Alabama special election: Look for the silver lining…
…in the Moore loss, and there are several possibilities:
(1) On this blog I have defended Moore from the sexual allegations because of a principle I hold to—and apply to members of both parties—which is that unsubstantiated allegations are always to be taken with a grain of salt. But Moore himself was someone I have considered to be one of the weakest candidate ever to have run for the Senate, and as soon as he was nominated I felt (and/or feared) that that seat was potentially at risk even before a single sexual allegation against Moore had surfaced. Moore is a loose cannon with a strong propensity for saying outrageous and difficult-to-defend things (while completely lacking in Trump’s smarts and cunning). If elected, he would have been continually offending nearly everyone in sight. Therefore the GOP would have been constantly needing to defend him, and constantly being put in the position of standing by their man when their man was very problematic indeed. In other words, Moore was the perfect person for the Democrats to have in the Senate to kick around. Now they’ve lost that golden opportunity. And since even the solid-red GOP voters of Alabama have rejected him, it will be hard for the Democrats to call them amoral (immoral?) troglodytes any more.
(2) Many people are saying that now Democrats will find women with sexual allegations against every single GOP candidate and trot them out with perfect timing, prior to elections. I have little doubt that this is true (and it was already being done to a certain extent, i.e. Herman Cain and Trump). The Democrats’ “sacrifice” of Franken and Conyers was part of the preparation for doing just that, after years of cozying up to alleged or in some cases proven sexual predators such as Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Jerry Studds. However, it occurs to me that—just as with the Salem with trials—this pattern may not be able to go on forever before a significant number of voters start to think it’s excessive and begin to get suspicious. So there might be a backlash. I don’t know if that will happen, but I think the Democrats could overplay their hand on this one. Flushed with the triumph of the victory over Moore in Alabama, they would do well to remember that Moore was probably one of the very weakest and most vulnerable to such an approach, considering that he apparently did date teenagers when he was in his thirties. Moore may have been guilty of coming on sexually to a 14-year old and/or sexually assaulting a 16-year-old (and we still have no idea whether he is innocent or guilty of either charge), but we do know that he’s either guilty of those charges or he was perfectly positioned to be the target of false charges. To much of the electorate, both things (guilty, or “credibly” guilty) are nearly the same thing with the same effect. But fortunately, not everyone in the GOP is vulnerable to the degree Moore was.
(3) I’m not so sure that the loss of one vote in the Senate means so very much right now, although the conventional wisdom is that it does and I tend to agree. But the GOP in the Senate was going to have to unite more if they wanted to get much legislation passed, whether they had that seat or not. A loss of a vote is important, but the need for unity doesn’t change.
(4) I wish GOP voters would be smarter about who they choose in primaries to be their candidates. It’s not enough that a candidate be a rebel against the GOPe, or markedly conservative. He (or she) has to have some sort of more universal appeal and come across as worthy of national office.
(5) Steve Bannon’s stock has fallen. And maybe, just maybe, he’s learned something, although I wouldn’t bet on it.
Unfortunately, the charge of ‘racist’ worked for a very long time, during which the left did damage to the country.
In my mind how do we (and I mean both liberals and conservatives) reach a consensus and what constitutes sexual harassment or sexual assault and what is the threshold that it renders a person unqualified to serve, and what should be a reasonable political statute of limitations to such charges.
In the recent cases, Franken, Moore and Trump were accused of kissing someone without their consent (OK with Franken there was tongue involved).
Maybe the threshold between simple assault and sexual assault is whether a tongue was used in the commission of the crime?
People here dissected the charges and found almost all of them to be inconsequential, but they were continually lumped together to pad the number (nine women…)
Maybe this tactic won’t have the staying power of the racist tactic, since sometimes the charges are ludicrous on their face.
Then there is the piling on. Since the left (and occasionally the right) is willing (eager) to distort the meaning of words, I can’t count the number of times the slur toward Moore was pedophile.
The fact that by definition he wasn’t a pedophile is irrelevant. Words mean what the left wants them to mean. And they are sincere about that.
What a mess.
I truly hope this means bye-bye to Steve Bannon. His influence is poisonous.
