NeverTrump Awokening: Orange Man Bad, But Trojan Horse Man Worse
Danielle Pletka on voting for Trump: Biden “would merely be the facade for … an agenda that would seriously damage the nation”
Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute has been described by non-other than the execrable Jennifer Rubin as a fellow NeverTrumper.
I never heard of Pletka, but a post she wrote for WaPo about her awokening to the error of her NeverTrump ways is getting a lot of attention, I never considered voting for Trump in 2016. I may be forced to vote for him this year:
In 2016, I never considered voting for Donald Trump. The Johnny-come-lately Republican and his nasty schoolyard jibes seemed to me the worst degradation of American politics. But in 2020, I may be forced to vote for the man.
Hear me out.
Hearing her out is mostly a bashing of Orange Man Bad:
I don’t need a bumper sticker or a lawn sign to convey my distaste for Trump — his odious tweets, his chronic mendacity and general crudeness.
All that and more said, at least Trump is who he is:
With Donald Trump, I know what I am getting. He wears his sins on the outside. For good and ill, he runs his administration. I worry more about his incompetence and vacillation than I do about any dictatorial tendencies.
Not so Joe Biden, a Trojan Horse for the radical left:
But I fear the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party even more.
What is there to be afraid of? I fear that former vice president Joe Biden would be a figurehead president, incapable of focus or leadership, who would run a teleprompter presidency with the words drafted by his party’s hard-left ideologues. I fear that a Congress with Democrats controlling both houses — almost certainly ensured by a Biden victory in November — would begin an assault on the institutions of government that preserve the nation’s small “d” democracy….
I fear the grip of Manhattan-San Francisco progressive mores that increasingly permeate my daily newspapers, my children’s curriculums and my local government. I fear the virtue-signaling bullies who increasingly try to dominate or silence public discourse — and encourage my children to think that their being White is intrinsically evil, that America’s founding is akin to original sin. I fear the growing self-censorship that guides many people’s every utterance, and the leftist vigilantes who view every personal choice — from recipes to hairdos — through their twisted prisms of politics and culture. An entirely Democratic-run Washington, urged on by progressives’ media allies, would no doubt only accelerate these trends….
… I am increasingly persuaded that what I see in Joe Biden — whom I first met in 1992, and whom I believe to be a decent person — would merely be the facade for an administration, fully backed by both houses of Congress, with an agenda that would seriously damage the nation. The corrosive left-wing extremism of 2020 would be ascendant, while a smiling President Biden assures the country that everything is fine. Trump, for all his flaws, could be all that stands between our imperfect democracy and the tyranny of the woke left.
This is not quite Flight 93-level stuff, but it’s close.
NeverTrumper conservatives and Republicans never were great in number. Mostly they are shamelss grifters desperate for the only attention they can get, being the Republican who hates Trump and would rather force others to live under the thumb of neo-Stalinists than give up their book deal, WaPo column, or MSNBC/CNN gigs. Horrible, despicable sociopaths almost to the person.
But if NeverTrumper Pletka is ready to storm the cockpit door, maybe there are others among the greater number of people who may not be NeverTrump, but are awokening to the threat before us.
Orange Man may be Bad in their eyes, but Trojan Horse Man is worse.
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Comments
“…Joe Biden — whom I first met in 1992, and whom I believe to be a decent person…”
That really says it all about this person’s mental and moral state.
Whut? Decent people don’t grift billions and grope dozens of women and little girls?
They just grab Mrs. Slocombe’s cat.
Right, we can stop reading right about there. The writer is not a balanced individual or even a functioning intellect. Gropey Joe, the Shakedown King? I don’t know of any Bizarro world where that stuff counts as “decent”.
Any person who waxes rhapsodic about dim-witted, dotard-marionette Biden’s alleged “decency” is a fool.
A “decent” person doesn’t slander the driver of a car involved in his wife’s completely accidental death, as an alleged “drunk driver,” a lie totally unsupported by evidence, which Biden viciously repeated — to the profound distress of the slandered driver — for decades.
A “decent” father doesn’t repeatedly enable, excuse and rationalize the destructive, sociopath behavior of his ne’er-do-well, spoiled-brat, cokehead son, including using the power of the Presidency to shake down Ukraine’s law enforcement apparatus, in order to stifle an investigation into his son’s “pay-for-play” enrichment scheme.
