The reality is, of course, this is just not true. Disgust and concern about this particular president are reasonable, given...
* his unending false claims,
* his attacks on the press,
* his objectification and harassment and assault of women (all of which is based on HIS OWN testimony, he who boasts about bedding married women, ogling half naked teen-aged girls in a dressing room he used/abused his position of power and wealth to gain entry to, who boasts about assaulting women, grabbing them by the crotch and being able to get away with it because of his fame, wealth and power! These are his OWN words, not scurrilous unsubstantiated rumors),
* his famous loathing and distrust of reading, experts, scholars and science,
* his clear moral failings - from his self-confessed greed, to his cheating of employees, his cheating on his multiple wives, etc, etc...
None of these faults are secrets or hidden knowledge. None of this is made up attacks by liberals. Most of it is just based on his own words and boasts. And the fact is, it's NOT just liberals who note all these very real failings. Unknown numbers of conservatives have made the same observations... including prominent GOP and conservative politicians, promoters, supporters and scholars/thinkers.
The Wikipedia list of Never Trumpers runs into the hundreds of prominent conservative republicans who would not vote for him in the general election and who have opposed him, pretty strongly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_Republicans_who_opposed_…
And here is a small sampling of what some of these conservatives have had to say about the fundamental unfitness for office of this man...
CONSERVATIVE George Will, on Trump...
"It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about President Trump’s inability to do either."
"This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence."
Trump, who he says has a "combination of impulsivity and credulity" that makes him "uniquely unfit to take the nation into a military conflict."
CONSERVATIVE General Colin Powell, on Trump...
Powell called Trump a "national disgrace" and "international pariah"
"Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,"
"I don't know that he can do that [be a moral leader]... because right now that is not the way he is acting..."
On the media attacks. "How can a president of the US get up and say that the media is the enemy of Americans...?"
THE CONSERVATIVE Weekly Standard has called Trump...
“a serial liar,” “a singularly dishonest figure,” an egomaniac who can’t help boasting that his nuclear button is “bigger” than Kim Jong-un’s (or do his small hands just make it look bigger?), a policy ignoramus, an ingrate, an adulterer, a president distinguished by the “sheer volume” of his “crazy statements and actions.”
CONSERVATIVE Andrew Sullivan on Trump...
Sullivan saw America, a country that “has never been so ripe for tyranny,” following the same path, with Trump as the upper-class traitor rallying the envious, frustrated masses against the political establishment in order to make himself ruler. Sullivan is sounding a different alarm these days. The danger Trump presents is not fascism—he is too scatter-brained for that—but incompetence and buffoonery. By January 2018, in the same magazine, he was seconding Wolff’s warning of the White House’s “chaos and dysfunction” and comparing the President to a drunk driver lucky enough not to have crashed...yet.
"we knew that people in the White House had leaked it, in both an astonishing betrayal of confidence, and a clear attempt to warn the country of the unique danger this unfit president poses."
CONSERVATIVE Max Boot, on Trump...
"it’s time for President Donald Trump to be removed from office via the 25th Amendment because he is clearly “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
“I was outraged when he came down the escalator at Trump Tower, denouncing Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers, and my outrage has not diminished at all since.”
THE CONSERVATIVE Open Letter in opposition to Trump (there were at least two versions from dozens (~122) of conservative experts on foreign policy), on Trump...
"...we are united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency...
His vision of American influence and power in the world is wildly inconsistent and un-moored in principle...
His embrace of the expansive use of torture is inexcusable...
His hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric undercuts the seriousness of combating Islamic radicalism...
his insistence that Mexico will fund a wall on the southern border inflames unhelpful passions, and rests on an utter misreading of, and contempt for, our southern neighbor...
He is fundamentally dishonest...
We commit ourselves to working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office."
There was a second letter on similar themes that included...
“He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world. He appears to lack basic knowledge about and belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press, and an independent Judiciary..."
The letter predicted that Trump would be the “most reckless President in American history.”
Asked in 2018 about that letter (written in the 2016 campaign), one of its signers has said...