I have no doubts that the left will fully expect to be able to play the “supports sexual abusers” card against the Republicans after throwing Conyers and Franken under the bus, and the press will play along with it, completely innocently, despite the Democrats 50+ year history of literally being enablers for these horrible people, and excusing almost anything. Compare Roy Moore with Gerry Studds, the latter of which is still regarded as a “hero” of bravery for being so forthcoming with his deviant proclivities (and suffering no disadvantage whatsoever for engaging in a relationship as bad as what Moore is only alleged to have done).
They’re going to take the moral high road on this issue, with a completely straight face, and get away with it for a large portion of the electorate. Except them to be proudly defended by the usual spittle-flecked talking heads from the MSM for being so principled in tossing out a guy who probably has one foot in the grave from his sheer age, and another whose seat in Congress will never be at risk.
Meanwhile, every single day Trump commits another unforced error on Twitter, or straight out of his big mouth. No matter how right he is (and he’s been right quite a bit, IMO), he never fails to offer his enemies tons of fuel they don’t need to attack him. It’s like he keeps dangling bait in front of their faces to keep them snapping like starving dogs while he goes on with the country’s business. He might be scoring lots of points with his fans, but I’m tired of cringing at someone that I largely support.
Neo: “…And since even the solid-red GOP voters of Alabama have rejected him, it will be hard for the Democrats to call them amoral (immoral?) troglodytes any more.”
Not even a speed bump. All those people in certain districts who voted for Obama in 2012 became instant sexist-racist neanderthals amoral troglodytes when they voted for DJT over Hillary.
Harry the Extremist:
I agree that they’ll still do it, but what I meant was that it will be a bit harder to make it stick. Oh, they’ll do it all right.
I also am purposely trying to be more optimistic in this post than I really feel.
” Moore is a loose cannon with a strong propensity for saying outrageous and difficult-to-defend things”-Neo.
Let’s have a few examples, if you please.
“Outrageous and difficult-to-defend” are harsh words worthy of expansion and clarification.
Most of the anti-Bannons are ignorant of his actual thoughts and positions. Like so much else, MSM mud sticks like glue to all at which it is thrown.
Frog:
Many people have written articles on the problems with Moore even without the sexual abuse allegations, and they are quite easy to locate. But here’s one.
some one need to start a #mescared hashtag, men are scared of interacting with women for possibilities of being wrongly accused of abuse.
men who had been falsely accused of abuse should band together and hijack the #metoo hashtag indeed. Herman Cain should start tweeting #metoo
Emmett Till #metoo
Thomas Clarence #metoo
Hermin Cain #metoo
Tawana Brawley victims #metoo
Duke lacrosse team #metoo
Anyone who is supporting this #metoo witch hunt is helping to loom the rope that is going to lynch your son.
In other words, “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
Without a doubt some men sexually assault or sexually harass women. Conversely, some women make false accusations. But I suspect false accusations are fewer than actual assaults and harassments. In the end, this is a matter for the legal system to determine. Guilty until until proven innocent is standing the law upon its head.
So far, we have seen men accused of abusing women and men. I don’t think that we have heard of women abusing men or other women. It will be interesting to read about the fury when the first female democrat is accused of such activity.
I agree that we need good definitions of what is assault, harassment and merely bad behavior. There also needs to be a statue of limitations. Something done as a youth should not come back to haunt a person in their 50s. If you cannot disclose the abuse within 10 years or so, then I think you have lost your ability to impact the life of a person.
If this goes on for too long, there will be no one able to run for an office since the majority of the people in this world has done something that in 20-30 years can be deemed questionable.
Just remember, Al Franken has not actually resigned. The word is that his supporters are trying to find a way to discredit all of his accusers. Then he can come back and resume his fight for women.
Gordon:
I think Franken will go, if only because his successor has already been appointed, and it’s a woman.
Some articles of interest.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/10/yoffe-sexual-harassment-college-franken-216057
“Why the #MeToo Movement Should Be Ready for a Backlash
As a much-needed reckoning happens in the workplace, look to college campuses for a note of caution.”