A “decent” person doesn’t make repeated racist statements to blacks, including the outrageously paternalistic and racist statement that a black person “ain’t” authentically black, unless he or she supports Biden.
Dennis Prager wrote an opinion piece about he has been wrong his whole life. He used to think the left’s (I’m looking at you, NeverTrumpers) moral compass was broken. Then he realized it wasn’t broken. They just never had a moral compass to begin with.
You can’t break what you never had.
I’m pleased to report I never made that mistake. But then I grew up in the belly of the beast. The SF Bay Area.
Here’s another mistake I never made. I never thought, and certainly never said, that leftists were well intentioned people whose hearts are in the right place.
They’re vile soulless ghouls whose secret dream job is prison guard and executioner in a Stalinist gulag.
The left is composed of those who look at God and say, “We will not have you as our king.”
It’s tedious to listen to a NeverTrumper fill an endorsement with caveats. Ignoring a long list of accomplishments, they focus on Trump’s Twitter account or his personality. Just like the press, they are as easily distracted as a cat chasing a laser pointer. After four years they still can’t wrap their collective heads around the reason that Trump is POTUS.
Hear. Hear.
It’s like they think they’re voting for the prom king instead of the POTUS.
I bit my tongue trying not to make a catty remark about Michelle as Prom King and Barack as Queen. I hope it’s not bleeding.
But hey, that kind of gender-inverted subversion of traditions like Homecoming were very popular on the Left during the Obamas’ reign. (Still is.)
s/were/was
They want the benefits without any of the hard lifting.
Their opposition was always rooted in aesthetics. He’s loud, brash, boorish. Not “Presidential” in manner. It really is a “not my class, dear” snobbery.
When you set that aside and make a substantive comparison of the candidates, this is what you get; a realization that Trump, for all his faults, is simply better.
And the rest of them can’t *stand* to hear that. They’re casting her out of the club.
There is indeed a snobbery surrounding the NTs – very ‘Egads Buffy! Who let him into the club?’
DJT is the Rodney Dangerfield character in Caddyshack. The NeverTrumpers are Ted Knight. The RT character treated the staff much better too. We are the staff.
By “the exorable Jennifer Rubin” do you mean “the execrable Jennifer Rubin”?
It looks like there’s a typo.
No, exorable is a word but I fail to see how it applies. It means capable of being persuaded or moved by entreaty.
I wasn’t sure, so I looked up “exorable” and it wasn’t in my print copy of the OED.
One can argue that “exorable” should be a word because “inexorable” is a word. I think it was comedian Steve Martin who made that argument about “gruntled,” since a person can be “disgruntled.”
Maybe, but, while in today’s alarmingly impatient, intolerant, and increasingly monochromatic, Bolshevik-like milieu inexorable would seem more apt on account of the above context, the word may, however, cause some to ascribe a degree of execrableness to The WaPo’s writer, JR.
The unpersuadable can be so vile and detestable, so execrable, the self-entitled expert commentariat — and now, more and more, hoi polloi — are wont to say these days. Doesn’t that take the matter a few notches on the p’s and q’s* scale too far?
Anyway, if inexorable actually was the intended modifier, it is arguably a more proportionate choice, the unquestioned right to your strong feelings about JR notwithstanding.
________________
*Derived from what used to count for something in our once-civil society, our “p(lea)se and (than)k-you’s”
Actually the most likely origin for the saying “Mind your Ps and Qs” seems to be about not confusing the actual lower-case letters p and q.
That makes sense, especially when considering the days of setting type by hand.
I voted against Hillary in 16 – Held my nose and voted Trump. Played high level athletics most of my youth, so I essentially grew up in a locker room. Trump is the loudmouth in that locker room. What has surprised me is he has game. He has delivered in ways beyond my imagination. And insert the toughest circumstances I’ve personally witnessed your a president. That loudmouth who shows meddle becomes a lot more likable.
s/meddle/mettle
Trump is one of the very few loudmouths that can back up what he’s saying.
As for his being a loudmouth: he does it as a reaction to being attacked. It works great. More of us should try it. The left does.
The Left is a collective loudmouth, Trump is an individual loudmouth who speaks for the many individuals who don’t speak for fear of retribution by the collective left.
I don’t think PDJT is a loudmouth.
He toots his own horn because he knows that nobody else will. His self-promotion is a rational solution to a problem which, if left to fester, would sink any presidency.
