So he is sitting this one out? We were taught in civics class that it in one’s duty to vote.
Is he voting for a third party candidate? Didn’t he sign a pledge to support the GOP nominee, even after Trump entered the race? Oh, he didn’t really think Trump would win? He should have placed an asterisk in his pledge.
He has to know that no third party candidate has a chance and by doing this it helps Hillary. Does he want her to pick possibly 4 Supreme Court Justices? And he is a conservative?
As a Republican, I am glad to see these elitists being put in their place. Trump was not my first choice, but the Bush family and those other Republicans (not the Dems, you all never pledged to support the party) that are scampering away are being exposed for the power brokers they are.
He’s voting, he just isn’t voting for President, so far as I can tell.
At this point, since there is no third party candidate, it’s academic.
He has deep philosophical differences with Trump. Should he then betray his own principles just to vote R? (Again, assuming no third-party candidate vote.)
Extend that to everyone else. Not sure why you dislike past Pubs so much. 41 was a pretty good President, not to mention a multiply-decorated veteran; 43, not so much. I’d also like to know what makes you think they’re elitist. I was around for HW’s Presidency, and I never saw any evidence of elitism that I can recall. Dubyah is a lot easier argument to make with all his rich-kid BS.
Perhaps he, unlike McConnell, cares more about the country than about the Republican party. Perhaps through his intelligence and excellent grasp of the issues he knows that Trump is a dangerous lunatic and would hurt the country badly. And maybe the name calling had an impact.
Note that the former President Bushes won’t support Trump either, the only time I can remember (since Teddy Roosevelt) of an ex-President not supporting his party’s nominee.
Do you think that Trump wanting to pull his bankruptcy tricks on the federal debt is a good idea?
You think he befriended the Bushes to get three votes?
Anyhoo, that pledge thing was pretty stupid, but Jeb (and Lindsey Graham) did sign it, so I agree their actively encouraging people to not vote for the party’s nominee is pretty scuzzy.
I can’t speak for the OP, but from a liberal perspective, how did you think we got here? TRUMP and the Tea Party didn’t happen in a vacuum-they happened in the context of decades of Republican promotion of racial resentment even while playing those forces to promote Friedmanite economics and foreign war.Even the idea of a “moderate Republican” is largely a myth.
Erhm no. Bush 41 demagouged on Culture War issues to ride to victory in 1988, appointed the same warmongers (Cheney, Rumsfeld etc.) that took us to Iraq again in 2003, and fucked up the end of the Cold War by refusing to render any direct aid to the former Soviet bloc even while encouraging a drastic transition to capitalism that caused among other things massive economic collapse, declining life expectancy, millions of premature deaths, and a violent crime wave which so discredited Western democracy in Russian eyes that now we are stuck with Vladimir Putin.
Considering they are New England Yalie WASPs LARPing as Texan oil barons, I don’t see how much more elitist you can get then that. More importantly, their politics serves elite interests.
I’m laughing. I’m dying.
>Cares more about the country
>intelligence and excellent grasp of the issues
Are we even talking about the same Bushes here? The same George Dubya Bush that blew a massive hole in the deficit with his two rounds of tax cut under wartime conditions? That took us to war in Iraq under the pretext of WMDs, resulting in hundreds of thousands dead and hundreds of billions spent in treasure? The same administration whose Speaker of the House killed legislation passed unanimously in the Senate to give protections granted to American workers to what were essentially slave labourers toiling in the clothing factories of the Northern Marinara Islands where many were forced into sex slavery or given forced abortions? The same Bush who tried to privatize Social Security? The same Jeb! who even after 13 years couldn’t even say the Iraq War was a mistake and whose socioeconomic policies are the same warmed-over neoliberalism of the past generation?
Incidentally this is why, even though I actually admire TRUMP much less then most people here think, genuinely respected him for this this moment in the Republican debates when TRUMP openly called out Jeb! for his brother’s war and letting 9/11 happen on his watch. It was genuinely one of the greatest moments not just of this election but American political history.
I bet there are a lot of Republicans who will say publicly they won’t vote for Trump or HRC between now and November who in reality will vote for HRC when they are alone in that voting booth.
OTOH, I highly doubt this was on Bill’s mind when he got friendly with Poppy Bush.
JEB! is just setting the stage for the Pubbies last-ditch campaign. It’s OK to not vote for Trump, but still be sure to get out and vote for the down-ballot republicans. They know that if the anti-Trump R’s don’t bother to vote at all, the party is in deep shit across the board.
I think any such pledge has to have some implied limits, based on what happens between giving the pledge and voting day over a year later.
To take some extreme examples, suppose Trump gets nominated formally, and a month before voting day, incontrovertible evidence comes out that he’s been diddling his taxes for years and the IRS charges him. Is it still incumbent on all of the ex-candidates to vote for a known tax evader?
What if someone comes forward with a credible charge that he raped her? Or that he’s been in the pay of a foreign government for decades?
Do Jeb! and Co still just have to shrug their shoulders and say “a pledge is a pledge, no matter how wrong?”
How would you know? You weren’t even born yet. Oh, and btw, his war was a success, primarily because he had an exit plan. Dunno why those same people who had a success with Desert Storm weren’t prepared the second time. As for aid to the new Russia, they had it within a year and a half of his inauguration. Hello?
Please don’t bother to lecture me about things you never saw and I did. It really doesn’t give you any credibility.
Believe it or not, rich does not necessarily equal elitist. If that’s your only argument, you got nothing. How about some evidence?
Oh yea, I forgot about this. Trump actually said he wouldn’t abide by the pledge earlier in the cycle. I’d say that pretty much gives everyone else a pass to ignore it.
How do you know Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation? How do you know Stalin sent people to the gulags?
I never disputed that the First Gulf War wasn’t a military success. I simply pointed out that Bush II wasn’t some sort of a Commodus to the mythical Moderate Hero Bush I.
Did you have insider access to the White House? By your reasoning, TRUMP has more credibility then you since he has much more first hand experience hob-nobbing with politicians.
You are right, TRUMP isn’t elitist for example. Which is why I listed a whole bunch of policies the Bushes pursued that were in the elite interest.
How do I know 41’s administration won Desert Storm? I was there. I saw the military briefings daily. Were you?
Not what you said in the slightest. Matter of fact, you never mentioned him except to lump the two of them together. And Commodus might not be a bad analogy were it not for the fact that Cheney pulled the puppet strings. Dubyah wasn’t/isn’t smart enough to be a dictator.
See above. You have no credibility whatsoever on this. You’re just parroting something you read in a book. But you’d be sadly mistaken if you think I’m less knowledgeable than the Donald, or that you can get away with implying it.
Elitist = thinking you’re better than everybody else. Being a member of the elite is something completely different.