By EMILY YOFFE December 10, 2017
http://thefederalist.com/2017/12/12/mitch-mcconnell-is-the-reason-doug-jones-is-a-senator/
And especially this one, on where to draw the lines around flirtation, consensual romance, harassment, abuse, and criminal assault.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trivializing-sexual-abuse-hurts-victims-i-would-know/article/2643291
“The Economist recently detailed opinions on acceptable male behavior, and the results were baffling. The survey, in which participants came from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and Sweden, asked where the line is drawn for sexual harassment. The survey asked participants if they “would consider it sexual harassment if a man, who was not a romantic partner, did the following to a woman?”
I assumed most respondents would accurately label sexual harassment. I was wrong.
The Economist recently detailed opinions on acceptable male behavior, and the results were baffling. The survey, in which participants came from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and Sweden, asked where the line is drawn for sexual harassment. The survey asked participants if they “would consider it sexual harassment if a man, who was not a romantic partner, did the following to a woman?”
I assumed most respondents would accurately label sexual harassment. I was wrong.”
neo-neocon Says:
December 13th, 2017 at 4:03 pm
Harry the Extremist:
I agree that they’ll still do it, but what I meant was that it will be a bit harder to make it stick. Oh, they’ll do it all right.
* * *
If Moore hadn’t had a known habit of dating younger women in the past, they would have found some other way to demonize him. Keeping “binders of women” maybe.
The accusations don’t even have to be rational for the Democrats to use them, and the fellow-travelers in the media make sure they stick.
If you happen to see this, Judge Roy, know that you have my commiserations and my respect.
As your fellow jurist Justice Holmes rightly said: “the place for a man complete in all his powers is in the fight” – and that’s where you went.
It’s no consolation, I know, but if it had been up to me I would have weighted your own personal vote as follows:
1. An extra 10,000 votes just for being a guy who rides his horse to the polling station. Bravo. That was awesome!
2. An extra 5,000 votes for your very handsome spotted pony; and
3. An extra 10 votes for your cowboy hat and for wearing it with such panache.(It is summer where I live and I don’t look anywhere near as cool as you do in my summer hat).
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/12/politics/roy-moore-horse-vote/index.html
You may have lost but you went down in style, Judge
J. E. Dyer weighs in on the higher strategic plane.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2017/12/13/real-alabama-post-game-wrap/
“The usual suspects are saying all the usual things about the election in Alabama on Tuesday, and I wouldn’t interfere with anyone’s fun in that regard. More power to them.
I really only want to say here that the true dynamic of the Republican party conflict can be best expressed in a brief exchange that goes like this:
Old-consensus leadership to the Deplorables: Don’t fight.
Deplorables to the old-consensus leadership: We have to fight.
And by fight, both sides mean fight. They’re speaking in the political sense (not the “hot lead” sense), but it’s fight they mean.
The Deplorables see what America is currently in as a winnable fight for our country’s future. It’s a defined concept in their minds.
The old-consensus leadership doesn’t. It has a different concept in its mind. … If we can make minor course changes within that framework, that’s great. If we can’t, we need to wait until we can.
…
For the Deplorables, meanwhile, the perception of reality is that the country around them is already being transformed beyond all recognition. The emergency is here.
But there is a foreseeable strategy. A conceivable future. There’s a way to fight, and the time to fight is now.”
RTWT
(3) I’m not so sure that the loss of one vote in the Senate means so very much right now…the need for unity doesn’t change.
The effect will be that slightly less will get done now than before, for which the voters were already angry. McConnell will have a plausible excuse for accomplishing nothing.
I wouldn’t expect the GOPe’s behavior WRT Alabama to bring the party further together.
(4) I wish GOP voters would be smarter about who they choose in primaries to be their candidates.
The voters were responding to the Sophie’s Choice McConnell gave them (I believe I’ve outlined my thinking on this strategy to you before).
McConnell ensured that the most acceptable alternative to his candidate, Brooks, got knocked out in the first round. Alabama voters responded to this provocation by giving McConnell the finger. This entire debacle was Mitch McConnell’s fault for meddling in state elections, AGAIN!
(P.S. another reason AL rejected Strange was the stink of corruption on him. The perfect yes man for McConnell)
(5) Steve Bannon’s stock has fallen.
I hope not. I know that the establishment is very busy trying to blame him for everything, when in fact he only supported Moore (from what I can find) after he left the WH and Brooks had already lost in the first round.
Bannon wanted Trump to back Brooks. Someone persuaded Trump to join McConnell as an olive branch, or something (some people think it was Kushner).
