We all knew he walked in unannounced on naked teenage beauty pageant contestants, then repeatedly bragged about it later.
We all knew that Trump expressed (while on TV, no less) that he wanted to "date" his daughter Ivanka.
We all saw the photos of Ivanka as a child, sitting on his lap.
We all heard him talk about "grabbing pussies".
And now we all hear the (paraphrased) excuse of, "Well, they weren't five years old, so it's OK."
Most Americans apparently simply thought Trump's behavior was "cool", and something they'd actually wish to emulate (or at least, they had no interest in voting against him.) And since it seemed those who voted for him wanted nothing more than to "prank" America, I'd guess they pretty happy about their decision. After all, MAGA "hates the things they hate more than they love the things they love", so as long as "libs" are being "owned", MAGA generally is unconcerned about all the death around them that Trump has caused, and will continue to cause. Sure, millions of them may lose their own children to easily preventable childhood diseases the way they lost their elderly to Trump's Covid lies, but at least their parents will "own the libs!"
Trump has made it clear that his freeing MAGA of any sense of personal responsibility is the new "salvation", and that he alone can provide that freedom from far more than simply sin.
And MAGA has chosen to believe that Trump holds more "value" to them than Jesus ever did...
(I'd love to be wrong, but I've lived among these folks in the rural deep south for almost 60 years.)
"They’ve decided constitutional limits should yield when they conflict with desired outcomes.
That’s their right."
In what way is it their right? I suppose you might say "decided" means "claim" and say they have the first amendment right to say so. But when you say they've decided, what that means (since it's what's happening) is that they are ACTING in this way. And they have, quite literally and strictly, no right whatsoever to do that, neither morally nor legally.
I don't think you intended to say that. But "decided" here is ambiguous: when you "decide constitutional limits should yield" that MIGHT mean an opinion, but I think the more natural reading is that they decided to go ahead and DO it. Compare: "we decided to eat out less": do you think they are just thinking about it? If you saw them out in restaurants all the time, and you said, "I think you decided to eat out less", and they said "yes, we have that opinion", you'd feel that they were either lying to you or fooling themselves. So in the way you phrased it, I think it doesn't quite mean what you intended it to mean.
It’s just the nature of the Authoritarian to see Good and Bad as inherent properties of most people. You put Good people in power and keep Bad people away from it. Americans are Good people because we are the ones given the Constitution, not that we are good because we adhere to the principles laid out in it.
They have a hierarchical notion of Order that goes God > Country > Party > Family > Self — where you are supposed to be subservient to every level up.
All Nationalistic, Racist, Patriarchal impulses come from this notion of Natural Order.
It's not exactly news, considering that the post-Brown vs. Bd period became awash in corporate money to convert everything Repugnican into the Bad Faith Party, attracting racist Democrats into their tent. Their economics has always been Hokum, so let's say good-bye to all that. "Conservatism", or previously "monarchism" may still reside somewhere, but has lapsed into more of a psychological disposition of resistance to the pace of change of modernism, which is steered, unsurprisingly, by corporate "creative destruction". Globalization, engendered by colonial capitalism, carries the backlash of democratic politics -- our future, should we decide to have one.
The best, most sympathetic conservative statement I've read is found on pp. 50-51 in Patrick O'Brian's The Yellow Admiral, one volume in the Aubrey/Maturin naval series. It displays an attitude (as old-line conservatives have labeled it - not a philosophy or theory, least of all an ideology) of true conservatism as Cory Robbins frames it in his The Reactionaries: a person just living his life as always is a traditionalist; a conservative is reacting to change.
“They’ve decided constitutional limits should yield when they conflict with desired outcomes. That’s their right.”
It’s their right to believe it, not to expect that the Constitution will yield to it or to have the president they support actually implement it.
Of course , They claim to be Christians but are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus .
What will they do when the evidence of Trumps involvement with Epstein becomes overwhelming ?
It already is
Yes, Cindy.
We're seeing it...
We all know of Trump as a pedophile in 2015.
We all knew he walked in unannounced on naked teenage beauty pageant contestants, then repeatedly bragged about it later.
