He quit the GOP in 2016 due to Trump . He says Congress is giving Trump too much power.
Good for him, he probably should have left the party earlier, but at least Trump was too much for him.
Lordy, I knew that he was a never Trumper, but I didn’t think it would extend to congress.
I don’t think he has a big enough fan base to make that much of a difference, but I hope that his change of heart might be representative of a significant portion of conservatives across the country.
I tend to think of Will as a conservative gasbag with rose-colored nostalgia glasses, but there’s no denying that he’s a good writer. And he lets loose with both barrels on this one. Here’s hoping some other conservatives listen.
I don’t have a lot of use for George Will beyond his fantastic description of football (it combines the two worst aspects of American culture: violence and commitee meetings [paraphrased]). But I’m glad he’s using his platform to advocate for the defeat of the Republican party. Hopefully both of his readers will take the message to heart.
He’s done some excellent writing about baseball (Men At Work). I can only hope that any other semi-rational conservatives will also consider putting country over party.
I tweeted a thread about this, inspired by something written by Eonwe in the clusterfuck thread:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnT15/status/1010391266436280320?s=19
Eonwe: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21040619&postcount=22041
There are lots of conservatives in this position. A partial list of anti-Trump Republicans: George W. Bush, Jonah Goldberg, Bill Bennett, Condoleeza Rice, Ben Sasse, Paul Ryan, James Glassman, Bill Kristol, Linda Chavez, Mona Charon, Jay Nordlinger, Max Boot, Mike Murphy, Glenn Beck, David Brooks, Ross Douthat, David Frum, Eric Erickson, the late Charles Krauthammer, Daniel Pipes, John Podhoretz, Richard Epstein, Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin Stephen Hayes, Kevin Williamson, Charles CW Cooke…
There are many others. Will isn’t an outlier - he’s representative of roughly half of the Republican party’s movers and shakers.
The big gain in Trump support didn’t come from Republicans - it came from blue-collar Democrats who felt disaffected by the Demoxrat party’s turn away from working class issues and towards identity politics and hard leftism. It’s a new coalition - not an expansion of the old one.
I sure would like to see a cite describing Trump’s Democratic support.
There does seem to be a lot of ex-union rustbelt Dems that ended up supporting Trump.
Very, very few Republicans in office have turned against Trump; the vast majority are enthusiastically supporting him. And polling shows that he retains very high approval ratings among Republican voters.
Negro, please. Coates* has already demolished this argument. Indeed, white folk deliberately decided to “hand over the security of its 300 million citizens; the purity of its water, the viability of its air, the safety of its food; the future of its vast system of education; the soundness of its national highways, airways, and railways; the apocalyptic potential of its nuclear arsenal — to a carnival barker who introduced the phrase grab ’em by the pussy into the national lexicon. It is as if the white tribe united in demonstration to say, ‘If a black man can be president, then any white man — no matter how fallen — can be president.’”
And identity politics?Are you serious? It this for real? There has been 45 White Presidents in the United States and, of these, 44 of these Presidents have been white and male; 1 was black. Every fucking Vice President from 1776 - 2018 has been a WHITE MALE. Can I repeat that? ** Every Single Vice President since 1776 has been white and male**, and you’re accusing Democrats of engaging in identity politics? Negro, please. If you’re ever bored, feel free to calculate the probability of 43 White male presidents being elected - consecutively. In your calculation, make sure to male and female categories of Hispanics, Whites, Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, and Other.
White folks are the Grand Wizards of identity politics. White folks deliberately elected a man who affirmed his daughter was a “piece of ass”. Can we stop and think about this. Do you have a daughter, niece, sister, or grand daughter? Can you imagine affirming that she was a “piece of ass” on a radio show? Can you imagine voting for someone who views his daughter as a piece of meat? It’s almost as unconscionable as white folks overwhelmingly voting for a pedophile in the Alabama election. In regards to women, white folk have made their position fruitfully clear: Blessed Be the Fruit.
What white folk will never, ever understand is that you (and only you) are responsible for your own actions. To blame Democrats, Clinton, Sailor Moon, Soros, Pelosi, Goku, or identity politics on why white folks decided to vote for Donald Trump is an abandonment of responsibility. It’s like one of those cowardly abusers beating their wife to an inch of her life and tell her afterwards: “Your constant yammering about social justice made me beat you. It’s your fault” or “Identity politics made me beat you. Better not do it again”.