Somebody needs to stop McConnell. Somebody needs to introduce some organization into the effort to degrade the GOPe, because the Tea Party got their asses kicked in the end.
The swamp is currently in a stalemate with Trump, which means that they’re actually winning. The swamp can out-wait any president if he doesn’t strike while he’s able.
Ann Says:
I truly hope this means bye-bye to Steve Bannon. His influence is poisonous.
As opposed to who, McConnell? Do you think McConnell is doing the peoples’ business and covering himself and the party in glory?
Who would you like leading the party?
I live in north Alabama, and Matt nails most of what happened. The problem began with Mitch McConnell’s attempt to hand-pick the nominee. McConnell’s PAC spent $8M, an extraordinary amount of money for a primary in Alabama, on a carpet-bombing of attack ads to knock Mo Brooks (the best candidate and a solid libertarian-conservative) out of the race. They spent nothing attacking Moore because they assumed that Strange would easily defeat Moore in the runoff. However, after media here exposed McConnell’s role in trying to fix the primary, Strange was sunk. He was already on shaky ground because of the apparent quid-pro-quo in being appointed to the seat by disgraced ex-governor Robert Bentley.
As the Democrats found out last year, you can piss off a lot of your own base by trying to rig the primary process. Same thing happened here. Moore has long been a divisive figure in Alabama politics; there are people who love him, but others — including a lot of solid conservatives — regard him as an arrogant poseur. In the runoff, Moore defeated Strange thanks to the votes of a lot of people who would never have voted for Moore under any other circumstances, but wanted to send a message to the GOP establishment about sham elections.
Brooks would have easily defeated Doug Jones. So would a lot of other Republicans in Alabama. But McConnell and the Washington establishment made sure that Alabama voters didn’t have that choice. Jones’ margin of victory was 21,000 votes. 22,000 write-in votes were cast. The math is obvious. The loss of this seat was an own goal by the GOP establishment. Will anyone in Washington learn from this story? Probably not. Doesn’t fit the narrative.
I admire bannon more than even trump and I am not afraid to say it.
Everyday I listen to establishment mouthpieces like Ben Sharpio telling me how horrible as a person Bannon is, but not a single example has ever been given to demonstrate how awful he is.
The message I get from bannon is that a large number of people’s livelihoods mainly grassroot conservatives’ were destroyed in the process of conservative elites enriching themselves through free trade, globalism and nation building in the expense of this country’s resources. You have made your money, and you have destroyed the many industries that many of your voters were living off of for that goal, what are you going to do to repay those people who put you in that position to make that money? The reason why the establishment hates bannon is because they have been enjoying the unquestioned support for so long, they don’t like that bannon is teaching the lower class conservatives to ask for more substantial benefits back from the republican elite in exchange for their support, establishment doesn’t want to help those who were left behind, the establishment want the grassroot conservatives to continue to vote for them for intangible can’T put food on the table useless ideals so they don’t have to lessen their profit margin from moving jobs back here or lower immigration to driven wages back up. They want to shut bannon up from waking up their sheep, that they are not getting a fair share for their support, they need to ask for more concrete benefits or elect other people who will.
All bannon is saying is conservatives need to shop around to see if there other people who are willing to give them more than the GOPe willing to offer for their votes.
At least the democrats give tangible benefits to their voters like entitlements or more public sector job with great benefits, what do blue collar conservatives get from GOPe? More competitions and lower wages? the pipe dream of tickledown economical benefits from lower tax?
Everything can be summed up in a sentence
Bannon offers grassroot conservatives an alternative, GOPe doesn’t like competition, they want the monopoly they have been enjoying for so long to continue, so they vilify him.
When Jesus cleaned the temple, chasing away the merchants, he was probably vilified too.
https://www.steynonline.com/8325/o-tempora-o-moores
“In the first round of primary voting, Mitch McConnell’s priority was to prop up Strange by taking out what he regarded as his principal threat, Mo Brooks. Congressman Brooks would have made an excellent senator, and would have been elected in a walk, and he can also claim more plausibly than Moore to be a populist conservative aligned with the Trump agenda. But McConnell didn’t want him in the Senate and, as he saw it, once Brooks was gone, Luther Strange would have no trouble walloping Moore in the run-off.