We all knew that Trump expressed (while on TV, no less) that he wanted to "date" his daughter Ivanka.
We all saw the photos of Ivanka as a child, sitting on his lap.
We all heard him talk about "grabbing pussies".
And now we all hear the (paraphrased) excuse of, "Well, they weren't five years old, so it's OK."
Most Americans apparently simply thought Trump's behavior was "cool", and something they'd actually wish to emulate (or at least, they had no interest in voting against him.) And since it seemed those who voted for him wanted nothing more than to "prank" America, I'd guess they pretty happy about their decision. After all, MAGA "hates the things they hate more than they love the things they love", so as long as "libs" are being "owned", MAGA generally is unconcerned about all the death around them that Trump has caused, and will continue to cause. Sure, millions of them may lose their own children to easily preventable childhood diseases the way they lost their elderly to Trump's Covid lies, but at least their parents will "own the libs!"
Trump has made it clear that his freeing MAGA of any sense of personal responsibility is the new "salvation", and that he alone can provide that freedom from far more than simply sin.
And MAGA has chosen to believe that Trump holds more "value" to them than Jesus ever did...
(I'd love to be wrong, but I've lived among these folks in the rural deep south for almost 60 years.)
"They’ve decided constitutional limits should yield when they conflict with desired outcomes.
That’s their right."
In what way is it their right? I suppose you might say "decided" means "claim" and say they have the first amendment right to say so. But when you say they've decided, what that means (since it's what's happening) is that they are ACTING in this way. And they have, quite literally and strictly, no right whatsoever to do that, neither morally nor legally.
They have their right to their opinion. I’ll give them that much.
Their opinion, sure. But they very much don't have the right to do what they are doing. They are breaking the law
I never said they had the right to break the law. Quite the contrary.
I don't think you intended to say that. But "decided" here is ambiguous: when you "decide constitutional limits should yield" that MIGHT mean an opinion, but I think the more natural reading is that they decided to go ahead and DO it. Compare: "we decided to eat out less": do you think they are just thinking about it? If you saw them out in restaurants all the time, and you said, "I think you decided to eat out less", and they said "yes, we have that opinion", you'd feel that they were either lying to you or fooling themselves. So in the way you phrased it, I think it doesn't quite mean what you intended it to mean.
Respectfully, I'd say that in America, the right to "decide" is pretty universal.
Acting on those decisions, (or even expressing them) may be a very different matter...
Can we just say hypocritical, or like my childhood’s Saturday morning tv shows, “white man speaks with forked tongue.”
It’s just the nature of the Authoritarian to see Good and Bad as inherent properties of most people. You put Good people in power and keep Bad people away from it. Americans are Good people because we are the ones given the Constitution, not that we are good because we adhere to the principles laid out in it.
They have a hierarchical notion of Order that goes God > Country > Party > Family > Self — where you are supposed to be subservient to every level up.
All Nationalistic, Racist, Patriarchal impulses come from this notion of Natural Order.
It's not exactly news, considering that the post-Brown vs. Bd period became awash in corporate money to convert everything Repugnican into the Bad Faith Party, attracting racist Democrats into their tent. Their economics has always been Hokum, so let's say good-bye to all that. "Conservatism", or previously "monarchism" may still reside somewhere, but has lapsed into more of a psychological disposition of resistance to the pace of change of modernism, which is steered, unsurprisingly, by corporate "creative destruction". Globalization, engendered by colonial capitalism, carries the backlash of democratic politics -- our future, should we decide to have one.
"This is moral and intellectual bankruptcy. You cannot simultaneously revere the Constitution and excuse its systematic violation."
You can if the ends of political power justifies the means of extra-constitutional action
The best, most sympathetic conservative statement I've read is found on pp. 50-51 in Patrick O'Brian's The Yellow Admiral, one volume in the Aubrey/Maturin naval series. It displays an attitude (as old-line conservatives have labeled it - not a philosophy or theory, least of all an ideology) of true conservatism as Cory Robbins frames it in his The Reactionaries: a person just living his life as always is a traditionalist; a conservative is reacting to change.