The amount of loyalty Trump still commands even after a disgrace of a presidency, numerous actions that fly directly in the face of what conservatives have said for decades they believe, and a debouched and corrupt personal life is jaw-dropping. The amount of cognitive dissonance necessary for lifelong Republicans (who say they support the Constitution) to continue supporting him is astounding.
His most successful approach is one of "bread and circuses" and will never bring any lasting conservative change because all he cares about is APPEARING to do something. It's something he's done all his life, even in his business. When it comes to this aspect of him I always think about the incident he told about in The Art of the Deal where he told his people to hire a bunch of bulldozers to simply move a lot of dirt around on a construction site because he'd told the company he wanted to partner with that construction had already begun. That's why I can't begin to fathom the arguments of people who say they support him because he's "strong" on the issues they care about. Even if it was true, it shouldn't be acceptable to lifelong Republicans for him to trample the Constitution in order to do what they want him to do.
My conclusion, because it doesn't make any sense otherwise, is that Trump is most likely an antichrist. It's the only way I've been able to satisfactorily explain to myself his continued appeal, the fanatical loyalty he inspires, and the way he's influenced so many to abandon their values without even realizing they're doing so.
The Senate Judiciary Report article is paywalled, but I've seen it elsewhere. I noticed that it said "the majority" report: does that mean only Democrat members of the Committee conducted the investigation, or that only the Dems are willing to report the results?
What could you trust the democrat candidate to do better than Mike Lee? I think you are more concerned with stopping a Trump revival than stopping a constitutional crisis when you waste votes on losers. You are nit-picking at what Republicans did not do rather than what they do.
My guess is McMullin’s vote share in an election where Trump isn’t on the ballot, will be in the single digits given the dynamics of a midterm election where the Democrats will be playing defense nationwide. Utah has more Trump skeptical conservatives than any other state. But since 2016, the McMullin vote has split, with many of his voters having voted for Trump in 2020. Others voted for Biden that same year. McMullin seems to have a draw for disaffected moderate(and a few conservatives too) Republicans and moderate to conservatives Democrats, while many conservatives(Both Trump and Trump-skeptical) in UT either consider him a nothing person or find him repulsive. If McMullin was running in a year like 2016(where he didn’t have a track record of commentary that leaned left) , he might pull a more substantial share of the vote like he did for his independent Presidential bid(21.5 percent in UT). Overall, my money is on Mike Lee winning handily(though maybe with a slightly reduced vote share) as expected in a solidly red state during a midterm with a GOP tailwind. These are just my political guesstimations and doesn’t reflect my own views on either Mike Lee or Evan McMullin.
With that said, if I still lived in Utah I’d probably do a write-in vote or see if there is any other independent candidate out there worth considering. I probably would vote for Mike Lee in the unlikely event the race was at a tipping point due to a major spoiler effect. I wasn’t and am not a fan at all of Evan McMullin, and obviously found Trump unacceptable, so I did a write-in protest vote in 2016. I ended up doing a protest write-in in 2020 as well. As for Mike Lee, he hasn’t really done much to elicit a strong reaction from me, one way or the other. Though I’d still lean to doing a non McMullin independent vote, just out of my general and current disdain for the GOP as a whole today.
Anyways those are just my two cents. To each their own, and I won’t criticize anyone for how they vote in 2022. I’m in a state where the GOP is considerably more Trumpy, so I’ll have some major figuring out to do as to how I’ll vote.
Mr. Thornton, I couldn't have written it better myself. I voted for Mr. McMullin in 2016 for the same reason you did. And personally, if I were a Utah resident; or even better, if he were running in the Wisconsin primary against Senator Ron Johnson --who has gone off the conservative rails since 2016 and unequivocally joined the Trump Cult circus parade (I enthusiastically supported him his first two times around, but now he disgusts me)-- I'd vote for McMullin as my candidate in a New York minute. My instincts tell me he can be trusted. Unfortunately, honesty and principled behavior doesn't go very far in today's political jungle.