Unfortunately, Strange owed his eminence in Alabama to the patronage of a corrupt and discredited governor. As I wrote three months ago, given the disposition of GOP primary electorates in the Age of Trump, they were unlikely to turn to “a creature from the Alabama swamp …to drain the Washington swamp”. So, thanks to McConnell and the ten million bucks he blew through, Moore won the run-off and became the candidate. And thus, of all preposterous outcomes, Alabama is now a blue state.
But don’t worry, say the usual geniuses: Doug Jones is just this season’s Scott Brown. As Massachusetts did with Elizabeth Warren, Alabama will return to the natural order of things in 2020. Well, maybe. But, as we’ve just seen, the one thing you can take to the bank is the Stupid Party’s unerring knack to out-stupid themselves. In the meantime, a Congressional majority already vulnerable to the monstrous egos of John McCain, Susan Collins et al just got shaved to a micro-sliver: Mike Pence is going to be spending a lot of time at the Senate casting the deciding vote – assuming, that is, McConnell has any legislation he can actually get to the floor.
A final thought on Moore: Yes, he’s a kook, and an insufficiently nimble one to dodge the incoming schoolgirls. But as I wrote three months ago:
Whatever one feels about Roy Moore, he’s principled enough to be willing to lose his job over the Ten Commandments and same-sex marriage. That’s unusual in American politics.
I’ll say. Listening to Doug Jones’ victory speech, I found my heart sinking under the weight of all the usual tinny boilerplate, …
By contrast, Moore may be a kook, but he’s authentic. Listening to the outrage he’s able to provoke merely by sounding like Jesse Helms’ simpleton brother, I found myself pondering how far the GOP has gone in a generation – to the point where Moore is getting berated by Republicans for being insufficiently keen on gay sex. That’s all very well, but it does rather give the impression that the GOP is merely the Democrats a couple of electoral cycles down the road, and that circa 2025 some Dixie troglodyte will be getting slapped around by the right-wing punditry for objecting to transgendered chiefs of staff or whatever.
Putting aside the merits of those particular issues, it does not so subtly imply that on that justice-bending arc the Democrats are right at the time and the Republicans are there simply to play catch-up …on everything.”
* * *
It’s all in your viewpoint – and Steyn’s is clearly different from that of David French, as we saw a couple of days ago.
Moore defied court orders and lost his job (until returned to it by the people); Democrats defy court orders (and executive orders and legislation and voter initiatives) knowing they will suffer no negative consequences at all.
But Moore is bad for doing it and they are #speakingtruthtopower or #theresistance.
Cousin Dave Says:
December 13th, 2017 at 11:27 pm
Brooks would have easily defeated Doug Jones. So would a lot of other Republicans in Alabama. But McConnell and the Washington establishment made sure that Alabama voters didn’t have that choice. Jones’ margin of victory was 21,000 votes. 22,000 write-in votes were cast. The math is obvious. The loss of this seat was an own goal by the GOP establishment. Will anyone in Washington learn from this story? Probably not. Doesn’t fit the narrative.
* * *
I’m not even sure what the narrative is supposed to be anymore. Everyone in DC seems to be all over the place on principle and policy, sometimes contradicting themselves and always contradicting large pluralities if not majorities of popular priorities, when the populace isn’t contradicting itself.
And they didn’t learn the first couple of times they got burnt doing this, so they probably won’t now.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2017/12/13/stunner-heres-the-top-reason-why-roy-moore-lost-the-alabama-senate-race-n2421771
This analysis follows along the lines of “Moore was a loser and everyone always knew it” despite the fact that he won the primary going away.
The author presumes that everyone, including Steve Bannon, should have JUST KNOWN that Moore was a pedophile abuser — despite the fact that no one had ever made that charge before, in over 40 years of a contentious political career, and that the accusers only came out a few weeks before the election — time enough to condemn, but not to investigate much less adjudicate the claims.
Yeah, Bannon and everyone else should have known that was going to happen.
Well, based on past Democratic MO, we should have known something was going to happen.
But all those people making lists about Moore’s negatives NEVER put those allegations on their check-sheets.
