"In reading the rest of this roundup from Discourse’s other writers, I was struck by how conservative the publication has become—but also how much self-delusion is required for the more old-fashioned, pro-free-market type of conservative to find a bright side in Trump’s return to office."
I have no illusions about Trump - but even you admit that he is a mixed bag "... the good things he may want to do (for example, the deregulation or the budget-cutting)..." despite it being fair and right to have concerns about what he will do in office this time around. But self-delusion is NOT required to be absolutely elated that a majority of voters have rejected the Democratic party even with Trump as the candidate. I remain amazed that even if (though) you wish to concentrate on Trump's flaws and problems, you don't seem at all willing or capable of acknowledging that the Democrat candidates (Hilary / Joe / Kamala) who you consider "ran very traditional Democratic Party campaigns: largely center-left in policy substance, cautiously and quietly “progressive” on culture war issues" represent an active philosophy and movement that is viciously and violently across the board anti-reason, anti-tolerance, anti-individual, pro-collectivist, pro-cultural relativism, wedded to racism and victimhood and quite simply, anti-American (and that goes back to Obama, too). Ideally, there would have been a much better Republican candidate than Trump. And even though I didn't vote for Trump, I am in no way shape or form upset that Kamala did not win - rejecting the D agenda was too important.
As for Musk, regardless of the fact that he has flip-flopped and certainly has dubious motives and methods as demonstrated in the past, I am amazed that you, who are such a believer in the future and innovation and the genius of humans to problem solve would choose dreaming big as your line of preferred attack on him:
"If you’ve followed Musk for long before this, you know that he has a tendency to make broad and highly confident predictions—about full self-driving, about landing people on Mars, about Hyperloop—that never come to fruition." and then poo-poo an amazing accomplishment "It’s partly because his companies do deliver on some things, such as reusable rockets." (Do you think that "yet" cannot be a word that could possibly be added after "fruition"? Or is your dislike of Musk so strong that "yet" can't be tolerated?)
I think you are being too kind about the level of reasonableness among the Dems and the left and too optimistic about the possibility of them forming a thinking man’s party. With the faith in the apocalyptic version of climate change with its ever receding date for the big day, the whole systematic racism/CRT/DEI complex and industry, the attitudes on the war in Gaza ranging from “nuanced” to outright support of Hamas, the insistence that gender is not genetic, and other things, their kookiness is a fair match for some of the stuff from the right. While it may be tempting to judge them less harshly because of Trump, sometimes the enemy of your enemy is not your friend but just another sort of enemy. Their schemes and ideology are as wrong now as they were before 2015. Trump disturbs people so much that it can affect their judgment. There is an imprecise line between fervent, reasonable opposition and hostility to Trump and going nuts with it. Some of your old colleagues at the Bulwark, for example, are well across it. (He won’t really try to get a third term.) A person needs to be careful to keep his head even when sorely provoked.
I too hope to see a normal, liberal or at least more liberal and liberty friendly major party someday. Heck, these days I’d be glad to see such a minor party.
Authoritarian Contrarian here…I mean Anticipatory…with all due respect to your being such a thinking man that I am a ready and willing subscriber for your thoughts on the passing scene (I, to, should love for Idiocracy Part Duh to bomb at the Oval Box Office, as bad as The Audacity of Hope Oprah Office did)…but so long as the college workers people’s party keeps nominating they/them/nose piercers for the most powerful offices and Supreme courts based on what colour the applicants are and what the seeker has between one’s legs…”’What is a woman’…’I do not know, I am not a biologist’”…You should fear the “liberal” party as much as you like to smear the “conservative”, “Republican” brand…I effing hate the G.O.P. Crasher and what’s become of my MAGA Hat country bumpkin friends cult of trumps personality…but, The Don will always be a Reformed Party reject and always and everywhere a con man, anti ethical Heat Miser spewing offense to everything “conservative” I, or you, hold dear…But I would still much rather be stuck on a desert island, or caught in a foxhole with any ice road trucker Trumper than any of your average John’s Hopkins professor (Did he actually pay some dweeb real money to splash paint that crap you can see over his shoulder…at least I only shelled out ten bucks for my Stone Roses “What the World is Waiting For” wall poster for my dorm room…when I was an all knowing…teenager…If I was invited into the good doctors house I would respectfully say “That’s a gift from one of your artistes…college… friends…right!), rather than have to figure out how to feed another college boy or girl complete lacking all life survival skills not taught at college. It is hard not to disagree with you about wanting a