GOP Trumped

I fervently hope Donald Trump isn’t the GOP nominee, but it says a great deal about the state of the union that he so far seems unstoppable. Given the Democratic alternative, it’s a depressing campaign season indeed.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Aaron Zitner and Dante Chinni, in Donald Trump Forges New Blue-Collar Coalition Among Republicans (subscriber firewalled), shed some light on the predicament:

Mr. Trump’s appeal is a form of secular populism rarely seen in Republican primary races, and one he is pressing in part with appearances in working-class communities in Iowa that include independent voters and even Democrats who may be lured into the caucuses. …

Past nominating contests have often boiled down to two-person races in which an establishment-backed front-runner beats a socially conservative candidate who appeals to working-class voters—a role Rick Santorum filled in 2012, as did Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Pat Buchanan in 1996. Now, Mr. Trump appears to be opening a new, third lane in the GOP, drawing on a large share of voters who don’t have a college degree and don’t identify strongly with the party’s touchstone social issues, such as opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage.

That raises the prospect that the 2016 contest could narrow to a three-person race featuring the leading choice of social conservatives, the top pick of the party’s establishment wing of centrists and business-friendly Republicans—and Mr. Trump.

Gay-baiting isn’t among Trump’s fascistic tendencies. He is not a social conservative. He’s not much of an economic conservative, either. He favors the crony capitalism that made him rich. He is, instead, a populist demagogue.

What Trump will mean to the future configuration of the GOP is yet to be determined.

More. Via LCR:

Log Cabin Republicans remains committed to the eradication of radical Islamic extremism and believes it poses an existential threat to our culture and members of the LGBT community in particular, but inciting the politics of fear will not achieve those ends.

Plus this observation:

Considering Mr. Trump’s insistence that pursuit of a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality is futile as it would never be realized, we hope he likewise comprehends that his position advocating a carte-blanche ban on Muslim immigrants is equally fanciful.

As others have pointed out, on LGBT equality issues, Cruz and Rubio (among the main contenders) are far worse.

Meanwhile, how Hillary Clinton is bringing the nation together, as usual. Like Obama, her ire is most provoked by the one true enemy, Republicans.

OK, there is some justification if she were addressing Cruz, Carson and Huckabee, but no, not Bush, Kasich, Paul, Christie or (on Muslims) Rubio. Her partisan hyperbole is red meat for the base, and not what the country needs.

47 Comments for “GOP Trumped”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    That raises the prospect that the 2016 contest could narrow to a three-person race featuring the leading choice of social conservatives, the top pick of the party’s establishment wing of centrists and business-friendly Republicans—and Mr. Trump.

    (Silent excited scream.)

    Fox News cut in live to a Trump event yesterday. It was an interesting contrast to the buzz on the Obama speech I didn’t watch Sunday. I caught the part where he said he tells the media stop calling the terrorist attackers “masterminds”. He instead referred and said he referred to one of the then-at large Paris attackers as “the man in the dirty hat.” He argued that this idealizes terrorists to impressionable Muslim youth. And by the way, he calls the guy “the man in the dirty hat.” It was such a brilliant discussion it made me a little worried we were experiencing a re-channeling of pre-Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler, but I put it out of my mind.

    My reason for favoring Trump third is the same as the reason many others favor him first. You may be familiar with the criticism that the people who want the Affordable Care Act Repealed don’t have a plan for what to replace it with. Donald Trump is taking advantage of this criticism’s opposite: the current administration and Congress are perceived as not as being able or willing to solve problems that are creating social and international disorder. Trump throws out solutions to these problems. Most of them are half-unworkable, but the other half brings the problem into sharp focus, smashes taboo subjects, and starts working on the problem. But this point needs to be repeated: Trump is not speaking about random peripheral issues. Indeed, he’s not even speaking about many bread-and-butter issues. He is speaking about unaddressed issues that are at the forefront of people’s minds (for a Republican primary election). Violent crimes by illegal aliens. The Middle East. Islamic terrorism, both international and home-grown. Even China is not just his obsession alone.

    • posted by Jorge on

      I should say this yet a third time: Trump is not winning by throwing out offensive comments to incite people. Adolf Hitler didn’t just suddenly land in post-WWI Germany and turn it anti-Semetic. The agitation was already there. This country will go down a different path if it elects Donald Trump president–because its people have different concerns and priorities. There is a certain element of the tail wagging the dog here.