“I think every word has turned out to be true, and worse.”
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I could go on and on with conservative after conservative raising grave concerns about the basic unfitness for office of this con man. Of course.
So, for those who see and recognize all of Trump's very obvious failings and who have decided that the lies, the sexism, the racism, the cheating, the ignorance, the greed, the petty vindictiveness, the lack of experience and knowledge and just basic human decency... who see all that and have decided, "Well, I can STILL support him... all of those lines that he has crossed are not THAT serious that I couldn't still support him..." well, that's on you.
But I'm asking you to have the integrity to frame the opposition to Trump in an honest manner... people of good will from across the political spectrum have looked at these obvious reasonable, temperamental and moral failings and have decided that these are lines that MUST not be crossed and thus, we must oppose him and his agenda. NOT because of mindless hatred, but based on concern about these very serious moral failings. It simply isn't mindless liberal ill will and hatred, not in the real world.
NOTE: I'm just stating some reasonable points here, and I'm not looking for any real discussion (either from those who'd want to criticize the un-thinking conservatives who wrongly mischaracterize the motivations of WHY people oppose Trump, nor from Conservatives. However, IF any conservatives wish to comment here, they may, but I request that they begin with acknowledging a few realities:
* Given the reality that this president regularly repeatedly makes false claims and attacks the media with false accusations, AND
* Given his deplorable behavior towards women and teen-aged girls...
It is not unreasonable to be strongly opposed to this administration. I understand the notion that there are some lines that ought not be crossed and, while I may disagree with the notion that Trump has crossed multiple lines, I recognize the reality that people from across the political spectrum DO believe this in good conscience.
Further, I will gladly concede the reality that many/most of these same people who think Trump has crossed multiple lines would ALSO oppose a Democrat who crossed the same lines. That is, if Ralph Jones is the next Democratic candidate for president and Ralph makes multiple false claims nearly every single day and of the sort of false claims that Trump has made AND if Ralph also made a habit of calling the press the enemy of the people AND if Ralph also laughed about using his wealth and privilege and power to behave as Trump has towards women and girls... IF all of that were true (or even part of it!), I recognize that Dan and those like him would also oppose this Democrat candidate, because for Dan and people like him, it's about the behavior, NOT about the partisan politics.
If you can agree with these basic realities, you may comment here.
If you can't agree with these realities, then you're not agreeing with reality and I don't think anything you have to say will further the conversation.
4 comments:
As one of the conservatives who have had major issues with Trump prior to his election and continues to have major issues with his failings of character, I agree that there are many on both sides of the spectrum who have reasonable reasons to question Trump's character. However, the existence of reasonable disagreement, doesn't eliminate the fact that there are folx out there who have crossed into the unreasonable. There are plenty of folx out there who's hatred of Trump is positively unhinged from reality and who in no way could be called reasonable. I'd suggest that anyone who has advocated that Trump be physically injured or killed, is unreasonable.
But, that's coming from someone who tries to act reasonably whenever he doesn't care for politicians.
No it's not. That comes from someone who does not care for Trump's sex life, marital life, and language. It doesn't take an effort of reason to have distaste for his "character." That's just a personal.
But you cannot find a *reason to care and resist the fomenting of racial hatred, bigoted laws, and misogynist policies. That takes reasonable thinking. And pretty simple reasoning at that.
Though, I (wouldn’t you Dan?) would be interested to hear Craig honestly enumerate the reasonable evidence for his distaste of Trump’s character. And see what Marshall thinks of such reasoning.
Does Craig have the character to be forthcomingly honest on this account?
Craig jumped to the conclusion - while bashing liberals jumping to Mr Smollett’s defense - that the conservative claiming he was beaten on Berkeley’s campus was beaten by Berkeley liberals.
Oops. Police are now saying the suspect isn’t associated with Berkeley. Surely the poor beaten conservative didn’t write a check to his tormentors beforehand?
Whether or not, this is what happens to asshole hypocrites like Craig. They lie themselves into ribald hypocrisy.
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