Great Re-Alignment when a super majority of those Clinton/Biden/Harris ill educated would take offense at your writing “Thinking Man’s Majority”…”The Whore, The Whore”, don’t you no Kamala can be a commander in chief too…I kid, I KID! Anyway, I would of loved to hear from Dr. Amesh say masks belong in the great ash heap of history along with feel good about your virtual signaling selfies yellow Lance Armstrong bands…which did no more to mitigating the transmission of the virus than covering one’s arse when farting…This here uneducated public health expert could have told you that the fear and loathing over and lockdown was a big government, college elites overreaction by simple empiricism…after the superspreader event, million moron March in downtown Zoo York (in response to a faces of death video gone wild taken on the mean streets of…Minneapolis) at the height of the Chi na scare, Dr Fauci was arguing with a straight face one’s right to protest, while arguing one should dishonor the Sabbath because if one goes to Church this Sunday the whole congregation could die a living hell…I kid, I KID. But Dr Amesh, like college educated idiots Gavin Newsome should have seen with their own eyes that those massive expanses of Tent Cities did not look like an episode out of The Stand, but were very much live episodes of The Walking Dead, anti six, by six, by six feet distancing, anti disinfected smell holes that had no more percentage loss of life then any closed China Town…and I did not hear the good doctor harp about how every school of public health should have been screaming out loud say goodbye to grandma and grandpa as soon as you can…because the virus clearly had no mercy on the already sick and the old (if only R.F.K.j had said that and not yet another progressives rant about the j….s, he would have actually sounded prescient). For f sake Robert, if the college educated big government types had done nothing in response to the Chinese Communist Corona Party virus the world would have been a more prosperous place…with all do respect to the .01 per cent of people’s that died a premature death because some jackwad working at a Wuhan Biological Weapons factory did not clean up after himself…oh, and Chairman Mao, I mean Xi, is still not the worlds most wanted man, because you and I are still ruled by cowards and fools, and hucksters like the Trump that the college educated are no kinda vaccine I am willing to inject. Gotta run on. You keep writing and I will keep reading. Thanks for taking my rant R.T. Peace through superior mental firepower
I don't think it's just them. In retrospect, people were the same way about Obama. And there's a case that all people cared about with Biden/Harris was the memes--it's just that the memes were negative.
Iowa changed its motto or whatever to "Freedom to Flourish" and that slogan really should belong to the Dems.
When I lived in Iowa, the big controversy was whether or not to put a slogan on license plates: "A State of Minds". No, really.
I liked "a place to grow"
"In reading the rest of this roundup from Discourse’s other writers, I was struck by how conservative the publication has become—but also how much self-delusion is required for the more old-fashioned, pro-free-market type of conservative to find a bright side in Trump’s return to office."
I have no illusions about Trump - but even you admit that he is a mixed bag "... the good things he may want to do (for example, the deregulation or the budget-cutting)..." despite it being fair and right to have concerns about what he will do in office this time around. But self-delusion is NOT required to be absolutely elated that a majority of voters have rejected the Democratic party even with Trump as the candidate. I remain amazed that even if (though) you wish to concentrate on Trump's flaws and problems, you don't seem at all willing or capable of acknowledging that the Democrat candidates (Hilary / Joe / Kamala) who you consider "ran very traditional Democratic Party campaigns: largely center-left in policy substance, cautiously and quietly “progressive” on culture war issues" represent an active philosophy and movement that is viciously and violently across the board anti-reason, anti-tolerance, anti-individual, pro-collectivist, pro-cultural relativism, wedded to racism and victimhood and quite simply, anti-American (and that goes back to Obama, too). Ideally, there would have been a much better Republican candidate than Trump. And even though I didn't vote for Trump, I am in no way shape or form upset that Kamala did not win - rejecting the D agenda was too important.
As for Musk, regardless of the fact that he has flip-flopped and certainly has dubious motives and methods as demonstrated in the past, I am amazed that you, who are such a believer in the future and innovation and the genius of humans to problem solve would choose dreaming big as your line of preferred attack on him:
"If you’ve followed Musk for long before this, you know that he has a tendency to make broad and highly confident predictions—about full self-driving, about landing people on Mars, about Hyperloop—that never come to fruition." and then poo-poo an amazing accomplishment "It’s partly because his companies do deliver on some things, such as reusable rockets." (Do you think that "yet" cannot be a word that could possibly be added after "fruition"? Or is your dislike of Musk so strong that "yet" can't be tolerated?)