      • posted by Tom Jefferson III on

        Jorge

        Hitler campaign strategy was to blame Germany’s widespread economic misery and suffering (and loss of manly prestige) on Jews, the political left and homosexuals. He did not invent anti-Semitism, red baiting or homophobia. However, he knew how to push these prejudices — using technology and propaganda and whatever else — for his own evil purposes.

        Trump demagoguery is certainly pandering to some people’s racial, ethnic or gender-based prejudices. He once flirted with the idea of running under the Reform Party ticket (you know, when the party was taken over by Patrick Buchanan) , so what he says is not terribly surprising.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      It was such a brilliant discussion it made me a little worried we were experiencing a re-channeling of pre-Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler, but I put it out of my mind.

      Not surprised. Trump and the passions he is arousing among his supporters should worry you, even if you don’t go along with the “fascism” and “Hitler” bullshit being spewed around by his political opponents in the Republican Party.

      Adolf Hitler didn’t just suddenly land in post-WWI Germany and turn it anti-Semetic. The agitation was already there.

      Exactly. Hitler aroused existing passions, shame at losing the Great War (for which Hitler blamed Jewish financiers) and latent anti-Semitism in the German psyche.

      Hitler aroused centuries of fear and loathing about Jews (e.g. the “blood libel” charges, the charges that Jews desecrated the Host in religious ceremonies, the charges that Jews poisoned wells, and so on) that tilled the soil for scapegoating Jews, forced conversions, pogroms and ghettos, and, eventually, religious/racial genocide.

      With respect to Germany itself, Martin Luther’s On the Jews and their Lies (in which he advised Christians to burn down Jewish synagogues and schools, to refuse to let Jews own houses among Christians, to ban and destroy Jewish religious writings, to forbid rabbis to preach, to offer no legal protection to Jews against crime, to confiscate silver and gold from Jews, and to give “young, strong Jews flail, axe, spade, spindle, and let them earn their bread in the sweat of their noses”) helped develop and sanction more modern German anti-Semitism.

      Anti-Semitic fear and loathing, whipped up during the Great Depression by men like Henry Ford and Father Coughlin, played a role, as well, in the refusal of our government to take in Jewish refugees from Europe during the pre-War period when escape was still a realistic poosibility. Among the thousands of families denied entry into the United States was the family of Ann Frank.

      I realize that mine is an emotional reaction, but I cannot listen to the increasing drumbeat of virulent anti-Islamic rhetoric now running loose in this county (including Trump’s) without hearing the word “Jew” echoed when I hear the word “Muslim” in that rhetoric. Germany was considered the most advanced country in the world in terms of Jewish assimilation prior to the rise of National Socialism, and I cannot help but remember about how quickly that passed away when the coals of historic anti-Semitism were stirred, and what resulted.

      • posted by Jorge on

        Political correctness is a troubling thing. Spirited cross-examination is not, and I think Trump has earned it. I am worried. But other things worry me more.

        I believe that we must solve the problems that Donald Trump is tapping into, and politically. I believe the Trump campaign is a symptom that the intelligentia of this country’s various communities are failing them. People worry about the radicalness of method that Trump represents, but at the end of the day he and his supporters are embracing political methods. This country (and indeed the world) are more used to frustrated people seeking violent means to solve political problems.

  2. posted by Houndentenor on

    The GOP establishment has been pandering to a racist, sexist element for 35 years now. Does it surprise them now that a candidate who says out loud what they only hinted at is ahead in the polls? It shouldn’t, but it seems that it does. They thought they could use these voters forever without consequences. And now look at the mess they’re in. And it’s not just Trump, but Carson and Cruz as well. And in comparison you find the Democrats troubling? Seriously?

    • posted by Jorge on

      And in comparison you find the Democrats troubling? Seriously?

      I’m pretty sure that’s more directed toward Stephen, but I will say that in a situation in which both parties are moving farther apart from each other, you should predict that the moderate left will side with the far-left, and the moderate right will side with the far-right. That’s a perfectly logical and simple concept, no?

      What differs based on the person and the situation is the reaction when the moderate and far wings compete against each other directly. I tend to favor accommodating the will of the… let’s say consensus, so that work and compromise can still be done. Others prefer to lose all power and advance more puritan proposals that will not be considered–sort of like a shadow government–until the time they return to power.