Not even Mitch McConnell.
why Wisdom only arrives when things have reached to the Irreparable state, why people only realize what is important when everything is too late? I hope the conservatives in AL who chose to stay home enjoy watching the liberals celebrate. Whatever reasons these conservatives chose to stay home, principles, hatred for Bannon, whatever, doesn’t worth the price they had to pay to uphold – watching these scheming despicable scumbags celebrating. perhaps dodging the bullet of having Hillary as the president made them forgot how close it was that the absolute nightmare that could have been realized on nov 9th 2016. That is what wise people have been telling them, who cares about Moore’s policies, he is not going to go to DC to make any, he will just be the rubber stamp of the president, why let the noise influence your decision. If Moore is truly a pervert, secure the seat, prevent the liberals from winning with their schemes, then kick Moore out. hope the images of Gloria Allred, Charles Barkley or Michael Moore, Jake Tapper doing the victory dance on TV stay in their mind will remind them next year, no principles worth letting these scumbags win.
Deplorables are like Rocky in Rocky III, we have lost the fire, Victory has dulled our blades, we have become complacent, we lost the sense of Urgency. Mr T didn’t beat Rocky, Democrats did not beat us in Al, We lost this battle, its time for some soul searching, its needed to get our eye of the tiger back.
Republicans now are like the avengers in the beginning of the first movie –
The Shield – GOPe
Trump – Tony Starks
Constitutionalists/honorable evangelicals – Captain America
Bannon/Populists/alt right/nationalists – Banner/Hulk
libertarians – Thor
Sarah Palin – Black Widow
John Mccain – Hawkeye
We will never defeat Loki and thanos’ army and all the other baddies until everyone realizes one thing, everyone plays an integral part and has very specific role and function in the team’s success and victory can only come when we play as a team.
@ Dave: It seems Shapiro can’t put his Harvard degree to use when it comes to Bannon and the like. I suspect he does’t like Bannon because Bannon is linked to Breitbart which allowed a flood of anti-Semitic posters to dominate the comment box during the 2016 election (hey, fair enough); also the fact that Shapiro left Breitbart after the Lewandowski case which he stupidly believed.
Cousin Dave Says:
Brooks would have easily defeated Doug Jones. So would a lot of other Republicans in Alabama. But McConnell and the Washington establishment made sure that Alabama voters didn’t have that choice. Jones’ margin of victory was 21,000 votes. 22,000 write-in votes were cast. The math is obvious. The loss of this seat was an own goal by the GOP establishment. Will anyone in Washington learn from this story? Probably not. Doesn’t fit the narrative.
I assume that as soon as Strange lost, this scorched earth tactic was exactly what McConnell planned. If he couldn’t have the seat, nobody would.
He certainly wasn’t going to prefer a conservative (who like Cruz, would make the GOPe look bad) to a Democrat.
Losing is PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE to McConnell. In fact, I sometimes think he prefers the safety of the minority. Nothing good will happen in the party until we get rid of that man.
@Dave:
“We” haven’t lost anything. You are mistakenly lumping all Republicans together. In reality, there are at least two distinct factions: the elites and the base.
The two factions want opposite things. OPPOSITE.
The elites have just demonstrated that all the talk about “vote for the conservative in the primary, vote for the Republican in the general” was horseshit.
They have no intentions of reciprocating on that pact. They will NOT vote for conservatives if their candidates lose in the primary.
Quit lumping the two groups together, and start seeing them for what they are.
I hope the Reps learn to use the Jones victory to break the stranglehold of the Clinton/Pelosi/Schumer gang on Dems in other areas. Strange started this by reminding Alabama voters that Jones has to represent them. In WV, Manchin is also not in lockstep with the party elite. Keep up the pressure by evaluating all representatives on how well they are really representing their voters. Right now, feminist and gay rights issues are the priority for the Dem establishment. The Reps hav to learn to undercut this by focusing on everyday things that really matter to the people. Reps need to show that a bottom-up strategy for change works.
I did not lump the two groups together. The base have been voting for the elites despite how much they hate the likes of McCain and Romney because they have no other choice, bannon comes out and tell the base you don’t have to vote for the elites, I am giving you genuine conservatives who will fight for your rights for you to vote for, follow me. The elites hate that bannon is taking away their customers, so they vilify him, brand him as a heretic to stop the fled. I am saying exactly what you are saying.
Frog says:
Most of the anti-Bannons are ignorant of his actual thoughts and positions.