I think you are being too kind about the level of reasonableness among the Dems and the left and too optimistic about the possibility of them forming a thinking man’s party. With the faith in the apocalyptic version of climate change with its ever receding date for the big day, the whole systematic racism/CRT/DEI complex and industry, the attitudes on the war in Gaza ranging from “nuanced” to outright support of Hamas, the insistence that gender is not genetic, and other things, their kookiness is a fair match for some of the stuff from the right. While it may be tempting to judge them less harshly because of Trump, sometimes the enemy of your enemy is not your friend but just another sort of enemy. Their schemes and ideology are as wrong now as they were before 2015. Trump disturbs people so much that it can affect their judgment. There is an imprecise line between fervent, reasonable opposition and hostility to Trump and going nuts with it. Some of your old colleagues at the Bulwark, for example, are well across it. (He won’t really try to get a third term.) A person needs to be careful to keep his head even when sorely provoked.
I too hope to see a normal, liberal or at least more liberal and liberty friendly major party someday. Heck, these days I’d be glad to see such a minor party.
Hi Robert,
Authoritarian Contrarian here…I mean Anticipatory…with all due respect to your being such a thinking man that I am a ready and willing subscriber for your thoughts on the passing scene (I, to, should love for Idiocracy Part Duh to bomb at the Oval Box Office, as bad as The Audacity of Hope Oprah Office did)…but so long as the college workers people’s party keeps nominating they/them/nose piercers for the most powerful offices and Supreme courts based on what colour the applicants are and what the seeker has between one’s legs…”’What is a woman’…’I do not know, I am not a biologist’”…You should fear the “liberal” party as much as you like to smear the “conservative”, “Republican” brand…I effing hate the G.O.P. Crasher and what’s become of my MAGA Hat country bumpkin friends cult of trumps personality…but, The Don will always be a Reformed Party reject and always and everywhere a con man, anti ethical Heat Miser spewing offense to everything “conservative” I, or you, hold dear…But I would still much rather be stuck on a desert island, or caught in a foxhole with any ice road trucker Trumper than any of your average John’s Hopkins professor (Did he actually pay some dweeb real money to splash paint that crap you can see over his shoulder…at least I only shelled out ten bucks for my Stone Roses “What the World is Waiting For” wall poster for my dorm room…when I was an all knowing…teenager…If I was invited into the good doctors house I would respectfully say “That’s a gift from one of your artistes…college… friends…right!), rather than have to figure out how to feed another college boy or girl complete lacking all life survival skills not taught at college. It is hard not to disagree with you about wanting a Great Re-Alignment when a super majority of those Clinton/Biden/Harris ill educated would take offense at your writing “Thinking Man’s Majority”…”The Whore, The Whore”, don’t you no Kamala can be a commander in chief too…I kid, I KID! Anyway, I would of loved to hear from Dr. Amesh say masks belong in the great ash heap of history along with feel good about your virtual signaling selfies yellow Lance Armstrong bands…which did no more to mitigating the transmission of the virus than covering one’s arse when farting…This here uneducated public health expert could have told you that the fear and loathing over and lockdown was a big government, college elites overreaction by simple empiricism…after the superspreader event, million moron March in downtown Zoo York (in response to a faces of death video gone wild taken on the mean streets of…Minneapolis) at the height of the Chi na scare, Dr Fauci was arguing with a straight face one’s right to protest, while arguing one should dishonor the Sabbath because if one goes to Church this Sunday the whole congregation could die a living hell…I kid, I KID. But Dr Amesh, like college educated idiots Gavin Newsome should have seen with their own eyes that those massive expanses of Tent Cities did not look like an episode out of The Stand, but were very much live episodes of The Walking Dead, anti six, by six, by six feet distancing, anti disinfected smell holes that had no more percentage loss of life then any closed China Town…and I did not hear the good doctor harp about how every school of public health should have been screaming out loud say goodbye to grandma and grandpa as soon as you can…because the virus clearly had no mercy on the already sick and the old (if only R.F.K.j had said that and not yet another progressives rant about the j….s, he would have actually sounded prescient). For f sake Robert, if the college educated big government types had done nothing in response to the Chinese Communist Corona Party virus the world would have been a more prosperous place…with all do respect to the .01 per cent of people’s that died a premature death because some jackwad working at a Wuhan Biological Weapons factory did not clean up after himself…oh, and Chairman Mao, I mean Xi, is still not the worlds most wanted man, because you and I are still ruled by cowards and fools, and hucksters like the Trump that the college educated are no kinda vaccine I am willing to inject. Gotta run on. You keep writing and I will keep reading. Thanks for taking my rant R.T. Peace through superior mental firepower
You mention this but I think a way to put it is that the MAGA crowd won't care about results, just the memes along the way.
I don't think it's just them. In retrospect, people were the same way about Obama. And there's a case that all people cared about with Biden/Harris was the memes--it's just that the memes were negative.