      I fundamentally disagree with you that the Democratic party establishment does not pander to a racist and sexist element. For example, the sole Democratic presidential candidate who was willing to say “All Lives Matter” as opposed to “Black Lives Matter” in response to a loaded question dropped out of the primary very shortly afterward. It is a form of racial pandering that is almost as old as Jesse Jackson’s career–and carries the same double-edged rewards. The pervasiveness of race and gender-based attitudes in this country is such that they are a warning sign both of justice and injustice. They can inform the public of important duties and problems. These need to be approached in a clear and just manner; there is a risk of overreach in method. There are very few public figures–really only our current president–who are willing to discuss the dual progressive and reactionary nature of left-race-based attitudes in this country.

      In case it is not apparent from this argument, I also fundamentally disagree with you that those racist and sexist elements that the political right is sympathetic to represent an antithesis of good political ethics.

      • posted by Doug on

        “. . . the sole Democratic presidential candidate who was willing to say “All Lives Matter” as opposed to “Black Lives Matter” in response to a loaded question dropped out of the primary very shortly afterward.”

        You are about as obtuse as they come. That Democratic candidate was polling about 1% and had raised no money. His dropping out had nothing to do with “Black Lives Matter”.

        Trump on the other hand is handily leading the GOP field with about 30%.

        • posted by Jorge on

          You are about as obtuse as they come. That Democratic candidate was polling about 1% and had raised no money. His dropping out had nothing to do with “Black Lives Matter”.

          You say it had nothing to do with BLM and then you provide a better explanation of the relationship than I did. I am not the obtuse one.

        • posted by Tom Scharbach on

          Jorge is a fact short on Jim Webb’s campaign, the October 13 debate, and the October 20 withdrawal.

          Webb’s poll numbers — always in the basement — increased (not decreased) after the October 13 Democratic debate. Webb quit the race because he knew that he had no realistic chance of winning, and was out of money.

          But hell, conspiracy theories are fun. What do you think about Jeb’s tweet the other day: “Maybe Donald negotiated a deal with his buddy @HillaryClinton. Continuing this path will put her in the White House.”

          Pretty lame, in my view, but who knows?

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      The GOP establishment has been pandering to a racist, sexist element for 35 years now. Does it surprise them now that a candidate who says out loud what they only hinted at is ahead in the polls? It shouldn’t, but it seems that it does. They thought they could use these voters forever without consequences.

      Yup, and also true of the party’s pandering to theocratic conservative Christians.

      The party’s “establishment” tried to ride the tiger, and are now surprised that they can’t find a way to get off.

      If they hadn’t destroyed the Republican Party as a rational alternative to the Democrats in the process, I’d laugh. I’m not laughing because it does the country no good to have one of the country’s two major political parties fall over the edge into mass paranoia and know-nothing extremism.

      Americans talk a lot about how our “system of checks and balances” between state and federal power, and between the federal branches of government, are an essential element to our success as a democratic republic.

      I think that’s true. But it is also true that that having all major political parties competing for the moderate, rational, skeptical political center is as important for keeping our country in balance. We are in danger of losing that critical element of our democracy, at least in the short term, and it doesn’t auger well.

  3. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Republican-aligned homocons face an ugly choice – Trump, Cruz or Rubio. Of the rest of the Republican field, only Carson is above 4% in today’s RCP average, and Carson is fading fast. Of the three, Trump is probably the least acceptable to the Republican establishment, Rubio the most acceptable, Cruz intensely disliked but reasonably orthodox. I have no idea how this will shake out, except to suspect, as one of my daughters tells her rather rambunctious twins from time to time, “Kids, this is not going to have a good ending.”

    Trump, of the three, is enlightened on gay and lesbian issues. While he opposes marriage equality, he has not — in marked contrast to Cruz and Rubio, now engaged in a battle to win over Iowa’s conservative Christians — promised to reverse President Obama’s executive orders leveling the playing field somewhat, or promised to base judicial appointments on opposition to Obergefell, or described Obergefell as “lawless” and “lawless”, or suggested that public officials should ignore the ruling, and so on. Trump has been, as you would expect a businessman to be, restrained when it comes to demonizing gays and lesbians. He doesn’t seem to give a damn about the conservative Christians.