And that’s perhaps his greatest virtue as a manager and President. See a problem, damn the torpedoes and tackle it head-on; don’t sit around moaning that nobody else is doing it instead.
Trump does a great job of winding up opponents, and then moves on to productive stuff, while they blather on. It is really quite funny.
*under
I’m not interested enough to follow the link, but what is quoted here sounds pretty much like how I feel. 4 years ago I thought Trump was a liberal Democrat pretending to be a Republican, and I still think that. I thought he was a bad person, and I still think so.
But the facts are undeniable. He has governed well. I don’t like everything he’s done, but who can expect that? Overall he’s done much much more good than bad.
He’s also been lucky in his enemies. Besides being even worse characters than him, they’re completely lunatic. Not only is it unthinkable to risk their getting anywhere near power, it’s also unthinkable that they should have a moral victory by winning the popular vote.
And it’s remarkable that for all his flaws they can’t seem to find anything to attack him with, so they are constantly resorting to inventing fake scandals, each more transparent than the last.
So although I would never vote for a Democrat, let alone the current one, four years ago I voted for someone else. This year I will be voting for Trump, and I won’t even have to hold my nose. I’ll be voting not for him but for his record and the good policies he has implemented (whether he actually believes in them or not), and to deny his enemies any kind of victory.
Your really a sanctimonious ass aren’t you?
Never mind, that’s not really a question, that’s a statement.
“Trump is a bad person”…really?
Right back atcha. Yes, he is a bad person. And so are you.
Quit the petty bickering, both of you.
He’s voting for Trump. Take the win.
Millhouse
Accusing President Trump of still being a Democrat pretending to be a Republican is like accusing a nun of being a whore who is pretending to be chaste. President Trump has evolved. I don’t think I can say the same for you.
“…is like accusing a nun of being a whore who is pretending to be chaste.”
Hey, it could happen! There’s a Clint Eastwood movie about it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065134/
“Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)”
Milhouse can take care of himself. But don’t you DARE run down my man Clint. If he made a movie about it, it’s because it’s about totally real $ch!t.
You are correct, Milhouse.
To that I would add that Trump, agree or disagree with his actions, consistently acts in a manner he believes will advance the interests of the nation rather than the interests of himself or his party. He’s in the game for the country and the people. He said himself two days ago in an interview that he’d rather get things done than act “presidential.” We’ve had “presidential” presidents who were worthless or less than worthless – outright damaging to the nation’s interests.
“4 years ago I thought Trump was a liberal Democrat pretending to be a Republican, and I still think that. I thought he was a bad person, and I still think so.”
4 years ago I thought Milhouse was an idiot, and I still think so.
Trump is a “bad person” in the same way in which Moses was a murderer, King David was an adulterer and a murderer, the apostle Paul was a murderer, etc.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And some of us are whitewashed tombs.
Rather than lose the game, Trump is playing it according to the rules created by his despicable opponents. They don’t like that, and they hate him for it.
Many of us could write something similar to what this woman wrote. The only thing that bumfuzzles me is that Hillary was apparently within her comfort zone, but it took Joe Biden to exceed it. Someone needs to explain to the DNC that if people who were comfortable voting for Crooked Hillary are getting turned off to the Democratic candidate, they’re doing something fatally wrong.
Trump is not lucky in his enemies, look at the scope of the conspiracy he has been fighting, and gaining ground.
“Trump liberal”, today, many people are deserting the dems, so why not Trump. He sure as hell is doing a good job of giving dems heartburn.
“And it’s remarkable that for all his flaws”
Are they actual flaws, or just his unconventional way of operating?
After over two decades of dealing with people in the Beltway, I find Trumps style refreshing, and the way he plays adversaries funny.
The rest of the NeverTrumpers are currently busy casting her out. “She was always going to vote for Trump, this is just rationalization.”
She is no longer of the body.
Just one of Trump’s unusual talents is his ability to bring out the worst in his opponents. Consider Obama’s opportunities for a subdued and effective retirement, where he might have led a thoughtful and motivated party in opposition. Instead, he and his cronies invented the Russian hoax. Now his leaderless party is burning down the core of their own cities and, with it, any chance at credibility. In 2019 the Democrats fielded a broad range of candidates vying for nomination, but they homed in on a deranged Bernie Sanders and were finally rescued by a candidate who flouts his incipient senile dementia. Would they have done this if the incumbent were, say, Mike Pence?
