Wow. Yeah, this Washington Post article isn’t biased or anything. Here’s how Isaac Arnsdorf, a Post “national political reporter,” starts, after warning readers that something strange and sinister is afoot:
There has never been a potential candidate like Trump: a defeated former president whose followers attacked the Capitol, who still insists he never lost, and who openly pledges revenge on those he views as having wronged him.
Imagine: the Post employs this guy as a reporter, and he doesn’t even try to hide his extreme bias. “Trump’s supporters” didn’t attack the Capitol, a couple hundred of his most deranged whackos went inside and trashed the place. Would the post allow a reporter to write, “Democrats rioted across the country demanding that police departments be defunded”?
Of course Trump vows revenge on his political enemies, because they have been trying to avenge themselves against him non-stop for six years. That passage pretends that Trump’s conduct has no context. As for seeking to purge the federal government of as many untrustworthy partisans who are dedicated to undermining his administration (if there is another) as possible, Trump would be irresponsible, indeed naive and nuts, not to want to have as many loyalists on hand as possible. No President in history was subject to so many leaks and so much sabotage.
What a hack Arnsdorf is! What a hacky paper the Post is for letting this junk get to print.
But on to those dreaded ” plans.” Here, according to Isaac, are the Sinister Six:
- Execute drug dealers
- Move homeless people to outlying ‘tent cities’
- Deploy federal force against crime, unrest and protests
- Strip job protections for federal workers
- Eliminate the Education Department
- Restrict voting to one day using paper ballot
You realize, I assume, that these are cherry-picked to strike fear into the Army of the Woke and to feed the “Trump is a fascist” narrative. We know, and Arnsdorf knows, that Trump has other, more achievable and less extreme plans, like stopping the stampede of illegal immigrants at the border and not wasting money on draconian climate change measures that won’t do anything but cripple the U.S. economy. But since he picked these…
- The first two are impossible, whatever one thinks of them. The homeless tent cities are probably unconstitutional; even if it wouldn’t be so ugly in execution that it would never fly. Impossible proposals are unethical.
- Deploying federal forces against crime is frightening and offensive on its face without clear limits. Using federal force against “unrest and protests” a police state on the march.
- The Civil Service was a major advance in the integrity of government (and President Chester A. Arthur’s shining moment!). Removing some protections to minimize the anti-democratic effects of “the Deep State” would be helpful, but nobody has yet explained how to do that fairly and reasonably. This cure sounds worse than the disease.
- Eliminate the Education Department? Sure, that and many other expensive and bloated bureaucracies should go Has anyone shown that the nation’s educational systems have done anything but decline since the DOE was established? What’s the argument for not killing it?
- I don’t know about paper ballots, but a single election day designated as a national holiday is greatly to be wished. Allowing early voting just entrenches knee-jerk, uninformed partisan votes. It’s an important decisions, crucial to the nation, and all the facts and factors right up to election day should be considered.
Ethics Alarms 
Don’t feed the troll.
Oh, this is discouraging. I actually thought he was one of the rare bannees who had the decency to respect the ban.Guess not. Well, I’ll be sending him to SPAM hell again.
Don’t feed the troll.
That kind of writing by Arnsdorf is partially responsible for the (sort of) election of slo-jo and the insipid cackler because the contemporary common democrat laps it up and experiences a measurable dopamine rush after reading.
The burning question on nearly everyone’s mind is whether or not the expression *going to the well once too often* will ever apply when it comes to Trump bashing.
We do need to keep in mind that one of the keys to Biden’s election was Trump and his behavior. And, of course, the constant over the top reaction to it by the Democratic media complex (I heard Paul Gigot from the WSJ use this phrase and I love it).
There were enough people who just couldn’t stand the thought of four more years of chaos, even as they appreciated what Trump’s actual policies had done.
It’s going to be a barrier he will have to overcome if he decides to run again. I will be honest — if he runs, I won’t vote for him in the primary, but if he is the nominee he will have my vote.
And if he wins, the second term won’t be as calm and serene as the first term was. Still, it would have to be better than a second Biden term.