    Cruz and Rubio do and have been getting more and more strident. Both are playing a dark game at our expense, and Rubio, I think is playing the darker game. An example: Rubio said this about public accommodations laws the other day: “There are many government contractors and small companies who provide services to the government who are faith-based people, and they are being compelled to sin by government in their business conduct.” Unpack that statement, and all the dog whistles contained within it. Rubio may look like an cherubic elf, but he is not. He is a hard core social conservative, and, unlike Cruz, slippery about it.

    Trump is playing in dark waters, nonetheless, stirring up the darkest impulses of the Republican base. He has the capacity to rip the Republicans apart, and he might just do it. I’ll be curious to see if he goes up another 5% in the polls next week. I won’t pull a Romney and bet $10,000 on it, but I won’t be surprised if he does, either. I know a lot of Trump supporters, and his simplistic bombast is taken as Gospel.

    I’m also curious about where Carson’s voters will go during the next month as his campaign continues the death spiral. The media buzz is that the Carson vote will flow to Cruz. I wonder if that is too easy an answer. Rubio is working hard to get the Carson voters who think that Cruz is too “hot”, becoming more and more strident in his ant-equality rhetoric and positions, while still maintaining a smiling facade of decency.

    Just musings.

    I do wonder about this sentence from the WSJ article, though:

    That raises the prospect that the 2016 contest could narrow to a three-person race featuring the leading choice of social conservatives, the top pick of the party’s establishment wing of centrists and business-friendly Republicans — and Mr. Trump.

    Of the three serious contenders at this point, which — Cruz or Rubio — is going to be “the top pick of the party’s establishment wing of centrists and business-friendly Republicans”? When it comes to social conservatism, there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them.

    • posted by Jorge on

      Rubio may look like an cherubic elf, but he is not. He is a hard core social conservative, and, unlike Cruz, slippery about it.

      I think he’s just a political whore.

      Control the buyers. Unfortunately the Bush coalition is the weaker one.

      • posted by Houndentenor on

        LOL I don’t think Jeb! has enough supporters to warrant the term “coalition”. That campaign has no traction. It’s been painful to watch. Who knew W was the smart one?

        • posted by Jorge on

          LOL I don’t think Jeb! has enough supporters to warrant the term “coalition”.

          I was talking about Bush, Christie, and Graham, the more establishment candidates. Possibly Fiorina, too.

          When they stand up and harrumph and make excellent points during the debates, they pull the ear of the eventual nominee, acting against the like force of the Carson, Cruz, and Huckabee coalition.

          This doesn’t seem to be working on Trump. Only Rubio.

          • posted by Houndentenor on

            Graham? LOL Graham’s support is so low that in some polls not a single respondent picked him. They were kind to list him as <1%. You need a microscope to find his support.

            Also, Rubio pledged the other day on the 700 Club to roll back all gay rights protections including marriage. How are any gay people still supporting any of these?

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        LOL I don’t think Jeb! has enough supporters to warrant the term “coalition”. That campaign has no traction.

        Bush, like Pataki, is a politician from a bygone era in Republican politics. What he has to sell, the base doesn’t want to buy.

  4. posted by JohnInCA on

    “[…] it says a great deal about the state of the union that he so far seems unstoppable.”
    Um, unstoppable in the Republican primary, maybe. But I’ve seen no reason to worry about the general election if Trump wins the primaries.

    That said, I’m not worried if he wins either. Unlike some people, I have no illusions about what the president can/can’t do, and expect that four years of Trump would be four years of turning back the clock on executive power.

    I may be wrong. But so far I’ve heard nothing, from anybody, that makes me think a Trump presidency would be anything more then your typical disaster. And typical disasters are, like mass shootings, terribly typical.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      I don’t think that Trump (or Cruz either, for that matter) can prevail in the general election, but I’ve been thinking along the same lines.

      Trump would be blocked by Congress on the worst of his political excesses, and by the Constitution when he overstepped in that direction. He does not seem bound and determined (as are Cruz and Rubio) to roll back Obergefell and all the progress gays and lesbians have made in the last half dozen years.

      And Trump has not pledged to make belief that Obergefell is illegitimate and be overturned a litmus test for Supreme Court appointments, so Trump is a lot less likely to stick us with Alito/Scalia clones on the Supreme Court.

      Maybe it is because I am a lawyer and have had experience with the ways in which courts hold the majority’s worst impulses in check, but Cruz’s and Rubio’s intentions regarding Supreme Court appointments are important in my eyes, a lot more important that their vows to undo the Obama administration’s executive orders and their fist-shaking at Obsergefell. With Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy and Scalia likely to be replaced during the next eight years, we are at real risk, it seems to me, if either is elected.