. . . Anyway, check out the Tulsa PD video and the narrative it’s placed in, prepared by Shipwreckedcrew, our legal brother from a different mother (blogsite), to get that cognitive consonance we all relish when it comes to WHY we support Trump so much — if not fully in 2016, then wholeheartedly in 2020:
tps://www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/09/16/why-jacob-blake-was-shot-by-the-officer-in-kenosha-wisconsin/
Better:
https://www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/09/16/why-jacob-blake-was-shot-by-the-officer-in-kenosha-wisconsin/
There’s a link in this article to a related one,
https://www.redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2020/09/16/woman-tired-of-one-sided-conversations-on-policing-sparks-much-needed-discussion-after-tulsa-video-released/
reproducing, among other things, a series of tweets in relation to the present case, as well as its larger, very current topic’s having tremendous implications for our upcoming elections.
My hand’s over my heart in appreciation of this remarkable, and needed, journalistic work.
“For David Ware — Oklahoma has executed”
Good, society needs to learn from mistakes, how about in the future police draw on an uncooperative perp, order them to get out, and if they do not comply, shoot the prick.
It is incredible that society is putting up with all this BS, it is way out of hand.
Can we just use “awake” to describe people on the Right who are politically aware of reality?
“Awoke” is such a ridiculously stupid non-word, and any variant on it makes people think you’re describing some form of Marxist scum.
“Awoke” is a past tense verb.
Personally, I don’t care for any such term to refer to anyone supporting Trump or of the “walk away” movement. It reminds me of “Deutschland erwache.” Leave all claims of “wokeness” to the fascists and Nazis – the real fascists and Nazis.
If I were the Trump campaign, I’d be throwing all the cash on ads where real people keep saying “I didn’t leave the Democrat party, the democratic part left me” like Sheriff in Pennsylvania the other day.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sherriff-democratic-party-left-me.amp
And I’d use AOC talking about how easy Biden is to manipulate to get her crazy agenda implemented.
Joe: “If you let me sniff your hair, I’ll give you whatever you want.”
AOC: “Bring me the head of John the Baptist.”
November 3 is a national intelligence test. Intelligent people vote based on policies rather than personalities. Voting for Trump and against Harris/Biden is a no brainer.
This interview of Omar Ghobash of the UAE is but one piece of evidence in a torrent of items supporting the re-election of President Trump.
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6190749515001?fbclid=IwAR3COMv9VwslSzBzGqPgGHn5SzkJaMWgCbuKpUEif9gQKrCqGDc6rBnoHt0#sp=show-clips
Funny you should say that..
https://i.postimg.cc/ncS898Fr/VOTE-FOR-SANITY.png
The most important aspect of Danielle Pletka’s remarks is that she’s voting for Trump. If dems and never Trumpers were honest and genuinely concerned about the structural benefits of the Republic, life , liberty and the pursuit of happiness then clearly voting for President Trump is the only rational vote. Trump has surprised almost everyone with his domestic and international accomplishments; no one expected him to do what he’s done. biden is a bona fide crash dummy for the severely fractured dem party – if anyone believes that the dem’s are issue unified, they are deeply misguided. blm, antifa, radical “global warming” /anti nuke supporters, anti 2nd Amendment,etc., all have agendas embedded within the dem party. The dems are a powder keg of dysfunction and they’ve picked the cognitively dysfunctional candidate as their poster child. Child, because biden is cognitively a child.
“…if anyone believes that the dem’s are issue unified, they are deeply misguided. blm, antifa, radical “global warming” /anti nuke supporters, anti 2nd Amendment,etc., all have agendas embedded within the dem party.”
Those “issues”, “blm, antifa, radical “global warming” /anti nuke supporters, anti 2nd Amendment,etc” are the democrap party.
This is a unified party, the destruction of American and the freedom and liberty it stands for IS their goal.
I don’t need a bumper sticker or a lawn sign to convey my distaste for Trump — his odious tweets, his chronic mendacity and general crudeness.
——————————-
Just remember the graffiti on the wall that said “liberals get the bullet too” Dani.
Want to speak of odious, mendacity and general crudeness then you need look no further than the leaders of the democrat, socialist and marxist parties.
She’s afraid of Biden and this Leftist cohort? And will force herself to vote for Orange Man Bad to save the country? Exactly WTF did she think Clinton, the corrupt hag, would have done had she been elected? How stupid are these people?