Yes, there is shame in supporting him and his behavior for years. There is shame in facilitating his whataboutism by rationalizing woth stupid “they did it first” arguments. There is shame in leading a horde into a frenzy then acting shocked when it engages in one. There is shame in screaming every imbalanced, exaggerated, irrational partisan rage but washing your hands of the result it brings.
There is shame in finding every way to deride your political opponents and “the media” with a your own broad brush while complaining that they will do the same to you.
There is shame in being what you complain about.
There is shame in making irony your virtue.
There is shame starting at home, on the keyboards that whip us into a daily fright fest, then act like they’re above it all.
We said this would happen before he was nominated. The remaining said it would happen before he became president. We repeated it would happen when he lost re-election. Now that what we all said would happen has happened you’re all trying to act like it was everyone else’s fault.
Then everyone who votes needs to be ashamed. And the nation should be. But remember, we were told Trump would lead us into war, too. If you make every possible bad prediction and some occur, that doesn’t make you right on all of them. Trump’s scheme was stupid on its face like all his schemes. I suppose if he had a stupid VP he could have gotten further but not much further. I am much more ashamed of Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, because we expected more of them (at least Cruz). The GOP deserves to die over this, but I’m afraid it won’t. Again, I didn’t vote for or support Trump in 2016. In 2020, I saw him winning as the least dangerous option. I may have been right, but it’s not worth the cost.
"The truth is that the media bears a lot of responsibility, but they are retconning the story to blame voters who never set foot in Washington D.C., or even gave a dime to the 'Stop the Steal' movement, never believing the tales of election rigging. But the media itself spewed lies for years. They latched on to the Russia story using a Clinton-funded fiction and made it their truth. They pushed conspiracy theories and “wall closing in” stories for four years. They highlighted profane leftist extremists and paid activists bemoaning Trump like he was a demon."
I can appreciate how difficult this entire piece may have been to write and I appreciate you writing it, instead of trying to deflect as others who supported Trump in 2020 are doing today.
That said, if you're going to blame "The Media" for a large part of this, your omission of OANN, NewsMax, Dan Bongino, and the entire OTHER side of "The Media" who spent every day between Election Day and January 6th lending credence to the notion that the election WAS actually stolen and a "Kraken" will emerge to vindicate the "patriots" trying to save the election is pretty significant. Now not all of them enjoy cable carriage rights or some of the other hallmarks that distinguish traditional media, but I also have a whole Facebook Messenger archive of messages that I received from the likes of the OTHER Media that kept insurrectionists' hopes alive with dud after dud that Trump was coming back.
So, when it comes to "retconning", let's not leave out the other part of the picture, which was as significant - if not more so - than anything the likes of CNN, MSNBC, etc. did during the Trump years, and especially on Jan. 6th.
But I did call them out. Not OANN, NewsMax etc but Fox News. Honestly I don’t watch ANY of them and don’t subscribe to the fringey conspiracy sites, so those would not be in my mind to blame. I think by the ratings we can know where most Trump voters get their information, and it’s not Breitbart.
“Those who supported Trump at one time but are now not disgusted by the events and plans of January 6, 2021, are allowing themselves to be deceived and used by those who treat them like dumb cattle and vehicles for their own ambitions. Only they don’t see the delusion. The people using them are not the elite media and Democratic activists, but elites at Fox News, MyPillow and others who take advantage of their voice, money, and social media presence. The very thing they used Trump to fight against, they are now willingly enslaved to.”
Fair enough and thanks for the additional quote. I don't watch those outlets either, but they did serve as the informational foundation after Election Day for everything that came afterwards. (There's a very good reason Dominion is suing those outlets for billions of dollars.)
I wasn't getting video clips sent to me from FOX (who was in the doghouse at that time for rightfully calling Arizona for Biden), but these other folks who are just as much part of The Media as the left-wingers in New York City.