Bannon is a white identity nationalist. He let Breitbart become their homepage when he was promoting the alt-right farce. He believes that in order to save western civilization we must emulate Putin. I’ve read his European speeches and listened to his interviews, including his most recent one with Savage the other day. I know very well what he’s all about, and good riddance.
From an interview with the BBC, quoting Bannon: “Ethno-nationalism – it’s losers,” he said. “It’s a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.”
“These guys are a collection of clowns,” he added.
Mr Bannon has distanced himself from “ethno-nationalism” before, telling the New York Times his interest in nationalism stems from wanting to curb the negative effects of globalisation.
I don’t think it’s correct to label him a “white nationalist”. There is a struggle/debate ongoing in the alt-right as to what defines the movement, and the white supremacist element, while vulgar and vocal make up a small minority, IMO.
Is Bannon to blame for this? No. He didn’t endorse Moore until Aug. 28, two weeks after Moore and Strange had advanced in the primaries.
And as to who is responsible for the defeat of Brooks, it seems that is fairly laid at the hands of Mitch McConnell.
https://hotair.com/archives/2017/12/13/steve-bannon-blame-roy-moore/
expat said: Keep up the pressure by evaluating all representatives on how well they are really representing their voters. Right now, feminist and gay rights issues are the priority for the Dem establishment. The Reps hav to learn to undercut this by focusing on everyday things that really matter to the people.
That made me think of something Senator Rubio said of the tax reform bill:
Not exactly “focusing on everyday things that really matter to the people”.
“If you make $40,000, we can’t find the money to increase the child tax credit, but if you make a million a year we can?”
I assume that’s a quote from Rubio.
Is that a populist sentiment? Stick it to the rich?
The problem I have with this is how much does the bottom tier of tax payers contribute to the total tax base versus the top tier?
Since those folks pay little to no income tax, the only thing left to reduce is the payroll tax– but that’s not a tax, that’s a premium supposedly towards social security.
Since we all seem to acknowledge SS is just welfare by another name, I guess it doesn’t matter if folks don’t pay anything towards it.
But this might be why they’re applying the reduced rate to the top wage earners instead of the bottom:
“The Wall Street Journal’s Richard Rubin writes that “Some high-income business owners could face marginal tax rates exceeding 100% under the Senate’s tax bill, far beyond the listed rates in the Republican plan.”
How is this possible? Tax breaks that fade as income rises combined with the elimination of the deduction for state taxes can create a combined federal and state tax rate that exceeds a business owner’s marginal income.”
https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2017/12/11/105-Percent-Tax-Rate-Lurking-Senate-Bill
“Gary Stubbs” is Gerry Studds.
Glen H:
That’s what I get for relying on my memory.
Thanks, will fix.
The Leftist alliance triumphs over Bannon.
Trum still hasn’t cleaned out the FBI, let alone the rest of the swamp of evil in DC.
The Alt Right can only subsist on the strong horse of endless and repeatable victories. They lack the cohesion of the Leftist alliance and the powers that be.
also the fact that Shapiro left Breitbart after the Lewandowski case which he stupidly believed.
It was more than Shapiro that left to protest Breitbart Bannon’s faction hijacking and taking Trum’s side vs a Breitbart member’s side.
When you sacrifice your soul for political expedience, don’t bother trying to get a refund.
Bannon offers grassroot conservatives an alternative, GOPe doesn’t like competition, they want the monopoly they have been enjoying for so long to continue, so they vilify him.
I remember that the vilification was used by Breitbart against Breitbart’s own staff, Shapiro included, as well as what the Alt Right there called Lying Ted Cruz.
The Alt Right and Bannon doesn’t like competition and they needed a monopoly of political control to unify the Alt Right against the Left, so they used Alinsky, not just vilification tactics.
How easy the boys of the Alt Right forget their own sins and illusions.
Well, based on past Democratic MO, we should have known something was going to happen.
Pretty sure I told people online there would be an October, November, and also December Surprise. Also look at the sky.
And as to who is responsible for the defeat of Brooks, it seems that is fairly laid at the hands of Mitch McConnell.
Based off the same sources that led conservatives to believe the Leftist intel Russian profile was set up and paid for by Low Energy Jeb…