The amount of loyalty Trump still commands even after a disgrace of a presidency, numerous actions that fly directly in the face of what conservatives have said for decades they believe, and a debouched and corrupt personal life is jaw-dropping. The amount of cognitive dissonance necessary for lifelong Republicans (who say they support the Constitution) to continue supporting him is astounding.
His most successful approach is one of "bread and circuses" and will never bring any lasting conservative change because all he cares about is APPEARING to do something. It's something he's done all his life, even in his business. When it comes to this aspect of him I always think about the incident he told about in The Art of the Deal where he told his people to hire a bunch of bulldozers to simply move a lot of dirt around on a construction site because he'd told the company he wanted to partner with that construction had already begun. That's why I can't begin to fathom the arguments of people who say they support him because he's "strong" on the issues they care about. Even if it was true, it shouldn't be acceptable to lifelong Republicans for him to trample the Constitution in order to do what they want him to do.
My conclusion, because it doesn't make any sense otherwise, is that Trump is most likely an antichrist. It's the only way I've been able to satisfactorily explain to myself his continued appeal, the fanatical loyalty he inspires, and the way he's influenced so many to abandon their values without even realizing they're doing so.
The Senate Judiciary Report article is paywalled, but I've seen it elsewhere. I noticed that it said "the majority" report: does that mean only Democrat members of the Committee conducted the investigation, or that only the Dems are willing to report the results?
What could you trust the democrat candidate to do better than Mike Lee? I think you are more concerned with stopping a Trump revival than stopping a constitutional crisis when you waste votes on losers. You are nit-picking at what Republicans did not do rather than what they do.
My guess is McMullin’s vote share in an election where Trump isn’t on the ballot, will be in the single digits given the dynamics of a midterm election where the Democrats will be playing defense nationwide. Utah has more Trump skeptical conservatives than any other state. But since 2016, the McMullin vote has split, with many of his voters having voted for Trump in 2020. Others voted for Biden that same year. McMullin seems to have a draw for disaffected moderate(and a few conservatives too) Republicans and moderate to conservatives Democrats, while many conservatives(Both Trump and Trump-skeptical) in UT either consider him a nothing person or find him repulsive. If McMullin was running in a year like 2016(where he didn’t have a track record of commentary that leaned left) , he might pull a more substantial share of the vote like he did for his independent Presidential bid(21.5 percent in UT). Overall, my money is on Mike Lee winning handily(though maybe with a slightly reduced vote share) as expected in a solidly red state during a midterm with a GOP tailwind. These are just my political guesstimations and doesn’t reflect my own views on either Mike Lee or Evan McMullin.
With that said, if I still lived in Utah I’d probably do a write-in vote or see if there is any other independent candidate out there worth considering. I probably would vote for Mike Lee in the unlikely event the race was at a tipping point due to a major spoiler effect. I wasn’t and am not a fan at all of Evan McMullin, and obviously found Trump unacceptable, so I did a write-in protest vote in 2016. I ended up doing a protest write-in in 2020 as well. As for Mike Lee, he hasn’t really done much to elicit a strong reaction from me, one way or the other. Though I’d still lean to doing a non McMullin independent vote, just out of my general and current disdain for the GOP as a whole today.
Anyways those are just my two cents. To each their own, and I won’t criticize anyone for how they vote in 2022. I’m in a state where the GOP is considerably more Trumpy, so I’ll have some major figuring out to do as to how I’ll vote.
Mr. Thornton, I couldn't have written it better myself. I voted for Mr. McMullin in 2016 for the same reason you did. And personally, if I were a Utah resident; or even better, if he were running in the Wisconsin primary against Senator Ron Johnson --who has gone off the conservative rails since 2016 and unequivocally joined the Trump Cult circus parade (I enthusiastically supported him his first two times around, but now he disgusts me)-- I'd vote for McMullin as my candidate in a New York minute. My instincts tell me he can be trusted. Unfortunately, honesty and principled behavior doesn't go very far in today's political jungle.