George Will: No Republican who supports Trump should be re-elected

[brooklynite]

Raw Story

Conservative commentator George Will left the Republican Party when President Donald Trump took over, and in his Thursday column, he attacked the president for “frivolousness and stupidity.”

Writing in the Washington Post, Will recalled the times Trump complimented his own intelligence, saying “I’m a very stable genius” and that he has “a very good brain.” In reality, Trump is “spiraling downward in a tightening gyre,” said Will.

Such “unhinged public performances” are “as alarming as they are embarrassing,” he explained. Meanwhile, he’s crafting international policy “so flippantly that it has stirred faint flickers of thinking among Congress’s vegetative Republicans.”

The reference was to the decision this week to allow Turkey to kill Kurdish allies, who have been fighting off ISIS in Syria on behalf of the U.S. government. Trump was reportedly on the phone with Turkish President Erdoğan, who was furious. Trump wanted to get off the phone and essentially agreed to betray the U.S. allies.

[BumRushDaShow]

1. George Will's decades of nonsense

helped bring us to this crises with people in his party.

[tblue37]

2. +1. But we need conservative voices against Trump, too. nt

[Blue_true]

8. Yes we do. But as I wrote, have they thought about their role in bringing Trump about.

I admire that they have the gloves off and are going bare-knuckles against Trump. But they helped make that man possible, when we are rid of him and back on firm ground, I wonder whether they will regress back to where they were with W.

[tblue37]

17. They just dislike his vulgarity & that he says the quiet part out loud. For the most part they are

OK with the other stuff he does. Even the corruption would not bother them, except he is so blatant about it that it exposes and makes vulnerable the entire Republican Party.

They don't feel responsible for or guilty about anything.

[Blue_true]

6. Exactly.

Will, Jennifer Rubin, Rick Wilson, Anna Navarro, many others that are now aghast at what their former party has become. They helped welcome in the rightwing evangelicals and played footsie with racists to win elections and apply their "solutions" to the country wit large. I am glad that they are out front throwing punches now, but I wonder whether they have taken some time to think deeply about how they helped bring the current state of affairs about.

[BumRushDaShow]

16. The laundry list also includes the now-deceased Krauthammer

and of all people, Bill Kristol (who continues to boggle my mind).

These were the veteran Raygun Republicans who spent 30 years condenscendingly tormenting "liberals", only rarely conceding some points. And the result was to produce a new generation of Koch-purchased, Russian-compromised Republicans who despite having a myriad of college and/or law degrees, manage to act like a bunch of uncouth childish bullies, who won't think for themselves, and who insist on embracing conspiracy theories and spouting idiotic talking points that have no connection to any traditional conservative policy positions.

[dalton99a]

19. +1

[Blue_true]

20. Totally. Add the deceased William Safire and William F Buckley to your extended list.

When I was in college, I remember Safire's attacks on the Carter Presidency and his open embrace of the vilest aspects of Reaganism. Safire often wrote columns that were thinly veiled cries of White anger at the ascending POC and immigrants that seemed to scare him so much.

Buckley gave all that nonsense intellectual heft (for the life of me, I don't understand why he was considered such a thinker, his writings were typically trite, with some big words thrown in).

[BumRushDaShow]

21. Oh yeah.

We had a subscription to the NYT since back in the mid-70s and I certainly remember Safire's columns (including the "On Language" series) and of course Buckley was the father of what became "modern conservatism"... although he was owned by James Baldwin during their famous debate and I expect he is rolling in his grave at the anti-intellectualism embraced by the current loons.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

11. That pompous dick with a thesaurus still thinks "liberals are wrong about

everything else". I could give a fuck if he now feels he should jump in the bandwagon to stay relevant. No Reagan, no Bush, no Trump. One can only imagine what they'll nominate next. Face ripping monkey?

[dchill]

15. Yep. I suspect they still favor the idea that they...

...could really use a clueless charisma in the White House.

[emmaverybo]

3. Does not get much more high profile conservative than George Will. Remember a column of his in which

he denounced all college teachers for indoctrinating students with liberal ideas. I was a college English teacher at the time, horrified that he could preach against teaching students critical thinking skills and introducing them to ideas.

He has become a highly effective and outspoken critic of the Trump machine and its enablers. This
is not the only time he has urged the public to vote against Republicans.

We keep asking Republicans to denounce Trump. He is doing so.

[Brainstormy]

5. I was a college English teacher at the time, too.

George Will has a lot to make up for.

[emmaverybo]

7. I imagine he still feels the same way. What a sweeping insult! He is not ever going to make up

for that. Will was never a top-rate writer or intellect, so one can see how he might develop an antipathy for academics he felt would judge him as mediocre. Spewed a great deal of infuriating garbage in his time.

Still, I agree with him going forward. Trump enablers should be voted out.

[GoCubsGo]

4. A broken clock is correct twice a day.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. glad there's at least 1 thing on which I can agree with George

Did George ever stop fawning over Rotten Ronnie?

[Susan Calvin]

10. I don't remember ever agreeing with any of Will's political opinions,

But I have a soft spot for him, because baseball.

[rufus dog]

12. George will is flat out a fucking asshole

But he does have the best line of 2019 IMO. "If Republicans didn't have situational ethics, they wouldn't have any ethics at all.

[tclambert]

13. But what about Trump's "great and unmatched wisdom?"

I don't think Lex Luthor ever said anything that egotistical.

[hibbing]

14. He must think he still has sway

Sorry George, it's Rush, Hannity and all the other big brained intellectuals that are the influencers now. Granted you still are on the editorial page of my local fish wrap so the octagenerians who actually still get the paper can have their views validated.

Peace

[Wounded Bear]

18. No Republican should be re-elected

FIFY, George.