I didn't make the comment above in the spirit of criticizing you unfairly - I'm rather glad to be on your side when it comes to Trump's suitability for future office - but just to point out that HAD CNN et al. reported exactly as you would have liked, we still would have had a January 6th insurrection, as the root causes of the issue were not the traditional outlets' tone or anything like that. In a close race, there still would have been the same incentives in place for the right-wing media upstarts to provide a platform and peddle election falsehoods to those that wanted to hear them.
It's been much longer that baseless accusations of malfeasance by Democrats regarding absentee voting, or busing people to various locations to vote, or any other number of conspiracies have led many on the right to think that any victory by a Democrat is suspect. Heck, Steve just did it the other week in a piece.
This is to say nothing of the constant dehumanization of Democrats and the violent rhetoric that has been years in the making on the right.
I did? And talk about dehumanization…need we discuss James Hodgkinson? Need we discuss Democrats use of violence in service to political gain? It’s both sides here. Violent rhetoric is bad no matter who uses it.
When you talk about use of violence by Democrats, are you talking about the politicians and media, or rioters? Let's be clear: I'm talking about the politicians and media on the right that use violent rhetoric: please by all means show me anywhere near equivalent rhetoric from Democrat politicians and media members.
I appreciate your nuanced take on this Steve, is strongly appreciated, as it is too often lacking in the narrative peddled by hyper partisans of all stripes. While I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 and 2020, I always believed it is a mistake to lump all Trump voters as monolithic in their mindset. I understand and appreciate why many voters reluctantly voted for Trump. (Other reasonable people voted for Trump out of habit of voting Republican every election, but aren’t hard core Trumpists. Most of these voters cited the insanely woke behavior by the left in recent years as well as the hard left lurch of the Democratic Party in that time period. That is why despite my strong anti-Trump stance, I never once ridiculed these voters for their Trump vote and sympathized with them. In order for us to move on from Trump, we need these reluctant and habitual GOP voters. That is why the MSM and the left’s tendency to lump all Trump voters together is counterproductive.
"There is no shame in having voted for Trump or supported him in the past. Trump used all the same dirty tricks the media and Democrats had used for decades. Decades. And Trump did it back to them. They pretended they were angels. The gaslighting was strong."
And I do have just one quibble/point of contention(or maybe just clarification) with this particular paragraph. You mentioned that there is no shame in having voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. And I can mostly agree(depending on the voter's intentions of course) with that, as I don't consider voting on its own to necessarily be villainous or valorous. Now in the second half of that sentence where you mentioned "supported him in the past". I will say that if by that one means having supported the policies of the administration such as judges, tax reform, the Abraham Accords, pulling from the so-called Iran Deal, signing the First Step Act, then I agree that there is no shame in that. But if supporting the President means cheering on Trump's abysmal and narcissistic behavior, cheering on his dereliction of duty to the rule of law and the Constitution, and especially cheering on his supporters attempt to overthrow a constitutionally established government and process, then there should be plenty of shame for those who supported that. I will assume that you meant the former and not the latter.
I got a kick out of reading some of the reactions to your piece Steve. As a NeverTrumper myself, I sometimes notice that any criticism of the left(especially from Trump voters) sometimes has us folks knee jerk reacting with the assumption that such criticism equates to the minimalization, excuse, and rationalization of Trump/Trumpism. I've been guilty of doing that on occasion. But I understand the full context of the points you made in your piece, and I never hinted that you were doing that.
Because, in the first 4 years, he showed who he was,and because in 2020, many Republicans crossed over and voted Democratic for president, because they saw who he was. You saw who he was and voted for him, anyway. That is perplexing.
I will dig up previously published pieces explaining my reasoning. They were on The Resurgent and therefore inaccessible since that site is gone. I had well explained reasons. After Jan 6, I did express regret but it wouldn’t have mattered. The plan was in motion.
The GOP has got to be rethought. If all the crazy pants continue to support this guy then the rest of us have to move on. My only good feelz about this is that the dem's aren't going to galvanize a big vote themselves. Get a darned candidate this time or let's move on without Der Trumpster.
Yes, there is shame in supporting him and his behavior for years. There is shame in facilitating his whataboutism by rationalizing woth stupid “they did it first” arguments. There is shame in leading a horde into a frenzy then acting shocked when it engages in one. There is shame in screaming every imbalanced, exaggerated, irrational partisan rage but washing your hands of the result it brings.