      Trump not so much.

      • posted by Kosh III on

        “Trump would be blocked by Congress on the worst of his political excesses, and by the Constitution when he overstepped in that direction.”
        Not a precise parallel but didn’t Germans think that Hindenburg and others would rein in Hitler?

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        Kosh, I think that there are significant differences between the German people of the 1930’s and Americans, both historically and in current times.

        I do not think that a majority of Americans will tolerate the man in the long run. He is appealing to a specific subset of Americans, who are uneducated, frightened to death, angry beyond words, and looking for an authoritarian leader bring this country back to what they perceived it to be in better times. The subset may propel him to the nomination, or close, but will not propel him to a victory in the general election.

        Be clear that I think that Trump is (as I put it in an earlier thread) “a demagogue, and dangerous”. The man appeals to the worst in Americans, and has little or no regard for the constraints of decency.

        But he does not remind me of Hitler, and I think that the comparison (which is coming mostly from Republicans, who seem to be tossing around the Nazi card with wild abandon recently) is inept.

        Trump reminds me of George Wallace in 1968 and 1972, stirring up racial fears among the northern working urban class voters (think Archie Bunker) and playing on deep resentments about affirmative action.

        As others have pointed out, Trump is trolling in a particular subset of the American public — the Republican primary base. That subset is demographically distinct from, and different than, the American public as a whole. Most Americans won’t buy into his anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim demagoguery.

        So I don’t think that Trump will become President. I just hope that he won’t be the nominee. He could permanently change the face of American politics.

  5. posted by Mike in Houston on

    The NY Daily News has it about right:
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ny-daily-news-anti-trump-anti-nazi-cover

    And for those that seem to think that there will be Constitutional backstops to the worst impulses of Trumpism… we’ve seen that kind of whistling by the graveyard before…

    My only hope is that perhaps, just perhaps, this is the fever breaking. My fear is that it’s merely the first wave.

  6. posted by Aubrey Haltom on

    Recent polling in Iowa has shown Cruz now leading Trump.
    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/262306-poll-cruz-surges-ahead-of-trump-carson-in-iowa

    And I can’t find it in a quick perusal – but I’ve read Nate Silver’s comments that the majority of Trump supporters are people who do not have a history of voter participation (i.e., they haven’t bothered to vote in the past). Whether Trump will bring them out to the polling booths – or whether Trump’s allure is for those who have no interest in the ‘system’ will be seen once these states vote.

    But it’s hard to imagine Iowa – with its base of conservative, evangelical christian voters in the GOP primary – going for a candidate that doesn’t conform more to their own ideals.
    Cruz fits that profile to a ‘T’. While Rubio is working to make sure the voters understand he does so, as well.

    I’m concerned that all the brouhaha about Trump’s continued comments (e.g., ‘banning muslims’) only obscures the similar extremes that the other GOP candidates (such as Cruz, Rubio) have.

    And, yes, the SCOTUS issue is the number one issue in my book. Though I don’t have much faith that Hillary would nominate a justice who doesn’t reflect her (and Obama’s) pro-corporate leanings. I do believe that we need to elect a Dem to ensure equal = equal in the courts… (if not evident – I’d favor Sanders, but don’t believe he really has a chance in either the primary nor the general.)

    • posted by Mike in Houston on

      The New Republic nails it:
      https://newrepublic.com/article/125353/trump-proves-liberals-right-along

      Trump is the fulfillment of that prophecy. Better than any Republican candidate in recent memory, he intuits the mood of the disaffected Republican electorate. Or rather, because he’s almost entirely uninterested in straddling party factions, he gives voice to their paranoia and racism without massaging it the way the pretenders to his lead do. It’s possible to imagine a more traditional politician, like Ted Cruz, taking up Trump’s mantle without ever making Reince Priebus or House Speaker Paul Ryan angry, but their platforms would look practically identical.

  7. posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on

    Trump is pandering to a segment of Americans who views Muslims and anyone else from the Middle East as, at best, criminals and, most likely, terrorists.

    It could very well be similar to previous attacks on Jews.

  8. posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on

    I am not sure that Trump is really a secularist or a capitalist. He is a political opportunist, who thinks that he can craft and sell a corpotist-populist message all the way to DC or a new reality TV series.

