by evilgenius » Sat 26 Mar 2022, 09:20:31
Now, Plant, you know that what I am saying is not about the "Trump is a Russian" anything. I'm not really even talking about Trump, but the Russian propaganda influence. Trump just happens to coincide with it.
What really needs to happen is that the people need to stop obsessing over whether they have for themselves a holier than thou candidate. People need to stop imagining that their person is, somehow, the embodiment of purity, or whatever. When you look at Trump's people, that is the sort of delusion they are laboring under. Gary Hart was ten times the man that Trump is, but he fell to thingamy Rice. Gary Hart had a conscience, though. Trump doesn't appear to have one of those. He won't stop himself. And his people won't stop him either. But you still see him touted as if he were the embodiment. The excuses that his side makes up to keep it going don't just border upon the preposterous.
The country needs to get back to a place where sinners can run for president! Because everybody is a sinner. There are no embodiments. Judging Hillary was only a continuation of that, which was easily manipulated by the Russians. The Republicans are busy doing the same thing, but they are a true domestic organization. They need to be met with the truth on a broad front. They deserve engagement because of their place, as fellow Americans. They don't deserve it for their crap arguments, however. Strict ideological adherence as a means to control people is not an American value. We learned that the hard way, under McCarthy. Why are we trying it again? We need to get back to where we understand there are some lines that people shouldn't cross, like the difference between having an affair and being such a womanizer that it endangers one's ability to govern with self-control, as a people. We need to revisit rebuilding those kinds of taboos, which actually make sense because they are pragmatic, not idealistic.
What this has done, of course, is to take the good name of conservatism and bend it in a new direction. It has ceased to become the protector of where we have come from, where the concept of reason held that we had to examine what was proposed and argue to accept new things based upon the merits of those things, to a strict adherence system, where people have to hold to an ideological position, or they are the enemy. That's a huge swing in a single generation. I'm trying to point out how outside, namely Russian, influence has been a part of that. It's not the biggest part, Newt Gingrich was not an "ex-commie, post-commie, neo-commie," whatever, like Tucker Carlson seems to be, but part enough. And it wasn't even Newt who started this, he was just better at it than Karl Rove, who did. Yes, revenge for Nixon, for the loss of power even when that loss came for good reason.
Because what the Republicans are actually building is a system where an outright brigand, like Nixon, can refuse to resign, and still survive. They are trying to say, "It's okay, we have the votes. You might get impeached, but you won't get convicted." They are really pushing it, in the name of power that serves their ideology, not freedom. Because free people who are elected to office don't prostrate themselves before the party line like the current version of Republicans, and some Democrats, do. Free people will convict when they see a crime that actually does rise to the level of a "high crime."
And, honestly, you should title this thread something else. You can plainly see that what you did title it is misleading.
Last edited by
evilgenius on Sat 26 Mar 2022, 10:14:19, edited 1 time in total.