There is shame in finding every way to deride your political opponents and “the media” with a your own broad brush while complaining that they will do the same to you.
There is shame in being what you complain about.
There is shame in making irony your virtue.
There is shame starting at home, on the keyboards that whip us into a daily fright fest, then act like they’re above it all.
We said this would happen before he was nominated. The remaining said it would happen before he became president. We repeated it would happen when he lost re-election. Now that what we all said would happen has happened you’re all trying to act like it was everyone else’s fault.
God help us.
Then everyone who votes needs to be ashamed. And the nation should be. But remember, we were told Trump would lead us into war, too. If you make every possible bad prediction and some occur, that doesn’t make you right on all of them. Trump’s scheme was stupid on its face like all his schemes. I suppose if he had a stupid VP he could have gotten further but not much further. I am much more ashamed of Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, because we expected more of them (at least Cruz). The GOP deserves to die over this, but I’m afraid it won’t. Again, I didn’t vote for or support Trump in 2016. In 2020, I saw him winning as the least dangerous option. I may have been right, but it’s not worth the cost.
You summarized my feelings this morning exactly. Thank you.
"The truth is that the media bears a lot of responsibility, but they are retconning the story to blame voters who never set foot in Washington D.C., or even gave a dime to the 'Stop the Steal' movement, never believing the tales of election rigging. But the media itself spewed lies for years. They latched on to the Russia story using a Clinton-funded fiction and made it their truth. They pushed conspiracy theories and “wall closing in” stories for four years. They highlighted profane leftist extremists and paid activists bemoaning Trump like he was a demon."
I can appreciate how difficult this entire piece may have been to write and I appreciate you writing it, instead of trying to deflect as others who supported Trump in 2020 are doing today.
That said, if you're going to blame "The Media" for a large part of this, your omission of OANN, NewsMax, Dan Bongino, and the entire OTHER side of "The Media" who spent every day between Election Day and January 6th lending credence to the notion that the election WAS actually stolen and a "Kraken" will emerge to vindicate the "patriots" trying to save the election is pretty significant. Now not all of them enjoy cable carriage rights or some of the other hallmarks that distinguish traditional media, but I also have a whole Facebook Messenger archive of messages that I received from the likes of the OTHER Media that kept insurrectionists' hopes alive with dud after dud that Trump was coming back.
So, when it comes to "retconning", let's not leave out the other part of the picture, which was as significant - if not more so - than anything the likes of CNN, MSNBC, etc. did during the Trump years, and especially on Jan. 6th.
But I did call them out. Not OANN, NewsMax etc but Fox News. Honestly I don’t watch ANY of them and don’t subscribe to the fringey conspiracy sites, so those would not be in my mind to blame. I think by the ratings we can know where most Trump voters get their information, and it’s not Breitbart.
“Those who supported Trump at one time but are now not disgusted by the events and plans of January 6, 2021, are allowing themselves to be deceived and used by those who treat them like dumb cattle and vehicles for their own ambitions. Only they don’t see the delusion. The people using them are not the elite media and Democratic activists, but elites at Fox News, MyPillow and others who take advantage of their voice, money, and social media presence. The very thing they used Trump to fight against, they are now willingly enslaved to.”
Fair enough and thanks for the additional quote. I don't watch those outlets either, but they did serve as the informational foundation after Election Day for everything that came afterwards. (There's a very good reason Dominion is suing those outlets for billions of dollars.)
I wasn't getting video clips sent to me from FOX (who was in the doghouse at that time for rightfully calling Arizona for Biden), but these other folks who are just as much part of The Media as the left-wingers in New York City.
I didn't make the comment above in the spirit of criticizing you unfairly - I'm rather glad to be on your side when it comes to Trump's suitability for future office - but just to point out that HAD CNN et al. reported exactly as you would have liked, we still would have had a January 6th insurrection, as the root causes of the issue were not the traditional outlets' tone or anything like that. In a close race, there still would have been the same incentives in place for the right-wing media upstarts to provide a platform and peddle election falsehoods to those that wanted to hear them.