  9. posted by Jorge on

    The NY Daily News has it about right:

    Trump is pandering to a segment of Americans who views Muslims and anyone else from the Middle East as, at best, criminals and, most likely, terrorists.

    Oh, good grief!

    Ugh, yes, I get it. But no.

    There is a big difference between saying “National security demands that we close the borders for a time” and saying we are betraying American values. Quite the contrary. The Statue of Liberty was given to this country before the World Wars. Since then we have grown into a new value: American exceptionalism. The view that there is something unique and important about being the pre-emminent Democracy in the world, that the world is better off if the USA is the world’s major superpower. It is an act against American exceptionalism to not only say we’re going to aid Syria’s citizens and then not do so, but then to use the resources we could be using to destroy ISIS to house and integrate thousands of refugees instead. And it is certainly against even the values as practiced during the time the Statue of Liberty wasn’t green to admit people into this country without screening them for signs they will cause social disorder to the country. There are serious concerns about our ability to screen Syrian refugees for ISIS infiltrators.

    One the things that war and government have a way of bringing to focus is that there is no value more important than human life. Is it really a sin to deny entry to Muslim refugees if we can find other ways to save and resettle them?

    I will go one further. To suggest that people who are going on vacation should not be permitted to return to this country sounds insanely draconian and is of course unconstitutional. It is also sound from a national security standpoint when you consider the model (which admittedly is becoming outdated) that posits that people enter relationships with terrorists when they go overseas. Terrorist training camps, extremist contacts, and so forth. They put the guy’s parents on the no-fly list now because of the father’s frequent trips to Pakistan–the third most frequent source of terrorism in the world. People know this. Trump says it. Yes, the Donald Trump campaign carries the risk of increasing the rate of hate crimes against Muslims and Hispanics. Doing nothing carries a more severe risk of the same, as the prevailing sentiments will break loose without any ability to achieve even partial political solutions.

    Now we’re fortunate that we have a large Republican field with a ton of good ideas on how to fight terrorism. Because we have a president who doesn’t. Believe me, the Trump campaign is acting on the difference.

    • posted by Mike in Houston on

      Again with your word salad insanity…

      Jorge, you obviously are incapable of rationale thought and are therefore the perfect Trump supporter. Good luck when you are targeted for deletion.

      • posted by Jorge on

        You’re one of the most closed-minded posters to appear on this site in quite a while.

    • posted by Doug on

      Trump did not say ‘close the borders for a time’ which would mean close the borders to everyone. Trump said close the border to Muslims only. BIG difference.

    • posted by JohnInCA on

      “American Exceptionalism” only started *after* the World Wars and post-dates the Statue of Liberty?

      Your American History education was sorely lacking.

      “One the things that war and government have a way of bringing to focus is that there is no value more important than human life.”
      Um… no. At best you can say is “[…] there is no value more important then *American* life.” But it’s quite obvious, from our indifference to foreign-shore tragedies, to our callous disregard for innocents we kill in pursuit of our targets, and the mess we leave in our wake, that we don’t value *human* life.

      • posted by Lori Heine on

        Unfortunately, John in CA, you are very correct.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      One the things that war and government have a way of bringing to focus is that there is no value more important than human life.

      I suppose, in an indirect way, as the public realizes that the cost of the war isn’t worth the price of admission. That’s what happened in Vietnam as the American death toll rose without an end in sight.

      But war itself does not bring the idea that “there is no value more important than human life” into focus. Just the opposite. The military values mission over casualties, as it should, and although the military does what it can to limit casualties, both among the troops and in collateral situations, the point of war is to bring deadly force to bear, defeating an enemy. Lives may matter, but taking out lives matters more, because that is how you accomplish the mission.

      And I have to agree with John in CA that the only lives that are counted, except as statistics, are American lives.

      We all know that 55,000 Americans died in Vietnam. How many Vietnamese died? Roughly 235,000 ARVN died, roughly 680,000 NVA, and roughly 255,000 VietCong. Do we even care?

      In Desert Storm, 145 Americans died in combat, and just over 100 Coalition soldiers died in combat, not counting the 605 soldiers from Kuwait that are listed as missing. The DOD estimates that about 26,000 Iraqi soldiers died, and roughly 3,500 Iraqi civilians as direct collateral damage. Estimates of indirect civilian casualties are much higher. Again, do we care?

