2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumSean Hannity called a columnist an asshole. What happened next explains Donald Trump.
Nice article that illustrates the irony of some Republican condemnations of Donald Trump.
http://www.vox.com/2016/8/15/12443896/sean-hannity-bret-stephens-donald-trump
Whats interesting here isnt just how nasty the fight is. Its what the spat tells us about the core divides within the conservative movement in the age of Trump.
The Hannity-Stephens divide is really a fight over how we got to Trump. Hannity argues that Trumps rise is a logical response to the inability of feckless conservative elites like Stephens to stop Obama. Stephens thinks that Trump is an outgrowth of an anti-intellectual "echo chamber" inhabited by people like Hannity.
This is one of the major cleavages in the conservative movement today. The way the argument shakes out will have a profound impact on the conservative movements future, so its worth paying attention to.
But the truth is that the debate is taking place under false pretenses. Hannity and Stephens see themselves as opposed, but the truth is that theyre both part of the same "echo chamber" Stephens ironically decries. Its this broader conservative worldview, defined by a widespread acceptance of unsupportable ideas, that helped give rise to Trump.
Wounded Bear
(58,584 posts)that led to the whole myth that Bernie supporters would somehow flock to Trump, because I guess Trump is enough "not-like" standard Repubs that they would identify with him.
The truth is that neither side in this spat within the Repub party are worth an ounce of pigshit. There are no "good" Republicans left. They've all been run out of their party by the extremists, of numerous stripes. There used to be Repubs that I could at least give the benefit of the doubt to, because I really thought that they did "love America" more than they loved their ideological bullshit. Now I can't think of any, except maybe people like Sue Collins, who is retiring, probably because she's tired of the shit she has to explain about her party associates.
The "Right" needs to stop listening to the radio talking heads and regain some connection to the real American people, not the extremists and the, for lack of a better term, fucking yokels from Dogpatch.
Beartracks
(12,793 posts)... "Trump obviously wasn't tough/conservative ENOUGH to inspire the Republican vote!" defense, should Trump lose in November.
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DetlefK
(16,423 posts)He won the nomination in a landslide. The new definition of conservatism is "Trump". If Hannity tries to make the case against that, he's saying that the few party-elites define what conservatism is, not the peasants out there. Good luck with that.
Beartracks
(12,793 posts)... after Bush's 8 years. I recall when people pointed out that the unfunded wars, unfunded mandates, and Bush's yuge tax cuts to the rich had exploded the national deficit, well.... by definition conservatives only bring deficits DOWN, right? so Hannity claimed that Bush clearly wasn't a REAL conservative.
And black is white, and up is down... in Hannityville.
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