*In the Age of Trump, I know whiteness is important in determining whether information is factual or not. For example, we know from Trump, that Hispanic judges are incapable of adjudicating cases that pertain to immigration. White people heard this comment; then affirmed their support of the comment by overwhelmingly voting for Donald Trump. In this, I’m disappointed that I cannot find a white version of Coates but I nonetheless encourage you to give Coates a chance.
At RedState they’re headlining this with “does anyone care?” That’s a good question. I have to think that the answer is no one. Why should they? That’s he’s right for once in 30 or 50 or however many years he’s been around won’t matter to the right and means nothing to the left.
The party professes to hate elites and intellectuals. Trump supporters hate people like Will and his influence with them is about three sheets of paper taller than Pelosi’s.
Find me some actual living politicians in the Republican Party who are willing to turn away from Trump and I’ll be impressed. If Sam Stone’s list was worth the photons it’s written in, Trump would not have beaten 16 Republicans in the primaries. Who cares about them now when it’s far too late and too little?
Welcome to the Dope. We had a long discussion on the Coates article you refer to a little while ago here: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=835661
A friendly recommendation, feel free to take it or leave it – I think your arguments might gain more traction and positive response if you left out the extremely broad brush attacks, which IMO are entirely unnecessary to make your points. Just my opinion, anyway.
Huey:
+1
Hell, it took about 150 years for us to have a Catholic President.
The vote for Trump was a racist reaction to Obama coupled with the devastating, cumulative effects of a 25+ year smear campaign dedicated to lying about Hillary Clinton.
All Trump voters own his sociopathy regardless of their reasons for voting for him.
White. Don’t forget White. You may not be aware but know that there are blacks who have experienced more discrimination, more roadblocks, less access to healthcare, higher unemployment, and lower pay than these ex-union rustbelt white folks, but blacks didn’t vote for the candidate who bragged about sexual assault and affirmed his daughter was a ‘piece of ass’.
To give white folk an analogy. Imagine it’s the presidential campaign of 2032 and it’s Louis Farrakhan vs. Mitt Romney; all of the minorities voted for and elected Louis Farrakhan as US President. Throughout the campaign, Farrakhan puts out rhetoric that dehumanizes white people, painting them as criminal, gun-crazed freeloaders, and disease-ridden colonizers. He constantly slips up and makes anti-Semitic jokes but puts out half-hearted apologies; these weal apologies are lapped up by the media as sincere and genuine. Farrakhan advocates mandatory minimums for drinking and driving (Farrakhan picks D&D to specifically target whites) and demands the USAF replace the regular salute with the Wakanda Forever salute. When Farrakhan’s unpresidential flaws are brought up, minorities make excuses for Farrakhan “He’s a counterpuncher” or “His leadership style is different” or “He was voted to shake up Washington”. If Farrakhan puts little white babies in cages, minorities are either indifferent or they blame the white parents: “We must follow our laws and protect our border”. When white folk question minorities (who are also poor and will also be hurt by Farrakhan’s polices) on why they voted for Farrakhan, minorities say some weird shit like "The Republican party was too much into helping white folks, I prefer if you guys stopped that " or “Yeah, I’m a farmer, I desperately want to sell my pork to foreign markets, I realize Trump will pull us out of TPP, I realize that I am fifth generation farmer with loads of debt and razor-thin profit margins, I know I am going to lose money and be less better off, but I am voting for Trump anyway because I didn’t like Mitt Romney’s comments about the 47%”.
Just FYI, I’m “white folk”, and I didn’t vote for Trump. Likewise for a large number of other white folks. I’m not sure why I should be blaming myself for Trump’s victory.
And while the Democratic Party never turned away from the needs of the working class, there was a perception among many working-class folk that they had, with the result that they voted for Trump. That perception was wrong, but in politics, perceptions have a reality of their own, whether they’re right or wrong.
I like you. Its like Propane Jane joined the SDMB. +1
The idea that economically insecure whites turned to Trump out of desperation for economic relief has been debunked over and over again — see here for example https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/12/a-massive-new-study-debunks-a-widespread-theory-for-donald-trumps-success/?utm_term=.f8fa758dfadc
Economically secure whites supported Trump. It wasn’t economic insecurity that brought any of them to the Trump coalition. It was racial identity politics. And he wanted n a majority of them.
Huey, a few quibbles, but you have some very astute insights. I agree with you more than I disagree.
Welcome to the boards. Looking forward to hearing more from you.