It's been much longer that baseless accusations of malfeasance by Democrats regarding absentee voting, or busing people to various locations to vote, or any other number of conspiracies have led many on the right to think that any victory by a Democrat is suspect. Heck, Steve just did it the other week in a piece.
This is to say nothing of the constant dehumanization of Democrats and the violent rhetoric that has been years in the making on the right.
I did? And talk about dehumanization…need we discuss James Hodgkinson? Need we discuss Democrats use of violence in service to political gain? It’s both sides here. Violent rhetoric is bad no matter who uses it.
You did re: busing invites and the like.
When you talk about use of violence by Democrats, are you talking about the politicians and media, or rioters? Let's be clear: I'm talking about the politicians and media on the right that use violent rhetoric: please by all means show me anywhere near equivalent rhetoric from Democrat politicians and media members.
*busing in votes
I appreciate your nuanced take on this Steve, is strongly appreciated, as it is too often lacking in the narrative peddled by hyper partisans of all stripes. While I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 and 2020, I always believed it is a mistake to lump all Trump voters as monolithic in their mindset. I understand and appreciate why many voters reluctantly voted for Trump. (Other reasonable people voted for Trump out of habit of voting Republican every election, but aren’t hard core Trumpists. Most of these voters cited the insanely woke behavior by the left in recent years as well as the hard left lurch of the Democratic Party in that time period. That is why despite my strong anti-Trump stance, I never once ridiculed these voters for their Trump vote and sympathized with them. In order for us to move on from Trump, we need these reluctant and habitual GOP voters. That is why the MSM and the left’s tendency to lump all Trump voters together is counterproductive.
"There is no shame in having voted for Trump or supported him in the past. Trump used all the same dirty tricks the media and Democrats had used for decades. Decades. And Trump did it back to them. They pretended they were angels. The gaslighting was strong."
And I do have just one quibble/point of contention(or maybe just clarification) with this particular paragraph. You mentioned that there is no shame in having voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. And I can mostly agree(depending on the voter's intentions of course) with that, as I don't consider voting on its own to necessarily be villainous or valorous. Now in the second half of that sentence where you mentioned "supported him in the past". I will say that if by that one means having supported the policies of the administration such as judges, tax reform, the Abraham Accords, pulling from the so-called Iran Deal, signing the First Step Act, then I agree that there is no shame in that. But if supporting the President means cheering on Trump's abysmal and narcissistic behavior, cheering on his dereliction of duty to the rule of law and the Constitution, and especially cheering on his supporters attempt to overthrow a constitutionally established government and process, then there should be plenty of shame for those who supported that. I will assume that you meant the former and not the latter.
I got a kick out of reading some of the reactions to your piece Steve. As a NeverTrumper myself, I sometimes notice that any criticism of the left(especially from Trump voters) sometimes has us folks knee jerk reacting with the assumption that such criticism equates to the minimalization, excuse, and rationalization of Trump/Trumpism. I've been guilty of doing that on occasion. But I understand the full context of the points you made in your piece, and I never hinted that you were doing that.
Wait. What????? You didn't vote for Trump in 2016, but you did in 2020???????
Why would that be difficult to understand?
Because, in the first 4 years, he showed who he was,and because in 2020, many Republicans crossed over and voted Democratic for president, because they saw who he was. You saw who he was and voted for him, anyway. That is perplexing.
I will dig up previously published pieces explaining my reasoning. They were on The Resurgent and therefore inaccessible since that site is gone. I had well explained reasons. After Jan 6, I did express regret but it wouldn’t have mattered. The plan was in motion.
The GOP has got to be rethought. If all the crazy pants continue to support this guy then the rest of us have to move on. My only good feelz about this is that the dem's aren't going to galvanize a big vote themselves. Get a darned candidate this time or let's move on without Der Trumpster.
I highly recommend Karl Rove's recent op-ed https://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-jan-6-responsibility-anniversary-riot-storm-capitol-trump-protesters-investigation-11641417707