the Duoparty.
I'm with you on that one, Lynne. As I am sure you know, I really want DeSantis. I will vote for Trump if he is the option - but not enthusiastically. If it is Haley I think I need to write in DeSantis. It annoys me how much TheFP pushes Haley. It's like she is the chosen one for people who have only made a baby step away from the Democrat party or who want the Republican Establishment in office. The WSJ wanted Biden last time around and they want Haley this time. That has to tell you something. Having been UN ambassador does not impress me. She is one of these "I won't fight a culture war" people but "I will fight any actual war" that comes my way. And, she will mouth things about not supporting Hamas - but not very coherently. DeSantis acts. And, he acts intelligently & effectively, and then he explains it - just not in a bubbly way (which is OK by me)..
I hear what you're saying, but for the umpteenth time, a write-in vote is a wasted vote.....the good it makes you feel will quickly evaporate in 5 or 6 seconds of more Biden/Harris.
Few people like Trump the person. Put me on the top of that list. But ask yourself was your PERSONAL life that bad under Trump? Is it better or worse now?
Oh, I registered with a party for the first time to pick Trump as the candidate in 2016 and then I voted for him for president twice - making me a 3 time voter. I don't think he is the right/effective pick now but I will vote for him if he is the candidate - even though I think it should be DeSantis.
However, I do not think I could vote for Haley. We would feel good that it is not Biden/Harris but I do not know that anything would be materially better.