Opus 2022-299: Election 2022: Don’t Get Distracted

Never Trumpers have a strange blindness.  Many of them are pocket elitests who look down on the common man as unclean, uninformed and needing wise leadership.  You can often tell them by the sneer in their writing.  Others can actually have some sound thinking as long as there is not a grain of Trump in the mix.  When they get a whiff, all thinking cells shut down and go to the emergency circuit that just yells, “Orange Man Bad!!!!”

John Hinderaker of PowerLine is one of the second kind.  I had just adjusted to reading what he wrote again when he came up with a perfect example of Never Trump Mind Block.

The title was provocative enough for me to read it in spite of the by-line.  I quit reading after I got to the section I am going to quote.  Later, on reflection, I realized that this was a great example of how many people look at Trump and throw all their higher level thinking skills under the emotional bus.

Hinderaker starts off in his traditional style.  The only difference is that the praise for Trump is not backhanded.

“I have often said that Trump was a very good president–our best, rather easily, since Ronald Reagan.”

At this point I was starting to hold my breath but I didn’t even start to be aware I wasn’t breathing, let along going into oxygen deprivation.  The next word fit perfectly into his narrative:

“Unfortunately,...”  There should have been a drum roll.  There might have been but I have my speakers turned off.

“Unfortunately, though, that isn’t the end of the story. He has both said and, less often, done, a lot of stupid things. He now carries this legacy of mistakes behind him like a ball and chain. Of course the Democrats’ attacks on Trump are mostly unfair when they are not fabricated. But there is a reason why half of America’s voters won’t even consider voting for Trump in 2024. I think it is safe to say that no successful candidate has ever begun with that sort of handicap.”

As far as “half of America’s voters”, that refers to the group that also thinks Biden is doing a good job and that printing money has nothing to do with inflation.

Then he throws in what is supposed to be the, excuse me, trump card.

“The Democrats are lying in wait, hoping Republicans are dumb enough to nominate Trump.”

We know this.  The issue is not whether the Democrats hate Trump.  The issue is whether the Republican politicians love their country enough to stand up to the Democrat hate machine.

I have often said that elections matter.  Although I am not sure they matter as much as they use to we need to vote on Tuesday’s issues, not 2024 and we need to speak up while we still can.

homo unius libri