      When Trump talks proposes to “Bomb The Shit Out Of Them”, do you suppose that the value of human life is at the forefront of his thinking? Somehow, I doubt it.

      • posted by Doug on

        And don’t forget that Trump also said he wanted to go after the families of terrorist too. That would necessarily mean much higher numbers of civilian causalities.

        And Putin said the other day he ‘hoped’ he would not have to use nuclear warheads to defeat ISIS. OMG !

        • posted by JohnInCA on

          Shit, did Putin really say that?

          That would… make work *much* more interesting. Goodness, they would take the leash off of us if that happened…

          • posted by Mike in Houston on

            That’s the point: Trump and the Repub field (abetted by Stephen and like-minded homocons) are arguing that ‘Amerika is hamstrung’ by political correctness. And we should just let them loose in the name of whatever word salad Jorge is sqeeeing about.

          • posted by JohnInCA on

            That’s not *my* point. I work in the defense RDT&E industry.

            We aren’t hamstrung by political correctness, we’re hamstrung by not wanting to kill our own guys and international treaties. And if Putin dropped a nuke? Pretty sure those concerns would go up in smoke.

            So here’s hoping that was all just hot-air on Putin’s part, eh?

          • posted by Tom Scharbach on

            I can only hope that Putin is not that crazy, but if he is, the shit will hit the fan, even if he uses tactical nukes. No question about it.

            I wonder who Putin thinks he is going to nuke? It isn’t as if ISIS/ISIL presents a lot of targeting opportunities for nuclear weapons.

          • posted by Jorge on

            Neither Syria nor its opposition are allied to any nuclear power I am aware of, unless you count Iran. Israel is in the country, though.

            I don’t think a great deal will happen immediately if Russia drops a nuke. Still, it’s unpredictable enough that it’s worth Putin floating a test balloon to see what people think.

          • posted by Doug on

            Syria has been in the Russia orbit for decades and last I checked they were indeed a nuclear power.

      • posted by Jorge on

        But war itself does not bring the idea that “there is no value more important than human life” into focus. Just the opposite. The military values mission over casualties, as it should, and although the military does what it can to limit casualties, both among the troops and in collateral situations, the point of war is to bring deadly force to bear, defeating an enemy. Lives may matter, but taking out lives matters more, because that is how you accomplish the mission.

        And I have to agree with John in CA that the only lives that are counted, except as statistics, are American lives.

        I thought that went without saying.

        Perhaps I am overgeneralizing from Colin Powell, but I tend to think you need to look at the mission itself. Missions should be chosen that achieve victory conditions in the most direct way possible. That saves lives in the long run. You don’t want to choose missions that lead to phyrric victories–“One other such, and I shall be totally undone.” But the Normandy invasion gets the green light because victory gives you the ability to get so many reinforcements you will crush the enemy in the long run.

        But that’s hard to do if you choose a campaign of overseas defense, or overseas invasion in order to pre-empt invasion.

  10. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Rubio pledged the other day on the 700 Club to roll back all gay rights protections including marriage. How are any gay people still supporting any of these?

    For the same reason that Paul Singer (straight, but supposedly leading the pro-equality funding movement in the party) endorsed Rubio a few days ago. They are Republicans first, gay second. Deal with it, Hound. Pro-equality Republicans love to talk the talk (usually at suit and tie fundraising events), but when it comes right down to it, equality is way down on the priority scale.

    You watch. LCR and other supposedly pro-equality Republicans, including the homocons, are going to endorse the Republican nominee in the Republican Party, irregardless of the nominee’s record and position on “equal means equal”, and attack “progressive” gays and lesbians for supporting the Democratic candidate.

  11. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    You don’t want to choose missions that lead to phyrric victories–“One other such, and I shall be totally undone.”

    A good argument not to fight yet another war that will serve primarily to exacerbate the situation.

  12. posted by Houndentenor on

    About the addendum: considering that Mitch McConnell went on record saying that his primary goal following the 2008 election was to keep Obama getting elected and considering the vitriol aimed at the current president nonstop for 7 years now, complaints about Hillary Clinton’s ire towards Republicans (well-deserved, btw) is ridiculous.

    • posted by Jorge on

      Hillary Clinton lied about emails and did stupid on her personal email account. I don’t expect she’s likely to tell the truth about Republicans.

      Minor details, I know. So stop sweating the small stuff.

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