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I will say it again. Setting aside any partisan considerations, can the country not find someone under 80 to be president? We need some new blood.
The constant roiling controversy and chaos was a huge factor in Trump’s loss, and he was significantly responsible, though the Axis played a great role as well.
I thought Trump’s proposal was to make all executive branch employees who are allowed to make policy serve at the pleasure of the President. That seems reasonable. The president should have the ultimate say of the executive branch, not an unelected bureaucrat. Note, this isn’t people who enforce or administer regulations, just people who make them. There were complaints that up to 1/3 of the bureaucracy is authorized to MAKE policy. That is too many people. The first thing such a rule would do is drastically reduce the number of people who are able to make policies (a good thing). The second thing it would do is place the decision makers under the control of elected officials.
The problem is, the bureaucracy has become an extraconstitutional 4rth branch of government. It is supposed to exist in the executive branch, but Trump showed that the president is NOT in control of these agencies. Was Trump in charge of the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the NSA? Remember, these agencies collected all the internet traffic data from the White House and gave it to a Georgia Tech researcher to alter so it looked like there were secret communications to Russia. So, if these agencies aren’t under the control of the executive, what is the legal basis for their existence?
After Liz Cheney lost the primary bid she pledged, “I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office.” I think Queen Gertrude’s line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” applies. Regrettably, it applies not only to Chaney but to the entire woke culture infecting society. As Jack states “No President in history was subject to so many leaks and so much sabotage.” The question is why.
Throughout the past six years, I have struggled to understand why Trump has received such relentless, widespread, and coordinated attacks. Yeah, he beat Hilary. Big deal she wasn’t very likable even amongst democrats. For decades we have oscillated between presidents from both parties without the level of vitriol flung at Trump.
I recall living through the turbulent 60s and 70s and thinking then, that to change the system you needed to be part of the system. But in classic Catch-22 fashion if you become part of the system you don’t want to change the system. However, Trump comes along and proves my Catch-22 thinking was wrong. In this context the attacks make sense. The attacks it seems have three objectives. First, stop Trump from succeeding at all costs. Second, demonstrating to anyone wishing to follow in his footsteps that they too will be destroyed. Finally reinstating Catch 22.
I would like to hear alternate logical theories for the unrelenting attacks on Trump. Something of more substance than Trump is unpresidential, and evil, or that democrats are unprincipled and evil.
That’s an interesting point — I don’t think the Democrat media complex started out thinking Trump was the devil incarnate. In fact, for a long time, they didn’t take him seriously, even after he won the nomination, because they figured Clinton was a shoo-in, all the way up to election day.
I think, though, if you look back at the way Republican presidential candidates have been treated, starting with Bush the younger, the level of abuse and vitriol has rapidly ratcheted up since 2000. McCain was treated a lot like Cheney is today — up until he became the nominee. Then he was just another evil Republican. I hope Cheney realizes that the same thing will inevitably happen to her.
Romney was really savaged by the Obama campaign. I believe Romney’s reluctance or inability to effectively hit back is one of the things that helped Trump. I know I, for one, was really tired of GOP candidates who were attacked non-stop but never seemed to effectively fight back. Trump did that (boy howdy).
So my theory is that a)this has been getting worse for at least a couple decades, and b)The nasty, odious, on-air personalities at places like MSNBC and CNN made it much worse — everyone one upping the next, and things just got totally out of control. And now we are in one hell of a mess, no matter what happens.
One of the best things that could happen is another red wave this November like 1994 and 2010. Those were bad enough that the Democrats had to take a step back and rethink. We shall see what happens.
The Washington Post, together with most of the other formerly respectable publications, has become nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party and a liberal rag over the past decade or maybe even two decades. The fact of the matter is that the Democratic Party considers themselves the rightful rulers of this nation and the media considers themselves the Democratic parties loyal servants. It really can’t be otherwise, when the media is at least made up of 80% and possibly 90% Democrats.
