Two sets of people believed in Trump: people who’ve never been told “no,” and people who’ve only been told “no.”
But of course Dole was a supporter, not a believer, at a level of American society where it’s members have political instincts where you and I only have political convictions. I just have to assume that, in keeping with what Will Rogers once observed about Americans, he voted not for, just against. And it was apparent to many that the Democratic Party was the property of the Clinton establishment.
Bob Dole seems to me an old school politician. I don’t agree with many of his views, but after serving in WW2 he spent a long time in politics. The tributes include many kind words from Democrats like Bill Clinton praising his service and Al Franken praising his sense of humour, which seems to have been considerable. He came from an age where parties might disagree but could work together. I regret this loss.
Despite being a party loyalist, Dole said in July that he was “Trumped out” and that Rudy G. “never had one bit of fraud in all those lawsuits he filed and statements he made.”
As a practical matter, and given that many Biden voters have soured on the Democrats, we (I’m a registered Democrat) will have to win over hundreds of thousands of Trump voters to compensate. Calling them names is neither a factual statement or a good look.
Thanks for your input. I didn’t realize I was in charge of outreach to the worthless filth that pushed Trump into power and helped shield him from accountability.
Funeral today. Biden delivering eulogy. They worked together for decades.
Former Presidents Clinton and Obama attending. VP Harris and Pence.
I admired his career after recovering from severe war injuries. His right arm and hand didn’t work. He needed help dressing and was in pain. But still served in the Senate for decades.
I am so pissed off that Norm MacDonald is not alive to eulogize Dole. I really believe Norm could have said something sincere and respectful while still being funny and reminding us Dole was able to make himself the object of ridicule while retaining his gravitas.
Ironic that they passed within two months of each other.
I hope that Democrats don’t start doing the things they would need to do gain the support of Trump followers. Those things are terrible and should not be done. The fact that Republican candidates are willing to appeal to Trump followers and Democratic candidates are not is the reason I switched parties. I want to belong to a party that has moral standards.
I think it is extremely difficult to know what kind of morally acceptable attention-grabbing statements could punch through to low information swing voters. Maybe this IMHO heartfelt and sincere example gives a clue:
I voted against Trump in 2016 and 2020. If he runs in 2024 or 2028 or 2032, I plan on voting against him in those elections as well.
Some people voted for Trump in 2016. Some voted for him in 2020. Some voted for him in 2016 and 2020. They were wrong. They should not have voted for Trump. He was a terrible candidate and a terrible president. He was worse than Hillary Clinton and he was worse than Joe Biden. Let me repeat; everyone who voted for Donald Trump made the wrong choice.
I am not asking for an apology from the people who voted for Trump. But I am one hundred fucking percent goddam certain that I do not owe them an apology. They’re the ones who made a mistake not me.
And if they’re feeling butt hurt by this and think they deserve an apology from the rest of the world for a mistake they made, then as far as I’m concerned they’re dumb enough to be counted as a Trumper.
The dude was 97 last year. Lots of 97 year olds do dumb things. I think the kind thing was to assume that some of his common sense had left him when it came time to endorsing candidates.
It doesn’t have to be very complicated. I assume Bob Dole supported Trump because, like the overwhelming majority of Republicans, he determined that Donald Trump was the candidate most likely to enact Republican priorities. (And many of the high-profile Republicans who didn’t support Trump were only doing it cynically to position themselves as truth-telling party leaders after the inevitable Trump loss.)
Furthermore, Dole had run to the right of any of the other living Republican presidential nominees on illegal immigration (one of his big policies in 1996 was kicking the children of illegal immigrants out of public schools), and his old “Democrat wars” line was straight out of the isolationist right, so I wouldn’t be shocked if he was just more simpatico with Trump than the Bush types were.
That’s my thought as well. When Piper Dad was hitting his eighties, he started saying some odd things, often very simplified versions of complicated thoughts that he used to have. But the simplified versions were a bit … odd.
My great-grandfather was left permanently disabled by his service in the Great War. He and his mates would rightly view defeatism - and cowardice such as pacifism - with utter contempt.
Conchies deserved a lot worse than white feathers in the post.