They really would prefer that the Republican Party toddle out to the wilderness on a permanent basis, maybe to become only a rump Southern and rural party. Twice in recent history they have believed they had permanent rulership of this country within their grasp. The first time was when it appeared that Al Gore was going to defeat Bush the younger and continue Clinton’s policies for at least another 4 years.
Unfortunately, it didn’t play out that way, and it became a messy fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court, where they lost.
They never accepted that loss. They blamed the court, they blamed the ballot structure, they blamed how certain places conducted actual voting, anything but blaming Al Gore for running a less than stellar campaign which included losing all three debates to Bush the younger. Of course they then blamed all of the problems that came from 9/11 and the aftermath squarely on Bush, and as soon as they had something to politicize against him, in that case hurricane Katrina and the poor response of Louisiana, they did.
Of course they were all for John McCain to become the Republican nominee in 2000, for the simple reason that he had broken with Bush the younger and in fact opposed him on several issues. At least that’s how it appeared. However, as soon as he was the nominee and the actual campaign for the general election began, they viciously attacked him, and said he would just be four more years of Bush the younger’s policy. They needn’t have bothered, once the economy tanked, there was not a chance for a Republican to win.
They spent the next eight years either kissing Obama’s ass or laying the groundwork for Hillary to run in 2016 and hopefully establish permanent Democratic rule. They thought they were doing the same thing as they did in 2000 by pushing Trump to the front as the Republican nominee, who Hillary would have the best chance of beating, then turning on Trump and attacking him as a racist fascist as soon as he was in fact the nominee. Again it didn’t go their way, and you know the rest.
It was just bad luck for Trump that in the year he was running for re-election that China unleashed a deadly virus on the world which gave the Democratic party and the media a club to crush him with. I don’t doubt that if the pandemic had not occurred, Trump would have probably been reelected. That goes especially if he had run against Biden, who would not have been able to hide in his basement and stay away from the public eye.
However, Biden has proven not to be up to the task, even though he’s caught a couple of breaks in recent weeks. One of them, the so-called reduction of inflation act, which is going to achieve just the opposite, he only achieved because two Democratic senators finally decided to vote with rather than against their colleagues. This doesn’t erase the disaster that was the withdrawal from Afghanistan, nor does it erase the fact that the price of gas and the price of milk are far higher than they were 3 years ago.
Frankly, four more years of these policies is a tough sell at this point. It’s going to be that much tougher of a sell against a dynamic adversary like Trump who still has a very powerful following. Trying to stir up another near race war, which is what they did in 2020, is unlikely to work a second time and probably would do more harm than good. The only way to really win is by stirring up fear of what will happen if the Republican Party regains any level of power.
It seems to be working to some degree, as the Democratic party is now favored to retain the Senate and possibly even expand its majority in the Senate this fall. The disastrous June the Democratic party suffered before The Supreme Court has probably helped gin up some support, as women fear they may have to actually suffer the consequences of sleeping around and hooking up. It is still looking unlikely that the Democratic party will retain the House, and if they cannot retain the House, they are still looking at a large number of problems in the next two years, not the least of which will be the fact that their legislative agenda will be dead in the water. So they prepare another series of attacks in the hopes that the American people will give them what they want because they fear what will happen if they don’t.
Execute drug dealers-If after due process, trial, and conviction, I would support this as a deterrent punishment.
Move homeless people to outlying ‘tent cities. It may not look pretty, but it is prettier than the images we now have of the homeless.
Deploy federal force against crime, unrest, and protests.-Against crime, YES. against unrest to reestablish order, yes. Against peaceful constitutionally protected protests- NO
Strip job protections for federal workers- At this point, there is no efficient way to eliminate the incompetent, uncaring, Federal employee. So the system is revamped and becomes more meritorious based on those who work well.
Eliminate the Education Department-As pointed out, what has this bureaucratic behemoth actually accomplished? If it doesn’t work don’t subsidize it
Restrict voting to one day using paper ballots. To one day, yes, the constitution does not support an ever-increasing election season. Perhaps move the day and extend the hours.